We’ll have a longer article soon, but the best modern curse we visited this year was Boston Golf Club, called “the best course designed since 1960” by one of the smartest architecture critics I know. Designed by Gil Hanse, the course is a 21st century Pine Valley, a rustic, minimalist Shangri-la deep in the forest west of Boston. We’ll have...
MONROE TOWNSHIP, NJ – The eyes of the golf architecture cognoscenti are again upon our beloved Forsgate, and once more we are being spoken of in knowing nods and holy whispers. Golf Design expert Ran Morrissett, owner and operator of the golf design think tank GolfClubAtlas.com, has posted his analysis of the Banks course on line at for all the golf world to...
SCARSDALE, NY – [Author’s Note: Ardent golfers on both sides of the pond have heard of Sunningdale Golf Club in Merry Old England, a heathland masterpiece by Harry Colt and one of the world’s great courses, so rightly famous that author Ian Fleming made his quintessential super-spy James Bond a member of the august club. But here in America another...
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...
Amidst a tumult and shouting that would have impressed even the great Grantland Rice himself, the United States defeated Europe 17-11, winning their first Ryder Cup since 2008. Patrick Reed preened like an NFL linebacker, Phil Mickelson made putts from Duluth, St. Cloud, and Monkato, and Ryan Moore – the last man to make the team – sank the Ryder Cup...
Here are the matchups for tomorrow’s singles at Hazeltine Natonal as the 2016 Ryder Cup turns towards the Sunday Singles. 1. PATRICK REED (USA) V. RORY MCILROY (EUR) Ohhhh, grab your popcorn. We finally get the marquis matchup we wanted to see at a Sunday singles. You KNEW Reed had to lead off, and you KNEW Europe had to front load, and for once, the stars...
It’s downright poetic: the “Greatest Event in Golf” (as countless golfers and pundits have described it) is being played in the most golf loving state in the union. This week the 41st Ryder Cup comes to Hazeltine National, the golf club specifically designed to bring the golf world’s pre-eminent events to Minnesota. Built in 1962 by Robert...
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...
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 – —“I didn’t win despite my handicap, but because of it – just as Hogan came back from that automobile accident, and Babe Zaharias came back from a cancer operation. — Ed Furgol after winning The 1954 U.S. Open at Baltusrol At precisely 9 o’clock the sun went down with a last vermillion flash behind old Baltus...
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...
“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...
Forsgate and he Banks Course Ready for 9th Annual Golf Writer Battle Between New York, Philly –Special to AWITP by Correspondent Rodney Zilla MONROE TOWNSHIP, NJ – There’s Giants-Eagles, Mets-Phillies, Rangers-Flyers, and Knicks-Sixers, and each one of them has iconic moments. Remember? “It’s a fumble! Herm Edwards picks it up! Oh no...