A tale of the first tee, first green, and first golfer

    Writing from Cherry Hills Village, Colorado
    Thursday, September 4, 2014

    Rare is the golf course where the first hole is the most talked about of the 18.
    Cherry Hills Country Club is that course, thanks to Arnold Daniel Palmer and one mighty smote in the June heat of 1960.
    From his perch at 5,411 feet, Palmer drove the first green, 346 yards distant and 42 feet downhill. He two-putted for birdie, shot 65, made up seven strokes on Mike Souchak, outbattled Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus, and won the United States Open Championship.
    So, yes, the first hole gets one’s attention. That was the case Thursday morning, when wise golf fans young and old happened to gather at the green to see who, if anyone, would be able to duplicate Palmer’s feat.
    Put it this way: If it was easy, anyone could do it.
    It isn’t. And in the first round of the BMW Championship, many tried, but only a pair of players could match the King.
    One, fittingly, was named Palmer. Ryan Palmer, unrelated to the great man himself, plopped his tee shot on the 346-yard hole 28 feet from the cup, and, trumping Arnie, made the putt for an eagle 2. Charley Hoffman, in the group before, also managed to make hit drive hold on the Fiberglas-fast putting surface, but settled for par.
    Palmer and Hoffman were the only two in the field of 69 to do so.
    Top-ranked Rory McIlroy, whose sparkling start pushed him briefly to the outright lead in this 111th edition of what traditionalists call the Western Open, did not. His 3-wood landed in the right rough, and he chipped close for an easy birdie putt.
    Bubba Watson also missed the target. His wayward drive to the right hit a member of the gallery hard enough for the impact to be heard on the other side of the green. He signed a ball for the wounded fan, then lofted a delicate chip that stopped 11 feet from the cup and sank that for a birdie 3.
    This is the first time the Palmer Tee is being used regularly in a big tournament here since that 1960 Open. The USGA went farther back to a new tee for the 1978 U.S. Open, won by Andy North, and the PGA did the same for the 1985 PGA Championship, which Hubert Green captured. So full marks to the WGA and PGA Tour for both nodding to tradition and creating excitement right from the start of the round.
    The end of the round found McIlroy, from the green fields of Northern Ireland, in a trio tied for the lead at 3-under-par 67 with two fellows who hail from not far from here: Jordan Spieth of Texas and Gary Woodland of Kansas. One stroke back and sitting on the right side of the fairway on the par-4 ninth when play was called for the day because of lightning at 5:51 p.m. Mountain Time is Henrik Stenson, the smooth Swede. He’s the one player among the nine at 2-under yet to sign his scorecard. Nine players in all weren’t able to finish.
    That the scoring wasn’t lower was a surprise to some, but shouldn’t have been. This William Flynn-designed layout, recently refurbished by Tom Doak, has stout architectural defenses, as those who played for the first green discovered. Add in fast fairways, faster greens, and wiry three-inch rough, and it’s precision more than power that sets a player up for a good score.
    McIlroy’s scorecard was al but oblivious of the difficulty. He reached 5-under and was cruising until his 16th hole, the par-4 seventh, when his approach landed in a grassy depression, his third bounded over the green into a bunker, and he failed to save par. Another bogey followed on the par-3 eighth.
    “I was a bit frustrated,” McIlroy admitted. “It’s fairly tricky out there. Low scores are hard to come by; 67s a really good start.
    “The fairways are firm, so even when you hit irons and fairway woods off the tee, they’re running out of the fairway. And the greens have gotten a lot harder in the last 24 hours. You’re having to land shot a good 10-15 yards before you intended to.”
    McIlroy figured out enough to run down five birdies in his first 12 holes, including three in succession starting at his 10th, the famed first.
    “It’s playing a little bit like a U.S. Open,” McIlroy said. “Not quite as difficult as that, but thick rough and firm greens. That’s what they need to keep the scoring the way it is.”
    It was McIlroy’s first exposure to Cherry Hills, but Spieth was here two years ago, playing in the U.S. Amateur. He was bounced in the first round of match play, but loved the place, and still does after his six-birdie, three-bogey round.
    “It’s nice to stay with the same family I stayed with back then,” Spieth said. “I kind of feel I’m back at a U.S. Amateur or college event this week. This is one of the few events where I may have more experience than a lot of the guys. I’ll take that mental attitude the next few days.”
    Woodland, who averaged 343 yards off the tee, essentially made his score on the back nine, the tougher and longer of the nines, then hung on. He was 4-under through his 12th, bogeyed the par-4 fourth, then parred in.
    “The greens, they’re concrete out there,” Woodland said. “If we don’t get any rain it can be pretty interesting by the weekend.”
    A few drops fell late in the round, and there was more rain expected overnight, but not enough to make the course anything close to easy.
    “A lot of the fairways were difficult to hit,” said Sergio Garcia, in the 2-under gaggle. “It played very, very firm and you had to be really on to score well.”
    Canadian Graham DeLeat is in the group at 68 after sitting at 3-under down the stretch, and noted one more thing that might have contributed to the clustering of scores close to par.
    “It was a quick week,” DeLeat said, noting the Monday finish in Boston. “I think probably not anyone had the same preparation they normally would have, especially for such a big event. I guess we’re all kind of in the same boat.”
    When play was halted, 21 players were under par and another six, including Watson, Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson, were at even par 70. If Cherry Hill’s usual par of 72 was in effect, 44 players would have beaten the standard.
    Of the leaders, Woodland’s story is the most intriguing. He’s 29th in the point standings, and only the top 30 advance to next weekend’s jackpot in Atlanta. McIlroy is second, Spieth ninth, and sitting pretty. Woodland, along with Stenson, needs a fast finish to play on.
    “The goal is to move up as far as you can, be in the top 5 going into next week,” Woodland said.
    A high finish would make that happen.
    “I’m still trying to win this thing,” Woodland said.
    The tournament? The pot of gold at the end of next week? Yes and yes. This is professional golf, after all.
    – Tim Cronin

Back to Crooked Stick in 2016

    Writing from Cherry Hills Village, Colorado
    Thursday, September 4, 2014

    Presuming the club’s membership votes approval, the WGA will take the BMW Championship back to Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind., in 2016.
    Multiple sources say only the formality of the vote, expected soon, is preventing an announcement by the club, the WGA and BMW.
    Rory McIlroy won the 2012 edition there, one played across three days of rain, an evening downpour, and four days of “lift, clean and place,” But the sour weather did not deter Indianapolis golf fans from turning out in big numbers, with about 146,000 turning out over seven days, about three times the full-week turnout of 49,000 for the 2001 finals at Cog Hill.
    Even as that tournament was winding down, plans were being drawn to return to Crooked Stick eventually. At that time, a source with the club indicated that after a long string of championship golf, including the 2005 Solheim Cup and 2009 U.S. Senior Open, the membership wanted a few years off from the grind of hosting a tournament, which includes construction and deconstruction of everything from merchandise pavilions to TV towers.
    That break will apparently be only four years.
    The original plan was for the old Western Open to go even farther west than Colorado in 2016. The PGA Tour’s contract with San Francisco called for a playoff tournament at Harding Park Golf Course by 2016. The BMW was to have been that tournament, but the Tour recently signed a new deal with the city that changed the terms, placing the Presidents Cup and other baubles in San Francisco. That allows the WGA, which last visited San Francisco for the 1956 Western Open at the Presidio, to stay closer to home.
    Until that deal was struck, the notion was that the WGA and Crooked Stick would pair up for 2018. Now that date is in play. Given the massive outpouring of support at Cherry Hills both in terms of corporate support and regular fans – ticket sales were held to about 28,000 a day, with weekly badges and individual tickets for Sunday a sellout – it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to see if the club would want to host again four years from now. Evans Scholar alum George Solich sitting on the club’s board gives the WGA an in, one would think.
    The BMW is in Chicagoland in odd-numbered years, and that means Conway Farms Golf Club for 2015 and the foreseeable future. It’s not the test that either Crooked Stick or Cherry Hills is, but, like those two clubs, it’s located in a tony area filled with rich people who might be induced into buying a BMW. Conway is signed only for 2015, but, in the process of completing a tweak to several greens and rebuilding its range, it’s the logical place among clubs on the north shore.
    Speaking of Conway, tickets for the 2015 BMW, slated for Sept. 17-20, go on sale Monday at the www.bmwchampionshipusa.com website.

    Bubba being Bubba

    As long as it’s not a long-driving contest at the PGA Championship, Gerry Watson Jr. – or do you call him Bubba? – loves to swing the driver. Hard.
    That was the case on Thursday. Aided by the mile-high-plus location, Watson hammered five drives of over 350 yards, the longest a 371-yard flight on the 526-yard par-4 fifth hole. He had 155 yards left, and bogeyed.
    He bombed his drive on the par-5 17th 360 yards and had 182 yards in. He birdied.
    Overall, Watson hit half the 14 fairways and 11 greens en route to his even-par 70. But nobody, except maybe the person belted by his green-high drive on the first hole, went away unhappy.

    Around Cherry Hills

    It was a tough day for Winfield native Kevin Streelman, the only Illinois native in the field. He fired a 5-over-par 75 punctuated by a double-bogey at the par-4 13th, part of a four-hole stretch where he lost five strokes to par. That shoved him into a tie for 64th, with only Patrick Reed (77) and Ryan Moore (a birdie-free 80) behind him. ... The purse of $8 million awards $1.44 million to the winner, the same as the last two years. Actually, with only 69 players, the last (70th) place money of $16,000 is not on offer. ... Members of the Cherry Hills tournament committee wear bright blue blazers with logo patches worthy of a bowl game. Maybe it’s because John Elway is a prominent member. ... Friday’s tee times are unchanged. The nine players remaining to finish because of the lightning will start at 11 a.m.
    – Tim Cronin

A study in contrasts

    Writing from Cherry Hills Village, Colorado
    Wednesday, September 3, 2014

    Cherry Hills Country Club has a great deal in common with a more-often-seen classic, the Augusta National Golf Club.
    Each membership prizes its history. Augusta has The Masters and all that the spring bacchanalia entails, from retelling the story of Gene Sarazen’s double eagle for the umpteenth time to biting into a pimento cheese sandwich, just to say you did.
    Cherry Hills has, among other true fables, Arnold Palmer driving the first green in the final round of the 1960 United States Open Championship, triggering the fireworks display that illuminated the greatest confluence of legendary players in a dramatic situation in the game’s history – Ben Hogan falling just short in his bid for an unprecedented fifth Open title despite hitting the first 34 greens on Open Saturday, amateur Jack Nicklaus contending until the final holes and earning Hogan’s unstinting admiration when the Hawk said, “I played with a kid today who should have won this thing by 10 shots,” and Palmer, the King, throwing down his sandwich in the locker room when Pittsburgh writer Bob Drum said when Arnold asked if he had a chance, “You blew it this morning.” Palmer stomped out to the first tee, drove the green, shot 65, and won his only U.S. Open.

The famed first hole at Cherry Hills. (c) 2014 Tim Cronin

    There is more to Cherry Hills than hosting the best Open. There are all the other championships, from Ralph Guldahl winning the Open in 1938 to Hubert Green capturing the PGA in 1985, to Phil Mickelson copping the U.S. Amateur against old high school teammate Manny Zerman in 1990, to Birdie Kim, barely heard of before or since, making birdie (of course!) from the greenside bunker on the 72nd hole to collect the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open crown and reduce Morgan Pressel to a puddle of tears.
    And there’s more. Dwight David Eisenhower, a general and president of whom you may have heard, was a member of both Augusta National and Cherry Hills. Mamie Eisenhower, his bride, was a Colorado gal. Footballer Lynn Swann is a member of Augusta National. John Elway is a recent past president of Cherry Hills.
    Like Augusta, Cherry Hills has a collection of treasures, from replica trophies signifying the championships held at the club to elegant display cases highlighting the champions and the ephemera surrounding their big weeks. Pride of place, off the hallway that leads to the locker rooms, is the Arnold Palmer Room. There, under glass from now until the sun implodes, is the driver Palmer used to make the first of those 65 strokes in the final round of the 1960 Open. Compared to the clubs of today, the clubhead is barely bigger than a child’s fist.
    The difference between the two clubs is small, but on display this week. It is found in how the two clubs handle a tournament. At Augusta, most everything is understated, genteel, the epitome of Southern hospitality. Next year’s Masters will be built on the previous eight decades of experience, and the belief that the beloved patrons need not be gouged in the food line nor beaten over the head with advertising on message boards. The green jackets know the guests will find the golf shop soon enough and open the purse willingly.
    Cherry Hills might want to run a tournament that way as well, but has no say in this week’s project beyond turning over the facility to the Western Golf Association and BMW, the German automobile firm, for a princely sum, for this week’s BMW Championship, the eighth such-titled version of that venerable rouser previously billed as the Western Open. (It is the 111th in the series, if you’re counting back to the start in 1899.)
    BMW does not believe in subtlety. It believes in beating the drum – loudly, not slowly – and creatively. Thus, rather than being able to wander between the first tee – Palmer’s tee, 346 yards distant from the green, and which will be used all four days in the tournament that commences firing on Thursday – and the 18th green, where Kim wrought her magic from the bunker, one must flit to and fro to see action on both holes, unless he or she has the magic ticket that allows a place in the second-floor pavilion behind the grandstands that even on Wednesday was occupied by all manner of magic-ticketed swells.
    This week, between corporate hospitality in the clubhouse and on the course, the WGA could bring in a record return. Rentals of particular rooms in the clubhouse for the week – food and beverage extra, of course – totaled $1,125,000 aside from the “champions club” before Bank of America ordered off the menu and rented the pro shop. Hospitality chalets went for $100,000 each, skyboxes for $60,000. If you wanted to play in Wednesday’s pro-am, that was a $12,000 tab. And sales were brisk. (Because golf-starved Denver hasn’t had the regular PGA Tour stars in town and on this course since the 1985 PGA, the prices are higher than the WGA is asking for at Conway Farms Golf Club next year, where the clubhouse is too small to utilize.)
    This, of course, fills the coffers of the WGA, and thus the treasury of the Evans Scholars Foundation, which has sent caddies to college since 1930. That’s a wonderful thing. The creativity shown in taking the old Western Open to St. Louis, Indianapolis and Denver at strong Evans Scholar clubs – George Solich, Cherry Hills’ general chairman of the tournament, is a Scholar – has resulted in huge grosses surpassing the best years of the Western at Cog Hill when it was on the Fourth of July weekend.
    Let the record show that there are a good number of seats for the public at the 18th green and the first tee. But this isn’t a country fair, as the Cog Hill Westerns were. This is a corporate-driven week that happens to be built around a golf tournament.
    The good thing is, it’s easier to move around the rest of the course, which could play as long as 7,352 yards this week, but will play much shorter given the mile-high altitude on the front lawn of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains.
    How much shorter? An expert on driving the ball, Rory McIlroy, put a number on it.
    “I did hit a 3-wood 370,” McIlroy said after his pro-am round in Wednesday’s 90-degree heat. “That was pretty good. But the ball is going forever. Because of my high ball flight, it’s going to go 15 percent further than it usually does. Even this morning, when it was a little cooler, it was still going a good 10 percent further.”
    Such a prospect makes the mind wander back to last year at Conway Farms Golf Club, the Lake Forest course that yielded the two lowest scores in championship history – nobody remembers Matt Kuchar’s third-round 61 because it came the day after Jim Furyk’s second-round 59 – but a scoring average just a shade under the par of 71.
    Cherry Hills’ par is 70, as was Bellerive Country Club in 2008. The scoring average there, 69.370, remains a Western record.
    And that was conducted without Rory McIlroy on the premises.
    McIlroy, of course, is the favorite to hoist the J.K. Wadley Trophy for the second time in three years. How could he not be, with an Open Championship and PGA Championship the highlights of a spectacular year. But behind the baby-faced looks – and this has been true since he really was a baby – there’s a competitor who wants to do nothing but win.
    Wednesday, he was asked about capturing the FedEx Cup, the one bauble – aside from The Masters – that has not yet fallen into his pocket, he was brutally honest.
    “I feel it’s been such a great tear on the golf course that if I wasn’t to go ahead and win the FedEx Cup, it would definitely be disappointing,” McIlroy said. “I really want to cap off this summer as best as I can. I have two more weeks to push through, and even though I am feeling a little tired. ... Not winning a couple of years ago did add that little bit of fuel to the fire and probably makes me a little bit more determined to try to win it this year.”
    And so on and so on. He’s clearly the leader of the Rat Pack of young players who have come along in the last few years, and relishes that position.
    “It’s great to see there’s younger guys winning on Tour, and it only bodes well for the future of this game,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, I’m glad I’m the leader of that pack and hopefully, I’m the leader of that pack for the next 20 years, as well.”
    Others in the 69-player field – Dustin Johnson is not here thanks to his unannounced six-month non-suspension suspension for drug use – who figure to contend are Mickelson, who can walk though the Hall of Champions and see the case with his victory commemorated, Furyk, fourth on the money list, No. 3 Bubba Watson, who may drive the first green with a 6-iron, and Jimmy Walker, who won twice before the Super Bowl and also at Pebble Beach, but couldn’t be picked out of a police lineup by anyone but his parents.
    Walker’s second on the money list. McIlroy is first. Him, you can pick out.

    – Tim Cronin

Repeat after Mike: Small wins again

    Writing from Grayslake, Illinois
    Wednesday, August 27, 2014

    Steve Orrick knew it was a tall order, trying to chase down Mike Small in the final round of the 92nd Illinois PGA Championship.
    “Five shots is a lot to make up,” Orrick said more than once after the final putt had dropped.
    Just how much was reinforced when he birdied the second, third, fourth, fifth and eighth holes of Stonewall Orchard Golf Club and only closed the gap on Small by two strokes.
    “He’s not going to make many mistakes,” Orrick said. “So you’ve got to make zero mistakes.”
    That was not to be where Orrick was concerned. He bogeyed the par-5 10th hole and Small birdied it. The two-shot swing, coupled with Small’s birdies on the 11th and 12th – the latter a chip-in – sealed the deal. Both Orrick and Small fired final rounds of 6-under-par 66, but Small’s record-tying total of 200, and his record of 16-under in relation to par, earned the head men’s golf coach at Illinois a five-stroke wire-to-wire victory and an unfathomable 11th Illinois PGA crown.
    “He caught my attention,” Small said of his fellow downstater. “But I played solid. I had two bogeys all week and both were three-putts.”
    Orrick, the head pro at the Country Club of Decatur, finished at 11-under 205. That would have won all but a handful of Illinois PGAs, Small being the roadblock often of late.
    “I had some momentum on the front nine, but the 10th hole was tough,” Orrick said. “I’m in position to make a (birdie) 4 and I make a 6.”
    Small made a 4 instead, which was not unusual. Small played the par-5s in 10-under for the week, while Orrick was 3-under on them.
    Small thought his birdie on the par-5 eighth was key.
    “He’s already made birdie,” Small said. “That stretch (from the eighth through 12th) was important.”
    It’s Small’s first win in an Illinois PGA Section tournament since last year’s IPGA, and, to him, a return to form.
    “ It feels good to play good golf again,” Small said. “I was strong (mentally) this week. I didn’t let (things) bother me. And he (Orrick) motivated me to play better.”
    Small earned $8,000 from the purse of $50,815. That was $2,000 less than he won last year, because about 40 fewer players entered the tournament.
    “I feel like I won the second flight,” Cog Hill teaching pro Garrett Chaussard said after finishing tied for third, closing with a 69 for 4-under 212 and a deadlock with Curtis Malm of White Eagle Golf Club. “I don’t know what course Mike and Steve were playing.”
    In his 11 victories, Small is 84-under-par and has a total victory margin of 45 strokes.

    – Tim Cronin

Small on verge of 11th Illinois PGA crown

    Tuesday, August 26, 2014

    Chi Chi Rodriguez, noting the light schedule compared with most golfing tourists, once called Jack Nicklaus “a legend in his spare time.”
    The same could be said, and not just within the borders of the state of Illinois, of Mike Small. The Illinois men’s golf coach has had great success in guiding his recruits to a slew of Big Ten titles, and was within an eyelash of an NCAA crown two springs ago.
    But on his own time, Small has compiled an uncommonly spectacular resume. He’s won 15 state majors, three PGA National Professional (a.k.a. Club Pro) titles, contended in the Western Open, and twice has been the low club pro in the PGA Championship.
    The 15 in the above paragraph may well change to 16 on Wednesday. Small, the defending champion, has a five-stroke lead on 2012 winner Steve Orrick and two-time runner-up Matt Slowinski entering the final round of the 92nd Illinois PGA Championship at Stonewall Orchard Golf Course in Grayslake.
    Should Small win, it will be his 11th IPGA title. Nobody else has more than six, that total belonging to Johnny Revolta. Bill Ogden collected five section crowns among his 12 state majors.
    Ogden, a shotmaker who prided himself on rising to the occasion, would see something of himself in Small, who plays sparingly thanks to his Illinois schedule, which includes coaching in season, recruiting when allowed, and leading fundraising efforts for the new practice facility the Fighting Illini will soon enjoy. Small doesn’t play often, but more often than not, he comes to play.
    Tuesday, for instance, he woke up the leader, scoring birdies on the second, third and fourth holes, then eagled the par-5 eighth. He was 10-under for 27 holes at the turn, and, after weathering a 100-minute thunderstorm delay – the third long wait for the weather to play through in two days – cruised home with an even-par 36 on the back nine for a second straight 5-under 67 and a total of 10-under 134 after 36 holes.
    What Small was not was completely satisfied.
    “I had to make three hard pars coming in,” Small said. “I regrouped and almost made birdie on the last hole but overall it’s a good round. It could have been really good.”
    His big par save came on the 16th, when he plunked his tee shot in the water and still managed a par 4.
    Orrick (70) and Slowinski (69) are at 5-under 139, with 58-year-old Jim Sobb, the sage of Ivanhoe, at 4-under 140 after a 4-under 68 moved him up the chart in quest of a fourth IPGA gonfalon. Mike Haase, at 3-under and seven off Small’s pace, is likely the only other player with a shot at the title, and then, only if Small runs into misadventure during the final round.
    Twelve players broke par, and another four are at even par 144 with a round to go. The cut fell at 10-over 154, with 61 survivors.
    Small, Orrick and Slowinski tee off at 9:30 a.m. Small knows what to expect.
    “You want to come out and play from the positive side of everything,” Small said. “Every round and tournament is different. It has its own personality. You just try to adapt to it and play good golf and that’s what I will do tomorrow.”

    – Tim Cronin