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.
Thanks to readers David and Tommy for the tip of the entire BBC final round broadcast of the 2013 Open Championship posted on YouTube.
Also, at the 4:52:09 I just love that person handing Phil a Rustic Canyon bucket cap to sign. Thanks reader David for spotting that!
Granted, it's a one-year deal, but a bit overdue as the annual World Challenge at Sherwood is a sweet deal for a sponsor: nice ratings, nice field, well-attended, great pro-am and for much less than a regular tour event.
It's also $4 million Tiger won't be spending this year.
For Immediate Release:
NORTHWESTERN MUTUAL ASSUMES ROLE OF TITLE SPONSOR OF THE 15TH ANNUAL WORLD CHALLENGE DEC. 2-8 AT SHERWOOD COUNTRY CLUB
Tickets for the Northwestern Mutual World Challenge are now on sale at www.worldchallengegolf.com
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (August 14, 2013) – The Tiger Woods Foundation welcomes Northwestern Mutual, a leading financial security company, as the title sponsor of the 15th annual World Challenge. The Northwestern Mutual World Challenge, held Dec. 2 – 8, 2013 at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif., will again welcome host Tiger Woods along with 17 of the TOUR’s best players to compete for the $1 million top prize. The tournament, co-sponsored by the PGA TOUR, benefits the college-access programs of the Tiger Woods Foundation.
“Northwestern Mutual has been an excellent partner over the years, and we are excited they will be the title sponsor of the World Challenge,” Woods said. “I’m really looking forward to competing this year. This event welcomes a fantastic field, and it’s always fun to come home and play in front of the Southern California fans.”
Thanks to reader Charlie for nice retro link on PGA Champion Jason Dufner from Jim McCabe.
The story first appeared on Golfweek.com in April, 2012, and documents Dufner's rise from obscurity to burgeoning talent on the PGA Tour following his playoff loss at Atlanta Athletic Club.
How Dufner even got his foot into the PGA Tour door speaks volumes for the man’s commitment to his craft. No hand-outs, no slew of tournament exemptions, just an old-fashioned determination.
Having graduated in the spring of 2000, Dufner played the Golden Bear Tour that summer and fall and was going to do likewise in 2001 when he decided to do a Monday qualifier for a Nationwide Tournament in Hershey, Penn.
He finished T-12, which got him into the next week’s tournament in Wichita and when Dufner edged out David Gossett, Todd Rose, and Jeff Gove for that victory, he was at least in the PGA Tour family. For the rest of ‘01 and all of the next two years, Dufner toiled in the minors, then he had a forgettable 2004 season on the PGA Tour. Back on the Nationwide Tour for two seasons, Dufner continued to improve and when he finished eight on the money list in 2006, he earned a return to the PGA Tour.
He’s never looked back, but mostly because that’s his nature. He prefers to keep the focus on now and how that can take him forward.
Michael David Murphy pieces another super cut together, this time of Dufner's waggles. And while that may seem silly, it's fun to see how he varies them in his routine, each time only pulling the trigger until he's settled in as opposed to having a rigid pre-shot routine.
The video:
Thanks to reader DGS for Erin Pottie's great news of Cape Breton's Cabot Links securing an $8.25-million loan that should kickstart construction of a second Coore-Crenshaw course and inn expansion at the burgeoning resort developed by Ben Cowan-Dewar, Mike Keiser and many others.
The first course, a Rod Whitman design, just cracked Golf Magazine's top 100 in the world list.
"The general feel in the town is that traffic is increased and there's more attention being put on Inverness, and more visitors," said Merv Tingley, owner of the Dancing Goat Café and Bakery, which recently opened in Inverness. "It's definitely very exciting news. The town itself is really going to see a lot of rejuvenation. "
A main reason for the buzz has been the golf club's international recognition.
Doug Ferguson talks to PGA Tour Commish Tim Finchem about two British newspaper reports of a bid to take over the European Tour and the richest redhead in golf says, not true. Well, not entirely.
Finchem said three years ago that men's professional golf might one day have a world tour, though he did not say how that would take shape or when. He says the International Federation of PGA Tours has worked together to create the World Golf Championships and to help get golf back into the Olympics.
He says the tours continue to explore "collaborative efforts."
I must say that Gary Van Sickle has filed quite possibly the strangest column of the year, taking the angle that everyone needs to pipe down on this USGA-Fox deal because it's time for a fresh take on televising golf. "We need a whole new approach to attract new viewers, maybe even to keep the old viewers," he writes. And the people at Fox are just the ones to do it. Especially if they would just watch the Golf Channel.
Yes, he cites all the ways golf broadcasting could be better, noting the many things Golf Channel has done to make major championship coverage better.
Psst...Gary...Golf Channel is part of NBC and they were the ones who lost to Fox! Uh Dwayne, I gotta go, I'm due back on the planet Earth...
Watching players warming up on the range seems mundane and yet at majors, I find myself slightly mesmerized. It puts you, the viewer, on site at the major. I hated it when Golf Channel first started doing this. Now I think it’s smart. Watching Phil Mickelson sign autographs for 20 minutes after a PGA Championship practice round might have been a bit much but still, the scene puts you there.
Televised golf is ripe for change. Any change. Greg Norman is supposedly the big name Fox Sports is trying to land as its analyst. With this much money at stake, Fox needs to make as big a splash as possible. Norman is a big splash, bigger than, say, Paul Azinger, Brandel Chamblee or Colin Montgomerie.
It’s time to quit putting golf viewers to sleep and give us something more. You know what I really like? The nightly wrap-up shows Golf Channel does live on-site from the major championships. You see highlights, clips of interviews, a little reporting and insight from a panel of glib experts like Chamblee, Monty and Frank Nobilo. It’s fast-paced, edited and filled with golf nuggets. I’d almost rather watch the recap show than the live golf. I can get the feel of the whole day in two hours instead of six hours. Perfect.
Hey, maybe Fox can take that to the bank! Why didn't I think of that?
Meanwhile, John Ourand reports that on the eve of Saturday's Fox Sports 1 launch, three of the four big cable providers have not come to terms with Fox Sports, which promised 90 million homes on launch day.
Thanks to reader Scott for a pair of sad but illuminating stories (here and here) from J. Harry Jones in the Union-Tribune on the $27 million Fazio re-do of Rams Hill that went back when the previous owner sold water rights to the local district.
This has left the Borrego Springs, California property parched and homeowners with a disastrous 70 percent decline in value, not to mention no golf course.
From Jones' follow-up explaining how the water rights deal went bad, and the consequences of not having water.
What has happened to the golf course, just a few years after it was redesigned for a reported $27 million, is not just a story of one more dream dashed by the Great Recession.
It’s a tale of water and desperate homeowners whose properties have devalued in price by as much as 70 percent in the past five years.
Some believe the future of Rams Hill could determine the fate of Borrego Springs, the small desert town in northeast San Diego County completely surrounded by Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
The once-stunning golf course is part of a 3,000-acre master-planned community made up of six small subdivisions, a luxury oasis in a desert hamlet dreaming of becoming a smaller alternative to Palm Springs. About 350 homes have already been built in Rams Hill — ranging from spacious estates to small retirement and vacation homes — with room for hundreds more.
BBC's Iain Carter quotes European Tour COO Keith Waters responding to newspaper reports that the PGA Tour was launching some sort of bid/hostile takeover of the European Tour.
European Tour boss Keith Waters says "notion that PGA Tour is somehow bidding to buy E Tour is incorrect."
— Iain Carter (@iaincartergolf) August 13, 2013
Because the NCAA's Summer Match Play is going on this week...err the U.S. Amateur, PGA President Ted Bishop was asked by Matt Adams on PGA Tour Radio if this was a PGA of America return punch. Though it's hard to disrupt an event that so few are paying attention to.
On Matt Adams' Fairways of Life Tuesday, PGA of America President Ted Bishop was asked if the finalization of the long-rumored Bethpage PGA/Ryder Cup was meant as a shot back at the USGA. Since the PGA hasn't finalized the deal with no press conference is set, Bishop was fired up.
“the PGA of America would not make any kind of a major announcement that would upstage any of one of our major championship partners or the PGA Tour, it’s not the right way to do things. ”
He also said...
“I am insulted that anyone would think that.” (on whether they leaked Bethpage info)…
You can listen to the full interview here. Bishop starts at the 38:40 mark.
Last week's Golf World had a superb story by Brett Avery (not posted online) about the history of golf photography. The story coincided with the PGA's visit to Rochester, home of Kodak (or what's left of the storied company).
And this week's In Play With Jimmy Roberts features a story on golf photographers that looks like it'll be worth checking out. The preview of the Golf Channel show that airs at 10:30 ET, 7:30 PT:
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
