Noted author and Perry Maxwell biographer Chris Clouser and I will be teaming up to do a “Point! Counterpoint!” piece on seven-time major championship venue Southern Hills and 1953 U.S. Amateur host and SH’s nearby cousin, Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club, which Maxwell did with Alister Mackenzie, (you remember him…we’ll be seeing...
Nicklaus makes a greensite look fake, even if it’s supposed to be real, (See River, Dismal). Tom Doak showed Jack how he builds courses at Sebonack, Jack looks at his crew and asks his guys don’t ever do that, they roll his eyes, he builds Dove Mountain. And then Geoff Ogilvy says: “The greens at Augusta look right. Most of them are built on the...
So Phil blew a four shot lead, but won the L.A. Open at stately, old Riviera, coming from two back to pull it off, and making Steve Stricker’s walk to the range irrelevant. Here’s Doug Ferguson’s story for the AP, via Fox Sports. Meanwhile, Shackelford found a great CBS Sports graphic about how you have the play conservatively on ten. In the last...
No word on what the future may bring, but Apache Stronghold, an excellent Tom Doak design owned by the San Carlos Apache Indian Nation has temporarily shut it’s doors. According to Golf Digest, “A notice on the casino’s web site reads, “The Apache Stronghold Golf Course is closed until further notice. We apologize for the inconvenience...
Woo hoo hoo! Hat tip to Ed Oden for finding these videos of Tom Doak and crew playing the first few holes of Old Macdonald, ther next great course at the Bandon Dunes Resort. Mike Kaiser, thank you.
First Hole.
Video part 2.
Doak interview.
“Take your bottom lip, and pull it up over your head.” That was how comedian Bill Cosby once said that Carol Burnett described labor pains, but it also depicts how it feels to flush a 4-up lead in golf to the drummer of a punk rock/ top-40 band, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The stars were still bright when Gary Wiseman’s Escalade pulled...
When you win two majors in a row, you have to do some zany photo ops, but this one takes the cake. Someone in South Africa decided to build a 907-yard par-3 as an “Extreme 19th Hole” at the Legends Golf and Safari resort. You read that right…a 907-yard par-3. “How can they do that?” you ask? Well, they went up to the top of a...
Sister Mary Matthew was scowling at Pete Ogonowski with a glance of Amazonian fierceness…again. This time his high crimes and misdemeanors were to stick his thumb against his closed middle and ring fingers, extend his pinkie and forefinger into a “devil sign,” and thrash his hair back and forth like a heavy metal star. He was doing it, however, during...
I’m finishing my piece on Dallas Public golf today. Until then, here’s the Colonial piece. Click over to Cybergolf for more pictures. Texas sunrise: the pale, grey light of dawn slowly blossoms into broad, golden beams of sunlight. It’s a new day, and as the sun slips over the horizon to shine a little light on Colonial Country Club...
It’s here. Colonial in Winter: The Yellow Rose of Texas.
Enjoy.
Cowboys G.C. 1600 Fairview Drive Grapevine, TX (just ten-fifteen minutes from DFW airoprt) 817.481.7277 www.cowboysgolfclub.com Architect: Jeff Brauer Wild winds whipped the plane as we made our way to Dallas. That’s meant the golf would be even better, if I were fortunate enough to get to the course. Winds around Dallas often wreak havoc on flight plans...
Unless you are a fan of golf course architecture, you might not know George Bahto’s name. After all, he’s never built a multi-million dollar major championship venue, he doesn’t have an enormous firm with projects world-wide, and he hasn’t been seen on network television talking to broadcasters about his latest course. Nevertheless, this...
LEATHERSTOCKING GOLF COURSE Route 80/Lake Road Cooperstown, NY 607.547.5275 www.otesaga.com/LGC/ Architect – Devereux Emmet Par 35-37=72 Excitement Level – 10/12 Difficulty – 7/12 Design – 6 to 6-½ stars Natural Setting – 6-½ stars Conditioning – 5-½ stars Cost – $95, $120 with cart, $10 off Hotel Guests, $40 replays, $70...
This week is my fourth anniversary as a professional sportswriter, as well as the 4th birthday of this website. One of my traditions is an anniversary piece, so here it is: an interview with Robert Trent, Jr. He’ll surprise you, that for certain. JF: Who are some of your favorite architects? RTJ: Tillie (A.W. Tillinghast). Great golf course architects fit...
Here’s the Cybergolf article. Colorado Golf Club gets the 2010 Senior PGA. Shackelford still says he thinks they’ll get a PGA Championship, but all that scuttlebutt may really just have been a sop to the Champions Tour for a little extra traction and a bone thrown to minimalism as a design doctrine, (read: Coore and Crenshaw in this case).