Ernesto is roaring like a lion after a 5-1 week, 2-1 in teasers. That swells the season totals to a robust 38-14, 16-10 in teasers. We won last week with the Patriots (6-1 for us this season), the Saints (4-0 for us), the Texans, the Colts, and the Packers (1-0 this season with each). Our lone loss was betting against the Browns (3-2 on that score this year). So...
Yankee Stadsium of Golf or Graveyard of Champions? Winged Foot is both. Golf Course Trades has my story about Winged Foot’s restoration and head superintendent Steve Rabideau. From the article: “It’s a monumental responsibility that Rabideau shoulders, but he’s proven time and again to be an Atlas among superintendents: stewarding a club with...
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Brooks Koepka may have won the trophy again, and Tommy Fleetwood might have won the hearts of golfers everywhere with his tournament record-tying 63 and rock-star hair, but Shinnecock Hills won the 118th U.S. Open. As it should be; at a truly great U.S. Open, the course is always the star. Koepka became the first repeat U.S. Open Champion...
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Pre-eminent sports writer Rick Reilly’s hat said it all. “Pray For Birdies,” it blared in red, white and blue. It feels like an old-school U.S. Open even though the golf course is as wide as a weekend bogey golfer could wish for. Despite the widest fairways in modern tournament history, at the halfway point of the 118th U.S...
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – I want to thank the great Dan Jenkins for today’s writing prompt. He published some of his favorite (and not so favorite Opens) and reminded me that it’s time for my annual U.S. Open history lesson for y’all. So here we go; class is in session. Take good notes. You never know when you’ll be quizzed. GREAT STORIES YOU...
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – My colleague and friend Mike Vaccaro, a sparkling gem of the New York Post sports writing diadem, likes to collect datelines. I remember he was especially proud of “Beijing,” but lamented publicly that it couldn’t be “Peking” instead. Mike and I met writing the dateline “Mamaroneck” in 2006 at Winged...
SOUTHAMPTON – “It’s a process, it’s a process, it’s a process.” If the old Tiger Woods – describing his swing changes – said it once, he said it a thousand times. It became a joke in the media center. I thought it was merely a combination of platitude and mantra; something to he chanted to himself as he worked the range...
So my U.S. Open preview is up at Golf News Net. (They always male it look fantastic!) Ryan Ballengee and I will have wall-to-wall coverage of the tournament all week long, with radio, video, and 1,500 words a day. Plus I’ll have three-day coverage of the Anderson Memorial at Winged Foot. Throw in a round at National Golf Links of America, and that’s a...
We celebrate my Dad’s life tomorrow and Thursday, but for today, I thought you all might to reminisce with me in another way. Many Sundays when covering the U.S. Open, I’d write a Father’s Day piece as a letter to Dad. Here’s my favorite… LA JOLLA, CA – [Editor’s Note: Jay wrote this piece in real time, while watching the...
I shed a tear as I wrote this piece. We lost my beloved Dad this weekend. The son of Italian immigrants, as a WWII vet, he landed at Normandy, survived the bloody Battle of the Bulge, and liberated those persecuted in German concentration camps. Later, in the war-time ski patrol in Europe, he skied the Alps before he returned to America to graduate from the College...
I wrote about Meadow Club for this month’s Golf Course Trades, one of those courses that you have to play before you die. Here’s my favorite part of the article: As I took a deep breath and savored the crisp, wine-sweet, forest-fragrant air, the October sun’s rays began their last golden stretch across Alister Mackenzie and Robert Hunter’s...
Double good news over at Golf News Net today. First, they have published my Fenway Golf Club article. Short but dangerous, and always interesting around the greens, Fenway belongs in the Pantheon of great Tillinghast courses. Next, Steve Eubanks of Global Golf Post joined me on the Jay’s Plays Radio show. We talked PGA, LPGA, Tiger, golf travel and –...
Tell anyone other than an ardent golfer that you’re going to Fenway and they’ll ask you to say hi to Big Papi and Jason Varitek for them. Tell the ardent golfer, on the other hand, and they’ll not only know that Yankee Stadium is much closer, they’ll be totally jealous too, because they know Fenway is a terrific A.W. Tillinghast golf club...
[Editor’s Note: As part of the 2018 Ominous Seapods Reunion festivities, Jay went into the vault, and with the help of South Catherine Street Jug Band archivist Nate Pelton, released three more live archival recordings from the Golden Age of the Ominous Seapods under the “North Country Freakouts” series. Today, Volume 1: 10-15-94 (Early Show) Zeta...
Ryan Ballengee and GNN did a fantastic job making my Meadow Club article look so good. Big thanks also to Sean Tully. I can’t wait to get back out there again – it was Heaven. From the article: Call it the Machu Picchu of golf. From far below, in the hippie town of Fairfax, one can look a thousand feet sheer up the cliff-side to the shallow, mountaintop...