Loose Impediments

Pair of Aces

IF YOU'RE A GOLF COURSE AFICIONADO, this is going to be a great weekend for watching golf on television. First, the Barclays is at Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey. The course may not be well known nationally, but in the metropolitan New York area, this A.W. Tillinghast design is a must play.

But the course that I'm most interested in watching is Chambers Bay, host of the U.S. Amateur. Normally, the Amateur is a test to see whether a course is suitable for the U.S. Open, but since Chambers Bay is already slated to hold the 2015 U.S. Open, this week's is a dress rehearsal, to help the USGA figure out how they want to set up the course and whether it needs any tweaks over the next five years.

From spectators to architects to officials, there will be plenty of interested Chambers Bay observers—both on site and from afar—but none will be more interested than Terry Olson and Greg Brown. The pair formed the key component of a remarkable feat, which happened to take place on the day I played Chambers Bay, August, 13, 2008.

Imperfect 10

A couple of days ago, I played a course with a sign near the clubhouse announcing the conditions of the day: cart policies, hole location, etc. The sign also announced that the greens were running 10 on the Stimpmeter.

Now, there are a lot of great things about golf on television. For example, it allows the viewer to easily follow a golf tournament's drama, which can takes place on multiple fronts. (Television directors hate it for the same reason.) 

But there are also plenty of negatives. A big minus is that tournament layouts, which have been prepped specifically for the best players in the world, have become models for courses for everyday golfers. And for some reason, fast greens are one aspect of course setup that has really caught on among owners and greens committees around the country. It's easy to understand why: The Stimpmeter reading is an easily quantifiable way to judge greens. And so courses love to boast that their course has greens with Stimpemeter readings of 10 to 11, which are tour speeds. (The U.S. Open reaches 12 and sometimes 13.)

What Happened to the Northeast Bias?

Yesterday's announcement of the sites of two future U.S. Opens—Erin Hills in 2017 and Pebble Beach in 2019—weren't surprises. Erin Hills, the public course has been a favorite since it opened in 2006, and the USGA loves its size (600 acres, plenty of room for 50,000 spectators and a massive tented metropolis—should the economy and corporate hospitality make comebacks), location (30 minutes from Milwaukee and two hours from Chicago) and accessibility.

As happy as I am for Erin Hills designers Michael Hurdzan, Dana Fry and Ron Whitten (a former colleague who taught me so much about course architecture), I feel really badly for two individuals. 

The first is Bob Lang, the man who had the vision for Erin Hills. I first met Lang at the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, where he cornered me for an hour and described, seemingly blade of grass by blade of grass, the massive 8,000-yard course he was building, and how he envisioned a U.S. Open contested on it. Unfortunately, his wallet couldn't match his enthusiasm, and Lang had to sell the course last fall. 

The second is Frank Jemsek, the owner of the 54-hole Cog Hill facility outside Chicago. For decades, Frank and his late father, Joe, have been trying to get a U.S. Open at Cog Hill's famous Dubsdread course, the site of the PGA Tour's BMW Championship. He even hired Rees Jones, the "Open Doctor," to redesign. Cog Hill was Erin Hills' main competitor for the 2017 Open, and so the waiting continues for the Jemseks.

As far as the second announcement goes, Pebble was pretty much etched into an every-10-years rotation, so moving it up one year to celebrate the course's centenary was both appropriate and expected. 

In the bigger picture, I think the dual announcements signal a shift away from the Northeast bias that the USGA, based in Far Hills, N.J., had brought to the Open for decades. In the 30 U.S. Opens held between 1980 and 2009, 16 have been in the Northeast (Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts).

Insider’s Guide to Pebble Beach

Playing Pebble for the first time? Here are 18 tips for making that long-awaited round as memorable as possible.

When to go: There is never a bad time, but the winter can get rainy and the summer can have fog, known as the “June Gloom.” It is warmest in the fall.

How to get on: For advance tee times, you have to stay at the resort. But the course offers same-day availability for non-guests, so it is possible to get on, especially if you’re a single.

If you stay: Book a room at the Inn at Spanish Bay. It’s not at the course, but the setting is more intimate, and the drive to the course along 17 Mile Drive will help offset the bout of nerves that will no doubt hit you on the 1st tee.

Warming up: The driving range is off campus, so you need to take a shuttle. Allow for extra time.

Golf in Rio?

What does today's announcement of the 2016 Summer Olympics being awarded to Rio de Janeiro mean for golf's chances of inclusion in those Games? Perhaps nothing, but I have a feeling it certainly can't help.

The other three finalists, Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo, all have numerous golf courses, not to mention a long golf history and an understanding of the game among its citizens. Any sort of golf tournament in those cities was bound to produce a well-attended (by both players and fans) event at a worthy course. 

There are no such assurances in Rio. In our 20-year history, we have written about golf in Brazil exactly once, which I suspect is more than any other U.S. golf publication. I know nothing about golf in Brazil, but a little search has turned up two decent sites in Rio: Gavea Golf and Country Club and Itanhanga Golf Club. The photos seem OK, but the layouts don't compare courses like Cog Hill or Kawana, which would have been great Olympic courses. 

I'm not sure how it works, but Brazil's lack of a golf culture certainly has to play a part in the decision of whether golf will be included in 2016. We'll know in a week, when the IOC announces which two sports will be included from among seven candidates: golf, baseball, karate, roller sports, rugby, softball and squash.

Of course, golf is just a tiny reason for choosing an Olympics host, but you have to believe that for those with a stake in golf's inclusion in the games, Rio was last on their ballots. 

Hefty Green Fees

While NBC was all but declaring Cowboys Stadium (left) the eighth wonder of the world last night during the Cowboys-Giants game, I couldn't help but thinking that at $1.15 billion, it's not even the most expensive stadium to open—this year!

Of course, that honor goes to the new Yankee Stadium, which cost $1.5 billion. And that amount was second to the new Wembley Stadium in London, which cost nearly $1.6 billion when it opened two years ago. (That figure should have an asterisk, since the weak dollar had a lot do with the inflation of that amount.)

Since we've crossed the 10-figure threshold for building arenas of play, it seems to me that some of golf's priciest courses seem like bargains in comparison. After the jump, a list of some of the most expensive courses ever built.

Bally of Sin

LINKS Magazine doesn't do golf course rankings. They're hard to get just right, and you invariably wind up having the owners, members, pros, architects, greenskeepers, waiters, etc., of every course except one (No. 1) mad at you. 

But like anyone else, I enjoy looking at the various lists to see how my personal evaluations of these courses compared to these rankings, which a great man once referred to as "a collective guess, an objective average of subject opinions."

That said, I fully expect the 7,294-yard Ballyhack Golf Club outside Roanoke, Virginia, to be on the short list of the best courses of the year. Architect Lester George built some dramatic holes on former farmland. After the jump, some more pics to get the award season started. (Click on the images for full-size versions.) 

Bethpage: Beyond the Black

There is little doubt that the Black course is the big star at Bethpage State Park, especially this week for the U.S. Open. But Bethpage is hardly a one-course show. While plenty of golfers come from far and wide and go to great lengths like queuing overnight in the parking lot to play a U.S. Open course, many regulars opt to play one of the park's four other courses.

That's because in addition to the Black's difficulty, the course is tough to navigate. It is walking only, and the pace of play is predictably glacial. Before the USGA came calling, it wasn't all that hard to get on the Black because of these factors.

I grew up on Long Island, and have played all of Bethpage's courses—Black, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow—scores of time. I have played them in all seasons, in all weather conditions, during all times of day. There is little doubt that a round on the Black should be on the to-do list of every golfer. But while you're here, it would be a shame to not take the time to play one or more of the other courses here. 

If you're interested in camping out at the park—or at least in the parking lot for tee times—for a few days, here is a guide to the other Bethpage courses.

Second Shot

In an odd but most welcome scheduling hiccup, I was able to play two of the best courses in Northern Ireland twice last week. I played Portstewart and Royal Portrush (fairway bunker on the 17th hole, pictured) before my conference then got to play both in a single day the day after.

What struck me was how much my opinion of the Strand course at Portstewart changed during my second visit. After my first round, I thought that the course too extreme. The front nine is routed over and between some of the biggest dunes I have ever seen on a golf course—some were 200 feet high. 

The experience wasn't so much links golf as it was mountain golf. The back side was much flatter, and the holes were so different from what had preceded them. After putting out on the 18th hole, I felt disoriented, as if I had just finished riding a roller coaster. Hours later at dinner, even after gathering our wits, my playing partners and I couldn't figure out the layout.

Somewhere over the Rainbow

I have a conference for travel writers in Belfast. So naturally, I took the opportunity to arrive a couple of days early and get in some golf. Today's round was at Rosapenna. On the 17th hole, I saw the biggest, most vivid rainbow I have ever seen. Alas, there was no pot of gold at the end of it, but the pint of Guinness after the round was treasure enough.