Now that Winged Foot has been selected to host the 2020 U.S. Open, can an announcement that Oakland Hills will return to the informal U.S. Open rota be far behind? We reported hints that Oakland Hills could return here and at Cybergolof. The South Course, famously dubbed “The Monster” in 1951, will host the 2016 U.S. Amateur, often seen as a gateway...
—You may find yourself In a beautiful house With a beautiful wife You may ask yourself Well…how did I get here? Talking Heads – “Once in a Lifetime“— SAN FRANCISCO – One of my Golf Magazine writer buddies turned to me wide-eyed after the final putt dropped and said, “Congratulations on picking Webb Simpson to win this...
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – A missile crisis hush has fallen over San Francisco. You can feel the tension in the air, gathering its strength, waiting for the right time to strike. Eerily silent on the eve of championship Sunday, it’s as though all the golf world has taken its one last deep breath before the plunge headlong into chaos tomorrow. Yes, it will be...
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – [Author’s Note: By popular request, it seems I’m back on retrospective duty one more time this week. Since the feedback on the U.S. Open Memories and Great Open Stretches piece was remarkable, you my dear readers have inspired my editors to ask me for this look back at great amateur golf performances of the modern major...
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – When the journalists, broadcasters, and oddsmakers were asking, “Which Tiger Woods is going to show up this week?” they had the right wording, but weren’t asking the right question. When asking “Which Tiger?” most people were wondering whether we’d see the Tiger who won at the Memorial or the Tiger who...
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – On the eve of the Open, let’s just mellow out and remember some great U.S. Open memories. JAY’S TOP 10 U.S. OPEN MEMORIES OF THE LAST 50 YEARS 10. 1973 – Johnny Miller’s 63 – Oakmont was not its usual brutish self that entire week. It was completely waterlogged, so competitors could play lawn darts instead of...
SAN FRANCISCO – There was once a time when the U.S. Open was far more than just “Golf’s Toughest Test.” As far back as the 1970s golf journalists christened the event “The Tricked-up Open” for all the cloak and dagger claustrophobia of criminally narrow fairways, parquet floor greens, and mine fields of unexploded double bogeys...
Wowsers, that’s shades of Payne Stewart in 1998, only at 17 not 18. Don’t miss the correct section of the green or else!
The video of the green shedding balls like rain off a macintosh is here.
It’s fitting that the town that gave us the Grateful Dead would also give us U.S. Open winners that to amount to a decades-long strange trip. Or as Hall of Fame golf writer Dan Jenkins once wrote, “Of all the traditions in golf, the one at Olympic Club is the most annoying. Hold a U.S. Open at Olympic and the wrong guy will win it every time.” Jack...
1. Reverse Camber – the holes turn one way, but the land flows the other, making distance control off the tee just as important as accuracy. 2. “Trees trees trees trees trees” – as the great Art Spander put it. “No water or OB, just forty thousand trees…” 3. Or as golf architect Tom Doak called it, “one of the most...
We caught up with Bill Love, the architect responsible for getting Olympic Club ready for this year’s U.S. Open. Jay Flemma: We’ve heard that the opening stretch of holes at Olympic Club will be the toughest start to a U.S. Open in recent memory, but that there might be some birdies coming home. What look to be the toughest holes at Olympic Club and what...
Here’s a great course map of the Olympic Club (Lake Course), site of the 2012 U.S.; Open. We’ll start a lively discussion soon of the 670-yard par-5 (16) as well as the reverse camber of the holes (discussed here with NoCal’s own Art Spander), and the 550-yard par-4. (Hint: Good stuff on the reverse camber!) And here’s a great shot of 18...
FOREST HILLS, NY – AWITP sources have confirmed that discussion between the PGA of America and the governing bodies in New York that Bethpage may be considered for the 2020 or 2021 PGA Championship and the 2028 Ryder Cup. Sources also confirm that Rees Jones’s restoration work at Baltusrol has gone so well in preparation for the 2016 PGA Championship...
[***Editor’s Note*** For those of you who clicked here to read the rest of my British Open preview from the PGA.com website, please click here for the rest of that article.] Excellent news for fans of great golf course architecture comes out of Detroit today – Oakland Hills is discussing the possibility of hosting the 2020 U.S. Open with the U.S.G.A...
BETHESDA, MD – The lightning blinded the eyes of all the spectators with its burnished reflection of the sun off the shaft of Rory McIlroy’s hybrid. We first heard the “Thwack!” as the clubface spoke its single word, and then the golf ball soared skyward, waving to Snoopy 2 as it cruised by on its way to the 10th green at Congressional Country...