The crenellated battlement mesas of Castle Rock, Colorado take center stage for tomorrow’s matches between the extended Jim Engh design team family and this author’s trail mix of Bowling for Soup rock band rock and rollers and golf course design critics. Meanwhile hail only slightly smaller than golf balls interrupted the day’s practice round at...
Here’s the breakdown for the Fall tour. I’ll be reporting live from three different areas of our great golf nation. Part 1: Denver – Red Hawk Ridge, Pradera, Fossil Trace – The “Jim Engh” leg of the tour. Happily, he’s been building in a more expansive area of the country now, so people are getting to see his work. His design...
FARMINGTON, PA – Never, ever, EVER, pop the champagne early. The Boston Red Sox learned that the hard way in 1986 against the New York Mets and the Virginia team can within a whisker of making the same mistake and surrendering the biggest comeback in Potomac Cup history. With a 14.5 – 9.5 lead going into today’s 14 singles matches and needing merely...
FARMINGTON, PA – A leaden slate sky greets the Potomac Cup organizers as they arrive at the media center for the Sunday morning singles matches. The Cup will be awarded today, rain or shine, but sporadic showers will interrupt the proceedings more than once. Arriving even before resort staff, early moring radio shows covering the event are bantering about the...
Maryland talked the talk early, but Virginia walked the walk late, riding gritty, clutch back nine performances by Adam McCaa, Vance Welch and Ross McIntosh to stage a furious rally and seize control of the Potomac Cup at the halfway point. With afternoon matches teeing off just after 3 PM, Virginia holds an 11-1/2 to 6/1/2 lead in this, the sixth annual golf battle...
FARMINGTON, PA For a man starting seven Potomac Cup rookies right out of the gate in the Friday morning best ball matches, Maryland captain Jeff Sheehan is unconcerned. “We’re gonna be in their heads. They may have more experience, but we’re getting shots to even things out. There’s a lot of candy we’ll be getting this weekend and...
***Click here for my piece on Clarke and the 2006 Ryder Cup*** Four news items today. 1. The golf world sends its sympathies as Heather Clarke, wife of popular European Tour player Darren Clarke passes after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 39. Clarke had been a long time strong finisher in British Opens before bursting on the scene in America after drubbing...
Fall tour is scheduled for Colorado, Nebraska and Indiana. I’ll be filing live reports from Pradera, Sanctuary Club, Ballyneal and Dismal River on the private side, and after a warm up round at either Fossil Trace or Red Hawk Ridge, it’ll be off to Wild Horse in the Nebraska Sand Hills before jetting to Indiana for Brickyard Crossing and The Trophy Club...
This was reported over the sports and intellectual property law wire just a few minutes ago: German automotive giant BMW yesterday announced a six-year partnership agreement with the PGA Tour and the U.S. Western Golf Association (WGA) to create the BMW Championship. The new BMW Championship will be third of four PGA Tour “play-off tournaments” forming...
The team here at AWITP is heading out to North Dakota. You read that correctly…there is indeed great golf with North Dakota. Jim Engh designed the 1997 best new course winner Hawktree in Bismarck. Mike Hurdzan just won bext new course for Bully Pulpit in Medora. Finally, at trails end Links of North Dakota (also called Red Mike for those of you scoring at home)...
Happy Birthday wishes to two of my favorite women in the whole wide world! First, my mom celebrates her $%#@th birthday. You know how mom’s are all a little strange? Here’s one of my mom’s idiosyncharies…nobody knew when the heck her birthday was. You see, a smudge appears on her birth certificate and the “3” which looks like a...
Thank to Jeff and Bob over at Cybergolf for carrying my U.S. Open preview piece. Here’s the link. Enjoy. Some short snipets are below… On past U.S. Opens and the setup: “At Oakmont in ’73, Johnny Miller torched the course that Sunday for a major championship record 63 (which he now shares with Nicklaus, Weiskopf and Janzen). It was the...
Hat’s off to Sal Johnson at Golf Observer for doing a great job with my Tobacco Road – Pulp Fiction piece. It’s here. I’m particularly keen on the photo captions…like “They had a hi-fi phono. Boy did they let it blast!” Enjoy…I had a lot of fun writing that one. Thanks to all my architecture friends who were my test...
This came in from Lydia in Richmond: Dear Jay, I really like reading your golf reviews. Definitely keep them coming, but you had me ROTFLOL [author’s note: that’s “Rolling on the floor laughing out loud…” different from HOGMP which is “Hang on, getting more Pringles.” Anyway…] …You had me ROTFLOL. Please give me more snakes...
The first pic is from the second fairway through the “shortcut to the green. Now there’s a line of charm!. The second pic: this critter played through on 10. Third: A great view of the ninth fairway up to the clubhouse. Fourth, the gorgous par-3 7th. Finally, the view down the 18th fairway from the club house. All told, you can see fourteen holes from the...