Phil Mickelson picked out a few on the front nine and golf architect Rees Jones focused on 11-13, but perhaps the best aspect of Torrey Pines’ South is its wondrous variety. A mix of short holes and long holes, together with movable teeing grounds and hazards more closely menacing fairways and greens, Torrey Pines should generate wild swings on the leaderboard...
As one of my mentors once wrote, “If you’re gonna write about the U.S. Open, you have to be well-versed in the lore of Francis Ouimet’s knickers.” He was right. It’s important to have sense of history watching this, the 121st edition of America’s national championship of golf. So pay attention. There won’t be a quiz, but the...
LA JOLLA, CA – There’s an old adage that should hold true for every United States Open Championship: the golf course is the star. Oakmont, Winged Foot, Olympic Club, Pinehurst…these are names from the oldest Golden Ages of the game. They materialize out of the mysts of history like a dream, enchant us with their beguiling mystery, and then vanish...
LA JOLLA, CA – Just like his father before him, they called him the Open Doctor, and he took up his father’s mantle and carried it with the same success and grace. Rees Jones has been prepping major championship venues for decades all across America. Now we return to one of his most celebrated success stories, Torrey Pines South Course, site of a regular...
What makes a truly great 18th hole? Easy: It must be a summation of all that came before. The most iconic courses in the world finish with the grandest of flourishes. Some prefer the grandeur of a majestic, sweeping par-5 so the golfer has a chance to close with a birdie. Others prefer 18 to be the hardest par-4 on the course, demanding your best drive and best...
Tiger Woods was among seven former U.S. Open champions to miss the cut at the 2020 U.S. Open. In clear but windy conditions at Winged Foot Golf Club’s West course, Woods followed Thursday’s milquetoast 73 with a ghastly 77, 10-over par, four shots over the cut line and 14 back of leader Patrick Reed. It’s the third missed cut in the last four U.S...
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...