Ivan Morris is a dedicated golf nut….he has the award to prove it.  But more than anything he is a thoughtful and insightful student of the game.  This interview with Golf Club Atlas reveals his thinking on a range of subjects including health benefits of golf, preference for match play, the contributions of Eddie Hackett to Irish golf, nuances of links course design, and so much more.

Ivan Morris’s wise old swing with modern equipment (golfclubatlas.com)

In many ways he has a unique Irish view of the development of the game but at the same time it is applicable to all of us.  As the co-author of Larry Lambrecht’s wonderful photographic collection “Emerald Gems-The Links Of Ireland” and a couple of books of his own,  Morris has an articulate and engaging way of expressing his opinion.  I am sure you will find some wise parables that apply to your golf experience in his answers.

On self flagellation: “If only I realized sooner that golf is a privilege….not a crusade or an obligation.  My life would have been more serene if I had realized that.”

On benefits of playing with hickory shafts:  “One is forced to ‘listen’ to the golf club and develop a more harmonious relationship with it.  One has to feel as if the club head passes your hands in the hitting area, a completely different sensation than the ‘late hit’ employed in modern golf.”

On the chances of hosting an Open Championship in Ireland:  “I would suggest that if golfing challenge alone was the criterion, The Open could just as easily be played at The European Club, Portmarnock, Waterville (in Ireland), Kennemar in Holland, Royal Zoute in Belgium, Falsterbo in Sweden, or Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania.  For heaven sakes, isn’t it supposed to be THE Open?”

The would be site of #2 an Inch Island Links (golfclubatlas.com)

He even takes the time to talk about potentially the best links course in Ireland, Inch Island on the Ring of Kerry, that may never see the light of day because of the myopic views of the Irish Planning Authority.

Take ten minutes and read this interview.  You will come away a bit golf smarter as a result.

(Click to read the Ivan Morris feature interview from Golf Club Atlas)

Ivan Morris Interview
Golf Club Atlas.com
August, 2012

Nine of the last nine majors have been won by first time winners.  Does this mean these premier events have become a game of chance or is this a testimony to the depth of young talent with mature competitive instincts that now pervades the game of golf?

Webb Simpson put on an unflappable 68-68 performance the last two days showing patience and resolve on Sunday after bogeying two of the first five holes.  Four birdies over the next five followed by eight straight pars proved that, at 26 years old, he has what it takes to win on a U.S. Open course setup.

As you can read in John Garrity’s SI article attached, the USGA was determined to reclaim the U.S. Open’s spot as the toughest test in the game after last year’s scoring mishap at Congressional.  So the real winner this weekend was the USGA whose head croupier Mike Davis set up a stern but fair test that would examine all the golfing skills of the greatest players in the game.

One fairway bunker, no water hazards, 7100 yards, yet no one was winning this one without great risk-reward judgment, the ability to move the ball in both directions on demand, and a willingness to accept the odd bad break and move on.

As to bad breaks, how about the Cypress tree on the 5^th hole swallowing Lee Westood’s errant drive that did the same to Lee Janzen 14 years ago.  This time the tree failed to regurgitate the ball and the double bogey that ensued banished Lee once again to the land of no majors.

Best story of the week has to be 17-year old Beau Hossler’s continued presence on the top side of the leader board in a major championship.  He too had a bogey skein in the first five holes but managed to make three more birdies before finally falling victim to the pressure on the back nine.  His attitude and his bunker play was that of a grizzled veteran not a high school junior.  Somehow I don’t think he will be looking at those high school matches with the same reverence.

In the end the guy who could handle the USGA’s enormous pressure cooker prevailed.  Simpson’s up and down for par from a knotty lie next to the eighteenth green showed remarkable aplomb in the face of a career defining challenge.

(Click to Read John Garrity’s “Golf’s Toughest Test” from SI.com)

John Garrity

Sports Illustrated.com

June, 2012

In this autobiographical piece published in Golf Digest you can read an amazing story of Valentino Dixon using his talent for art and his discovery of the serenity of golf course images as a way to help reconcile the time he is spending incarcerated in the Attica New York Correctional Facility.

Considering that he has never played a round of golf in his life, his understanding and interpretation of the peace we all find in the natural surroundings of the game we love is astounding.  An artist must find a subject to interpret and how, from the lonely trappings of a 6 x 10 foot cell, he has landed on golf landscapes as his inspiration is hard to fathom.

His explanation of what his artistic expression means to him in keeping a perspective and hope about righting his situation is moving.  If Bob Dylan played golf he would certainly have written a song about Valentino.  But that is to trivialize his situation and he deserves better than that.

Whether you believe his assertion of innocence or not, you can understand how art has been a vehicle to his survival and that is a testimony to human perseverance on it’s own.

(Click to read Valentino Dixon’s “Drawings From Prison”)

Valentino Dixon

with Max Adler

Golf Digest

July, 2012

One last shared memory for Tim and Winn that only golf could bring (photo by Will Galloway)

Golf has always provided a valuable venue for the development of a father/son relationship.  It offers a unique opportunity to share the joys and disappointments that the game can throw at us-a great learning opportunity on how to deal with challenges in our day to day lives.

This story by John Strege in Golf World magazine documents one of those cherished moments with a very poignant twist.   Winn Galloway, like many young boys, was introduced to golf by his dad Tim as a wee tot and the two of them shared Winn’s developing love for the game through his high school years.

On a family vacation that took them down the California coast they made there way to Pebble Beach where they had the opportunity for a brief visit to the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links.  The two of them decided that some day they would play this storied links together as the ultimate father/son golf experience.

Fast forward a decade and Tim is diagnosed with thyroid cancer and began a valiant battle against the disease that would eventually take his life.  Winn decided they needed one last golf memory that “we could talk about for a long time, and if he passed away, a memory I could hold on to”.

With his health declining quickly and his ability to play the golf course rapidly disappearing Winn arranged for a swan song round at Pebble to create this father/son memory.   As we all know, a golf course can provide a wonderful canvas for documenting a shared experience.

As you will read, Winn gave his Dad the finest Father’s Day present he could ever imagine-a true Pebble Beach memory.

(Click to read John Strege’s heartening article “A Day To Remember”)

John Strege

Golfworld

June, 2012

When it comes to American golf writers  there is little doubt that, as Bing Crosby said,  Herbert Warren Wind was the dean of them all.  In this article by Furman Bisher for Sports Illustrated he talks of Wind’s personal relationship with Bobby Jones and his special connection to the The Masters.

There is a stateliness to the fabric of The Masters.  Much of it has been the result eloquent descriptive writings of people like Wind who seared dramatic images into our memory banks of the golf contested at Augusta.

Bisher knew Herbert Warren Wind rather well, “He and I were, in our prime, course walkers, and there we came to know each better than we would have otherwise. We followed the game wherever our inkling took us, and there was no more inviting venue than Augusta National when the Masters was in play.”

Bisher pays the highest tribute to Wind when he says, “When one writer writes of another writer, such as Herbert Warren Wind, modesty comes easily. Envy is a professional response, and so it is that when I read Herb’s handiwork on golf, and golf at the Masters, I have read golf in its truest form.”

(Click to read Furman Bisher’s article “Gospel Truth”)

Furman Bisher

Sports Illustrated

April, 2011

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Furman Bisher, a columnist for the Atlanta Constitution, has been a “Masters Storyteller” as well, covering the event for 62 consecutive years with insightful prose until his passing in March of 2012.

In this tribute article in Sports Illustrated by Gary Van Sickle you can read a wonderful excerpt from a book Bisher wrote called “Augusta Revisited: An Intimate View”.  It describes the atmosphere once the tournament is over and the award presentations are done.  A delightful description of the remorse we feel when something eagerly anticipated and thoroughly enjoyed is over.

Reading this is a wonderful tribute to another gifted American writer who has entertained and educated us for over a half century with his writings on golf.  For all those who follow golf his voice will be greatly missed.

(Click to read Gary Van Sickle’s article “The Long Goodbye”)

Gary Van Sickle

Sports Illustrated

April, 2012

Herbert Warren Wind (usgamuseum.com)

Ever wish you could sneak into the study of a great writer and rummage through their desk to see just where all that genius comes from.  Better yet, how about getting to read some personal letters from major celebrities and stars in the game they wrote so eloquently about.  Well here is your chance.

Golf Digest recently published this short piece called “Treasured Links:  Letters To Herbert Warren Wind” which are original letters written to him from people like Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Bing Crosby, Arthur Schlesinger, and others.

Herbert Warren Wind wrote about golf and other sports for The New Yorker
and Sports Illustrated for over 50 years,  His famous books include co-authoring Hogan’s “Five Lessons: Modern Fundamentals of Golf” and “Following Through-Writings On Golf” a collection of his writings about everything from The President’s Putter Competition to his first sight of the Links at Ballybunion.

There are some whimsical ones from fellow writers like George Plimpton and P.G. Woodhouse as well as a number of solemn letters from Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen.  My favorite is the one from Bing Crosby thanking him for a wood shafted putter Wind had sent him as a present and giving Wind his thoughts about the U.S. Open coming to Pebble Beach for the first time in 1972.

Revealed in these short letters is evidence of his connection with all the central characters of golf over it’s developmental years.  These relationships helped fashion and enhance the intimacy of his writing.  This was another time when the relationships of writers and protagonists were shaped by mutual conciliation not confrontation.

Unfortunately, with just 13 of these letters, your stay in his study is too short,  There must have been a sound in the hallway that sent you scurrying back out the window.

(Click to read Golf Digest’s presentation of “Letters to Herbert Warren Wind”)

Golf Digest

May, 2012

Much like an investor in a hedge fund to whom the Black Box strategy of investing and the 2% administrator/20% shared profit fees make them wonder whose interest is really being served in this investment, the average golf fan scratches his head when he tries to make sense of the list of the 50 top players in the world as determined by the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR).

As you can read in this Golf World article by Mike Stachura there is a built in set of biases that make the Official World Golf Rankings anything but objective. The points are pre-weighted based on a tournament’s subjectively judged and assigned importance by the gurus of the OWGR. As he says in the article this approach is, “making a methodology based on a pre-weighting of those tours open to charges of randomness and even political favoritism”.

The system was created by Mark McCormack, the original super agent who ran IMG and his agenda was clearly to promote the game through the players from his camp.  Of his effort McCormack said it is the “answer to the grill room question.  I have it all now, the gall, the system and the conviction and am prepared to defend this first statistical presentation of who is the best, regardless of where they play, how much money they win, what their stroke averages are, and all normal ways of judging golfers”.  Now that sounds objective to me.

The system became “official” when it was embraced by the five major tours in 1997 and it’s methods have been tweaked regularly to make it more credible.  But the statistical methodology is still secretive and subject to the same biases so obscure players playing in obscure events benefit from higher rankings than guys who are much more household names to regular golf fans.  In effect the OWGR’s real purpose seems to be as “an effective marketing tool for global golf”.

This article discusses a proposal from two Ivy League professors, Mark Broadie and Richard Rendleman who would like to see the rankings based on more standard statistical models.  They argue their approach would remove the biases and present a more understandable and credible ranking of the best players in the world.  Considering how important a top 50 ranking is to a player’s income flow this would be a welcome change to the tour players.

A more objective approach to the OWGR would put it’s purpose back to answering the simple grill room question and put the marketing of global golf back in the hands of the Madison Avenue crew where it belongs.

(Click to read Mike Stachura’s article “An Outside The Box Proposal”)

Mike Stachura

Golf World

April, 2012

If you want a little less sophisticated but equally intriguing approach to resolving the problems of the current Official World Gold Rankings read this article on J.S. Elliot’s Fantasy Golf Report website.

He would like to see the rankings be based solely on the head-to-head play of the best players in the world so it is all about their performance at the Majors, the World Golf Championships, and The Players Championship.  There is logic to this approach because most fans would agree that surviving the pressure cooker created by these events is the appropriate measure of who is the best player in the world.

(Click to read Fantasy Golf Report’s “FGR World Rankings)

J.S. Elliot

Fantasy Golf Report

April, 2012

Phil Mickelson has a way of connecting with people that brings back memories of Arnie in his heyday.  But, more importantly, Phil and Amy Mickelson have quietly devoted themselves to causes and individuals in the community who need their support.

As you can read in this article by Alan Shipnuck for Golf.Com, the list of folks that have seen their lives improved by the Mickelson’s humble devotion to philanthropy is a long one indeed.  Many of the causes are very visible-the Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy that helps train math and science teachers every summer or their Start Smart program that provides kids from low income school districts in San Diego with school supplies and clothing each fall.

Many others are off the radar entirely, like Phil’s relationship with David Finn, a young man who suffers from a mitochondrial disorder that keeps him wheel chair bound and makes communication with others very difficult.  Phil connected with David during a practice round at the 2005 PGA at Baltusrol by greeting him and handing him an autographed golf glove.  When Phil won his second breakthrough major a few days later, he had the presence of mind and concern to ask David if he would like to have a photo taken with Phil and The Wanamaker Trophy.  This was an act of dignity and humility that says all you need to know about Phil.

Maybe the most interesting fact to glean from Shipnuck’s article is that Phil and Amy’s foundation is funded solely by them.  Unlike many other celebrities, their foundation does not solicit money from others.  The causes this foundation supports are the beneficiaries of their personal philanthropic grace.

There are many other touching and revealing stories in this article.  It is evident that Phil and Amy’s impact on the world reaches far beyond the fame he has made for himself in the world of golf.

 (Click to read Alan Shipnuck’s article about Phil Mickelson’s philanthropy)

Alan Shipnuck

Golf.com

May, 2012

Photo-John Munson-Newark Star-Ledger

Talk about thinking out of the box, for the LPGA tour this defines it.  It is so crazy and unlikely to occur it is just worth debating in the abstract.

With the 2014 U.S. Open for both the men and women coming to Pinehurst #2 in succession, it becomes a legitimate conversation to stage major men’s and women’s events on the same course.  Putting the tees and pins in the right place for each group will result in an equally compelling competition with the same riveting factors capturing our attention.

So how cool would it be to see Suzann Pettersen and Yani Tseng agonizing over club selection on #12 or the decision to carry a second shot over Rae’s Creek into #13 while playing Amen Corner.

As Paula says in an intriguing article by Tommy Hicks on AL.com, “Are you kidding me? Of course that would be something. That’s when we’d know we had really made it, if something like that happened.”

You can take all the talk of Augusta being an all men’s club out of the conversation, it would clearly have to have changed for this to happen at all.  Once that occurred any objection on the part of the LPGA players playing there would dissipate in a heartbeat.

The more difficult question is whether the green jacketed decision makers at Augusta would consider giving their course away for another two-week period and whether they thought such an annual event might diminish some of the luster from “the grand daddy of em all” in April.  My suggestion is go to Pink Blazers and couple the event with proceeds supporting breast cancer research.  Talk about a win-win-win situation.

Equally problematic would be how much such an annual event might take away from the Kraft-Nabisco (a.k.a. Dinah Shore) which is the closest thing the ladies tour has to a major event that returns to the same venue every year.  But if you kept enough separation between them on the schedule I think that could be managed with proper PR.

This is not going anywhere but I think it will make for lively conversation among enlightened regular Saturday foursomes.

Who would a thunk we would get to the moon in a decade so this could be…….one small step for Augusta National….one giant leap for the LPGA.

(Click to read Tommy Hicks article on AL.com)

April, 2012

They say that as we get older we lose our conversational filter and share thoughts with others more freely than we would have in our youth.  So it is in a mythical conversation between Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, and Ben Hogan during “magic hour” overlooking the 18^th green from the veranda at Vahalla.

In a piece commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the birthday of three giants of the game, Mark Frost, our generation’s most talented golf historian, shares with us their intimate thoughts on the condition of today’s game.  He captures the individual persona’s of these iconic figures eavesdropping on their  19^th hole banter covering everything from how they used to walk five miles to school through the snow with holes in their shoes to the lack of defining personalities on tour to the effect of technology on the game today.

“The ball’s more jacked up than a Cuban cocktail,” says Sam. “They drive it with thunder sticks the size of toasters and can dial in distances with five different wedges like they’re firing a mortar. And these courses they play get more manicures than a Las Vegas hooker.”

They even weigh in on the fire hydrant incident and the likeliness that it’s protagonist can ever regain his position on the top of the heap.

Cleverly written this piece will make you laugh and contemplate in equal measure.  As only Mark Frost can, he brings refreshing historical perspective to the way we view the game today.

(Click to read Mark Frost’s “Drinks In Vahalla”)

Golf Digest Canada

April 2011