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.
SPRINGFIELD, NJ – —“I didn’t win despite my handicap, but because of it – just as Hogan came back from that automobile accident, and Babe Zaharias came back from a cancer operation. — Ed Furgol after winning The 1954 U.S. Open at Baltusrol At precisely 9 o’clock the sun went down with a last vermillion flash behind old Baltus...
SPRINGFIELD, NJ – The approach of sunset was as grand as a Norman Rockwell painting. Rugged Baltusrol Mountain, also called First Mountain, stood sentinel over the stately golf course with its rambling Tudor architecture clubhouse as it has for over a century, while the sun dipped down low between the clouds and hillside, spreading a reddish flame across the...
SPRINGFIELD, NJ – When you look at a map of Baltusrol Country Club, the payout of the golf course resembles a barbell with the left side over-inflated on the bottom. But to the professional golfers assembled here for the last major golf championship of the year, the 98th PGA, it looks more like the plumpest, fattest, juiciest chicken wing this side of Buffalo...
I caught up with Graeme McDowell, Kevin Streelman, Sergio Garcia, and golf course architect Rees Jones while roaming the grounds, while Phil, Henrik, and Danny Willett and more dropped by the media center for interviews. You can read all about it Golf News Net. We’ll have more all week from Baltusrol, as well as an extended dance version of the Jay’s...
“Ye friends that weep about my grave Compose your minds to rest Prepare with me for sudden death And be forever blest” That is the chilling epitaph on the forlorn, grey tombstone standing sentinel over wealthy oxen farmer Baltus Roll’s lonely grave in a northern New Jersey Presbyterian burial ground. His was a pioneering family in the region, so...
We close out an historic Open Championship with our Open Championship edition of Jay’s Plays. First, rising college star Alexa Hammer came on during the Open to talk about her time at the University of St. Andrews, Phil’s 63, and her thoughts on the Open Championship venues she’s played. Then GNN correspondent Tony Dear came on to talk...
Golf News Net Publisher, Broadcaster, and Editor Ryan Ballengee writes this solid article on distance on the PGA Tour. I’ve been agreeing with Ryan for years – we need bifurcation on the Tour.Once you turn pro, grab a persimmon driver and hardwood woods. I mean really – people are routinely hitting 400+ yard drives now. Normal players just...
PITTSBURGH, PA – —The noise afterwards, It rises up like a storm, As if you were the Thunder God himself. Proximo to Maximus the Gladiator— Like a scene from Gladiator, the roar of adulation rang from Erie to Allentown and from Scranton to Akron. No mere coliseum could match it. Conquering heroes were returning home, and this is Pittsburgh. When you...
OAKMONT, PA – “It’s the hardest golf course I’ve ever played,” said pretty much every golfer in the field this week at the 2016 U.S. Open. Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson, Andrew Sullivan, Phil Mickelson: the list was endless. Mighty Oakmont, Henry Fownes’s knuckle-dragging, slavering-jawed, razor-sharp taloned grassy guillotine is...
OAKMONT, PA – We’ve had our ledes written for 17 years, but still haven’t been able to use them. “Phinally Phil!” “Phillin’ Groovy!” “Mickel-slam!” – they all lay useless in a seldom used Microsoft Word file I call “The Well of Lost Plots,” where bits of articles that end up on the cutting...
NEW HARTFORD, NY – With a heavy heart, we here at AWITP are saddened to report that Lu Chen, a.k.a. the Irrepressible Mr. Lu, has died. He was killed when his Cessna C210 crashed in Northern New Jersey as he was flying on work-related business. He was 59. Mr. Lu’s plane went down on May 16th in a wooded area in Sussex County near a town called Wantage...
OAKMONT, PA – They’re called “half-par holes” be cause they play either much easier or much harder than the par on the scorecard states, and they are often the key to winning a golf tournament. Be it stroke play or match play, the ability to negotiate the razor thin edge between a birdie (or even eagle) or a triple bogey is the difference...
—Friends to Jay: “Who’s going to win the U.S. Open this year?” Jay to Friends: “Oakmont, that’s who.”— Of all the major championship venues I’ve seen in my career as a sports writer – and I’ve see everything from Augusta to Pebble and back – Oakmont is my favorite. Cresting the hill of the second...
MAMARONECK, NY – Brian Williams pitched in from perdition to open the day’s play with lightning, while college stars Chris Troy and James Nicholas closed the day with thunder, using gargantuan length and unyielding pressure to pummel their opponents by a combined score of 8&7. Winged Foot members all, along with Williams’s partner Hans...