Q&A With Dan Jenkins, Vol. 2
Today marks the release of Jenkins At The Majors, a collection of Dan's best write-ups from those four events not called The Players. You may recall that Jenkins answered questions last year upon the release of The Franchise Babe, and he kindly talks to us about his second golf anthology. The book includes an Introduction to the essays and a commentary on golf journalism, along with an Epilogue where Dan lists his "all-time golf team, driver through the putter and the interview room."
GS: So you've got a new book out of your major championship essays. Is this all of them or a selection of favorites as picked out by you or some really bright book editor?
DJ: My original title of the new book was "Deadline at the Majors." I still like this better than "Jenkins at the Majors." Nevertheless...I chose 94 pieces from newspapers and magazines as being representative of the 198 majors I've covered since 1951. From Hogan to Tiger, as it happens, or from the Fort Worth Press to Golf Digest, with the Dallas Times Herald and Sports Illustrated in between.
All of the pieces had to be shortened, of course, and some of them I've tweaked, and there is a bit of fresh material included, but basically it's stuff I wrote on deadline. I hope it presents a pretty good picture of pro golf as it unfolded before my very eyes over nearly 60 years.
GS: Some writers would rather go see a Celine Dion concert than revisit their past rants. How do you handle reading your old stuff?
DJ: I don't enjoy looking back at my old stuff, other than to enjoy the historical value of it. Sometimes I'm amazed at how less than regurgitating it was, and quite often I'm left to wonder who that stranger was that sneaked into my office and wrote that embarrassing tirade.
GS: The Players Championship is this week. You lived down there for a while. Do you miss Ponte Vedra much?
DJ: I enjoyed my time in Ponte Vedra---it got me back on the golf course after all those years in Manhattan when the major sports were smoking, drinking, typing and hanging out. But it was finally time to go home to Texas. You CAN go home again and be happy. I'm living proof. I haven't been back to Ponte Vedra in 10 years. I'm sure it's changed a lot in some respects but stayed the same in others.
GS: The U.S. Open returns to Bethpage and close to another place you used to live. Are you hanging out in the city for old time's sake or staying out on boring old Long Island?
DJ: The Bethpage Open will be my 200th major and I'll be at the press hotel again in a part of Long Island I never knew existed, an hour from the course or anywhere to eat.
GS: Any deep thoughts heading into Bethpage?
DJ: I'm not a big fan of the course. There's no hole you want to take away with you, which is true of most places other than Pine Valley, Cypress Point, or Augusta National. There's a terrible sameness to Bethpage, but it plays tough, and the old-fashioned round greens look like unidentified flying objects have landed there.
GS: Seen any good movies or read any good books lately?
DJ: Good movies are harder and harder to find. But plenty of good books are out there if you like some of my favorite authors---Daniel Silva, Michael Connelly, James W. Hall, Alan Furst, and John Sandford, to name a few.
GS: Interspersed throughout your literature has been the line about "nothing that a good old depression wouldn't fix." Well we could be there. Is it at least righting some of the wrongs?
DJ: Yeah, I used to say a good old Depression could fix a lot of things---meaning greed. But it hasn't fixed the PGA Tour yet. I do love the game, but what has prompted that statement is purely my own frustration with the fact that I can work two years on a book, and some guy I've never heard of, who didn't graduate from college, and never went to class when he was IN college, and doesn't know how to do anything but hit a golf ball, can make more money in one week than my book will by finishing 5th in a regular tournament I don't give a shit about , and it's not even achieving anything. It's not WINNING or even accomplishing anything.
There's something wrong with that picture. It's why in my declining years I have arrived at the point where I don't give a damn about anything but the four majors and the Ryder Cup. They are important. The regular tour sucks.
I should mention that the regular tour didn't used to suck. It used to be quite glamorous, when the LA Open was always first, when the Crosby was the Crosby, when the players wore snappy clothes and movie stars hung around them, when the Florida swing had its own charm, same for Texas, and so on. But mainly when every winner was SOMEBODY.
I live in the past. It was a better world.
Monday, May 4, 2009 at 09:07 PM
Reader Comments (29)
It was at Pebble Beach for the 1992 U.S. Open and at deadline, everyone else was pounding away at the crude portable computers and heavy, unwieldy CRT terminals of the day. Those keyboards made almost no sounds, and suddenly, hearing the loud clack-clack-clack of Dan's rental electric typewriter bouncing off the walls, I realized that with no fanfare another era in journalism was passing. I remember this vividly, as his seat was next to mine.
It also marked the beginning of the no-smoking USGA media center, thanks to California laws, a change not enthusiastically supported by many old-timers used to chomping on a cigar or chain-smoking cigarettes to goose their creativity.
4p
4p
I'm no economist, but I don't think it's a zero sum game. The fact that there is so much prize money in golf probably means there are more chances to publish books, and more publishers willing to pay advances for golf books.
There is always someone with more money than you... And Dan, that 2nd rate pro who gets the big check for finishing 5th--what's he going to be doing when he's 80? Not cashing checks for book advances, I'll tell you that.
I think a guy who has earned a very good living writing about something he loves, and making millions of people laugh along the way, is richer than most people. Richer than he realizes, that's for sure.
Considering I was talking about how the course looks on television, I suggest my comments do have some validity.
86, pretty much agree. Grumbling about an athlete's earnings got played out in the 80s.
Speaking of which, for those unfamiliar with his non-sports writing, good ole Dan codified "Mankind's 10 Stages of Drunkenness" in the novel, Baja Oklahoma. They are:
0) Sober
1) Witty and Charming
2) Rich and Powerful
3) Benevolent
4) Clairvoyant
5) Fuck Dinner
6) Patriotic
7) Crank Up the Enola Gay
8) Witty and Charming, Part II
9) Invisible
10) Bulletproof
Thank you, Dan!
While I certainly don't agree with those who hate the Black, I must agree that with the exception of a handful of holes (#4,5,15,16 & 17) there is a sameness and distinct yield to distance and rough as the course's prime defense. I grew up playing lots of HS golf on the Black and have a special fondness for the place, but Rees & USGA didn't do much,other than to clean it up and spitshine it's look. They practically butchered the 18th. It doesn't hold a candle to the Oakmonts,Pebbles, Shinnecocks and Merions as an Open venue.
Jenkins is mostly right!
Rees Jones has totally f-ed it up with his recent changes and he and the USGA have ruined it rugged Pine Valley-like features making it sterile. Still its design shines through and anyone who can't see that is blind.
Where is the sameness of the drives and approaches on 2, 6, 9, 11, 12, 16?
11 is a great drive where the visuals are foreshadowed by teh land and fescues making the player aim incorrectly towards the right rough. Even and especially when the fairways were intended widths BB is/was a great driving golf course.
Kindly give SPECIFIC examples and shots describing what you all think is sameness.
The drive on 2 is an iron or fairway wood for any longer hitter and 11 & 12 are straight away long bangs. 9 is different now with the new tee, but 6 will only be really different if Mike Davis goes ahead and moves the tee up to make the green potentially drivable, 16 is special and I noted it among those I previously cited. You have to hug the left side of the fairway to get the right approach angle.
The only real reason I agree with the "sameness" tag is that for the pro's the course is just long and long without so many of the interesting features on the majority of its holes, unlike certain other Open venues. I love the Black, but admit it can be a long shlog without enough differentiating greens (absent 4/5/14/15/16/17) and without the angles of a Merion or Oakmont. For mere mortalks like you and me, it's always a handful and still fun, though not "charming."
...unless that is they turn it into a par 3.
No way.
If you think that 11 is a straight away hole with tow long bangs you must have spent a lot of time in the right rough as I described above. Its a brilliant example of using visuals, foreshadowing of the view of the fairway and slight diagonals on the drive. Its unfortunate that many of the intended strategies and approach angles are now deep in rough. The drives on 5, 6, 7, 9 and 11 all require shaping and knowing the angle and distance needed to get to anideal approach position. Let Jenkins compare the course with his beloved Colonial and see which is better.
Yes BB needs some charm and a world class short par 4 (or 2) but #2 could have been it with a better green. I contend this is where Burbeck
might have done some work - building those flat greens on 1,2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10.
We disagree on #17. Its green works totally differently and MUCH better then pebble #17 where I agree with you. Both the green and the bunkering work at BB.
For the USGA's purposes- it is the best US Open venue. If you combine the space and infrustructure, the fantastic course, the NYC market, the joe public aspect. etc.
His complete destruction of Torrey Pines South is another.
He acts as if his profession is so much more noble and dignified (and therefore should be better compensated) than regular Joe on tour who cashes a nice check every once in a while and who happens to be in the top 1% in the world for his particular skill.
Why should it matter that regular Joe on tour did poorly in college and didn't get his degree. Does that make Dan Jenkins better than him? Not only is Jenkins a grumpy old man, but he sounds like an elitist too.
I knew I was becoming an adult when my father gave me Dead Solid Perfect to read from his golf library rather than another tomb by Wind or Darwin.