Three have been named to Furyk’s contingent, although he can still name two more assistants prior to the event.
U.S. Team Captain Jim Furyk has announced his captain’s assistant for the 2024 Presidents Cup, scheduled for Sept. 24-29, 2024, at The Royal Montreal Golf Club in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Stewart Cink, Justin Leonard and Kevin Kisner were named to Furyk’s contingent, although he can still name two more assistants before the event.
The International team will turn to Canadian and 2003 Masters champion Mike Weir as captain.
“I am excited to announce Stewart, Justin and Kevin as my captain’s assistants for the 2024 Presidents Cup in Montreal,” said Furyk. “The three of them have a tremendous history with this event, but more importantly, they will be trusted voices in the team room and on the course for our guys. I look forward to working with them closely as we build a 12-man U.S. Team that is ready to compete at Royal Montreal this fall.”
This will be the debut as an assistant for Kisner, who has made his love of match play well known, winning the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in 2019 and finishing as the event’s runner-up in both 2018 and 2022.
The University of Georgia product was a member of the U.S. President’s Cup team in both 2017 and 2022 and has a 2-2-3 career record in Presidents Cup competition.
Jim Furyk observes the driving range during the practice round of The 2017 Presidents Cup golf tournament at Liberty National Golf Course. (Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports)
“Match play is my favorite format in golf and I’m looking forward to adding some expertise and insight to our team room as we lead an incredible contingent of players into Montreal,” Kisner said in a media release. “Jim is someone I’ve looked up to throughout my career and is naturally just a great leader, so it was a thrill when he called and asked me to serve as a captain’s assistant this fall.”
Six players will automatically qualify for each team after the completion of the BMW Championship on Aug. 25th, 2024, and each captain will then pick six players to round out their 12-man squads.
Cink has played in four Presidents Cups and had a perfect 4-0-0 mark during his 2000 debut.
Leonard, 51, has been a member of the Presidents Cup team five times and was paired with Furyk four times.
After seven years in the broadcast booth, Leonard is back to competing on the golf course.
BOCA RATON, Fla. — Aspen, Colorado, is paradise if your perfect spot mostly requires a layer of fluffy white snow covering the ground and providing a picturesque backdrop. Then you can snowboard or ski or take part in any other activities that require temperatures dipping into the 30s.
And although Justin Leonard tossed in some biking and hiking while living in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, this was not his nirvana as he approached 50 years on this earth and decided to return to a more intense golf schedule.
Leonard needed a new home base, one in which the grass is green year-round. Golf’s epicenter beckoned.
Now, Leonard, 51, is 21 events into his PGA Tour Champions career after recently moving to Tequesta, Florida. He has advanced to this week’s TimberTech Championship, the second round of the Charles Schwab Cup playoffs, at the Old Course at Broken Sound after finishing tied for 13th at the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Henrico, Virginia, two weekends ago.
And following seven years in the broadcast booth, he’s back to working on his game in year-round sunshine.
“There’s so much great golf here,” Leonard said of Florida on Wednesday before his pro-am round. “I don’t play a lot, I more practice or I’ll play by myself or with my son. But it’s just a great place weatherwise.”
Leonard watched the 50-and-over crowd mostly from afar as he worked on his second career as an analyst. And he was curious as to exactly what was the draw for so many on the back nine of their golf careers, some even surpassing typical retirement age.
His first impression was that the tour offered a group of men who, at one time, were at the top of the mountain in their sport to continue having fun on the course without the pressure and intense competition. A scaled-down version of the PGA Tour in many ways.
It has been all those things. But Leonard — who won 12 times on the PGA Tour, including the 1997 British Open, and was a member of the U.S. winning 1999 Ryder Cup team where he holed a 45-foot birdie putt on No. 17 to cap the Americans’ rally — found it was so much more.
Leonard was working as a broadcaster at the Senior Championship outside of Washington, D.C., when he went to the range on Tuesday. He saw about 40 guys out there at 3 p.m., and groups two or three deep waiting to tee off.
“It’s completely stacked up and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?'” he said. “These guys are working as hard as they ever have. So, yes, there’s a little lower kind of vibe on this tour, but the competition is every bit as good.
“For the most part, guys work as hard as they ever have because those are habits that got them to where they were in the game of golf and those things don’t go away.”
Leonard once again is the young blood on tour, but that does not mean instant success. He warned it would take time after spending time talking about the game instead of playing it in recent years, and that has proven correct. He has yet to win on the senior circuit, but this season he was runner-up at the PURE Insurance Championship in California and carded five top-10s.
Leonard qualified for the playoff by finishing 28th in the standings, which earned him about $832,000 in prize money. Not that a man who made just shy of $34 million on the PGA Tour after turning pro in 1994 is playing for the cash.
“I feel like I’m where I want to be,” he said. “I wouldn’t say the results are quite there. But I think that just comes with relearning some things and getting used to the rhythm of a tournament week and those kinds of things.
“There’s a few things that old habits creep into and it’s like … wait a second, that’s not me anymore. So it’s been a fun process. I’ve really enjoyed putting in the work and kind of figure out the balance between golf and the other stuff that I’ve got going on, and things with my family.”
And family was a big part of the move. Leonard’s wife, Amanda, certainly approved, considering that she grew up in North Palm Beach and attended the Benjamin School. Their son, Luke, attends Benjamin and is a member of the golf team, which makes him a teammate of Charlie Woods, whose dad is someone named Tiger.
Luke Leonard’s surge in golf coincides with the Leonards’ move to South Florida. Living in Colorado, the clubs “went on the shelf for seven or eight months,” Justin said this year at the Kitchenaid Senior PGA Championship.
“His skiing is actually pretty good,” Justin said.
Of course it was.
Last spring, Luke was paired with Charlie Woods in a junior club championship and played a round for the first time with Tiger as a spectator.
“It was cool,” Leonard said in the spring. “It was fun to watch him. I enjoyed not only watching my son play, watching Charlie play because he played great, and then talking about junior golf with Tiger for nine holes and little things that we see in our kids that they need to work on or whatever it may be.”
For Justin, he just keeps on working. Moving to the area means many more resources. He sees Daniel Berger and Eric Cole among others. He has “picked the brain” of Shane Lowry and Patrick Cantlay.
“There’s somebody always around,” he said. “And you pick up on little things … how they use their launch monitor, what kind of data it provides and how to rely on it. Those kinds of things.”
Leonard says he’s hitting the ball farther than he ever has, and not just the driver but his irons, too.
Now, it’s about the physical and mental side of his game coming together.
“Finding ways to not focus so much on the results, but more the process and those things, kind of adding that piece to it throughout this year has been fun,” he said. “I’ve seen great results at times and others I kind of forget and fall into some old habits. And so just trying to be more consistent in that way.”
Thongchai Jaidee needed four playoff holes to do it, but he finally outlasted Justin Leonard at Pebble Beach.
Thongchai Jaidee needed four playoff holes to do it but on a sunsplashed day at Pebble Beach Golf Links, he finally outlasted Justin Leonard to win the 2023 Pure Insurance Championship.
Jaidee had a chance to win in regulation but couldn’t drain his birdie putt on the par-5 closing hole. The duo parred then birdied the 18th in overtime before they each parred the par-3 17th. Back to the 18th tee they went for the fourth time Sunday but par was enough this time around for Jaidee after Leonard launched his tee shot left over the retaining wall. A four-man search party of the two golfers and their caddies couldn’t locate it, so Leonard reteed, then hit his second into a greenside bunker before walking off the green with a seven.
Last season, Jaidee became the first Thai golfer to win on the Champions tour. The 2015 Presidents Cupper now has his second win on the circuit. He does have 19 international wins on his resume but never did win on the PGA Tour.
As for Leonard, he came out of the TV booth to return to competition last year, playing four times on the PGA Tour Champions after turning 50. On Sunday, in his 14th event of this season and with his suitcases presumably packed for his pending return to broadcasting later this week for NBC Sports at the Ryder Cup, Leonard fell just short of his first professional win since 2008. Leonard, the 1999 Ryder Cup hero for the Americans, will be an analyst in the booth with Terry Gannon in Rome.
The Pure Insurance Championship pairs PGA Tour Champions pros with golfers from the First Tee.
The Pure Insurance Championship on the PGA Tour Champions is a special event, in that veteran pros are paired with standout junior golfers from the First Tee program on the Monterey Peninsula.
Amateur Alyssa Stewart had a week to remember, teamed up with fellow Texas Justin Leonard and hit golf’s magic number, a 59, during the second round at Spyglass in a fourball format.
Stewart, ranked 241st in the Golfweek/Sagarin girls junior golf rankings, led by four in the girls division after 36 holes and went on to win by eight shots over Alaythia Hinds.
“She’s awesome,” Leonard said Saturday afternoon. “She’s made two eagles in the last two days and a bunch of birdies.”
The 17-year-old is a high school junior from Mansfield, Texas, and is committed to play college golf at Houston Christian. Leonard sounds like he enjoyed being a mentor during this tournament.
“I’m not reading every putt and everything, but helping her with a little yardage or a decision here or there,” he said. “It’s fun. And it’s, look, she’s a great golfer, and she’s a better person and just a really fun personality to be around.”
Brayden Casolari, who was paired with Brian Gay, finished 21 under and won the boys division by a shot over Garrett Harrison, Sebastian Velazquez and Andre Follmer.
There were 80 First Tee members from 45 U.S. chapters competing in the event at the start of the week. The top 24 – 12 boys and 12 girls – advanced to Sunday.
Luke Leonard and Charlie Woods were recently paired up in a junior club championship in Florida.
While Justin Leonard is gearing up for the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship — the first of numerous majors coming to the new Fields Ranch East Course at the PGA of America’s new home in Frisco, Texas — he found himself discussing Charlie Woods during the media lead-up to this week’s event.
Luke Leonard and Charlie Woods, the 14-year-old son of Tiger Woods, were recently paired in a junior club championship in Florida. The two both attend The Benjamin School, a private school in Palm Beach.
“That was fun,” Justin Leonard said. “They go to the same school, although they’re on different campuses. He’ll be a freshman, so they’ll be at the same school. But I think it was Luke’s first time to play with him, and I know it was his first time to play in front of Tiger Woods.
“It was cool. It was fun to watch him. It was fun — I enjoyed not only watching my son play, watching Charlie play because he played great, and then talking about junior golf with Tiger for nine holes and little things that we see in our kids that they need to work on or whatever it may be.”
At one point during the round, Leonard had a flashback when the younger Woods pulled off a shot that his dad could be proud of.
“There was a shot that Charlie hit into 12, which was a par 5, this beautiful high like soft cut, looked like a 3-hybrid or something,” Leonard said. “Landed on the green, and it stopped dead. There might have been a little bit of a club twirl at the end of it, and I walked by Tiger, I go, ‘Okay, a lot of that looked very familiar,’ and we both had a good chuckle.”
As for his own son, Leonard said it’s been a fun experience, watching young Luke round into form. During a recent tournament at Wellington National Golf, the younger Leonard shot a final-round 74 to get into the top 10 in a strong field, one that included South Florida PGA boys 13-18 medalist tour player of the year leader Cameron Kuchar, the son of Matt Kuchar.
“It’s fun to see the lightbulb go off and gain a little momentum, because this game — dad, I keep practicing, I’m not shooting any better. I go, trust me, your game is getting better, the scores will come,” Leonard said. “I’m talking to myself, too, at the same time. We’re learning a lot of lessons. I’m relearning them, he’s learning them for the first time.”
“Getting into broadcasting, there’s not a whole lot that can prepare you for that outside of going to school and studying journalism.”
Justin Leonard has yet to break through with a victory on the PGA Tour Champions, but with three top-10 finishes in his five starts this season, he’s inching ever closer. Last week was a home game for Leonard, who closed with a 67 and placed 10th at the Invited Celebrity Classic in Dallas. He even slept at his parents’ house while in the DFW, a rare treat that included nightly family dinners.
And the former University of Texas star is geared up for an even better showing this week at The Woodlands Country Club, site of the Insperity Invitational.
Leonard is still adjusting to the senior grind, as he’ll make his 10th official Champions start at a course this sits just on the opposite side of Kuykendahl Road from the Club at Carlton Woods, the site of last week’s first LPGA major of the season, the Chevron Championship.
And while he’s happy to be back in the routine of practicing and playing, Leonard admitted that he loved his time on TV, which started in 2015 when he joined Golf Channel. He’ll make one TV appearance at an event he’s synonymous with this year, but will steer clear of other broadcast productions to focus on his game.
“I think the only event I’m going to do this year is the Ryder Cup. I kind of made the decision last fall. Not that I played great in the events that I played, but I felt like I did well enough or showed enough good things where if I could put all my energy into playing that I could be competitive,” he said. “So kind of stepped away from my work with TV. Again, I’ll work the Ryder Cup this year because I enjoy being a part of that event. Those are, especially Friday and Saturday, a couple of really long days for the crew.
“It’ll be fun to be a part of that and step back in that world for a little bit, but it’s been nice just focusing my energy in one place, whereas last year, certainly at least there for two or three months, I was trying to do both.”
Justin Leonard of the United States looks on from the 13th green during the pro-am prior to the PNC Championship at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club on December 16, 2022, in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
Now that he’s had time to look back at his tenure on TV, one thing that sticks out for the 1997 Open Champion is how severe the learning curve was. While others might have been instantly impressed with his television prowess, it took Leonard a while to get comfortable.
“Getting into broadcasting, there’s not a whole lot that can prepare you for that outside of going to school and studying journalism, which I did not. So that’s the reason I was so awful my first couple of years trying to do it,” he said. “It’s something that fortunately the people at NBC and Golf Channel poured into me and helped me get better over time, gave me a lot of reps, and I learned a lot along the way. I think that some of watching the best players in the world, how they prepare, how they practice, playing practice rounds, and then watching them in competition, I think those are things that now I’m able to kind of apply to what I’m trying to do to get ready.
“It’s been a fun process. I would say that the transition going from being a player in 2015 and ’16 to doing TV was not easy. It’s a little easier transitioning back into this because at least I’ve done this before, but it’s been a while. I didn’t really play tournament golf for about six years, and there for about four years of that or so, I played very little golf.”
Getting back into the swing of things on tour has meant stirring old memories, as Leonard did during his PGA Tour Champions debut in the 2022 Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. Leonard recalled a night in 2003 when Phil Mickelson threw batting practice to the then-Double-A Akron Aeros, reportedly offering three $100 bills to any player who could hit a home run off him. None did.
Leonard overheard Mickelson discussing the plan with his then-caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay and he brought buddies Davis Love III and Fred Couples along to heckle Mickelson.
“He pulls in and we’re all sitting there, and Bones is kind of like, ‘Oh, I don’t know how this is going to go over,’” Leonard recalled. “Phil pulls in and goes, ‘Hey, guys, what are you all doing?’ I said, ‘We’re coming to cheer you on, big guy.’
“We went down and watched that whole scene. And Phil was all proud that nobody hit a home run off of him. And our kind of argument, ‘Well, you have to at least throw a ball 50 miles an hour to create enough velocity so it can get out of the park.’
Stirring up memories is great, but getting into the winner’s circle would be, as well. Leonard has improved this year over last and he feels he’s trending in the right direction as the season heats up.
But more importantly, he’s happy to be working on the craft that helped him win a dozen times on the PGA Tour.
“It’s a lot of fun. I knew how competitive it was from covering the Senior PGA a couple times with NBC, and it’s been fun like pouring myself back into my own game rather than 150 other players’ games, as I did with television. It’s been fun,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed putting the work in and trying to be competitive against these guys and playing on some golf courses like this week that I have a sense of history on. I played here five times in amateur golf, a bunch of Houston Opens here, so it’s nice to be back.”
Golfweek has learned from multiple sources that Brad Faxon and Smylie Kaufman will join NBC Sports and Golf Channel.
Golfweek has learned from multiple sources that Brad Faxon and Smylie Kaufman will join the NBC Sports and Golf Channel announce team beginning in 2023.
Faxon, 61, won eight times on the PGA Tour and twice on the PGA Tour Champions and is renowned for his putting stroke. He still works with Rory McIlroy as a putting coach. He broke into the TV business in 2010 with NBC Sports, doing seven events before shifting to competing on the senior tour when he turned 50.
He was the lead golf analyst for Fox Sports for five years when the network held the rights to USGA events including the U.S. Open. Since NBC reacquired those package of events, Faxon has provided analysis for Sky Sports, the subscription-based channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland, which along with NBC and Golf Channel are owned by Comcast.
Faxon is expected to take over one of the tower assignments and will contribute to various ancillary programming such as the popular “Live From” show at majors. Faxon declined to comment.
Rory McIlroy and Brad Faxon at a practice round ahead of the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links. (Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images)
Kaufman, 31, played at LSU and won the PGA Tour’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in 2015 and played in the final group of the 2016 Masters, but has struggled with his game in recent years and no longer is an exempt player. He worked for ESPN and contributed to coverage of the PGA Championship and NBC’s Peacock coverage of the U.S. Open, as well as the U.S. Junior and a handful of fall events for the Golf Channel.
Kaufman is expected to be an on-course analyst and viewed as a direct response to CBS’s hiring of Colt Knost, who went from a part-time role last year to a full-time gig this season.
Former Golf Channel host Gary Williams said of Kaufman on his podcast “5 Clubs,” that Kaufman has a savant-like ability to talk like himself and give a thought in 12 seconds.
“Is it my path forever? I don’t know,” Kaufman told Williams of doing TV. “But for right now it seems to be what I enjoy doing. We’ll see. I think right now it seems to be the way I’m headed.”
Kaufman didn’t respond to phone or text messages.
Golfweek has also learned that Curt Byrum is in line to be elevated to the top PGA Tour team and work in the “super tower,” assuming the spot of David Feherty, who left to join LIV Golf in late July, and that Justin Leonard will scale back his TV role as he focuses full time on the senior circuit.
Byrum, 63, won the 1989 Hardee’s Classic on the PGA Tour, and has served as an analyst with Golf Channel since 2001. When Golf Channel and NBC merged, Byrum was the one Golf Channel analyst to be bumped immediately up to NBC.
“He’s both underrated and underappreciated,” said one NBC Sports veteran, who was not at liberty to speak on the hirings because details still were being finalized.
When reached on the phone, Byrum said that his current contract expires in December and he’s “thrown his hat in the ring but nothing confirmed as of yet.”
Leonard, 50, has spent the last few years as an analyst and contributor to “Live From.” But the former British Open champion, who last played as many as 13 Tour events in 2015-16, has made the decision to play full-time on the Champions Tour. Last year, he played his PGA Tour swansong at the Valero Texas Open and made four starts on the Champions Tour after turning 50, with a best result of T-14 at Furyk & Friends. Leonard may make a few cameo appearances with NBC, such as at the Ryder Cup. Notah Begay III, who also turned 50 earlier this year and played twice on the Champions Tour, is expected to build his playing schedule around his TV role.
An NBC Sports spokesman responded by saying, “We’re focused on celebrating Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch at the PNC Championship later this month and will be announcing any additional changes to our lineup early in the new year.”
NBC is expected to announce the hirings shortly, but may wait until after the PNC Championship, which ends Dec. 18, out of respect for Koch, who will be doing his last event.
NBC is following in the footsteps of CBS, which in late 2019 cut ties with Peter Kostis and Gary McCord as part of a youth movement in its announcing crew. Nick Faldo, 65, retired in August and The Eye promoted Trevor Immelman, who turns 43 on Dec. 16, to the top analyst position next to Jim Nantz.
Averee Dovsek sat down with Justin Leonard on Instagram to chat with him about golf fitness, The Presidents Cup and the Champions Tour.
“When I stepped away from the game back in 2015 and 2016 and kind of stopped playing full time, I got away from golf specific training,” said Justin Leonard.
“Just in the last year or so I have gotten back into much more specific golf training. The swing trainer cuts my time in half because I am able to do such specific workouts. I can get right to it, work on my core, stability and rotational movements,” said Leonard.
Golfweek’s Averee Dovsek sat down with Justin Leonard on Instagram live to chat with him about his golf fitness, The Presidents Cup and his plans on the Champions Tour.
Watch the interview on Golfweek’s Instagram below.
The GolfForever Swing Trainer is one of the most universal products on the market. There are so many different ways to use the 44.5 inch training bar and attachments to improve mobility, balance and strength for the golf swing.
GolfForever Swing Trainer. (GolfForever)
Justin Leonard is a brand ambassador and contributor for the GolfForever trainer.
“I said, ‘Do you guys want to go watch?’ And Fred (Couples) said, ‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world.'”
No need to witness “The Shot in Dark.” Last-minute tickets to a Pearl Jam concert at Blossom Music Center. Ambushing Phil Mickelson with a cheering section as he threw batting practice before a now-Akron Rubber Ducks game at Canal Park.
Justin Leonard hasn’t played at Firestone Country Club since 2010. But memories of Akron came flooding back as he returned for his PGA Tour Champions debut in the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship.
Leonard turned 50 on June 15, but said he’d been preparing for his transition to the senior tour for the last year and a half. Coupled with his schedule as a golf analyst for NBC Sports and recently moving his family from Aspen, Colorado, to Jupiter, Florida, he had plenty to keep him busy, especially a three-day drive with his 15-year-old son and their four dogs to their new home.
Winning the Claret Jug in 1997, Leonard will head to St. Andrews next week to broadcast the 150th Open Championship. But that won’t change his focus in the $3 million Bridgestone event, the fourth of five senior majors that opens Thursday on the famed South Course.
“I’m curious to see where my game is,” Leonard said. “There’s a big difference between playing with friends or playing with my kids and put a scorecard in the pocket and trying to beat some of these guys. So I’ll say I’m managing my expectations. I expect to learn a lot from this week.
“But as far as results and those things, not really thinking about those things. I’m just trying to ease my way back into competitive golf. I’ll play four or five events between now and the end of the season and get a sense of where these things are.”
Justin Leonard gets warmed up on the practice tee at the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship Pro-Am on Wednesday, July 6, 2022, in Akron, Ohio, at Firestone Country Club.
Pro Am5
The fun times Leonard had in Akron remain fresh, although perhaps not his tie for second behind Tiger Woods in the World Golf Championships-NEC Invitational in 2000, when eventual eight-time Firestone winner Woods beat Leonard and Philip Price by 11 shots.
Asked where he was for one of Woods’ most legendary finishes, Leonard said, “I think that was one of those years where he was going to win by 12 or something like that, so it’s not like I was on the range getting ready for a playoff.”
Reminded of Woods’ victory margin, Leonard added, “Yeah, so I won the B flight, which is nice. No trophy for that.”
Most of Leonard’s favorite stories come from off the course.
One year, in the days before he was immersed in satellite radio, he was driving to the course and heard an upcoming Pearl Jam show mentioned. He found Phil Mickelson’s longtime caddie, Jim “Bones’ Mackay, a good friend who is into the music scene.
“I told him, ‘I think Pearl Jam is playing somewhere here nearby,’’’ Leonard said of Mackay. “He said, ‘I’m on it.’ An hour later, we had tickets. And that night Davis Love and Bones and I drove 45 minutes to a great outdoor venue and saw Pearl Jam.”
Phil Mickelson and Justin Leonard won the first point for Team USA on Day 2 of the Presidents Cup.
Another night to remember came in 2003, when Mickelson threw batting practice to the then-Double-A Akron Aeros, reportedly offering three $100 bills to any player who could hit a home run off him. None did.
“I might have, I might not have been eavesdropping, but I heard Phil talking about it with Bones, and he said, ‘I’ll meet you here at the parking lot at 5:00,”’ Leonard said. “So I stored that away and told Davis and Fred Couples about it. I said, ‘Do you guys want to go watch?’ And Fred said, ‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world.'”
So Leonard told Love and Couples to meet in the parking lot at 4:50 p.m. so they could see the look on Mickelson’s face when he arrived.
“He pulls in and we’re all sitting there, and Bones is kind of like, ‘Oh, I don’t know how this is going to go over,’” Leonard said. “Phil pulls in and goes, ‘Hey, guys, what are you all doing?’ I said, ‘We’re coming to cheer you on, big guy.’
“We went down and watched that whole scene. And Phil was all proud that nobody hit a home run off of him. And our kind of argument, ‘Well, you have to at least throw a ball 50 miles an hour to create enough velocity so it can get out of the park.’
“We had a good time with it. Little things like that that happen along the way that kind of create these fun memories when I get to come back to a place like this.”
Considering Davis Love III was a part of both of those classic stories, it’s no wonder he led off his press conference with Leonard’s Champions Tour debut.
“I walked right onto the property and right into Justin Leonard and got to play a practice round with him,” said Love, making his first appearance at Firestone since 2016. “In fact, he stuck a note on my car on Monday because he changed his phone number and where he lives and his job and now he’s out here and just excited to see him.
“It really made my day to get out and play with him. Everybody’s riding up and calling him ‘rookie’ and they’re coming from other fairways to welcome him. He asked me a whole bunch of questions about rules and procedures. I said, ‘You need to ask somebody else, I’m not the best one to ask.’ But we’re going to the pro-am draw party when we get done playing.”
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.
BROOKLINE, Mass. – The opening scenes in what would later become perhaps golf’s greatest storybook ending, a fascinating tale that has resonated for more than 100 years, were set in what can only be called a perfect setting.
Across the street from The Country Club, founded in 1882 and one of the five founding clubs of the U.S. Golf Association, Francis Ouimet grew up in the modest, six-room, 1,500-square-foot home at 246 Clyde Street.
Looking out the window of his second-floor bedroom, he woke to a view of the 17th hole of The Country Club, which he would walk across to get to school and where he would later caddie and fall in love with the game.
And then, at age 20, he became a folk hero and changed the path of the game’s history over the sacred ground outside Boston.
In authoring arguably the biggest upset in the chronicles of golf, Ouimet took down Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, the two best golfers of the time, to win the 1913 U.S. Open in a playoff at The Country Club that drew up to 20,000, mostly blue-collar workers each round.
After winning the 1913 U.S. Open, Brookline’s Francis Ouimet (rear) credited his caddie, 10-year-old Eddie Lowery. Ouimet later dedicated this photo, writing over Lowery’s towel, “This is the boy who won the 1913 Open.”
And as it turned out, it was at the 17th where two of Ouimet’s biggest moments unfolded. In the final round, Ouimet, an amateur who had to be talked into entering the championship by his friends, came to the hole nicknamed “The Elbow” trailing by one shot. At the time, the dogleg-left hole was playing to 275 yards. After reaching the green with his approach, Ouimet made a long birdie putt to tie for the lead and joined Vardon and Ray in an 18-hole playoff the following day after making par on the 72nd hole.
In the playoff, with Ray out of contention, Vardon trailed Ouimet by one when the group arrived at the 17th tee. Vardon tried to cut the corner and wound up in the lone bunker that bears his name. Ouimet found the fairway. Vardon had to lay up and made bogey while Ouimet made birdie again for a three-stroke lead.
Ouimet polished off his startling win on the final hole.
The game exploded across the land. And the 17th took root as the course’s pivotal hole, later home to more magical, game-changing moments to decide championships. If history is prologue, the penultimate hole on the scorecard – which will play out to 373 yards this week for the 122nd U.S. Open and now features four bunkers on the left of the fairway bend and numerous mounds – will play a crucial role in the outcome.
“It’s unique,” reigning PGA champion Justin Thomas said. “Unlike a lot of holes out here that are pretty self-explanatory off the tee, it’s just am I going to hit a driver or am I going to hit a 3-wood, whatever it is? That hole presents a lot of opportunities of different clubs off the tees.
“Especially with how a lot of guys are playing nowadays. A handful of guys are probably going to hit driver, try to hit it right in front of the green. Or if you get a helping wind, maybe the tee is up, you can knock it on the green. But then again, I’m sure the rough is going to be nasty up there to where you get opposition. It’s tough, and then it’s, like, do you lay up? Do you lay up to a good number?
“It’s a hole that you can have a two-shot swing on it pretty quickly for it being a pretty short, easy hole, but it’s really just going to be how you want to attack it or approach it once you get to that point, especially come Saturday and Sunday.”
Julius Boros poses with the trophy after winning the 1963 U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. Next to him is Francis Ouimet, the 1913 U.S. Open champion and honorary chairman of the tournament. (Photo: Associated Press)
When the U.S. Open returned to The Country Club 50 years later, the 17th was decisive in Julius Boros’ victory. In the final round, Arnold Palmer missed a two-foot putt that put him two strokes behind the leader, Jacky Cupit, who a few holes later made double bogey after an errant drive. That led to a three-man playoff, with Boros joining them the next day. Boros birdied the 17th in the final round and again in the playoff to win the national championship.
Twenty-five years later, the third U.S. Open at The Country Club featured more histrionics. After taking the lead with a 25-foot birdie on the 16th in the final round, Curtis Strange three-putted the 17th from 15 feet. He saved par from a greenside bunker on the 72nd hole to force a playoff with Nick Faldo.
Strange made a knee-knocking four-footer for par on the 17th to secure his victory in the playoff for the first of his two consecutive U.S. Open wins.
Curtis Strange and his wife Sarah kiss the U.S. Open Championship trophy at the 1988 U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. (Photo: Peter Southwick/Associated Press)
And then there was the 1999 Ryder Cup at The Country Club. Facing a four-point deficit entering singles play, the Americans staged a ferocious comeback that was capped for victory on the 17th hole.
That’s where Justin Leonard, who was 4 down earlier in his match against Jose Maria Olazabal, holed a 45-foot putt that set off a premature, frenzied celebration as the U.S. team flooded the green despite Olazabal’s chance to make his putt and keep the match going.
After the green was finally cleared, Olazabal missed his putt and the U.S. won.
Nineteen-year-old Sergio Garcia played brilliantly for Europe that week; he is one of three players in this week’s field to have played in the 1999 Ryder Cup, the other two being Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson.
“It’s not overly long, and you have a wedge to the green. But the green is always tricky,” Garcia said. “But it always feels if you hit a decent shot to the green it always feels you have a birdie putt because the green is small.
“It’s tricky, the two-tiered green, especially if it gets a little firm, like it was in the Ryder Cup, and then the back pin is very difficult to get to. There’s a very small area to land your ball and if you hit it too hard it can easily one hop over the green, and then you have a difficult up-and-down.
And if you fly it on the bottom, trying to skip it up there, it’s tough to get up the slope. But that’s the beauty of all the old designs. The greens are small, and the areas where you have to hit the ball are very tiny and you have to be very precise.”
Chances are another eerie moment or two will take place on the 17th hole this week. It will be the latest entry to the legend Ouimet ignited in 1913.
“That’s what’s so good about golf is the history and the tradition and these stories,” McIlroy said. “The fact that he grew up just off the 17th hole here, and we’re still talking about it to this day over 100 years on. That’s so cool.
