Golf’s Most Memorable Opening Shots
The first hole of a golf course is rarely memorable, but it never fails to arouse emotion Can you think of a patch of ground—on the golf course or anywhere else—that consistently boils up such a complex cauldron of emotions as does the first tee? Hope and trepidation, determination and doubt, impatience and paranoia, excitement […]
Risky Business: Gambling in Golf
The PGA Tour has a big opportunity with legalized gambling, but there’s also a potential downside Sad truth: The Tiger Woods era is drawing to a close. Whether we like it or not, his competitive career will end soon, be it one year from now or five, and when that happens professional golf will experience […]
The Ultimate U.S. Open Course
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]We asked a panel of players, architects, officials, and media to look at the USGA’s five favorite Open venues and rank them, hole by hole. Here are the results. Not long ago, the USGA expressed publicly its devotion to an elite quartet of U.S. Open venues—Oakmont, Pebble Beach, Pinehurst No. 2, and Shinnecock Hills—with the […]
Golf Gone Viral
The pandemic has taken 10 things from our game—and made it better Golf, like every other aspect of life, has been forced to make some changes recently, with the result that several elements of the game that existed at the start of this year now are either gone or severely reduced—and that’s not all bad. […]
A Chat with the Sarazen Bridge
On the occasion of a notable birthday, one of Augusta National’s most enduring monuments opens up. But talk about feeling trod upon… This year marks the 65th anniversary of the dedication of the Sarazen Bridge, which spans the pond at Augusta National’s 15th hole, and the 85th anniversary of the moment the bridge commemorates, Gene […]
Goat Herding: Who is the Game’s Best Ever?
Some thoughts on Jack, Tiger, and the question of which is the game’s best ever As Jack Nicklaus celebrates his 80th birthday this year, my thoughts turn to the day I met him. It didn’t go well. This was late September of 1976 in Pinehurst, where a tournament called the World Open was being played. […]
Thousand Greens: Match.com Meets the Top 100
Shinnecock, Winged Foot, Oakmont, Olympic—every serious golfer knows the names, but only a fortunate few have played the courses. In contrast to the UK, where the host sites of the Open Championship extend a warm welcome to visitors, U.S. Open venues and other top American courses are, for the most part, shut tight, exclusive bastions […]
Iceland Golf is HOT
Tourism to America’s nearest European neighbor, Iceland, has more than doubled in the last decade and one of the best reasons to go there is the golf Had you been a fly on the wall of the restaurant I visited a few months back, you would have overheard one of the more bizarre exchanges a […]
Interview with a Flagstick
Recently I had the rare opportunity to spend some time with one of the most iconic figures in golf—the flagstick at the 18th hole of the Augusta National Golf Club. With the Masters approaching, and at a decidedly turbulent time in the life of all flagsticks, he was extremely gracious with his time and remarkably […]
I Was There: 2005 Open Championship
The 134th Open Championship was played in my backyard. At the time, my wife and I were living in a two-bedroom flat beside the 18th hole of the Old Course at St. Andrews, a vacation home we’d owned for two decades and had decided to occupy full time two years earlier. The bay window of […]
