Check out the brand new MIY SL2 Golf Bag from Stitch.
Stitch Golf bags have taken the golf world by storm as being one of the lightest bags on the market.
The SL2 Golf Bag has received major upgrades and is now apart of Stitch’s Make It Yours Program.
The bag offers complete customization options, allowing you to choose your chassis, strap, saddle pocket color and even add your initials. The MIY SL2 allows you to add your personality to your bag to stand out from the rest and is custom-made to order and ready to ship within days.
MIY SL2 Golf Bag (Stitch Golf)
The new SL2 bag has 50% more storage with a new GT saddle pocket that is specifically designed for all the essentials for a round of golf. This pocket is easy to access thanks to its stretch pocket design.
The pockets are equipped with YKK extra tough zippers, ensuring extreme durability, and include a magnetic pocket designed to hold up to a 12-pack of golf balls, along with a felt-lined valuables pocket.
MIY SL2 Golf Bag (Stitch Golf)
The bag is remarkably lightweight at just 99 ounces and is water and stain-resistant. The MIY SL2 includes a 4-way divider for organizing your clubs and comfortable straps for ease of carrying. Stay tuned for additional interchangeable components that can be purchased separately, allowing you to further customization the bag.
On a sunny weekday afternoon in June, Helsinki’s Suomenlinna sea fortress was hopping. Ferries loaded with visitors came and went. Locals wandered the miles of trails at this sprawling UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tourists learned about Scandinavian military history and visited museums. There was even a wedding going on, complete with women tottering around the old fort in high heels.
Photo by Teresa Bergen
Finland was part of Sweden when the Swedes started to build the sea fortress, then called Sveaborg, in 1748. Since Sweden was warring with Russia, the country wanted to protect its eastern border against Russian attacks. It was Sweden’s biggest construction project at the time.
The fort held out for over half a century before surrendering to Russian forces in 1808. Suomenlinna bears the marks of history. It was heavily damaged during the Crimean War in 1855. During the First World War (1914–1918), the fort was part of the Naval Fortress of Peter the Great, protecting the Russian capital St. Petersburg. The area housed a prison camp during the Finnish Civil War in 1918. More than a thousand prisoners died from disease, hunger, or execution.
Photo by Teresa Bergen
The grim, multi-layered history contrasts with the fun of a visit today. The fortress is a 15-minute ferry ride from downtown Helsinki. Restaurants, cafés, museums, and art and craft studios are open year-round. In summer, locals attend a popular outdoor theater. About 800 people live on the island.
Suomenlinna’s streets have no names, so it can be challenging to find your way about. Many tourists stick to what is known as the Blue Route, a mile-long trail that hits some of the fortress’ most important points. You start at the ferry landing and follow the blue signs. While Suomenlinna totals eight small islands, only five are connected by bridges or sandbars.
Beware the hissing geese and swooping seagulls. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
During my visit, I strayed from the Blue Route and wandered wherever whim took me. Every turn on paths and cobblestoned streets brought me to a new sea view or a bunker dug into a hillside.
One of the island’s explorable buildings. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
The site’s six museums feature everything from toys to military history. In some places, you can venture into old buildings. If you’re visiting Helsinki, an afternoon exploring Suomenlinna is a great way to learn some history, enjoy a long walk, and breathe in the fresh sea air.
Mack Wilson’s son takes first steps on Patriots’ field!
There are some moments in life that every parent will always remember and cherish, such as their child’s first steps. For former Alabama linebacker and current New England Patriot, [autotag]Mack Wilson[/autotag], this became a reality in the most extraordinary of ways when his son took his first steps in Gillette Stadium after the Patriots’ preseason game. Wilson and his son will forever have this moment on the field to cherish and it could not be any more adorable.
As for Wilson, this will be his first season in New England after being traded by the Cleveland Browns. While Wilson has seen his playing time and statistics decline in each of his first three years in the NFL, he will fill a starting role in a Bill Belichick-led defense which is a real chance to showcase his abilities. Through his three seasons in the league, Wilson has posted 160 tackles, nine passes deflected and one sack as well as an interception and a forced fumble.
Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Sam Murphy on Twitter @SamMurphy02.
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Vessel is known for quality golf gear as well as bags, and this season the company has launched a pair of new stand bags.
Vessel is known for quality golf gear as well as bags, and this season the company has launched a pair of new stand bags — the VLS and VLS Lux.
The VLS Stand Bag is the next generation of the company’s lightest full-featured stand bag. The group has taken its previous lightest bag and reduced the weight even more, giving it a larger top and touched up the details. This bag weighs 4.2 pounds and is made from a heavy-backed nylon twill. The VLS Stand Bag includes a magnetic cooler water probable pouch, 4-point adjustable strap and carbon fiber legs for maximum stability. The bag will come in four colorways of black, grey, olive and navy.
Vessel VLS Stand Bag in Four Colorways- $305. (Vessel)
The VLS Lux Stand Bag is a new line of their classic Lite Lux bag. The updated bag is equipped with a larger top, leather top handle, and a solid base with patented rotator stand technology. This bag weighs 4.8 pounds and comes with five exterior zip pockets and 1 exterior slip pocket. There are two strap options of a double equilibrium strap or a single strap for this bag.
The VLS Lux is launching a new perforated black with quilted detailing and a pebbled white followed by the Lux crosshatch material in black, natural and maroon.
Vessel VLS Lux Black Perforated stand bag- $385. (Vessel)
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Golfweek’s Best includes the walking environment a key metric in developing its lists of great golf courses.
Of the 10 categories in which Golfweek’s Best course raters are asked to assign scores in their course evaluations, the “walk in the park test” is perhaps the least understood. It’s certainly the one we as panelists get the most questions about.
There’s no denying that assigning a number to how enjoyable a place is to spend half a day is a particularly slippery and subjective enterprise, but there are a few ways in which raters might gain a toehold in interpreting this category. (Other categories for raters include memorability of par 3s, par 4s and par 5s; conditioning; and the like.)
Here’s a story that might be illustrative. Last May, I had the great fortune to be invited for a round at the National Golf Links of America in Southampton, New York. The timing seemed auspicious, but when the day arrived the weather was less than ideal: low 40s, steady rain and a gusty, biting wind that made bogeys feel like pars. Despite the conditions, our host was both gracious and game, and our entire Gore-Tex-clad group had a blast from start to finish.
As we strolled down the hill on the wonderful 17th, a hole named Peconic, I said to our host, “You know, every time I come here I’m amazed by one thing above all – I seem to always finish my round with more energy than when I started.”
That is inspiring architecture. That’s a course that aces the walk in the park test.
Great golf courses tell a story. The genres may vary – perhaps it’s a tale of epic heroism (Pine Valley in New Jersey), or a subtle chamber drama (Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina) or a mystery with a solution key that varies day to day (the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland) – but they always situate the golfer at the center of a compelling narrative.
The Old Course at St. Andrews is a walking shrine. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)
Architects use routing – which is the subject of its own Golfweek’s Best rating category – to pack as much interesting golf as they can into the property’s confines, but I would argue they do not always create great stories. Even some highly rated courses do not necessarily excel as walks in the park.
Naturally, some sites are more conducive to a great walk in the park than others, but the most talented architects have a knack for drawing out and amplifying their inherent sense of place. Inviting the golfer to explore how different environments transition from one to another often helps.
Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw do this beautifully at Friar’s Head in New York and Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s Bandon Trails in Oregon. Stanley Thompson exploded his routing at Cape Breton Highlands Links, justifying some longer walks between tees and greens to fully showcase the magnificent rivers, mountains and valleys of the Nova Scotia wilderness. At Dismal River Club’s Red Course in Nebraska, Tom Doak opted for an unconventional “open-jaw” routing – the course ends a solid half-mile away from where it began – to produce first-rate hole variety and a compelling environmental narrative.
Other courses may offer a collection of challenging or interesting shots, yet somehow they create a feel as if the player is tracking around the same piece of ground without much sense of purpose.
Let’s go back to basics, though.
The key word in this category is “walk.” At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious, it is infinitely easier to evaluate a course’s merits in this category on foot rather than from the seat of a golf cart. There are plenty of good courses that were designed with motorized transport at the front of mind, but how many of them are truly great?
A few years ago, I played New Zealand’s famed Kauri Cliffs and stubbornly chose to walk it. Those who have been there probably will not be surprised that I didn’t enjoy it as much as my riding partners. It’s still an incredibly beautiful place, but the golf does not prioritize this most ancient of design imperatives.
This isn’t to directly equate the walk in the park test with walkability. After all, on the other end of the spectrum, we’ve all played our share of highly walkable courses that don’t tell much of a story. It’s merely to suggest that the latter should probably factor into consideration to some extent.
The hardest aspect to quantify in the walk in the park test, but perhaps the most rewarding to bear in mind while at play, may be that it leaves room for the rater – or any player, for that matter – to express his or her appreciation for non-architectural aspects that enhance the experience of spending half a day chasing a little white ball.
Those considerations are highly subjective. It might be a potent juxtaposition, such as the awesome feeling of watching a tee shot fly far and sure against the backdrop of Beverly Hills skyscrapers at Los Angeles Country Club. Or it might be an organic, human-scale connection with the surrounding community. Maybe for you it’s a club that welcomes dogs, or maybe it’s linked to a tightly knit routing that allows groups to whip around in three hours.
For me, there’s almost a sense of timelessness to a great walk in the park. One of my favorite rounds of 2019 came at Wisconsin’s Lawsonia Links with fellow Golfweek’s Best raters Mike Hopkins and Chris Hufnagel. We tackled William Langford and Theodore Moreau’s masterpiece on a hot and humid Midwestern summer afternoon. Hopkins played modern equipment, Hufnagel bagged a set of 1970s-vintage persimmons and blades, and I moved up a set of tees and played century-old hickories. We marveled at the course’s consistent ability to provide entertaining golf for all three of us.
We walked smoothly yet unhurriedly through a routing that highlighted, in turn, small-town farm country, dense pine forest and a grand, wide-open and boldly undulating stage reminiscent of nothing less than Shinnecock Hills. We spent a not-insignificant portion of the round expressing how downright lucky we felt to be on that particular golf course, on that day.
We were in the throes of a great walk in the park. Indeed, discovering and celebrating what makes for your ideal walk in the park should be at the heart of every golfer’s journey.
– Thomas Dunne serves as a rater panelist for Golfweek’s Best, helping to shepherd the Golfweek’s Best course rankings.
Playing golf on foot has brought together a group of players who look to enjoy the walk.
“Enjoy the walk” is how Rob Rigg ends every email and newsletter he sends to members of the Walking Golfers Society, and it might as well be its mantra.
“It’s pretty simple, right?” Rigg said.
A devotee of walking from a young age as a caddie growing up in Canada, Rigg founded the society during a rainy Oregon winter in 2009 as a passion project to provide information about the many benefits of walking during golf. It has stayed true to that mission, rating thousands of courses for walkability, organizing member golf trips and advocating for the enjoyment of golf as a walking game – the way the game was intended to be played.
“As soon as I started it, I began getting emails from people telling me how they’d lost 15 pounds from walking,” Rigg said.
The society has grown to more than 2,000 members – there’s no membership fee or annual dues – and created some lasting bonds. Rigg, for instance, began trading emails with member Sean Eidson, and eventually they met to play Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s Pacific Dunes. They started talking about footwear and decided to launch a company together, True Footwear. (Rigg resigned as company president in 2013, and later worked for TaylorMade-Adidas Golf. He’s currently an executive for a CBD company.)
Then there is Ben Cowan (not to be confused with Ben Cowan-Dewar, CEO of Cabot Links in Nova Scotia), whose parents met when Cowan’s father caddied for his mother and has been swinging a club practically since the day he left the womb. Cowan discovered the society while on vacation in Florida while doing a Google search for walking-friendly courses in the Sunshine State.
“It was everything I believed in. I wanted to help spread it in the Midwest,” said Cowan, who lives north of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and described his role as both second-in-command and as a permanent intern.
Within a year he began hosting events throughout Michigan and beyond. His favorite was a gathering of 24 golfers from 12 states for a Ryder Cup-style competition at walker-friendly courses in Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee. Ballyneal in Colorado, Pine Needles in North Carolina and Pasatiempo in California are among the hosts of national walking gatherings, and celebrated architects such as Mike DeVries, Jim Urbina and Tom Doak have participated and spoken to attendees.
“When we can get our members together, it is really awesome,” Rigg said.
Both Cowan and Rigg are encouraged by the influx of walker-friendly courses. They tabbed it the Bandon Dunes influence, after an era in which course construction was geared towards selling real estate, forcing architects to lay endless ribbons of pavement for golf carts. Those vehicles were deemed an essential source of revenue. These days fewer courses turn away walkers, but still it is a far cry in the United States from the way it is ingrained in the DNA of golfers in countries such as Scotland, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere to pull a trolley or throw a bag on one’s back.
“There are too many people who never have even tried walking, which I just find sad,” Cowan said.
But the global pandemic has motivated some golfers who haven’t walked in years, or never have before, to take to fairways by foot for their golf fix. Rigg wonders, however, if this opportunity to showcase that the game is more enjoyable when walking has been missed.
“I saw some fivesomes playing and they were all in individual carts,” Rigg said. “It made me wish there had been more of a push to get people walking.”
Rigg picked up his appreciation of the walking aspect of the game from his grandparents, who he said, “were walkers until they were in the grave. They loved it.” He fell hard for that certain cadence of walking between shots, the rhythm and flow to the round that is lost when one takes a cart.
Together with an army of members across the country, the Walking Golfers Society has rated thousands of courses on a walkability scale that bears a slight resemblance to Homeland Security’s color-coded terrorism threat advisory scale with green being top-rated followed by yellow, orange, red (the course allows walkers, but you may need a Sherpa) to black (walking not permitted).
“I get emails all the time saying, ‘Hey, I live in Michigan and here are my ratings,’ ” Rigg said.
While work and family responsibilities have taken their toll on the amount of time that Rigg and Cowan can devote to their online resource for fellow walkers and to advocate the health and exercise component of the sport, they still remain committed to their overriding mission: enjoying the walk.
Golf was invented on foot, and it’s still best played that way.
(Editor’s note: All week long, Golfweek will celebrate the beautiful walk that makes this game great. We continue with a personal look at some of our favorite memories.)
Golf was invented on foot, and it’s still best played that way. Sure, there are times and situations where that golf cart beckons. A modern fleet keeps many older players going round and round, and there simply are days where the heat would chase just about anybody into the shade of a cart’s roof.
But the best of golf is sampled while walking.
This year has been at best a mixed bag for golf, with coronavirus concerns grinding golf to a halt in many states through much of the spring. But in many locations, participation is thriving as players look for any retreat to normalcy. And as states and municipalities have tried to slow the spread of COVID-19, some officials allowed the game to continue with a new yet old mandate: Walking only.
With a few noted exceptions, that’s as it should be.
And with that as a backdrop, welcome to Golfweek’s walking issue. We show the gear you might need, what goes into building a great walking course, how you might lighten the load and more.
And we start it off with some of our favorite walks in golf.
Steve DiMeglio crosses a bridge at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. Photo by Golfweek
Steve DiMeglio
I’ve walked across the Swilcan Bridge and stepped into the Road Hole Bunker at the Home of Golf. Twice ambled through the forest, across the massive sand dunes and along the craggy California coast at Cypress Point Club. High-stepped 190 yards to the green at the 17th hole of the Dinah Shore Tournament Course after my lone hole-in-one – 6-iron, still have the golf ball. But no walk in golf matches the two I’ve taken alongside a caddie wearing white overalls and a green cap. Among the towering Georgia Pines. On a former nursery that became Augusta National Golf Club. Two bucket list jackpots hit when my number came up twice in the media lottery to play the Monday after the Masters – in 2008 following Trevor Immelman’s victory, and in 2017 after Sergio Garcia won the green jacket. From the moment you learn you’re one of the few lucky souls to have the magical number, you walk a bit taller and smile a bit more – and make absolutely sure
the alarm clock goes off and pray the sun is shining on Monday. On those two Mondays, when all the spectator bleachers already have been dismantled and the roars whistling through the pines have faded, the silence blissfully still rings and the colors still burst and one feels like a kid walking into the candy store for the first time. For each round, I never walked slower in my life. Every step was wonderful, and all the pictures from 10 instamatic cameras are still on hand. Each round was the best walk in golf I’ve ever taken, a stroll in an enchanted setting that leads you through history and the wonders of this game.
The view from the third tee at Pacific Dunes at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. Photo courtesy of Bandon Dunes
Jason Lusk
Golf is full of aha moments. Walk behind the clubhouse at Augusta National – aha, this place is really hilly. Stroll through 16 treelined holes at Harbour Town Golf Links – aha, saltwater. … and there’s the lighthouse. My favorite comes at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, but it might not be the one some players expect, which would be David McLay Kidd’s incredible aha moment on No. 4 at Bandon Dunes, the original course at the resort. After three holes up and down a giant ridgeline, players reach their approach shots on No. 4 to face a downhill shot between towering dunes with the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop. The scene is perfectly framed. It’s as aha as aha gets. But that isn’t my favorite walk. Maybe because I played the resort’s Pacific Dunes first, my favorite walk on the property is from that course’s second green up a wall of sand to the third tee. After two short par 4s in the dunes, which create a splendid sense of isolation, Tom Doak’s layout opens wide on the perched tee box of the par-5 third. There’s the ocean, finally in view. The cliffs some 500 yards away. Rolling, bouncy terrain. Tall grasses swaying in the breeze. Anticipation. Gorse. The whole gist of the property is laid out in front of you – they could charge double the green fee to use that back tee as a picnic ground. If this is your first round at the resort, this is the introduction to why Pacific Dunes ranks No. 2 on Golfweek’s Best list of modern courses.
Aha, indeed.
The view across 18 fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links Photo courtesy of Pebble Beach
Beth Ann Nichols
If there’s a bigger goose bump walk in golf that’s open to all, I can’t think of it. In fact, a tee time isn’t even necessary. Anyone who’s simply in the area can drive onto Pebble Beach property, pull into the parking lot, walk past a line of boutique shops and the putting green, pop out on the other side of the lodge and – BAM! There’s the 18th green at Pebble Beach and all its splendor. You’ll speed walk up to the little wooden fence and stare at the Pacific Ocean, marveling that it looks as good in person as it does on TV. You’ll watch the players coming up the 18th, picturing yourself there later that day or the next or sometime in the distant future once you’ve saved up. Whether it’s your first time walking out to the 18th at Pebble or your 50th, the anticipation never changes. And each time you’ll find yourself thinking – God, please let it be a clear day.
Adam Schupak
The only walk in golf better than the one from the 14th green across 17-Mile Drive to the 15th tee at Cypress Point Golf Club in Pebble Beach, California, is the short trek from No. 15 to 16, two of the most scenic par 3s on the planet. That sound you hear? It’s hard to tell if it is the waves crashing against the jutted Pacific coastline or your heart pumping with anticipation. Under a canopy of ancient cypress trees and down a dirt path is a short curve to what may be the most natural and picturesque challenges in golf. Good thing there’s a bench at the tee box, because the site of the 200-plus-yard carry over water will take your breath away. Of course, after you gaze at golf’s pin-up model of a hole, it’s decision time. Sure, there’s room to bail out left, but I didn’t come here to lay up at the 233-yard beauty. Who knows if I’ll ever get another chance to play Cypress again – I had the privilege to do so during my bachelor party – but I do know my video of the walk from 15 to 16 is second only in my heart to the one my bride took a few months later down an aisle.
David Dusek
My favorite walk in golf is short, maybe 75 yards in total, but it involves two holes. As you approach the seventh green at the Maidstone Club in New York, the eighth green is on your left. I always try to take note of it, because after finishing the seventh hole and strolling around a bunker that separates the putting surface from the eighth tee, you face a blind, 155-yard shot over a dune into the wind coming off the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve been fortunate enough to have played Pebble Beach. Augusta National, the Old Course at St. Andrews and all the courses at Bandon Dunes except the newly opened Sheep Ranch. No tee shot unnerves me more than that little punch 8-iron at Maidstone, yet I adore it. The wispy grasses on the dune never stop bobbing in the wind, there is always a briny smell in the air and if the wind isn’t howling too loudly, you can hear the surf breaking on the beach some 200 yards away. That walk, to finish the seventh hole and play the tee shot
on eight, is my favorite 30 seconds in golf.
No. 1 of the Old Course at St. Andrews Photo courtesy of St. Andrews Links
Jay Blasi
Pure joy. Excitement. Wonder. Gratitude. Each step off the first tee of the Old Course in St. Andrews sent these powerful emotions rushing through my body. Standing on the tee and looking in all directions, I was struck with the joy and excitement of fulfilling a lifelong dream. The clock on the clubhouse, the Old Tom Morris Shop, the Swilcan Bridge, the rumpled turf that is better than you imagined. Your heart races when you realize you are about to take the walk that has produced so many of the game’s great moments. You see Jack and his yellow sweater. You see Rocca on his knees in the Valley of Sin. Tiger and his triumphant march. You wonder how a course could fit so perfectly with the town? How turf could be this perfect and firm? How a 127 yard-wide fairway could be so terrifying to hit? More than anything, you are grateful. Grateful to share this magical walk with your dad who taught you the game. Grateful that this Old Course is responsible for the career you wanted since you were a kid. Grateful that this place is truly for the people and you can’t think of a better place on earth for a picnic on Sunday.
Julie Williams on the Straits course at Whistling Straits. Photo by Golfweek
Julie Williams
I hit a lot of golf milestones playing Whistling Straits in Wisconsin the morning after the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open wrapped up at nearby Blackwolf Run. It was easily the best course I’d ever played. I took a caddie (not my dad) for the first time. Then there were the sheep. We heard them before we saw them – a chorus of jingling bells in the distance. When we topped the next hill, we found the herd shuffling along with bells around their necks. Disgustingly hot temperatures plagued that Women’s Open, but Monday morning was crisp and comfortable. The walk was hilly but the course felt compact. Tall, waving fescue framed the holes perfectly. With someone else toting my bag, I concentrated on the golf. Most of all, I will remember the turquoise shade of Lake Michigan, the backdrop for the whole scene. If you’d dropped me there blind-folded, I’d have sworn we were in the Caribbean. Gwk
This story originally appeard in Issue 3 2020 of Golfweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.
