Darkhorse Wins Olympic Derby

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If you care about things four years from now then you might have noticed that the long awaited result of the beauty contest to determine who will design the golf course for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil came down last week and the winner was a big surprise.

This was an eight team race with all of the biggest names in course design-Nicklaus, Norman, Player, Trent Jones, Doak, and others teamed up with the icons of women’s golf vying for the right to build a new course in Rio de Janeiro to celebrate the inclusion of golf in the world’s biggest athletic expo in 2016.  The four-person jury decided on the team of Gil Hanse and Amy Alcott, easily the least heralded of the entrants, who presented a detailed design that met their criterion of building an environmentally respectful course that would not be a financial burden to the community who would inherit it once the Olympic tent was folded up and gone.

As you can read in the attached Golf World article by Geoff Shackelford called “Why the darkhorse won the day” they picked Gil Hanse because he is an established and capable architect with a strong resume of both new course design and renovation who can “construct artistic, low-impact designs with enough strategic twists to test the world’s best….and has a strong site vision and a disposition best suited for what figures to be a heavily scrutinized project.”

Maybe the most significant thing is who the committee did not choose to do this high profile project.  Shackelford says, “it was time for golf to end its bizarre, expensive, and unsatisfying addiction to the ‘player-architect’”.  They did not want a another lavish or gaudy display of what an unlimited budget could buy-rather they were looking for someone to create something with traditional character without a high construction or maintenance tab that could be an asset to the public community who will own and play on it for decades to come.

As one of the celebrated finalists, Robert Trent Jones Jr,  correctly concluded “the jury panel’s shocking decision endorsed the vitality of architecture over celebrity”.  That rarely happens in high profile projects like this.

(Click her to read Shackelford’s “Why the darkhorse won the day)

Geoff Shackelford

Golf World

March, 2012

Arnie’s Backyard Barbecue

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This week’s tour stop is a tribute to Arnold Palmer, the guy who put professional golf in the money by selling his charisma to the TV media back in the early sixties.  The players today have reverential respect for path he created and playing in his tournament each year is a way of showing it.

The Bay Hill Resort and Country Club is Arnie and Winnie Palmer personified represented in the informal, tranquil, and confident atmosphere that pervades the place.  A walk through the resort reveals hallways and rooms full of Arnie memorabilia.  Photos with the King, entertainment personalities, and the top pros of every era make you feel like you are walking through Arnie’s study in Latrobe.  Food is good, I recommend the Belgian Waffle, and everything about the place-the health club, outside recreation areas, eating facilities, and meeting rooms-are top shelf experiences without any attitude.

The golf course has a lot of Arnie’s hand in it-originally designed by Dick Wilson in 1963 but tinkered with endlessly by Ed Seay and Arnold ever he took ownership of it in the early 1970’s.  To win here demands thoughtful course management and shot execution.  Not a brute in length, this course continually challenges the players to make good decisions especially if the wind is up.

Arnold’s Invitational attracts a strong and diverse field-representing 16 countries, with over a third of the field under the age 30 and 25 players 40 years or over. Fifteen different major winners and eight of the top ten on the 2012 PGA Tour money list are here including Justin Rose, Brandt Snedeker, Hunter Mahan, and Bill Haas, as well as Tiger and Phil.

Over the years drama has been part of this event.  Walking down the right center of the 18th fairway about 170 from the green you cannot miss the bronze plaque that commemorates the spot from which Robert Gamez, a rookie on the tour, holed a seven iron in 1990 to steal yet another championship from the clutches of world #1 Greg Norman.  Then there is one Phil, two Ernies, and any of the six wins Tiger has had at this place-four straight from 2000 to 2003.

For much in the field this is a home game since so many international and American golf pros call Isleworth or Lake Nona their home.  Bay Hill would be a place they can play on a regular basis.  Sleeping in one’s own bed or in one of the suites at the resort means it is not far from the morning coffee to the weight room or range for pre-game prep.  Seems to me it should be an easy day at the office for many of them.

Bay Hill is a comfortable tour stop to play and a wonderful win to have on your golf resume.  It is something special in a professional golfer’s career to shake Arnies hand and accept the unique sword trophy presented as the winner.  Even to superstars like Phil, Ernie, V.J., and Tiger this is a piece of hardware they cherish having in their trophy case.

March, 2012

Golf Friendships Run Deep

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In his Golf World column, Final Say, Roland Merullo talks about the reason there is such a bond of deep friendship created by those who regularly play golf together.  Nowhere else do we relate to people of such diverse interests, political and social views, and income standings.  It is a wonder that we can spend four hours regularly with people who think so differently from us, yet golf seems to create a bridge of tolerance and shared purpose that gets beyond all that.

True friendships are built with a measure of humility.  Merullo points out that the game dishes out humble pie without regard to who you are. “The moment you set foot on the first tee you’re signing up to periodically make a fool of yourself. Nobody escapes.”  When we watch Ernie gag a three-footer to lose a championship we can feel his pain because we have experienced that pain-in front of others we know well-so many times before.

That protective shell  we wear to ward off the slings and arrows that life throws at us every day has to be permeated if we are to establish real relationships with our friends.  It does not take  but a few holes on the golf course to get a good sense of someone in your group and, as he says, “if you tee it up with someone 30 times a year for decades you can probably sketch out a map of his DNA”.

In the end knowing whether a person will be there when you need them has a lot to do with witnessing how they handle the expected and the unexpected.  Appropriately put “every golf outing includes moments of failure, disappointment, even heartbreak.  How we face those things speaks volumes about the creature we are underneath the mask of the personality”.

It has occurred to me many times that when I want a piece of solid and objective advice I will pick up the phone and call someone who I have befriended through golf.  There is something about the authenticity of their advice I can embrace because we have read or misread a putt for each other in a two-man team competition and hold no malice from the result.  Golf does provide a unique platform for experiencing such things together with people we have come to trust.

(Click here to read Roland Merullo’s Golf World article)

Roland Merullo

Golf World

March, 2012

Tavistock Inter-Club

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Some entertaining reality TV the next two nights as The Tavistock Cup is broadcast on the Golf Channel in prime time. These are the most famous B-Team inter-club matches of the year-difference being the players are a little better and arrive in helicopters instead of Camrys.

A blatant real-estate infomercial disguised as a golf tournament this involves promoting four Tavistock Group real estate properties-the Isleworth and Lake Nona communities in Orlando, the Albany resort in the Bahamas, and the Queenwood Golf Club in England.

The six players on each team are loosely associated with each property so the team comraderie is a bit contrived. The varied two-man team formats keep it interesting and the overall atmosphere is loose so the pros get to let down their hair for some adult beverage fun.

Team Albany- Tim Clark, Ernie Els, Trevor Immelman, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, Tiger Woods

Team Isleworth- Robert Allenby, Daniel Chopra, Charles Howell III, Sean O’hair, Bo Van Pelt, Bubba Watson

Team Nona- Ben Curtis, Ross Fisher, Refief Goosen, Peter Hansen, Graeme McDowell, Gary Woodland

Team Queenwood- Thomas Bjorn, David Howell, Soren Kjeldsen, Tom Lewis, Paul McGinley, and Adam Scott.

This year the matches will be played at Lake Nona, a Tom Fazio course outside Orlando with superb look and charm. Lake Nona is defending the cup so they have real interest in protecting their possession on home turf.

Feherty announces the players on the first tee and you never know what personal diddies that will reveal. With microphones everywhere and a full cadre of the most entertaining announcers let loose this always provides quotes to share with your Saturday foursome.

(Click to hear Feherty’s first tee unorthodox introductions of the players from Golf Channel)

So make a big bowl of Jiffy Pop, pour yourself a cool one, put the Lazy-Boy
in half recline, and enjoy another bit of March Madness.

March, 2012

Lexi Is In The House

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With the LPGA Tour coming to the U.S. this week for the first time in 2012 all eyes will be on  young Lexi Thompson who will be making her state-side debut as a full fledged, card-carrying LPGA pro.  There has been so much written about this young phenom since here win at the Navistar Classic in September and the Dubai Ladies Masters in December, almost too much to digest.  But as you can read in this Sports Illustrated article by Alan Shipnuck last fall, there is a whole lot to this young lady and the clamor is justified.

She is about the same age as Michelle Wie when she went pro at 16 so the comparisons are inevitable.  But unlike Michelle, Lexi’s focus has totally been on the women’s game and beating her peers.  From age 12 to 16 the results have been phenomenal.  She has the game, the poise, the athleticism, and the drive to compete at the LPGA level right now.

Shipnuck says in the article, “Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez says that the ideal formula for an LPGA player to achieve popularity is “to look like a woman but play like a man.”  Which is why (Jim) McLean, in a nod to the LPGA commissioner, says, “Lexi Thompson is God’s gift to Mike Whan”.

In reading this article you have to conclude that Lexi’s strongest attribute the next few years will be the support group of her family.  It has provided her the competitive foundation within which to develop her golf skills and the grounded perspective to handle the challenges success and fame will bring.

It is not going to be easy for her to develop as a regular kid competing every week with women ten years her senior.  She will need to avoid the “burn out at a young age” that has foiled careers of other gifted and talenteds in women’s sports.  Some mentoring from more recent peers like Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel who have made this transition successfully would do her a world of good. Hopefully her parents will give her the latitude to seek this out.

Any way you look at it Lexi’s arrival will be a huge boost for American presence in the ladies professional golf ranks.  American fans have lots to be excited about, the next Solheim Cup should have another loaded gun on the American side.

(Click here to read Alan Shipnuck’s “Lexi Thompson” SI Article)

Alan Shipnuck

Sports Illustrated

November, 2011

Sneds

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Brandt Snedeker is an accomplished player on the PGA Tour with over $12 million in career earnings since 2004, three PGA Tour wins, and a boatload of fans who just love the lanky boyish gait, blond curls popping out of the back of his visor, and the Opie Taylor smile that seems to say “I’m glad to be playing the game I love for a living”.

His dramatic playoff win at Torrey Pines this year and getting to the third round of the WGC Accenture Match Play have put him on our radar screen once again this year.  Currently eighth on the PGA Money List, FedEx Cup Standings, and 2012 Ryder Cup List would indicate that he is likely to stay there for the rest of this year.

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With The Masters approaching it is a great time to reflect on Sneds connection to the major he probably covets more than any other.  Flash back to 2004 when Snedeker, playing college golf for Vanderbilt, qualified for The Masters as an amateur winning the U.S. Public Links Championship.  He knew of The Masters tradition providing players who qualify access to the course prior to their appearance in the tournament.  So for the eight months leading up to his first appearance he would drive seven hours each way nearly every weekend between Nashville to Augusta to play a couple of rounds on one of the most revered venues in the game.

In that Masters, he made the cut as an amateur, shooting 12 over for the four rounds, but this cache of practice rounds gave him a familiarity with  Augusta that would serve him well four years later.

Flash forward to 2008 (I love these special effects) he was not playing his best coming into the Masters and he only hoped to somehow get into the top 16 to get an automatic invite back in 2009.  He got a dream pairing with Tom Watson his boyhood idol and proceed to play the course he knew so well like a wily veteran shooting 69-68 to get within one of the lead after the halfway cut.

With family and friends walking each step of the way, Sneds flirted with history and embossed that smiling image into the consciousness of a growing group of endearing golf fans.  Take a moment and read this revealing 2008 article by Michael Bamberger from Sports Illustrated Vault that recounts Sneds journey that week to an incredible third place finish in The Masters.

With his putting stroke, I would not be surprised this Easter Sunday if Sneds is hawking twenty footers through Amen Corner and nipping at the seams of a green jacket.

(Click to read Bamberger’s article “No Man Is An Island”)

Michael Bamberger

Sports Illustrated

May, 2008

Rocketballz Reality

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At the 2011 PGA Show in Orlando the buzz around the place was about the new distance line of TaylorMade Rocketballz drivers, fairway metals, and hybrids.  The notion was circulating that TaylorMade had trumped the USGA and the rest of the industry with the introduction of a power slot behind the face of the latter two categories resulting in an enhanced trampoline effect which would have the ball rocketing off the clubface.  Notwithstanding that Adams Golf had introduced this same idea last year, it was the bold marketing of the “Ballz” line that had started a wind-aided brush fire across the convention center.

The driver cannot use this same power slot since the COR (the measured trampoline effect) for drivers has already hit it’s max, but they did refashion the clubhead aerodynamics to increase speed and the inside of the head to get a low and forward center of gravity to help get the optimal launch and lower the ball spin to increase the carry distance.

So for me, a guy with a driver head speed of 89 with a 25 mph wind at my back, it just was too much to resist sampling this reality and seeing for myself if there was “another 15” waiting to be garnered.  The results of my personal testing were startling and a visit to my club fitting guru at Golf Care Center confirmed it so a new troika of Rocketballz Driver, Three-Wood, and Five Wood are now in my walking bag.  You can say, in respectful deference to the late Davey Jones, “I’m A Believer”.

Simply stated, with the benefit of a launch monitor, comparing the potential replacements head-to-head to my existing hardware the key numbers of ball speed, launch angle, total spin, and carry distance, there was little doubt I would gain significant yardage on every club.

The 9.5 loft Rocketballz Driver vs my 10.5 loft TaylorMade R9  was on average 4 mph faster off the face, lower launch angle, 700 lower total spin rate, and a carry distance improvement of 16 yards.  The three wood was 2 mph faster, slightly lower launch angle, 110 lower total spin, and 7 yards more carry.  The five wood was similar- 2.5 mph faster, slightly higher launch angle, similar spin rate, and 5 yards more carry.

The key is the combination of correct launch angle, faster ball speed off the face, and lower spin rate which results in less resistance in the air and further carry.  Further, and this was evident when I got them into the field, the lower spin rate means more roll out on the ground.  It is observable to me that all three of these clubs generate shots with more ground enthusiasm which means more yards when the turf is dry and fast.

In a recent Golf World magazine article “Out to Launch”, Mike Stachura talked extensively about the “hunger for extra yards” that has swept across the professional ranks.  For them the extra yards pay in money list results.  He says, “Last year the average rank on the money list of the top 30 in driving distance was 67th, while the average rank for the bottom 30 was 119th”.  Little question even historically less brawny guys like Mark Wilson and Justin Leonard are hawking longer distances by tweaking their equipment with the newest technology.

And there is little doubt the manufacturers can deliver it.  The sophistication of launch monitors and accompanying analytic software,  introduction of adjustable drivers, greater specificity in shaft engineering, technological advances in head design, and even better understanding of swing mechanics make it easier than ever for pros and schlubs alike to get in on the distance buffet.  It is all about optimizing launch conditions-ball speed off the face, backspin, and launch angle-that can produce extra yardage.

In this Golf World article Steve Ball, a top rated instructor and club fitter from Oklahoma city says, “I have about 70 percent of my fits pick up at least 25 yards”.

I don’t know about you but this is pretty hard to ignore.  So Endora, Samantha, and Tabatha, as I have affectionately named them, will be twitching their noses for extra yardage for me this coming year and I am damn excited about it.

March, 2012

moerate4

Oakmarsh Golf Course

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Oakmarsh was created at Amelia Island by Pete Dye in 1972, around the same time his more famous Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head came on line.  This wonderful layout weaves it’s way through winding salt marshes and old oak trees draped with hanging moss has many of the design features as it’s more famous cousin so be prepared for a day of the full Dye challenge.  Built in the beginning of his “railroad tie period” many of the water hazards you experience on 14 of the 18 holes are framed with this accent.  The native flora and the marsh grasses around the preserved natural wildlife habitats just make this a spectacular visual as well as golfing experience.

Looking for gondoliers on 6 thru 8 (Tom Spousta/Worldgolf.com)

The outward nine is set among the heritage oak trees that frame almost every shot you play.  Anything off line seems to get swatted by their limbs so you have to play position golf off the tee to have any chance to score well.  It begins easily enough with a few routine challenges but when you get to the short par four third you will feel your heartbeat start to pick up rapidly.   It is something out of Merion demanding focused execution on both a position tee ball and the approach into a undulating tight green complex.  Starting at the sixth you enter the Venician part of the course-holes tightly framed by a series of canals that define the playing lines.  Beware on this side that if the wind is blowing the trees may mask it’s effect-so you need to concentrate on your club selection to avoid disappointments.

The inward half is an entirely different tale-the oaks back off but you get the full force of marsh golf and all of it’s exigencies.  Ten is a short hole that will have you shaking your head walking off the green if you do not play carefully.  When you step on the 12th tee and feel the wind off the marsh on your left you will understand what the rest of the day is all about-trajectory control and proper club selection. It is really from fifteen to the end that will define your day because here you can play well or simply toss the scorecard into the rubbish bin if you are careless.

Drive under the canopy on 15th (Tom Spousta/Worldgolf.com)

Standing on back tee on the par three 16th is worth the entire green’s fee.  You will swear there are Sirens calling your name across the marsh.  The last two holes put a premium on sense over bravery but I must admit the approach shots present a risk reward challenge that may be hard to resist.

Listening for voices on the 16th tee (aipfl.com)

These nines are extremely tight-demanding accuracy from the tees and to the greens, but are extremely fair in what he demands of you to score well. You will find each of distinctly different in flavor and trappings.    As is the case with most Dye creations there are real obstacles to deal with and a whole lot of deceptions woven in between.  He is a master of either suckering you into a gamble that is much more stacked against you than it appears or a bit of bravado that is really more intimidation than real threat.  You have to look at each hole carefully for the best line to take for the achievable result-you score will depend on your ability to sort out the strategic choices and consistently make the right one.

On most days play from the Gold tees-the course need that for it’s teeth.  If the wind is howling then pocket your manhood and a step up to the blue tees so you will have a chance to enjoy your day.  If you are a fan of Pete Dye then this is a course you must add to your scrapbook.

Amelia Island Plantation, Florida

Architect: Pete Dye (1972)

Tees     Par      Yardage    Rating    Slope

Gold     72          6580        72.2       136

Blue     72          6019         69.6      122

(Click here to review Oakmarsh hole-by-hole descriptions)

Wise Beyond His Years

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What you have to love about Rory McIlroy is the fact that he does not seem to get caught up in himself.  As you can read in Gene Wojciechowski’s article from ESPN.com Rory is not buying this Tiger-Rory Rivalry thing that the media seems so intent on creating.

Golf Channel has gone as far as hyping this week’s WGC event at Doral as Rory against “the red hot Tiger Woods”.  Bad news for Golf Channel is that wearing a particular color shirt and shooting a 62, especially after being only one under in the previous three rounds, does not constitute being red hot.

Rory understands, as the article says, that a rivalry on this order takes a decade to gestate and bring to fruition and that focusing on that would only be a distraction to what his real goals are-to be the best player he can be.

The wise young one says, “To be honest, in golf, you can have a rivalry if you want, but at the end of the day your biggest rival is the golf course”.

Rory seems content following the script he has been using that has gotten him to the #1 World Ranking, setting goals, working hard, and enjoying the ride.

“I’ve never said that I want to be the next anyone.  I just want to be the first Rory McIlroy”.

I like his perspective-it should take him a long way.

(Click here to read Wojciechowski’s Article on Rory McIllroy)

Gene Wojciechowski

ESPN.com

March, 2012