MONROE TOWNSHIP, NJ – Of the many accolades that our beloved Banks Course has earned since Stephen Kay’s masterful restoration, perhaps none was more important than the glowing comments from no less a personage than Ran Morrissett himself, owner and operator of GolfClubAtlas.com, a world-wide think tank of experts on the topic of golf design. As I took...
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Good things happen when a Golden Age club not only hires the right golf course architect to perform a restoration, redesign, or renovation, but actually listens to his suggestions. It’s tough for Golden Age courses to embrace change sometimes, but by listening to the sage advice of internationally-acclaimed golf architect Kyle...
We talked Ryder Cup, PGA Championship, and the Olympics with Ryan Ballengee then golf course architecture and his latest golf designs with Steve Smyers. Steve has two new designs coming on line soon: La Jama in Ecuador, and Meridoe in Dallas, plus he’s unveiling his touch-up work at Old Memorial later this fall.
SPRINGFIELD, NJ – As night falls at Baltusrol and the forest-draped mountain is shrouded by low clouds, the waning crescent moon shines feebly in the overcast sky. Finally, the promised rain came, just a thin shower, but I was too late. Against all predictions, the 2016 PGA Championship finished on time Sunday night. Inside the clubhouse amber lights burn...
SPRINGFIELD, NJ – Right on cue, Baltusrol did what it always does at major golf championships – surrender a record low score. Sometimes it’s an immortal that does it – such as Jack Nicklaus or Phil Mickelson. Sometimes, however, it’s a journeyman who comes out of nowhere – Lee Janzen or Thomas Bjorn leap to mind. Each of those four...
SPRINGFIELD, NJ – When you look at a map of Baltusrol Country Club, the payout of the golf course resembles a barbell with the left side over-inflated on the bottom. But to the professional golfers assembled here for the last major golf championship of the year, the 98th PGA, it looks more like the plumpest, fattest, juiciest chicken wing this side of Buffalo...
PITTSBURGH, PA – —The noise afterwards, It rises up like a storm, As if you were the Thunder God himself. Proximo to Maximus the Gladiator— Like a scene from Gladiator, the roar of adulation rang from Erie to Allentown and from Scranton to Akron. No mere coliseum could match it. Conquering heroes were returning home, and this is Pittsburgh. When you...
OAKMONT, PA – “It’s the hardest golf course I’ve ever played,” said pretty much every golfer in the field this week at the 2016 U.S. Open. Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson, Andrew Sullivan, Phil Mickelson: the list was endless. Mighty Oakmont, Henry Fownes’s knuckle-dragging, slavering-jawed, razor-sharp taloned grassy guillotine is...
With today’s announcement that Oakmont and Shinnecock Hills will host the 2025 and 2026 U.S. Opens respectively, that fills up all spots available for the next ten years. Here is a list of all future U.S. Open venues through 2026. 2017 – Erin Hills Golf Club, Erin, WI 2018 – Shinnecock Hills Country Club, Southampton, NY 2019 – Pebble Beach...
OAKMONT, PA – They’re called “half-par holes” be cause they play either much easier or much harder than the par on the scorecard states, and they are often the key to winning a golf tournament. Be it stroke play or match play, the ability to negotiate the razor thin edge between a birdie (or even eagle) or a triple bogey is the difference...
Great job by the wonderful folks at GolfCourseTrades.com for running my article on Old Town Club, the last great course of Perry Maxwell. It’s a wonderful course in Winstom-Salem, NC, the home course of mighty Wake Forest! From the article: “It is impossible to understate how important Old Town is to both Maxwell’s legacy and the study of golf...
MONROE TOWNSHIP, NJ – The wind was cold as Spanish steel. A golf ball-gray sky stretched end to end across the horizon, clouds moving forlornly before the breeze. To the west a dark thunderhead roiled, black as a witch’s cauldron. Yet to the buoyant hearts of northeast golfers it might have well been a sunny 4th of July. “What a perfect day for golf...
It’s an all new Jay’s Plays Show on the Golf News Net Radio Network. First golf architect Bill Love and Director of Golf Will Hutter talk about Olympic Club and how it might play for the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open. Then golf architect Stephen Kay and golf course magnate Chris Schiavone jump on the show to talk about Shackamaxon’s 100th anniversary...
You know how it was all the rage a few years ago to start building brass statues of people and putting them around golf courses? If you legitimately want to bronze people that actually are good for the game of golf, then New Jersey should erect a statue of country club magnate Chris Schiavone. First, Chris spearheaded the resurrection of mighty Forsgate Country Club...
It’s rare when every major magazine rankings list agree with one another, but when they do, it’s time to pay attention…close attention. From the moment it was announced that Coore and Crenshaw would get a clifftop site at the new Nova Scotia golf destination complex, excitement was as palpable as the release of a new Star Wars movie. (Coore and...