Category: 19th Hole

19th hole: Revealing a wish list of courses yet unplayed

The list numbers several clubs that are difficult to get to from the northern coast of Tasmania to an Old Course in western Ireland.

The flipping of the calendar is when Tour professionals seem least like the rest of us. Their goal-setting for the coming year is invariably focused on lofty objectives, like winning, making teams, retaining privileges, improving rankings. The closest I get to performance-based ambitions is a desire to reduce both balls lost and F-bombs dropped, a fruitless effort of several seasons now.

The dawn of 2020 offered a fresh reminder of how few of those who play for a living also play for pleasure, or for education. Zac Blair stood alone among his peers simply by mirroring what so many of us mortals do at this time of the season: compiling a wish list of courses yet unplayed. Blair’s brief included several courses featured in my own version, but the only thing any of our lists really share in common is their essential subjectivity. The lineup aspired to by a casual enthusiast may differ greatly from that of an architecture aficionado, but neither is inherently superior.

As a callow youth I spent a decade and a half sullying the world’s finest golf courses, each round completed helping move others higher up the target list. In recent years I’ve played less — apathy and inaccuracy are a debilitating combination — but the list still exists. Most of my roughly 15 rounds in 2019 came at courses I’d played before. I erased just one entry on the wish list, Garden City Golf Club, the Devereux Emmet-Walter Travis masterpiece just 25 miles east of Manhattan.

On January 1, I tweeted my top five wish list for U.S. golf courses (the final spot on any such docket should always feature a tie, hence my top five totals 11 courses):

1. Fishers Island
2. Chicago Golf Club
3. The Country Club
4. Somerset Hills
5. Eastward Ho, Myopia Hunt, The Creek Club, Mountain Lake, Crystal Downs, Maidstone, Yeamans Hall

The Country Club hosted the 2013 U.S. Amateur. (AP Photo/Gretchen Ertl)

A few Tweeters wondered how such a list could not include places like Pine Valley or Cypress Point, but such correspondents would also likely ask Pope Francis why he didn’t list the Vatican among places he’d most like to visit. More surprising was the number of strangers who kindly reached out with invitations to join them at these clubs, a delightful change from the usual social media offers inviting me to go forth and multiply.

An offer to play Seth Raynor’s Yeamans Hall near Charleston, South Carolina, came from Brian Schneider. He works with the eminent designer Tom Doak and has produced fine work, like a renovation at Hollywood G.C. in New Jersey. I first met Schneider over fish and chips in the tiny village of Bridport on the northern coast of Tasmania, Australia, in 2003. He was working on Barnbougle Dunes, the celebrated creation of Doak and Mike Clayton. We have seen each other just once in the ensuing years, but such is the circle of golf.

A desire to see the finished product is why Barnbougle Dunes is among the 11 courses that make my top five international targets.

1. Royal Melbourne
2. Royal St. George’s
3. Kingston Heath
4. Swinley Forest
5. Barnbougle Dunes, Lahinch, Morfontaine, Cape Wickham, Cruden Bay, Machrihanish, Royal Cinque Ports.

Rory McIlroy hits out of the bunker on the 18th hole during the second day of the British Open Golf Championship at Royal St George’s golf course Sandwich, England, on July 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

This list numbers several clubs that are difficult to get to and at least one that is difficult to get into, though I have yet to issue that s’il vous plaît request. Each earns a spot for distinct reasons.

I walked the beguilingly beautiful Royal Melbourne with Doak during that ’03 trip but we didn’t have time to play it — akin to ushering a ravenous man from a banquet having served only a feast for his eyes. It has been top of my wish list ever since.

Jack Nicklaus once famously remarked that Open Championship venues get worse the farther south one goes. Royal St. George’s sits on England’s southern coast, but my interest is less noble than comparative architectural merit. It will host golf’s oldest major for the 15th time in July and is the only course on the rota I’ve never played.

Swinley Forest is a club renowned for its eccentricities and a course celebrated for its brilliance, though barely 6,000 yards in length. Lahinch is the only top-tier Irish course I’ve not played. I’ve stood on the breathtaking first tee at Machrihanish, but that was at night. Reasons enough for all to feature on my list.

It’s both a blessing and a curse for golfers that our wish lists are never completed, that like an Irish enemies inventory it is perpetually replenished from a seemingly bottomless reservoir. For every Fishers Island or Royal Melbourne that is eliminated, an Ohoopee Match Club or Hirono stands ready to take its place. And that is an indispensable element of these dreams in draft form — that pleasure exists not only in striking through the names consummated but in the addition of those to be courted next.

Most all of us have more great courses remaining to be played than years in which to do it. All we can hope is that the wish list we draft a year from now measures progress against today’s.

A view from the 9th tee over the par 5, 12th hole (left to bridge) with the 10th and 13th greens in the foreground on the The Old Course at Lahinch Golf Club, on September 28, 2005 in Lahinch, Co. Clare, Ireland (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)

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As the decade closes, new year promises tantalizing plots, villains and rivalry

Tiger Woods’ late-season resurgence makes 2020 all the more tantalizing, but there are subplots on the PGA Tour to keep things interesting.

The denouement of a decade invariably means drawing together disparate threads to weave a onesie that provides everyone a warm, comforting feeling about the future. In a year like 2019, when Tiger Woods reasserted himself, that onesie feels like cashmere. At other times, it is fashioned from a burlap sack.

Such was the case in 2009, when the first decade of the 21st century drew to a close with a season of major winners whose dreariness didn’t diminish their deservedness.

At the Masters, Angel Cabrera’s translator was about as compelling in the Butler Cabin interview than anything we might have heard from either man who lost that playoff, Kenny Perry or Chad Campbell. Lucas Glover won a sodden U.S. Open at Bethpage Black — supposedly golf’s toughest major on its toughest course — by going 6 iron-9 iron up the 18th. Tom Watson was within a putt of winning the Open Championship but left us all with that Cinking feeling. Y.E. Yang downed Woods at the PGA Championship, which at least provides him an eye-catching opening sentence when writing sponsors exemption requests for the PGA Tour Champions in a couple of years.

That decade ended with Woods’s car accident, which imploded his marriage, his image and, for a time, his career. All in all, an ignominious end to an inglorious year.

If the second chapter of this century opened with Woods’s fall, it closes with his resurrection. As Greeks like to say at Easter, Christos anesti. It was the now 44-year-old Woods who ensured ’19 was a standout year and whose late-season resurgence makes ’20 all the more tantalizing. This was a year that promises a coming rich bounty compared to the fallowness of a decade ago.

Consider the principal players. Woods is again the Tour’s alpha silverback, no matter how much Brooks Koepka tweaks his peers. Rory McIlroy is mining a rich seam of form and with Koepka has created golf’s first rivalry since the days when Greg Norman was known more for losing his nerve than his drawers, a duel that is only heightened by Koepka’s denial that it exists. Jordan Spieth’s crash landing from that early supernova status makes him the most interesting man in the game, from the neck up.

Phil Mickelson is continuing to find ways to keep himself at least on the undercard as the wins have become more sparse, from money matches to dress shirts to hitting moving balls to cute Instagram videos (perhaps he’ll post a funny from one of Saudi Arabia’s roughly 150 annual beheadings when he’s there next month on a cash grab).

Other players have administered a fatal dose of sodium pentothal to a marketing image that had long been on life support: that every golfer is honorable and part of one happy Tour family. Both Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau dispensed with the latter artifice — Brooks by trash-talking his rivals while never letting his heart rate get above Hannibal Lecter levels, the Scientist with a screw y’all defense of his slow play. At last Bryson’s reputation is one that can be shaken.

The parable of the honorable golfer was laid bare by Sergio Garcia and Patrick Reed. Clearly, their offenses weren’t of similar gravity — at least Sergio’s unprofessional dislodging of sand in a bunker came after his ball had been struck — but both have given golf fans the option long enjoyed by those in other sports, that of rooting for or against the morally ambiguous antihero. The pashas in Ponte Vedra may squirm at the notion, but the PGA Tour will only benefit from the presence of villains, and will suffer only if its custodians attempt to gaslight fans with an alternate reality.

From the aching disappointment that was 2009, this decade draws to a close with a season that instead teases the halcyon era we’ve ached for since, well, since Tiger’s first reign ended 10 years ago.

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19th hole: When Captain America is hurting the USA

The team circled the wagons around Captain America at Royal Melbourne, but at what cost?

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Patriotism is the intrinsic creed of American sport. You don’t become known as Captain America unless you have exhibited the holy trinity of traits: a fiery will to win, a bulletproof confidence, and an eagerness to wrap yourself in the flag. You need to back it up with results, obviously, but our stubborn veneration of these attributes also helps annul any less admirable character quirks a winner might possess.

For example, an unscrupulous reputation earned as a sallow young man is forgotten if a major victory brings global prestige. It’s simply assumed you’ll rise to the responsibilities expected, like honor, integrity, professionalism, diplomacy. You’re representing America, after all.

And if you’re congenitally incapable of living up to the ideals Captain America embodies? If you are the sickly man and not the superhero? Just keep winning. It’s the serum that transforms feeble into fearsome. You can even stray out of bounds — hey, we’re all human! — and you’ll be forgiven, as long as the ledger shows positive numbers. Rewrite the rulebook in pursuit of victory. Push beyond arcane conventions. Be confident, brazen even. If you nudge beyond accepted norms and you’re famous, they just let you keep doing it.

There will be critics who treat you unfairly, but some folks are just triggered by seeing a winner do things his own way rather than conduct himself like generations of long-dead predecessors. They wouldn’t be making such a big deal of things if you weren’t Captain America. They’re just not supporters of the team. Simple as.

There will be challenging times, days when you’re just trying to dig yourself out of a hole. That’s when Captain America needs his team to circle the wagons against incoming fire. You’ll need, say, a fellow winner to reassure everyone that things are good. A popular teammate to leaven the tension with humor, knowing you’ll trade a pained smile for the air cover he provides. A law-abiding gentleman to offer praise, even if it feels undeserved. Armed with that, you can openly shovel scorn on your critics. Maybe even have someone knock the hell out of them.

Eventually the wins will begin to ebb and the losses will start to flow, and like lousy casino bets the occasional positive won’t cover the many negatives. You’ll still receive more grace than you give though. And in those moments of loss, people will know you stood firm against headwinds that flipped weaker men. Others will perform better, and represent better, but the team won’t break ranks while its interest and yours remain aligned. And that interest is winning. Who will bench Captain America for fear an unproven alternative delivers less?

It’s like you always say: you make birdies, you don’t hear much.

Investing in Captain America comes at a cost, of course. Everyone understands that accounting. Longtime allies will melt away. Reputations built on probity will be blemished. Men of character will sit on the sidelines while one with none takes the field. But payment for that will be due someone else. Captain America’s end, when it comes, won’t be amid the raucous cheers and backslapping that defined his victories. It will be a somber affair, decided in some nondescript office when powerful men, an eye trained on their disillusioned core supporters, say simply, enough.

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19th hole: Only women can save the Presidents Cup

Making the Presidents Cup a co-ed event would give it a unique flavor while elevating women’s golf.

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It’s only a slight exaggeration to suggest that the Presidents Cup faces an existential crisis when its 13th edition gets underway Thursday in Australia, since the previous 12 playings have been about as competitive as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.

There have been 10 U.S. wins, one tie, and one victory for the Internationals, their lone highlight now so distant that Stuart Appleby is the only member of that winning team still not eligible for the senior circuit. The International squad is awfully close to being golf’s equivalent of the ’76 Tampa Bay Bucs, which went 0-14 then lost the first 12 games of the next season too.

Several factors promise a more entertaining Cup this time: the majestic Royal Melbourne as a venue, Tiger Woods as a playing captain, and the likelihood that voluble Aussie fans will remind Patrick Reed of the game’s rudimentary rules. Even with that, will another U.S. victory sound a death knell for an event whose results are as lop-sided as the Christians-Lions battles in ancient Rome?

Not so fast, says Frank Nobilo, who played on three International teams and twice served as assistant captain. He points to how uncompetitive the Ryder Cup was for decades before the tide turned in the 1980s. “Look what it has grown into today,” Nobilo says.

“I think the Presidents Cup is going through a tender stage purely because of the lack of strength at the top of the ’80’s and ’90s,” he adds, pointing to an era when world No. 1’s didn’t hail from America or Europe, like Greg Norman, Nick Price, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh. “Those times will come again and it will be less fleeting when it happens.”

Nobilo also notes the value of the Presidents Cup isn’t measured simply in points won and lost, that it has a positive trickle-down effect to junior programs akin to Olympic golf and the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship.

Defeat for Team USA may constitute a win for the Presidents Cup itself, much as how yachting’s America’s Cup grew in stature only after 1983, when the U.S. lost for the first time in 132 years. But is an International victory sufficient? Does even a more competitive Presidents Cup have an identity other than being not the Ryder Cup? It may be time to rethink the event, regardless of whether Woods or Els leads his troops to victory in Melbourne.

My two cents: make the Presidents Cup co-ed, adding the best women to the squads. It would give the event a unique flavor while elevating women’s golf. The LPGA Tour is a global circuit, but too many of its finest players are ineligible for the Solheim Cup, being neither American nor European. Let’s see an alternate shot format where Jin Young Ko plays off Adam Scott’s drives, and Tiger plays off Lexi Thompson’s.

A co-ed Presidents Cup would pair men and women in a genuine competitive setting, not a hit-and-giggle like the long defunct Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge. It would also make real the prospect of superstar golfers playing for a female captain. Golf could use some optics like that.

It’s been 40 years since the Ryder Cup was resuscitated when the old downtrodden Great Britain & Ireland team morphed into a triumphant European squad, but the Ryder Cup also had the advantage of its dull decades coming long before the dawn-to-dusk TV coverage of every swing. The Presidents Cup enjoys no such luxury and won’t survive many more years of mundanity. It may be time to consider that its saviors may not be guys like Woods and Els, but women like Nelly Korda and Sung Hyun Park.

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19th hole: The billionaires golf club with two members, one mission.

Congaree finds high school students who have talent to play college golf, but who lack financial or social advantages to pursue the dream.

It’s difficult to imagine two more discordant places than Sea Island and Ridgeland, which are separated by so much more than the two-hour drive on I-95. The Georgia barrier island is home to the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic, to one of golf’s most upscale resorts, and to many of its finest players. Ridgeland is … well, not.

While Sea Island did its part for charity at this week’s Tour stop, which has raised more than $13 million since 2010, Ridgeland — seat of South Carolina’s Jasper County, one of the poorest in the nation — is where you’ll find a new kind of golf philanthropy.

Located behind a wooden gate along a two-lane road in the woods, Congaree isn’t a golf club in the conventional sense. There is a course — actually, one of the best that Tom Fazio ever signed his name to — but that is almost incidental. At Congaree, golf is the route, not the destination.

It opened in 2017 and has only two official members — its billionaire founders Dan Friedkin and the late Robert McNair, who owned the Houston Texans. What it has instead are invited ambassadors, people prominent in their industries who aren’t so much expected to pay cash as donate their time and mentorship. Their number includes titans of industry and golf Hall of Famers like Masters winner Mark O’Meara.

Congaree Golf Club was founded by Dan Friedkin and the late Robert McNair. (Eamon Lynch, Golfweek)

Each year, the Global Golf Initiative at Congaree identifies dozens of high school students from around the world who have the talent to play college golf, but who lack the financial, parental or social advantages that kids from places like Sea Island might enjoy. The intense four-week program is a mix of educational, vocational and golf instruction, including college preparation, life lessons, counseling, fitness training and even club fitting. When they leave, Congaree’s advisors and counselors shadow them through the end of high school and into college.

“Mr Friedkin’s vision was for Congaree to bring together like-minded individuals who played golf, loved golf and realized a philanthropic club was a conduit to be able to make a difference in the lives of deserving and under-privileged children,” says Bruce Davidson, a former Tour pro from Scotland who is now Congaree’s co-director of golf and, with his colleague John McNeely, the driving force behind the project.

Built on an eighteenth-century rice plantation, Congaree’s collection of whitewashed clapboard buildings includes a schoolhouse that looks plucked from a Laura Ingalls Wilder novel. Inside, its walls bear the photos of the 50-odd kids who have so far been drawn from around the world. One is a young Irish girl, and when she was chosen to come to Congaree, Davidson got a phone call from her mother. “This has to be a scam, right?” the disbelieving parent asked. “Things like this don’t happen to our family.” Her daughter is now playing golf at an American university.

The Global Golf Initiative at Congaree offers a mix of educational, vocational and golf instruction. (Eamon Lynch, Golfweek)

For some of these kids, Congaree is as much respite from today as it is a promise for tomorrow. Davidson points to a photo of an earnest-looking, towheaded boy from the Midwest. Two weeks ago, his father took his own life. “We will measure our success in terms of how many lives we can affect positively,” Davidson says. “There’s never been any mention whatsoever of financial return. That’s what differentiates Dan Friedkin from anyone else I’ve ever met.”

Congaree has been quietly lobbying to host the 2025 Presidents Cup, an event that would train a global spotlight on its core mission. The odds are obviously stacked against it. Presidents Cups tend to visit major metropolitan areas, not backwoods places like Jasper County. There are many factors that will inform the PGA Tour’s eventual choice of venue for ’25. Perhaps one of those considerations ought to be the value of using the Presidents Cup to honor golf’s noble tradition of creating educational pathways for those who lack the access that is the first step to success.

(Eamon Lynch, Golfweek)

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Low-key vibe draws low-end field to Sea Island, but no one’s complaining

The PGA Tour stop at Sea Island lacks star power, but there are still FedEx Cup points up for grabs for journeymen jockeying for position.

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SEA ISLAND, Ga. — Most weeks, this barrier island 60 miles south of Savannah is a sedate resort community imbued with the mannerly reserve of a cathedral, and where diversity means a chap might favor Peter Millar over the standard-issue Ralph Lauren. But when the PGA Tour caravan comes to town … Well, things aren’t actually much different.

Assessing the strength of the field at a Tour event requires only ears, not eyes. There’s no need to scan the list of entrants in search of those who occupy the upper reaches of the world ranking since an audible buzz announces their presence. A wave of excitable chatter follows the every move of a Koepka, a McIlroy or a Woods.

Not so much a Covello, a Cejka or a Sucher.

That’s not a rap on, respectively, Vince, Alex and Zack, fine players all. But there is an eerie quiet at the RSM Classic that renders unnecessary marshals with ‘Hush Y’all’ signs. The stillness is a reminder that Sea Island isn’t a stage on which the game’s leading men choose to perform. The highest-ranked player in the field is world No. 12 Webb Simpson. The only other competitor in the top 30 is Matt Kuchar, who lives here, which at least helps him save on costs for the week.

RSM CLASSIC: Leaderboard | Photos | Tee times

Sea Island Resort has hosted presidents and celebrities for almost a century, but in golf terms is suffering a comparative dearth of star power this week. The RSM field boasts major winners — among them Stewart Cink, Jason Dufner, Jim Furyk — but none that sell tickets. It has the Tour’s hottest hand in Brendon Todd, trying for a third straight win, which still won’t get him into next month’s Presidents Cup squad. It has promising young colts (Kristoffer Ventura, Doug Ghim) warming up beside old workhorses nearing the glue factory (Tim Herron, Boo Weekley).

The RSM Classic is a wonderful reflection of the weekly potpourri of the PGA Tour.

It matters little that Koepka is laid up on his couch, that McIlroy is playing more than 7,000 miles away in Dubai, that Woods is off doing Tiger things. Another week, another 156 guys trying to claw their way to the FedEx Cup playoffs nine months hence. This is a head start initiative for journeymen, an opportunity to bank points and coin before the elite return to vacuum up both in the New Year.

Even one of the more prominent guys in the field admits struggling to get amped up.

“I probably have the old-school mindset that the Tour doesn’t start until January,” said Zach Johnson, one of the many players enjoying a home game at Sea Island. “I’ve got to get out of that because there’s a lot of competitive golf and motivations to play in the fall.”

Not least the first-place prize of $1,188,000.

Money usually doesn’t mitigate the moaning on Tour, but complaints aren’t so apparent here thanks to Sea Island’s brace of superb hotels and strong host courses. “There’s not many events you have where you don’t hear players complain about something,” said Charles Howell III, the defending champion. “This event is generally regarded as one of if not the best event in the fall.”

Howell used to come here on vacations as a kid, and the tournament retains the low-key vibe of a family gathering. Which it kind of is.

Presiding over this Fantasy Island in the Ricardo Montalbán role is Davis Love III, the longtime Sea Island resident and official tournament host. On the back of his considerable reputation and efforts, the RSM Classic raises several million dollars annually for charitable causes. Another beneficiary of the tournament’s charity is Davis Love IV, known as Dru.

Asked earlier this week about IV’s halting progress in the pro ranks, III bemoaned his tendency to get injured. “If he can get a full season in somewhere, he’s got a lot of potential,” Davis said. Comparing his boy to the handful of other talented young players in this area, he added: “If we can just get them onto the Tour, they will do really well.”

Getting onto the Tour has not been a problem for Dru, a 25-year-old whose career has thus far been more about his name than his game. Thursday was his 19th start on Tour, his fourth in this family clambake. He is 3-for-18 in cuts made. He shot a first round of three-over-par 73. His old man, a Hall of Famer 30 years his senior, clipped him by five shots.

Short of a miracle round on Friday, it’s looking awfully like III-for-XIX for IV.

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