Schupak: Remembering the wisdom of Dow Finsterwald (and stories of the Masters, Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan and more)

Former PGA Championship winner Dow Finsterwald died on Friday at age 93, but his stories should live on.

Dow Finsterwald always called me “guy,” as in “you know, what I mean, guy?”

Everyone else when we talked was simply a “fella,” as in “that fella over there can really swing it,” he’d say as we walked the range at Bay Hill during the Arnold Palmer Invitational studying the pros in action.

Finsterwald died on Friday at age 93. He was a sweetheart of a guy and one helluva fella.

I wrote a story about his enduring friendship with Arnold Palmer that spanned seven decades. The three of us sat in Palmer’s office at Bay Hill as Palmer thumbed through his mail. He held a copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover aloft and told Finsterwald, the 1958 PGA champion,  and me, “Look who’s going to be here.”

Palmer’s face lit up as he explained that model Kate Upton would be attending his March tournament, visiting the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies, and discussing their plans to do a commercial together in support of Arizona Iced Tea’s Arnold Palmer, his refreshing drink.

That’s when Finsterwald interjected and said, “No offense, Arnold, but I think she’s going to sell a lot more tea than you.”

I dug up the transcript from the interview that followed and it’s chock full of wisdom from a man who lived quite the life in the game – PGA Tour and major winner, Ryder Cup captain, Masters and USGA official, PGA board member, director of golf at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, pal to Palmer and the list goes on and on. I asked him once to share some stories from life on the road traveling with The King and he said, “Not sure I can tell them. Good clean fun and a lot of it.”

Golfweek’s Best 2022: Top public and private courses in Colorado

Red Sky offers private experiences to resort guests, and the rest of Colorado offers more great courses.

Looking for a chance to play two highly ranked private golf courses without paying an initiation fee and annual dues? Colorado might be your shot, as Red Sky Golf Club in Wolcott is for the most part a private club that allows resort guests to play its two courses on alternating days.

Red Sky’s Tom Fazio and Greg Norman courses are both in the top five layouts in Colorado on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access courses in each state. Want to see how the rest of the state’s public courses shake out? Keep scrolling.

Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with the list of top public-access courses in each state among the most popular. All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time.

Also popular are the Golfweek’s Best rankings of top private courses in each state, and that list is likewise included below.

MORE COURSES: Best Modern | Best Classic | Top 200 Resort|
Top 200 Residential | Top 100 Best You Can Play

(m): Modern course, built in or after 1960
(c): Classic course, built before 1960
Note: If there is a number in the parenthesis with the m or c, that indicates where that course ranks among Golfweek’s Best top 200 modern or classic courses.