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 the tempest breaks at a major championship, it tends to do so with Olympian fury. A bar sinister moves across the sky with a rapidity that seems incredible. Then the wind’s voice rises with growing fury. The clouds turn black, then green, convulsing all a once into a washing machine in the sky. That’s what we’re waiting...
SPRINGFIELD, NJ – The approach of sunset was as grand as a Norman Rockwell painting. Rugged Baltusrol Mountain, also called First Mountain, stood sentinel over the stately golf course with its rambling Tudor architecture clubhouse as it has for over a century, while the sun dipped down low between the clouds and hillside, spreading a reddish flame across the...
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...
I caught up with Graeme McDowell, Kevin Streelman, Sergio Garcia, and golf course architect Rees Jones while roaming the grounds, while Phil, Henrik, and Danny Willett and more dropped by the media center for interviews. You can read all about it Golf News Net. We’ll have more all week from Baltusrol, as well as an extended dance version of the Jay’s...
“Ye friends that weep about my grave Compose your minds to rest Prepare with me for sudden death And be forever blest” That is the chilling epitaph on the forlorn, grey tombstone standing sentinel over wealthy oxen farmer Baltus Roll’s lonely grave in a northern New Jersey Presbyterian burial ground. His was a pioneering family in the region, so...
Golf News Net Publisher, Broadcaster, and Editor Ryan Ballengee writes this solid article on distance on the PGA Tour. I’ve been agreeing with Ryan for years – we need bifurcation on the Tour.Once you turn pro, grab a persimmon driver and hardwood woods. I mean really – people are routinely hitting 400+ yard drives now. Normal players just...
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 Ryan Ballengee and the folks at Golf News Net running my review of my new Callaway Apex Forged Irons.
UPDATE! I’m still hitting the irons great, thank you for asking!
We had Ryan Ballengee and Gary Van Sickle on the Jay’s Plays show on the Golf News Net Radio Network. We talked about the Masters, Jordan Spieth, the Players, Fowler, McIlroy, the USGA Fourball and the Anderson Memorial, both at Winged Foot, and the best moments of Tropic Thunder! sadly, no one has gotten the JB’s Best Hot Sauce Trivia Question right in a...
Starting with this week’s coverage the the Players Championship, GNN will be doing video. Look for my piece on Sawgrass shortly!
Just like newly-minted Masters Champion Danny Willett, the due date for Ryan and Katie Ballengee’s second child was…Masters Sunday! Yup…planned that well! :):) Still, the ever clever Ballengee, publisher, producer, and editor of the Golf News Net came up with a brilliant birth announcement for little Rose Carmela: Genius! So now little Carrick has a...
The Masters is less than a month away, and this year being the 30th anniversary of Jack Nicklaus’s miracle win in 1986, we have a special preview piece commemorating the event. Also, we’ll be reporting on thee Masters with Friday and Sunday recaps and columns here and at Golf News Net. In other news, coming up on the Jay’s Plays Show we’ll...
Golf News Net founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief Ryan Ballengee had this interview with golf legend Gary Player. Terrific stuff, Ryan.
In other news, watch for my Masters preview whee I interview, among others, Tom Weiskopf, Tom Watson, and Kenny Knox!
What a great way to end 2015 on the Jay’s Plays Show – Jam band breakout star and classical pianist Holly Bowling and S.I.’s Gary Van Sickle.
Photo courtesy of Holly Bowling.