Thanks to my gang over at Golf News Net for running my latest piece. We took a look at the most interesting courses we’ll see this year form the USGA, PGA of America, and the PGA Tour. It’s going to be a busy golf season here, and it’s almost time to gear up. We’ll be covering the Masters, PGA, U.S. Open, and Ryder Cup this year. But before...
In a move only an actuary could hate, the PGA Tour changed the format of the FedEx Cup this year, translating a convoluted “points”system of scoring to the “score-to-par” system used every week. This also solves the pesky problem of having dual winners as we did in the past: someone wins the Tour Championship, but someone else wins the...
“Tiger and Phil! Tiger and Phil! Tiger and Phil!” For the last eight weeks, that’s all we’ve heard in golf. Turn on your television set, pick up a magazine, or scan a newspaper headline, and it’s almost as if prophets were delivering a message from God that they saw written in letters of fire 30 feet high. And as we’ve inched...
Having been, at various times, both the celebrity in the pro am as well as a player, I can attest to the bedlam, mayhem, and chaos a pro am round can devolve to. I once watched a guy playing in a pro-am in Jamaica smack a stone tee marker in front of him, (a giant tiki…decorative and festive, but bad idea for a tee marker) and had the ball catapult into the...
It’s time again for Jay’s Year end golf awards – the Jazzys as we call them. This year’s Player of the Year is clearly Justin Thomas. Five wins, a PGA Championship for his first major and he took home the $10,000,000 after winning the season ending playoffs. Hideki Matsuyama had a breakout year too, but it wasn’t enough to wrest either a...
Two bits of Tiger Woods news as we head to hump day. First, despite being torn apart by a pack of harpies during his infamous sex scandal, Tiger allegedly traded nude photos by cell phone with Lindsay Vonn. In a completely bone-headed move, Vonn stored them in an Internet cloud that was hacked, along with the nude photos of dozens of other celebrities. The photos...
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...
ERIN, WI – Dana Fry, who along with Mike Hurdzan and lawyer-turned-writer-turned-golf architect Ron Whitten, designed 11-year old Erin Hills, site of the 117th U.S. Open, recently said in an interview that, “it’s unprecedented for the USGA to host the tournament at a venue this new.” He’s close to being correct. It’s actually only...
The year was 1971, and even though the Rolling Stones had just generated grillions of dollars with their world-wide hit “Satisfaction,” there was Mick Jagger on a media dais surrounded by a forest of microphones and a phalanx of international journalists explaining that – for tax reasons – the Stones had to flee their beloved England and...
Yes, I know, most people voted for Dustin Johnson. But I think that’s a sympathy vote. I also think we in the golf media are doing that herd groupthink thing again. Dustin won the U.S. Open at Oakmont with a cloud hanging over his head, but he didn’t shoot 63 on Sunday and 20-under overall setting a major championship record. It was one of the greatest...
Steve Czaban has this eye-opening expose on the graft, incompetence, and neglect plaguing the future of the Rio Olympics course. I remember telling certain golf architects that losing that bid would be a blessing, and that the guy who won would be sorry in the long run. And while it was fun for three weeks, it looks like that might be the extent of the course’s...
Tiger Woods’s long-awaited return to the PGA Tour will begin at home against the smallest field in competitive golf. Woods will play the Hero World Challenge at Albany December 1-4, starting alongside a mere 17 other players. “A lot of players make their homes right there, so it’s a buddy trip to Ti’s house,” quipped one irreverent wag...
Amidst a tumult and shouting that would have impressed even the great Grantland Rice himself, the United States defeated Europe 17-11, winning their first Ryder Cup since 2008. Patrick Reed preened like an NFL linebacker, Phil Mickelson made putts from Duluth, St. Cloud, and Monkato, and Ryan Moore – the last man to make the team – sank the Ryder Cup...
As is his custom, using his website, Tiger Woods announced the conclusion of his rehabilitation from microdiscectomy surgery and released his future competitive golf schedule. Woods will play in the Safeway Open in Napa California to open the 2017 PGA Tour season October 13-16. Woods said he also intends to play the Turkish Airlines Open in November and his Tiger...
SPRINGFIELD, NJ – As night falls at Baltusrol and the forest-draped mountain is shrouded by low clouds, the waning crescent moon shines feebly in the overcast sky. Finally, the promised rain came, just a thin shower, but I was too late. Against all predictions, the 2016 PGA Championship finished on time Sunday night. Inside the clubhouse amber lights burn...