California golf conjures up fond reveries of golden sunshine, rhythmic waves lapping peacefully at rocky shorelines, and flagsticks snapping briskly in the breeze, silhouetted nobly against the blazing sunset… …just not at TPC Harding Park. Let’s see: Olympic Club, Meadow Club, California Golf Club of San Francisco, San Francisco Golf Club, Pebble...
DATELINE: A SECRET UNDERGROUND BUNKER, SOMEWHERE IN U.S.A. So a PGA Championship in August means this is Glory’s Last Shot, right? Not exactly. This season the PGA Championship is actually Glory’s First Shot. The Coronovirus kayoed world professional sports since March, leaving stadiums empty, athletes playing to pre-recorded crowd noise, and many events...
We played Lake Sunapee Country Club for the least scientific of reasons: It was the closest golf course to Mount Sunapee ski resort, which we are reviewing as a companion article to this piece. Boy, did we ever hit the jackpot. It was interesting to discover that Lake Sunapee Country Club is rated the top golf course in New Hampshire by several respectable...
Ryan Ballangee did a terrific job getting my Stratton Mountain article ready for pub over at GolfTripX, the travel wing of GolfNewsNet. The link is here. We’ll have one more in that series soon: Mount Sunapee and Lake Sunapee Country Club and – WOW! – did we ever hit the jackpot. After that, starting Tuesday August 4, we’ll be coming at you...
Wow, the National Ski Council Federation did a fantastic job posting and linking to my Cannon Mountain article, (here).
Soon SKIVT.com will be running my Vermont pieces as well, and with winter kinda sorta peeking around the corner, we are keeping one eye on our iRallys.
Up next: Mount Sunapee
The PGA of America, PGA Tour and the R&A jointly announced that the Ryder Cup and President’s Cup are postponed for one year and rescheduled to 2021 and 2022 respectively. Well it beats having a Ryder Cup with no fans…which is what we get for the PGA Championship and likely the U.S. Open. From the announcement: The 43rd Ryder Cup, scheduled for...
Border War! Vermont vs. New Hampshire Skiing Part 7 – Stratton Mountain —by Jay Flemma Special to Slave to the Traffic Light Adventure Magazine. This is the seventh piece in the VT vs. NH series. Links to the rest are below— STRATTON MOUNTAIN, WINDHAM COUNTY, VT – You should have heard the trash talking that went on about Stratton Mountain in the two...
Golf Course Trades has run my second article in a series of updates regarding the golf industry’s resurgence against the Coronavirus. These articles are published also here, at Golf News Net, and as links at the GSCAA website. We have all joined forces to bring you the latest news in the fastest amount of time and give you a glimpse of golf’s recovery...
[Author’s Note: Continuing our rewind series, we celebrate Father’s Day with the letter from me to my Dad on Father’s day at the end of the tournament.] SPEECHLESS IN SEATTLE – DJ 3-JACKS HANDS 2015 U.S. OPEN TO JORDAN SPIETH [Editor’s Note: Bringing back an old favorite column, Jay writes this U.S. Open wrap-up in the form of a...
[Author’s Note: This article is from last year’s Open coverage, but traces the history of Opens at Pebble from 1972, its first. Enjoy!] DEL MONTE FOREST, CA – Take a moment to deeply savor the fragrant breeze off the Pacific Ocean. Close your eyes and listen to the gentle rustle of the waves, its somnambulant trance broken only by the mournful...
For today’s U.S. Opern re-write, we celebrate unheralded, but definitely worthy winner Ed Furgol, the club pro who shocked the world winning the U.S. Open at Baltusrol in 1954. And he did it with a withered left arm. It happens once every dozen years or so, someone wins the Opn out of nowhere. Before there was Michael Campbell or Orville Moody or even Jack...
MAMARONECK, NY – We were all writing our leads in the media center, and then Winged Foot went from phestival to phuneral in phorty minutes.. Everyone in Mamaroneck – from the media, to the members on the terrace to the massive galleries around the golf course – everyone thought the 2006 U.S. Open was over, the last few holes just a phormality for...
Something a little different. As part of my prep for the U.S. Open, I got the rare and wonderful chance to play Winged Foot under tournament conditions. It was all I could handle an then some. Thank you Golf Course Trades for running the piece. Have fun everyone. From the article: “When it comes to playing the West in a tournament of any kind, Christmas can...
[Golf Course Trades has graciously allowed me to cross-post Covid19 related golf articles here and at the Golf News Net. This article first ran last April. Please consult visit those sites for more golf coverage, Covid-specific announcements, and updates to the information contained herein.] What a way to open his presidency: with an international crisis shuttering...
To the horror of golf architecture aficionados, and in a nod to goodie bags and swag, the PGA of America awarded the 2025 Championship to North Carolina’s Quail Hollow Club, home to a yearly PGA Tour event and host of the 2017 PGA, won by Justin Thomas. Quail Hollow isn’t even the 10th best course in North Carolina. We wrote about that back in 2017 in...