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.
Well my NSA sources have scored with another IM chat between Tim Finchem and Carolyn Bivens. As with the first of these IM exchanges obtained, the more recent chat provides a wonderful opportunity to better understand two of golf's most powerful leaders.
...say hello to The Donald? Thanks to reader Tom for this Kevin Manahan story in the Star Ledger about the possible move of the recently concluded LPGA match play event (I don't the name and I'm too lazy to look it up).
"This is a great course. I love this place," runner-up Juli Inkster said yesterday. "But it's probably not the best place for a match-play tournament. I'll be disappointed. It's a great golf course, and the people here have been wonderful, but it's probably not the perfect setting for an event like this."
Brittany Lincicome, the 39th seed, upset Inkster in the title match, 3&2. But the 20-year-old also ousted Michelle Wie, the 16-year-old phenom, and Lorena Ochoa, the LPGA Tour's leading money-winner this season. Inkster said people should have seen it coming. Lincicome is one of the longest hitters on the women's tour, and Hamilton Farm, with its wide-open fairways, lets the bombers swing fearlessly on the tee boxes.
"I didn't hit my driver well this week, and I think I missed one fairway," Inkster said. "If there are courses for horses, this place was made for Brittany. She has a tendency to get wayward with her driver on other courses, but here she could just bang away.
"For match play, you need a course that gives you more risk-reward situations. Give the long hitters a chance to go for the par 5s in two, but make them pay a price if they miss the shot. I love this place, but it's not the best place for match play."
With the two-year contract expired and a new deal unlikely, the tournament will have to find a new home. Marc Webster, the tournament director, had no comment yesterday on the future, but there is speculation the event could move to Trump National Bedminster, which is less than 10 miles away.
Trump officials have denied interest in the event, but that might have changed. Carolyn Kepcher, managing partner of Trump Golf Management and the chief operating officer of Trump National courses in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., and Bedminster, was spotted at the pro-am on Wednesday, and people connected with the event said she was at the course "more than once."
I'm teeing this one up for you, feel free to submit your recipe suggestions under "Comments."
GOOD LPGA EATS: LPGA Tour commissioner Carolyn Bivens and current and former players have combined with Canyon Ranch integrative wellness resorts on a 60-page cookbook: The LPGA Cooks with Canyon Ranch. Proceeds from the $10 US book will benefit Shape Up America!, a not for profit organization for raising awareness of obesity as a health issue.
Bivens submitted a recipe for beef lasagna.
Other recipes included Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez's turkey chili; Natalie Gulbis' healthy beef stew, Beth Daniels' Dijon chicken, Karrie Webb's avocado, mango and walnut salad, Ai Miyazato's Edamame rice balls and Morgan Pressel's championship bundt cake. Paula Creamer has recipes for raisin scones and chicken salad. Canyon Ranch chefs also provide new recipes.
As it stands now, the wonderful David Duval would get in the FedEx Cup playoffs if MacDuff's points system was used, but the future Ryder Cup captain (you can always dream David!) doesn't qualify using the Tour's system. I know you can hardly contain your shock over this development.
On a serious note. Really. I know "strength of field" is being taken into account in the Tour's version by giving extra points to the majors, THE PLAYERS and the WGC's. But that would seem to just increase the likelihood of big name players who are prone to play a light schedule, continuing to not play often enough.
While under MacDuff's system' each event would have more sway. Oh wait, this is all assuming that the playoffs are actually hard to get into. My bad!
1 Mickelson 22546.5 15
2 Singh 21859.37 16
3 Furyk 21312.5 14
4 Gf. Ogilvy 18487.5 12
5 Pettersson 18383.33 16
6 Glover 17241.66 13
7 Cink 17146.33 14
8 Immelman 17112.5 12
9 Weir 16659.37 14
10 Appleby 16437.5 13
11 Donald 16339.37 11
12 Toms 16196.87 11
13 Van Pelt 15940 17
14 A.Scott 15725 11
15 C.Campbell 15587.5 13
16 Pampling 15535 14
17 Pernice 15525 12
18 Z.Johnson 15362.5 13
19 B. Quigley 15075 12
20 Oberholser 14637.5 13
21 Bohn 14238.33 14
22 Verplank 14087.5 12
23 Gay 14037.5 14
24 Funk 14025 15
25 T.Clark 14010 13
26 Olazabal 13862.5 10
27 Sabbatini 13754.16 12
28 Mayfair 13679.16 15
29 Vn Taylor 13162.5 12
30 Choi 13125 13
31 Goosen 12937.5 10
32 Jerry Kelly 12600 11
33 T.Woods 12584.37 7
34 Senden 12562.5 12
35 Harrington 12450 10
36 Purdy 12375 12
37 Hoffman 12137.5 13
38 Love III 12050 12
39 Ames 12012.5 9
40 Imada 11667.5 13
41 JJ Henry 11662.5 10
42 Crane 11585 12
43 Watney 11535.71 13
44 Chopra 11479.5 13
45 Villegas 11475 12
46 J.Ogilvie 11468.21 12
47 Allenby 11262.5 10
48 Herron 11247.5 12
49 N.Green 11177.5 13
50 Flesch 11143.21 16
51 Els 11140 11
52 D.Wilson 11112.5 12
53 Lehman 11075 11
54 Warren 11075 12
55 Leonard 10820.83 12
56 Parnevik 10767.5 12
57 Sluman 10762.5 14
58 S. Maruyama 10550 11
59 Wetterich 10425 9
60 Stricker 10362.5 8
61 Rose 10329.16 12
62 RS Johnson 10305 10
63 Bryant 10257 10
64 Slocum 10187.5 12
65 Austin 10150 14
66 Poulter 10062.5 10
67 Curtis 9762.5 12
68 F.Jacobson 9675 10
69 Branshaw 9662.5 10
70 D. Howell 9587.5 8
71 Palmer 9466.66 11
72 Bertsch 9431.25 13
73 Jobe 9392.5 11
74 Kenny Perry 9375 11
75 Br.Davis 9342.5 11
76 Beem 9318.75 11
77 Lonard 9298.21 12
78 Howell III 9187.5 14
79 Hart 9167.5 10
80 Garcia 9112.5 8
81 Waldorf 9087.5 11
82 Micheel 9075 10
83 Lowery 9062.5 11
84 JB Holmes 8945.83 9
85 Estes 8925 10
86 Sean O'Hair 8824.5 11
87 Maggert 8812.5 9
88 G. Owen 8662.5 9
89 Barlow 8612.5 11
90 Goggin 8600.25 7
91 Azinger 8562.5 11
92 Rollins 8537.5 9
93 Andrade 8482.5 10
94 Couples 8437.5 10
95 Baird 8242.5 8
96 Pavin 8200 8
97 Mahan 8187.5 12
98 Gove 8175 8
99 Franco 8112.5 9
100 Sutherland 8075 11
101 DiMarco 7959.37 9
102 Gronberg 7937.5 9
103 Kaye 7900 11
104 Olin Browne 7812.5 13
105 J.Smith 7800 10
106 Sindelar 7787.5 12
107 Cook 7700 8
108 Calcavecchia 7617.5 14
109 Geiberger 7481.25 11
110 Leaney 7437.5 8
T111 Dickerson 7325 10
T111 Fischer 7325 10
113 Triplett 7175 8
114 Faxon 7125 10
115 O'Hern 7100 5
116 Langer 7079.16 9
117 Gore 7050 7
118 Lickliter II 7050 9
119 Bjornstad 7030 10
120 Baddeley 6962.5 8
121 B. Haas 6962.5 9
122 JL Lewis 6937.5 11
123 M.Wilson 6902.5 8
124 J.Byrd 6862.5 5
125 Bub Watson 6850 7
126 Barron 6606.25 9
127 Armour III 6425 8
128 Pat Perez 6350 8
129 Durant 6281.25 13
130 Cabrera 6162.5 6
131 Allen 6050 9
132 Gamez 5962.5 10
133 Overton 5887.5 11
134 Ridings 5737.5 10
135 D.Maruyama 5687.5 9
136 Atwal 5650 6
137 David Duval 5525 7
138 Garrigus 5505 9
139 Ws Short Jr 5462.5 11
140 Frazar 5375 8
141 D.Clarke 5275 5
142 Matteson 5225 9
143 Westwood 5187.5 5
144 Petrovic 5187.5 8
Ed Sherman on his Chicago Tribune golf blog:
...to hear people talk, rotating the tournament to other Midwest cities also was part of the price. No way. The Evans Scholars would make just as much money if the tournament stayed at Cog Hill.
We spent the entire week in the press room trying to figure out why PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem made this decision. There has to be something we're missing, perhaps some grand marketing scheme that is way over our feeble brains.
I don't think so. There can't be a reasonable explanation why the PGA Tour would leave the nation's third largest market to go to much smaller towns in the Midwest.
Even worse, do you realize in 2008 the Tour won't be in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.? When I asked Jim Furyk about that situation last week, he tried to be diplomatic, but you could see he was troubled by the Tour's lack of presence in the major markets.
Perhaps, the Tour wants to go small-time. That has to be it, because its thinking certainly is small time.
In a Q&A with Mike Spellman dubbed, "Let's wait, see about BMW Championship," Western Golf Association's Don Johnson demonstrates little idea of the FedEx Cup is going to work, and little enthusiasm for the scheduling change. Welcome to the club Don!
Q. When you first heard the idea of this playoff system, what were your thoughts?
A. I was confused.
Q. How long did it take to get unconfused?
A. Well, I’m not sure that I am. The point system and everything … I think anybody in the golf business who’s forthright about it is going to tell you we have to wait and see how this thing is going to work. The PGA Tour thinks it’s going to be wonderful, and I hope they’re right.
Q. It’s kind of a roll of the dice, isn’t it?
A. Yeah. And they may have to tweak it a little bit after the first year when they see how it actually works in fact as opposed to in theory. It’s certainly going to be a great thing for us being the final tournament before the Tour Championship.
Q. Why is the move from the Fourth of July to Labor Day a good thing?
A. The jury is still out on that, to be honest about it. I don’t know what happens to the interest in golf in Chicago after Labor Day. I’m hoping this event will be so spectacular that they’ll turn out, but we have to wait and see. It’s a work in progress.
Q. Your main worry about the September date?
A. You’ve got your Labor Day drop-off in golf, and then you’ve got Big Ten football, Notre Dame football; you’ve got baseball heading toward the playoffs … but we won’t have Taste of Chicago. There will be some competition we don’t have now. We’ll have to wait and see.
Q. Do the smaller crowds this year give you cause for concern next year?
A. Yes. The answer to that is yes. I worry that this week with the field we’ve had and the weather, that we have less people here than we had last year. (On Saturday) we had 7,000 less. That’s a lot. I don’t get it.
John Huggan wonders if it's a good idea to play the Scottish Open on mushy Loch Lomond before turning to links golf at the Open Championship.
Famously, Tiger Woods has never felt inclined to make his way to the bonnie banks, preferring instead to warm up for the game's oldest and most important event on the links of Ireland with various friends and assorted millionaire bookmakers. And many have followed suit, or are going to. Take Michael Campbell.
"For about the past five to six years, I have been playing the Scottish Open the week before the British Open, but not this year," said the 2005 US Open champion only the other day. "Unfortunately, Loch Lomond is not the ideal course to hone your game in readiness for a British Open.And...
"It is just common sense to warm up by either practising on a British Open host venue or on a similar links-type course. Phil Mickelson has already been over to Hoylake getting used to the course and that's what I will be doing."
...it is the softness and invariable wetness of the beautiful Tom Weiskopf-designed layout that is keeping them away. Four days of hit-and-stick golf is hardly the best preparation for the fast-running links that is Hoylake. Think chalk and cheese.
Add in the fact that top-level golf is these days hardly ever played by the seaside and the case for absenting oneself from the undoubted charms of Loch Lomond is a tough one to answer. Like it or not, the game's best players are increasingly a one-dimensional bunch. It isn't that they are not capable of playing the wide variety of shots called for on a humpy-bumpy links; they are. It is more that, on circuits and courses that more and more offer the exact same challenges and shot-values week after tedious week, they are simply not called upon to do so. With neglect comes less competence.
The PGA Tour's Bob Combs is going to have a busy Monday! After he places a call to the Augusta Chronicle to stick up for his boss, he'll have to call Rick Morrissey, who writes about the Western's demise:
Thanks to Finchem's oddly wired brain, Chicago soon will have a golf tournament every other year instead of yearly. This is the same Chicago that has embraced golf forever and with a fervor not seen in many other towns. But never mind that.You know, it would be fun to hear the Commissioner explaining how the 12th, 48th and 50th place "markets" will give the playoffs a big boost. Oh, right, it's about the golf courses. Bellerive and Hazeltine. Doesn't get any more scintillating than that.
Finchem wants Chicago to share what will now be called the BMW Championship with St. Louis, Indianapolis and Minneapolis. If your city's name ends in "is," Finchem apparently wants you (hello, Illiopolis). That's about the only logical explanation. Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States. Indianapolis ranks 12th, Minneapolis is 48th and St. Louis 50th.
It's not just grumpy sports columnists who believe this is a major show of disrespect to the city. The commissioner might have wanted to check with Woods about the plan to leave Chicago for dead every other year.
"It's unfortunate because it's been such a great event, an historical event on our tour," Woods said after finishing in a tie for second Sunday. " . . . Look at the list of champions. It's a pretty impressive list.
"Unfortunately, we're not going to have a tournament anymore, but I think it's more unfortunate that we're not going to come here to the Chicago area each and every year. This is one of the biggest markets in the United States, and we're coming in every other year."
Steve Hummer penned this piece on technology and the LPGA Tour, with a few noteworthy quotes and anecdotes.
LPGA rookie Brittany Lang is in love. And it shows in that little extra bounce in her step as she hikes it down the fairway. Way down the fairway.
"The new technology is hot," she said.Oh I don't know, maybe it was the agronomy that changed. You know, faster fairways. No? I agree.
Speaking early in the season, during the Florida's Natural Charity Championship at Eagle's Landing, Lang was just getting adjusted to professional life and some of the new toys at her disposal. Currently sixth in the LPGA in average driving distance (271.9 yards), she is part of a new generation combining greater strength and the latest supercharging of club and ball to add oomph to the women's game.
"By the time Q [qualifying] school ended and the time I started playing on the Tour this year, which was like three months, I worked on my swing. But I switched equipment to the newer stuff, and I was hitting my driver 15 to 20 yards farther."
The impact of technology on women's golf is largely superficial, though. Because women's tees are set ahead of the men's, they are easily adjusted as players add length without altering the character of a course. Unlike the men's tour, no one is worried about these players rendering classic old tracks obsolete.Tell that to Peter Kostis!
The debate over how the new club and ball designs are fundamentally altering the soul of golf remains pretty much the property of the PGA Tour. Today's golf clubs are bigger, lighter and made of materials --- such as titanium --- that cause the ball to go farther. Vast improvements have also been made with the ball, increasing its distance and playability.
"I think that technology has helped the top male pro more than it has anybody in the game," said Karrie Webb, a 31-time LPGA winner. "It's supposed to be helping the average amateur golfer. I don't think they are getting the benefit out of the knowledge. They are just buying it all."
Karrie, Karrie...we need to get you some talking points!
The average distance of the top 10 drivers on the LPGA Tour has climbed steadily over the past 10 years, from 252.7 yards in 1996 to 274.7 this season. That is part of the package of younger players and the increased excitement around the Tour.
Well, and the branding intiatives that have brought it all together.
The PGA Tour driving distance average remained at 288.2 yards following the final Western Open, the first this year that there was so little movement.There were at least 20 drives 350-or-longer, bringing the season total to, well, I don't know. The Tour listing ends at 999, and this may be the end of our 350 yard watch unless I can talk the Tour's fine communications department into sharing the weekly tally.
John Huggan visits with Tom Doak and chats about his latest project in Scotland. Thanks to reader Mark for the heads up. This was interesting...
"I really try to ignore the advances in equipment when it comes to my work. The truth is that it has no effect on the vast majority of golfers. If you are more than say 10-handicap, the new clubs and balls have made little or no difference to your game. Your technique isn't good enough or your swing fast enough to derive any real benefit.
"Then again, if you spent every weekend watching the tour players, you'd be convinced everyone hits the ball 350 yards, and that par-4s need to be almost 600 yards long to make them hit more than a mid-iron into greens. That's not 99.9% of the golf business. But, unfortunately, a lot of my clients watch television and they think that, should the tour players come to their course, they want Tiger Woods to respect it."
In introducing this web site's week in review, I wondered why Tim Finchem has received little criticism for so many questionable initiatives, most notably the recently announced FedEx Cup.
Well, the Augusta Chronicle's Scott Michaux not only criticizes Finchem, but undoubtedly will have some Vice Presidents running around tomorrow working to make sure no one ever utters the words "FedEx Cup Evaluation System."
It is difficult to swallow, much less stomach.
What I'm talking about is PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem's undigestible contrivance coming in 2007 dubbed - depending on your threshold for corporate jargon - the FedEx Cup or Finchem's Folly.
A couple of weeks ago, Finchem unveiled the hardly anticipated FedEx Cup Evaluation system, which heretofore will be referred to by its acronym, FECES.
Whoa Nellie!
Without boring you in excruciating Finchemesque fashion with any of the details you already don't care about, it is just another list attempting to quantify the relative values of professional golfers in a cluttered landscape that already includes an official world ranking, money winnings, orders of merit, various international team standings, etc.
The only thing that makes the FECES curiously different is the PGA Tour's transparent attempt to mathematically equate its Players Championship with the universally acclaimed four major championships.
Uh Scott, it's now THE PLAYERS. Please, get your facts straight!
Finchem's goal with this whole FECES thing is to create a "playoff-like" finish to his laudably truncated PGA Tour season. Through the first 36 events of the season, the roughly 240 players who start the year with some semblance of official status will be whittled all the way down to 144 lucky few who qualify for a four-week, no-tee-times-barred, battle royale culminating at the Tour Championship at East Lake. For getting hot at just the right time, Finchem will reward $10 million to the man who, in essence, turns out to be the glorified player of the month.
When the FECES hits the fans, will anyone care other than the individual who'll get to fortify his already lucrative retirement portfolio?
No.
Finchem believes he created some kind of excitement that will compare to NASCAR's season-ending chase for its championship or the NFL's compelling buildup to the Super Bowl. Instead he's done nothing but give birth to another flawed BCS concept that ultimately won't resolve anything. He's tried to rationale his baby with another postseason analogy about a 105-win Yankees team having to start over in October, but those Yankees wouldn't have to start over against the last-place Royals.
And he's just warming up.
If this were the only thing that Finchem had overdone in his tenure as commissioner of the PGA Tour, it would be almost excusable. But seeing as he's callously dismantled or neutered some golfing traditions that have been around for more than a century in the process, shackled the tour to the ultra-fringe Golf Channel for an astonishing 15 years and stepped on the toes of every other worldwide golfing entity with his avarice, Finchem's Folly loses any benefit of the doubt.Ah, there's a story that no one really has explored enough.
Finchem is a corporate drone who believes everything is better based upon money. If the Players pays more money than the Masters Tournament, it must be better. If The Golf Channel is willing to pay you more money over the course of 15 years than ESPN would have for the next four, it must be better.
That's why Finchem believes he's doing a good job, because the players he (with one whopper of an assist by Tiger Woods) made rich and spoiled gave him a $27 million contract extension.
More money, however, hasn't made the PGA Tour better. It's made it worse. Extra zeroes only add to the numbing. If you really want to see the best players on the PGA Tour going head-to-head more often, start paying them what they were making back in the '80s and early '90s - when making a million dollars was a season's work for the hardest workers who performed the best instead of a week's salary for a tournament winner or the median annual income for finishing in the top 150.
Just how much of Finchem's decision-making is based upon money? Consider that the only way the nearly 70-year-old event in Greensboro, N.C., was spared the cutting block was because it ponied up $500,000 to agent Mark Steinberg - just to be granted an audience with Finchem in order to make its case.
That was not a benefit granted to, say, the 102-year-old Canadian Open, which was rendered all but obsolete with an untenable date between the British Open and PGA. Or the Western Open, which will be stripped of its venerable title and relegated to semi-annual visits to the Chicago area. Or the tournament outside Washington D.C., which was shut out of the regular season because FedEx attracted favoritism to its Memphis, Tenn., event. Or the Disney Classic and 84-year-old Texas Open, which were all but dismissed without any more dialogue than a curt "thanks for coming."
Not that the overly fattened PGA Tour season couldn't use a little trimming, but Finchem handled the whole process badly.
Finchem constantly displays an arrogant disregard for everything in golf outside of his own tunnel vision. Who cares if the new tour schedule will gut the European Tour's prime events during the spring and late summer? Who cares if its big announcements distract the attention from the LPGA Tour's most important event? Who cares if none of the so-called World Golf Championship events are played in front of audiences outside the United States?
Finchem has unilaterally constructed the PGA Tour to fit his vision. Thank goodness he has no control over any of the major championships, meaning the most important historical results of the year will never be sullied by an inadequate TPC venue or distasteful title sponsorship.
At least that knowledge can settle the uneasiness in the stomachs of the constituents who really matter - the golf fans.
Q. Jim Thorpe mentioned that you talked a lot at breakfast today about how the greens used to be here until they made the changes, about how this course actually was early on.
BEN CRENSHAW: There haven't been any changes on the greens, really. The first two greens we redid in 1986, but it's so minor. The contours themselves have been here. One nine was built in' 37, the other nine was in '57, so they're original. They're fascinating. Nobody would have the heart to touch these. They're magnificent.
Q. Would anybody build a golf course like this these days? I mean, even
BEN CRENSHAW: If anybody got a piece of property like this, I hope they would. I hope they would try.
Q. (Inaudible.)
BEN CRENSHAW: No, it's not. And they could still, you go out and look at the course and it's it shows you how timeless his work is and how much he did not want to impose himself into this piece of land. It's fascinating how he routed this. How he routed the original nine. You look at that and you go, wow, that's unbelievable.
Q. But don't you think architecture has changed back to this style of golf course?
BEN CRENSHAW: You have a lot of
Q. With dunes and sand hills?
BEN CRENSHAW: Well, you're right. You have a lot of young architects that are seeing the value in it, and that's an understatement. Because if you do it like this, it's economical. It's vastly economical.
Q. Less land, less moving dirt.
BEN CRENSHAW: Yeah. Take a good piece of land and work with it. It's going to be economical and it's going to be more natural.
Q. Are you finding owners coming to you asking you to look for land more and more?
BEN CRENSHAW: Yes. Yes. Not in droves, no. Not in droves. But we have some calls that people want sort of a quiet golf club on a nice piece of terrain and not much else, which is nice. After all, that's why we play golf. And so we just that's what we try to do is try to pick good pieces of property and then have hopefully have the freedom to do a nice routing before anything happens. That's what we enjoy doing.
Q. How much do you limit yourself to the amount of work that you guys are involved in at a certain time?
BEN CRENSHAW: Oh, quite a lot. We do one or two at a time, so. Two is plenty for us. We have a little small crew and we like to go around, but that's what we enjoy spending the time on.
Q. When you're working now, I mean do you almost try to even though you have all the equipment at your disposal, do you almost try to envision what it was like with the mules and that?
BEN CRENSHAW: Yes, very much so. You get the movement. I mean we talked, you know, until we're blue in the face about getting the movement.
The horror of a player going low! Shameful. The sky is falling! Nice going Loren. Now the setup next year at...oh wherever it is, will be a massacre!
Lawrence Donegan reporting from the K Club, site of this week's European Tour event and this fall's Ryder Cup:
As malapropisms go, the one uttered this week by Richard Hills was a little too close to the truth for comfort. "I fully expect roadworks to be in place," the Ryder Cup director announced when asked if work on the access routes into the K Club will be completed in time for the start of the big event in 10 weeks' time.
Less than a mile away the bulldozers were backed up on the road from Maynooth as the workmen sheltered from the rain. Work was over in the afternoon. Still, the media tent transcribers were busy. When Hills' words were finally regurgitated for public consumption they had been "tidied up" to read "We are confident that the roads will be ready."
He goes on to explain why most of us will be quite content to watch this one on television.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
