We begin at the top when we start in to list the global sporting championships compromised by COVID-19. It's no joking matter, so we speak in hushed tones about postponement of the Bent Shaft Classic and lesser world events. It's not a tragedy. It's just a golf tournament. But what will we do with … [Read more...]
Prelapsarianism
Friday, June 14, 2019 PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Damn New Yorker writers. I sat there in the U.S. Open media center this morning reading a story about Augusta National Golf Club and its relentless artifice, and I couldn't get past "prelapsarian." I was on the grounds of Pebble Beach Golf Links, … [Read more...]
Pebbles of wisdom
Wednesday, June 12, 2019 PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Let it be said the United States' Goffin' Association knows how to put on a spectacle, and the U.S. Open, this one here, is at the consensus No. 1 public golf course in Grey Goatee Nation, which means you can play it in … [Read more...]
Order on the course
The phrase is deus ex machina. The meaning is fluid, as far as I can tell, but it seems in popular usage to be something unexpected that for no obvious reason makes sense of gibberish or substance of nothingness. Herewith golf, the simplest game. Its goal, its very essence, is simple, which … [Read more...]
World No. 388
Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson, Tiger Woods ... all within the top 388 in the World Golf Rankings, which makes the Valspar Championship just about the best field of a non-major this season. Oh, to be No. 388 in the world. The love, the money, the invitation to the … [Read more...]
You read it here first
Please: No wagering whatsoever should result from the insider knowledge you will absorb from these U.S. Open predictions. It wouldn't be fair to all the other people, millions of them, for as many reasons, who don't read in this space. Dustin Johnson won't repeat. Martin Kaymer won't win … [Read more...]
This post is in its third or fourth rain delay
What the talking heads talk about on the first day of the U.S. Open when they’re not talking about players playing because players aren’t playing because of the weather: They talk about the golf course (on which nobody much is playing). They say the obvious play on the 519-yard par-4 15th is to … [Read more...]
This year’s June major
The golf course with the richest major-championship pedigree in the Pacific Northwest will host another major this spring when the KPMG Women's PGA Championship comes to the region. It's not Chambers Bay. Sahalee Country Club, host of the KPMG June 9-12, is in many ways the … [Read more...]
Cold hard luck
“He could miss.” “Nah, he’s not gonna miss.” “He could miss.” This conversation, however apt for Sunday’s Seahawk playoff win, actually took place last June on the top row of the grandstand by the 17th green at Chambers Bay Golf Course, the back of which directly overlooked the teebox on … [Read more...]
A last look at The Lone Fir Tree
It survived a working gravel and sand mine. It lived on through the abandoned site's conversion to a championship golf course. It's a Douglas fir tree, not very large or symmetrical, but now that the U.S. Open is here (and soon to leave), it makes No. 15 at Chambers Bay Golf Course the postcard … [Read more...]
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