Time is the ultimate scarce resource this morning, but I'll try to post a few items for you nice folks. Not only do my family obligations continue unabated, but I'm dealing with a hard drive problem on my laptop. And yes, that would be the very same laptop on which I intended to blog our forthcoming trip, so all of yesterday afternoon was spent on the phone with various tech support organizations, thus far to no discernible benefit.
But let's get to the golf, shall we:
Ayr We Go Again - The ladies are playing their British Open at beautiful Turnberry, which will go under the knife just as soon as the last putt drops. The place looked spectacular yesterday, though bad weather is expected today. But I'm pleased t report that my girl got off to a good start:
Such a strange thing to be vying for the youngest-player-to-win-a-major record while at
the same time be considered the LPGA’s “best player to never win a major.” But that’s Lydia Ko, an uncommon player who doesn’t really care much for records and titles anyway.
“I guess you guys will let me know when there is a record,” Ko told the media, “or that I might be getting close to one.”
Ko will be 18 years, 3 months and 9 days old on Sunday, which means a victory at the Ricoh Women’s British Open would break Morgan Pressel’s record of 18 years, 10 months and 9 days, set at the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Lydia had a 6:41 tee time, which might be a problem for a normal 18-year old, but our Lydia shot 66 (-6), helped by a snake that dropped for an eagle on No. 17.
I've been skeptical of Lydia's chances at the previous majors due to the length and difficulty of the golf courses, but this is very much a track on which she can be competitive. Not for nothing that this is the place that Tom Watson almost grabbed a sixth Open at age 59.
Joel Beall has a post on the six ridiculous things Trump said at his Wednesday presser, and I'm just glad that I went with the under. Probably the best was this:
"Everybody has asked me to be here. The world has asked me to be here."
Errr...I've got a follow-up question.... eh, never mind. He's also No.1 with Hispanics, whereas I've always likened him more to No. 2.... LPGA player Lizette Salas is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and handled the inevitable question with the grace of a....skilled politician. Whereas The Donald, putative Republican front-runner for President, went with this in response to a question about Salas' comments:
"Don't know who she is."
Alert the media, he's probably telling us the truth here, though he had just told us that he's a big fan of the women's game.
Aces Wild - The Quicken Loans thingamajiggee got under way at the Robert Trent Jones Club, and it's costing Quicken a pretty penny. First we had Ryo Ishikawa's time lapse photography ace at the fourth:
Then we had Rickie Fowler with a walk-off ace on No. 9, his last hole of the day:
Good stuff...Rickie made some friends in the press tent with this gift:
You'd think a guy like that would have hole-in-one insurance....
The event's host actually had an all-right kind of day, after his typically dreadful start:
Through four holes of his opening round at the Quicken Loans National, Tiger Woods'
game didn't appear to be too sharp. Not looking much better than he did two weeks ago at St. Andrews, Woods bogeyed three of his first four holes at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club.
However, a birdie at the par-5 fifth jump-started Woods' round. He played his final 14 holes without a bogey and threw in six birdies, including four straight to begin his back nine.
"That's what scoring is all about," Woods said. "You got to score and I made a lot of key putts today. I ran them by the hole but I made all the comebacks and overall I felt like I hit the ball well enough to turn it around. It was nice to actually turn it around."
A 3-under 68 left him five shots back of the lead set by Reteif Goosen and Ryo Ishikawa.
It's a start, but he'll need to do it for more than fourteen holes.
“Unfortunately, I will not be defending my World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational title,” McIlroy said. “Best of luck to all the competitors, and I look forward to returning to Firestone in 2016.”
No word on the PGA, but just reminder that that's a notoriously difficult walking course....and also a reminder that Darren Clarke, back during Open Championship week, suggested that Rory might be done for 2015.
I must leave you now to go back into tech support hell.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maximima culpa...Apologies for my absence, but a combination of family business and an outing-heavy week left me no time to sate your need for those random musings you so crave... So buckle in, we could be here for a while.
Spieth, In Perspective - Wonder Boy turned 22 earlier in the week, and Stephen Hennessy compared his achievements at that tender age to that other guy. As you no doubt are aware, Spieth has five Tour wins at this point:
Tiger won six times before he turned 22. (1996 Las Vegas Invitational, 1996 Walt Disney World Classic, 1997 Mercedes Championship, 1997 Masters, 1997 Byron Nelson, 1997 Colonial, 1997 Western Open.)
World ranking: No. 2. Spieth trails Rory McIlroy by one point after the British Open. Same as Tiger, who trailed Greg Norman by less than a point.
A fun comparison, though I found this a bit churlish:
Hairline tracker: Almost a wash. Maybe the key to being really good at golf as a young gun is starting to lose your hair?
Yeah, but at least Tiger didn't try to arrange his hair every time he removed his cap. Deal with it, Jordan.
And Golf Channel celebrates with a slideshow of Spieth Through the Years....You mean both of them? Actually, it covers six years, including this from 2008:
About That Other Guy - If you still count yourself among the dwindling Tiger Woods fans, then I'd encourage you to clear your calendar to watch him play this weekend, as he's like that dinosaur in the ubiquitous Golf Now commercials, he just can't buy a tee time.
“I've gone through this before and unfortunately sometimes I have to get a little bit worse before I can make a giant stride to get forward and get better,” Woods said Tuesday after a practice round. “Has it been fun going through this? No, it hasn't because I'm not scoring obviously.
A little bit worse? Heh! Tiger, you funny...But here's the situation in a nutshell:
Unless Woods wins this week, he won’t be in the field for next week’s Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, where he’s won eight times. If he doesn’t win, his next start would be the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in Sheboygan, Wis. If he doesn’t do well there, he won’t make the FedExCup Playoffs and will turn his attention to the start of the 2015-16 season in October.
“I didn’t touch a club for a week,” Woods said Tuesday from Robert Trent Jones Golf
Club, site of this week’s Quicken Loans National. “When I geared back up, I started doing tome testing and found a couple little things, but it wasn’t anything major, which was nice.
“Some of my swings just weren’t quite right and I worked on a few things and feel pretty good now.”
Tome testing? Anyone know the heck that is? Anyone....Bueller? Joel Beall posts Five Things That We Hope Are True from that presser, including this:
2. He believes his woes are ephemeral
According to Woods, his slump is the byproduct of his short game.
"I didn't think it would take this long because I thought I would have my short game earlier, which I didn't at the very beginning of the year,” Woods said at his presser. “You can cover up a lot of different things when you are chipping and putting well."
Really? That's what you're going with? OK, there's little doubt that without the shanhs he could have turned his Friday 85 at Phoenix into, let's say, a 79.... It seems more likely to this eye that while wondering if Tiger had contracted the "S" word that we were distracted from the bigger picture issues with the driver and putter.
The strongest defense of our hero comes from DJ Gallo in The Guardian, who argues that...well, the header really tells you all you need to know:
Tiger Woods, like Robert De Niro, has earned the right to be terrible
The sub-header is just as good, likening the 2015 Tiger more to Little Fockers than Godfather II. He cites some sources calling on The Striped One to quit, and mans the barricades with this:
It’s a remarkable phenomenon that is unique to sports: a working media that believes it has a say on when someone should stop their career, their life’s work.
Errr DJ, this is more of a birds gonna swim, fish gonna fly thing....they say that he should quit because they can, without any repercussions.... They have columns to file and there's zero chance that anyone is heeding their advice, and provocative gets clicks.
Trumpettes Blare - Ron Sirak eagerly awaits The Donald's arrival at Turnberry for the Women's British Open:
Well now, this should be interesting.
Donald Trump is going to face the media Thursday at the Ricoh Women’s British Open, held at Trump Turnberry, and according to the ground rules, questions from reporters will be limited to golf.
I wonder if he’s ever faced the British tabloids before, the guys and gals Sir Nick Faldo called “Rotties,” short for Rottweilers because of their doggedness.
Probably not, as it turns out:
“Donald Trump will make himself available to meet the Championship’s accredited media at 1.30pm on Thursday, 30th July. We will confirm where this meeting will take place tomorrow morning.
“Questions must be restricted to the subjects golf, Turnberry and the tournament.
Why? What else could they possibly inquire about? I do have to wonder if Ron was perhaps the victim of an overzealous editor with this, as he's far too knowledgeable about the ladies' game:
Commissioner Mike Whan was able to disavow Trump’s comments, but with the statements on Mexican immigrants coming just three weeks before the Ricoh Women's British Open there was simply not enough time to change the venue of any tournament, let alone a major championship.
Well, that and the fact that is isn't, you know, his event...it's run by the Ladies' Golf Union.
Disappointingly the European Tour, which hopes to host the Scottish Open at Trump’s
course on the outskirts of Aberdeen, has been silent. So, too, the Scottish Government which ploughs £1.4m a year into that event.
The R&A would also happily have dodged the issue until it was put to it immediately before the Open Championship. Turnberry remains part of the Open rota and could host the tournament in 2020. When asked if the R&A’s position had been compromised by Trump’s comments, its chief executive, Peter Dawson, said: “Well, it’s had a lot of publicity, hasn’t it? We don’t have any decisions to make about Turnberry for quite some time and I think we’ll just let a bit of time pass and future championship committees will deal with them at the time.”
In other words: “We hope this issue vanishes.” Equally disappointing was that it shouldn’t have even been the outgoing Dawson’s question to answer. The chairman of that championship committee, Peter Unsworth, sat on his hands alongside him.
No bias there, eh? I just love the assumption that R&A venue decisions should be determined by the political vies of the properties' owners... As for that last 'graph, to whom does Murray think Unsworth reports?
It was entirely appropriate for Dawson to duck the question, but for different reasons. Dawson has presided over his last Open Championship and is to be succeeded by the amusingly-named Martin Slumbers. Dawson has simply followed protocol in leaving such decisions to his successor, who will have to deal with any fallout such a decision entails.
"Pro" Seems To Be The Wrong Word - What's better than a trick-shot video? I'd submit a trick-shot video gone bad....horribly bad:
On the YouTube page he maintains that he shot 90 that day, though no word on how he did on the back nine.
Check This - Shack has an oh-so-timely (for me) post on shipping ones golf clubs ahead on travel to Scotland, on my current to-do list as we'll be shipping the bride's weapons because she's making a side-trip through London.
But the broader interest in this is the spate of ladies at Turnberry without their clubs, per this roundup at The Loop by Stephen Hennessy. It's mostly in the form of tweets, but Stacy Lewis and caddie actually drove to Heathrow to pick them up, suffering a black-of-night flat tire that her caddie was able to change by the light of her cell phone.
Also affected were Brittany Lincicome, Jessica Korda and Heeyoung Park. And Graham DeLaet got his clubs back at St. Andrews looking like this:
Apparently that's some kind of protein powder adorning the bag....
Heathrow is notorious as the Bermuda Triangle for golf bags, but the folks there seem to be really upping their game.
Bandon All Hope - For unstated reasons, it's Bandon Dunes week at Golf.com. Yesterday they gave us insiders' tips on planning your hadj, including this:
“Go into town to the Italian restaurant [Alloro Wine Bar]. And get to the beach to watch a sunset."
Amen, as Alloro was really quite excellent. Maggot and the Bride Thereof also enjoyed it despite initial skepticism. And the beach is not just for sunset (best enjoyed over dinner at Lord Jim's restaurant), but for daytime stroll to enjoy the Bandon Stacks:
Which include Face Rock:
This poll came out pretty much as I'd have called it:
They're all great, but the votes are inevitably going to accrue to the two courses with the best ocean views. And today they have up a wonderful Q&A with the three principal architects of the resort's courses. It's all good, I especially liked that they asked each of the three to list their favorite hole on the other guys' courses, but here's just a snippet:
7. If you could give one piece of advice to a first-timer playing at Bandon, what would it be?
COORE: Play the (par-3 13-hole) Preserve first. It’s a fun way to introduce yourself to the turf conditions and how the ball reacts. Most people who come to Bandon have never putted fescue and have never played off the kind of tight lies you get out there. The Preserve helps you get acclimated. Relative to the Preserve, it also has greens that are not identical but which I would say are in the same family of what you’ll find when you play the 18th hole. There are several of them I’d say have echoes of one another. Interestingly enough, the first green of the Preserve used to be the putting green at Trails, so that should tell you something.
That's certainly good advice for a links newbie, and especially since so many arrive a bit tuckerd from an arduous journey.
Appallingly and inappropriately, the Old Course surely has more long grass growing
within its boundaries than at any time in its long history. With varying degrees of offensiveness, many bunkers are surrounded by rough. Plus, almost all of those wonderful hazards now appear man-made. So perfectly round are they, their faces close to vertical, they resemble doughnuts more than bunkers.
Of course, you can legitimately argue that none of the above matters when, as was the case with the two new bunkers right and short of the second green, the pin positions are so distant as to render their presence wholly superfluous. But here’s the thing.
Everything the R&A did to prepare the Old Course for this Open was designed to make the ancient links more difficult. Not more interesting. Not more fun. Just more difficult.
Why is that, you ask? Because the modern golf ball hit by a frying-pan driver wielded by a leading professional goes way too far. And why is that? Because of the R&A’s utter incompetence in the realm of technological administration. Not that they will be owning up to the charge any time soon.
Well-argued, Counselor...But wait, there's more:
Why is that? Because combined with any sort of stiff breeze, the greens on the Old Course are too fast. And why are they too fast? Because speedy putting surfaces represent just another way for the R&A to keep the scores up on a course that is short by modern professional standards.
And why do they need to do such a thing? Because the modern golf ball hit by a frying-pan driver wielded by a leading professional goes way too far. And why is that? Because of the R&A’s utter incompetence in the realm of technological administration. Not that they will be owning up to the charge any time soon.
Give John's piece a read as it covers other subjects of interest as well. But Shack takes off from John's piece with this rather out there proposal:
His point: all of the hole-tucking, green speed-pushing ways were employed not to test skill, but to work around modern distance that dates the Old Course. The same distance we are told has been capped. Though tell that to Jason Day and Bubba Watson, who had under 75-yard shots into a 456-yard par-4 Sunday in Canada.
I think we can all agree visiting the Old Course for the Open is a special affair and that it would be fun to actually see the it play somewhat more like it did 20-40 years ago when a long iron had to be used on par-4s.
So I ask: what would be so awful about an Old Course ball emerging every five or six years? The manufacturers could package it in a fun way, sell it to us suckers and advertise how they did their part to make The Open better?
What would be so terrible about this? Please, enlighten me...
It's deja vu all over again, as there was a time that those similarly inclined urged Augusta National to specify a rolled-back tournament ball for their little get together. The logic was that the ANGC poobahs could do whatever they damn well pleased, and could thereby be our saviors... But that's expecting an awful lot from folks that run only the one event, and also ignores the rather cozy and/or incestuous relationships that exist withing the major golf organizations. There's a reason that Shack himself refers to them as the Five Families...
In this case it's the very same organization running the Open Championship that Huggan lambastes for their "technological incompetence" that runs the Open, and an Old Course ball would be rather a stunning admission against interest.
I'm on the clock, as I've an afternoon outing at Brooklawn Country Club with much to accomplish before I hit the road....
Day's Day - I watched about five minutes of the Canadian Open, and in that shor span Jason Day made back-to-back bogeys to cough up a lead.... I wasn't around for this exciting finish:
OAKVILLE, Ontario (AP) -- Jason Day birdied the final three holes to win the Canadian
Open on Sunday, spoiling David Hearn's bid to become the first Canadian winner in 61 years.
Day made a 20-foot putt on the par-5 18th for a 4-under 68 and a one-stroke victory over Bubba Watson. Day finished at 17-under 271 at Glen Abbey.
"I've never felt so much at home, and I'm not even from Canada," Day said. "I'm looking forward to coming back and defending the title here next year because I know that when I get here next year it's going to be the same. It's great to feel like a Canadian for a week."
Probably the most amazing fact is that this is only his fourth win....but good on him after the disappointments at both Opens. And this, in reference to that final birdie putt, is sure to induce a wry smile:
“The first thing I said was I’ve got to get to the hole this time, that’s what I said in my head."
Good call.
Dawson's Break - My televised golf quota was instead allocated to the Senior Open Championship played at famed Sunningdale Golf Club. Here's the game story:
SUNNINGDALE, England (AP) -- American Marco Dawson held off the twin challenge of super stars Bernhard Langer and Colin Montgomerie over the final nine holes to claim victory in a thrilling climax to the Senior British Open Championship on Sunday.
Dawson finished with a 16-under par total of 264 to claim his second title on the Senior Tour this year after more than 12 years without a victory.
"This is unbelievable," said Florida-based Dawson, who played over 400 events on the PGA Tour without a win.
When you look up "Journeyman" in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of Marco, so it's kinda cool to see him have some late-in-life success. I just hope that dictionary used the picture above, instead of this one from a few months ago:
Not a great look, Marco...
A few final thoughts.... I've been enjoying Colin Montgomerie's mulligan on the Senior Tour, and was especially rooting for him yesterday, as a win would have punched his ticket to Troon next year for the big-boy Open. Mony's father was the Secretary at Royal Troon for many years, so it would have been a nice homecoming for the new, soft-and-cuddly Monty.
The event was unfortunately dogged (keep that word in mind) by rain, disrupting play but, more importantly, softening the golf course. I wish you all could have seen the play from Thursday when it was playing firm and fast as it's intended to do. Alas, the final three rounds were mere target practice as we seem to see week in and week out on Tour.
Lastly, when I brought up the event on the driving range yesterday, two fellow members not especially knowledgeable about golf across the pond made comments regarding dogs on the clubs ground. Kind of fascinating how information permeates, as folks who couldn't tell Harry Colt from a Colt 45 know that Sunningdale is the most dog-friendly golf club on the planet.
Things That Shock Me - I'm still recovering from the disillusionment of discovering gambling in Casablanca when this scurrilous attack on a man of noted probity crosses my monitor:
Most golfers who like to fib just shave a few strokes off their handicap or ask for an
The Donald's financial-disclosure paperwork, released Wednesday by federal election officials, claim that Trump's 16 golf-related businesses are worth $550 million to more than $675 million. That's a big chunk of his net worth, which the filing said was at least $1.15 billion and whichTrump himself says is about $10 billion.
Do tell:
The financial disclosure form values many of Trump's courses at two to four times the multiples of annual revenue other courses command, in an industry where most operators struggle to make profits, according to golf course appraisers. An industry rule of thumb is that courses are worth 1 to 1.5 times their annual revenue.
Trump reported combined revenue of less than $160 million, excluding the Miami resort, which doesn't break out golf-related revenue, and land sales at the Los Angeles property. Based on the industry standard valuation metric, that would put the value of Trump's golf empire closer to $160 million to $250 million.
What's a fellow to believe in this crazy, mixed-up world?
The Gift That Keeps On Giving - Not only is Robert Allenby the biggest d--k on Tour, but he's also not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, for which I remain eternally grateful. You'd think after kidnapgate that he'd try to keep a low profile, but you'd be as wrong as I was in Picking Rickie Fowler to win the Open.
Low profile would mean firing your caddie mid-week, as opposed to in front of the gallery on the 18th hole (to be clear, this was their ninth hole of the day)... because people tend to defend themselves when publicly humiliated, and Nick Middlemo had a chance to share the experience of being Robert Allenby's caddie alibi:
Robert Allenby's former caddie says he does not believe the Australian professional golfer's dramatic claims about being abducted and bashed in Hawaii earlier this year, instead declaring he probably "just fell over s---faced drunk" and injured his face.
Veteran Australian caddie Mick Middlemo had nothing but scathing words for 44-year-old Allenby, who last week fired him mid-round after a furious row at the US PGA Tour's Canadian Open.
Allenby blamed Middlemo for a wrong club choice when he hit his ball into a creek at Glen Abbey's par-five 13th, sparking a war of words between the pair.
And lest we have any doubts, and only those unfamiliar with our Robert could, one of the other caddies in that fateful three-ball had this to add:
Speaking out on Friday was Simon Clarke, an Australian who was looping for another player in the group, South Korean S.J. Park. Clarke, who said he has known fellow Aussie Allenby for more than two decades, told Reuters, “I wouldn’t be talking about it if he [Allenby] didn’t tell the media afterwards a whole lot of porky pies [Australian slang for lies]."
“I’ve known Rob for a long time and I’ve known Mick for a long time," Clarke said. "It’s disappointing that at age 42, or however old he [Allenby] is, he’s still treating people that way and how many good caddies he’s gone through.
"It’s sad that he speaks to the guys this way and doesn’t wait until after the round. It’s disappointing that he’s up to his old tricks.”
And while the horse is long dead, this comment I find interesting:
Middlemo told News Corp Australia that he "protected [Allenby] to the hilt" in January, telling the media precisely what Allenby told him to say.
OK, he said media, and lying to the media is perfectly legal...but there also a police investigation in process and certainly they would have spoken to Middlemo who was at The Amuse Wine Bar with his employer. To the extent that he lied to the police under Allenby's direction, that's better known as suborning perjury and is, you know, a crime.
Sweet '16 - Jim McCabe doesn't just bury the lede, he entombs it in this piece about changes in the Tour's schedule to accommodate Olympic Golf:
traditional date in 2016 – going from directly after the U.S. Open to a date six weeks later, in early August, after the PGA Championship – next year’s PGA Tour schedule is a study in changes all owed to the return of golf in the Olympics.
Things won’t look out of place for the first five months of 2016 calendar, through the U.S. Open (June 16-19), anyway. But with the men’s portion of Olympic golf being held Aug. 11-14, a big knuckleball was tossed at officials with both the PGA Tour and PGA of America having to make alterations. It started with the PGA of America moving its PGA Championship from its traditional mid-August date to July 28-21 and therein created the challenge for PGA Tour folks; there were six weeks available for a half-dozen tournaments, but it would require some movement from traditional times.
So the Travelers will be right after an East Coast PGA instead of after the U.S, Open, no biggie as the kids say... But take a gander at the resulting schedule that Jim posts and see if anything jumps out at you:
June 2-5: The Memorial
June 9-12: FedEx St. Jude Classic
June 16-19: U.S. Open (Oakmont)
June 23-26: Quicken Loans National
June 30-July 3: WGC Bridgestone Invitational
July 7-10: Greenbrier Classic
July 14-17: British Open (Royal Troon)
July 21-24: RBC Canadian Open
July 28-31: PGA Championship (Baltusrol)
Aug. 4-7: Travelers Championship
Aug. 11-14: Olympic Golf
Aug. 11-14: John Deere Classic
Aug. 18-21: Wyndham Championship
What's missing of course are the four FedEx Cup events, and you have an insane amount of golf being played in n extremely compressed schedule. I could go medieval on Commissioner Ratched, but Shack gave this perfectly respectable rant on the subject, including speculation about unintended fallout:
McCabe argues that the Travelers and Deere, who have settled well into their potentially cumbersome dates, would suffer in this scenario. But I think it's harder to imagine anyone in the world of golf wanting to go to Akron ten days after the U.S. Open and 11 days before The Open, even though the event's primary perk is easy cash and easier world ranking points.
This issue will be avoided in 2020 (to an extent) when the PGA Championship is not played in its traditional date. Though all of this would be moot if the playoffs weren't in a hurry to be played before football season.
Yanno, I'd like to think that's the case, but the lads do love their easy money grabs...
Holly Does Good - A high school senior named Andrew Orishak had life by the throat, enjoying a 5-up lead in the final match at the U.S.Juniors and a promise from Holly Sonders to be his prom date should he win... Ooops, not so fast there, as he let the match slip away:
At the end of a demanding week, Andrew Orischak lost control of the final match at the U.S. Junior Amateur, losing to Philip Barbaree on the 37th hole after holding a 5-up lead.
OK, that's gonna sting for a while, but our Holly makes good:
But there was a silver lining for Orischak. Besides earning a spot in the 2015 U.S. Amateur – which will be played at Olympia Fields (Ill.) Country Club Aug. 17-23 – and 2016 U.S. Open sectional qualifying, Orischak might have the prom date of his dreams: Fox Sports broadcaster Holly Sonders.
I love that bit about his Mom.... Don't get your hopes too high, Andrew, but your classmates will be ever so impressed. And of course you'll see Holly again soon at the Am.
Lots more to discuss, but it will likely have to keep until at least tomorrow.
The Senior British Open is being contested this week on the Old Course at Sunningdale....and while the event will not garner headlines, Sunningdale is a very special place. Television coverage is on ESPN from 12:00-2:00 each day, and it's well worth your time to see this storied venue.
The Old Course was opened in 1900 and was designed by Willie Park, Jr., known best in our parts for his design of The Maidstone Club. Here's a brief backgrounder on him from the club's website:
Willie Park Jnr was born in 1864. His father was a professional golfer, winning the first
Open Championship in 1860, and running a successful club and ball making business in Musselburgh, East Lothian. The family competed on equal footing with the Morris family of St Andrews.
Park Jnr learned golf traditionally, caddying and working with his father. He competed in stake matches and tournaments, winning the Open in 1887 and 1889, but gravitated towards the business side of golf, writing two books, “The Game of Golf”, recently republished, and “The Art of Putting”, a strong feature of his game. In the 1890s he designed golf courses in Scotland, but his first well known brief was Sunningdale, now known as the Old course, followed almost simultaneously by Huntercombe.
And that snippet doesn't even mention his Uncle Mungo... But the Park family being in the equipment business is of interest here, because when Sunningdale was built the golf world was about to experience a seismic shock with the introduction of the Haskell ball.
The gutta percha ball was in use when Park built the course but the Haskell emerged a scant two years later. The game and what constituted good golf was changing, and doing so rapidly. At one time blind one shotters were popular, seen from Deal and Sandwich to Aberdovey and here at Park’s first three one shot holes which featured greens located in a bowl (the fourth), behind a fold (the eighth) and a beyond a hill (the thirteenth). As the new century dawned, such holes lost their standing. Bernard Darwin was savagely critical of Park’s one shotters. While Park’s one shotters were mostly rooted in the 19th century, the course was otherwise long and stylish. Might Park have done things differently if he had designed Sunningdale with the Haskell in mind? That’s a difficult question and the ability to answer it in absolutes has been lost with time. However, it is worth noting that the Park family business was golf equipment and perhaps they had a inkling of what would soon emerge. Such knowledge would account for Park’s muscular routing, which clearly made allowances for the anticipated improvements in equipment.
Interesting that the bulk of the routing was "muscular", but the short holes were lacking. In any event, the club very quickly enjoyed great good fortune with this:
By pure coincidence, the same year that the Haskell appeared, so too did Harry Colt.
Sunningdale had sent out requests for a Club Secretary and Colt was among the more than 400 applicants. He assumed the post in 1901. At first he was largely an administrator and player but his services as a golf architect grew during the first decade of the twentieth century. His early gems include Le Touquet, Swinley Forest and St. George’s Hill and by 1913 he had made his mark in North America at mighty Pine Valley and the charming Toronto Golf Club. Still, Park was ‘the man’ at the start of the century and Colt prudently inched his way along in the early years. As his talent blossomed, Colt’s voice became louder and it was soon revealed that his eye for architecture was peerless.
That would be the Henry Shapland "Harry" Colt that gave us Portrush, Muirfield and County Down, just to throw out a few names.... James Sheridan, the legendary caddie master at Sunningdale wrote of Harry as follows:
Mr. H.S. Colt, the secretary, was no easy man to serve. I was astounded at first by the way he seemed to frighten most of the staff and thought this wouldn’t do for me. We had a terrible row when one of the caddies had trouble with a member. “I don’t care what happened, Sheridan,’ he said as I tried to explain. ‘The member is always right.’ ‘Wrong is no man’s right,’ I replied which scarcely poured oil on the troubled waters. I very soon realised what a great and wonderful man he was and, as the years passed, we both achieved a fine regard for each other. Certainly, the secretary had a fierce kick in him, but I prefer men like that. The others desert you when the wind blows.
Colt left his position in 1913 to pursue his architectural career, but remained a member and continued to serve on its greens committee. He was hired to build the New Course that opened in 1923, which is only slightly less memorable than the original. Both course wind beautifully through the firs, sand and heather, as if they'd been there forever.
While the commentators yesterday called it a parkland course, I'd suggest that heathland is the more appropriate term. As Ran notes, there are great similarities ti links to be found:
Sunningdale was at the forefront of bringing meaningful golf inland where it could play a vital role in one’s weekly life. Links golf defined the character of the game in 1899 when Willie Park Jr. began routing the course for the brothers Roberts. Park was surely impressed with Sunningdale’s convoluted land movement, which simulated some of the conundrums posed by links land. The Scot Park did his part by concocting drives over the crests of hills, placing bunkers in the middle of fairways, tilting greens away, and building some massive putting surfaces (the tenth alone was nearly 15,000 square feet).
It's a sandy substrate so it's logical that it would share the best playing characteristics of a links. It has a very different look to it, and while less windy than a seaside locale, the winds tend to swirl through the densely wooded property in unpredictable fashion.
Lett's look at some photos, shall we, to demonstrate what a spectacularly beautiful place this is. First one from Golf Club Atlas of an educational bent, with Ran's caption:
There is golf history and then there is the history of civilization. England plays a lead role in both. Churchill explains that the mounds along the first ‘… in old maps are referred to as “tumuli”, Latin for tombs. During the construction of the Old course a collection of Anglo Saxon urns were uncovered full of skeletal remains, and these are in a museum in nearby Reading. I saw a photo somewhere of these urns being dug up, and the burial place seemed to be very similar in appearance to the tumuli.’
Such tumuli are everywhere on the property...
Your humble blogger teeing off on No. 10 on The Old.
The bunkering is quite spectacular, often surrounded by heather.
The finishing stretch of holes is quite spectacular, playing mostly uphill towards the iconic clubhouse and massive oak tree from whence the club's logo originates.
The GCA review linked above also has many wonderful photos.
While Sunningdale has hosted its share of big time events, the most famous round of golf there took place in Open Championship Qualifying in 1926:
Yes, much changed on the Old Course from its opening in 1899 until the magical year of 1926 but the course that we enjoy today is basically what Bobby Jones confronted when he carded that perfect 66 composed of only 3s and 4s. Bernard Darwin called it‘incredible and indecent.’ On account of indifferent putting, O.B. Keeler noted that Jones ‘… had no luck at all, and needed none.’Part of that round’s marvel was how many greens Jones hit from 180 to 225 yards away, as many as ten. He never missed even with hickories! Jones (with Keeler) reminisced in Down the Fairway, ‘In my 36 holes there, in the qualifying rounds, I used a mashie twice and a mashie niblick once, for approach shots. The others were good bangs with the irons, or a spoon, or occasionally a brassie. It’s that kind of course.’
And while we all acknowledge a tendency to enjoy tracks on which we play well, here is the aforementioned Bobby Jones' assessment of Sunningdale:
‘It’s a wonderful course, Sunningdale and I wish I could carry it about with me. I wanted to bring it back home…’
What he said! And thanks to loyal UL reader Mark W. who arranged my 2010 outing there and don't miss this video of the welcome mat for dogs there.
As we head into the weekend, let's take our usual spin through the golf firmament...
Playing To Type - Antone here remember the Robert Allenby story from January? I know, wasn't that a time? As you may recall, one of my priceless quips when the story broke was that if true, the perpetrator would most likely be a Tour caddie, because...well...just because.
So let's all get our schadenfreude on with this news from yesterday:
Playing in the RBC Canadian Open on Thursday, Allenby and his caddie, Mick
Middlemo, appeared to have a chat before his fourth shot on Glen Abbey Golf Club's par-5 13th hole (Allenby's fourth hole of the day). Allenby's shot went into a creek short of the green, leading to a triple-bogey.
Both parties agree it was at this juncture that things went south. How it happened and what was said is in dispute.
Do tell, but let's break with tradition and start with the She Said:
"I said to him, 'You know this happens every week. This has happened for like the last three or four or five months,'" Allenby told ScoreGolf.com. "We keep making bad mistakes, and you're not helping me in these circumstances. And he just lost the plot at me. He just told me I could go eff myself."
"And I said, 'Look, you need to slow down. I mean just calm down.' And then he just got right in my face as if he wanted to just beat me up. I said, 'Stop being a such and such and calm down and get back into the game.' And he just got even closer and closer, and I just said, 'That's it, you're sacked.' I said, 'I will never have you caddie ever again.'
Middlemo, however, sin't prepared to stipulate to that narrative:
"I just wished it had never gone this far. But he is again using the media to make himself look like the victim," Middlemo told ESPN, alluding to an incident in Hawaii earlier this year involving Allenby and an alleged kidnapping.
According to Middlemo, it was Allenby who messed up on the 13th.
"The discussion was only about waiting for the wind to die down and hit the 8-iron; the 7-iron was never discussed. Not once. He came up 10 meters short of the front of the green. He hit a bad shot.
"He said, 'I can't believe this fat c***,' loud enough for everyone to hear. There's a lot as a caddie I can take but a personal attack like that. ... If this was an office in any country in the world, that would be considered bullying. ... I can take it if you call me the worst caddie in the world, tell me I'm horrible at picking clubs, but there's a line you just can't cross."
According to FOX Sports Australia - Allenby's native land - Middlemo is the fourth caddie to walk off during a round with Allenby. A person following the group on Thursday confirmed Middlemo's rendition of the story to ESPN.
You get that? Four caddies have walked on the guy mid-round! I think that gest you into the Hall of Fame these days...I'm not all bitter about not getting paid to bog because they make it so damn easy and fun.
Venues, Confirmed - We've known this for a while, but we now have confirmation of the USGA's plans:
LACC's North Course
The USGA announced three sites for the U.S. Open on Wednesday, including a return to Pinehurst No. 2. It effectively alternates the U.S. Open between the East Coast and prime-time TV of California for at least a seven-year stretch.
The U.S. Open will go to The Country Club in 2022, the course outside Boston that was the scene of perhaps the most important golf championship in American history. It's where Francis Ouimet won a playoff over British titans Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. The upset put golf on the front pages of newspapers.
As I noted in Golf World, the USGA will solidify it's schedule going forward this week by confirming the already reported news in local papers around Boston, Los Angeles and Pinehurst: the U.S. Open is going to some dynamite places over the next decade. They will take The Open to The Country Club in 2022, Los Angeles Country Club in 2023 and Pinehurst No. 2 in 2024. Thats on top of five-start venues in Oakmont (2016), Shinnecock Hills (2018), Pebble Beach (2019) and a revitalized Winged Foot (2020). We'll just have to grin and bear Erin Hills in 2017 and soak up the San Diego vibes in 2021 when Torrey Pines hosts.
He seems more excited by a retrurn to The Country Club than I, but I remain surprised that, if they intended to return there, they didn't celebrate the Ouimet centenary by going there in 2013. The most interesting name there is LACC, whose North Course has been restored by Gil Hanse working with some guy named Shackelford. More on that here.
Here's the schedule of venues looking forward:
2016 - Oakmont-Troon-Baltusrol
2017 - Erin Hills-Birkdale-Quail Hollow
2018 - Shinnecock-Carnoustie-Bellerive
2019 - Pebble Beach-Portrush(?)-Bethpage
2020 - Winged Foot-(?)-Harding Park
2021 - Torrey Pines-St. Andrews-Kiawah
2022 - The Country Club-(?)-Trump Bedminster
The weakest link is obviously the PGA, which ranges from the repetitive (we see Quail Hollow every year) to the mundane (Bellerive? Why?) to the logistically challenging (Kiawah) to the problematic (Trump). But if you enjoy seeing Tour pros perspire, the PGA of America has you covered...
Bae-Bae - This is unfortunate for the young man, though really could have been avoided:
Bae Sang-Moon said Wednesday he plans to play the rest of the PGA Tour season before
submitting to his mandatory military service in South Korea.
Bae was denied an extension of his visa at the start of the year and challenged it in court. Yonhap news service said Bae lost his legal battle to have his mandatory service deferred. The debate was whether Bae had spent enough time out of South Korea last year.
"I completely respect the court's decision, and I humbly accept the judgment by the law," he told Yonhap. "I am sorry to those who have supported me, including all my fans and South Koreans, for causing anxiety."
It appears that mistakes in his scheduling will cost him dearly, though the short-term issue is wehther he'll be able to play in the Presidents Cup in the Fall, which is being held on a Nicklaus course on which Bae has won two KPGA Tour events.
Shack, Reviled - Many of you have commented on my frequent Shack citations, an inevitability given the position in the golf world he's created for himself. He's the only guy out there consistently writing on the subjects that interest me most, but he also has a sense of humor and isn't afraid of taking on the Grand Poobahs of our game.
And I of course can't help but be envious of his sources, his support from Golf Digest and his site access at the biggest events in our game. But today that understandable jealousy has morphed into a raging saliva-spewing inferno, as our Geoff played The Old Course Tuesday with the final round pins unchanged...Salt, meet open wound:
Of course I’m rubbing it in by mentioning the great privilege of playing St Andrews the day after The Open. But move past the envy stage! Because there is still plenty to consider from the 2015 Open Championship.
The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play after such a fascinating Open also meant getting to play the final round hole locations in far more pleasant conditions than the leaders faced. (Though we did get an opposite wind direction: into the breeze going out, downwind coming in.) The greens were not cut, but there was no shortage of speed.
As if that's not enough to goad me, he played with Jaime Diaz....But he had much to say of interest about the golf course:
The hole locations. I can only recall two pin placements that seemed genuinely accessible. The 9th was so center cut that it was almost deceptive due to the lack of definition. The 5th hole was cut 85 yards deep. I faced a third shot yardage of 73 yards to the front. Now there’s something you don’t experience everyday. The rest of the holes were tucked, hidden or stuck in places the caddies had rarely seen. I heard the same observation from locals who were pleased to see some new locations used, but who also groused about the inability to come up with a few more creative uses of these amazing greens.
That's certainly how it seemed at home...
Jason Day’s 18th hole birdie putt could very easily be left short. On our list of key putts to try was Jason Day’s final effort that would have gotten him into a playoff. Day left it short and many were shocked how well he took it or that a player could leave that putt short. We tried it and sure enough the cup was on a spot where the ball slowed dramatically near the hole. Whether this was an intentional choice or mere coincidence, we won’t know. But we all agreed to appreciate Day’s point of view.
And his rousing coda:
The course remains a marvel in so many ways. From the way it handles all of the traffic to the magical contours, to way the greens are mere extensions of the fairway, the endearing qualities written about for so many years remain as ever-present today as they did 150 years ago. And while some don’t care for the commercial quality to the place with so much tourist play, the Old Course at St. Andrews is the world’s most important course and the Links Trust ably balances the needs of the local clubs, the town and the university player with the desire of golfers worldwide to experience this historic place.
It's always a challenge to explain The Old Course to folks that haven't played it, because it's unlike any other golf course on the planet. Shack also had this photo, which captures well the unique turf it enjoys:
It's the flattest golf course in the world, just don't expect too many level lies....
