By Steve Gordon
I have to tell you up front that I have never been a fan of professional athletes competing in the Olympic Games...in any sport. Also, what I used to find intriguing and a draw in the Olympics is being able to watch sports you don't normally see on a regular basis. Then you just take your national pride and pull for your countries competitors.
I have to say as well that it gets in my craw when you hear something like, "... representing _________ (pick a country not the USA) out of the University of ____________ (pick a college that is in the USA) is ____________ (name not important). But that's not at issue here.
What is at issue here is golf in the Olympics. I absolutely do not agree that this should be an Olympic sport, and that there will be profession players in it makes it more unappealing. I know I am in the minority on this but that has never stopped me from expression my feelings of opinions.
I am an Olympic junkie so in a few months when it all comes together I likely will be watching the golf and I will be able to see players from other countries that I have no idea who they are. That part will be fun.
Here is how they will select who plays:
"The IOC has restricted the IGF to an Olympic field of 60 players for each of the men’s and women's competition. The IGF will utilize the official world rankings to create the Olympic golf rankings as a method of determining eligibility. The top-15 world-ranked players will be eligible for the Olympics, with a limit of four players from a given country. Beyond the top-15, players will be eligible based on the world rankings, with a maximum of two eligible players from each country that does not already have two or more players among the top-15."
So if you have more of the best players in the world, you get to have more players in the field while the lesser countries, the ones we want to open up and expose to golf, get fewer competitors? How is this a level playing field for the countries? Aside from that, I wonder about their competitive ability or skill level of players who are low on the world rankings to compete on a level playing field?
It brings back visions of the "professional" Russian hockey teams vs amateurs, 1980 notwithstanding, dominating the competition.
Golf is on TV just about all year. There is kind of an off season the end of the calendar year (when football season is in full swing) and thankfully the "silly season" has dwindled. My point is that we can watch golf and professional golfers anytime. I say this because people promoting this who got golf into the Olympics say it will promote the game world wide. Exactly how is that when as stated golf is on TV a lot.
There is no doubt golf is in a cycle where participation has declined but I think this is a lot like the economy and it swings up and down regularly. Maybe not as much as the economy, but you get what I am saying.
Therefore I have to ask what the draw is for Olympic golf? Recently there have been promos on golf telecasts where professional golfers talk of how they admired athletes getting metals and that it would be an honor to represent their country to stand on the platform and win a medal. That's great, but I guess the purist in me still sees the Olympics as an amateur competition.
The format is 72 hole individual stroke play with the field limited to 60 players for both the women and men. BORING. This is my point where we see this week in and week out on TV. There are international team golf events every year and the best players represent their countries in these and they are very exciting and special. Individual stroke play - really?
How about this? Why can't the Olympics be some kind of a team format? Perhaps the field could be expanded as necessary, or not, and bracket the countries and play 18 hole round robin or elimination matches. For instance let Australia, Japan, etc. put up a team of their own instead of playing on a World Team vs the USA. And why can't it be down with two or four player teams where multiple matches played the same day.
This opens up a can or worms but how about two men and two women on the teams? No men's or women's separate medals. Just throwing out ideas here, don't shoot me.
OK, I've said my peace. However you feel about the issue, I hope you watch and enjoy the competition.
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Best Shots
By Steve Gordon
If you have played golf as long as I have, no matter at what level, you have made some incredible shots in that time. These are shots that, while you may have forgotten rounds or courses you have played, have stayed in your memory banks. Think about it as I share in no particular order what I think were my best shots in 40 plus years of playing golf.
1. My memory is foggy and I don't play this course often so I had to look up the course routing. That research shows this first selected shot was on the 417-yard par 4 fourth hole on the Pines Course at the Stockton Seaview Resort. Isn't the Internet great?
The course was opened in 1929 designed by Howard C Toomey and William S Flynn (later worked on by William Gordon - no relation) and 9 holes of it were used in conjunction with 9 holes on its sister course at Seaview, the Bay Course, for the 1942 PGA Championship. How great is it to be able to walk and play where some of the games greats like Sam Snead (who won the tournament for his first major championship)?
OK, here is the shot. I had a Wilson firestick driver, 9 degree loft, and I had love hate relationship with this club. I can't place the year but I would have to say late 80's perhaps early 90's. It was back when driver heads were not that much bigger than some of today's hybrids.
The hole is a sharp dogleg right around trees and a bunker then slightly downhill to the green. Just getting to the dogleg is normally the goal to have a shot at the green. On this day the ball came screaming off the clubface high with a power fade. The ball flew past the turn of the dogleg and almost as if on command faded to the middle of the fairway maybe only 100 yards from the green if I remember.
Unfortunately I did not take advantage to make birdie or even par as with my excitement and a very erratic game at that time I messed up the approach and had to work to make bogey. But it was a tee shot I won't forget.
2. Let's stay at Seaview but go across Rt. 9 to the Bay course. This is a 1914 design collaboration of Donald Ross and Hugh Wilson. Ross has many world renown designs and Wilson is probably best known for Merion, home of multiple USGA championships, most recently the US Open in 2013 won by Justin Rose.
This shot came just two years ago proving that I can still hit it pretty good from time to time. I was playing with my best friend and 40 years golf partner on this course which today is the site of the LPGA ShopRite Classic and a course the women love to come play year in and year out. Also as mentioned, 9 holes of it were used for the aforementioned 1942 PGA championship shared with 9 holes of the sister Pines course at Seaview.
We were on the 18th hole which is a par 5 of 505 yards from the back tees and depending on the wind direction the LPGA players will reach this green in two in favorable conditions. We're old guys (seniors) so we were playing the white tees set closer to the 464 yardage on the scorecard.
There was some wind but nothing particularly hurting or helping about it on this cool fall afternoon. I hit a really nice tee shot over the right side bunkers where the hole doglegs slightly to the right. When the wind is in their face the women pros don't mess with that shot. My ball was on the edge of the fairway and a bit outside of the 200 yard range to the middle of the green.
I pulled out a club to lay up because there are bunkers on both sides of the fairway short of the green that are pretty nasty and a mis hit would surely find that distance. I wanted to put my ball about 100 yards out for a nice approach to the green.
It was at that point my best friend and long time golf companion looked at me and asked, "What are you doing?" and I told him what I was thinking. Now it was probably 15 or 20 years ago I had once reached this green in two (three putted for par) but that was then and this is now. The bottom line is as my friend asked, "Did you come here to layup?" Sounds like something out of Tin Cup doesn't it? This was a casual recreational round not a tournament, but you get the idea.
Generally I am a go for it guy and while it occurred to me I had discounted it this day. I really didn't want to mess with those bunkers. But I changed clubs and pulled out the three wood. I use my 3-wood more off some tees today than off the fairway and when I was younger and the clubs were more suited for it, driver off the deck was a shot I had.
The wind was maybe across right to left a little, but not a factor overall. I set up for the shot aiming down the right side of the hole over one bunker complex knowing the ball would kick left when it landed. Here's the windup and the swing and the ball was as pretty a high draw as you've ever seen and when we got to the green there it was, pin high 20 feet from the hold.
I don't remember the first putt but the end result was a tap in birdie and it was a great finish to a round of golf on a wonderful old golf course.
3. Let's stay with the older golf courses and to Jeffersonville, PA, home of the Jefferson Golf Club designed by Donald Ross and opened in 1931 (redesign 2000 by Ron Pritchard). This is a typical old style track with long and short holes and a variety of par 3 holes that will test you to the limit. If you are thinking this is a hole in one story, sorry to disappoint as I have never had one.
I play in a Fall Classic Ryder Cup like event there each October. It is a two man team tournament run by the Philadelphia Public Links Golf Association where each team plays 6 holes of scramble followed by 6 holes of best ball and concluding with 6 holes of true alternate shot format.
If you aren't familiar with alternate shot, one player hits the drive then the other player hits the next shot and so on until the ball is holed. The test of this format is that if you hit a poor shot your partner has to do the dirty work of recovering from it and it can get pretty tense. It was in this format that I will do a combo of best shots on the 516 yard finishing hole.
The tee shot gives an option to hit to an open portion of fairway and a longer way to play the hole or gamble and flirt with a series of fairway bunkers. If you choose the latter and find sand it could insure you won't have a reasonable chance to hit your second shot to be in position for a wedge approach shot that is needed on a severely sloping small green.
This was just last year as I was playing it with you know who as my partner. We played OK that day except for two holes we messed up badly coming in on the alternate shot format. On 16 and 17 we had regained some good play and here we were on the tee at 18 playing for a good finish on this tough hole.
We had nothing to lose not playing well enough to win anything so I teed it up and picked a line and let it fly using my Taylor Made RBZ Stage 2 driver. You can't see the landing area taking the line I did so we didn't know that my ball landed and ended up almost perfect about 280 off the in the fairway. It had to get a favorable bounce because at 68 I don't hit it that far.
The team we were playing with took the safe route and they had to be 100 yards behind us. After they hit my partner wailed his 3 wood down there pretty good but it leaked just a hair right. Not bad but another challenge for your truly as there were some trees between the ball and the green which is set off to the right at the end of the hole.
The shot was maybe 80 yards so with a short club getting the ball up wouldn't be the problem. The problem would be the angle to this difficult green, forget the pin placement. Hitting to this green from almost any angle was a problem. So the issue was trying to keep the ball on the green. For Phil Mickleson flag hunting would be in the cards but Phil Mickleson I am not. Who is?
Have you ever hit a shot and think what your golf idol would have said about the greatness of it? Come on...admit it. You know you have. Do I need to tell you what happened after my wedge clipped the ball out of the light rough? It soared up over the trees without a problem and then the ball landed perfectly on the edge of the green above the hole cut close to the edge and trickled down toward the hole. Our playing companions saw it close up and they were more excited than we were as it almost went in. Bob tapped it in for the birdie and there were smiles all around.
4. For this next shot we'll go back to the mid 90's but closer to home at the Five Ponds Golf Club in Warminster, PA. Five Ponds is a 29 year old facility opened in 1987 and designed by Xenophon Hassenplug who also did the Skippack Golf Club in 1960. It is aptly named as the course is designed around...anyone...five ponds.
It is a combination of hilly terrain, some tree lined fairways, large undulating greens and of course the five ponds with some natural wetland areas. Owned by Warminster Township it is probably one of the most difficult and challenging public courses in the Bucks County area.
So let's jump to the 12th hole, a par five of 517 yards, 487 from the white tees. It features a tight fairway bordered by OB left and trees lining both sides of the fairway. Your tee shot has to carry a small stream crossing the hole before the fairway starts going back uphill toward the green. A pop up or a miss hit is likely to find it and a pushed drive to the right or a short slice is likely to find an environmentally protected wetland area. Get the picture?
Often I like to hit 3 wood off the tee for more control but it depends on conditions. This day I teed it up and hit driver and hit it pretty good but I put a tail on it. It passed the danger of the creek and the protected area but it rattled around in the trees on the right side. Now this hole isn't reachable in two for me so not being in the fairway probably wasn't a huge factor but the trees would make it challenging. What it meant was a low pitch out to hopefully find the fairway and that would mean having a longer, but not impossible, shot to the green.
The green is big but the right side is not visible from the fairway with a big bunker blocking the view looking up the hill to it. Guess where the flag was? On the right side of the green, but I was center of the fairway with the 150 marker a few yards behind my ball. I took out an 8 iron and struck it crisp and clean and then looked up.
Anybody see that? No answer.
Arriving at the green there was no ball where I thought one might be. It wasn't in the front bunker and not even off the edge of the green having hit and rolled a little. Well maybe it hit something and went long even as I knew there was no way I could've hit that 8 iron that far. It wasn't there either.
There was only one place left to look now and right there in the hole nestled to the metal flag stick at the bottom of the hole was my ball for an eagle 3. I've had seven eagles in my golfing life but this might have been the best one and I did it after driving my tee shot into the woods. Isn't golf a wonderfully screwy game?
5. As I said, I have never had a hole in one, but I have to include this shot in this grouping of best career shots. It came just two winters ago at Bella Vista. This is a 2002 Jim Blaukovitch design set in the rolling hills of Montgomery County in Gilbertsville, PA.
Two friends and I got a hot deal on GolfNow and we headed out on a fall Sunday afternoon for some golf. They had played the course before but I had not. For the record I really like it and lament that I have not made a trip back to play it again.
As we made our way around I was playing just OK, but of course being on a golf course is always a good time. It was mostly sunny but a little windy and cool, not to the uncomfortable stage however. Well here comes the island green which plays 152 yards from the back tee. We've already established that I'm an old guy and don't play the back tees.
It was damp from recent rain and a little on the windy side. I teed up from around 125 yards and hit a 9 iron that held into the wind and looked really good for a long time. But you know, golf really is a game of inches as shown below.
If you have played golf as long as I have, no matter at what level, you have made some incredible shots in that time. These are shots that, while you may have forgotten rounds or courses you have played, have stayed in your memory banks. Think about it as I share in no particular order what I think were my best shots in 40 plus years of playing golf.
1. My memory is foggy and I don't play this course often so I had to look up the course routing. That research shows this first selected shot was on the 417-yard par 4 fourth hole on the Pines Course at the Stockton Seaview Resort. Isn't the Internet great?
The course was opened in 1929 designed by Howard C Toomey and William S Flynn (later worked on by William Gordon - no relation) and 9 holes of it were used in conjunction with 9 holes on its sister course at Seaview, the Bay Course, for the 1942 PGA Championship. How great is it to be able to walk and play where some of the games greats like Sam Snead (who won the tournament for his first major championship)?
OK, here is the shot. I had a Wilson firestick driver, 9 degree loft, and I had love hate relationship with this club. I can't place the year but I would have to say late 80's perhaps early 90's. It was back when driver heads were not that much bigger than some of today's hybrids.
The hole is a sharp dogleg right around trees and a bunker then slightly downhill to the green. Just getting to the dogleg is normally the goal to have a shot at the green. On this day the ball came screaming off the clubface high with a power fade. The ball flew past the turn of the dogleg and almost as if on command faded to the middle of the fairway maybe only 100 yards from the green if I remember.
Unfortunately I did not take advantage to make birdie or even par as with my excitement and a very erratic game at that time I messed up the approach and had to work to make bogey. But it was a tee shot I won't forget.
2. Let's stay at Seaview but go across Rt. 9 to the Bay course. This is a 1914 design collaboration of Donald Ross and Hugh Wilson. Ross has many world renown designs and Wilson is probably best known for Merion, home of multiple USGA championships, most recently the US Open in 2013 won by Justin Rose.
This shot came just two years ago proving that I can still hit it pretty good from time to time. I was playing with my best friend and 40 years golf partner on this course which today is the site of the LPGA ShopRite Classic and a course the women love to come play year in and year out. Also as mentioned, 9 holes of it were used for the aforementioned 1942 PGA championship shared with 9 holes of the sister Pines course at Seaview.
We were on the 18th hole which is a par 5 of 505 yards from the back tees and depending on the wind direction the LPGA players will reach this green in two in favorable conditions. We're old guys (seniors) so we were playing the white tees set closer to the 464 yardage on the scorecard.
There was some wind but nothing particularly hurting or helping about it on this cool fall afternoon. I hit a really nice tee shot over the right side bunkers where the hole doglegs slightly to the right. When the wind is in their face the women pros don't mess with that shot. My ball was on the edge of the fairway and a bit outside of the 200 yard range to the middle of the green.
I pulled out a club to lay up because there are bunkers on both sides of the fairway short of the green that are pretty nasty and a mis hit would surely find that distance. I wanted to put my ball about 100 yards out for a nice approach to the green.
It was at that point my best friend and long time golf companion looked at me and asked, "What are you doing?" and I told him what I was thinking. Now it was probably 15 or 20 years ago I had once reached this green in two (three putted for par) but that was then and this is now. The bottom line is as my friend asked, "Did you come here to layup?" Sounds like something out of Tin Cup doesn't it? This was a casual recreational round not a tournament, but you get the idea.
Generally I am a go for it guy and while it occurred to me I had discounted it this day. I really didn't want to mess with those bunkers. But I changed clubs and pulled out the three wood. I use my 3-wood more off some tees today than off the fairway and when I was younger and the clubs were more suited for it, driver off the deck was a shot I had.
The wind was maybe across right to left a little, but not a factor overall. I set up for the shot aiming down the right side of the hole over one bunker complex knowing the ball would kick left when it landed. Here's the windup and the swing and the ball was as pretty a high draw as you've ever seen and when we got to the green there it was, pin high 20 feet from the hold.
I don't remember the first putt but the end result was a tap in birdie and it was a great finish to a round of golf on a wonderful old golf course.
3. Let's stay with the older golf courses and to Jeffersonville, PA, home of the Jefferson Golf Club designed by Donald Ross and opened in 1931 (redesign 2000 by Ron Pritchard). This is a typical old style track with long and short holes and a variety of par 3 holes that will test you to the limit. If you are thinking this is a hole in one story, sorry to disappoint as I have never had one.
I play in a Fall Classic Ryder Cup like event there each October. It is a two man team tournament run by the Philadelphia Public Links Golf Association where each team plays 6 holes of scramble followed by 6 holes of best ball and concluding with 6 holes of true alternate shot format.
If you aren't familiar with alternate shot, one player hits the drive then the other player hits the next shot and so on until the ball is holed. The test of this format is that if you hit a poor shot your partner has to do the dirty work of recovering from it and it can get pretty tense. It was in this format that I will do a combo of best shots on the 516 yard finishing hole.
The tee shot gives an option to hit to an open portion of fairway and a longer way to play the hole or gamble and flirt with a series of fairway bunkers. If you choose the latter and find sand it could insure you won't have a reasonable chance to hit your second shot to be in position for a wedge approach shot that is needed on a severely sloping small green.
This was just last year as I was playing it with you know who as my partner. We played OK that day except for two holes we messed up badly coming in on the alternate shot format. On 16 and 17 we had regained some good play and here we were on the tee at 18 playing for a good finish on this tough hole.
We had nothing to lose not playing well enough to win anything so I teed it up and picked a line and let it fly using my Taylor Made RBZ Stage 2 driver. You can't see the landing area taking the line I did so we didn't know that my ball landed and ended up almost perfect about 280 off the in the fairway. It had to get a favorable bounce because at 68 I don't hit it that far.
The team we were playing with took the safe route and they had to be 100 yards behind us. After they hit my partner wailed his 3 wood down there pretty good but it leaked just a hair right. Not bad but another challenge for your truly as there were some trees between the ball and the green which is set off to the right at the end of the hole.
The shot was maybe 80 yards so with a short club getting the ball up wouldn't be the problem. The problem would be the angle to this difficult green, forget the pin placement. Hitting to this green from almost any angle was a problem. So the issue was trying to keep the ball on the green. For Phil Mickleson flag hunting would be in the cards but Phil Mickleson I am not. Who is?
Have you ever hit a shot and think what your golf idol would have said about the greatness of it? Come on...admit it. You know you have. Do I need to tell you what happened after my wedge clipped the ball out of the light rough? It soared up over the trees without a problem and then the ball landed perfectly on the edge of the green above the hole cut close to the edge and trickled down toward the hole. Our playing companions saw it close up and they were more excited than we were as it almost went in. Bob tapped it in for the birdie and there were smiles all around.
4. For this next shot we'll go back to the mid 90's but closer to home at the Five Ponds Golf Club in Warminster, PA. Five Ponds is a 29 year old facility opened in 1987 and designed by Xenophon Hassenplug who also did the Skippack Golf Club in 1960. It is aptly named as the course is designed around...anyone...five ponds.
It is a combination of hilly terrain, some tree lined fairways, large undulating greens and of course the five ponds with some natural wetland areas. Owned by Warminster Township it is probably one of the most difficult and challenging public courses in the Bucks County area.
So let's jump to the 12th hole, a par five of 517 yards, 487 from the white tees. It features a tight fairway bordered by OB left and trees lining both sides of the fairway. Your tee shot has to carry a small stream crossing the hole before the fairway starts going back uphill toward the green. A pop up or a miss hit is likely to find it and a pushed drive to the right or a short slice is likely to find an environmentally protected wetland area. Get the picture?
Often I like to hit 3 wood off the tee for more control but it depends on conditions. This day I teed it up and hit driver and hit it pretty good but I put a tail on it. It passed the danger of the creek and the protected area but it rattled around in the trees on the right side. Now this hole isn't reachable in two for me so not being in the fairway probably wasn't a huge factor but the trees would make it challenging. What it meant was a low pitch out to hopefully find the fairway and that would mean having a longer, but not impossible, shot to the green.
The green is big but the right side is not visible from the fairway with a big bunker blocking the view looking up the hill to it. Guess where the flag was? On the right side of the green, but I was center of the fairway with the 150 marker a few yards behind my ball. I took out an 8 iron and struck it crisp and clean and then looked up.
Anybody see that? No answer.
Arriving at the green there was no ball where I thought one might be. It wasn't in the front bunker and not even off the edge of the green having hit and rolled a little. Well maybe it hit something and went long even as I knew there was no way I could've hit that 8 iron that far. It wasn't there either.
There was only one place left to look now and right there in the hole nestled to the metal flag stick at the bottom of the hole was my ball for an eagle 3. I've had seven eagles in my golfing life but this might have been the best one and I did it after driving my tee shot into the woods. Isn't golf a wonderfully screwy game?
5. As I said, I have never had a hole in one, but I have to include this shot in this grouping of best career shots. It came just two winters ago at Bella Vista. This is a 2002 Jim Blaukovitch design set in the rolling hills of Montgomery County in Gilbertsville, PA.
Two friends and I got a hot deal on GolfNow and we headed out on a fall Sunday afternoon for some golf. They had played the course before but I had not. For the record I really like it and lament that I have not made a trip back to play it again.
As we made our way around I was playing just OK, but of course being on a golf course is always a good time. It was mostly sunny but a little windy and cool, not to the uncomfortable stage however. Well here comes the island green which plays 152 yards from the back tee. We've already established that I'm an old guy and don't play the back tees.
It was damp from recent rain and a little on the windy side. I teed up from around 125 yards and hit a 9 iron that held into the wind and looked really good for a long time. But you know, golf really is a game of inches as shown below.
So there you have it. My best five shots. Hope you all have some as well.
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