America's Closest-To-Perfection Course Designs

I was asked to put the emphasis on design for this slideshow at GolfDigest.com and went a little snobbish in pursuit of highlighting perfection.

In thinking about some of America's best and pouring over rankings, restorations and thoughts of their architects, I was astounded by how many elite courses have well-documented design flaws or are living off their reputation as merely difficult-to-play. (It was also amazing to consider how many Macdonald-Raynor designs have seen restorations take them to places maybe never even imagined by their creators.)

Anyhow, here is my list of designs (with scrollable explanations in the upper right) where all of the parts are in place and presenting the kind of architecture we wish we had more to experience.

Bryson's Irons Redux: "It’s a potential paradigm shift for golf equipment."

Mike Stachura reminds us at GolfDigest.com that attention spans are short, because it wasn't that long ago golfers were witnessing Bryson DeChambeau's success wondering if same-length iron sets were around the corner.

With DeChambeau's Web.com Tour playoff win and signs that Cobra Puma Golf has a prototype that looks promising for a market debut in the "now-increasingly-imminent future," he writes:

But DeChambeau’s almost religious prophet approach to his iron-length concept is more than some quirky personal trait or party trick. It’s a potential paradigm shift for golf equipment. Is DeChambeau's win like Billy Burke’s win with steel shafts in the 1931 U.S. Open, or Jim Simons victory at the Bing Crosby Pro-Am at Pebble Beach in 1982, the first televised win for a metal wood? DeChambeau, not surprisingly, thinks it has that potential.

“I think you will see a change take place among junior golfers over this next year. I know it’s not just better for me but for all kinds of players,” he said. “I think this was an important day. Maybe we look back and say this is the day the game changed.”

Bryson Earns Tour Card With New Driver, Plenty Of Energy

Noted in Adam Stanley's recap of the clubs in Bryson DeChambeau's winning bag, the 2016-17 DAP Chamiponship winner revealed that his tour-card clinching victory came thanks to advice from Phil Mickelson.

Stanley writes:

DeChambeau got a new driver this week – his previous one broke last week – and it clearly benefited him. He hit 16 fairways Sunday, counting the two playoff holes. He admitted Sunday that he could “go play again tomorrow” as he still had a lot of energy. Conserving that energy was part of some advice he received from Phil Mickelson earlier in the year about how to approach a tournament.

“The strategy is the strategy. Once I become comfortable with a golf course, that’s all I need. I learned I don’t need to be there Sunday before the tournament and play three or four practice rounds. That’s one thing I learned from Phil,” DeChambeau said.

Will Gray explains what DeChambeau's win means for his status in the Web.com Tour playoffs and 2016-17 PGA Tour.

Instant Poll: Who Would Be Your Team USA Ryder Cup Picks?

I'm fairly confident you know the drill by now. If not, here goes.

The task force Task Force "Task Force" mandated that three picks be made after this year's BMW Championship, with the fourth captain's pick to be made on Sunday of the Tour Championship.

Davis Love announces his three picks at 11 am ET on Monday, September 12th.

Here is the team on points:

The players who missed qualifying:

Alright, you get three votes, who you like?

Who would be your three captain's picks for Team USA?

Bubba Watson

J.B. Holmes

Rickie Fowler

Matt Kuchar

Scott Piercy

Bill Haas

Jim Furyk

Daniel Berger

 

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Video: Euro Tour's Beat The Pro Challenge Had Something For Everybody

As previewed earlier in the week, the European Tour's "Beat The Pro" Challenge planned to throw amateur golfers into the middle of tournament action.

Hitting one shot on the par-3 14th in a closest-to-the-hole competition, the amateurs were part of the proceedings on just Thursday and Saturday. As you'd hope, there were highs and lows, as depicted in this compilation from the European Tour's Instagram account.

As far as gimmicks go, it appears to have had little impact, especially since no one was injured by the one shank. To put it another way: if pro golfers were given the opportunity to be interrupted twice in four days for one shot, they'd take that over a pro-am any day!

Meanwhile, Joost Luiten won the KLM Open with a final round and course-record-setting 63.

The highs (and lows) of the Beat the Pro Challenge... 😮 #KLMOpen

A video posted by European Tour (@europeantour) on Sep 10, 2016 at 7:37am PDT