ERIN, WI – Hey! Ron Whitten, Dana Fry, and Mike Hurdzan built this great golf course in Wisconsin. Let’s go and hack at it! That’s not my loudmouth, lunkhead golf buddies and I talking, it’s the brightest stars of the professional tours. A remarkably benign Erin Hills surrendered record numbers of birdies to every Tom, Dick, and Harry (or in...
ERIN, WI – With a precision that Bernhard Langer would have envied, Rickie Fowler seized the first round lead of the 117th U.S. Open with a dazzling 7-under 65. It was the lowest score-to-par in the first round of the National Open since Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf fired 8-under 63s at Baltusrol in 1980. Fowler’s card was sparkling clean – seven...
ERIN, WI – The collection of one shot holes at Erin Hills is as strong as we’ve ever seen at any U.S. Open. Both nine and 16 are downright iconic: instant classics. Both holes also prove that length is overrated. The ninth green is completely encircled by bunkers, including several narrow trenches just wide enough to stand, but, in places, to narrow to...
ERIN, WI – A blood red sunset bathed Erin Hills Golf Course in an eerie witch-light as the sun descended behind an ominous curtain of black clouds. One last feeble flicker of the dying rays extinguished dismally, and then the landscape plunged into darkness, illuminated only by angry streaks of lightning, each strike silhouetting the clubhouse against the...
GNN has just posted my Erin Hills preview for the 2017 U.S. Open.
We are at our desk working an hour earlier than our ETA. The rain has stopped and the players are headed out for practice rounds.
We’ll also post the Gary D’Amato interview we did as the second half of our Jay’s Plays Radio Show preview.
Happy U.S. Open week everybody.
2018: Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, N.Y. 2019: Pebble Beach Golf Links, Carmel, CA 2020: Winged Foot Golf Club (West Course), Mamaroneck, N.Y. 2021: Torrey Pines Golf Course (South Course), San Diego, Calif. 2022: The Country Club, Brookline, Mass. 2023: Los Angeles (Calif.) Country Club (North Course) 2024: Pinehurst Resort & Country Club, Village of...
It’s U.S. Open preview time. We’ll have our article posted at Golf News Net soon, but in the meantime, here’s part 1 of my Jay’s Plays Radio Show preview. This is one heck of a show people. Our first guest was the one and only Peter Kessler, veteran of thousands of radio and TV shows, including Golf Channel. We talked Tiger and Erin Hills...
PITTSBURGH, PA – There’s an old, true saying about the fervor and loyalty of Pittsburgh fans – when you play Pittsburgh, you play the whole city. Now you can add a corollary to that rule: when you run Pittsburgh, the whole city runs with you. Over 300,000 spectators cheered on 30,000 runners for the seventh annual Pittsburgh Marathon and Half...
BALDWINSVILLE, NY – Mother Nature obviously saved her best and brightest sunshine of this entire April for the Earth Day Half Marathon in Baldwinsville. A bold sunrise of blazing red and gold – sunbeams stretching their arms joyously – melted into a cloudless azure sky, and the rolling Adirondack foothills and meadows were bathed in a light that...
That’s more like it – Ernesto the Prediction Iguana went 5-1 last week, and 2-1 in teasers. That brings the season totals to 15-9 overall, 5-7 in exact teasers. He’s headed off for his annual November vacation next week, so the cats all get a chance to show their prognosticating prowess, but before Ernesto and his girl take off to some iguana...
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...
Rickie Fowler, JB Holmes, and Matt Kuchar became three of Davis Love’s four Captain’s Picks for the USA Ryder Cup team which will battle Europe at Hazeltine National Sept. 29 – Oct. Europe has won the last three Cups in a row. The final spot looks to be a battle between Bubba Watson and Bill Haas. Fowler will play well in a pod with Reed, Mickelson...
On the face of it, this looks unfair. A 10 year old girl, clearly a child prodigy at golf, is mysteriously being banned from golf for one year while her parents fight over custody. From the Deadspin article: “The ban comes as the kid is thriving on the links. By the count of Vechery [the father], a career real estate salesman and part-time golf coach, his...
We talked Ryder Cup, PGA Championship, and the Olympics with Ryan Ballengee then golf course architecture and his latest golf designs with Steve Smyers. Steve has two new designs coming on line soon: La Jama in Ecuador, and Meridoe in Dallas, plus he’s unveiling his touch-up work at Old Memorial later this fall.
If you want the truth about what’s happening in the darker corners of the sports world, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post should be a daily stop. Today he skewers Nike’s entire Tiger Woods-fueled lunacy that led to their demise. From the article: “Nike was barking up the wrong money tree. Golfers aren’t as impressionable or as vulnerable as...