It’s back!
Twenty years later Tatra Press has kindly allowed me to bring back Grounds For Golf now that golf architecture is of more interest to the masses. A new Introduction looks at what’s driven the interest growth and two new chapters I had a blast adding (plus a few edits to keep things up-to-date).
The Amazon purchase page for the book arriving June 15, 2026.
Here's the Golf Digest explanation for their first ever college golf program ranking. Both of Pepperdine's programs made the "balanced" list of programs offering both great golf and strong academics. I know you needed for me to point that out.
Sports and business writer Richard Sandomir of the New York Times has the best dissection of the PGA/CBS screw up, as well as Monday's golf-light, commercial heavy telecast that yours truly wrote about for Golfobserver. Sandomir writes: CBS's commercial load was a distraction yesterday - even more than on Sunday - creating a disjointed viewing experience during the year's final major. The commercials interrupted the narrative flow of this five-hole event, with 12 golfers finishing their final round, half of them separated by three shots, and half of them paid little or no attention by CBS (except for a note by Jim Nantz, as the camera focused on Vijay Singh, that yesterday was the 60th anniversary of V-J Day).And he offers this quote from CBS's Rob Correa, a CBS Sports senior vice president for programming:
CBS could have reduced the number of commercial blocks it had, or more boldly, eliminated advertising in the final 30 minutes. Perhaps it was waiting to go commercial free for a playoff, which would have caused the network to blow off more than "Guiding Light" and the first half-hour of "The Price Is Right."
But commercial interests won out over golf, even if no crucial shots were missed while CBS was in a break. Peter Oosterhuis, one of CBS's on-course reporters, seemed to believe the action was more important than mercantilism. After Mickelson missed a birdie putt on No. 17, Oosterhuis said, "Let's go to 18," but CBS went to commercials instead.
"The P.G.A. of America is responsible for the scheduling of the tournament," he said. "It's up to them." He said CBS would not have objected to an earlier start "if the weather reports were that severe."
Here's Damon Hack's game story on Phil Mickelson's impressive PGA win, and another take from the UK's Lawrence Donegan in The Guardian. And Jim Litke writes about Mickelson's amazing up-and-down on 18.This is old, old news — television forcing a sport to genuflect to its demands, no matter how ludicrous. Buying off nonsense with a check. And yet maybe such a screwball ending will cause some needed reflection.
Television's billions feed the wolves and always will. Fact of life. But there ought to be a line … somewhere.
The folks at the Masters, self-proclaimed guardians of the purity of the game, do the same thing, pushing their Sunday start to the very last telegenic moment. And you know the other handwork of television. The 10 p.m. NCAA tournament games. The bloated NBA playoff format that stretches toward July. The NFL January playoff games in frigid northern cities at night. All for a few dollars more.
John Huggan on Golfobserver looks at the latest behind-the-scenes
antics involving Colin Montgomerie and other European players, namely
Darren Clarke. All of it over Montgomerie's, uh, episode, in Jakarta
earlier this year.
Gosh, and I thought all of these European players had bonded during their victorious Ryder Cups.
Do the President's Cup Captain's picks make a statement about the depth of American golf?
Mind you, these are all great players. But U.S. Captain Jack Nicklaus
basically had this group of players to choose from (Captain's picks in italics):
Justin LeonardAgain, all fine players, great patriots, devoted husbands, wonderful humanitarians, etc. But consider Gary Player's options:
Zach Johnson
Chad Campbell
Ted Purdy
Fred Couples
Joe Ogilvie
Bart Bryant
Peter LonardBased on recent play, Ogilvy and Sabbatini would be tough to pass up, while Elkington's record in the Cup would have made him a fine choice. Lonard and Immelman aren't exactly slouches, though Immelman was way down the points list.
Shigeki Maruyama
K.J. Choi
Stephen Ames
Geoff Ogilvy
Steve Elkington
Rory Sabbatini
Trevor Immelman
Now posted is my Golfobserver column on the PGA of America's antics as well as the Walker Cup excitement. 
The final PGA stat package is posted. Warning, it's a PDF file. The USGA will be jealous. The "Cost of Rough" at Baltusrol was .489 compared to .363 at Pinehurst. Well, there's always next year!
Jeff Rude has more one-liners from Charles Barkley. Golfobserver's Peter McCleery beats the magazines to the punch and gets to say I told you so after years of warning that a major would not finish on Sunday. Steve Elling looks at Tiger's epic year in the majors and reports on the 14 players who made the cut in all four majors.
George Kimball in the Boston Herald writes about
Steve Elkington's sunday shirt reminiscent of his 1995 final day garb
and the backdrop on Larry King's set. Sally Jenkins writes about the ugly play on Sunday at Baltusrol.
Here's a Reuters story on Mickelson's request to move Sunday times up.
David Whitley in the Orlando Sentinel blasts the PGA and likens Sunday refusal to move times up to the infamous "Heidi" episode at NBC. Michael Hiestand in the USA Today picks up where Rudy Martzke left off...writing press releases for the networks.
Selena Roberts in the New York Times (reg. required) writes about flogging at Baltusrol and quotes yours truly on the subject.
Somehow golf has gotten to the point where inaccuracy isn't punitive because distance is so highly rewarded. A 330-yard drive into the rough, plus a wedge to the green, is far more attractive to a player than a 280-yard poke and a 5-iron to the pin.Of course we know golfers aren't on steroids, but still, Roberts brings up the point many of us are wondering. How long before such substances do become a part of the new look power game?
But is might always right? There is an aberration on the leader board in Steve Elkington, who was in a tie with Thomas Bjorn for second place when the storms blew across Baltusrol last night. Elkington is the amiable Aussie with a caddie nicknamed Gypsy and a driving distance that ranks him 132nd on the PGA Tour. But his fairway accuracy is No. 14 at Baltusrol. He is not an equipment aficionado like Mickelson and Love or an all-consumed workout fiend like Woods and Singh.
"I couldn't be like Vijay," Elkington told Australian reporters last week. "I admire what he does, but I bet he doesn't even know where the light switches are at home."
In other words, Elkington has a life. But he occupied the space among the leaders as an anomaly. More and more, players like Woods, Mickelson, Singh and Love overpower their errors to find success. "I don't blame them," said Geoff Shackelford, author of "The Future of Golf: How Golf Lost Its Way and How to Get It Back," when reached by telephone yesterday. "Over the course of four rounds, it's a wise thing to do. Power is more important."
It has become an obsession. It's all about the equipment and computer analysis, the balls and the Launch Monitor, which, in essence, is a time-lapse X-ray of a swing to determine factors like ball spin and carry distance in order to match a player to the optimum club.
"Players have picked up 30 or 40 yards on their drives using it," Shackelford said.
What else are players using? Power cravings in any sport can lead to boundary pushing of the chemical kind. There is no whisper of a steroid problem inside the P.G.A., but there is also no drug testing. So how does anyone truly know surges in distance are all about technology and not about the designer steroid THG?
Lawrence Donegan's Monday story in The Guardian has some fun notes on the tournament that hasn't ended. Damon Hack in the NY Times provides a diplomatic take on the PGA debacle. Bob Harig at ESPN isn't so kind, but also isn't has brutal as he could have been. Dave Anderson sums the whole mess up as only a Pulitzer winner can.
Just to not overdo the PGA stuff, Richard Oliver in the San Antonio Express-News writes about how the Texas Open may be impacted by the new Tour television contract. Eh, okay, back to the PGA. What was I thinking?
All of the transcripts for the week are here. Here's Tiger Woods. And Steve Elkington. And Phil Mickelson's press conference, though I couldn't seem to find the part where he was asked about the starting time call. Am I delusional?
The Walker Cup transcripts for the winning U.S. team. The Walker Cup summary. And none of it does justice to the event. The art of the non-answer, by Kerry Haigh:
Q. This is for Kerry or Andy. Is it the situation that CBS dictates that the last pairing goes off at 3:00, and when you have a situation when you see that the weather is going to be poor, could that not be have been brought forward to 2:00 PM, or is it a stipulation that you must finish at 6:45 for television?
KERRY HAIGH: I think we had for about almost a year that we had agreed on the finish times, and published that in all of the schedules for everyone involved were set for 7:00. The forecast all week long has been for scattered storms and chance of storms and lightning. As we know, we've been very fortunate up until now with storms that could come at any time basically during the afternoon.
Q. Just as a follow up to that, I didn't hear a clear answer on that; is that dictated by television or does the PGA dictate that in terms of the final tee time for 3:00?
KERRY HAIGH: We certainly talked with CBS and I guess mutually agreed on what is an appropriate finish time.
Q. Did that conversation happen at a certain point today where you sat down and said, we have this forecast, and therefore we will make or not make this decision? Was that a meeting that happened today?
KERRY HAIGH: No. As I say, we agreed on the start times and we've looked at the weather basically throughout the week and kept the plan that has been all along.
Q. Truth be told, the weather forecast was far worse today than for any time of the week. There was just a chance of scattered showers early in the week and today every forecast I saw on The Weather Channel and locally were pretty certain it was going to happen.
KERRY HAIGH: The forecast was, I think, there was more of a chance of scattered showers but they were still scattered. If you look further to the south, they have had no activity at all, and we were within four or five miles of missing it ourselves. So I think the forecast was very accurate, that it was certainly very scattered. We were just unfortunate that it came too close and right on top of it.
Q. Let's see if he can drive this nail with a different hammer. You conduct a number of championships, some of which are not televised. If you were in like circumstance with a non televised championship, and you knew the details that you had today, would you err on the side of caution and adjust your time so that you didn't carry your championship over into the next day?
KERRY HAIGH: That's a good question. But no, I think we would have probably had we made all of our arrangements for a 7:00 finish and with all of the people and parties involved, we would have kept it the same.
Q. Not to belabor this anymore but Phil Mickelson was asked about this and he said he asked to have the tee times moved up. Is that accurate and were you part of that conversation? KERRY HAIGH: I'm not aware of that.
Q. Just to make sure we have this clear, there was no discussion today with CBS about moving the tee times up?
KERRY HAIGH: There was no discussion, no.
Q. Just to make sure we have this clear, there was no discussion today with CBS about moving the tee times up?
KERRY HAIGH: There was no discussion, no.
Q. Just on going back to this again, just so I know, who ultimately has the authority to change the tee time? Is it you or is it CBS?
KERRY HAIGH: The PGA of America.
...During the Golf Channel's 30 minute show between Sunday's TNT and CBS coverage, Rich Lerner of The Golf Channel asked
the PGA's Roger Warren about moving PGA Championship tee times up an hour to
ensure the round was finished.
Warren
claimed that the forecast was too sketchy to make such a concrete move.
But it's hard not to imagine that had they teed off earlier, the round
might have finished before the weather arrived. CBS would have come
on the air with the last group teeing off, and at the worst, finished a
little early.
So just remember, there are several hundred very bitter writers sitting
in a New Jersey tent, armed with laptops, ready to pounce. A Monday finish fiasco has
been long overdue at golf's majors, because giving the networks a strong
prime time lead in has taken a priority to finishing rounds at a
reasonable hour.
And as I type, Phil Mickelson is being asked by a scribbler and he's
choosing his words very carefully, pointing out that they finished in
the dark yesterday and that alone should have been reason to move the
times up a bit.
Sure looked like a lovely day at Baltusrol! It was stuffy here in the
Home of the Homeless. I actually had to turn on the ceiling fan this
afternoon. Still didn't help me ward off the nap. So what exactly did
Phil do on 15?
Anyway, GolfDigest.com's Brian Wacker leads with weather talk and has other notes in his "postcard" from the PGA. Gary Van Sickle at SI handicaps the finish and says Baltusrol is the big winner this week.
Golfonline's Tom Mackin catches up with Billy Farrell, son of longtime Baltusrol head pro who was making a rare visit to the club. He also writes about the Wolffe brothers, Rick and Stuart, who produced the Tillinghast books along with Bob Trebus.
AP has several notes on the event, including the story behind John Daly's move to a wedge and the cell phone ban. Damon Hack writes about Tiger's missed opportunity 66.
And here's a weather by the hour forecast site,
one of many that the assembled inkslingers will be watching anxiously
tomorrow. Nice forecast. If you were playing here in LA or in the
Pacific Northwest...ah, I won't go there.
Here's the AP story on the U.S. and its 1-point lead in the Walker Cup. And the official site also has news, notes and Sunday times.
I hate to be picky, but if you are going to go to the trouble to send
four NBC announcers and a large crew to Chicago, maybe we can get more
than 90 minutes of golf coverage? Especially when you're scheduled for
two hours!?
Some helicopter flyovers would be nice too. Nonetheless, the course looks neat.
Oh, and according to someone on site, Fred Ridley talked about C.B.
Macdonald's design during the opening ceremony. Again, not to be picky,
but the course they are playing this week is Raynor redesign of
Macdonald's.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
