Weekend Wrap

Lots to cover and competing demands on my time, so why are you wasting precious time with silly intros?

The Ladies of the Rings - The fair sex did not provide the same kind of gold medal drama, with the outcome seemingly preordained.  But the combination of a worthy champion and drama for the other medals left everyone well-satisfied:

Inbee Park of South Korea has hinted that this might mark the end of her competitive

golf career, and if so her road to retirement is paved in Olympic gold. 

Park, 28, who earlier this year met the criteria for LPGA Hall of Fame inclusion, added a gold medal to her resume in the women’s golf competition at the Olympic Golf Course in Rio de Janeiro. 

“This really could be the highlight of my career,” Park said. “I was lucky enough to have the opportunity. We have five major tournaments a year. I’ve won a lot of the major championships. The Olympic Games you get to do it only once ever four years and golf in 112 years. It’s a huge honor and I think it could be the highlight of my golfing career.”

It's really quite amazing how well she played, in light of her injuries and indifferent play this year.  It's almost as if this was the prize she set her sights on, and she wouldn't be denied.

 We lost first-round leader Ariya Jutanagarn to yet another injury:

Thailand's Ariya Jutanugarn has withdrawn from the women's Olympic golf tournament after 13 holes in Friday's third round due to a left knee injury.

"Very disappointed, because it's Olympics, and I tell my caddie, I want to finish ... four days," Jutanugarn said. "I don't care how many over I'm going to be, but I'm thinking about my career." 

Jutanugarn said she first felt the injury late in Thursday's second round, but it didn't hurt until after she was practicing post-round.

Ariya is this year's breakout star, but that's about the only thing that went bad in the two weeks of Olympic golf.  And she's young enough that she'll have other opportunities, as long as she kicks the injury habit.

 One of the cuter aspects of the women's competition is the caddies:

More than a third of the 60 competitors in the women’s Olympic golf event has brought a relative or significant other to the Reserva de Marapendi golf course to act as their caddie. 

Of those 21 players, there are five parents, five siblings, five husbands and six boyfriends or fiancés carrying the bag for their loved one and building memories that they will share for a lifetime. 

While Canadian Brooke Henderson and Thailand’s Pornanong Phatlum have their regular full time caddie, sister Brittany and brother Pornpong, at their sides for the competition, the sibling teams also include the identical Maguire twins from Ireland, who are both talented amateurs in their own right. Lisa is caddying for sister Leona, who said: “It’s special to have her with me this week, because with it being so far away from home, it’s nice she gets to be a part of it. We get along pretty well and she’s a good caddie.”

I know, you could say that this makes it seem like a junior varsity event, but who has that kind of heart of stone?  If players wants their Moms and Dads on the bag, I say let's embrace it.

Australia's Su Oh went another direction, with noted architect and sometimes player Mike Clayton on her bag, whom she references in her press comments:

“My caddy Mike Clayton, who is a golf architect, just said to me once you can get yourself into trouble, then you can keep on getting yourself into more trouble. So if you do, just get yourself back into play and I think I did that well today.”

 But since she mentioned Mike Clayton....our time on the high road will be short-lived.  Clayton is a good guy and a good architect, he's Geoff Ogilvy's design partner and you know about my mancrush on him, but in this social-media-dominated era, he's unfortunately best known for this motor skill failure: 

As I said at the time, at least he stuck the landing.

We'll have some more thoughts on the Olympics in the next few days, there's a Jaime Diaz piece on how to improve them, but we'll save that for another day.

But lastly, Maria Verchenova, who almost wasn't allowed to play because of the Russian doping scandal, one-upped the men and shot a 62 in the final round.  here's Maria showing off her....err...well, just showing off:

You're welcome, Maggot.

The Luck of the Curtis - The U.S. Amateur concluded yesterday, and I can't find a single reference to Diana Murphy embarrassing herself....So, either she wasn't there to present or somebody schooled her in the proper pronunciation of Havermeyer....and Luck, and Oakland Hills and.....well, you get the idea.  Also, perhaps it helped that it was a cash bar....

Ryan Herrington with Luck's secret weapon:

Curtis Luck had just begun the afternoon 18 of the championship match on Sunday at the 116th U.S. Amateur about as miserably as you could imagine. In the right rough off the tee on the match’s 19th hole, the par-4 first at Oakland Hills Country Club’s South Course, the 20-year-old Australian chunked his second shot, the ball advancing a mere 40 yards and staying in the rough. He then sniped his third over the green and stubbed his fourth barely on to the putting surface. Rather than risk doing more damage with his putter, he conceded the par putt of his opponent, Brad Dalke, and walked off 1 down. 

At that moment, Luck heard a voice offer some meaningful, albeit straightforward, advice. 

“OK,” said Stuart Luck, Curtis’ 46-year-old father who doubled this week as his caddie, “now we need to play some good golf.” 

The brief moment of levity—“He usually likes being very obvious with his statements out on the golf course,” Curtis would say later—helped the No.7 ranked amateur in the world shrug off the stumble and re-set himself.

 Obvious?  Yeah, but it must have been in the tone, because Luck the Younger won 6 & 4.

It of course none of our affair, but this makes an insignificant blogger happy:

Luck, who will now stay amateur, can fill out his 2017 schedule with starts at the Masters (traditionally, the U.S. Am winner gets invited), U.S. Open and British Open, as well as traditional starts in PGA Tour events such as the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Memorial.

As for holding off on turning pro? As they say back home in Australia, no worries, mate. 

“It was something I always was thinking might happen,” Luck said. “I’m very happy with staying amateur.”

As we've been over ad nauseum, the elimination of PGA Tour Q-School has increased the pressure on the best amateurs to turn professional early, denying themselves experiences that they'll never forget.

But this little watermelon feature by head chef Dan Vallone is just creepy:

In fact, you could say it's the pits....<ducking>

It's A Small World - Ever wonder why the South Korean women dominate the LPGA but the South Korean men are an afterthought?  That confirms that you're a misogynist....

Now that you've been shamed, we can agree that it likely has to do with level of competition and other opportunities....  But the South Korean men don't suck, and John Strege jumps on the results from Greensboro to conclude that golf is a world game:

The Scots might claim the game as their own, while the U.S. has cornered the market on

its most significant events, together belying its global reach. Current events remind us that it’s a game without borders. 

The six Olympic medalists in the men’s and women’s competitions in Rio de Janeiro represented six different countries — Great Britain, Sweden, the U.S., South Korea, New Zealand and China. 

And on Sunday alone, the U.S. Amateur was won by an Australian, Curtis Luck; the D+D Real Czech Masters by an American from the Asian Tour, Paul Peterson, who beat a Belgian, Thomas Pieters; and the Wyndham Championship by a South Korean, Si Woo Kim. 

Five continents (including that in which the Olympics were held) are represented: Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and South America.

It’s a small dimpled world.

To me, it's more significant that he's a 21-year old South Korean, so it seems we'll be seeing more of him....

The Group From Hell - Every club has a group of death, guys you go out of your way to avoid being paired with.  So its' some what appropriate that the Web.com Tour have such a pairing:

If avoidance is not feasible, then be sure to stay upwind, as their conditions are highly contagious.

Golf RIP's - Two passings of significance over the weekend, in order of said significance.  

The first is famed golf photographer Jules Alexander, best known for his iconic photos of Ben Hogan:

In 1959, Jules Alexander was a fashion photographer who on a whim took the train from New York City to suburban Mamaroneck to check out the 1959 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club. Alexander hadn't photographed golf at that point. He didn't have a press credential. Yet when he wandered onto the golf course, he was perceptive enough to recognize something unique in Ben Hogan, then 47 but still a commanding enough presence to captivate the young photographer. 

Alexander died Friday near his home in Rye, New York at age 90, after a celebrated career that saw him capture a host of iconic images of the game's biggest figures, from Palmer to Nicklaus to Woods. But none rivaled the importance of the photos he took that week of Hogan. They were the photos that forged his connection with golf, eventually buying a house on the grounds of Westchester Country Club and raising two sons who became successful golf pros. They were the photos that inspired an advertising campaign for the Ben Hogan Company, and led to a popular coffee table book, The Hogan Mystique.

Excuse me, WCC is in Harrison, not Rye.... Just sayin'...  But I love this:

The most celebrated picture in the Alexander collection is the one above on the right of Hogan leaning against his putter on the green, head turned to the side, a cigarette in his right hand. When Alexander told the story of that photo, he recalled Hogan holding his position just long enough for the photographer to make it work. 

"I sit at my desk and I can see the picture every day, and just recently I began to think, ‘Why did he stand there just long enough for me to take all these frames with three different cameras?’” Alexander said in 2006. “You can’t do that in two minutes. But he’s looking across the green at Claude Harmon. And I’m going to have the temerity to think that he posed for me by saying to himself, ‘I’m going to give this guy a shot.’ ”

 It's iconic for a reason....and you might also enjoy this very personal reflection on Alexander.

The second loss is architect Bob Cupp, whose career I'm unable to help you put in perspective, but who seems like a great guy in this reflection by Ron Whitten:

I last saw Bob Cupp, who died August 19 at age 76, back in June, a few months after he’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We met at his home in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, a house he had designed and built about 20 years ago, just around the corner from Capital City Club Brookhaven, whose course he’d totally remodeled almost a decade ago, a course I insist is now prettier than Augusta National.

Do read the whole thing, as it's a wonderfully warm memory filled with great stories, including this one:

We talked of his early years, how he studied art at the University of Miami with the intention of being a commercial artist, and after graduation joined the U.S. Army, stationed in Fort Richardson, Alaska, where he played golf several times with Claude Harmon’s son, P.F. C. Butch Harmon. Bob and Butch ran into one another again 30 years later, at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon, when Bob’s 36-hole complex was hosting the U.S. Amateur. Butch was there helping his latest pupil, Tiger Woods, who would win his third straight title that week and then turn pro. Bob said he and Butch had dinner during the event, each agreeing the other had turned out far better than expected.

Did that P.F.C. Harmon ever make anything of himself?

As I hinted, Cupp the architect is an enigma to me because of two specific words, Liberty National.  Now sometimes train wrecks aren't the architects fault, so we'll leave it at that....  But he spent much of his career working for Nicklaus, so the reader can draw his or her own conclusions...  His most acclaimed work is in Oregon, Crosswater and Pumpkin Ridge, and the former was unfortunately closed to replace the greens when the bride and I visited central Oregon.

Is that enough for now?  I'm afraid it will have to be, but I'll see you in the morning.