So the leading LIV names - DeChambeau, Mickelson, Rahm - have finally figured out that no one cares one iota about their little hidden tour and they are withering away in obscurity.
Watching
@TigerWoods
hit shot after shot flawlessly, powerfully, at a clinic here in Cabo. I don't know if he's back, but he certainly looks and talks like someone who feels he can play premier golf again.
@GrantWahl
Brilliant sports writer covering a scandalised event in context and pays for exercising that right with his life. The whole event there has been sickening; this is a culminating moment of criminal disgrace
What we've lost: it's less the score at St. Andrews than how they get it. Holes 7-9-10-12 are drivable par-4s. 18 is a par 3. The game is just driver and short game, no middle game. A whole dimension is missing. When Faldo won in 1990 he did it with 5-6-7-8 irons as well.
PGA of America needs to move 2022 PGA Championship from Bedminster. No reputable business will associate with it anyway; more importantly is the principle of not aligning with tyrants. This is not a partisan political issue but a basic one of existence of American republic.
Field work on Yale restoration underway: Gil Hanse with design associates Ben Hillard and Kevin Murphy, and Yale super Jeff Austin (r.) yesterday, took four hours to walk through four holes. Plan basically is to make the place as big as it used to be.
If
@PGATOUR
wants to get back in action in June, it can simplify the presentation and reduce one avenue of risk by having players carry their own bags. How much fun would that be to watch!
Just played the perfect golf club. Kittansett, Marion, Ma. First time here. William Flynn design. Stunning in its complex bunkering and green contours and ease of naturalness, restored by Hanse. Here the par-4 16th.
Discovered an absolute Donald Ross gem today - front nine at Thendara GC, Old Forge, NY, 50 miles north of Teugega CC. Walked in the rain and fell in love, like a century-old time warp.
Impossible to watch
@PGATour
golf b/c
@CBSSports
doesn't show it. They air a set of shots, usually a trio, then break for commercial blocks. Typical sequence: Ads. Tee shots on 12. Ads. 2nd/3rd shots at green. Ads. Tee shots on 13. Ads. Forget it.
USGA needs to ban a caddie straddling the line (defined as planting feet on both sides of an imaginary line extending from hole past the golf ball); also ban greens reading books.
In honor of Donald Ross's birthday today, images from one of my favorites, where he spent an immense amount of time and it remains pure: Teugega CC in Rome, NY
Which/hole would you rather play? Hint: same hole, before/after restoration, 11th at The Country Club. Try to overlook early spring conditions of "after." This now goes into my standard Architecture 101 talk.
I have figured out how to solve perpetual dilemma of U.S. Open course set ups. 13-person committee of pin setters needs to defer judgment to the superintendent and three veteran caddies from the course and have them locate holes based upon common sense and pace of play.
Just finished first round of "Touchless Golf" of the new world order. Kept flagsticks in; raked bunker with gloved hand; no fist bumps or high fives or even elbows; at end of round we held up our putters high and let the blades clank. Group solidarity for 3:45 w/o the contact.
10th anniversary of career round - 74 at Sand Hills as an 11, attested to by playing partner Dick Youngscap. One of those days, little wind, hit every fairway, 12 greens, never missed a putt inside 6 feet, no bunkers.
All-time favorite match play story (which I hope is true): at 15th hole of tight SF Am match, Venturi putted to 3-inches, then picked up the putt. Opponent protested that it had not been conceded. Venturi's response: "You're right. By the way, you have 15 clubs in your bag."
Proud to announce that Tatnuck CC in Worcester, MA, a 9-hole Donald Ross design from 1912-13, has retained
@Dusenberry_Golf
and me to oversee a Master Plan restoration - our third collaborative project (
@keneyparkgolf
&
@CCWaterbury
). We'll be working with superintendent
@resleyc
One of my favorite tees in golf, a rare three-way launch pad for holes 1-14-17 at Brooklawn in CT, a Tillinghast gem that will hold the 2021 US Women’s Senior Open this summer.
Just got my official inquiry to see if I'd be interested in attending/covering the 2022 Saudi International golf tournament. Wondering if I should ask them to promise not to kill any of the working media.
Tom Weiskopf, RIP, 1942-2022, only about three career strokes short of the World Golf Hall of Fame. One of golf's great personalities, will be missed on the course as both a major champion and as a major designer. Loved interviewing him and writing about him.
It’s a Ross course again, de-Fazioed.
@OakHillCC
- short par-4 14th and par-3 15th (after pond removal): quite the ambitious overhaul/restoration
@GreenGCA
My sense is that the surest sign of a completely dysfunctional club is the prevalence of multiple single motorized carts in a fourball. That shows complete contempt for the golf course and complete indifference to fellowship. A club that allows it is morally bankrupt.
Honored to play a small consulting role in the Gil Hanse restoration of Donald Ross' historic Worcester CC (MA) with his team, superintendent Adam Moore and contractor
@MASgolfconst
- here the iconic short downhill par-3 10th, with the modest thumbprint green brought back.
@TimothyDSnyder
As always, thank you for all you are doing - writing, speaking, researching, fund raising - to save democracy here, in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Astonishing walk around Ross’ CCBuffalo. Here the famed par-3 6th Volcano hole set amidst an old quarry (in bad light, apologies). The most dramatic of the strongest set of par-3s of Ross I have ever seen. Breathless.
Who needs LIV? This PGATour drama is pretty impressive. I did not have McCarthy and Bhatia on my Bingo card at the beginning of the week, but they put on a helluva show in San Antonio.
The case for restoration: Wampanoag CC, West Hartford, CT, 18th hole, 1995/2023. Which one would you rather play? Proud to have made the case back then (as a member) and to have helped Tyler Rae as a consultant implement it last year.
Olympia Fields CC approves restoration/renovation plan for South Course by architect Andy Staples, ASGCA
@buildsmartrgolf
- work to begin in fall of 2021. Drainage, trees, bunkers, more short grass, greens expansions planned.
Muirfield Village - no course has even tweaked more and change less in the last 30 years. Member access takes a back seat to prepping it for tournaments once or twice a week. Chad Marks does an amazing job growing turf to within an inch of its life under very tough expectations
Was just watching PGA Tour Champions Chubb Classic while on the treadmill and Jacobsen, BRB were claiming that Jim Furyk definitely belongs in WGHOF and I'm thinking they first ought to induct his caddie, Mike "Fluff" Cowan. Never been a full-time caddie inducted yet. It's time.
There's an old saying in agronomy, something like that "the greens were never better than on the day before they died." In a remarkably well-managed, 2-week process overseen by
@PGATour
agronomist
@Calsuper
and
@MVGC
@chadmark614
we might get to watch that today.
Perfect day of research. Morning set up walk at Shinnecock Hills w/ Jon Jennings, then golf at St. George’s G&CC seeing what magic Adam Jessie is up to.
A well-spent weekend doing final edits on my next book, a centenary history of a Tillinghast gem, Southward Ho Country Club on Long Island. Should be out in June.
Stunningly bold restoration of Oakland Hills-South by Hanse/Wagner, including one of my all-time favorite Ross holes, the 11th (r), plus hybrid Ross-RTJ 15th (l). About to re-open after 22 months.
It's a miracle - I'm hearing from private clubs t/o the NE and Midwest that suddenly, members who had to ride are walking, carrying their own bag. Like those miracle flights from FL to CT where 20 people needed wheelchairs to board but easily stroll off.
Excited to have worked with Tyler Rae on restoration of Ross-designed Wampanoag CC in my neighboring town of West Hartford, CT. Course reopens in 3 weeks; will make quite the splash. Here holes 1, 8, 18.
Golf has eked out permission to remain in a precarious existence in +/-30 states, but based upon what I see/hear too many golfers are not complying with basic rules of safe distance; this could soon ruin it for everyone.
Another great Donald Ross course to honor on his birthday: Whitinsville, in central Massachusetts, as pure a Ross course as you'll find, which is why I tell all architects doing Ross work to visit it.
My new vote for course most desperately needing a restoration, Timber Point GC, South Shore, Suffolk County, Long Island. Here the famed Gibraltar, Blue Course par-3 5th hole.
Have never seen Mickelson speak with less confidence. He’s skating on thin ice, avoiding questions, speaking in vague cliches, totally lacking in depth and honesty.
One of the most exciting approach views in anticipation of a round of golf anywhere in the world - Cruden Bay. Nothing like it. A kind of playful random order pervades the entire place.
Scott Nelson and I (co-authors of "Citizenship After Trump," Routledge, 2022) assess the shadow of fascism globally in this column for Public Notice.
It can (and almost did) happen here
Having renewed my USGA membership, went out the other day and played my first round of the year solo leaving all the pins in to utilize new rules; then got saddened by realization they don't want me posting my score because they don't trust me.
Sunday morning. Been watching
@TheOpen
for two hours already. I have to exercise, do yard work, write. But I am hypnotised, inert, in a St Andrews links trance and will probably remain in this state for another six hours.
Greens speeds at ANGC are notoriously hard to measure b/c of severe slopes. Here's how to calculate. Stimpmeter #= 1/2 downhill measurement squared minus the coefficient of restitution of roller brushes divided by # of pimento sandwiches needed for lunch after the clean up lap.
Perfect day to start restoration construction at historic Ross-designed Worcester CC (MA). Proud to be working with Gil Hanse, Kevin Murphy, superintendent Adam Moore and
@masgolfconst
One of my all-time favorite moments in Donald Ross design - 1922 Kennett Square G&CC, PA, with 8th-17th-10 holes (l-t-r) converging. Proud to have worked w/
@paul_albanese
& super Paul Stead / assistant Scott Musser (photo credit) on restoring these original, rectangular bunkers
My latest golf architecture book now out; had enthusasistic book signing last night at St. George's G&CC. Volume includes detailed bio of Devereux Emmet, long profile of Gil Hanse, plus hole by hole, history and account of superintendent Adam Jessie. $65 US/$95 Int'l
Done for the day - got into it, wrote a 3,000 word US Open preview with lots of behind-the-scenes stuff on Donald Ross, Pinehurst No. 2 and the playing character of the course. Editor asked for it and now he’s got it. Did a lot of mowing in-between.
Golf Channel posted a video of JT under the headline "Watch: Thomas miffed after Internationals don't concede putt." This, of course, as the item points out, after Thomas & Fowler made Haotong Li replay an approach shot struck out of turn. It's match play, so don't expect gifts.
How to achieve sustainability. Design for 6,300 yards. Minimize heavily maintained areas. Stop defending par and just make it fun. Vision 2050: Bradley Klein calls for a reorientation of golf
Another reason to replace your divots! 50 years playing golf and had this lie in fairway first time ever. Casual round so I took relief “GUR” but in a real round/event I would have had to play it as it was sitting.
Proud to be part of Whitinsville GC (9/hole Ross gem) restoration with Gil Hanse, Kevin Murphy, superintendent Shaun Mitchell and
@MASGolfconst
team: 3 bunkers in this week as part of long-term restoration, very minor tweak. 1st hole here.
A historic day today, not only for
@invernessclub
and
@greengca
but also for golf course architecture worldwide. Much needed restoration of Inverness Club finally undoes 40 years of the most botched, major modernization work in U.S. golf.
Anybody else notice, across the board, all sports programming - network TV, AM/FM radio, web - been totally infiltrated with gambling related content, not just ads but t/o commentary. They are subliminally and overtly feeding a frenzy and it's unlistenable once you catch on to it