Your Friday Frisson

Still a bit time constrained, but wanted to throw some time-killers out there for y'all.  We'll wrap the weekend's action on Monday, but I'm of a mind to simply skip yesterdays' action and focus elsewhere.

Top 100, Golf Magazine Version - Their newest list dropped earlier in the week, and a quick scroll of the Top Ten will confirm that they've captured the usual suspects, but with vivid photography.  As is typical, the list itself is a long slog, but it's sometimes fun to see how perceptions can change within a seemingly calcified hierarchy.

For instance, Ran Morrissett (proprietor of architectural geek heave, Golf Club Atlas) and his fellow writers have penned a series of articles promoting the list, including this Sean Zak piece on six big movers from the prior list.  Unsurprisingly, several well-known courses have seen their reputations enhanced by restorations, including this former monster:

Oakland Hills — Bloomfield Hills, MI (No. 31, up 41 spots):

“I have to say, when I first went to see Oakland Hills … When I saw it, I didn’t quite get it,” said Top 100 rater Simon Holt. “I came home and I was like, ‘Why is Oakland Hills ranked so highly.

I’ll dip into my library and I’ll grab The Confidential Guide and Tom [Doak] rated it an 8 or a 9. I just didn’t quite get it. So that was a pleasant surprise to me to see it jump so highly because when I read up about it, it was all about these amazing green complexes.”

That is part of the hook of Oakland Hills, and a recent renovation that was completed in 2021 has increased its appeal in a big way for raters. Holt, who is based in Scotland, says he’s done plenty of reading on this particular renovation from Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, and how they have increased the size of the greens at Oakland hills by 35%. Holt’s thoughts now are simple: “I’m excited to go back there. That’s a pleasant surprise for me.”

There's been consistent praise for this restoration (I know it's only a brief blurb, but CTRL:F Donald Ross yielding zero results is journalistic malpractice), and equally consistent speculation that it could be back in play for major consideration.  If you are curious about my use of the M-word above, this will provide the background.

I'm far more interested in a place such as this:

Myopia Hunt Club — Hamilton, MA (No. 72, up 20 spots):

“Built around the turn of the last century, this lay-of-the-land design by H.C. Leeds features greens that follow the flow of their general surrounds,” Morrissett wrote. “Modern green speeds make many of the approach shots prickly, especially those at the 4th, 6th, 8th and 13th holes. Leeds’s trench-like bunkers need to be avoided and Hanse’s restoration has the entire design at peak. The challenge of this 6,555-yard course doesn’t hinge on length, which is a fact that our panel embraces.”

In addition to that memorable name, Myopia held four U.S. Opens between between 1898 and 1908, the first two when the course was only nine holes.  As per this snippet from Golf Digest, it's always been a quirky track:

Few realize Myopia Hunt Club, a funky, quirky lark where greens look like bathmats and bunkers look like bathtubs, hosted four U.S. Open championships by 1908.

It's great to restore major championship venues such as Oakland Hills, but even better to restore venues like Myopia where the game took root in America.

Ran himself penned this piece on the seven newcomers, from whence we discussed St. Patrick's Links yesterday.   But, Ran, this seems hardly a newcomer:

No. 57: Baltusrol (Lower)

Springfield, N.J.

A.W. Tillinghast (1922)

What our raters like: For decades, Baltusrol had what it took to run headache-free major championships. After a 2020 restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner — which included reinstallation of some of A.W. Tillinghast’s most imaginative bunkering schemes — one of the game’s finest driving tests is fully back.

We'll see it soon, as the women's KPMG-PGA will visit in 2023.   

There's at least a couple of others that are in this vein, but here's a quirky entry that most of us will never get to:

No. 74: Ardfin

Isle of Jura, Scotland

Bob Harrison (2017)

What our raters like: On the Ardfin Estate, seclusion and quiet are guaranteed — access to the Isle of Jura comes by boat, either from the adjacent Isle of Islay or from mainland Scotland — with the stage set for golfers to enjoy time in the wilds of nature.

I've blogged about Ardfin previously.  It looks like quite the otherworldly place, though fellow purists should know that it is most definitely not a links.

But mathematical rankings aside, this is Ran's most important contribution:

Why the release of the golf ball along the ground is a beautiful thing

In addition to improving their overall aesthetic, parkland courses have been reimagined to play better than ever. You can use the recovered back knobs on the 3rd, 5th and 17th greens at Oakland Hills to work a ball eight to 10 yards toward the hole. Fun! You can now hit a bullet approach that runs onto the open, bunkerless 14th green nestled in a gentle depression. Outstanding! These opportunities are the type of ground-game shots you might expect at North Berwick (No. 35), not outside the Motor City. Count on Director of Agronomy Phil Cuffare and his crew to provide playing surfaces that allow you to play whatever shot you can dream up.

Firm surfaces are golf’s nirvana. They help the less talented players while challenging the very best. Large swaths of golfers, from beginners learning the sport to those growing old gracefully with her, benefit from the release of the ball along the ground.

Amen, sister!  There is simply nothing more exciting in the game of golf than what a ball does after impact.   And that make slinks golf the best and purest version of our game, though it's far easier for your humble blogger to type those words with an actual Scotland trip on the calendar.

Today In Comic Relief - Well, we won't need to spend much time with this one, will we?

The 9 greatest fall events in the PGA Tour's wraparound era

Props to the gang at Golf Digest for coming up with nine, because... well, you know why.  But that barrel might be leaking, given the excessive scraping of its bottom.  For instance:

9. Bermuda Championship, 2019: Todd's rise from the abyss

This is the one tournament on our list that wasn't particularly close—Brendon Todd won by four strokes over Harry Higgs—but it was massive in what it represented for his career. Todd truly came from the depths of professional golf to win this one, to the point that a few months before, he was so far gone that he was on the verge of quitting and buying a fast-food franchise. Instead, he embarked on what remains the greatest fall season by a single golfer ever, and it all started in Bermuda.

Well, sure, who among us still doesn't get chills from that?  

We've frequently discussed our compromised sporting press, but it's hard to rationalize such transparent flakery, except to assume a rather large check was involved.

Of course, Jay has been having himself quite the Fall Finish this year, as there have frequently been as many as a dozen viewers tuned in to the Golf Channel broadcasts.  OK, I exaggerate, but not by much, as Geoff earlier in the week had last weekend's ratings:

There is some positive news for golf: TNT’s Wednesday prime time hockey game pulled up the rear for the second week in a row, but still crushed golf in the only demo that matters.

Showbuzzdaily.com posted the 2021 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open ratings (.15/222,000 average viewers of which only 32,000 are of the magical 18-49 demo). Remember, I am not responsible for carpel tunnel caused by scrolling down to find the golf where, you’ll see the flatbellies were beaten by the Schwab Cup Championship featuring Phil Mickelson winning and Bernhard Langer capping off his sixth cup win.

This is the second time in recent weeks that the round-bellies outdrew the flagship tour's event.  Comically, presented with clear cut evidence that nobody will watch golf in the fall, the golf world is conspiring to shove more golf down our throats.  

A Golf Anniversary -  Geoff celebrates a golf anniversary in a partially paywalled item at his Quadrilateral:

Ninety-one years ago Bobby Jones made it official.

He’d had enough. And Hollywood here I come!

I recently came across my copy of The Complete Book of Golf, one in a long line of New York Times “Scrapbook History” tomes featuring the newspaper’s best golf coverage from 1906 to 1979. During some recent library reorganizing I happened upon the book and, since this is The Quadrilateral, went straight to Jones’ Grand Slam year. I was pleasantly surprised to see the book included coverage of Jones’ retirement.

The story of his farewell announcement from competitive play earned front page placement the next day, November 18th, with a subheadline noting the possible $250,000 pay package Jones stood to enjoy by going west to make some golf films for Warner Brothers. The Times package also included supplemental coverage featuring unbylined AP stories from Atlanta, London and Chicago reacting to the news. Now those pages are all gloriously housed online for subscribers.

Very much on brand for Geoff's endeavor, because Jones' retirement came after completing the Impregnable Quadrilateral, the felicitous term usually attributed to O.B. Keeler that we now call a Grand Slam.

Quite a few areas of interest for us here, not least the fact that this news garnered front page N.Y. Times coverage:

Of course this was long before Pravda's anti-golf jihad of the Martha Burke era.... 

Geoff, in the portion of his post available to the great unwashed masses, covers several of the interesting aspects, including the fact that Jones originally was planning on merely fading away:

Jones issued a long and revealing statement that included this: “My intention at the time was to make no announcement of retirement, but merely to drop out quietly by neglecting to send in my entry to the open championship next Spring. There was at that time no reason to make a definite statement of any kind, but since then, after careful consideration, I have decided upon a step which I think ought to be explained to the golfers of this country, in order that they may have a clear understanding of what the thing is and why it is being done.”

The film career is its own bit of interesting history, including the films themselves, but also the conflict with the rules governing amateur status:

Jones explained how the films were “purely educational in nature” to soften the landing of taking money as a result of his golf skill, then a huge rules and image no-no. “I am so far convinced that it is contrary to the spirit of amateurism that I am prepared to accept and even endorse a ruling that is an infringement. I have chosen to play as an amateur, not because I have regarded an honest professionalism as discredible but simply because I have had other ambitions in life.”

Jones also made clear he’d had enough: “When these pictures have been made, I expect to return to the practice of my profession, unhampered by the necessity of keeping my golf up to championship requirements.” Jones did end up playing in twelve Masters between 1934 to 1948.

He did more than just explain, as per Ed Travis:

Therefore, a month and a half after winning the U.S. Amateur for the last time he sent a letter to

the USGA announcing his retirement from championship golf and renouncing his amateur status.

So he did neither. Jones sent the letter because he knew the USGA rules strictly defined what constituted being an amateur and he was planning to make money from ventures related to golf so he would have been in violation. This in spite an earlier ruling by the USGA that money Jones received for a column appearing in several hundred newspapers did not somehow violate his amateur status. Inconsistent to be sure but probably more a reflection of the prevalent opinion a journalist was above the common drudgery of earning money from the game in contrast with lowly professionals.

And Jones was not about to sell his endorsement of some product just for the sake of making money. In fact his best known project wasn’t an endorsement deal at all but an immensely popular series of one-reel instructional films shown in movie theaters entitled “How I Play Golf.” Even today these films are worth watching, filled with information about the golf swing though Jones disliked what he called the “corny” story lines transparently centered on him giving lessons to movie stars.

This is a larger story than can be dealt with in then present moment, but the USGA had a longstanding history of inconsistency as relates to amateur status.  Prior to Jones, the most famous amateur golfer in the country was Frances Ouimet, and this was his treatment at the hand of that august organization:

Ouimet never turned professional;[1] he wished to remain an amateur for his whole career, as he decided before his U.S. Open success that he wanted to work in the world of business. In 1916, however, the USGA, in one of the most controversial decisions in their history, stripped Ouimet of his amateur status. Its reasoning was that he was using his celebrity to aid his own sporting goods business and was therefore making a living from golf. This was at the time when caddies were not allowed to continue caddying after they reached the age of 16, unless they declared themselves professionals. The decision was greeted with uproar from Ouimet's fellow golfers. In 1918, Ouimet enlisted in the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of lieutenant. After the war, the USGA quietly reinstated his amateur status. Ouimet did not bear a grudge against the USGA and served on several committees. He was also a golf member of Charles River Country Club in Newton Centre, and was a member of the Woodland Golf Club of Auburndale.

It speaks well of both of these gentlemen that they didn't hold a grudge, because a grudge seems appropriate.  

 A different era for sure.  I've always been a fan of the three Mark Frost golf books, because I though their greatest contribution to be explicating the conflict between the amateur and professional games of the various eras he covered. beginning with that 1913 U.S. Open and ending with the 1950's, which was the last period in which the amateur players were plausibly the equal of the professionals.

That's all that time allows today.  Have a great weekend and we'll catch up on Monday.