I watched quite a bit of the Live From coverage yesterday and the golf course looks unbelievable.... Shall we talk a little LACC?
Captain, My Captain - You can't deny that you've heard of George Clifford Thomas, after all you watch the lads at Riviera every February. But you likely don't know what to make of him, because it's really just that one track.
His early history is interesting, geographically at the very least:
George C. Thomas, Jr.’s life history is nearly as interesting as his most inspired course designs. To the manor born, as they used to say, Thomas was raised in a prominent, prosperous Philadelphiafamily. After graduating at age 21 from the University of Pennsylvania in 1894, Thomas joined his father’s investment firm, Drexel & Co. and remained there until 1907, when he turned his attention to rose gardening. He would write two books on the care and breeding of roses, the first in 1914, the second in 1929. Thomas also raised English setters and was a co-founder of the English Setter Club of America.Many of his friends referred to Thomas as “The Captain,” an acknowledgement of his stint as an officer in the Army Air Corps during World War I. Thomas scholar Geoff Shackelford notes that Thomas was an active pilot, crashing three times in the European fight and asserting that Thomas actually used part of his substantial family fortune to fund his squadron’s activities.In 1908, he designed his first course, Whitemarsh Valley in Philadelphia, on his family estate and crafted two other courses, Marion in Massachusetts and Spring Lake in New Jersey, before relocating to Beverly Hills in 1919, evidently to continue his rose breeding work. Soon thereafter, though, he immersed himself in course design, starting with a fabled version of La Cumbre Country Club in Santa Barbara. Today the club remains strong, but Thomas’s course is long gone.
Which placed him within the orbit of the Philadelphia School of Architecture, with lasting relationships with Tillinghast, George Crump, Hugh Wilson, William Flynn and Wlliam Fownes, heady company indeed.
The other name you'll here is Billy Bell:
La Cumbre introduced him to William P. “Billy” Bell, a master shaper/builder/designer and the two would collaborate on most of Thomas’ top courses over the next decade. It was Bell that helped fashion the signature Thomas bunker stylings, with their intricate edges, slopes and shapes. Two years later, Thomas set another benchmark with his substantial redesign of LACC’s North course and off he galloped into the Roaring ‘20s.
And those bunkers are truly spectacular:
And this on that restoration:
Gil Hanse’s 2010 restoration was so well-received, the once-reclusive club threw open its doors and welcomed the 2017 Walker Cup, and in 2023 will host its first U.S. Open. LACC North wasn’t a Thomas original. Rather, he transformed the original design in 1921, building four new holes, adding width and variety to up the strategic components, and reworked greens and bunkers with more intricate shaping, enhancing shot value and aesthetic appeal. He further renovated the layout in 1927-28.In the recent restoration, Hanse reshaped and relocated bunkers, some reverting to their original forms, others that assumed an idealized Thomas sheen; he brought the barranca back in play on several holes as a strategic hazard; added new back tees; restored greens to their 1920s locations; widened fairways to reestablish alternate routes and yanked out trees to bring out long-hidden vistas of the Santa Monica Mountains, the downtown skyline and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
To me they almost have the feel of Royal County Down, and that can't be a bad thing....
Party Like It's 2017 - One of the interesting side notes of this week is that almost no one has seen this venue, excepting Max Homa who owns the course record from a college event (and is seemingly the tout's choice this week). The only players with a history on this course are from that 2017 Walker Cup team, which was loaded:
Now it’s easy to say all of this looking back but Captain John “Spider” Miller seemed to see this success coming back when he helped the USGA select his team for the 46th Walker Cup.“The young men who will wear the ‘USA’ on their sleeves in the 46th Walker Cup at The Los Angeles Country Club are a special group,” Miller said then. “They will go on to do great things. Some will distinguish themselves by playing golf professionally. A few could win major championships. It’s possible that one of them might even invent something that changes the world.”Miller wasn’t wrong. Of the 10 players, seven earned their PGA Tour cards following their win over Great Britain & Ireland. Combined, they have 15 PGA Tour wins, which includes a major from Scottie Scheffler and two majors from Collin Morikawa. The group also has five Korn Ferry Tour wins and have earned a combined total of $99,101,854 since turning pro after the 2017 event. Stewart Hagestad, who has since remained an amateur, has also had a successful playing career, winning three U.S. Mid-Amateur titles and competing in six majors championships. From that team, only Morikawa and Scheffler will be in the field this week.
An advantage? Yes, but it's already been six years, so I wouldn't over-state it. But the field will need to do their homework quickly, and I've been surprised at how many have just now hit town....
Take The Fifteenth - Shack's living la vida loca this week. Not only because of his involvement in the restoration and linkage to Thomas, but his business model concentrating on the majors seems perfectly timed to survive the PGA Tour's betrayal. He's been going hole-by-hole, though only a teaser portion of each post is non-pay-walled.
The F-word will be used frequently this week, but it's not THAT F-word. We'll be speaking of fun vs. fairness (hopefully you realized that there was no reason to cite that other f-word), which immediately presents as we speak of the routing. You may have heard that it's a Pasr-70, and you've no doubt been conditioned to expect two member's three-shotters converted into back-breaking Par-4's, but this isn't your grandfather's U.S. Open. Thomas took what the land gave, and we have five Par-3's to enjoy this week, but also three Par-5's.
But there are those that believe this might be the best collection of Par-3's anywhere, notwithstanding Cypress Point's demand that LACC hold its beer. Two of them might play monstrously long, one might actually pay on certain days to a longer yardage than one of the Par-4's. But let's sample Geoff's discussion of the fifteenth, which potentially could play as short as 78-yards on one of the days (not a typo):
Fifteenth Hole
Par: 3U.S. Open Yardage: 125 yardsElevation Change: +5 feet from back of tee to center of the green.Long viewed as a hole “forced” into L.A. North and perhaps fairly so given the tight quarters after two massive holes in grandeur and scale, the 15th saw the most radical transformation in green size, shape, bunker expansion and overall sensibility within the 18 chapter story.
Take a look at the substantial changes in these before (2007) and after (2023) photos:
It's that front-right section of the green that allows for the 78-80 yard day, which could be terribly interesting. They have about six paces to land their ball on a line to that pin, but is it conceivable that the best players in the world would bail out on a wedge that short? Stay tuned.
Set-Up/Weather - In a nutshell:
Los Angeles Country Club WeatherThe AccuWeather forecast for Los Angeles shows low clouds giving way to sunshine for Thursday's opening round with light winds and low-70s temperatures. Friday should be in the mid-70s with partly cloudy skies breaking for some sun. Saturday and Sunday's push towards a U.S. Open winner should provide pleasant golf weather with mid-70s temps and intervals of clouds and sunshine with light winds up to 10 mph.
In theory, this means they should be able to get the course as firm and fast as they want, which one hopes and assumes is plenty. The only concern would be the prevalence of marine layers, which can keep the course moister than the USGA might prefer.
As for the rough, I'm hearing all sorts of reports with any consistency. There's this that covers the yin and the yang:
At this point, it’s an annual tradition. Each and every June, the golf world anxiously awaits its first look at the U.S. Open rough. We put out cookies and milk, we hang our stockings with care and we go to bed knowing that in the morning, Rough Santa will have some absolutely nasty lettuce waiting for us beneath the tree.This year, however, has been a little different. The U.S. Open is heading to La La Land, where the only thing that’s been gnarly are the waves, brah. Rumors are swirling that the LACC rough has been slow to grow thanks to a cool spring and that the USGA is freaking out. Even our big brother Golf Digest has questioned whether or not the world’s best might go low this weekend in Beverly Hills. If these initial looks at the LACC salad are any indication, however, the sadists among us can rest easy.
For those needing a visual:
Giving the people what they want.
— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 11, 2023
Cheers to the unofficial start of #USOpen week! pic.twitter.com/r3zLWG0Ou7
Based upon player comments it seems inconsistent, deep in spots but sketchier in others.... We'd like them to be able to advance the ball, but to have to accommodate firm surfaces and run-out. As I always preach, there's nothing more exciting in our game than watching what a ball does after it lands.
I have rarely anticipated a venue as much as this one. To me, this is is so terribly ironic after the Erin Hills and Chambers Bay missteps. To add some new spice to their rota the USGA had to fire up the Wayback Machine and go Back to the Future to the 1920's.
But there's a further irony, one more frustrating perhaps. No matter how great the week is and how strong the venue performs, don't expect to see it again anytime soon. Rumor has it that the USGA intends to take an Open back to Riviera in the 2030's, and that precludes a return to LACC during your humble blogger's natural life expectancy.
That's it for LACC stuff for now. I'll probably have more on Thursday morning, before balls are in the air (no blogging tomorrow, unless we get rain (or hailed) out.
Brave New World - I got two text/e-mails on this, though color me a cynic:
The United States Senate has opened a probe into the proposed partnership between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).In a letter to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations asked for records and communications between the tour and the PIF. According to Blumenthal, the deal “raises concerns about the Saudi government’s role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution.” The alliance could be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which analyzes mergers regarding potential threats to the nation’s security.
Nice of senator Blumenthal to take time out from his core responsibilities.
How psychotic are the Democrats? Blumenthal is worried about this "Cherished American Institution", whereas they have no problems with things like this.
Similarly, there was a CongressCritter threatening to open an investigation into the Tour's tax exempt status, but I think Congress is pretty irrelevant to the matters at hand.
Interestingly, Jay has thoughts in response to that Congressional threat:
“Over the past two years, the PGA Tour has fought an intense and highly publicized battle as the Saudi Arabian PIF-backed LIV golf league attempted to ‘buy’ PGA Tour players and take over the game of golf in the United States and beyond, creating a fractured golf ecosystem and fomenting a heated divisiveness into the game,” Monahan wrote. “We believe that we did everything we could possibly do to defend what we stand for, including spending tens of millions of dollars to defend ourselves from litigation instigated by LIV Golf – significant funds diverted away from our core mission to benefit our players and generate charity. As part of the litigation, we were successful in securing a court ruling that the PIF was not protected under sovereign immunity with respect to litigation discovery and potentially liability, something which had never been done before in the United States.“During this intense battle, we met with several Members of Congress and policy experts to discuss the PIF’s attempt to take over the game of golf in the United States, and suggested ways that Congress could support us in these efforts. While we are grateful for the written declarations of support we received from certain members, we were largely left on our own to fend off the attacks, ostensibly due to the United States’ complex geopolitical alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This left the very real prospect of another decade of expensive and distracting litigation and the PGA Tour’s long-term existence under threat."
Just curious, Jay, as to what you think Congress should have done? Cry me a river, but perhaps you're not familiar with Congress' role in the American Constitution, but they're not a commercial mediation service.
Jerry Tarde, the Editor-in-Chief of Golf Digest, has an interesting piece under a header that should have us all shuddering:
‘Marry me or I’ll kill you’: The Saudis own pro golf, and pro golf owns the Saudis?
Whoever wrote the header got it from this bit, which isn't unfair:
6. “Marry me or I will kill you” was the proposition the PGA Tour commissioner faced. In the geopolitical world, it’s the same deal Putin proposed to Ukraine and China to Taiwan.
Of course, Ukraine and Taiwan are prepared to fight for their sovereignty, whereas Jay's objective appears in hindsight to have been to pick the optimal timing for his capitulation,...
Though none seem to understand Saudi culture. It's more marry me and then I'll have the right to kill you, honor killings being the Wahabi's principal contribution to world culture.
I do find this interesting:
7. What could commissioner Jay Monahan do? He made missteps, but his fate was always sealed: Facing a competitor with unlimited resources, Monahan doubled his players’ purses and bonuses and entered into costly litigation. He invoked the 9/11 Families, played the morality card and inflicted as much PR pain as possible. In the end, he was negotiating with a gun to his head.
This is such a devastating failure of leadership and conviction. What rankles is that no one seems to have considered the option of just playing for less riches as a means of maintaining their independence. I'm not sure there's a large enough market for that option, but Jay seems committed to not allowing that to even be considered.
Gonna leave you there and catch up again on Thursday.
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