Getting The Right Thing To Do Done

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This posting by Stephen Meyer on Top Sales Dog called “A Tale of Three Golfers” is an interesting account of one man’s persistent effort to get three famous golfers to do the right thing and help him provide a life long friend with a commemorative gift of some special times they spent together.

Andy Abrams decided that it would be a really cool 50th birthday present for his friend Rich if he could get Lee Trevino, David Graham, and Justin Rose, the three guys who have won the U.S. Open at Merion in the last four decades, to sign a commemorative poster since the two friends had seen Lee win his Open at Merion when they were just 8 years old and then Graham win his Open at Merion ten years later.  Andy was there this past June to watch Rose pursue his first major victory at Merion as well.

Considering that all three of these guys have a reputation as being very approachable it probably did not seem to Andy like such a tall order to get them to participate in his idea.
Heck they should jump at the chance to help two friends who were there at their moments of major glory commemorate the event.  If they were in fact “players of the people” it would just be the right thing to do.

Not so fast….as you will read it took old school persistence and proven sales tactics to pull this off.  Despite the effort required I am sure Andy is glad he did not settle for giving Rich a hat.

(Click to read Stephen Meyer’s “A Tale of Three Golfers”)

Stephen J. Meyer
Top Sales Dog
RapidLearningInstitute.com
January 2014

(Special thanks to moegolf friend Jim Doane for sharing this article)

Jordan Speaks

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Kapalua LogoIf you watched the Tournament of Champions broadcast from Kapalua over the weekend and were listening closely you heard Jordan Spieth constantly talking.  Strategy conversations with his caddie, last minute instructions to his ball in flight, and admonishments to himself once the ball touched down.  Based on his second place finish against a number of major winners I think all within earshot should take note and listen.

The Kapalua Plantation Course is scenic but presents real strategic challenges.

The Kapalua Plantation Course venue for the Tournament of Champions is drop dead gorgeous.

As a 20-year old in his second year on the tour Jordan Spieth is the most promising and refreshing story on the tour.  The route that he has taken in the last 12 months is nothing short of astonishing.  From no PGA status and an 810th world ranking in December of 2012 he has notched a tour win, full tour exemption,  President’s Cup appearance, 17th place in the World Golf Rankings, and almost $4.6 million in official winnings.  Not bad for someone who cannot legally drink in many states in our union.

The coolest part about all this is that Jordan does not cut the figure or have the technical golf swing of a can’t miss prodigy.  Rather he has a huge competitive will, full confidence in the competence of his home grown golf swing, and a golf IQ in the top quartile.  This combination has led to a very steep and consistent trajectory of improvement that has all his peers, even the old grizzled veterans, taking notice.

At age 17 he played in his first PGA Tour event at the Byron Nelson in his home town of Dallas.  He had the audacity to make the cut (almost missing his prom as a result) and finish tied for 16th.  He won the U.S. Junior Am in 2009 and 2011 joining Tiger Woods as the only other multiple winner of this prestigious championship.

In 2011 he was the second ranked player on the U.S. Walker Cup team that included current tour pros Harris English, Peter Uihlein, Russell Henley, and Patrick Cantlay.  He had good success halving his foursome’s match and winning two singles matches against the first and third ranked player on the G. B. & I team.  In his freshman year on the University of Texas Longhorn golf team he won three NCAA events, led his team in scoring average, and helped them win the NCAA Championship.

Consistency in performance has been the hallmark of his career so no one should be surprised at his meteoric rise through the PGA ranks in 2013.

After some fits and starts Jordan won enough money in the first quarter to earn Special Temporary Member status.  Working on unlimited sponsor exemptions he steadily gathered acorns until his breakthrough win at the John Deere Classic (formerly known as the Steve Stricker Open) in a three-way sudden death playoff.  He barged his way into this playoff holing out from the greenside bunker on 18 and went on to beat Zach Johnson and David Hearn to win the trophy and a large pile of acorns.

At age 19 he became the first teenager in 82 years to win a PGA event.  This win gave him full status, eligibility for the FedEx pot, and a spot in the next three majors.

Later in the summer at the Wyndham Championship he waged another dramatic charge on Sunday to get into a playoff with another young whippersnapper, Chris Reed.  Reed hit the side hill, obscured flight, pine straw recovery shot of the year on the playoff hole setting up the winning birdie and denying Spieth his second tour win.

Jordan played admirably in the FedEx Playoffs shooting a final round 62 at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston in the presence of Phil The Thrill.  A supporting call from Phil to Captain Couples was enough to make him a captain’s pick on the Presidents Cup Team.

Real risk and reward on 17..Spieth was 9 under on the last five holes through the week.

Real risk and reward on 17……Spieth was 9 under on the last five holes through the week.

In this past week’s Tournament of Champions Jordan once again proved unfazed by the company he was keeping.  Playing a very technical golf course for the first time with major winners Zach Johnson, Jason Dufner, Webb Simpson, and Adam Scott all in the mix, his steady head earned him a piece of the lead going into the final round.  Only a par stall on the final nine kept him out of another playoff with the eventual winner Zach Johnson.

What you see in this guy is maturity beyond his years and a remarkable presence of mind when the tournament is on the line.  His chatter makes it clear that he is caught up in the moment but the clarity of his decisions and his ability to execute shots when it matters separates him from the other young hotshots.

At the end of 2013 he was 10th on the PGA Money List, 22nd in the World Golf Rankings,
9th in Scoring Average, 7th in the FedEx Cup Standings, and 8th in Back Nine Scoring.  That last number kind of tells it all about this kid.  When the finish line is in sight he knows how to sustain his momentum and challenge for the trophy.

My bet is his banter extends to some post game interviews at the Majors this year.  He may just win one of them at age 20 and surprise the hell out of all of us.

January 2014

Lone Star

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babe zaharias

We found this Babe Zaharias commemorative sidewalk star along with Joan Crawford and other favorite sons and daughters of Texas in front of the Old Pecan St. Café in Austin.

Babe is acknowledged as one of the greatest female athletes ever having won two gold medals in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics before taking up golf and becoming one of the games most dominant players, male or female, of the next two decades.

She won 41 times on the LPGA circuit with 10 major championships including the U. S. Open three times. She succumbed to colon cancer at the age of 45 in 1956 winning her last two LPGA events that year after surgery.

Grantland Rice once said of Babe:  “She is beyond all belief until you see her perform…Then you finally understand you are looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony, of complete and physical coordination the world of sport has ever seen.”

High praise from someone who had intimate knowledge of the accomplishments of Jim Thorpe, Babe Ruth, and Bobby Jones.

Babe Zaharias’s star still flickers on this obscure corner in south Texas not far from where she was born.

Babe Zaharias

The Old Pecan St. Café

Austin, Texas

Trump International Golf Links

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Trump International LogoIntroducing a new championship links course in Scotland is a rarity these days and for someone like Donald Trump to adopt this as a project made it’s realization even more unlikely.  As with all things Trump the creation of the Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, Scotland bruised a few egos, ruffled a bunch of feathers, and alienated a lot of locals.  But in the end a first class links course got built on a marvelous a piece of links real estate.  The quality of the result is attributable to the creative genius of Martin Hawtree who drew from this narrow strip of coastal dunes a memorable collection of 18 holes for the ages.

The Aberdeen region of Scotland has a rich history of great links golf with iconic courses like Royal Aberdeen and Cruden Bay as well as lesser known gems like Murcar and Fraserburg among others.  The addition of Trump International simply ups the credential a notch and probably increases the likelihood of this neighborhood becoming a regular stop for prestigious events like The Scottish Open or other European Tour championships.

It is all about the dunes at the Par 3 6th.

It is all about the dunes at the Par 3 6th..Pat Ruddy would nod his approval.

Hawtree was blessed with a stunning piece of land abutting the North Sea with sea grass covered sand dunes the size of office buildings.  Places like Enniscrone, Ballyliffen Glashedy, and the European Club in Ireland come to mind as you stare out at the expansive range of these imposing dune fields.  If must have been a challenge for Hawtree to simply decide where to begin.

Defying the traditional out and back approach to links design he placed the clubhouse in the center of the property and tracked four holes south with the sea on the left and five holes back on the inland side.  The back nine does the opposite with four holes working up the inland side to the north before the last five meander up and down among the coastal sand dunes coming back.  Though you rarely see the sea it’s proximity provides a steady wind influence lurking over top of the high dunes.

Trump wanted a stout championship course so he could woo a major championship but something playable enough for the retail golfers who would foot the bill for it’s existence every day.   To this goal there are six sets of tees and 112 tee boxes which might seem like a bit of  design overkill.  In reality this volume of teeing grounds allows the greens keeper to set up each hole to play to the same level of challenge for every caliber of player.  It also affords a flexibility in daily course set up to match the prevailing wind direction and intensity and make the severity of the challenge consistent in all conditions.   You just may need a GPS device to assist in the location of your tee box.

Full challenge at the 2nd-forced carry, burn, and a tuck-away green complex.

Full challenge at the 2nd-forced carry, burn, and a tuck-away green complex.

From the tips the measure is close to 7500 yards but if you pick the appropriate tee you should find a manageable golf challenge.  First glance at the blue tee scorecard reveals three of the four par fives are 500 yards or less and only five of the par fours are 400 yards or more.  But the devil is in the details (see link at the bottom for hole-by-hole detail) because the routing vis-à-vis the prevailing wind can make the effective playing length much longer.   Hope is that once the course sets in a few years they let the fairways firm up and this lengthening will get mitigated as it does on all links courses.

The first impression you have after you get over the scale of the dunes is how green this place is for a links course.  The quality of the grass in the walking areas between greens and tees would be the envy of the highest end country club in the states.  The emerald color actually takes away from the links character and Americanizes the course but again I am sure this is what the boss wanted.

Bunkering is the next thing that will capture your attention.  Cluster bunkering in some fairways and green approaches makes a number of those holes appear like an arcade game.  But in fact there are a greater number of holes with very sparse bunkering, often a single bunker at the green’s edge, so the use of sand is by no means overdone.  Having said that, the bunkers out there are fierce.  Many are funnel deep, revetted bunkers that can exact a full stroke toll where a sideways escape is the only way out.

The green at the Par 3 12th is protected by it's own contour...the nasty bunkers are an extra.

Greens protected by their own contours…tightly mowed surrounds make bunkers into ball magnets.

As with many links courses the greens are massive to provide the opportunity to make approach shots more manageable based on the day’s wind direction.  Hawtree segmented these greens in a way that there are often three greens within the green so the proper angle of approach requires forethought based on the day’s pin location.  Raised surfaces with fall offs, collection hollows, and a few nasty bunkers demand approaches with conviction or else you can spend the day inventing recovery shots you never imagined.

The Hawtree genius on full display in the look off the plateau tee on #5.

The Hawtree genius is on full display in the look off the plateau tee on #5.

The good news is that everything you encounter, driving areas and green complexes is right in front of you.  No blind shots, very few severe uphill shots, and plenty of bail out room where you need it.  But as discernable as your targets are many are fraught with existential topography and hazards that can have their way with your best intent.   You will encounter the full array of mounds and hollows, severe bunkers, furry sand dunes, and even marshy wetlands.  The wetlands seem a bit onerous and out of character on a links course and may be where he stepped across the line.

The course opens with a relatively straight forward five par that puts almost all of the above into play out of the gate.  The pressure ratchets up quickly with a burn bisecting the second followed by the postcard par three third-the only place you witness the sea first hand all day.    When you get to the perched tee at the par four 5th you are sure you have stepped into a J.R.R. Tolkien novel….there have to be trolls and hobbits lurking in these surrounds.  The 6th makes you feel like you have been transported across the Irish Sea to European Club south of Dublin-this hide-n-seek par 3 is pure Pat Ruddy.  From 7 to 9 you get the full challenge-a short technical par four and two brutishly heroic par fours before you get a chance to catch your breath and an Irn-Bru at the turn.

Nestled in the dunes the 14th is pure eye candy.

Nestled in the dunes the 14th is pure eye candy.

The inward nine follows a similar pattern with a straight forward five par followed by a couple of manageable par fours and a very linksy par three.  The wow meter jumps to double digits when you step on to the tee box at 14.  What rolls out beneath your feet simply will take your breath away.  A beautiful midrange par four brings to mind Royal Country Down, fairway swaddled between dune ranges with the North Sea peering over the top.
Another tantalizing short par four before you turn back south for the final run.  There is no let up from here to the house you have to play your best golf of the day because you are likely playing into the wind.   The par three 16th will test your trajectory and distance control with a well protected green that is 45 yards long.  In spite of it’s handicap designation, the 17th into a two club wind may be the hardest hole to par since the Road Hole at The Old Course.  There is one last Kodak moment is ahead, walk to the top of the back tee on 18 where the hole measures 651 yards and a sea of 18 bunkers, count em, stands between you and the final green.  Maybe there is a bit of Trump showmanship in this one but it is a very interesting finishing hole.

The last 9 of the 18 bunkers on the approach to the finishing hole must be avoided.

The last 9 of the 18 bunkers on the approach to the finishing hole must be avoided.

Trump did not cut any corners in the creation of his golf nirvana and the fare you pay will indicate that. Unlike most venues in Scotland there is an elaborate practice ground with a full driving range, wonderful short game preparation area, and expansive practice putting greens at your disposal.  The Trump Links clock overlooking the range, the black and bronze signage throughout the course, the classic stone bridges that cross the burns, and even the cherry wood trash cans with the Trump International Crest remind you that this is a Trump creation.  The Donald would have it no other way.

Aberdeen, Scotland

Architect:  Martin Hawtree (2012)

Tees       Par      Yardage     Rating      Slope
Blue       72        6602         73.8         140
White     72        6329         72.3         133

(Click here to review the complete Trump International hole-by-hole descriptions)

For more pictures click to review Northern Scotland-Day 5: Trump International Links

Mistaken Identity

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When you play as a guest at an old line esteemed country club there is always a moment, some time between when you lace on your Foot Joys and put the peg in the ground on the first tee when your host will chime in, “You know this is an original A. W. Tillinghast (or some other iconic designer from The Golden Age of Golf Course Design)……one of the only two that he did in this region.”   Rich people love to brag about the uniqueness of their possessions and the pedigree of their country club is often at the top of this list.

Well, as you can read in John Paul Newport’s Wall Street Journal article “Country Clubs Dig Up Their Histories”, you may want to put that claim to a bit of scrutiny because it may be an exaggeration or an outright untruth.

As Newport explains, the members of the prestigious Bloomfield Hills Country Club in Detroit boasted for almost 100 years that they have been playing a Donald Ross original design.  When in fact, as was unearthed by a renovation design team in 2009, Ross was hired twice to propose changes to Bloomfield Hills but his ideas were never implemented.  He had nothing to do with the original design or any subsequent renovations.

This is often how misguided club histories are put back in order since the renovation designers will insist on proper research of course lineage so they can find documentation that will help them adhere to the original intent of the designer as they try to return courses back to their classic character.

The design of Bloomfield Hills was done in 1913 by Harry Colt, an English designer of great repute, who did very few courses in North America.  His resume includes iconic venues like Sunningdale, Wentworth, and Royal Liverpool in England , Royal Portrush and Royal Dublin in Ireland, Eden Course at St. Andrews and Muirfield in Scotland, and countless others across continental Europe.  So these members really have nothing to be embarrassed about in acknowledging the truth.

Like with our first president it is often claimed by country club elitists up and down the east coast that “Donald Ross slept here”.  When in fact he may have simply waved from the carriage car as his train passed through town on his way back to Pinehurst.  Ross would have had to sleep only 2 hours a night for forty years to have been able to design all the gems people say he had a hand in creating.

If you see a Redan or Biarritz green on their course the member will undoubtedly tell you it was C.B. MacDonald or Seth Raynor that was responsible for this when it may well have been William Flynn who was equally talented just much less well known.  Flynn in fact may be the least acknowledged prolific designer of this Golden Age.  His originals include Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, Cherry Hills in Colorado,  and The Cascades in West Virginia and he had serious design or renovation influence at Merion, Pine Valley, The Country Club in Brookline among scores of others.

So the next time your friend tells you that it is a Tillinghast greens you just three-jacked or MacKenzie bunker that ensnared your wayward drive you may want to take it with a grain of salt.  You see the self-serving dissemination of disinformation is not the exclusive purview of the federal government.

(Click to read John Paul Newport WSJ article on Bloomfield Hills C.C.)

Wall Street Journal

John Paul Newport

December, 2013

Up To The Challenge

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Northwestern Mutual Challenge LogoThe Northwestern Mutual World Challenge is Tiger’s annual invitational event, he has won it five times.  But twice in the last four years it has come down to a playoff with Tiger and twice he has come up on the short side without the answer.

In 2010 Graeme McDowell took Tiger in a heart stopping playoff that seemed to galvanize McDowell’s ascendency in the game.  This time it was Zach Johnson “ex-Zach-ting” some revenge for Tiger’s come from behind victory here in 2011 where Tiger overtook Zach down the stretch.

This year it was kind of a two-horse race right out of the gate as Zach shot a smooth 67 with tough pin positions to take the lead on day one.  Tiger scorched the course and the field with a 10-under 62 on day two to grab the lead by himself.  It seemed a fait accompli that Tiger would etch his name on this feline trophy for the sixth time, the last time the event would be played in this part of southern California where he developed his game as a young cub.

Saturday was a push with them both shooting par 72 so they began the final day playing in the final group, Tiger, the world’s greatest front runner, holding a two-shot lead.

You had to like Tiger’s chances since Sherwood Country Club has five par fives which makes par for the big hitter about 67.  Zach is a man who has yet to see a par five that he considers reachable but his wedge game is so superb that he was still 9-under on the five pars over the first three rounds.  Don’t forget this was the man who won a green jacket with this same lay-up-on-the-par-five strategy at Augusta in 2007.

Front nine Tiger made two birdies to up his lead to three but shooting even par on the inward half on Sunday is very un-Tigerlike and this would provide a very small opening which Johnson would have to manage to squeeze through.  A bogey on ten put Zach four back but back-to-back birdies on eleven and twelve put him within shouting distance again.  Game on.

What happened down the stretch, the last three holes, just proves the old adage that truth is way stranger than fiction.  On sixteen and seventeen Zach nearly holed his approach shots for eagle,  landing them past the hole before spinning back for a drive-by look.  Both left him short uphill putts for birdie.  The second birdie pulled him to even with Eldrick going into the eighteenth.

After Tiger pulled his tee ball to a hanging lie on the left side of the fairway and skidded his approach right of the green into the front bunker it looked like advantage Zach.  From the center of the fairway with a stock 8-iron in hand the ultimate grinder looked like an eighteen handicapper doing a hosel job into the hazard short right of the green.  This was the ultimate you-got-to-be-kidding moment for a guy with his name etched on the side of his bag.

Now the improbable….or maybe the unthinkable….Zach proved that the third time is the charm as he skipped his sand wedge from the drop zone just past the hole before taking the back door into the hole for a most unlikely par.  The incredulous cheshire grin on Tiger’s face said it all.

Tiger upped and down to send it to extra holes but that was just delaying the inevitable….the golf gods had intervened again and Tiger would be denied a swan song victory in this year’s Challenge.

The playoff lasted one hole with Tiger returning his approach shot within a foot of the previous one in the front left bunker on eighteen.  This time he failed to escape with a short side save and Zach’s 25-foot two-putt on the same line that Graeme had dashed Tiger’s hopes in 2010 was enough to secure the victory.

Next year Tiger’s Challenge moves to another one of his home venue’s Isleworth Golf and Country Club in Orlando.  They will be hard pressed to match the kind of heart stopping drama that this southern California venue has provided almost every year.

December, 2013