The Loop
Missing links: Turnberry and Trump, Chicago and weather, Toski and Duke
By John Strege
Stories of interest you might have missed…
Donald Trump's purchase of Turnberry (below) was an unpopular one in many United Kingdom quarters. "The horror…was akin to the reaction which would be inspired by a Peter Stringfellow purchase of the Sistine Chapel or Simon Cowell wresting control of the London Philharmonic," writes James Corrigan of the Telegraph, who comes to Trump's defense.
(Getty Images photo)
Chicago golf courses are still bearing the scars from a long winter and a cool spring, Teddy Greenstein writes in the Chicago Tribune. "Bob O'Link…might not be playable until June after the poa annua died on about 13 greens, forcing the club to re-plant. And Bob O'Link is in the majority. Public or private, small or big maintenance budget, few courses were immune to the big chill."
In 1953, Bob Toski, better known now as instructor, called his victory in what is now the Travelers Championship, when he phoned the Hartford Courant to ask about his brother Ben's tee time in the final round. "I think I'm going to win," he told the newspaper. Last year, a Toski pupil, Ken Duke, won the tournament. Jeff Jacobs of the Courant has the story of both their victories and Toski's intention to return to the tournament next month for the first time since 1965.
"I died, medically speaking, three times last summer," Bernard Gallacher says, of suffering cardiac arrest. Gallacher, who played on eight European Ryder Cup teams and captained three of them, was saved by a defibrillator. Gallacher talks about his near death experience and the need for more defibrillators in this story in the Gulf News.
"In Golf Digest's Bid for Younger Readers, It's Less Faldo, More Fallon," the headline on Bill Penninton's story in the New York Times says. Pennington looks at what he calls the "reinvented" Golf Digest, which features Jimmy Fallon on the cover of its June edition.