Usually a truly great golf course builds to a crescendo, with its 18th hole being a grand summation of all that came before. Winged Foot, Oakland Hills, Pinehurst No. 2, Pebble Beach – each of those all-World finishing stretches has one thing in common – stern challenge. Sometimes, however, a course can offer a softer finish. Cypress Point, ending on two...
At 8-under China’s Haotong Li is your surprise leader at the halfway point of the 2020 PGA Championship at San Francisco’s Harding Park, but two-time defending champion Brooks Koepka is part of a six man log-jam tied for second just two shots back. Playing in early warm and windless conditions, Li fired a 65, then took a break of less than an hour before...
Roars? What Roars? Silent, Crowdless 2020 PGA Championship Has Players Non-plussed —“Oh, you should see the Coliseum, Spaniard. 50,000 Romans watching every movement of your sword, willing you to make that killer blow. The silence before you strike, and the noise afterwards, it rises up like storm, as if you were the Thunder God himself.” ...
2015 PGA Champion Jason Day and journeyman pro Brendan Todd each fired 5-under 65s in round one of the 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park for a one shot lead over a gaggle on nine players that includes two-time defending PGA Champion Brooks Koepka, as well as former major champions Martin Kaymer, Zach Johnson and Justin Rose. Tiger Woods stands three back at 2...
My golf buddy Ector and his wife Marta are in NoCal this week and brought their golf clubs with them from L.A. I played Casa de Campo with Ector, and had a blast. He’s one of those guys that you don’t care what he shoots, because he’s so much fun to play with, (even though he shoots 120). It also helped watching his eyes widen with wonder as I...
Back in 1974 while covering Super Bowl VIII, writer Hunter S. Thompson discovered that all he had to do to make deadline was to take the Super Bowl article he wrote the previous year, change the name of the losing team from “Washington Redskins” to “Minnesota Vikings,” and fax it in to Rolling Stone. The Miami Dolphins slowly strangled both...
California golf conjures up fond reveries of golden sunshine, rhythmic waves lapping peacefully at rocky shorelines, and flagsticks snapping briskly in the breeze, silhouetted nobly against the blazing sunset… …just not at TPC Harding Park. Let’s see: Olympic Club, Meadow Club, California Golf Club of San Francisco, San Francisco Golf Club, Pebble...
DATELINE: A SECRET UNDERGROUND BUNKER, SOMEWHERE IN U.S.A. So a PGA Championship in August means this is Glory’s Last Shot, right? Not exactly. This season the PGA Championship is actually Glory’s First Shot. The Coronovirus kayoed world professional sports since March, leaving stadiums empty, athletes playing to pre-recorded crowd noise, and many events...
[Author’s Note: Continuing our rewind series, we celebrate Father’s Day with the letter from me to my Dad on Father’s day at the end of the tournament.] SPEECHLESS IN SEATTLE – DJ 3-JACKS HANDS 2015 U.S. OPEN TO JORDAN SPIETH [Editor’s Note: Bringing back an old favorite column, Jay writes this U.S. Open wrap-up in the form of a...
Future President’s Cup venues:
2019 – Royal Melbourne -Composite, Melbourne, Australia
2021 – Quail Hollow, Charlotte, NC
2023 – TBD
2025 – Harding Park Golf Club, San Francisco, CA
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – For the fourth consecutive day, June gloom hangs oppressively in the sky, so it’s no wonder golfers that prefer U.K. weather are doing so well on the leader board at the 119th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Hopefully, blue skies and golden sunshine will return just in time for you, dear reader, to hit the links yourself, before heading to...
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – Louis Oosthuizen found the poem, the song, the fragrance that is Pebble Beach Golf Links so irresistible, he had to stop and take some pictures. “I was out there, probably looked like a tourist taking all the pictures on my phone and forgot I was playing a practice round. But, yeah, that’s what this place does to you,” he...
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – With all the pomp and circumstance of the U.S. Open’s long and storied history at Pebble Beach, as well as the course’s glorious 100th anniversary, it’s easy to forget that the PGA Championship also was contested by the shores of Carmel Bay, and that it gave us as zany, wild, and dramatic a major as it has at many of its U.S...
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – It’s called June Gloom, that cold, grey mist that descends upon Monterey Peninsula that turns the otherwise green and golden Pebble Beach into a scene out of Hound of the Baskervilles. Under this chilly blanket of clouds, it’s easier to understand how our beloved Pebble, perhaps the shortest of America’s informal rotation of...
The USGA announced a dozen courses to host sectional qualifying for the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. While the most groundbreaking part of the announcement was the revealing of the first ever Canadian venue, Rattlesnake Point Golf Club (Copperhead and Sidewinder Courses), Milton, Ontario, the courses that arouse the interest of well-traveled American golfers...