This week mighty, venerable Winged Foot Golf Club hosts its sixth U.S. Open, 13th USGA event, and seventh major championship, (it hosted the 1997 PGA). The par-70 layout will play to a bloated 7,477 yards; seven of the twelve par-4s are 467 yards or longer. It also features 4-1/2 to 7-1/2 inch rough, and green speeds around 13 on the stimpometer. In other words, the...
For everyone who relishes U.S. Open week for its sheer bloodthirstiness, welcome to Winged Foot West. It just became your new favorite course. Like will-o-the-wisps feeding off the agonizing cries of their dying victims, everyman golfers will spend this week, pointing at the pros and laughing. Chunks, chili dips, fluffs, fliers, skulls, and walks of shame...
—Of cruel and mighty Winged Foot now to you I sadly sing And all the lost and broken men who felt her deadly sting Who wander now as shadows in her darkness ever more To roam her haunted passageways forsaken and forlorn But chief among the cursed souls that in that valley dwell A phantasm malevolent, most terrible and fell The Ghost of U.S. Opens Past is her...
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...
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...
“A crown jewel of the Travis diadem” – that’s New Jersey’s Hollywood Golf Club. They have recently completed a sparkling restoration. There is just one green left to restore, and that one will be a museum piece when it’s done. You can read the article here. Here’s a snippet: The project has been a runaway success, and many in...
Once again, a huge thank you to Golf Course Trades, Tedesco Country Club, and Ron Forse. It’s easy to write a great story when you have a terrific subject. Click here for the entire piece. From the article: “By the time you crest the hill on 16 over which you’ve hit you’ve already been enchanted by the course’s wondrous variety –...
SLEEPY HOLLOW, NY – The United States Golf Association (USGA) today announced Sleepy Hollow Country Club, in Scarborough, N.Y., as the host site for the 43rd U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship. The dates of the championship are Sept. 9-14, 2023. Fenway Golf Club, in Scarsdale, N.Y., will serve as the stroke-play co-host course. “The USGA is pleased to work in...
Thanks again to Golf Course Trades for making my piece on Monterey Peninsula Country Club sparkle. I love both courses; Strantz’s Shore Course is a masterpiece and a west coast pantheon to his legacy, while the Dunes Course is one of Fazio’s unqualified best in the world.From the story: “Strantz knew he was designing between Pebble and Cypress...
Author’s Note: In a first for Golf Course Trades, we are publishing a two-part piece on Marblehead, Massachusetts’ Tedesco Country Club, a course designed and redesigned by many hands, including Wayne Stiles, Jon Van Kleek, and Donald Ross, and most recently renovated by Ron Forse. The course is named after one of the most famous shipwrecks in New...
Golf Course Trades did a magnificent job with my latest piece: St. George’s Golf and Country Club, a true Devereux Emmet faithfully restored by Gil Hanse. St. George’s shows that you don’t need 7,500 yards and forced carries over water to defend par, you need curvaceous greens with terrifying false fronts. You need tilted fairways and uneven lies to...
MONROE TOWNSHIP, NJ – For the ninth time in 12 years, the team of Philadelphia and New Jersey golf media all-stars defeated the New York/National golf writers and broadcasters to win the Writer Cup at Forsgate Country Club’s fabled Banks Course. Playing a stroke play format where the top ten net and top three gross scores counted, Philly shellacked New...
This month’s column for Golf Course Trades focuses on an important milestone in the careers of both Perry Maxwell and Alister Mackenzie. Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club was the genesis of their long and fruitful collaboration that would ultimately produce Augusta National and Crystal Downs. From the article: “‘What I love about the greens are...
Within five days of each other, venerable Forsgate Country Club’s Banks course will host the 12th annual Writer Cup and welcome LPGA immortal Jan Stephenson for an exhibition. The Banks course, the last course designed by the triumverate of C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor, and Charles “Steamshovel” Banks has hosted a galaxy of PGA and LPGA stars since...
Once again, the good folks at Golf Course Trades have done a spectacular job spiffing up one of my pieces. This time it’s Chris Schiavone and Stephen Kay’s restoration of one of A.W. Tillinghast’s earliest courses: Shackamaxon Country Club in northern New Jersey.
From the article: