By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange
DALY CITY, Calif. — One, Lydia Ko, just 17, is supposed to be the future of women's golf. The other, Stacy Lewis, 29, is very much the present.
Together, which is how they've been grouped through three rounds and will be today in the fourth, they're giving the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic an enthusiastic one-two punch.
Copyright © 2014 The Sports Xchange
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
MARANA, Ariz. — The Frenchman who not many knew kept pulling off shots that few could believe, saving pars out of the desert. But in the end it was Jason Day, the Aussie, who ended up the winner on what was one of golf's longest days.
Three holes ahead with only six to play, Day had to make a birdie putt on the 23rd hole Sunday to defeat Victor Dubuisson, 1 up, and take the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship.
Copyright © 2014 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
Thirteen years and a hemisphere apart, Ernie Els again is in the semifinals of the Accenture WGC World Match Play Championship after a victory over a kid not half his age.
Els, 44, took advantage of his experience and the ineffectiveness of 20-year-old Jordan Spieth for a 4-and-2 victory Saturday in their quarterfinal at the Golf Club at Dove Mountain in the foothills north of Tucson.
Copyright © 2014 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Bubba Watson has always been impressed with the history of Riviera Country Club, where Ben Hogan won a U.S. Open, celebrities from Humphrey Bogart to Dean Martin were members and Howard Hughes once took lessons.
It is a tournament once known as the Los Angeles Open that began in 1937 and through the years had winners such as Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Charlie Sifford and Tom Watson.
Copyright © 2014 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Global Golf Post
PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA — This is how you're greeted upon entering the most unique website for anyone who plays golf for a living:
"I love taking something from nothing and turning it into an image that makes you stop and think."
Copyright 2014 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — William McGirt is one of those golfers who kept thinking of quitting the game but didn't. Three rounds into the Northern Trust Open, that decision looks like the proper one.
The 34-year-old McGirt, a nonwinner in 10 years as a pro, is at 12-under-par 201 and two shots in front going into Sunday's final round at historic Riviera Country Club.
Copyright © 2014 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — So far from Sochi, but not from reality. This is the other side of the sporting world, the place of eternal spring.
This is the other side of Los Angeles, where, contrary to traffic jams and constant change, one finds a comforting stability.
Up there on the hill, the stucco clubhouse, in the hallways, photos remind what used to be, Ben Hogan, Katherine Hepburn and a Hollywood of evening clothes and Champagne.
Out there on the course are representatives of what is, the Dustin Johnsons and Jason Dufners, the present and future — yet linked inextricably to the past.
Riviera Country Club, off the circuitous wandering of Sunset Boulevard just before the road arrives at the Pacific, is where history resides.
Where there’s a statue of Hogan on the edge of the practice green. Where Howard Hughes once took lessons. Where Humphrey Bogart sipped whiskey from a Thermos while watching Sam Snead and Byron Nelson hit shots.
Where Tiger Woods never has won.
And where Fred Couples plays on and on.
So little is permanent in southern California. Always another freeway, another subdivision.
Riviera is of an earlier time, the 1920s. Bobby Jones played at Riviera. “Very nice,” he said, “but tell me — where do the members play?”
Riviera is of the current time. “I love this course,” said Justin Rose, who last summer won the U.S. Open. “It’s got a very unique look to it.”
Fred Couples has a unique look, a unique game. He is a senior, a player on the Champions Tour. But he isn’t too old to play at Riviera in the Northern Trust Open.
“I’m lucky,” said Couples, who received an invitation. “This is my favorite tournament.”
This is the 32nd time he’s been in the tournament that in typical L.A. fashion has gone through several names, from the Los Angeles Open to the Nissan Open to the Northern Trust Open.
Couples is 54. One of his playing partners in the first two rounds is Jordan Spieth, 20, who wasn’t close to being born when Couples first came to Riviera in 1981. In Thursday’s first round, each shot a one-over-par 72.
“My goal,” said Couples, who now lives about a mile from the course, “is to hang with these (younger) guys.”
Someday Couples’ photo may hang near those of Hogan and the entertainment personalities who through the decades were as much a part of Riviera as the par-3 sixth hole, the one with the bunker in the middle of the green.
That headline from the Jan. 7, 1947, Los Angeles Times calling Hogan a “Tiny Texan” is a classic. So is the picture of Hepburn and the great Babe Zaharias, a consultant for the film “Pat and Mike,” which naturally was shot at Riviera.
“Riviera member” Gregory Peck is shown swinging a club in another photo. And a picture from 1953, taken during the production of the movie “The Caddy,” matches Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
How wild it must have been at Riviera 70, 80 years ago. Errol Flynn was arrested during one dinner party for attempting to steal a badge from an off-duty policeman. The comedian W.C. Fields, a member, said the only easy shot was the first at the 19th hole.
“There are great courses that people like,” said Couples, who surely likes Riviera, where he’s won twice, “and there are some that don’t, but I don’t know anyone who would not like this course. It’s very fair, and it’s going to be, what, 80 degrees this week?”
Not quite that warm, but it was in the 70s Thursday, and the scores were mostly in the 60s, with Dustin Johnson in front at five-under 66. Johnson was second to Jimmy Walker by a shot Sunday at Pebble Beach, in the drizzle. Now he’s first in the sunshine.
“Ever since the first time I came here,” said Johnson, offering another endorsement of Riviera, “I’ve liked this golf course. It’s a great, great golf course.”
A course that, when constructed in 1926, was the second most expensive course on the planet, behind the course at Yale University. In the days when you could probably buy all of Los Angeles for the price of a Duesenberg, that is saying a great deal.
The big game then was polo, played on fields where a junior high school now sits near the course.
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were among Riviera's first members. Clark Gable and Katherine Hepburn rode horses and took late-afternoon walks on trails that meandered through the coastal canyons.
It’s so very Hollywood. And so very remarkable.
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com
PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA — He once was called "the most popular man alive." To a country that only recently had emerged from a world war, in the late 1940s Bing Crosby, all talent, grace and charm, was a reflection of the best of America.
Copyright 2014 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Somehow it always gets around to the weather. Somebody can be breaking par, even breaking records at these beautiful, tantalizing courses on which they play the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but the next thing you know we’re talking about the sunshine.
Or, as was the situation for the first round of this year’s tournament, the rain.
“No sporting event anywhere,” wrote Dwayne Netland in The Crosby: The Greatest Show in Golf, “has been more closely associated with the weather than the Crosby.”
That book came out 40 years ago. The name of the tournament has changed. The obsession with meteorological conditions on the Monterey Peninsula has not.
“Weather?” the late Mr. Crosby observed. “There’s lots of it.”
There was enough Thursday to suspend play for about three hours roughly a half-hour into the first round, from 8:39 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Just rain, blessed rain missing from California seemingly since the 1880s, but enough rain to turn the putting greens into small ponds.
And enough to keep numerous golfers from playing a complete 18 holes. Add three hours to the normal six-hour AT&T round, and well, maybe you couldn’t get around Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill or Monterey Peninsula Country Club, but in that span of time you could fly from San Francisco to London. Fore!
Neither the early downpour nor the delay seemed to bother someone named Andrew Loupe, a rookie from Louisiana — with that name of French derivation, where else could he be from? — who in five previous PGA Tour events hadn’t made a single cut.
But there he was after 18 holes at MPCC, in the tournament lead with an 8-under par 63. (Yes, Monterey is par 70, compared with the 72s of the other two venues.)
Loupe hadn’t even started when play was halted, surely helpful in the routine. “I was walking to the tee,” he said. Then he walked from the tee under shelter. Another tale to add to the compendium of events at the AT&T and its predecessor, the one named for Bing himself.
Gary McCord has become an edgy commentator for the CBS golf telecasts. At one time the man could play. He was, while attending UC Riverside, the NCAA Division II individual champion, which led to him turning pro.
It was both his good fortune and bad to qualify for the Crosby for the first time in 1974, 40 years ago, when the winds blew and hail pounded. Standing at the 17th tee, after staggering through the famous par-3 16th at Cypress Point, McCord was a cumulative 15 over par.
The decision was made then and there by officials to scrub the round and begin anew. Golfers would return the next day without a stroke on their card. According to Jim Nantz, the main man for CBS and a new Pebble Beach resident, McCord, freed form his burdens, came back to shoot a 65, seven under par at Cypress, an improvement of 22 shots.
Johnny Miller was the winner of that '74 tournament, which also got hit by a snowstorm. Sochi should be so lucky.
At the end of the last millennium, the weather gods turned nasty. Once, in 1996, the tournament was called after two rounds, because it was decided the long par-4 16th at Spyglass literally was unplayable. David Eger, in control of PGA Tour competition, made the wildly unpopular declaration.
“We’ve played in worse than this,” said Ken Venturi, who in 1961 won in weather worse than that. “Just drop a ball and hit it.” Instead, the final two rounds were dropped, the purse split equally among the 180 pros.
That led to a situation in 1998, which remains unique. El Nino was ravaging the coast, and when both the Sunday and Monday rounds were swamped, the memory of 1996, a 36-hole event, haunted executives of both the Tour and the AT&T. What to do?
Return on August 17, a day after the PGA Championship at Sahalee in Washington state, and play the third round. The Tour chartered a jet and numerous players — not Tiger Woods — did come back. Phil Mickelson earned the first of his AT&T victories.
“It was weird to have a one-round tournament,” said Mickelson, “but after 1996, I was glad they decided to finish, and not because I won.” Oh, really?
They got only three rounds finished in 2009, although golfers did show up for a fourth round that proved impossible to play. Dustin Johnson was the winner, and the next year, when conditions were perfect, he repeated at a full 72 holes.
There’s a photo from 1967. Phil Harris, the singer-comedian, and pro Doug Sanders, in foul weather gear that made them look like fishermen on a wave-pummeled boat, were standing off Pebble’s 18th green with three announcers from NBC.
One of those holding a microphone was Ralph Kiner, the onetime baseball great, whose death at age 91 was announced Thursday. Let the rain fall.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — The final California leg of the tournament known as Tiger Woods' invitational, the Northwestern Mutual World Challenge, was taken from Woods' grasp by Zach Johnson.
Four strokes behind Woods with eight holes to play Sunday, Johnson caught Woods and beat him on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff before a record crowd of more than 24,000 at Sherwood Country Club, about 40 miles west of Los Angeles.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — There was morning rain and afternoon wind, and Tiger Woods, often unsettled in choosing clubs, Saturday took 10 shots more than he did with his record-tying score on Friday. But he but didn't lose the lead in the Northwestern Mutual Challenge.
Woods, a five-time winner of this $3.5 million limited field event which benefits his foundation, shot an even-par 72 for a three-round total of 11-under par 205. He remained two shots ahead of Zach Johnson at Sherwood Country Club.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com
PITTSFORD, NEW YORK — This was the week we were supposed to learn something about Tiger Woods. Perhaps we did.
Woods came to the PGA Championship after a victory, after a tournament in which he shot 61 the second round. Surely we would see the old Tiger.
What we saw, however, was an older, perplexed Tiger.
Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Jim Furyk's regret was tempered with satisfaction. He lost the PGA Championship Sunday — or in his mind, it was won by a better player, Jason Dufner — but at age 43, Furyk said he again found his game and his confidence.
For the fourth time in the four major championships this year, the man in front after 54 holes — in this case, Furyk — did not end up in front. His 1-over-par 71 Sunday at historic Oak Hill Country Club in the suburbs of Rochester left him at 8-under 272, two shots behind Dufner.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Three weekends ago Phil Mickelson was saying how he never believed he could win the British Open.
What he said Saturday after a disastrous third round of the PGA Championship was nothing. But he did sign a great many autographs.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
PITTSFORD, N.Y. — It’s a strange game, golf, a bizarre game, and at the same time an enthralling game, different from the rest. Get a touchdown ahead in football or two runs in front in baseball, and the other team needs to match that for a tie.
But not in golf.
In golf, you can go from a three-stroke deficit into the lead before you get to the first tee.
In golf, they have these evil things called bogies — or worse, double-bogies — that destroy all that a player has worked for without anybody else in the field taking a single swipe at a ball.
So when Tiger Woods after round one of the 95th PGA Championship on Monday said, “I’m only six back,” when he finished early, the comment was both wishful thinking and perhaps less absurd than it appeared.
Not that Woods was thrilled after double-bogeying his final hole, the ninth, and coming in with a 1-over-par 71 at Oak Hill Country Club.
Not that falling behind more than a third of the field has to make us believe — even if he believes — Tiger this weekend has a chance to get that 15th major.
Every swing in golf swing can be an adventure. Or a disaster. On the fourth tee, Phil Mickelson hit one over the fence, which was more than the San Francisco Giants had been able to accomplish in two weeks at AT&T Park until Brandon Belt homered Thursday.
Phil was stuck with a double-bogey seven on the hole. Take two steps backwards. Then he made some birdies. Move on up.
Mickelson at least won the British Open a couple of weeks back. Tiger hasn’t won a major in five years. His start doesn’t make it appear that streak will end this week.
The rains hit the Rochester area Thursday afternoon, suspending play for a while. After resumption, Mickelson, with another double, on 18, would end at 71, the same as Tiger.
Adam Scott, the Masters champ and playing with Phil, came in at 5-under 65, to tie Jim Furyk, meaning Woods trailed not only one man by those six strokes but two.
“I’m still right there,” said Woods, repeating what he told us at the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. Alas, when each tournament concluded, he wasn’t there. At least where he wanted to be, in first place.
“We have a long way to go,” was one of his observations Thursday. So does Tiger Woods.
That last hole, the ninth since he started at the 10th, represented all that’s been wrong for Tiger in the majors. A two-shot differential, in a negative direction.
A par would have brought him in at 1-under. However, his second shot was into the rough, his third into a bunker, his fourth onto the green. Two putts, and he had a six.
“I was completely blocked out and tried to shape one over there,” said Woods, “and I drew no lie at all from my third shot. I was just trying to play 20 feet long and putt back and try to just get bogey. I didn’t even get over the bunker. Hit a beautiful putt. Just lipped out.”
Just lipped out. A week ago, at the Bridgestone, Woods shot 61 in the second round, then went on to win the tournament. He was ready. Or so he said. Or so we thought. Now, we don’t know what to think, except at age 37, Tiger may have lost the battle to time.
Tiger always has been private. It’s his right. He’s never been one to say more than required, and sometimes not even that much. But it would be gratifying to hear him expand on what’s really deep in his heart.
Woods will concede he’s lost yards off the tee. He won’t concede he’s not the golfer of 2000 or 2008. We know he isn’t.
What he needed on Day One of the last major of 2013 was an impressive round, say 4-under-par, a jolt to the others, a warning that Woods can still bring it, if not quite in the manner of a few years ago. He needed to show us that he can play in a major as he did last week in a tournament that, while important, is not a major.
“I played really well today,” said Woods. “As I said, just a couple — you know , one loose 9-iron in there . . .”
If-a, could-a, might-a, often that’s a golfer’s mantra when reviewing a round that he wanted to be better. This one, in actuality, could have been worse. Woods one-putted seven of the first nine holes, one of those a 10-footer for a par at the 10th, his first hole.
“This round realistically could have been under par easily.”
But realistically it wasn’t.
By Art Spander
PITTSFORD, N.Y. — This is about as far from the A-Rod situation, geographically and emotionally, as is possible without leaving New York State and the New York state of mind.
This is a town on the shores of Lake Ontario, a suburb of Rochester, the summer training site of the Buffalo Bills and the newest proving ground for Tiger Woods.
This is a place where after someone asks Woods if he finally can win that 15th major — the 95th PGA Championship starts Thursday at difficult Oak Hill Country Club — someone else asks if the local fans are supportive.
“It’s a great golfing town,” offers Woods, ever diplomatic. “Well, I don’t think you have to yell every time the ball gets airborne.”
Woods, in effect, is the one who’s airborne. He comes in after a smashing win, his fifth of the year, in the Bridgestone, which ended Sunday.
He also comes in with the same nagging question: What’s wrong with his play in the last round or two in the majors?
Tiger and Phil Mickelson, delightfully, are first and second in the World Golf Rankings, and how many years have we waited for that? Dodgers against the Giants, Bears vs. the Packers. Rivalries.
True, it isn’t really Tiger against Phil, but their positions will do. Now, we find out what Tiger and Phil can do.
Mickelson, of course, two and a half weeks ago won a British Open, something both he and the critics doubted ever would be the case.
Now the doubts are about Woods, who although finishing first in 14 major championships hasn’t finished better than second in any of the last 17 he’s entered — and none since the 2008 U.S. Open.
Woods, Mickelson, Roger Federer, Serena Williams, the Dallas Cowboys, and others of their continued success, inevitably confront a problem of their own creation: Nothing matters except the biggest ones, the majors, the Grand Slams, the Super Bowl.
They know it. We know it.
A win at Doral? At the Italian Open? In the NFL division playoffs? Eminently forgettable.
Tiger once was asked about his mediocre Ryder Cup record. “What’s Nicklaus’ record?” was his answer. When no one knew, he went on, “What’s Nicklaus’ record in the majors?”
A chorus of voices all but shouted “18 wins.” Woods gleefully added, “See what I mean.”
We do, we do. We’ve also seen Woods go five years plus without that meaningful victory.
“I think that having Tiger win last week is great,” Mickelson said slyly, “because I can’t remember the last time somebody won the week before a major and then went on and won.”
It was way back in July, when Phil took the Scottish Open and followed eight days later taking the Open Championship. But you knew that. So did Phil. So did Tiger.
“Obviously I feel pretty good about winning by seven (at Bridgestone) and coming here,” said Woods. “I feel like my game’s pretty good. That’s how I played at the British Open. The only difference is I made more putts last week.”
Mickelson made the putts in the Open. Winners always putt well. And invariably drive well. If you can’t get off the tee and can’t get the ball in the cup, you can’t compete.
“He’s playing solid,” Mickelson said about Woods, “and he played great last week. I think it’s great for the game to have him playing so well.”
The word “great” was used to a maximum, but would it apply to Woods’ year if he did not win a major, meaning this PGA since it’s the last major until the 2014 Masters?
“I think winning one major automatically means you had a great year,” insisted Tiger. “Even if you miss the cut in every tournament you play in. You win one, you’re part of history. This year for me, I think, has been a great year, winning five times.”
But in the Masters he couldn’t recover from that ricochet into a pond the second round. In the U.S. Open, he finished with his highest cumulative 72-hole score in a major. In the Open Championship, he closed with a 74 to drop from second to a tie for sixth.
“The frustrating part,” said Tiger, “is I’ve been right there and didn’t win two of the tournaments when I was there . . . The Masters I didn’t get it done. Same thing at the (British) Open.”
So this 15th major, this elusive 15th, is proving tougher than any?
“It kind of seems that way,” Woods conceded. “It’s been probably the longest spell that I’ve had since I hadn’t won a major. I’ve had my opportunities there on the back nine. And I just haven’t won it.”
By Art Spander
GlobalGolfPost.com
GULLANE, SCOTLAND - Ay, laddie, Scotland, where Bobby Burns gave us "Auld Acquaintance"...
Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
GULLANE, Scotland - This was the one, the British Open, with a links-style setup, a type of course that had so long perplexed him, the one major tournament that Phil Mickelson doubted would ever be his.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
GULLANE, Scotland -- Adam Scott says the weight is gone. The wait, however, still exists.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
GULLANE, Scotland -- Adam Scott says the weight is gone. The wait, however, still exists.