What a lousy week for professional golf. First boats start floating across fairways at The Greenbriar Resort, forcing cancellation of the PGA Tour event and sending everyone scrambling for rescue and clean-up efforts after a disaster displaced thousands in West Virginia. But then came the embarrassing double whammy that a) Jordan Spieth is pulling out of the Olympics...
The USGA announced last week that San Francisco’s hallowed The Olympic Club Lake Course will host its first U.S. Women’s Open in 2021. Site of 11 previous USGA championships, including five U.S. Opens in the last 60 years, The Olympic Club’s devastating combination of length, trees and reverse camber should provide one of the sternest tests the...
My article on Olympic Club being selected to host the 2021 Women’s U.S. Open will be up at GNN shortly, but for now here’s a look at the future U.S. Women’s Open venues: 2016 Cordevalle Resort Golf Club, Golf Club, San Martin, CA 2017 Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, NJ 2018 Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club, Shoal Creek, AL. 2019 Country Club...
I’m sorry to be mercenary about it, but both the LPGA and the Solheim Cup got exactly what they needed this weekend: controversy. Before this weekend, the Solheim Cup was a niche thing recognized for what it was – a cutesy weekend of girls having fun rather than a true rejoinder to the Ryder Cup. Fans just really didn’t care that deeply if their...
We’ll have more on this story as it develops, but the U.S.G.A. announced today the CordeValle, a Robert Trent Jones, Jr. resort course in Northern California, will host the 2016 U.S. Women’s Open. “It means ‘Heart of the Valley” and it sits right in a valley in the midst of the golden, rolling hills of California,” said Jones...
Since all great epics come in trilogies (except Harry Potter), and since I’m still finishing my Tallgrass/Gil Hanse piece, here’s the sizzling climax of Golf and Spas! COEUR D’ALENE Britt and friends mentioned they were interested in possibly going to the Pacific Northwest, so how about Coeur D’Alene? “The water really is that blue and...
Last week’s piece on golf resorts and spas was so much a hit with the ladies, we’re going to give a bonus piece. So for Britt from Arlington and her golf friends from D.C., here’s Volume 2 of Golf and ***cringe***Spas… Leatherstocking Golf Club at the Otesaga Hotel Do you like baseball? How about Colonial American history? Opera and ballet? Okay...
Golf and ***shudder*** Spas… I hated typing that word, but hey, the readers have spoken… Dear Jay: My girlfriends and I love golf and are looking for a cool resort to play in the northwest, west or northeast that also has a good spa and food. We have played a lot of the big resorts and are looking for something cool and different. What can you recommend? Thanks...
MONROE TOWNSHIP, NJ – Annika Sorenstam has still got the magic, as hundreds of delighted fans got to see first-hand when she and PGA Tour star Brad Faxon visited Forsgate Country Club to host the club’s annual Charity Classic last month. Everyone came away deeply impressed by Annika the person as well as Annika the professional golfer on every level. She...
MONROE TOWNSHIP, NJ – Tomorrow, one of golf’s great gems will shine its inimitable version of the Sportlight once more for all the sports world to see. Forsgate Country Club’s fabled Banks Course will host Annika Sorenstam and Brad Faxon in the annual Charity Classic, which benefits both the Forsgate and Annika Foundations. You know the Sportlight...
One huge golf story went under-reported recently as LPGA star Morgan Pressel blistered mighty Bayonne Golf Club with a 63, shattering the course record in the process. Bayonne, the brain child of Eric Bergstrol, developer-turned-course-architect, who built the course directly across the street from the more highly-touted but architecturally inferior Liberty National...
No heavy lifting today: instead we’ll catch our breath before the Tour Championship and have a quick laugh and a smile. First, Paula Creamer took that grillion-dollar, mega-watt smile to the USAF and flew a mission over Oakmont Country Club. Steve DiMeglio of USA got the best assignment of the week. From his article: “Reaching speeds of 650 mph — and...
Jay Busbee has the scoop on a fan calling in and busting Juli inkster for the hideous crime of using a swing donut on a club while waiting for a backup to clear. My favorite similar story is the time Virginia team golfer Buddy Patch took the Medicus into play by accident during his first round at a team event. Then he slurred an apology drunkenly to the team for...
The Pink Panther struck again! No, not Peter Sellers and his hilarious, bumbling French Detective, this is America’s Pink Panther, sweet smiling, sweet swinging Paula Creamer, who won the 2010 Women’s U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club. Our great All-American girl won at one of our quintessential All-American golf courses. Creamer closed with a 69 to...
Lorena Ochoa will formally announce her retirement from competitive professional golf at a Friday press conference. Speculation has spread she is interested on starting a family, although at a February presser, she mentioned her retirement was actually further away than this Friday.
Hat tip: Ryan Ballengee, Steph Wei.