On a day when a soft Winged Foot surrendered its lowest scores ever in a U.S. Open, Tiger Woods let his round slip away late, culminating with a ghastly double bogey at 18. As we go to press, Woods’s 3-over 73 has him in a tie for 70th, eight strokes behind leader Justin Thomas. Woods’s mercurial round included five birdies, but also six bogeys and the...
This week mighty, venerable Winged Foot Golf Club hosts its sixth U.S. Open, 13th USGA event, and seventh major championship, (it hosted the 1997 PGA). The par-70 layout will play to a bloated 7,477 yards; seven of the twelve par-4s are 467 yards or longer. It also features 4-1/2 to 7-1/2 inch rough, and green speeds around 13 on the stimpometer. In other words, the...
For everyone who relishes U.S. Open week for its sheer bloodthirstiness, welcome to Winged Foot West. It just became your new favorite course. Like will-o-the-wisps feeding off the agonizing cries of their dying victims, everyman golfers will spend this week, pointing at the pros and laughing. Chunks, chili dips, fluffs, fliers, skulls, and walks of shame...
—Of cruel and mighty Winged Foot now to you I sadly sing And all the lost and broken men who felt her deadly sting Who wander now as shadows in her darkness ever more To roam her haunted passageways forsaken and forlorn But chief among the cursed souls that in that valley dwell A phantasm malevolent, most terrible and fell The Ghost of U.S. Opens Past is her...
The USGA just announced that fabled Pinehurst in North Carolina will become the first “U.S. Open Anchor Site” and host the 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047 U.S. Opens, in addition to the already scheduled 2024 event. The decision accelerates the USGA’s strategy to stage its premier golf championship at America’s most iconic venues with greater...
For today’s U.S. Opern re-write, we celebrate unheralded, but definitely worthy winner Ed Furgol, the club pro who shocked the world winning the U.S. Open at Baltusrol in 1954. And he did it with a withered left arm. It happens once every dozen years or so, someone wins the Opn out of nowhere. Before there was Michael Campbell or Orville Moody or even Jack...
MAMARONECK, NY – We were all writing our leads in the media center, and then Winged Foot went from phestival to phuneral in phorty minutes.. Everyone in Mamaroneck – from the media, to the members on the terrace to the massive galleries around the golf course – everyone thought the 2006 U.S. Open was over, the last few holes just a phormality for...
Something a little different. As part of my prep for the U.S. Open, I got the rare and wonderful chance to play Winged Foot under tournament conditions. It was all I could handle an then some. Thank you Golf Course Trades for running the piece. Have fun everyone. From the article: “When it comes to playing the West in a tournament of any kind, Christmas can...
Call it Black Friday or Friday the 13th, whichever you like, but that was the day the sports world went dark, along with Broadway and colleges across the country. Wuhan Flu or Coronavirus, whatever it’s called, it’s here. Time to get those 90-day emergency supplies out. Not ready…out. The time to prepare for this has passed. If you weren’t...
It’s been a great few weeks for Golden Age golf architecture on the PGA Tour. With all the world enjoying Pebble Beach, Riviera and the other crown jewels that the West Coast has to offer, it’s a good time to take a closer look at some of the best tournament venues we’ll see this year from not only the PGA Tour, but from the USGA and PGA of America...
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – It took someone as big and strong as Brooks Koepka to knock that chip off Koepka’s shoulder, but that’s exactly what Gary Woodland did at Pebble Beach to win the 119th U.S. Open. Woodland won by three strokes over Koepka and by six over Xander Schauffele, 2013 U.S. Open champion Justin Rose, Chez Reavie, and Spain’s John...
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – I could have sworn that Marine Layer was the name of a girl I met in Sister Frances’s eighth grade English class, but she’s not. She’s the misty, somber, cold, clammy, grey shroud that blankets northern California just as summer is about to begin, “June gloom” it’s called. Marine Layer descended upon the...
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – No matter how many haymakers he threw down the stretch Friday, Gary Woodland will not sleep well tonight. He may lead this 119th U.S. Open by two strokes. But Pebble Beach’s other name – the one they don’t put on merchandise in the prop shop – is Ol’ Double Bogey-by-the-sea, and at any moment a golfer’s...
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – For the fourth consecutive day, June gloom hangs oppressively in the sky, so it’s no wonder golfers that prefer U.K. weather are doing so well on the leader board at the 119th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Hopefully, blue skies and golden sunshine will return just in time for you, dear reader, to hit the links yourself, before heading to...
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – With all the pomp and circumstance of the U.S. Open’s long and storied history at Pebble Beach, as well as the course’s glorious 100th anniversary, it’s easy to forget that the PGA Championship also was contested by the shores of Carmel Bay, and that it gave us as zany, wild, and dramatic a major as it has at many of its U.S...