June 2012: Where's Matty G?: Golf Digest

My picture-perfect week at the U.S. Open

Thursday, June 21, 2012

From playing iconic golf courses, having breakfast with legends and witnessing historical performances, it was as if the Bay Area was trying to steal me back from Brooklyn.

My dream U.S. Open week in pictures and captions:

My Instagram tour of golf in the Bay Area

Friday, June 15, 2012

In March I came to San Francisco to report a travel story for the June Issue of Golf Digest . I played Harding Park, Presidio, Lincoln Park (pictured), Sharp Park in Pacifica and Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz. I also accepted invites to play San Francisco Golf Club and the Lake course at Olympic. In a brief career of taking trips to play great golf, this will forever be one of my favorites.

As I pulled into the Olympic Club, on a crisp spring morning, I was flooded with memories of Christmas as a kid.

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Q&A: Herb Kohler on trying to buy near Bandon, Hamilton Grand and his latest victory.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

The last time I did a formal Q&A with Herb Kohler, the prince of porcelain and owner of 90 holes of golf, was in 2008. He told me about saving dogs, landing planes and taking buddies trips. His group is called the Gnarly Balls Gang, and the winner gets two softball-size cast-iron balls attached to a piece of driftwood.

In our latest conversation, the man who made the Midwest an award-winning golf destination discusses his ongoing search for property to build another golf resort, what he has done with Hamilton Hall—the building behind the 18th green of the Old Course in St. Andrews—and why he’s content if he never gets a men’s U.S. Open.

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Kuchar's win at The Players is Greg Turcotte's ticket to golf in Ireland

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

In order for Matt Kuchar to win the Players Championship and $1.71 million last month, he needed to beat the field, which he did by two shots. But for Greg Turcotte of Lexington, Ky., to win a $9,000 golf trip to Ireland, he needed Kuchar to win with a final score of 13 under par. Such is the reality of fantasy sports—it’s a numbers game.

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On the 20th anniversary of the RTJ Trail, David G. Bronner on how and why it works

Friday, June 1, 2012

After President Obama, David G. Bronner may be the most powerful golf nut on the planet. He’s the 67-year-old CEO of Retirement Systems of Alabama, a collection of state-employee pension funds whose assets total nearly $30 billion. Among the investments he oversees are television stations, newspapers, a Manhattan office tower, the PCH Resorts & Hotels group and, most famously, Alabama’s 11-site Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.

Known throughout the state as “Dr. Bronner”—he has a law degree and a PhD in finance from the University of Alabama—he’s the guy who dreamed up the Trail and got it built. On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, the blunt and occasionally profane CEO (pictured, left) joined a late May celebration at Oxmoor Valley outside Birmingham, the first Trail course laid out by Jones and his design associate, Roger Rulewich (pictured, right). Golf Digest’s Peter Finch caught up with Bronner over breakfast, where they talked about the Trail’s past and its immediate future.

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