Texas clinches consecutive Director’s Cup Championships

For the second straight season Texas stands above other institutions as the model of excellence.

For the second consecutive year, The University of Texas has won the Director’s Cup. The Director’s Cup is awarded to the Athletic Department that performs best across all sports. Continue reading “Texas clinches consecutive Director’s Cup Championships”

Texas ex Scottie Scheffler wins his first green jacket at the 2022 Masters

Scottie Scheffler is on top of the golf world.

One week after ascending to No. 1 in the world, Scottie Scheffler is taking home his first career major championship title. Scheffler carded a final round score of a 1-under 71 to win the green jacket by a comfortable three-shot margin over Rory McIlroy.

He enjoyed a stroll up the No. 18 green knowing he was about to become the Masters champion.

The victory marks Scheffler’s fourth win in his last six starts. He was the only player in the field to finish under par in all four rounds of the tournament.

A chip-in for birdie on hole No. 3 got the ball rolling for Scheffler in the final round on Sunday and he never looked back.

Scheffler joins Jordan Speith (2015) and Ben Crenshaw (1984, 1995) as Texas Longhorns to win the Masters Tournament. He is the sixth Longhorn to win a major championship.

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Scottie Scheffler ascends to No. 1 in the world after win at Dell Match Play

Scottie Scheffler has taken the golf world by storm in 2022.

Scottie Scheffler has taken the golf world by storm in 2022. The 25-year-old from Highland Park secured his third PGA Tour victory of the young season at the WGC Dell Match Play. He took down veteran Kevin Kisner four and three in the championship round at Austin Country Club.

The win moved Scheffler into the top spot in the Offical World Golf Rankings. He moved in front of major winners, Jon Rahm and Collin Morikawa to claim the throne.

It took Scheffler just 91 tour starts to earn the world’s No. 1 ranking. Only Tiger Woods (21) and fellow Longhorn Jordan Speith (77) accomplished the feat faster.

Scheffler played four seasons in a spectacular career at the University of Texas before turning pro in 2018. He is now the next Texas Longhorn holding the world’s No. 1 ranking.

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Texas’ best ever? An Austin amateur champ is thankful to remember a fallen hero this season.

Dan Jenkins, who once lost an epic match to Morris Williams Jr., said “he’d have been a big star on the PGA Tour if he’d lived.”

In a state that’s produced some of the game’s greatest players — Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite and Jordan Spieth to name a few — there’s a case to be made that one of the best golfers, if not the best, in Texas history remains a relative unknown, more recognizable for the Austin municipal golf course that bears his name than the potential he displayed in less than a quarter-century.

Certainly, Morris Williams Jr. didn’t build a career resume to stack up with those listed above, but those who saw him play before his tragic death at 24 saw something special, something that not only embodied the game’s etiquette, but the tenacity needed to become a superstar.

And Billy Clagett, an Austin icon who has been a star amateur golfer in the state’s capital for four decades — winning the city’s prestigious Firecracker Open six times — wasn’t about to let Williams’ legacy fall by the wayside, especially as newcomers continue to stream into the area.

It wasn’t easy, but Clagett is thankful this year that his efforts have finally seen the light of day.

Along with others, Clagett proudly unveiled a new memorial to the decorated hero who won the Texas junior, amateur and open titles all within a one-year span, marking the only time that feat was ever accomplished. The pieces for the new memorial have been assembled inside the lobby at Morris Williams Golf Course, which sits just a few miles from the center of downtown in one of the nation’s most vibrant communities.

Morris Williams Jr. won the Texas junior, amateur and open titles all within a one-year span, the only time that feat was ever accomplished. (Contributed photo)

Clagett said at the memorial’s opening that tracking down info on Williams was no simple assignment.

“When you’re trying to get information and pictures and text from something that’s happened 70- something years ago — before cell phones, before a lot of photography, before videos, before anything except the printed word practically and telephone calls — it’s tough,” Clagett said. “But we assembled as much as we could and I hope it stays like this.”

The story of Williams starts with his namesake — Morris Williams Sr., who originally worked in the print shop at the city’s newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman. When Statesman editor Charlie Green decided the paper needed someone to cover the growing sport, Williams offered his services as a way to maneuver into the editorial department. According to numerous reports, Williams assumed it would be a temporary gig, but when he retired 33 years later, he was one of the state’s most prominent golf writers. The name of Williams’ column, “Fairways,” is referenced in the restaurant at the golf course — Fairways Cantina.

His only child, Williams Jr., took to the game right away, as the family grew up on E. 40th Street in Austin, across from what is now Hancock Golf Course, a nine-hole track that would later serve as the original home of Austin Country Club. Clagett assumes that Williams’ laser-like iron play came from the family’s location, an area that allowed him to practice wedges each day.

Williams blossomed when he went to the University of Texas and worked with famed teacher and coach Harvey Penick. In fact, Clagett said Penick treated Williams like an adopted son and mentioned him in his famous series of instructional books.

University of Texas men’s golf coach Harvey Penick junior poses with Morris WIlliams Jr., one of his star pupils. (Contributed photo)

In every recollection, Williams is mentioned as a kind-hearted soul off the course and a bulldog once he got to the tee box. In the 1950 Southwest Conference Championship, Dan Jenkins, who played at TCU and later became one of the nation’s most revered golf writers, squared off against Williams in the deciding match at Colonial Country Club.

Adding an extra dose of intensity to the match, nine-time major winner Ben Hogan was on hand as a spectator.

With two holes to play it appeared an even match had swung when Jenkins — on a testy par 4 — worked some magic from the rough, dropping a shot through the trees to within inches for a tap-in birdie.

Williams followed by holing out a 7-iron for eagle to take the lead. Jenkins three-putted on the next hole and the Longhorns were champions.

Jenkins later told a reporter prior to Williams’ posthumous induction into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame that, “he was one of the greatest young amateurs in the history of Texas. He’d have been a big star on the PGA Tour if he’d lived.”

Austin area golfer Billy Clagett displays a picture of Morris Williams Jr. at the new memorial at Morris Williams Golf Course. Williams Sr. was a famed golf writer for the Austin American-Statesman. Clagett was instrumental in getting the new memorial together. (Photo by Tim Schmitt/Golfweek)

But while many who saw him play insisted he would rival any of the game’s top players, Williams went into the Air Force before joining the PGA Tour. At that time, Tour players made a modest living and Williams hoped to build up a nest egg before setting off to a pro golf career.

On September 13, 1953, however, he was killed during a training flight. The F-86 jet-plane piloted by Lt. Morris Williams Jr. crashed during gunnery practice at Eglin Air Force Base in west Florida.

“Harvey Penick got the call from the Air Force,” Clagett explained to a silent room during the ceremony. “And Harvey was the one who gave Morris senior the news. It’s been said that when Harvey told him he collapsed in Harvey’s arms. He was brokenhearted and he died in ‘57, just a few years later. He never could really get over his son’s death.”

Clagett hopes the new memorial, which includes rare photos of the 1949 UT golf team and the Williams’ home, will help educate those who play the revamped course.

“I hope it stays like this,” Clagett said. “And I want all of us in this room to be caretakers.”

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How a former Texas football star and energy magnate has built the perfect amateur golf event

How a stunning piece of East Texas property became one of the country’s best golf venues has more to do with camaraderie than course design.

TRINITY, Texas — Corby Robertson knew a thing or two about routing golf courses. Yes, the sport Robertson was most closely associated with was football — he was highly recruited by University of Texas coaching legend Darrell Royal then twice named All-American while captaining the Longhorns to the 1969 Cotton Bowl — but golf had always been in the Houston native’s blood.

When Robertson and his sister, Beth, made a land swap that effectively moved Austin Country Club to its current location, he worked with famed architect Pete Dye on the development of the course that now hosts the WGC-Dell Match Play, even taking a trip to see the Oklahoma masterpiece Oak Tree to better understand Dye’s genius.

“Pete once made a statement to me and said there’s nothing in the rules of golf that said it had to be fair,” Robertson told the Austin American-Statesman’s Kirk Bohls back in 2016.

But how Robertson turned a stunning piece of East Texas property into one of the country’s best (and most secluded) golf venues has more to do with camaraderie than course design.

Robertson — who didn’t declare for the NFL draft after an impressive college career because “those guys all made about $25,000 and I thought I could do much better” — had built Camp Olympia with UT roommate Chris Gilbert on a stunning site less than an hour from Huntsville. The idea behind the camp was to get teens to bond and to grow three essential pieces that Robertson holds dear — body, mind and spirit.

And originally, the course hosted what Robertson called “olf, which is golf without the greens.” As part of the camp’s weekly routine, eager campers would hit shots off a tee to a wide-open “green” that was simply a pushed-up piece of turf with a washtub in the middle. The kids loved it. Robertson jokes that the game could have been revolutionary.

“It would have been a more popular game,” he told Golfweek in September. “You make more holes-in-one and you don’t ever miss three-foot putts.”

But over time, Robertson and others realized this would be a prime piece of property for a golf course. By then, he’d become an energy magnate, first in oil, then in coal, and had the financial means to create the course. In the 1990s, when beetles started eating away some of the camp’s trees, he decided to make a go of it, starting with a series of three legit holes, then adding irrigation systems and creating the course that now tops Golfweek’s Best private courses in Texas list: Whispering Pines.

“We liked it. But if we were really going to do this we said, ‘What is golf missing?’ At the time, golf was missing the Olympics,” Robertson said.

So he decided to mix two of his passions — Camp Olympia and a new golf course. Soon after, in 2001, the Spirit International Amateur Golf Tournament was born, a biennial event with teams featuring two men and two women from each of 20 countries that span six continents.

After they built it — Robertson’s team worked with the Jack Nicklaus design team on the course — the world’s top ams started showing up in droves. When this year’s teams arrive for the 10th playing of the event (the 2017 event was canceled due to Hurricane Harvey), they’ll add to an impressive roster of amateur golfers who’ve made the journey to Whispering Pines. Among those who have won a title at the event are Lorena Ochoa, Brandt Snedeker, Jordan Spieth, Lexi Thompson, Scottie Scheffler, Austin Ernst and Will Zalatoris.

This year, a power-packed lineup that includes the Nos. 1 and 2 female amateurs in the world will lead the way for Team USA. Stanford teammates Rose Zhang and Rachel Heck will lead the American contingent while Texas A&M’s Sam Bennett and Michigan State’s James Piot round out the squad. Piot won the U.S. Amateur in August.

The tournament is known for having five concurrent competition categories: international team, men’s team and women’s team, and men’s and women’s individual stroke play competitions. It will be played Nov. 4-6 and broadcast on Golf Channel as well as the Spirit’s website.

A series of flags line a lake at Whispering Pines, ranked as Golfweek’s Best top private golf course in the state of Texas. (Contributed photo)

Players stay at Camp Olympia and partake in a number of club traditions, like line dancing and karaoke. While golf has returned to the Olympics with professionals, Robertson thinks his event has somehow maintained the amateur flavor the Olympics was originally intended to foster.

“I feel like maybe we inspired the Olympics to have golf. I hope we’ve been part of the inspiration. There are 200 other sports, why not golf?” he said. “But this wasn’t designed for pros. For stadium golf, we would have had to clear every tree on this property. There’s room to do that, but the beauty and the ambiance of this place, it would just be a shame.

“Listen, good amateurs are going to a great tournament every week. None of them have a camp attached. They live together in camp cabins and we turn these players into friends. Camp makes lifelong friends and it builds character. The mission of Camp Olympia is to have fun together but make people grow in body, mind and spirit. To do that with a bunch of very accomplished golfers? Well, that is just a plus.”

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WATCH: Jordan Spieth hits impossible shot at Ryder Cup

After the first shot landed in a less than ideal spot, Jordan Spieth was facing an impossible chip. Somehow, someway, he was able to stick it on the green.

After being postponed by a year, the Ryder Cup is underway at Whistling Straights Golf Course. Texas has two former players competing for the United States this year in Jordan Speith and Scottie Scheffler.

Speith was the first group to tee off, pairing up with his good friend Justin Thomas. Facing off against John Rahm and Sergio Garcia, the two Spaniards were leading by two with two holes to play.

Wins on holes No. 17 and No. 18 were required just to get half a point. The first of which was a short Par 3.

After Thomas’ first shot landed in a less than ideal spot, Spieth was facing an impossible chip. Landing it anywhere near the green seemed unlikely. Even getting over the ridge was going to be a tough ask.

Somehow, someway, Spieth was able to stick it on the green and give Thomas a chance to extend the match. He almost fell into the lake as well.

You can watch the shot here:

Spieth and Thomas ended up losing the match but the United States currently leads 3-1 after the Friday morning sessions. Saturday will consist of more fourball/foursomes, followed by single matches on Sunday.

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Jordan Spieth finishes third, Scottie Scheffler tied for 18th at The Masters

Three former Texas stars participated in the Masters in Dylan Frittelli, Scottie Scheffler, and Jordan Spieth. See where all three finished.

The Masters finally felt like The Masters again this week, having it back in the traditional second weekend in April slot. Three former Longhorns were in the field this week in the way of Dylan Frittelli, Scottie Scheffler, and Jordan Spieth.

While Spieth was never fully in contention over the weekend, he finished tied for third with Xander Schauffele at -7. The former Masters champion posted scores of 71, 68, 72, and 70.

Spieth’s highlight of the week came from his short game, chipping in on the 10th hole on Saturday. At the time, it put him only two shots back on the leader Justin Rose but was never able to capitalize.

If it were not for a bogey on the 18th hole, Spieth would have taken sole possession of third place. Spieth has finished inside the top three five times in eight career Masters appearances.

Scheffler on the other hand did not perform his best. Friday ended with him +1, two shots above the cut. Augusta National treated the Dallas native a little more kindly over the weekend, shooting a 71 on both Saturday and Sunday.

I feel like I’ve been stuck in neutral this week,” Scheffler said. “Every time I feel like I was gonna get something done, I’d make a silly mistake.”

This was only his second Masters appearance, finishing tied for 19th in November. Scheffler’s placement this season was his second-best ever in a major championship, after finishing fourth in the 2020 PGA Championship.

Frittelli missed the cut after shooting a 76 on Thursday and a 74 on Friday. 11 bogeys doomed the South African, shooting bogeys on holes one, six, and 17 both days.

WATCH: Jordan Spieth takes the lead at Charles Schwab Challenge

Texas ex Jordan Spieth had an impressive Friday morning at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas.

On Friday morning, Texas ex Jordan Spieth had two of the best rounds we’ve seen from him in a long time. Continue reading “WATCH: Jordan Spieth takes the lead at Charles Schwab Challenge”

Rose, Varner lead after first round at Charles Schwab Challenge

Golfweek’s Adam Woodard recaps the first round at Colonial Country Club of the Charles Schwab Challenge.

Golfweek’s Adam Woodard recaps the first round at Colonial Country Club of the Charles Schwab Challenge.