The only course that will remain difficult under all conditions will be one that is designed and kept for golf of a stereotyped, monotonous character, and this makes a most uninteresting proposition. BOBBY JONES
Available via Amazon (US): Golf Architecture For Normal People
Barnes And Noble (online and in stores)
Bookshop.org option to support local independent bookstores.
Reviews:
"Golf Architecture for Normal People . . . should be required reading for those who are not ashamed to admit they know little about the subject, and for those who think they do . . . . Golf course architecture geeks have trouble slimming their thoughts down to bite-sized chunks, but Shackelford has achieved a remarkable success here." —Independent (Ireland)
"From the relative newcomer who’s slowly getting hooked to those that have played the game for most of their lives and think they know a thing or two, Golf Architecture for Normal People provides a solid and sober perspective that will help everyone recognize why some golf courses are worth playing more than once while a single trip around others is all you’re ever likely to want or need." —Links Magazine.
“It’s a wonderful book. An easy read that arrives just in time for your summer reading list. If you’ve never thought about how an appreciation for course design could heighten your enjoyment of the game, you must check this out.”—The Peterborough Examiner
"As in his prior publications, in his newest book Shackelford shows a deep appreciation for what can be done to create a golf course that appeals to the broadest possible golfing audience…Shackelford’s prose is succinct, often witty, and accessible."—Cape Gazette
"Author, blogger and golf architecture expert Geoff Shackelford, who helped Gil Hanse design Rustic Canyon and restore 2023 U.S. Open host Los Angeles Country Club, taps into his passion by creating a guide that helps every golfer understand the nuances of course design. Published by Tatra Press, the 164-page hardcover book is a must-read for every golfer to better understand the game they love." —Golf Pass
"Shackelford provides an informative picture [and]...sprinkles in history lessons about those who planted the game's architectural roots, defines common terms and helps you hone your eyes when it comes to identifying some of the tricks of the trade."—FORE Magazine
"This new book does a great job demystifying golf course design ideas for average players, but can also be a beneficial read fro PGA Professionals and other golf course employees to get a better understanding of their home courses." —PGA Magazine
Enjoy it, savor it, hype it a little, but a MoliWood signage build out at the British Masters when your tour is in the red? Too much! The Golf Gods will note this.
View this post on Instagram10 minutes until #moliwood take to the tee! @britishmasters @europeantour #britishmasters
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As a TV show it’s not a surprise they are limiting this to high rollers and other corporate drones, but it’s a bit disappointing that the “under the lights” element Phil Mickelson predicted for his pay-per-view match with Tiger Woods will be played only in daylight.
Brian Hurlburt reports for the Las Vegas Journal-Review on the $9 Million (Because The PGA Tour Says So) match set for next month at Shadow Creek.
With Justin Thomas backing USA captain Jim Furyk’s assertion that 2018 Ryder Cup couplings were decided and communicated well in advance of the matches, Patrick Reed’s complaint of Jordan Spieth separation-frustration took another hit.
That will not be an issue again until he makes the next American team, potentially as soon as 2019’s Presidents Cup in Melbourne. But until then Reed will be the villain and Eamon Lynch says that’s a good thing for golf.
This quote in the piece from Paul Azinger is fun food for thought:
“I’ve always viewed him as sincere. I like the way he handles himself on the course,” Paul Azinger said. Then he added wryly, “I will say it’s not uncommon for players not to like each other on Ryder Cup teams. But they almost always like each other more after.”
Two beauties today for different reasons.
Eddie Pepperell at Walton Heath will down as one of the wackiest hole-in-one’s you’ll ever see. From round one of the 2018 Sky Sports British Masters:
View this post on InstagramWow. Just wow 💥 #BritishMasters
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At the CIMB Classic in Malaysia, Whee Kim files a stock ace but gives it a little extra something with the delayed running reaction after hanging around the tee to pose with his new 7 series plug in hybrid! Not a full on Rich Beem reaction but a Beemer in his future!
View this post on InstagramWould you rather have the car or the ace? 🤔 #TOURVault
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I had trouble not recalling the many apparent similarities with the USGA and Fox TV deal in reading today’s rollout of the PGA Championship’s CBS renewal/ESPN television deal.
There is the 11-year deal term, which remains confounding on so many levels given how much more lazily entities perform when not incentivized by an expiring contract.
There is the PGA of America turning to an organization—ESPN—that had all but given up doing golf except for the Masters rights, earned as much through their reach as their devotion to golf.
There is ESPN primarily looking to lock up new content deals to fuel a new product. In the PGA’s case it’s ESPN+ coverage. For Fox with the USGA, it was Fox Sports 1.
There are the usual proclamations of getting special attention to under-covered events like the PGA Junior League which, as we saw with the USGA-Fox deal now just doing 8 of 13 USGA events with no front or back end coverage, fizzled out as the cost and rating realities led to altered intentions.
There are the usual vapid statements about better opportunities to grow the game, etc. The USGA and Fox promised unprecedented opportunities to raise the USGA’s profile for the betterment of the game. The USGA has never been more anonymous or underserved.
And then there is the PGA price tag: a rise from around $22 million annually for the PGA Championship to $70 million according to multiple sources who I spoke to after the deal was announced. Furthermore, CBS has insisted that ESPN pay a higher share of the rights fee, an amazing thing given that CBS gets the prime weekend coverage. So let’s use basic logic and assume ESPN is paying $40 million or so annually to CBS’s $30 million.
So far, not a word has been uttered about how the extra cash in the coffers will benefit the PGA of America membership, nor was there any mention of reducing the horrible commercial and promo overload that has made the PGA Championship golf’s least appealing major on television.
Also intriguing to see will be how deep into the night both networks go for the PGA’s two West Coast playings during the 11 years. Will 60 Minutes have to wait on golf? Will NBA playoffs move to ESPN2?
John Ourand and John Lombardo report for Sports Business Daily on the deal’s known details and players, with the emphasis on ESPN+ and the PGA Championship as a key part of building the budding streaming service.
But ESPN also is looking for content to convince people to subscribe to its ESPN+ streaming service. “We’re building a new business in ESPN+. It was ideal for us to have a golf major available for acquisition.” Starting with the ’20 event at Harding Park in S.F., CBS and ESPN will have wall-to-wall coverage (more than 175 hours) during the tournament. CBS will carry weekend afternoon coverage, while ESPN and ESPN+ will carry the Thursday and Friday rounds exclusively. It also will carry weekend rounds before CBS goes on air. Interestingly, while CBS is on air on the weekend, ESPN+ will have live coverage from featured holes and featured groups.
Amazing to think that for 11 years, CBS will yield to ESPN on those digital fronts. Anyway…
There was also this:
ESPN+ also will carry practice rounds before the tournament, press conferences and driving range interviews. ESPN will produce “SportsCenter” from the event. Other aspects of the deal: ESPN will carry the PGA Jr. League Championship starting in Oct. ’20. “That could become a different version of the Little League World Series,” Waugh said.
It could. And probably won’t.
Where this deal could differ from USGA/Fox is in the partnerships: CBS loves golf and has been devoted to covering the game a long time, including the PGA Championship since 1991. The last year saw major technological enhancements to the PGA broadcast. Finally.
ESPN, while clearly stockpiling content ala Fox and FS1, has at times shown great interest in golf and as with its involvement in tennis, figures to go all in to make this work. Many of their top Sportscenter anchors love the game and as Mike McQuade and Rob King’s roles at the network increased, golf coverage has expanded.
Still, eleven years is plenty of time to lose interest and to have little incentive to invest, especially if the parent companies deem the deal a loss leader. Even as Fox has settled into their role handling the USGA events and innovated, the network broke away from live US Amateur golf at Pebble Beach this summer to show golf documentary reruns, presumably because a corporate beancounter wasn’t about to cover overtime pay.
So while danger signs exist for similar headaches that annoy viewers, the PGA of America has diversified their partnerships to now include CBS, ESPN, NBC (Ryder Cup, KPMG LPGA, Senior PGA) and Golf Channel (Ryder Cup, KPMG LPGA, Senior PGA). One hopes they negotiated more outs and opportunities to refine broadcast details in response to changing times or changing corporate cultures.
The next priority for the PGA? Figure out how to take their riches and somehow restore the golf professional to a higher place in the game.
That’s the question I’ve grappled with on the news of the World Golf Hall of Fame’s latest induction class announced today.
The short answer to the above question is a simple, lamentable and painful yes.
This is not a reflection on the current class, all fine contributors to the game who at various times were, are or will be worthy inductees at Pebble Beach next year. The problem lies in the increasingly clubby edge to who does get inducted. I’ve grown bored with the blatant, almost incomprehensible disregard for anyone who might have contributed to the game prior to 1990. Or, anyone who might have crossed former the long list of executives and former players whose feathers are easily ruffled.
Because, heaven forbid, someone designed a bunch of brilliant courses, wrote profound books that documented the game’s charms or broke ground in the instruction world. Those core professions vital to “growing the game” mean nothing to golf’s Hall of Fame. Remember, this group only took A.W. Tillinghast after much kicking and screaming, then inducted him with tributes from esteemed historian Harris English and other tour players. A man who gave his life to the game on multiple fronts, who had more golfing soul than most of the Hall members combined, and continues to influence the sport decades after his passing, could barely get in the Hall.
A long list of visionaries, revolutionaries and dreamers who gave their life to the sport has been shunned by the Hall either due to ignorance, politics or the laziness of not grasping how those people influenced the sport. The structure of the Hall also does not help recognize anyone outside of players. Sheer ignorance of what it means to contribute to the sport claims plenty of other victims, too.
Due to inevitable comparisons, many inductees often get unfairly seen as unworthy given how many of their equally worthy predecessors have been overlooked.
Which is why, like most of today’s top players and some of the committee types listed on the selection profess page who have blown off Hall ceremonies even when they were within blocks of the induction, it’s time to start ignoring the World Golf Hall of Fame. Given its already tenuous place in the sport, this won’t be difficult.
Another gem from the European Tour archives was posted to celebrate this week’s British Masters at Walton Heath, this time the first ace seen on live television.
Here I would have guessed Sarazen at Troon in 1973 was the first, but it was six years later by Tony Jacklin:
View this post on InstagramThe first ever hole in one caught on camera, courtesy of Tony Jackin at the 1967 #BritishMasters.
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The Guardian’s Kevin Mitchell reports on Wimbledon Park Golf Club members accepting a huge offer to sell their course to the neighboring All England Club.
The course is already used during the fortnight and would see further expansion of the tennis grounds if the deal goes through.
Naturally, the final decision yielded a Brexit reference.
The club will decide finally in December whether or not to accept the once-and-for-all bid by the All England Club, which owns the dwindling lease. As a Wimbledon member remarked: “This is their Brexit. They have to make a call one way or another – in or out.”
As the Europeans haven’t enough reason to be smug, it appears the normal captaincy cat fight is not in the cards.
That’s because Lee Westwood has taken his name out of the 2020 Ryder Cup captaincy running, paving the way for Padraig Harrington to glide into a job he’ll be sensational at, assuming the Irishman does not tire of questions asking if 2020 host venue Whistling Straits reminds him of Ireland.
Ali Stafford reports for Sky Sports.
In searching for some great looks at Walton Heath’s design in anticipation of this week’s British Masters, I didn’t find much. But this 1981 Ryder Cup highlight film narrated by the late, great Jim Huber will remind you of a time Americans made everything while the Europeans struggled on the greens. There is also this: Dave Marr’s USA squad had NINE future Hall of Famers and is quite possibly the best one America ever assembled.
Fantastic flashback clip from the European Tour social getting us ready for pro golf’s return to the glorious Walton Heath, host of the 2018 British Masters hosted by Justin Rose.
Lee Trevino…
View this post on Instagram🎞 From the #BritishMasters archives. That Lee Trevino low cut 👏🏻
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As the European Tour continues to set the bar with fun, inventive and clever social media stunts, the PGA Tour offered another under par counter for Brooks Koepka’s 2018 Player of the Year rollout. Mercifully, he was spared having to pose with Like-inducing animals, as far as we know.
Warning, this video contains extremely awkward content:
🏆 @BKoepka accepted his Player of the Year Award today.
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 9, 2018
Of course @DJohnsonPGA showed up. 👀#LiveUnderPar pic.twitter.com/4M5vYIOm8M
Maybe this is why Brooks didn’t bother to vote, as reported by Will Gray at GolfChannel.com.
The trainwreck continued with not one, but two photobomb videos involving Jack Nicklaus and Koepka. Note to the legion of VP’s: one photobomb a day with the same two people is the max. Two means at least one is not technically a photobomb. Have your kids explain if this is too confusing.
As for his media interviews, they were pretty deadly until Koepka received questions from both Morning Drive’s Cara Banks and Dan Patrick on the reported Versailles dust-up with Dustin Johnson. Koepka denied a fight with Johnson in both cases. The Dan Patrick Show chat:
And now back to the mysterious saga of Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka in 2018’s huge box office dud, Venom In Versailles.
From Will Gray’s GolfChannel.com account of Jim Furyk’s post-Ryder Cup interview, namely an alleged incident involving Johnson and Koepka that Koepka said did not happen:
And while Furyk reiterated the close relationship between the two friends, he also seemed to imply that some sort of incident, however minor, did occur.
"Whatever altercation started, or what happened, it was very brief. It was very short. Neither one of them really took anything out of it," Furyk said. "They're like brothers. Brothers may argue, brothers get into it. But they're as close as they've ever been, and it really had no effect on either one of them."
There was also this from Rosaforte’s questioning, transcribed for those who didn’t watch Morning Drive:
Whatever altercation started what happened was very brief and was very short. Neither one of them really took anything out of it. In fact they both hopped in a cab not long after that and went out together for a little while, woke up in the morning like nothing happened. So in their minds it was a non-issue and really like they are like brothers. So brothers may argue, get into it, but they are close as they’ve ever been.
I can attest that Versailles on a Sunday night is as about as wild and crazy as it gets on the nightlife front. There are both Uber and taxi drivers out and about.
So I’m sure Brooks and DJ had the time of their lives fleeing the European team celebration. Still, such a detail suggests that claims of media-conjured news appear inaccurate. At least, if Jim Furyk is to be believed.
On the list of all the horrible things about “wraparound” season golf, I’d rank the inability to savor the season high up there. In the ShotLink era we have so many stats to potentially dig into and study before the season restarts—if this were a normal sport.
But the PGA Tour would dive into the shallow end of an empty pool for a buck and so we have year-round golf. Yet that didn’t stop GolfDigest.com’s Alex Myers from highlighting Cameron Champ’s incredible driving distance and clubhead speed numbers from the recently completed Web.com Tour season. Champ also continued to separate himself in his 2018-19 PGA Tour debut start at the Safeway.
What really caught my eye though was this from Myers on how Champ is essentially taking the same approach as many baseball players today, emphasizing launch over placement. The strokes-gained stat says it’s working for Champ.
Champ only hit 50 percent of his fairways (88th in the field), but still led the field in strokes gained: off-the-tee. In other words, Cameron Champ's driver might be the most effective — and fun to watch — weapon on the PGA Tour this season.
Now whether it’s fun to see someone play bomb-and-gouge golf is very much open to debate. But the numbers don’t lie: if you can hit it that far and they don’t have Le Golf National rough, it’s the best way to attack a course.
The USGA/R&A Statement of Principles railed against this kind of thing back in 2002. Maybe one of these days they’ll read that again and decide to act.
I’m not normally one to say today’s players owe eternal loyalty to Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson for the purses they play for. Even though Tiger and Phil have pledged allegiance to Arnold Palmer for the chance to profit off of golf when as a case could be made that Walter Hagen and Old Tom Morris put up with a lot more nonsense to make pro golf cool.
Either way, point is, anyone playing for $7 million a week who couldn’t draw a gallery of 200 on his own, should probably show some respect for his elders who have broader appeal.
Which brings us to Justin Thomas, incidentally represented by Tiger’s firm.
Brentley Romine with the cringeworthy Twitter reply about watching The Match between Woods and Mickelson.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
