Winged Foot’s Championship Pedigree
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This year’s U.S. Open marks the sixth time the championship has been contested on the West Course at Winged Foot. As players continue to tee off on this A. W. Tillinghast brute (updated in 2017 by Gil Hanse), viewers should expect to see Winged Foot be every bit as difficult as in past championships there. […]
LINKS Golf Podcast Episode 62: A Member’s Guide to Winged Foot
LINKS President and Publisher Jack Purcell joins Digital Editor Al Lunsford on the show to provide an insider’s perspective on Winged Foot, where Jack has been a member for more than 30 years. Jack gives the scoop on the preparation of the West course for this year’s U.S. Open, the things players need to do […]
Winged Foot’s Challenging U.S. Open Setup
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Winged Foot. The name conjures images of sidewalk-thin fairways, ball-devouring rough, and concrete-hard greens that repel approach shots—and make three-putting from five feet all too possible. In other words, it’s the perfect U.S. Open venue. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Open is returning to Winged Foot’s renowned West Course a few months later than […]
The Ultimate U.S. Open Course
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 […]
Plans Revealed for Tiger Woods’s New Short Course at Pebble Beach
Tiger Woods already had a well-known relationship with Pebble Beach Golf Links after his thrilling 15-shot U.S. Open victory two decades ago. Woods and Pebble Beach have since decided to formalize that relationship with the announcement that the 15-time major champion and his TGR Design team would be overhauling the former site of the Peter […]
Gil Hanse’s Architecture 101: Greens and Their Complexes
On a visit to The Los Angeles Country Club in preparation for the 2023 U.S. Open, I did something that I rarely do. While walking the course with the superintendent, we putted on every green. And I must say, it was a lot of fun, free from trying to “make” a putt and instead watching […]
Best New or Returning Courses on Tour in 2020
For the most part the traveling circus of professional golf tours visit many of the same venues year after year. On the PGA Tour, January begins in Hawaii, springtime swings through Augusta, and the fall takes golfers to wine country. But each year we’re also treated to a either a few new courses on tour, […]
George Peper’s Golf Bucket List, Updated
LINKS Editor George Peper As a reader of LINKS Magazine, you’ve likely played golf for more than a few years—and with better than average skill. You’ve played on numerous courses and under all sorts of circumstances. You’ve made shots—and made friends—that will be with you forever. You’ve repeatedly experienced both the pure joy and utter […]
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 […]
When I Almost Caused Tiger’s U.S. Open to Come Crashing Down
It still blows my mind that had Tiger Woods not made a triple bogey on the 3rd hole of the third round, he would have won the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 18 strokes. It just doesn’t seem possible. Instead, we settled for 15! Both Butch Harmon and I could tell Tiger was […]
