A journalist asked PGA Championship leader Brooks Koepka a laconic question last night and got a laconic answer. “Is there any doubt whatsoever in your mind that you’re going to win tomorrow?” “No.” It wasn’t a smart question, but boy did Brooks screw up the answer. We already know the outcome of tomorrow’s golf: Koepka is...
[Golf writer to Your Author: “Why are you writing about a mountain? Your Author: “Because it’s there.”] BETHPAGE, NY – The putt that won Tiger Woods his fifth Green Jacket hadn’t even tumbled into the cup before golf media were almost uniformly waxing poetic about “the greatest comeback in sports history!” Let’s...
BETHPAGE, NY – Like a dragon incinerating Daenarys Targaryen’s enemies, a fire-breathing Brooks Koepka scorched Bethpage Black in round one of the PGA Championship with a 7-under 63 and a one shot lead over New Zealand’s Danny Lee. England’s Tommy Fleetwood is in third place, four shots back at 3-under. The rest of the field needs binoculars...
BETHPAGE, NY – Much has been made of Bethpage’s brute length, elevated greens, and deep, dangerous, whimsically shaped Rees Jones inkblot bunkering. Most players are convinced this PGA Championship will feel much like a U.S. Open in terms of difficulty, partly because the Black Course hosted the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens before becoming a PGA of America...
BETHPAGE, NY – The stars are shining brightly on Broadway this week as the reigning Masters champion Tiger Woods, the defending champion Brooks Koepka, and the world’s number player Dustin Johnson all are favorites to win the 101st PGA Championship this week at Bethpage Black. While not as relentless as Winged Foot, as penal as Oakmont, or as windy as...
BETHPAGE, NY – Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter. Joe Namath and Bill Parcells. Mark Messier and Mike Bossy. Willis Reed and Patrick Ewing. The Harlem Globetrotters. Bobby Fischer. John McEnroe. If there were ever a Pantheon of New York Sports Immortals, those are names that would forever be enshrined. But who should represent golf as New York’s hero? Sure, they...
The PGA of America, in a move many expected, added Congressional Blue as a PGA Championship venue for 2031. You’ll recall Rory McIlroy set the 36, 54, and 72-hole scoring records, along with the 72 2019 – Bethpage State Park, (Black Course) Bethpage, N.Y. 2020 – TPC Harding Park, San Francisco, Ca. 2021 – Kiawah Island (Ocean Course), Kiawah...
Just under eight miles as the crow flies from Bellerive Country Club, site of this week’s 100th PGA Championship, while the golf world celebrates the PGA of America’s centennial anniversary, a far more grave, but just as riveting drama is unfolding. St. Louis was where much of the uranium used in the first atomic bombs was enriched. Although those bombs...
We’ll be paying the PGA Championship in August for the last time this year; it moves to mid-May starting in 2019. Here is a list of the future PGA Championship venues going forward – at least the ones that have been determined… 2018 – Bellerive Country Club, St. Louis, Mo. 2019 – Bethpage State Park, (Black Course) Bethpage, N.Y. 2020...
Special to GNN and AWITP by Yale Bluer CHARLOTTE, NC – She had a voice like Foghorn Leghorn and the manners of Yosemite Sam. She’d fake-baked her skin to a brassy orange and streaked her spaghetti-straight hair a metallic gold. She wore ass-high, crack-tight, denim short shorts, wedges, and a scoop top two sizes too tight. She said she was 34, but my...
CHARLOTTE, NC – As we close the books on the 99th PGA Championship and the 2017 golf major championship season in general, there are several broader truths to celebrate than just Justin Thomas taking home the Wanamaker Trophy. Sure, Thomas’s win is an apotheosis of sorts, his elevation to the ranks of golf’s current elite. He’s fulfilled all...
CHARLOTTE, NC – His name means “Thunderbear” and his golf game rises with the sudden ferocity of a storm. Perhaps the most mercurial young rising star of the European Tour, the lanky Danish player born Jakob Olesen, but who pays professionally under his middle name, “Thorbjorn,” shares the lead in the 99th PGA Championship with the...
CHARLOTTE, NC – You have to love Jim Furyk. He shoots from the lip. When asked about the changes to Quail Hollow Club for the 99th PGA Championship, he had the perfect laconic reply. “One could be the toughest opening hole in golf. It actually looks like a really nice par-5 to me, but for some reason they put par-4 on the card,” he deadpanned. See...
CHARLOTTE, NC – Like an archaeologist wide-eyed with wonder as he finally deciphers ancient hieroglyphics on a graven monument, so too was I mesmerized by the photos on the walls of venerable Canterbury Golf Club in Cleveland, Ohio. They depicted a more civilized age, the heady halcyon time during which the PGA Championship was born, an Interwar America...
Question: What do you do when you want to build a huge buzz for your golf course, but its design is only pretty good, not truly great? Answer: GOODIE BAGS! If there’s one superlative you can say about Quail Hollow Club, the swag is terrific. If there’s two, well… CRICKET! CRICKET! CRICKET! The pros, the PGA of America, and the club’s guests love...