To keep a man continually asking ‘How far is it?’ is to make the game at once more difficult for him than by any other method. If, on the other hand, you supply him with a belt of clearly defined bunkers leading to the green, opening up the passage, he sees precisely what he has to do without the trouble of further thought. TOM SIMPSON
To keep a man continually asking ‘How far is it?’ is to make the game at once more difficult for him than by any other method. If, on the other hand, you supply him with a belt of clearly defined bunkers leading to the green, opening up the passage, he sees precisely what he has to do without the trouble of further thought. TOM SIMPSON
David A. Fahrenthold, Jonathan O'Connell, Josh Dawsey and Shayna Jacobs report that New York state Attorney General Letitia James is considering a lawsuit or convening a grand jury to hold the Trump Organization accountable for wildly different property valuations.
Because Donald Trump was a resident of New York, James is able to investigate the valuation of Trump National Los Angeles, a.k.a. the-better-than-Pebble Beach-because-it’s-on-an-ocean course Trump purchased. And the shaky cliffs of the old Ocean Trails just keep on causing headaches, this time with regard to homesites overlooking the Palos Verdes course.
In 2012, Trump’s “Statement of Financial Condition”— a document that is typically used to demonstrate value to potential lenders — said the course had “52 home sites available for sale,” indicating a potential source of future cash flow.
At the time, however, the club had only received approvals for 36 home sites and six of them had already been sold, according to public records.
In May — after Reuters published an article on the club’s fluctuating valuations — investigators from James’s office contacted the city of Rancho Palos Verdes. They asked for hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, covering the history of the club’s efforts to get home lots approved, according to an email exchange released by the city’s lawyers.
The golf architect’s endeavor should be to instill in the golfer the spirit of conquest by presenting him with definite objectives upon which he must concentrate. The golfer, in meeting nature thus fashioned to his pleasure, is again face to face with life in the raw. It is for him to gain the good in it by the virtue of his courage and skill. It is for him to stamp his law upon it. Therefore, it is not for the architect, by the dictation of his hazards, to lay down the law to the golfer. His duty is merely to assist nature by rendering, in greater contrast, the interest which she, in the first place, affords. MAX BEHR
The golf architect’s endeavor should be to instill in the golfer the spirit of conquest by presenting him with definite objectives upon which he must concentrate. The golfer, in meeting nature thus fashioned to his pleasure, is again face to face with life in the raw. It is for him to gain the good in it by the virtue of his courage and skill. It is for him to stamp his law upon it. Therefore, it is not for the architect, by the dictation of his hazards, to lay down the law to the golfer. His duty is merely to assist nature by rendering, in greater contrast, the interest which she, in the first place, affords. MAX BEHR
Our deepest sympathies to Josh Sens for having to take out the 8 a.m. Golf news litterings with this “strategic alliance” “news” of 86-year-old Gary Player joining with Jack Nicklaus’s firm for design resource assistance.
Essentially the Nicklaus plan factory will churn out whatever stuff Player is paid slap his name to. Sens writes:
Under the arrangement, Player will enlist the resources of Nicklaus Design to help him launch his reborn Gary Player Design business. (Nicklaus Design is an affiliate of GOLF.com’s parent company, 8AM Golf.) That business has been largely inactive over the past two years, held up by a legal dispute between Player and a company run by one of his sons.
Family.
With that dispute now behind him, Player said he was eager to get back to designing and building courses around the world, and that the relationship with Nicklaus Design would be key as his own design company starts afresh.
Amateurism, in my opinion, is entirely a matter of convenience, depending upon the financial condition of the individual. It is nice for a man to make a hobby of his favorite sport, to play it or leave it alone as he likes. But…it is fine to be an amateur if one can afford it. BOBBY JONES
Peter Alliss got away with things no one other broadcaster could. He’d grunt, gargle, mock, violate the “norms” of broadcasting and when Alliss turned serious, you knew the tournament was about to be decided. For this American viewer, he joined a cast of legends that marked the Golden Age of golf television and every year at The Open, Alliss’ solo stints were always a highlight of the championship. And it was his general gravitas and light touch that made an otherwise slow sport worth watching.
“The Great Man” was far more than a broadcaster, however, with a Royal Air Force stint, over thirty professional wins, two European Tour Vardon trophies, books (illustrated, fiction and non) and his proudest accomplishment, a long Ryder Cup run including playing on the same team as his father Percy.
He would undoubtedly have loved seeing the start of Reuters’ obituary:
Former Ryder Cup player Peter Alliss, who won 31 tournaments in his career before a successful stint as a commentator in which he was referred to as the "voice of golf," has died at the age of 89, the European Tour said on Sunday.
Golf Architecture’s Richard Humphreys updates us on construction of 2027 PGA Championship host, the PGA Frisco. The Gil Hanse-designed East course and Beau Welling-designed West course are being constructed at the same time near Dallas with a June 2022 opening scheduled after the PGA of America wisely insisted on a year of grow-in.
While the property didn’t look particularly captivating in photos and flyovers, the early images and comments about the course presentation are pretty exciting:
“The property here reminded me a bit of Southern Hills – the topography, along with the creek so prominently featured,” said Hanse. “Of course, Southern Hills is now surrounded by Tulsa. But when Perry Maxwell built it, Southern Hills probably looked a lot like our site in Frisco does today.
“This used to be a ranch, so we focused on that, along with what is some really interesting topography, good rolling ground. But everything has been done in proportion to the broad expanses we’re dealing with here. In that context the bunkers are the calling card, the most visible feature out there – and they are dramatic.”
And this too:
Like father, like son 👌 #Tiger pic.twitter.com/9m2e1dYjMo
— HowDidiDo (@HowDidiDo) November 1, 2020I was initially surprised that the (understandably) protective Tiger Woods would expose his 11-year-old to the national TV spotlight at this month’s PNC Championship (aka the Father-Son-Daughter-Stepchild, etc…).
But it’s a tribute to the well-regarded and impressively-attended 20-team event of major winners that Woods even considered his son’s request. And it was Charlie’s idea, writes Doug Ferguson, reporting Justin Thomas’s comments this week:
“Tiger and I talked about it a bunch. He brought it up a while ago that Charlie wanted to play and Charlie really wanted to play with us,” Thomas said Tuesday. “For some reason, Charlie just always wants to beat me, it doesn’t matter what it is. Although he’s never beaten me in golf or a putting contest, he still talks trash just like his dad. It will be fun.
“We’ll have that like inner tournament within a tournament, trying to shut his little mouth up, but it will be fun.”
2020 saw the opening of fifteen courses eligible for Golf Digest’s “Best New” award in what appears more like the new normal than an aberration, as Derek Duncan writes of the three courses singled out this year:
It’s humorous now to think that the 40 or so new courses that opened in 2010 didn’t form a critical mass large enough to merit the magazine’s full attention and thus an award. The course-construction recession was considered a temporary squall, but course openings have remained maddeningly scarce over the past 10 years, and this year’s class consists of just 15 graduates. But feeling that new course openings are now more newsworthy than ever, we’ve decided to proceed with the prize—though because of travel difficulties and the extenuating circumstances of the moment we gave each facility that opened in late 2019 or 2020 the option to postpone its candidacy until 2021. (A number of courses took us up on the offer; wait for them next year.)
The Sheep Ranch by Coore and Crenshaw won, with some comically-artificial Tom Fazio real estate play called Troubadour finishing second. Nothing says natural like a creek atop a mountain guarding six tees boxes:
Over at Golf Magazine they’ve posted their top 100 already and now add a state-by-state list. I have no profound or even mundane observations about the lists. But I will apologize to all of California’s high-end clubs (and their stocked comfort stations) for getting beat by little daily fee Rustic Canyon (16th in the Golden State).
Enjoy…
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