Weekend Wrap - Snowmaggedon Edition

We awoke to 6-7" of fresh white stuff on Saturday, whereas 1-3" had been expected.  But tonight we're going to get whacked hard, with 12-24" depending upon the track of the storm.  Which would be great were I writing this from Utah.  Alas, I'm intemperate New York and out in Utah they're making up words like Juneuary...What's wrong with this picture?

As ski-buddy Mitch recently reminded me, this guy knows where to find the good white stuff:

The only good news to report is that Employee No. 2 is whipping up a batch of her wonderful chicken soup for your humble correspondent.

He Haas Game - The rugby scrum in the desert yielded a repeat winner:

Bill Haas joined a select group of golfers Sunday when he won the Humana Challenge in partnership the Clinton Foundation for the second time. 

Haas fired a 5-under 67 on the Palmer Course at PGA West in La Quinta to score a one-shot win over five other players in a wild day that saw plenty of birdies and lead changes. Haas, a co-leader entering the day, finished at 22-under 266.

This will dispel any thought that a close result is necessarily exciting, as the only part within shouting distance of memorable was this second shot by the winner after an errant drive on the home hole:

Golf Channel did a fine job of positioning a boom microphone, as we were able to hear the entire exchange between Haas and his looper (exchange is somewhat misleading, as Haas seemed mostly to be taking orders).  They're so good that even hitting a ball teed up at belt level he pured it...

This is about as inconsequential as events on Tour get, despite the bloviating of a certain ex-POTUS during the final round broadcast.  The tournament will be substantially different next year, as it will feature both a new title sponsor as well as a new host course.  Larry Bohanna, writing in the aptly-named Desert Sun, fills us in on the latter and some of the history on the Palmer Private Course:

The Palmer Private Course at PGA West was first played in the tournament known as the

Bob Hope Classic in 1988. And with the exception of a three-year absence in the 1990s, the Palmer Course has been played each year since its debut. 

However, the Palmer Course will leave the tournament after this week's Humana Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation, ending a run that has seen history made on the course several times by some of the PGA Tour's brightest stars.

Larry's playing a little loose with the concept, as the only entry that really warrants the "H" word was David Duval's final round 59 in 1999 to win the event.  But this one gets a pass because it's The King:

Player: Arnold Palmer 

The story: Palmer was not playing close to his best golf by the 2000s, but he was still playing in the Hope tournament and on the course he designed at PGA West. On Saturday that year, Palmer was already assured of missing the cut, but he put together a magical round in which the 71-year-old golfer matched his age with a 1-under 71. Palmer needed to make a birdie and a par on the final two holes to reach his age. He rolled in a 15-footer for a birdie at 17, then tapped in for a par-5 at the 18th to complete the round.

Now it's by no means a great or even a very good course, but it is a scenic course tucked in against the Santa Rosa Mountains.  And it's the only time of year we got to see craziness like this:

And this:

Here's a photo Theresa took on the LaQuinta Resort range back when your humble blogger was a much younger man:

I could have been happy there all day, watching the flight of my shots against the pink mountains, the colors changing with the movement of the sun.  My only point is that it's not much of a tourney, but perhaps it's all that's possible at this time of year.  We're all anxious for some golf that matters, but it's still early for that...

While My Qatar Gently Weeps - South African Branden Grace won the Euro Tour event in Qatar this week, and Jason Sobel seizes the opportunity to talk up the 26-year old.  Fair enough, as it seems the young man has won a hundred events in South Africa alone, though he's also done little on the bigger stages of the game.  But he's now in the Top 50, and if he can stay there he'll have his chances...

All I can say is that he hit some memorable golf shots in Qatar, most notably this drive on the 16th hole that led to an eagle:

And Kyle Porter has a Vine of an insane recovery shot Grace hit earlier in the week.  Good stuff.

While I Was Sleeping - Theresa and I turned in early last night, with Mark O'Meara holding a seemingly secure three-shot lead at the Round Bellies event on the Big Island.  I should have known better since he was being chased by The Most Interesting Man in Golf:

Miguel Angel Jimenez rallied to win the Champions Tour's season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship, birdieing six of the final nine holes Sunday for a one-stroke victory over Mark O'Meara.

 

The Spaniard closed with a 6-under 66 for his second victory in three career starts on the 50-and-over tour. He won the Greater Gwinnett Championship last year, a week after finishing fourth in the Masters. In May, he won the Spanish Open at 50 years, 133 days to break his own record as the oldest European Tour champion.

I played that course during our Honeymoon and it's a completely forgettable Nicklaus design, except for the lava, of which it has far more than any other course we played on the islands.  The event is entirely forgettable except for this, which one doesn't get to see every day:

We live in crazy times...first Martin Kaymer coughs up a 10-shot lead with fourteen holes to play and now Langer makes a ten.  What's become of that vaunted German engineering?

It's somewhat reminiscent of the 13 Kevin Na took in Texas a few years ago.  Sometimes when you hit a ball very crooked you just have to take your medicine and go back to the tee.  The problem is that once you make the first attempt to extricate yourself and fail, you leave yourself nowhere to take relief.

Olympic Notes - It seems that a victory lap is being run as relates to the Olympic course in Rio, as Bradley Klein reports:

If urban politics, mass protest and legal wrangling between a landowner and the courts

don’t dampen the humor of a major golf-course designer, then he’s already a step ahead of the game. 

So when Gil Hanse was asked Wednesday at a PGA Merchandise Show press conference – in front of an audience of more than 300 people and while sharing the stage with leading golf officials and professionals – if his new course in Rio de Janeiro had a logo yet, the self-effacing golf course designer just had to laugh. 

“We’re just happy to have a golf course.”

Hanse and co-designer Amy Alcott (with Suzanne Pettersen and Graeme McDowell in the photo) made these photos available:

Klein, a knowledgeable observer, has this to say about the track:

What counts is that the layout – at 7,350 yards, a par 71 – has a wide-open, linksy feel to it. It’s built on sand, brings no trees into play and offers several paths and avenues for greenside recovery from the side and behind. It also features lots of what Hanse calls “half-par” holes – short and long par 3s and par 4s and reachable, risk-reward par 5s. Amy Alcott, an LPGA Hall of Famer and design consultant to Hanse on the project, is especially proud of the finishing stretch. Those present opportunities for birdies if players take the risk – as they well might at the reachable par-4 16th hole.

With Hanse involved, the golf course always figured to be the only interesting aspect to the competition, assuming it actually got built.  Now all it needs is name...and a logo, of course.

In other Olympic Golf news, you may have heard that Boston has been chosen to carry our hopes and dreams to land the 2024 Olympic Games.  I know, I can barely breathe what with the tension..

Per Shackelford, if Boston is awarded the games and if golf is still an Olympic event after the 2016 and 2020 games, the golf competition will be held at The Country Club.  The Boston 2024 IOC Submission document can be found here, for anyone having trouble sleeping.  I'm slightly surprised due to TCC being thoroughly private, as I might have thought they'd prefer the optics of a publicly-accessible venue.  But it's early days...

Donald Trump, Call Your Office - I guess the USGA officials stayed out of those dangerous wine bars during their fortnight in Pinehurst, as Matt Ginella informs us that they'll be paying return visits:

The U.S. Amateur is coming back to Pinehurst No. 2 in 2019, according to multiple sources. Off the success of a historic restoration and back-to-back men’s and women’s U.S. Opens last year, Pinehurst and the USGA are ready for the ultimate amateur trophy to return to the “Cradle of American Golf.”

That's nice, but the real buzz relates to rumors that the U.S. Open will be returning there in 2024.  Shack lets his imagination go wild with this projection of the U.S. Open rota:

This also sets up a potential murderer's row of courses. Okay, Following Shinnecock

Hills, Pebble Beach and Winged Foot in 2020 comes a brief respite to replenish the coffers and enjoy some SoCal marine layer at Torrey Pines in 2021. The 2022 date is open. Los Angeles Country Club is in line to host in 2023 and as Ginella reports, 2024 seems destined for Pinehurst ten years after its last U.S. Open. With Boston putting The Country Club down as its 2024 Olympic course on the slim chance the city does not botch its bid, the 2022 date continues to look perfect for a long-rumored return to Boston for the U.S. Open. And what a run that would be.

Now our Geoff is far too modest to note that LACC's North Course is in line for the 2023 Open due to a restoration of the course by none other than Gil Hanse and Geoff Shackelford (which has received great press).  I'll note that the schedule he lays out is exclusively East and West Coast venues for some seven years, longer even than the Democratic Party in paying lip service to flyover country.

More substantively, when the USGA gave The Country Club the 2013 Amateur, in lieu of the more appropriate Open to mark the 100th anniversary of Ouimet's unlikely win over Vardon and Ray, the only logical conclusion was that TCC's Open-hosting days were behind it.  They went back to Merion so anything's possible, but I wonder what Shack bases this speculation upon...