Colleague Pete Finch was blown away in Atlanta, but not by the golf art:
I was in Atlanta last weekend and stopped by the High Museum of Art in midtown, where there’s a special Art of Golf exhibition through June 24.
There wasn’t much golf being played on this day. The winds were high and I even spotted a few snowflakes as I hurried along Peachtree Street N.E. on Saturday morning. But if museum organizers were hoping cooped-up golfers would throng over to this show to get their fix, they had to be disappointed. Arriving a little before 11, I was one of only two guests taking in the exhibit, not including security guards.
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Podcast: More on the WM Phoenix Open
I talk to Sam Weinman, editor of GolfDigest.com, about my recent blog post and more on why the Waste Management Phoenix Open is good for the game.Listen to the podcast
--Matty G.
(Follow me on Twitter @Matt_Ginella.)
WM Phoenix Open: Golf Can Be Cool
I went to a sporting event last week, complete with cheering and
jeering, crowds and concerts, betting, booze and babes. And, by the way,
like a muffled marching band, the PGA Tour just happened to be playing
through the festivities.
The Waste Management Phoenix Open isn’t only about golf, and that’s why it’s good for the game.
(The Zinburger girls are advertising "cold beer.")
Since the 1937, the Thunderbirds, an original extension of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, have been using this annual golf tournament to raise close to $80 million for more than 250 local charities. There are over 300 life members of the Thunderbirds, and there are always 55 active members, of which there is a Tournament Chairman. No active members are over the age of 45, which forces healthy change, fresh leadership, and a steady growth of momentum.
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The Waste Management Phoenix Open isn’t only about golf, and that’s why it’s good for the game.
(The Zinburger girls are advertising "cold beer.")Since the 1937, the Thunderbirds, an original extension of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, have been using this annual golf tournament to raise close to $80 million for more than 250 local charities. There are over 300 life members of the Thunderbirds, and there are always 55 active members, of which there is a Tournament Chairman. No active members are over the age of 45, which forces healthy change, fresh leadership, and a steady growth of momentum.
Read more
Notes & Best of Booth Babes from the PGA Show
Yes, I had a good show.
Back from my second PGA Show in Orlando, it's not unlike most conventions: meetings, meals and martinis. There were no beverage cart girls, but I did make a few minutes for the best of the booth babes.
My notebook (and iPhone) dump:
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Back from my second PGA Show in Orlando, it's not unlike most conventions: meetings, meals and martinis. There were no beverage cart girls, but I did make a few minutes for the best of the booth babes.
My notebook (and iPhone) dump:
Read more
Travel Tips for Playing, Parking and/or Attending the AT&T
If you’ve ever been to Carmel, Calif., you know it’s simultaneously one of the most beautiful and expensive places on earth. I got an email this week that served as a reminder there are some bargains there. It was pitching a twofer of reasonably priced offerings during the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Feb. 6-12:
1. You can park for $20 a day in nearby Pacific Grove and take a shuttle over to the tournament. A five-day parking pass: $60. Click here for more details.
2. More important, you can play golf that week on one of my favorite little courses, Pacific Grove Golf Links, for a non-exorbitant fee. The course, whose back nine was laid about Pebble Beach architect Jack Neville and which runs right alongside Monterey Bay, has weekday tee times for as little as $29 and, at most, $57 per player. You read that right. More details here.
3. Also in this price range: The Bayonet and Blackhorse courses on the old Fort Ord site, just down the road in Seaside. Here, weekday tee times can be had for $51- $55.
Need tickets for the tournament itself? They’re just $10 for Monday’s practice round and $20 for Tuesday and Wednesday. They climb to $50 for the tournament days. Think of it this way: You could take a group of 10 for the cost of one Pebble Beach green fee!
--Peter Finch
(Follow Pete on Twitter @Pete_Finch; follow me @Matt_Ginella.)
1. You can park for $20 a day in nearby Pacific Grove and take a shuttle over to the tournament. A five-day parking pass: $60. Click here for more details.
2. More important, you can play golf that week on one of my favorite little courses, Pacific Grove Golf Links, for a non-exorbitant fee. The course, whose back nine was laid about Pebble Beach architect Jack Neville and which runs right alongside Monterey Bay, has weekday tee times for as little as $29 and, at most, $57 per player. You read that right. More details here.3. Also in this price range: The Bayonet and Blackhorse courses on the old Fort Ord site, just down the road in Seaside. Here, weekday tee times can be had for $51- $55.
Need tickets for the tournament itself? They’re just $10 for Monday’s practice round and $20 for Tuesday and Wednesday. They climb to $50 for the tournament days. Think of it this way: You could take a group of 10 for the cost of one Pebble Beach green fee!
--Peter Finch
(Follow Pete on Twitter @Pete_Finch; follow me @Matt_Ginella.)
A conversation with Pete Dye
Ron Whitten catches up with Pete Dye. The living legend has been busy falling off cliffs, breaking 80, building bunkers and fixing famous greens:
Got a phone call on Friday the 13th of January from Alice Dye, who was concerned about my bad back and wanted to know if I was going have an operation.
Hadn’t decided, I told her. Then she put her husband, Pete, on the phone, since he’d struggled with a bad back for years. We eventually got around to talking about that, but first, he had to tell me about the 77 he’d just shot at Gulfstream Golf Club, a few blocks from his home in Delray Beach, Florida. He’s now 86 (or as he puts it, Half a 172, and 15 days), so he was a full nine strokes under his age.
Pete then brought me up to date with his current work. He’d just finished reworking six greens at TPC Sawgrass, home of the Players Championship.
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Got a phone call on Friday the 13th of January from Alice Dye, who was concerned about my bad back and wanted to know if I was going have an operation. Hadn’t decided, I told her. Then she put her husband, Pete, on the phone, since he’d struggled with a bad back for years. We eventually got around to talking about that, but first, he had to tell me about the 77 he’d just shot at Gulfstream Golf Club, a few blocks from his home in Delray Beach, Florida. He’s now 86 (or as he puts it, Half a 172, and 15 days), so he was a full nine strokes under his age.
Pete then brought me up to date with his current work. He’d just finished reworking six greens at TPC Sawgrass, home of the Players Championship.
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Trouble at Ballyneal: What's the next move?
Ballyneal Golf & Hunt Club, a Tom Doak design that Golf Digest ranks among the best in Colorado, officially opened in late 2006--just before the Great Recession. The remote, walking-only course hasn’t had an easy run. Though founder Rupert O’Neal put on a brave face, even talking about building a second 18, Ballyneal has sold only about 100 memberships, fewer than half of its projected 250. Its sole secured lender, owed $1.7 million, filed for foreclosure in November. The course will go to auction on March 7.
In an interesting twist, that secured lender is Colorado computer executive John C. Curlander, brother-in-law to Rupert O’Neal.
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The Tao of Steve
Colleague Ron Whitten tees off on one of my favorite places on earth. And he's not grippin' it like a baby bird. (I offer my thoughts at the end of the post.)
I spent my holiday week reading Walter Isaacson’s sometimes repetitious biography on Steve Jobs, and what impressed me most about the highly flawed character of Jobs, the driving force behind Macintosh computers, the iPod, iPhone and iPad, was his insistence that his company create Great Products and not settle (as rival Microsoft usually did) for stuff that was Merely Adequate.
That got me thinking about my own role as a longtime golf course critic. I guess my goal has always been to identify the truly Great Products of golf course design, those that deliver the total golf experience. So as a New Year’s resolution, I’ve decided to embrace the Steve Jobs Quest for Perfection, and thus forego any sugarcoating.
Thus, for the first time, I’m publicly disagreeing with my friends and magazine colleagues that Bandon Dunes Resort in Oregon is the Greatest Golf Resort in the World. I don’t see it that way.
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I spent my holiday week reading Walter Isaacson’s sometimes repetitious biography on Steve Jobs, and what impressed me most about the highly flawed character of Jobs, the driving force behind Macintosh computers, the iPod, iPhone and iPad, was his insistence that his company create Great Products and not settle (as rival Microsoft usually did) for stuff that was Merely Adequate.
That got me thinking about my own role as a longtime golf course critic. I guess my goal has always been to identify the truly Great Products of golf course design, those that deliver the total golf experience. So as a New Year’s resolution, I’ve decided to embrace the Steve Jobs Quest for Perfection, and thus forego any sugarcoating.
Thus, for the first time, I’m publicly disagreeing with my friends and magazine colleagues that Bandon Dunes Resort in Oregon is the Greatest Golf Resort in the World. I don’t see it that way.Read more
The Who, What, When, Why (and how) of Waialae's "W"
Let’s say you’re a member of the board at a private Hawaiian club full of rich tradition. Your course is a classic design by Seth Raynor and Charles Banks that opened in 1927. You host a PGA Tour event, won by some of the biggest names in golf. In other words, all is good in the not-so-mad world of Waialae Country Club on Oahu.
Then along comes a member with respect for all of the above, but he also wants to discuss the dreaded topic of change. No, not to a bunker, or the routing. He’s happy with the conditions and doesn’t dabble in decisions about the color of the proposed rug in the clubhouse or the artwork on the walls. But drawing from one of his favorite movies, the ensemble comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” Ethan Abbott has an idea of what to do with the four palm trees behind the seventh green (below). He wants to make them into the form of a “W.”
He Wants to do What?!
Wait. Before you whack the idea, watch this video he put together to help his cause:
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Then along comes a member with respect for all of the above, but he also wants to discuss the dreaded topic of change. No, not to a bunker, or the routing. He’s happy with the conditions and doesn’t dabble in decisions about the color of the proposed rug in the clubhouse or the artwork on the walls. But drawing from one of his favorite movies, the ensemble comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” Ethan Abbott has an idea of what to do with the four palm trees behind the seventh green (below). He wants to make them into the form of a “W.”
He Wants to do What?!Wait. Before you whack the idea, watch this video he put together to help his cause:
Read more
Happy Last Year!
Everyone’s looking forward. So positive and so trendy—to openly discuss resolutions. I’ve started yoga, I’m seeing a therapist and I’m determined to hit a draw. Body, soul and swing. But before I moved on, I spent time looking back. Prior to purging a year’s worth of iPhone images—my greatest season of golf and travel—I put together a slideshow of the highlights.From pro-ams (four) to Pine Valley (twice) and turning 40 (once), as much as I’m looking forward to the New Year, the collective scorecard of my 2011 is worthy of a frame and a spot on the wall.
This year looks to be more of the same. Thanks for following along via blog, Twitter and Instagram.
--Matty G.
(Picture above: Course and hole number?)
Where's Matty G? continues
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