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.
Sometimes blogging is traumatic and so upsetting that my keyboard is flooded with tears of raw emotion. This is not one of those nights!
Doug Ferguson on the break up of golf's sweet lovebirds, reveals that Tiger broke the news in a board room at Aronimink after the AT&T National final round and Stevie chose to keep quiet out of respect for his new client.
Most of the Euro Tour beat writers remain reluctant to question the long term future of Rory McIlroy in the Open Championship after he wrote it off Sunday, but as Karl MacGinty Brian Creighton reports several old geezers saw Rory McIlroy's comments about the Open and believe he needs to change his attitude. Nick Price was the toughest:
“He had better get out there and start liking those courses and figuring out a way to play them. And if he's a good enough player, he will do that.
“He may not like it as much but he will learn. I guarantee you, he will learn to play and enjoy it on links courses.”
Ian Woosnam was the most erudite. And I bet you never thought you'd see his name and that word in the same sentence!
“He's only a young kid. He's going to say the wrong thing again and again. He's probably thinking ‘What the hell have I said?'“ Woosnam commented on the US Open champion.
“But if he wants to win the Open he's going to have to adapt. Tiger has adapted, Nicklaus adapted. Palmer, they all adapted.
“He needs to adapt to it. It's not changing your game. It's changing the way you think. All you have to do is move the ball back a couple of inches in your stance and take a club or even two clubs more to play. It's called control.”
Golfweek's Ryan Lavner fleshes out the hole-in-one-with-slow-play-penalty madness at the U.S. Junior Amateur, telling us that Connor Klein's group had fallen 20 minutes behind, which created problems when Klein then took his allotted 10 minutes to search for a lost ball while his playing partners finished out the 11th hole of the day.Brian Keogh reports on Rory McIlroy's agent Chubby Chandler coming to the defense of his client after Rory's surprising post-round comments suggesting that Open golf was not his thing.
Chubby agrees with McIlroy's belief he should not change his game for one week a year, even though it's the most important tournament of the year. Also note the line about wind.
“I think he’s right,” Chandler said. “Why would you change what he’s got? What will happen is that he will gradually learn to play the shots that Darren learned 15 years ago. But at 22 he has not got the experience. And it won’t be a case of changing his game. He won’t need to do that because he can win a lot of golf tournaments with that game.
“He will get a couple of times when the wind is not up in the Open and it will be a lot easier. But he will learn. He will learn to play because I tell you what, he has learnt an awful lot in a year. Last year he had no idea. This year he was much better.”
Chubby also suggested the timing of the questions did not help. After all, the lad had a better place to be in London.
As Chandler noted: “You guys get them when they’re disappointed when they have just finished. So what comes out of their mouth, Bubba Watson style isn’t always what they are thinking. So you have always got to temper that. He is not going to go away and think I have got to practice this way and that way to win the Open. But he will get better at it.”
It was reported last week by Tim Twentyman of the Detroit News and now the USGA makes it official:
OAKLAND HILLS COUNTRY CLUB SELECTED AS SITE OF 2016 U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP
Far Hills, N.J. (July 20) – Oakland Hills Country Club, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., has been selected by the United States Golf Association as the site of the 2016 U.S. Amateur Championship. The dates of the championship are Aug. 15-21, 2016.
The North and South Courses will be used for stroke-play qualifying and the South Course will be used for match play.
“The USGA is very excited to return to Oakland Hills for the 2016 U.S. Amateur Championship,” said Thomas J. O’Toole Jr., chairman of the USGA championship committee. “To have the opportunity to conduct the U.S. Amateur, our oldest championship, at a club that has hosted six U.S. Opens is truly special. Many historic golf moments have occurred at Oakland Hills and we expect the 2016 U.S. Amateur will add to that history.”
The 2016 championship will be the second U.S. Amateur and 11th USGA championship to be hosted by the club. The 2002 U.S. Amateur, won by Ricky Barnes over Hunter Mahan, was the most recent USGA championship at the historic layout designed by Donald Ross.
The secret to a successful major, as always, lies in the setup.
For Royal St. George's, course despised in 2003 and one that many suggested should go off the rota, earned solid (if not rave) reviews last week largely because of its setup. The architecture was essentially the same as '03, but miracle of all miracles, the rough was tame (you go Mother Nature) and the greens were managed to perfection, preventing the undulating surfaces from getting out of hand. Furthermore, on Sunday the hole locations were perfectly balanced to open the door for a low round without altering the flow of the championship.
Thanks to reader Brian for sending this link from last week's pre-tournament BBC online coverage featuring Dan Walker talking to Dancing With The Stars judge and golf fan Len Goodman about the Open Championship at Royal St George's.
Though based on Brian Keogh's report, the lad hasn't done too poorly on the rebound with Caroline Wozniacki, which still makes me wonder: if an American had said what Rory said about the Open, would he get cut so much slack by the UK press?What fun is this? He actually looks like a golfer!
Tweeted video from Hank Haney:
Thankfully we have videos to relive the good ole days.
7 ET Tuesday on ESPN's E60. The story:
After Mike Reeder lost both legs in Vietnam, he returned to the U.S. looking for purpose and direction – and found them during a chance encounter in a golf pro shop. Years later, as a devoted golfer, he’s chasing a different dream: to be the first wheelchair golfer to play the Old Course at St. Andrew’s. E:60 follows him to Scotland.
The preview:
From Philip Reid's story, it sounds like R&A Secretary Peter Dawson is just quieting the building speculation as to prevent an all-out riot over Royal Portrush's prospects for an Open Championship rota return.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
