TPC Signature: Issue 11

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publication

Reade Tilley

Matthew Squire

Robin Barwick

Matthew Halnan

m a n a g i n g e d i to r

a r t d i r e c to r

e d i to r

publisher

 group art director

Leon Harris junior designer

Kieron Deen Halnan founding contributor

Arnold Palmer special contributors

Cori Britt, Doc Giffin contributing photographers

Patrick Drickey, Dan Murphy / stonehousegolf.com, Getty Images, Meghan Glennon, Evan Schiller vp , operations

Joe Velotta head of advertising sales

Jon Edwards advertising sales

Deric Piper Dean Jacobson executive advisor

Carla Richards

special thanks & contributors

Keith Bank Corinne Bourdeau Yohan Cabaye Jason Connery Tony Dear Marci Doyle Steve Ethun Penny Fray Victor Gallegos Aurélie Grospiron Helen Heady Kendal Hurley Brandon Johnson Steven Killick Ryan Klatt Thad Layton Katie McCormick Lelyveld Davis Love III Jason Miller Lisa O’Doherty Ryan O’Dowd Ginny Sanderlin Dave Shedloski Art Spander Carla Uzel Dr. Craig Venter Visit Wales Steve Worthy

© 2017 TMC USA llc. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. The articles appearing within this publication reflect the opinion of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the publisher. The contents of advertisements and advertorials are entirely the responsibilty of advertisers. No responsibility is taken for unsolicited submissions and manuscripts.

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17th hole during the THE PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass

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tpc foreword

T

Spring

he 2016-2017 PGA TOUR season is off to a fantastic start for the PGA TOUR and TPC Network. After November saw Rod Pampling take the crown in the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin, the 2017 TPC-hosted run started with another record-breaking crowd at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February, which saw Hideki Matsuyama defeat Webb Simpson in a playoff to defend his title for back-to-back WMPO championships.

The new year also welcomed the return of the newlyrenovated PLAYERS Stadium Couse at TPC Sawgrass, which reopened in November after a seven-month facelift to several areas on property. Immediately following the 2016 PLAYERS Championship, the club underwent significant changes including extensive work to the practice facility; resurfacing the greens with Tifeagle Bermudagrass; adding a lake between holes 6 and 7; and redesigning the 12th hole into a drivable par 4. The main drive into the clubhouse was also realigned to provide a more dramatic approach to the clubhouse and a new fan entry was created for use during THE PLAYERS. In May 2017 immediately following the tournament, we will also unveil the new state-of-the-art PGA TOUR’s Performance Center, led by renowned golf instructor Todd Anderson.

Major capital improvement projects were announced at other TPC properties in 2016 as well. TPC Sugarloaf, host of PGA TOUR Champions’ Mitsubishi Electric Classic, announced a three-year renovation project covering the golf course, sports center and clubhouse. TPC River Highlands announced construction plans at TPC River Highlands for a new 32,000 sq. ft. clubhouse to replace the existing 13,000 sq. ft. facility at the club. We are also excited about the

restoration of The Old White TPC at The Greenbrier, which will again host The Greenbrier Classic after the 2016 event was cancelled due to devastating flooding.

As we await spring, it’s certainly a busy and exciting time of year for the TPC Network, as we host events at three of our properties in consecutive weeks. Be sure to tune in for the PGA TOUR Champions’ Mitsubishi Electric Classic at TPC Sugarloaf (April 13-16), the Valero Texas Open at TPC San Antonio (April 20-23), and the Zurich Classic of New Orleans (April 27-30), which will debut a new team format featuring two rounds each of Foursome and Four-Ball competition. Two weeks later, TPC Sawgrass will play host to THE PLAYERS Championship, where Jason Day will try to defend his title on the newly-renovated Stadium Course. Take a peek inside for our PLAYERS preview and learn more about how the changes might affect how the pros play.

As you gear up for golf season, the TPC Network invites you to experience golf at the highest level. Whether by attending or tuning in to one of the many tournaments we host, or by enjoying a PGA TOUR-approved round of golf at one of our 33 properties, spring looks to be the season of more good golf, and we look forward to having you be a part of it.

Ron Price

Chief Operating Officer PGA TOUR

SPRING 2017

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Editor’s Letter

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

—T. S. Eliot T:10.875”

B:11.125”

S:10.125”

I

look forward to being amazed every day—the world is full of wonders, after all—but I’m less thrilled when my amazement comes from disappointed puzzlement.

A visit this year to Health Nucleus in San Diego was curious, then, as it left me both thrilled and confused. Under the guidance of genomics expert Dr. Craig Venter, the firm is using the human genome to predict potential health issues for patients, and its proactive screenings are finding cancers and other actionable issues in these patients that can then be remedied before the concerns become serious problems.

For centuries medicine has been reactive: something hurts, you go to the doctor. But this has been because we lacked the technology to do it any other way, really. Now, with the ability to catch Stage 0 and Stage 1 cancers, for example, you’d think the medical community would be rushing to embrace Venter’s technology. But it’s not. Is it because the industry’s compensation is based on treating problems, not preventing them? Is it a short-sighted notion of “why test a ‘healthy’ person?” Is it ye olde wurld skepticism of new things, a simple fear of the unknown? I’ll leave it to smarter minds like Venter’s to understand why opposition exists and just offer that, from where I’m sitting, this is the future of medicine. Anyone who’s able to should visit Health Nucleus and avail themselves of the most comprehensive picture of their health possible. Knowledge is power, and what you don’t know really could kill you. Find out more on p146.

Other visionaries who encountered resistance to change include Preston Tucker and his amazing Tucker 48 automobile. Read more about it and other lost cars on p108.

In the case of films about golf, over more than a century there have been precious few—and even fewer good ones.

Thank goodness, then, for Tommy’s Honour, a new movie about Toms Morris that might be the best golf film ever made, and the most important (p38). A good life is one well enjoyed, and the difficult Pinot Noir grape helps with that (p48) as does the French region of Provence, setting some of the greatest tables on earth as well as offering epic golf at Terre Blanche Resort & Spa (p100).

Finally, considering life and living, I cannot end this letter without mentioning that I am still heartbroken at the loss of Arnold Palmer, even as I remain driven by his example and inspired by his ability to maximize each day.

Here’s hoping that each of us can positively affect even a single person the way Mr. Palmer impacted the world.

Working on that, and thankful for all of you, I remain,

Reade Tilley

SPRING 2017

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Publisher’s Foreword

Generation game

H

aving spent the winter in northern climes I am ashamed to say my last game of golf was well over a month ago. Happily though, that round was at Bay Hill during a business trip south, and I have to praise the ground staff and design team as—in January—I reveled in playing the course in the best condition I have ever seen it.

I am sure everyone in Orlando is looking forward to the upcoming Arnold Palmer Invitational. It is certain to be an emotional occasion, and also a vivid reminder to all Arnold Palmer fans that the professional game he gave so much to is evolving impressively, much like Bay Hill’s championship course.

Another course in absolutely fantastic condition is TPC Sawgrass and I encourage you to read about the changes and course improvements in our preview of THE PLAYERS on page 24.

What is wonderful about the TPC NETWORK is that you can so easily get to play the courses you have watched the PGA TOUR pros play. I can’t serve on Center Court at Wimbledon or play catch at Wrigley Field any time soon, but I have played with friends, clients and my family on many of the TPC courses.

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It is particularly pleasing to see how the TPC Network welcomes women. More women playing means more couples playing together, and more couples playing means more families playing. That means golf is being handed down to the next generation and this is key if golf is going to grow. I am encouraged by the number of under-18s I see playing the game as well—male and female—but we need more. All of us who are involved in golf in different ways share a responsibility to introduce and to welcome youngsters into our clubs.

My father introduced me to the game and, as he turns 80, please indulge me as I would like to thank him for that and wish him a Happy Birthday—shoot your age Pa.

Matthew Squire

A lavish life of A lavish life here of leisure starts leisure starts here N AT I O N A L M E M B E R S H I P S AVA I L A B L E O C A LN A AT , F LI O DL A — OB RE SE A PI IPTA L O FI L TA HB E LWEO R L D ORNIA M EHM R SC H S AVA O C A L A , F L O R I D A —a dHeO R S E C A P I TA L O F T H E W O R L D naclub.com adenaclub.com

Contents

Issue 11 Spring 2017

38 48 60 68 74 82 88 100

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TPC Sawgrass

Big Easy

Renovated, refreshed and ready to host the greatest PLAYERS ever

TPC New Orleans serves up great golf, great food, and a reformatted top tournament

Across the drawbridge Getting Medieval with historic castles and golf

Perspective If cinema is a reflection of culture, Tommy’s Honour gives golf hope Crazy Beautiful Pinot Noir owns the stage on California’s Central Coast An Oscar-winning golfer Laughing around the links with Bob Hope Vaunted Cellars Great golf and great wine pair well True Love Davis Love III on golf and life All in a day’s work One of our own plays Augusta—and the office is jealous No. 17 Our fantasy course continues with fantastic 17th holes Provence Life just works in France’s richest of regions

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Contents

Issue 11 Spring 2017

115

132

150

Must-plays

North Carolina

Spring Chill

Jaw-dropping selections from the incredible TPC Network of great courses

From the coast to the mountains, some of the South’s best golf

Cool fashions and accessories to put a little spring in your step

108 123 138 142 146 154 158 160 162

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Down the Road Long-gone auto marques and wondering what might have been Spring Flings A gift guide of renewed possibilities The fabric of golf The beautiful marriage of Rolex and golf Private Courses As exclusive as can be, these backyard tracks go beyond “club” Health Nucleus The cutting edge of health care is available today Bubbling Spring Uplifting Champagne cocktails Palmer Cup Another enduring part of Arnie’s legacy APDC Catching up with the top design firm in golf Last Page Ketel One’s tribute to the King

SPRING 2017

C LUB S EL ECTION I S EVERY TH I NG

TPC Sawgrass

TPC Sugarloaf

TPC Las Vegas

TPC Kuala Lumpur

LOOKING FOR THE BEST IN GOLF? LOOK FOR TPC.® From the deserts of Arizona, to the beaches of Puerto Rico, only 33 golf courses exceed the expectations of the PGA TOUR. For the ultimate golf experience, join the TPC Network.

Play with the confidence of a champion. Play TPC.

TEE TIMES

VACATIONS

Visit TPC.COM

MEMBERSHIPS

It’s a good day for golf.

ISSUE #4

SPRING 2017

LOCKER ROOM TALK WO M E N WHO COV E R SPORTS

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Sawgrass Revisited One of the best courses on the PGA TOUR has just gotten better. THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, Home of THE PLAYERS Championship, underwent major renovations in advance of the 2017 event. It’s still the same, world-class golf course, but it might just be even more exciting than before.

Dave Shedloski reports

6th hole at TPC Sawgrass

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ason Day, recently the No. 1 player in the world, hadn’t seen the changes to the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course since it was renovated after the 2016 PLAYERS Championship, but he liked what he was hearing about the myriad upgrades and alterations to the iconic Pete Dye-designed course.

Not that he had many complaints in the first place. Day won THE PLAYERS in wire-to-wire fashion last year, opening with an eye-popping 63 and finishing four strokes ahead of Kevin Chappell with a final-round 71 and 15-under, 273 total.

“When you’re lining up all the tournaments that you want to win, THE PLAYERS is one of the top ones because of the field and the fact that it’s the PGA TOUR’s main event,” said Day, 28, a native of Australia who now lives in Columbus, Ohio. “That was a very special win for me. Now the goal is to win it again. I’m not sure if anyone has ever won it back to back.”

He’s right. No one has won two in a row and Day, whose victory marked his 10th career title, became just the third man to win THE PLAYERS while ranked No. 1 in the world, joining fellow Aussie Greg Norman (1994) and Tiger Woods (2001). Thus, a victory this year would establish a couple of firsts.

Whoever wins will be the first champion on a refurbished and redesigned layout.

Reopened in November to rave reviews, the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass underwent a series of changes to bring it up to date, improve its conditioning and make it even more exciting for players and fans. It was one of the last major projects under Tim Finchem, who after an incomparable 22 years as PGA TOUR commissioner stepped down at the end of 2016 to make way for Jay Monahan.

“It was an interesting process,” Finchem said. “We brought in land planners three years ago and they were able to shine a bright light on a lot of things we should do. We had long ago upgraded the clubhouse and we felt we needed to do the same thing to the golf course. By and large it’s the same golf course, but it’s a lot better than it was a year ago.”

All of the greens were resurfaced with TifEagle Bermuda grass, a significant upgrade from the Miniverde strain. The contours on seven greens also were modified to better handle wear and to increase the number of available pin positions. The 6th, 7th and 12th holes were modified significantly, with the last of those being converted to a drivable par-4, shortened from 360 yards to just 302. The large mound in the left portion of the fairway that created a blind second shot has been removed on the dogleg-left hole and a pond has been added to that side of the reshaped green.

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The 12th [above] is now a driveable par-4; Jason Day [right] opened with a 63 in THE PLAYERS Championship in 2017 and couldn’t be caught

“The 12th is going to be exciting, and the changes at the 6th and 7th make very good holes even better,” Finchem said.

Mounding that separated the left side of the two par-4 holes has been removed, and a new water hazard has been added in its place. Spectator viewing has been improved there and in other locations throughout the golf course.

The grass in the rough also has been redone throughout the course.

A tree removal program also was initiated, albeit this wasn’t part of the plan. Hurricane Matthew, which swept through Florida in October bringing winds of nearly 90 mph, was responsible for taking out 203 trees on the Stadium Course (and another 124 on Dye’s Valley Course, the practice area and around the clubhouse). The most visible loss was the large Oak downed to the left of the second tee, which could not be replaced. It’s the only loss which could possibly impact the strategy on the golf course.

One hole that remains unchanged is the iconic par-3 17th. It’s difficult to improve on that masterpiece, having been the venue for so much drama each and every year.

The practice facility also received a significant facelift and was expanded by 30 percent, Finchem said, with a larger hitting area on the professionals’ back tee and a redesign of the landing areas that includes the addition of pitching targets. Furthermore, a building on the back end was converted into a player lounge, complete with a trellis patio with seating.The entire course was last renovated in 2006 after the tournament was moved from March to May. A potential change to the schedule could bring THE PLAYERS

The 12th is going to be exciting, and changes at the 6th and 7th are fantastic back to March in 2019 but for now it retains its May slot, with the tournament days this year slated for May 9-14. This year’s edition, ending on Mothers’ Day, will be the 44th for the tournament and the 36th at the Stadium Course.

“I can’t wait to see the changes,” Day said. “I had heard that the 12th hole is supposed to be a drivable par 4, so that’s different, but overall I don’t think the strategy of playing the golf course is going to change a whole lot. I followed a very good game plan last year and Col [caddie Colin Swatton] and I know that it worked out well and we shouldn’t mess with that.”

156 shuffle The PLAYERS, the flagship event of the PGA TOUR, traditionally features the strongest field in golf, which explains why it is so hard for anyone to win consecutive titles. So many in the field of 156 are capable of winning that the exercise of singling out favorites seems futile. However, some educated guesses can be made.

After Day, of course, start with Justin Thomas, who finished tied for third with Matt Kuchar behind Day and

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Chappell last year. Thomas, 23, enjoyed a fast start to his season, winning three TOUR titles in the span of four starts, including victories in both Hawaii events, the SBS Tournament of Champions and the Sony Open in Hawaii.

In the latter, Thomas opened with an 11-under 59, becoming the seventh man—and the youngest—to shoot sub-60 on the PGA TOUR. He finished with a 27-under 253 aggregate score, setting a TOUR record for 72 holes.

Hideki Matsuyama might be the hottest player in the world as of this writing. The Japanese star, 25, won his fifth event in nine worldwide starts when he outlasted Webb Simpson over four playoff holes to successfully defend his title at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. The surge moved Matsuyama into the top five in the world rankings.

Furthermore, his record at THE PLAYERS is solid, with three top-25 finishes, including a tie for seventh last year.

Don’t be surprised if Sergio Garcia makes another run at the title. The 2008 winner captured his 12th European Tour title in early February in wire-to-wire fashion at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic with a strong ball-striking display, which always has been his forte. Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson, who also have wins at TPC Sawgrass, might also figure in the proceedings this year after showing good early-season form. Stenson is the reigning champion of The [British] Open after a record-setting performance at Royal Troon. The previously mentioned Kuchar obviously

enjoys Sawgrass, too, having won the 2012 title among five top-20 finishes.

Olympic Gold Medal winner Justin Rose is another fine ball-striker with the tools to navigate the challenging layout, while Jordan Spieth is back to winning ways—having won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February—and a confidant Spieth is always a threat. If he’s healthy, FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy is always dangerous. However, the four-time major champion suffered a rib injury early in the year and was forced to take a six-week break.

Of course, one never knows if a capable but less heralded player like Pat Perez or Brendan Steele—who have shown early promise in 2017—emerges with the title, or how about the resurgent Charles Howell III? One thing you can always count on at TPC Sawgrass’ PLAYERS Stadium Course is that whoever wins will have earned the title.

While top players are favored to win, there’s always the chance for a big surprise The new 7th [above] and Hideki Matsuyama [left]is on the shortlist to contend at TPC Sawgrass in 2017

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Big Easy

TPC Louisiana

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SPRING 2017

Since long before South African golfer and former world No.1 Ernie Els was nicknamed “The Big Easy,” the name has belonged to the City of New Orleans. There are a few theories on why— the cost of living, the town’s friendliness to musicians, a gossip column and a crime novel all vie for credit—but we’re thinking it’s because of TPC Louisiana and the ease of finding great golf so near to one of the world’s top destinations. This year, the action will be even easier to find when the club hosts the PGA TOUR’s retooled Zurich Classic of New Orleans, which is introducing a two-man team format for the first time in the tournament’s history. Big names, big excitement and big hospitality at TPC Louisiana. Big easy

W

“We’re really excited about it—the buzz among the players and the media has been incredible,” says Steve Worthy, CEO of Fore!Kids Foundation, which produces the Zurich Classic. “When we announced the new format in November 2016, there was suddenly all of this discussion about our tournament six months out. That hadn’t happened before and we’re pretty gratified about that. Since then, talking with players and agents on the putting green and the range, there are a lot of fun conversations happening. I think the guys are embracing it.”

Two teams that embraced the new format almost immediately were those of recent World No.1 Jason Day playing with Rickie Fowler and 2015 Zurich Classic champ Justin Rose playing with Henrik Stenson, putting the Olympic Gold and Silver medalists (respectively) together this April in New Orleans.

“After every tournament we talk about what we can do better, how can we improve it,” says Worthy. “The two-man team format is an idea that came out, and we were excited about it and happy to take it on and give it a shot.”

Fore!Kids has been using golf events to raise money for children’s charities in the New Orleans area since 1958,

and the Zurich Classic is a big part of that. Worthy says that over the last four years the tournament has averaged roughly $2.1 million raised and given to a number of groups, all of which do great work for kids (see sidebar: Fore!Kids).

Over the years, the total raised by the Foundation is nearly $32 million, providing education, healthcare and hope to more than 200,000 children in the region.

“Our people work hard,” Worthy says, “but they know it’s having an impact on the city.”

Indeed. Zurich Insurance Group, Ltd., an insurancebased global financial services provider, has been the tournament’s title sponsor since 2005 (the first year TPC Louisiana hosted the Zurich Classic). With Zurich’s commitment, the tournament sees an economic impact of more than $40 million annually to the New Orleans area, making it much more than just one of golf’s greatest parties—though it is that as well, thanks in part to the Champions Club. The hospitality area on the 18th fairway serves up menu items from some of the Crescent City’s finest eateries, places like Drago’s, Arnaud’s, Galatoire’s 33 Bar & Steak, Ruth’s Chris and more.

“It’s not just some of the best food in New Orleans, it’s the best food in New Orleans,” says Ryan O’Dowd, Director of Business Development at TPC Louisiana. “It’s air conditioned, you go in there and it’s probably like a six-, seven- or eight-course meal, a little bit of everything from the city’s best. Some of the people in there don’t even have a clue what’s going on on the golf course. They’re just enjoying it all.”

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The restaurants are in the city year-round of course, and while the tournament takes place in April, TPC Louisiana offers great golf all year long as well—with the occasional interruption from the weather.

“We don’t over-seed, and that’s definitely a conscious decision for play,” says TPC Louisiana General Manager Luke Farabaugh. “We create firmer and faster conditions for the TOUR players. They want the facility to be firm and fast, and if we’re not getting a lot of rain then the course drains really well to produce those conditions.”

S

Since it opened in 2004, the Pete Dye design here has been lauded as one of the country’s “Best Upscale Public Golf Courses” by Golf Digest, and there are a number of pros who love it for its emphasis on strategy. Part of that emphasis is down to topography, as Farabaugh explained to us during a visit in 2014: “It’s basically flat out here, so Mr. Dye had to get creative,” he said. “The result is that you might have one hole where you have to hit a draw off the tee, and the second shot might be a fade. On the next hole he’ll switch it up, so there are a lot of places where you really have to be able to shape your shot to put yourself in the best position.”

New Orleans native Kelly Gibson, who played on both the PGA TOUR and Web.com Tour and who was a consultant on TPC Louisiana’s design, added to that: “Oh yeah, it’s a low-profile course; there’s only four feet of elevation change on the whole property,” he said. “So the challenge is meeting the environment and making sure you have something that can be managed agronomically, something that’s built for the average amateur plus that will challenge pros once a year.

Despite the lack of dramatic elevation changes, the course poses a serious strategic test for golfers at every level 32

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New Format Two-man teams play two rounds each of Foursome and Four-Ball competition. Rounds one and three will be Foursomes (alternate shot) while rounds two and four will be Four-Ball (best ball). The starting field will consist of 80 teams (160 players). Each of the top available players from the PGA TOUR Priority Rankings who commits to the tournament will choose his partner, who in turn must have PGA TOUR status unless he is chosen as a tournament sponsor exemption.

Following the conclusion of the second round, there will be a cut to the low 35 teams and ties at the 35th position.

In case of a tie after 72 holes, there will be a sudden-death playoff using the Four-Ball format.

The course sits eight feet below sea level, which impacts distance

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“I recall one of the things I enjoyed about [playing in the Zurich Classic] was that I used all 14 clubs in my bag,” he said. “There are six easy holes, six medium ones and six very difficult holes. You don’t have to hit driver off every tee; you can hit a 2-iron or a 3-wood.”

A sand wedge comes in handy as well: there are 103 sand bunkers here, 62 of which are pot bunkers. Also, some of the bunkers are huge, like the one on Hole 15, which measures 150 yards long and holds six small turf islands.

The course plays a little longer due to the altitude (or lack thereof—it sits eight feet below sea level) and if that and the bunkers and wind aren’t enough of a challenge then the wildlife might give you pause. Alligators here are common enough that at least one has been named: “Tripod,” due to a missing leg.

P

Part of the course’s challenge was mitigated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which struck in 2005, not long after TPC Louisiana had opened. In addition to cutting a 180-mile-wide path of destruction across the Gulf Coast, taking homes and more than 1,800 lives, the storm also devastated local courses, including TPC Louisiana, which lost nearly 3,000 trees and which was shut for nearly a year for repairs. The loss of the trees opened up all kinds of lines from the tee, and pros and long hitters took advantage. It was such an issue that the team at TPC Louisiana had to plant nearly 500 new trees in strategic locations to bring back the original challenge.

Today, those trees have grown and Farabaugh says the course is in great shape.

“You can’t even tell,” he says. “Those trees are pretty well established now and they blend right in.”

Beyond tending to the grounds, ensuring conditions are firm and fast, and preparing new tournament service areas, Farabaugh says it’s been business as usual—which means exceptional golf just 15 miles from Bourbon Street.

“There’s no question that New Orleans is a great hospitality town, and there’s no question that Zurich has an outstanding venue for its visitors. Fore!Kids has been recognized many times by the PGA TOUR for the great work they do, and with the Champions Club and the other hospitality areas this is a great tournament and a great place for golf.” TPC Louisiana—what could be easier.

To learn more, visit tpc.com/louisiana

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Fore!Kids Just a few of the outstanding organizations that benefit from the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and Fore!Kids Foundation: • St. Michael Special School • Children’s Hospital • Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Baton Rouge • New Orleans Salvation Army • Operation Smile • CASA New Orleans • Lighthouse Louisiana To learn more visit zurichgolfclassic.com

w h at

Zurich Classic of New Orleans when

April 24-30 where

TPC Louisiana more:

zurichgolfclassic.com

There are 103 bunkers on course, 62 of which are pot bunkers

ASK YOUR DOCTOR if Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) may help you manage your overactive bladder (OAB) symptoms of urgency, frequency, and leakage If you’re dealing with urges, frequency, and leaks on your own, or if you have ever taken an OAB medicine and stopped, ask your doctor if Myrbetriq may be an appropriate treatment option for you.

Are bladder symptoms affecting you?

Myrbetriq ® (mirabegron) is approved by the FDA to treat OAB symptoms of: Urgency

Frequency

TAKING CHARGE OF YOUR OAB SYMPTOMS STARTS WITH TALKING TO YOUR DOCTOR

Leakage

Visit MyBossyBladder.com for doctor discussion tips.

Ask your doctor if Myrbetriq may be right for you.

In clinical trials, those taking Myrbetriq made fewer trips to the bathroom and had fewer leaks than those not taking Myrbetriq. Your results may vary.

USE OF MYRBETRIQ Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) is a prescription medicine for adults used to treat overactive bladder (OAB) with symptoms of urgency, frequency and leakage.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION Myrbetriq is not for everyone. Do not use Myrbetriq if you have an allergy to mirabegron or any ingredients in Myrbetriq. Myrbetriq may cause your blood pressure to increase or make your blood pressure worse if you have a history of high blood pressure. It is recommended that your doctor check your blood pressure while you are taking Myrbetriq. Myrbetriq may increase your chances of not being able to empty your bladder. Tell your doctor right away if you have trouble emptying your bladder or you have a weak urine stream.

Myrbetriq may cause allergic reactions that may be serious. If you experience swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue, with or without difficulty breathing, stop taking Myrbetriq and tell your doctor right away.

Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take including medications for overactive bladder or other medicines such as thioridazine (Mellaril™ and Mellaril-S™), flecainide (Tambocor®), propafenone (Rythmol®), digoxin (Lanoxin®). Myrbetriq may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how Myrbetriq works.

Before taking Myrbetriq, tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney problems. The most common side effects of Myrbetriq include increased blood pressure, common cold symptoms (nasopharyngitis), urinary tract infection, constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, and headache.

For further information, please talk to your healthcare professional and see Brief Summary of Prescribing Information for Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) on the following page.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Myrbetriq is a registered trademark of Astellas Pharma Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2016 Astellas Pharma US, Inc.

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Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) extended-release tablets 25 mg, 50 mg Brief Summary based on FDA-approved patient labeling Read the Patient Information that comes with Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) before you start taking it and each time you get a refill. There may be new information. This summary does not take the place of talking with your doctor about your medical condition or treatment.

What is Myrbetriq (meer-BEH-trick)?

Myrbetriq is a prescription medication for adults used to treat the following symptoms due to a condition called overactive bladder: • urge urinary incontinence: a strong need to urinate with leaking or wetting accidents • urgency: a strong need to urinate right away • frequency: urinating often It is not known if Myrbetriq is safe and effective in children.

Who should not use Myrbetriq?

Do not use Myrbetriq if you have an allergy to mirabegron or any of the ingredients in Myrbetriq. See the end of this leaflet for a complete list of ingredients in Myrbetriq.

What is overactive bladder?

Overactive bladder occurs when you cannot control your bladder contractions. When these muscle contractions happen too often or cannot be controlled, you can get symptoms of overactive bladder, which are urinary frequency, urinary urgency, and urinary incontinence (leakage).

What should I tell my doctor before taking Myrbetriq?

Before you take Myrbetriq, tell your doctor if you: • have liver problems or kidney problems • have very high uncontrolled blood pressure • have trouble emptying your bladder or you have a weak urine stream • are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if Myrbetriq will harm your unborn baby. Talk to your doctor if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

• are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. It is not known if Myrbetriq passes into your breast milk. You and your doctor should decide if you will take Myrbetriq or breastfeed. You should not do both.

Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, including prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Myrbetriq may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how Myrbetriq works.

Tell your doctor if you take: • thioridazine (Mellaril™ or Mellaril-S™) • flecainide (Tambocor®) • propafenone (Rythmol®) • digoxin (Lanoxin®) How should I take Myrbetriq?

• Take Myrbetriq exactly as your doctor tells you to take it.

• You should take 1 Myrbetriq tablet 1 time a day.

• You should take Myrbetriq with water and swallow the tablet whole.

• Do not crush or chew the tablet.

• You can take Myrbetriq with or without food.

• If you miss a dose of Myrbetriq, begin taking Myrbetriq again the next day. Do not take 2 doses of Myrbetriq the same day.

• If you take too much Myrbetriq, call your doctor or go to the nearest hospital emergency room right away.

What are the possible side effects of Myrbetriq?

Myrbetriq may cause serious side effects including: • increased blood pressure. Myrbetriq may cause your blood pressure to increase or make your blood pressure worse if you have a history of high blood pressure. It is recommended that your doctor check your blood pressure while you are taking Myrbetriq.

• inability to empty your bladder (urinary retention). Myrbetriq may increase your chances of not being able to empty your bladder if you have bladder outlet obstruction or if you are taking other medicines to treat overactive bladder. Tell your doctor right away if you are unable to empty your bladder.

• angioedema. Myrbetriq may cause an allergic reaction with swelling of the lips, face, tongue, throat with or without difficulty breathing.

Stop using Myrbetriq and tell your doctor right away.

The most common side effects of Myrbetriq include: • increased blood pressure • common cold symptoms (nasopharyngitis) • urinary tract infection • constipation • diarrhea • dizziness • headache Tell your doctor if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away or if you have swelling of the face, lips, tongue, or throat, hives, skin rash or itching while taking Myrbetriq.

These are not all the possible side effects of Myrbetriq.

For more information, ask your doctor or pharmacist.

Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

How should I store Myrbetriq?

• Store Myrbetriq between 59°F to 86°F (15°C to 30°C). Keep the bottle closed.

• Safely throw away medicine that is out of date or no longer needed.

Keep Myrbetriq and all medicines out of the reach of children.

General information about the safe and effective use of Myrbetriq Medicines are sometimes prescribed for purposes other than those listed in the Patient Information leaflet. Do not use Myrbetriq for a condition for which it was not prescribed. Do not give Myrbetriq to other people, even if they have the same symptoms you have. It may harm them.

Where can I go for more information?

This is a summary of the most important information about Myrbetriq.

If you would like more information, talk with your doctor. You can ask your doctor or pharmacist for information about Myrbetriq that is written for health professionals.

For more information, visit www.Myrbetriq.com or call (800) 727-7003.

What are the ingredients in Myrbetriq?

Active ingredient: mirabegron Inactive ingredients: polyethylene oxide, polyethylene glycol, hydroxypropyl cellulose, butylated hydroxytoluene, magnesium stearate, hypromellose, yellow ferric oxide and red ferric oxide (25 mg Myrbetriq tablet only).

Rx Only PRODUCT OF JAPAN OR IRELAND – See bottle label or blister package for origin Marketed and Distributed by: Astellas Pharma US, Inc. Northbrook, Illinois 60062

Myrbetriq® is a registered trademark of Astellas Pharma Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2016 Astellas Pharma US, Inc. Revised: August 2016 16A006-MIR-BRFS 057-1331-PM

Perspective

Old Tom Morris on the first hole of the Old Course, St Andrews

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SPRING 2017

Why golf movies matter, and why Tommy’s Honour might be the best one ever made In the winter of 1895, Louis and Auguste Lumière set up their new movie machine, a cinematograph of their own design, and made history. The brothers’ compilation of short scenes from everyday French life, shown to a paying audience in a Parisian café three days after Christmas, marked the debut of commercial cinema, as it was the first film ever shown for money.

In Scotland some months earlier, over two nights at the St Andrews Town Hall, another dramatic debut of sorts took place when Old Tom Morris, then 74 and still Keeper of the Green at golf’s ancestral home, appeared in his first, and likely his only, theater production. Standing on stage in front of a backdrop painted to resemble a links course, Morris played himself in a three-scene show that concluded with him missing a short putt to lose a match to a man in a scarlet jacket, presumably like those of the St Andrews membership.

Recounted in 1907’s The Life of Tom Morris, it was an ignoble role for the man who, with his son Tommy, had done so much for golf and who had one of the most compelling personal stories ever told—if not seen, exactly. Not until now, that is.

Tommy’s Honour is a new film about the Toms Morris, and if you read no further know that this magazine considers it a “must watch” for any fan of the game. Based on the 2007 book by Kevin Cook, Tommy’s Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris (Cook also wrote the screenplay with wife Pamela Marin), the movie was shot last year and sees its international release this spring. It’s a good golf film, perhaps the best, and good golf films are hard to make. They must be, considering there are so few. More than that, the film is important, and here’s why:

SPRING 2017

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.

ON SCREEN

Between the birth of commercial cinema in 1895 and this year’s release of Tommy’s Honour, Wikipedia counts just 37 golf films (and that includes a Woody Woodpecker cartoon).

Wikipedia missed 2014’s Seve the Movie and a few others, but compare it to the site’s 39 films about chess, 46 about hockey and 266 about boxing, and you’re left wondering how many foursomes meet each week for a Sunday punch-up. It’s even more astounding considering that golf has its own network, the Golf Channel, which reaches more than 200 million homes in 84 countries and 11 languages. And yet 37 films in 122 years.

In a 1985 essay “Cinema & Culture,” University of Iowa professor Dudley Andrew wrote, “as satisfying as is the metaphor of movie screen as cultural mirror, the power of the camera to set the scene of culture is a power much stronger than that of mere reflection. The cinema literally contributes to a culture’s self-image, inflecting, not just capturing, daily experience.”

Applied to the culture of a game currently experiencing a decline, one might take this to mean that we could use a few more good golf movies. Let’s see what we’ve had so far: Golf has played memorable bit parts (The Thomas Crown Affair, Goldfinger), it has been a supporting cast member (Pat & Mike, Banning) and it has been the star of the show (The Greatest Game Ever Played). It was a popular subject in the early 20th century, appearing in silent movies like the simply titled Golf in 1922, from Oliver Hardy of Laurel & Hardy fame, and Spring Fever in 1927, based on a 1925 musical and featuring a young Joan Crawford. The sport had a good run in 1930, a year that saw The Golf Specialist (W.C. Fields’ first “talkie”); Part Time Wife (in which a golf-mad woman leaves her husband at home); Love in the Rough, a talking version of Spring Fever; and Follow Thru, one of the first movies filmed entirely in Technicolor.

Golf on screen tends to succeed when it’s funny, evident in early films by The Three Stooges (Three Little Beers, 1935) and Our Gang (The Divot Diggers, 1936) and in modern films like Caddyshack (1980) and Happy Gilmore (1996). It also works when dressed as romantic comedy, as it was in many of the early productions and later in the 1996 Kevin Costner/ Rene Russo film Tin Cup. And then there are the golf films that defy explanation (see sidebar: When Golf Gets Weird).

But it’s when things get serious that golf films tend to falter, when they get biographical or philosophical, and this is a shame because such projects often are founded in a real love for the game. Films like 2004’s Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, which Roger Ebert dubbed the “kind of movie you’re not surprised was financed by The Bobby Jones Film Company.” Or 2011’s From the Rough, which used too light a touch to tell the astounding story of Catana Sparks, the first woman ever to coach a college men’s golf team.

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SPRING 2017

.

Follow the Sun did better with Ben Hogan in 1951, but the film avoided some complex but important points of accuracy.

On the philosophical side, Golf in the Kingdom and The Legend of Bagger Vance were based on novels that drew heavily from Eastern traditions, while films like Seven Days in Utopia and Birdie & Bogey followed Christian narratives to convey the more reflective “teaching” aspects of the game; but these and others of their kind rarely have worked, at least as far as we’re concerned.

And this brings us to Tommy’s Honour.

“What else can we do on Sunday?” asks Steve McQueen’s Thomas Crown, while Sean Connery’s James Bond stares down Goldfinger on course below

.

THE FILM

For anyone familiar with the story of the Morris father and son—Tom and Tommy, respectively—their importance to golf is undeniable. Old Tom, the greenskeeper and head pro at St Andrews from 1865 to 1903, was instrumental in founding The [British] Open and remains its oldest winner, taking the last of his four titles at the age of 46. The younger took four Open titles as well—consecutively. He’s still the only person to manage that, and still the youngest Open champ ever, at 17. Tom was also a lauded course designer, responsible for the now-iconic tracks at Prestwick, Muirfield, Machrihanish and others, and for innovations like top-dressing greens with sand to help with turf growth and with pushing club and ball design. Tommy was a kind of golf prodigy who effectively invented wedge shots and backspin, pushed for appearance fees and so much more. Off course,

.

their lives (tragically short, in Tommy’s case) were the stuff of great drama, and the trouble with great drama is that what’s compelling in real life and on the page can manifest as farcical on the stage or screen. Given the melodrama inherent in the Morris family’s story, especially in Young Tom’s, and the breadth of the two men’s achievements in golf, this film could have been a fantastic mess. How happy were we, then, when it turned out to be just fantastic.

Much of the credit for that goes to director Jason Connery, who carefully steered the film past clichés that many, even subconsciously, might be expecting.

“You’ll notice there are no bagpipes, there are no sort of ‘oh laddie boy’ characters or dialog,” says Connery, speaking from his home in upstate New York. “Believe me, I had a number of fights with various people about, no, we’re not going to do heather in sunset swirling along in the wind, we’re not going to have a shot of the flag billowing. The beauty is in the background; if people notice it, then great.”

Rather, the characters are front and center, starting with Peter Mullan as the elder Morris and Jack Lowden as his son, and including Ophelia Lovibond as Young Tom’s wife and Sam Neill as St Andrews chief Alexander Boothby. All turn in solid performances supported by appropriate hair, makeup, costumes and set design, allowing viewers to inhabit the mid 1800s for just under two hours. Focusing on the people in the story, rather than leaning on the golf or on the setting for some clamant sense of importance, was key, Connery says.

“The thing that makes sport incredible, any sport, is the fact that it’s live. It’s absolutely impossible to know what will happen, so you sit there in anticipation of something happening. If nothing happens then it wasn’t particularly exciting, but if something amazing happens…

“A lot of the golf movies I saw, they tried to make the game the dramatic element of the film, and there’s all that hokum stuff: ‘Oh he sees the fairway different to everyone else, with piercing eyes looking down the fairway, the fairway becomes his world.’ Again, it’s not that it’s bad sentiment-wise, I think that it’s valid in its own way, but in such films it feels contrived somehow, it feels as though one is trying to push things.”

You’ll notice there are no bagpipes, no ‘heather in sunset swirling in the wind’

Director Jason Connery, son of Sean, did well to steer clear of pastoral clichés in the fine on-screen telling of the Morris story

SPRING 2017

41

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.

ROUGH GAME

Toms Sr. and Jr. competed often, together and separately, and they’re often shown in competition during the movie.

But while the outcome of many of the matches will be known beforehand, the playing sequences are a delight, invigorating even, and have more to do with the people on course than they do with the golf itself. We see almost nothing of Young Tommy’s first Open Championship victory in 1868, but watching his awkwardness afterwards as he’s being photographed with the trophy belt conveys both his youth and the excitement of the moment. Likewise, watching players and fans charge across the rough fairways as a pack, faces in the wind, shoving each other, patting backs, drinking and playing in what now would be considered ridiculous conditions, shows golf as it was born: wild, aggressive and fun. To see it thus is good for the game today, more often displayed as manicured, polished and safe.

Though it’s not the specific focus of any scene, the landscape does come into play, and seeing lauded tracks like St Andrews, Prestwick and North Berwick much as they would have appeared when they were new is thrilling.

During a match at Musselburgh against longtime Morris rivals Willie and Mungo Park, details like the golfers pausing to allow racehorses to pass before continuing on (the racetrack cuts through the course) and Tommy having a quick nip from his flask as the gallery presses in behind the players, give you an idea of the starkness of golf at the time, certainly compared to today’s well-tailored game. Later,

.

when a fist fight breaks out in a bunker between supporters of St Andrews and supporters of the home course, some of it begins to seem like a plot device—until you realize it actually happened, as Connery points out.

“We went to Musselburgh, it has a racetrack around it,” he recalls. “What was lovely was they didn’t cut the fairways or the rough for us for three weeks before we shot there.

I was using the rough as the fairways and the fairways as the greens. And the bunker that we shot the fight in was the bunker that they did have a fight in.”

In terms of accuracy, many of the locations, including St Andrews, couldn’t be used for filming given their current condition.

“What basically happened when I came over for the first location scout,” Connery explains, “we’d gone to St Andrews, met the guy from the R&A heritage society, talked about the course and this sort of thing… Looking at the course, it’s absolutely pristine, there’s not one blade of grass higher than another. In 1866 the way they cut the grass was with sheep, so it wasn’t like that. We started to realize that none of the courses the way they are now were going to work.”

The solution came in an undeveloped piece of land roughly 45 minutes from the Old Course, which was used as a stand-in when needed.

“There was cows**t everywhere and cows running around, but it was right by the sea,” Connery says. “Half of what you see is digital, the links road is all green-screen digital, which was fun in the windy weather. We built the 18th green and dug out the Swilcan Burn to build the bridge, coated it in fake snow at a certain point. What we managed to do, hopefully, was create courses that look like they were in the right place, but not overly ornate. I will confess that we tried to have sheep in a couple of scenes, but they kept running away—100 extras and 100 sheep, and the extras were much easier to control.”

St Andrews Links Trust

Jack Lowden (L) and Peter Mullan (R) as Young and Old Tom Morris in Tommy’s Honour; the real Swilcan Bridge [right]

SPRING 2017

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THE PEOPLE

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Off course the film shows Tommy pushing back against many of the norms of the time, both in golf and in society, and experiencing absolutely horrendous moments of loss and pain, as he did in real life. Though many of the situations in which he and the other characters find themselves could easily have gone off the rails in terms of emotional displays, the actors’ restraint not only helps hold the film together but it also seems authentic.

“I was working with lovely actors,” Connery says, “and their abilities to not over-sentimentalize those moments was so important… And it was in the writing too. I’ve often seen, not just golf movies, this sort of thing where someone who has a view that’s different to our view at the moment, at this time, had to be a bad person. I didn’t want the upperclass people like [R&A chief] Boothby to be a bad person, I just wanted him to say, ‘What are you doing? That’s not how things are. We all know how things are.’

“Tom basically was never allowed in the R&A, and he was OK with that. He never went in the building. Ironically, there’s a great big cast of him on the side of the building and pictures of him hung inside, but he was never allowed inside. We chose in the film to have his son burst through to say things change, it’s a different generation. [Tommy] would have been the type of person who constantly would be saying ‘Why? Why do you accept that it’s like that?’ Every professional golfer—professional athlete—of today owes him a debt because he said well, everybody’s coming to see me, so why am I being paid a stipend? He challenged the established order, and it was so scary because the idea of turning to an upper-class guy and not giving him his due respect just because of who he was born to or whatever, you could get into real problems. When in the film Boothby says to Tommy, ‘In your father’s day you would have been whipped,’ he would have been.”

The camera work is logical, not distracting, the pace and length of the film are satisfying and the thought and consideration behind many of the decisions made by both the cast and crew are evident. As good as all of it is, none of it could have come together without the all-important financing. For that, it should come as some satisfaction to know that, more than any kind of investment (though it undoubtedly was), Tommy’s Honour was also a labor of love, perhaps especially for appropriately-named producer Keith Bank.

“I don’t do this for a living,” says Bank, who works as a venture capitalist. “I produced a movie 28 years ago and I swore I would never do it again.”

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SPRING 2017

WHEN GOLF GETS WEIRD Three avant-golf examples from the dark side of the fairway:

Once You Kiss a Stranger, 1970 Think Strangers on a Train with golf. Diana meets pro golfer Jerry, who hates rival pro Mike. Diana agrees to kill Mike if Jerry will kill her psychiatrist, who’s declared her dangerously disturbed. Jerry thinks she’s bluffing—until she runs over Mike with a golf cart and then beats him to death with one of Jerry’s clubs. She keeps the club and threatens to frame Jerry unless Jerry kills her doctor. While he tries to figure a way out of the mess, Diana attacks Jerry’s ex-wife, Lee, played by Martha Hyer, who was nominated for an Academy Award (though not for this film).

Blades, 1989 “A game of hooks, slices… and slaughter!!!” This late ’80s horror flick parallels the better-known Jaws, swapping out the shark for a possessed lawn mower that attacks people on a prestigious country club golf course. As promos have it: “Just when you thought it was safe to putt… This teed off wideradius possessed power tool is on a killing spree that will leave even duffers ‘handicapped!’” Not one for the Junior Golf program.

A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness, 1977 Screams, guns, arson, sand traps, people getting hit with golf clubs on indoor practice greens, a woman running through the forest with tires tied to her feet, a sometimes naked/sometimes bikini-clad fashion model groomed to be a pro golfer by the editor of a golf fashion magazine, a demented fan, and a shirtless guy wielding a pin flag like a Samurai yari (pike weapon) all come together to make director Seijun Suzuki’s one-of-a-kind [golf?] film. It’s like being in the ’70s all over again. And in Japanese.

Old Tom Morris is honored in bronze on the wall of the R&A clubhouse at St Andrews, though he was not allowed inside during his lifetime

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[Above] The director runs through a scene with the actors; and [Top right] Tom Morris and his staff outside his shop on The Links

He made an exception for Tommy’s Honour, and he says it was down to the story.

“I spend 60 or 70 hours a week on this,” he explains, pointing out that in addition to raising funds for the film he’s also handling much of the marketing, promotion, distribution and other desk-side tasks associated with movie making. “It’s certainly not about the money. It’s more about my passion for the game and wanting to give back. It’s an amazing story, and I thought it just needed telling.”

Bank was in Scotland for work there and says that the attention to detail on the film is incredible. One example he gives is that oh-so-difficult bit for golf film actors to get right: the swing. For that, Bank says they turned to Jim Farmer, the R&A’s honorary professional.

“We were almost fortunate that [the actors]... really had never played before,” Bank explains. “We were starting with a blank slate. To swing hickories and hit gutta percha balls, it’s a longer, loopier swing. There’s more leg movement, they didn’t have any base to start with.”

Filming a promotional segment for the film, Bank says Jordan Spieth teed it up with a hickory club and a gutta percha ball and… “He hit it 70 yards dead right into the weeds,” Bank says. “It’s very challenging, this stuff. I thought both Jack and Peter did great. We had body doubles lined up with really good swings and we never had to use them, not one time. We knew we were going to get criticized regardless. People who didn’t realize that the swing was different back then were going to say it wasn’t right, and people who knew and saw a modern swing were going to say it wasn’t right for the period.”

But of course they did get quite a lot right. Tommy’s Honour took the 2016 British Academy Scotland Award (BAFTA Scotland) for Best Feature Film and Jack Lowden received a Best Actor BAFTA nomination for his work. The film has been up for other awards as well and reviews have been very good. But more than winning a prize or pleasing

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A classic twist It was in 1866 that Old Tom Morris moved his home and business in St Andrews to a prime spot on The Links—the narrow road that flanks the 18th hole of the Old Course. His shop, “Tom Morris,” was not far from where the 18th green remains to this day. The shop has not budged either, and while it has changed hands a few times over the century since Morris died, the St Andrews Links Trust restored the “Tom Morris” shop in 2010.

While Morris’s trade was primarily golf balls and custom clubmaking and repairs, the Tom Morris brand today has taken his entrepreneurial spirit in a new direction, with premium men’s lifestyle collections of clothing and accessories; clothing inspired by the past, created for today and, like a Tom Morris golf club, built to last.

Find the Tom Morris collection at standrews.com/shop

More than just pleasing critics, the movie achieves something important simply by existing critics, the movie achieves something important simply by existing. In films, there’s nothing wrong with self-depricating comedy, hero worship or the odd bout of pretension, but if cinema really does impact a culture’s self-image, then this is a film that golf has needed for some time.

The story of Old Tom Morris and his son is a foundational story of the game, of the relationships that occur within it, its possibilities, its pitfalls, and the lines that golf can both draw and cross. A record of two exceptional lives and a movie that can reignite a love of the game—the real game, played in the elements with friends and banter— Tommy’s Honour is also a welcome addition to the catalog of golf films, one that will occupy a spot on the highest shelf in that collection for quite some time, we believe.

The greatness of golf’s founding father and son are synonymous with the Home of Golf.

This hallowed turf witnessed both the triumph and tragedy of Tom and Tommy Morris as they used their formidable golfing abilities to achieve sporting greatness in their time and beyond.

Write your own History standrews.com

Crazy Sea Smoke vineyard

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Beautiful “God made Cabernet.

The Devil made Pinot Noir” — André Tchelistcheff, the godfather of California wine

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A A derogatory metaphor for those sensitive to input, “thinskinned” is a literal description of the Pinot Noir grape, which does in fact have thin skin. Coincidentally perhaps, in terms of sensitivity the negative connotations are present as well: pruning methods, temperature changes, soil variations, even wind… Pinot Noir can throw a fit in response to any of these, and its natural susceptibility to disease doesn’t help its mood, which is widely described as “temperamental.”

Still, planted in a site where it is comfortable and handled with care and respect, the grape will yield perhaps the most beautiful wines conceivable, subtle and complex pours that, like the best imagined love affairs, possess the potential to be endlessly titillating, endlessly intriguing, with manifestations of variety and surprise that will outlast even the most devoted partner. If you’re ready to leave the quick flings on the shelf in search of something more substantial, something that can hold a conversation, allow us to introduce you to Pinot Noir.

The Santa Barbara Channel and Sta. Rita Hills AVA from space

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Tasting notes: Pinot Noir is happy to carry the land in which its grown, taking on flavors of its environment, but there are some universal characteristics for which the grape is known no matter where it is planted. They include a flavor and aroma profile tending towards black cherry, berries and plums, fruity with sweet floral aspects, among better examples also possessing a sophisticated spice profile with potential aspects of cinnamon, caraway and even black or green tea. Its high acidity can be a factor in its enjoyment, though (again, among better examples) proper handling and expression of its complexity balances this well.

To learn more about Pinot Noir, we spoke with Victor Gallegos, VP and Director of Winemaking at Sea Smoke vineyards, 95 percent of which is planted with the grape.

Charged with overseeing one of the most beautiful, careful and independent vineyards on California’s Central Coast, Gallegos is a great source because, in addition to discussing Sea Smoke’s [incredibly good] wines, he’s quick to praise anyone who’s treating wine with respect and skill, no matter where they grow their grapes. In Sea Smoke’s case, that means the region around Lompoc, Buellton, Solvang, Los Olivos and other towns that fall within the Santa Ynez AVA (American Viticultural Area) and more specifically within the relatively new Sta. Rita Hills AVA. The latter was set in 2006 (though Pinot Noir has been grown in the area since the 1970s) and contains the area-specific conditional asset of an east-west valley running off the Pacific Ocean, which creates a cool fog that essentially puts the Pinot Grapes on “hold” at night, allowing them to rest.

“It can be 82˚ during the day,” Gallegos says. “Then later, getting into evening, it drops to 52˚ when the fog rolls in… The primary thing driving all of this is this cold water mass out there called the Pacific Ocean. That’s an unusual thing, this huge cold water mass sitting at this latitude, that’s what makes it all happen.”

The huge cold water mass of the Pacific Ocean, that’s what makes it happen

Sideways No wine-related article on California’s Central Coast would be complete without a nod to the 2004 movie Sideways, and in fact the film offers a nice bit of dialog on Pinot Noir, the wine of choice for character Miles, played by Paul Giamatti, who extols the grape’s virtues and vices even as he suggests its connection to himself in this line from the film: “It’s a hard grape to grow…It’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It’s not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and thrive even when it’s neglected. Only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot’s potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. Then, I mean, oh its flavors, they’re just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and . . . ancient on the planet.”

The latitude is the same as Tunisia, Gallegos, says, though there are obvious compositional differences and, with Pinot Noir’s chameleon-esque tendency to be influenced by its surroundings, there’s no connection in terms of the wines.

As temperatures drop toward evening, the valley pulls in the Pacific air, which cools the grapes and effectively pauses their development. The cycle is particularly amenable to the Pinot Noir grape, which enjoys the schedule even as it takes on character from the local soil—not just regionally, but precisely. Pointing across the valley at a vineyard just across from Sea Smoke’s, Gallegos underlines the importance of site as a point of variation among Pinot Noir grapes: “They have the same clone, same rootstocks, but it’s a totally different animal,” he explains. “That’s where you really start to see that site makes a difference. Pinot in

Glass Technically speaking, the proper glass for Pinot Noir or Burgundy wine will have a wide bowl and a stem that’s shorter than a “standard” wine glass (of the common type used for Cabernet Sauvignon) and there might be a bit of a flare at the rim as well. All of this helps to direct the Pinot Noir to the tip of the tongue so the fruit is picked up first, balancing the grape’s natural acidity and other characteristics. Realistically though, if you have a nice bottle of Pinot Noir but not a Pinot Noir-specific glass, don’t sweat it. Any vessel that doesn’t leak should prove adequate.

This Old World Pinot Noir glass from Riedel’s Veritas collection works, at a price that won’t have you crying over any spilt wine—at least not because of the broken glass anyway

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particular expresses site very strongly. Chardonnay’s a very forgiving varietal, but Pinot does not suffer fools gladly.

When people talk about Pinot being the ‘heartbreak grape,’ they’re really not talking about wine making. For the most part they’re really talking about in the vineyard.”

Problems there include too-hot temperatures, disease (particularly problematic due to the grape’s thin skin) and a host of other issues, some addressable some just bad luck (a lack of thick leaf cover on the vine leads to fruit damage from birds, and so on). Gallegos says the vine will be touched by humans maybe eight times before harvest but that, really, there’s only so much they can do.

“Talk to any winemaker that’s making wine at this level of seriousness, they’ll tell you 80 percent of the story’s already written the day the grape comes off the vine, the cluster comes off the vine,” he says. “We as winemakers affect perhaps 20 percent of the equation. I like it because Pinot doesn’t kind of whack you over the head, it has a lot of layers to it. It’s also in some ways an intellectual exercise, kind of like a jazz quartet or something. That’s in terms of enjoying it. On the working with it side, it’s a love/hate relationship because, again, it expresses both site and stylistic decisions.

If you’re too heavy handed, as I said, it doesn’t suffer fools.”

And yet it has endured. Starting in the most ancient of times, the grape factors into writings during the first century AD, though it almost certainly predates that. The name comes from the French, derived from words for “pine” and “black,” the former due to the tightly clustered

Tastes of the Sta. Rita Hills AVA

Sea Smoke

Sanford

Southing Get on the list if you want wine from this top-quality biodynamic and organic vineyard—it’s not often sold in stores and it’s in high demand.

The vineyard’s Southing contains berries and stone on the nose but the flavor is all about balance, with spice and fruit casting a glow over a lush, sophisticated wine that marks both a strong sense of individualism and a high point for the state’s Pinot Noir. seasmoke.com

Pinot Noir The Sanford-Benedict Vineyards hold the oldest Pinot Noir vines in Santa Barbara County, planted in 1971 across from what is now Sea Smoke. Richard Sanford has long been a valley wine authority and his wines are well worth a try, including his Pinot Noir which features both mineral and fruit. sanfordwinery.com

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“pinecones” of grapes on the vine. It is the source of the world-renowned Burgundy wines, though California labels have earned acclaim in recent years, and especially those from the Sta. Rita Hills AVA. Planted in heavy clay soils like those at Sea Smoke, the grape will yield a big and bold character. Planted in alluvial ground, for example, it will yield a lighter touch, he says.

Its popularity has led to a problem, however: “Pinot Noir is being planted in a bunch of places that frankly it should not be planted,” Gallegos offers. “People are going to be drinking Pinot Noir that tastes nothing like Pinot Noir because it’s planted in a lot of super-hot places so companies can crank out volume.”

To avoid the worst of it, Gallegos suggests looking for vineyards that have a history with Pinot Noir. In the Sta. Rita Hills AVA, that certainly includes names like Sanford, who planted and released the first area Pinot Noir in the 1970s. Otherwise, look for established vineyards that don’t sell high-volume wines for cheap prices, and which might sell Pinot Noir grapes to other wineries (though Sea Smoke does not do this).

Once you’ve found a label with which you’re comfortable, give yourself time to enjoy the wine, perhaps pair it with food or just let it get some air and share it with a friend. Complex, temperamental and beautiful, it could be just the pour you’ve been looking for: “A lot of people find their way to Pinot Noir late in the game,” Gallegos says. “It’s taken a long road to get there, and then they don’t leave.”

For more on Pinot Noir in the Sta. Rita Hills, visit staritahills.com

Brewer-Clifton Pinot Noir Bright berries, tea, a hint of tobacco, and a bit more all factor into this beautiful wine from a vineyard that began in 1996 and which has only grown since then. Another great option for those looking to experience the valley’s Pinot Noir. brewerclifton.com

A lot of people find their way to Pinot Noir late in the game—then they stay

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Across the drawbridge There is no better way to get a real sense of medieval history, to appreciate the power, glory, politics and brutalities of five, six, seven centuries ago, than to visit a great British castle. And it just so happens that a journey based on educational merits could lend itself beautifully to the odd game of golf, so we went on crusade through the mountains of Snowdonia

Kevin Murray | STONEHOUSEGOLF.COM

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Men of Harlech, march to glory, Victory is hov’ring o’er ye, Bright-eyed freedom stands before ye, Hear ye not her call?

T

These are rousing opening lines of the ancient Welsh call to arms, Men of Harlech (a translation of them anyway, as the song is traditionally sung in Welsh). Today, Men of Harlech is most often heard booming around the 74,500-seater Principality Stadium in Cardiff when the Welsh national

rugby team plays, and it reverberates most energetically when the opposition on the field is England. The stirring words bring a tear to the sternest Welsh eyes.

Men of Harlech first came to prominence in the 15th century, when Harlech Castle—on the coast of northwest Wales—and Welsh forces were embroiled in England’s bitter War of the Roses, which lasted more than 30 years and eventually saw the House of Lancaster defeat the House of York, with England’s first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, assuming the throne.

Harlech Castle still stands proud

today—not reaching quite as high as it did when construction finished back in 1289—but it is still one of the world’s finest remaining medieval castles.

Harlech Castle was in fact built by order of an Englishman, King Edward I, who oversaw the construction of a number of castles in Wales as bases from which British forces could quell Welsh rebellions against English rule. It took seven years to build this mighty stone fortress at an exorbitant cost of £9,500—that converts to an estimated US$62.5 million today— so no wonder the British people were

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Harlech Castle as painted by John Wright Oakes in the 19th century, by which time Tremadog Bay has receded beyond the dunes, and [below] Harlech with Royal St. David’s GC in the background

heavily taxed during Edward’s reign— and no wonder the Welsh sing Men of Harlech with so much vigor when England arrive to play in the annual Six Nations rugby tournament.

Let the war cry’s deaf’ning thunder Every foe appall A walk around Harlech Castle transports you right back into the 13th century, and serves as a reminder of how brutal medieval times could be. Castles like Harlech were built as towering symbols of uncompromising power. They were designed to withstand war, and next time you go to the dentist for painful treatment, count your blessings you were not at the front line of a battalion trying to take Harlech Castle.

It was constructed with a multitude of defensive measures. Even if attackers could get across the drawbridge—over a deep, broad ditch—and through the main gates, they would then be enclosed into what is now referred to as the “killing zone,” which is outside a second gate and where enemies of the castle were sitting ducks for the castle’s second raft of archers, who could fire at will through narrow “arrowloops” built into the stone walls. It is chilling to stand there now, and look around knowing that as long as the castle’s guards were organized and alert, an unwelcome visitor would have been guaranteed an agonizing, bloody demise. Castle forces were capable

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of defending against opposition that far outnumbered their own.

Edward I was delighted with Harlech Castle once its seven-year construction was completed in 1289, and its architectural genius, Master James of St George, was honored with appointment as Constable of Harlech in 1290. He probably lived in the gatehouse of Harlech Castle, which would have felt like royal quarters.

The turrets of Harlech Castle reached 200 feet above sea level 700 years ago, an intimidating beacon of power, positioned high on a rocky outcrop with Tremadog

Bay to the west and north, leading out to Cardigan Bay and beyond that, the Irish Sea. Inland lies the Snowdonia mountains range, making for a spectacular setting from all sides. In the 13th century, with the waters of Tremadog Bay lapping right up against the rock foundations beneath the castle, Edward I could not possibly have imagined how the westerly landscape from the castle would transform over the subsequent centuries.

The waters of Tremadog Bay would eventually recede behind a striking system of rolling sand dunes, and the low-lying land between the castle and the bay lent itself perfectly to one particular cause.

Founded in 1894, Royal St. David’s Golf Club was originally laid out by one of its founders, Harold Finch-Hatton, before it was updated and extended by the acclaimed Fred Hawtree. Continuing Harlech’s royal connections, the Prince of Wales was club captain in 1934, before being crowned King Edward VIII and granting the club his royal patronage. Harlech Castle sits on the rocky hillside high above the golf course, still keeping guard.

There is no better marriage of golf course with castle in the world, in terms of medieval history and heritage, quality preservation, natural setting and caliber of golfing challenge.

Driving through Snowdonia National Park is one of the most beautiful road trips anywhere in the UK

Portmeirion Village [above] and the Snowdonia mountains [top]

Royal St. David’s is irrefutably one of the great British links courses, yet not as famous as others as it has never hosted The [British] Open, and because of Harlech’s remoteness. From most places it is a long haul and as a destination Harlech is held back by a lack of accommodation. Its isolation is part of the attraction of course, and if visitors have time to head to Harlech from the east, right through the heart of Snowdonia National Park, they will be treated to one of the most beautiful drives anywhere in the UK. London to Harlech takes four to five hours, or three to four hours from Birmingham.

The golf club is looking to modernize limited “dormy” accommodation, there are a couple self-catering apartments run by Harlech Castle, located opposite its main gates, while just around the corner the best accommodation and dinner in the village is provided by the Castle Cottages.

That does not represent great choice, but if you can make it to this corner of north Wales the place to stay is Portmeirion Village, an eccentric resort overlooking the stunning Dwyryd estuary, which has been constructed largely in the style of an Italian

village. Portmeirion was the brainchild of architect Clough Williams-Ellis, who set out to prove that a location of natural beauty could be developed without defiling it.

Over the course of 50 years, beginning in 1925, he converted the manor house from this old country estate into a hotel, and gradually built the village into the hillside as finances would permit. The earliest cottages and villas were built with pantiled roofs and turquoise shutters, inspired by villages of the Italian coast. But the village is not entirely Italian in style, as WilliamsEllis would experiment with different ideas and use materials and features leftover from his other architectural projects or from estate sales. He called it a “Light opera approach to architecture.”

Today, visitors can stay in the four-star hotel, the restaurant of which serves the very finest of Welsh cuisine, or in one of the multi-colored cottages that brighten up the hillside, all with views over the estuary.

There is little at Portmeirion Village that is traditionally Welsh apart from its stunning coastal setting, but it is an extraordinary destination, fuelled by old-fashioned British eccentricity and artistry and colored in with splashes of Mediterranean flare.

cadw.gov.wales royalstdavids.co.uk

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Hever Castle,

Leeds Castle,

Like Harlech Castle, Hever Castle in Kent dates back to the 13th century. It was the family home of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of the infamous King Henry VIII in the 16th century. He was the testosterone over-soak who rampaged his way through six wives in a desperate mission to sire a son and heir. When Anne could only produce a daughter—the future Queen Elizabeth I—he had Anne tried for treason and beheaded. Henry’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleaves, eventually owned Hever Castle.

Hever was restored by William Waldorf Astor during the early 20th century and the rolling country estate features 27 holes of golf, the first nine of which were built by Astor. Beautifully appointed B&B accommodation is available.

Some 30 miles east of Hever lies the mighty Leeds Castle. Records show it dating right back to 1086, when it was owned by Odo the Bishop of Bayeaux, the half-brother of William the Conqueror.

Edward I—who commissioned the construction of Harlech Castle—inherited Leeds Castle and it would be passed down through many royal generations. Henry VIII particularly enjoyed Leeds Castle as a retreat with his first wife, Catherine

Kent, England

hevercastle.co.uk

Kent, England

of Aragon. He treated her lavishly until she couldn’t produce a son, and so the trend of his personal life began.

The nine-hole golf course at Leeds Castle was built in 1931 for the owner of the time, The Honorable Lady Baillie, who devoted her life to restoring the 500-acre estate to former glories.

leeds-castle.com

Hever Castle and gardens [below], and [left] the 11th green of its championship golf course Leeds Castle and golf course [above, right] and Scotland’s Castle Stuart [center right] with the golf club’s fourth hole [bottom right]

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Sarah Medway

Castle Stuart,

Inverness, Scotland As golfers tee up on the par-three fourth at the fabulous Castle Stuart links in northern Scotland and take aim at the pin, the unmistakable backdrop is the majestic Castle Stuart itself, which was built in 1625 by James Stuart, 3rd Earl of Moray, ascendant of Mary Queen of Scots. The castle fell into disuse during the English Civil War and lay derelict for three centuries before being restored.

The Castle Stuart golf course, co-designed by American owner Mark Parsinen and Gil Hanse, opened in 2009, offering golfers panoramic views over the Moray Firth, along with a carefully crafted challenge that all golfers can enjoy. Phil Mickelson, who won the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart in 2013 before heading down to Muirfield to claim the Claret Jug the following week, went as far as to say that playing Castle Stuart “should almost be a prerequisite before you’re allowed to design golf courses nowadays.”

castlestuartgolf.com

Dan Murphy | STONEHOUSEGOLF.COM

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An Oscarwinning golfer Bob Hope once said his friend Arnold Palmer was “the biggest crowd pleaser since the invention of portable sanitary facilities.” Art Spander, whose visits to Bob Hope’s PGA Tour event date back to the 1970s, recalls the man who was not only the king of the one-liner, but one of few people who could be described genuinely as one of Palmer’s role models

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He was a man of one-liners and usually two putts, although as Bob Hope would remind us—cracking wise about the sport’s difficulty—at times three putts or more. He played more than 2,000 courses, and in a career that moved through the decades and drew 10 million laughs, many of them were about the sport that both entranced him and perplexed him.

“Golf’s a hard game to figure,” Hope told us, probably more than once. “One day you slice it, hit into all the traps and miss every green. And then the next day for no reason at all you really stink.”

He was pals with pros, persuading Arnold Palmer to make a cameo in the 1963 film Call Me Bwana. He was pals with Generals. In North Africa doing shows for troops in 1943, Dwight Eisenhower—then Supreme Allied Commander—greeted him with, “How’s your golf?”

He was pals with Presidents.

Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the latter three playing together in the 1995 Bob Hope Desert Classic.

So many jokes, so many strokes. “Bob would rather win a golf match than an Oscar,” said Bing Crosby, Hope’s co-star in films—and in a way, his co-star in celebrity tournaments too, since each had his own.

It’s uncertain how many golf events Hope won. The one time he entered the [British] Amateur Championship, in 1951 at Royal Porthcawl, Hope, then playing off a four handicap, was ousted in the first round 2 and 1 by Chris Fox of Yorkshire. “A man smoking a pipe,” mused Hope, “which of course delighted Crosby.”

But Hope did get that Oscar, the statuette given Academy Award winners, when at the 1965 presentations he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

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Confessions of a hooker Leslie Townes Hope was born in 1903 in southeastern suburban London. When he was four, the family moved to America, to Cleveland, Ohio, where as he grew up, Hope became a soda jerk, a boxer and then a vaudevillian, singing, dancing and doing comedy routines. His connection with golf began in 1930 when he was traveling vaudeville’s Orpheum Circuit.

“I’d be waiting around the hotel lobby in the late morning,” said Hope, “when the Diamond Brothers, another act, would come down with their clubs. One day I said, ‘Well, hell. I’ll go there with you.’” It was a perfect association.

“You start out a round in the morning with three total strangers,” said Hope, “play 18 holes, and by the time the day is over you have three solid enemies.” Perhaps, but if they had been playing golf with Hope all three would be laughing uncontrollably.

“I get upset over a bad shot like anyone else,” he said in one of many quips from his book, Confessions of a Hooker. “But it’s silly to let the game get to you. When I miss a shot, I think what a beautiful day it is and what fresh air I’m breathing. Then I take a deep breath. That’s what gives me the strength to break clubs.”

Hope with Palmer [top] during the filming of Call Ma Bwana; [left, l to r] with Eisenhower and Tom Nieporte, who won the 1967 Bob Hope Desert Classic; [above] Hope’s space-age desert home; [top right] on stage with Natalie Wood; [right] poster for 1948 movie The Paleface

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“Golf is my real profession,” Hope would remark. “Entertainment is just a sideline. I tell jokes to pay my greens fees.”

And to earn millions.

Like many Hollywood stars, Hope often made the two-hour drive to Palm Springs for the nightlife—and for golf.

Joining Frank Sinatra, Hope built a home there as well, a huge, space-age structure on a hill that has become a local landmark and which sold last November for $13 million (it originally listed for $50 million).

With Hope’s presence in the desert and his love for golf, it was only natural that organizers of the small PGA Tour event that began in 1952 as the Thunderbird would attempt to persuade Hope to lend his name to the tournament. After hesitating for a good while, the comedian finally agreed to the request in 1965, and the Bob Hope Desert Classic was born. A playing master of ceremonies for the tournament, he was also on its board of directors.

“Our first tournament,” quipped Hope, “our greenkeeper was a lizard.”

It was an unbroken club Hope used as a prop when he traveled the world entertaining troops, in World War II and again during the Vietnam War. He would bring a driver or 3-wood on stage, take a swing or two and then use it as a walking stick.

“I’ve been playing the game so long,” he would say, “that my handicap is in Roman numerals. If you watch a game it’s fun. If you play it, it’s recreation. If you work at it, it’s golf.”

Hope worked at it and naturally worked on his routine, a blend that appealed even to those who didn’t know a sand wedge from a sandwich. “I never kick my ball out of the rough or improve my lie in a sand trap,” he said. “For that I have a caddie.”

Hope and Crosby were members at Lakeside in Burbank, over the hill from Hollywood and close to the studios, so during filming breaks they could get in a few holes. Hope’s game improved after help from Ben Hogan, whom he came to know.

“Golf is my real profession... I tell jokes to pay my greens fees”

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JAN 15-21, 2018 LA QUINTA, CA

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“Ike gave up golf for painting,” Hope said of Eisenhower; “Fewer strokes”

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Hope was a guest of honor at Super Bowl XXII in 1988 [above]; with his Academy Award in 1965 [right]

Eisenhower wintered in the desert, recovering from a heart attack, and Hope and his wife, Dolores, instructed that money raised for charity from the Classic be used to build a hospital, which became the historic Eisenhower Medical Center.

“Ike gave up golf for painting,” Hope said of Eisenhower. “Fewer strokes.”

Palmer, who became a close friend, took the fewest strokes in that inaugural first Hope Classic. It was the first of Arnie’s five wins in the event, of which he became chairman in the early 2000s.

It’s legitimate to say—in the United States at least—that no two people did more to bring the game to the public’s attention than Hope and Palmer. Both are in the World Golf Hall of Fame, where

Hope’s exhibit features a plaque of poignant words along with a bas-relief profile. The plaque reads: “Known by his nose, applauded for his humor, envied for his wit and loved by millions for his unselfish concern for all beings, Bob Hope is truly a one-of-a-kind.

He popularized golf to the unknowing, sponsored it for charity and played it for fun. Not a golf champion, but a great champion of golf.”

The Hope Classic was unique, a fiveday, 90-hole competition, the first four days of which a pro would play with a three-man amateur team on four different courses, with pros and teams rotating course after each round. Then Sunday, the final day, would feature only pros who made the cut.

Hope would ride about in his special golf buggy, designed in his image, and take a literal golf shot now and then—pretty good ones, too, even when he was in his 80s— while taking figurative shots continually.

Kermit Zarley was “the pro from the moon.” Gerald Ford, president of the U.S. from 1974 to 1977, and who hit spectators off the tee, was “the most dangerous driver since Ben Hur.” Palmer was “the biggest crowd pleaser since the invention of portable sanitary facilities.”

The Hope Classic has gone through several iterations, becoming the Humana (with Bill Clinton as host) and now the CareerBuilder Challenge. The format changed to 72 holes, with amateurs playing only the first 54. Top players attend, Phil

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[Top left] Hope at his 1995 event with [l to r] President Gerald Ford, President Bill Clinton, PGA Tour Commisioner Tim Finchem, defending champion Scott Hoch and President George Bush; [left] with Bing Crosby; [above] entertaining troops on the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga during his USO Christmas show in South Vietnam in 1965

Mickelson accepted the role as ambassador, to his credit, but it’s not the same without Hope and his levity.

Here are a few more of Hope’s golfing gems, with the genius in their simplicity: “Arnold Palmer told me how I could cut eight strokes off my score—skip one of the par-3s.”

“I once showed Pat Bradley my swing and said, ‘What do I do next?’ Pat replied, ‘Wait ’til the pain dies down.’”

“Golf is a funny game. It’s done much for health and at the same time has ruined people by robbing them of their peace of mind. Look at me: I’m the healthiest idiot in the world.”

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The ’95 Hope Classic, when a sitting President Clinton, former Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush, pro Scott Hoch and the then 92-year-old Hope attacked Indian Wells Country Club, was a round for the ages. Hope started some holes by dropping a ball on the fairway and said he couldn’t see the green or where many of his shots landed, but no one cared. Some 20,000 spectators saw a group of legends, and that’s all that mattered.

You couldn’t hear the conversation, but after one of President Bush’s shots ricocheted off a tree and hit a woman, you could bet that Hope had something to say, and that it was hilarious. A class act— and an impossible one to follow. Truly a champion of the game.

“Arnold Palmer told me how I could cut eight strokes off my score—skip one of the par-3s”

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It comes as no shock that the champion golfer of the year is awarded a claret jug as his prize for winning the original major, the [British] Open Championship. For as long as golf has been played, drink (and especially wine) has played a huge part in its story. Indeed, many golf clubs were formed by small groups of like-minded souls as much to enjoy the delights of the plate and the bottle as they were for exercise out on the links. Steve Killick explores how this tradition continues in many clubs to this day where good company, good food and good wine are every bit as important to members as their scores on the course

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The entrance to the wine cellars at the K Club (left) Royal St Georges (right)

oyal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, Kent, was the first course outside Scotland to host the Open Championship, is now back as a regular on the Open circuit and has just been selected again to host the 2020 tournament. It also boasts an excellent selection of wines in the cellars beneath its historic clubhouse.

One of the men who helps choose the wine in Sandwich was once clerk of the Royal Cellars at Buckingham Palace and selected wines on behalf of The Queen. Edward Demery retired from the post in 2007 and was also Chairman of Justerini & Brooks, the wine merchants that supplies Royal St Georges as well as the Royal family.

“We do use other suppliers,” he says, “including Charles Taylor and Berry Brothers and Rudd in London, and like to buy locally when we can.” The wine list is kept deliberately simple in Sandwich with four different Burgundy wines, four different Bordeaux and three more that will include a dessert wine and Champagne.

“What we are looking for,” says Demery, “is first-class quality that our members and their guests will thoroughly enjoy, and at a price that is also acceptable.”

The most expensive wine on the St Georges wine list is, unsurprisingly, a NuitsSaint-Georges Burgundy that sells for £45 ($56) a bottle.

As you would expect of a true luxury resort prices

and selection of wine go up a notch, and then some, across the Irish Sea at the K Club in Straffan, County Kildare, where the effervescent Lisa O’Doherty is consultant sommelier to the five-star resort. She started out working at another Irish landmark, The Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, doing a hotel management degree, and she was not particularly interested in wine—only in getting involved in wine tasting to keep her mother company.

Her progress was sufficiently rapid to join the K Club in 1991 as assistant sommelier before being promoted to the top job.

In 2006, the year the K Club hosted the Ryder Cup, she became a consultant in order to pursue her interests in lecturing.

“The great thing about the K Club,” she says, “is that it has such a fantastic connection with wine.” The 550-acre estate is set on the site of Straffan House, which was modeled after a French chateau by the grandson of the great winemaker, Hugh Barton, of Langoa-Barton and LeovilleBarton fame in St.Julien, Bordeaux.

This chateau now forms the east wing of the present complex that was bought by the Jefferson Smurfitt Group in 1988 and still retains the old cellarage from the days of Straffan House. The present owner Dr. Michael Smurfitt, “Just loves fine wines and is a private collector with a passion for red Bordeaux and white Burgundy,” according to O’Doherty.

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“I don’t like quarter bottles of wine,” says O’Doherty, “and this system is brilliant.” Brilliant enough to allow K Club guests and visitors to enjoy a glass of premier cru, Puligny Montrachet for €35 ($37) or if they really want to push the boat out, a glass of La Tache, Domaine de la Romanee Conti can be enjoyed for €1,200 ($1,260).

There are some truly classic bottles available, too; the oldest being a 1948 Chateau Cheval Blanc from SaintEmilion.

There are 13 different Chateau Petrus vintages to choose from with a 1990 available at €9,000 ($9,454) but the highest priced item in the cellar is the 1990 La RomaneeConti that will set the purchaser back €20,000 ($21,000).

“What is so fantastic is that the wines that I am buying now for the club will be here long after I am gone,” says O’Doherty, “and Straffan will continue its reputation for great wine.”

Private golf clubs in America recognize that their affluent members and their guests also enjoy a glass of fine wine after a round of golf although only a few can provide the cellarage required to keep historic vintages in prime condition.

TPC Jasna Polana in Princeton, New Jersey is a determinedly upmarket golf and country club set in 226 acres of what was the home of John Seward Johnson, heir

A selection of K Club’s finest (above) TPC Jasna Polana (right)

Thus the love of great wine continues in Straffan and the golfers are as keen to enjoy a glass or a bottle as the hotel guests, with a marked preference for the reds, O’Doherty notes, for which they are most certainly spoilt for choice.

Thanks to O’Doherty’s favourite gizmo, known as Coravin, golfers and guests can also enjoy some superb wines by the glass. Coravin is a system that enables wine to be extracted from a bottle without removing the cork.

It was invented by nuclear engineer and Bostonian Greg Lambrecht when his wife was pregnant and he wanted a glass of fine wine but could not manage to drink a bottle by himself.

A long needle is inserted into the cork from what looks like a small microscope and sucks wine from the bottle. The air in the bottle is replaced by inert argon gas from a little cylinder that is screwed into the system. It means the wine can easily be stored for two years with no degradation.

It’s fantastic that the wines I’m buying now for the club will be here long after I’m gone

to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune, and his third wife, the Polish Barbara Piasecka Johnson, which explains the club’s name, Polish for “bright meadow.”

On the death of her husband in 1983, Mrs. Johnson agreed to convert the estate to a private golf club with the help of the TPC Network that aims to provide top- flight venues capable of hosting PGA Tour events. Opening in 1998, the course at Jasna Polana was designed by Gary Player and has hosted the PGA Senior Tour events.

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The clubhouse was not built as a clubhouse at all but as a Polish mansion costing $30m in the 1970s when it was one of the most expensive private homes in the country. It had two cellars, one for storing the Johnson’s collection of fine art and the other capable of holding up to 10,000 bottles of wine.

These days only 3,000 are kept for club members, although Director of Hospitality Jason Miller ensures that there are still some top quality bottles for the club’s 320 members to enjoy in their luxurious surroundings.

State laws in New Jersey mean that Miller cannot source his wines direct with the wineries but must go through 20 or more local distributors for his stocks, although this has not prevented him from stocking a hugely impressive array, including bottles of Chateau Lafite Rothschild from Pauillac.

“Classic reds are very popular,” he says, “and accounts for anything up to 80% of our sales. Golfers are just as likely to order a bottle after a round as our social members.”

The average price sold in the club is around $170 although the most expensive wine is the 100% cabernet sauvignon Screaming Eagle from Napa that retails in the club at $3,750 a bottle.

“This a high end membership,” says Miller, “that enjoys a high end product.”

TPC Jasna Polana offers America’s top wine alongside top golf

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Kingdom readers may not have space beneath their homes to create cellars on the scale of an elite golf club but that is no reason why wines cannot be stored in the correct conditions.

Many specialist companies provide wine cabinets that will keep wines at the correct temperature, between 9 to 15 degrees Celcius, and with a suitable humidity level of between 50 to 80%. It is also crucial to keep bottles away from all forms of light, even from indirect light, as in the longer term it can break down the structure of the wine and dilute it.

The problem for many with standalone cabinets is finding the space for them, especially some of the larger ones that hold up to 250 bottles of wine and are about the same size as a fridge/freezer combination.

One system that has proved extremely popular in overcoming this potentially intrusive space requirement over the last 12 years was pioneered in France but is now owned by an Englishwoman, Lucy Hargreaves, who sells her Spiral Cellars all over the world and boasts a turnover of between $6.5m and $7.5m.

“Once people would install our system in their garage,” she explains, “but such has been the surge in interest in fine wines they now want to make a feature of it which is why we provide a sliding glass top for people who want a spiral cellar in their kitchen.

It certainly acts as a terrific focal point and keeps the wine in ideal conditions with no vibrations that could harm it.”

The standard-sized spiral cellar would stock 1,600 bottles, although the deepest cellar the company installs holds 1,900. From order to completion the contract takes a maximum of eight days with prices starting at $25,000. There is also a kit form available although that is less of a feature as it lacks the spiral stairway and comes with straight steps.

“The thing that has been so successful,” says Hargreaves, “is the way people have made use of the cellar as part of the design of their property. And when it comes to selling, a bespoke wine cellar certainly adds value to any home.”

FINE HOMES & LUXURY PROPERTIES

Davis Love III will remember 2016. It was the year he led the American Ryder Cup Team to victory for the first time since 2008, he was invited into the World Golf Hall of Fame, and it was also a year in which Love lost a dear friend in Arnold Palmer.

It was an emotional journey, as Love speaks exclusively to Dave Shedloski for Kingdom

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Davis Love III is in the midst of a five-hour drive from his home in Sea Island, Georgia, to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to have dinner with his son, Dru—or Davis Milton Love IV as he is formally named—so he doesn’t mind filling up the time talking on the phone.

There is much worth talking about. It was a meaningful year for one of golf’s most talented and popular players, what with leading a U.S. victory in the Ryder Cup and being selected for induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

So, a 30-minute scheduled interview leaks well past an hour, and when Love realizes that he has already covered much ground—figuratively as well as quite literally on the odometer—he can only laugh at himself.

And then he apologizes. “I’ve taken up too much of your time,” he says.

It’s an extraordinary remark. Modern-day athletes rarely exude such selflessness or give thought to situational manners. But Davis Love, son of a renowned golf professional and instructor, was carefully taught. With fame and adulation and the riches that are bestowed upon the most successful pro athletes comes enormous responsibility. Love understands this, embraces it, and takes pride in setting an example, as top players before him had done, most notably his mentor, the late Arnold Palmer.

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Though he has won 21 times on the PGA Tour, including the 1997 PGA Championship and the 2015 Wyndham Championship that made him, at age 51, the third-oldest winner in tour history, Love believes it’s been his comportment, openness, and willingness to work on making the game better—sometimes at the expense of improving his own game—that eventually resonated with the Hall of Fame selection committee.

“I think your record, obviously, has to be a part of it, The mention of Palmer brings a slight catch to Love’s voice. and my record was okay. But I’d like to think contributions Davis Love is definitely his father’s son, but he also was one to the game is what put me over the top with the Hall of Palmer’s sons, too, so to speak. His father introduced voters,” says Love, who served multiple terms as a player representative on the PGA Tour Policy Board, a time- him to Palmer when he was 10 years old at the 1974 PGA Championship at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, North consuming endeavor and one that requires both passion Carolina. The experience served as a lesson the youngster and patience. never forgot and one that he has carried forward.

“I don’t try to assume anything. But I got a note from one “Arnie and my dad were friends, and he sat down and of my foundation partners who told me, ‘You are truly a golf talked to me that day for several minutes,” Love recalled. professional,’ and that was one of the greatest compliments I could receive. I tried to do the things that would have “There we were at a major championship, and he makes time for some kid he just met. But that’s the way he was. He made my dad proud, because he was a golf professional, not someone who played golf professionally. There is a difference. was just so genuine with everyone, whether you were the doorman or the President of the United States. And there To think that somehow I fulfilled the role that he would have was nothing in it for him. That’s the kind of person he was.” wanted for me is what means the most.

Through the years the two men grew closer, which “But, frankly, I’m overwhelmed that I would be in that category with the likes of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus,” is why Palmer’s passing on September 25 was nearly as devastating to Love as when he lost his father in a private Love adds. “That’s the standard of what we strive for on airplane crash in 1988. the golf course as well as off the course, and I have been “Arnold was such a major part of my golfing life,” striving for that. Jack once said that Davis gets what it Love says. “He was always so encouraging. And he gave me means to give back to the game. Arnie said the same thing little bits of advice along the way, and you just realize what at the Presidents Cup all those years ago. It doesn’t even a blessing that is to have somebody like that in your corner. matter to get into the Hall of Fame. To have Jack and Arnie But Arnold probably thought he didn’t do anything, but say that about me, that means I’ve done what my dad asked the little things he said, the advice, they meant so much to me to do.” me, and I will miss that. I will miss his smile and the way he could make you feel good about yourself with just the right words.”

One of Love’s favorite memories with Palmer occurred just a few years ago when he played nine holes with Palmer at Augusta National during Masters week. It turned out to be the last nine holes the four-time Masters champion played during the tournament.

“It was at a time when he would just go out and play practice rounds, but he wasn’t playing in the tournament anymore. And all of a sudden he sees me and asks me to play. No fanfare, nobody saying this is Arnold’s last day out.

‘Come on, let’s go play.’ And that was the last time he did that. What an honor that is for someone like me. So, it’s hard to imagine him being gone, that we’ll never have that interaction with him ever again. It’s tough to think about.”

Father figure

Winner of the 1997 PGA Championship at Winged Foot

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Arnold was such a major part of my golfing life...

He could make you feel good about yourself with just the right words

[Top left] Palmer and Love during the 1996 Presidents Cup at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, Virginia, when Love played on Palmer’s American team [Above] The United States team after winning the 1996 Presidents Cup. Back row, [l to r]: Love, Steve Stricker, Kenny Perry; centre row, [l to r]: Phil Mickelson, Corey Pavin, David Duval, Mark O’Meara, Tom Lehman; front row, [l to r]: Palmer, Fred Couples, Scott Hoch, Justin Leonard, Mark Brooks.

[Left] Palmer and Love practice at Augusta National ahead of the Masters in 2004

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Ryder Cup spirit

The 2016 U.S. Ryder Cup team; every team member contributed at least one point

Palmer definitely was on everyone’s mind at last year’s Ryder Cup at Hazeltine National in Chaska, Minnesota, with his death coming on the Sunday prior to the matches. And his spirit lingered throughout the grounds and especially on the first tee where the PGA of America placed his bag from the 1975 Ryder Cup, the year he served for a second time as U.S. captain, at Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, not far from Palmer’s Latrobe hometown.

America went on to beat Europe handily at Hazeltine after sweeping the opening session on Friday morning, which hadn’t been done since 1975. And at the end of the 16 ½ to 11 ½ victory, America’s first win since 2008, every U.S. player had scored at least one point. And again, that hadn’t happened since Palmer’s ’75 squad.

“His bag sitting on that first tee… I don’t know who did that, but it was genius,” Love says. “And then to think of all the things that happened that tie back to that year.

I stressed with all the guys that we didn’t want to make this Ryder Cup all of a sudden about calling on the spirit of Arnold Palmer and make it a public display, because we were all mourning together. Then we sat down at the first lunch on the Monday in the team room and we were asked what we wanted to drink. Rickie Fowler said ‘I’ll have an Arnold Palmer.’ We all ordered Arnold Palmers. We went on from there and did it quietly, thinking about Arnold. We didn’t have a speech every night—win it for Arnold—but everybody felt it.”

And then Love felt relief.

No one, perhaps, carried the burden of pressure for

the American Ryder Cup team more than Love. He had been at the helm of the 2012 squad that squandered a fourpoint lead at Medinah, a stunning outcome. The U.S. had rallied from four behind in 1999 at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, but that was at home. For Europe to pull it off on the road was all but unfathomable. After the 2014 team suffered a seismic meltdown at Gleneagles under the dour reign of Tom Watson, Love was recruited to populate a “task force” to address America’s Ryder Cup shortcomings dating to 1993. Out of that task force came his second appointment as captain so there was a lot riding on the outcome.

A spirit of cooperation meant as much as the spirit of Arnold Palmer. Which was the point of the task force—for the U.S. contingent to bond and formulate solutions to its moribund fortunes.

Love, who battled injuries in 2016 and played sporadically while juggling his captain’s duties—he competed only once after May—was certain that he and his group of assistant captains, including Tiger Woods, had done all they could to prepare the U.S. squad. And that preparation ignited execution.

“I’m happy that we as a group came together—12 players, six captains—that we all bonded in our own groups,” Love said. “We supported the guys better than we did in ’12 and frankly better than we did in ’14. And we had to learn the lesson from ’12 and ’14 that something was wrong when the chips were down. You think, you play your game, you shoot your score. It’s an individual sport. That wasn’t the

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right attitude. We had to learn that. We have to do whatever we can to support and bond together as teammates and do it together or you’re not going to be successful. Maybe getting kicked around for six years made us realize that hey, look, it’s not about you, it’s about the team. What can you do to make your team and your teammates better is your job.

“I think where that most showed up was Saturday when we had to sit some guys who were playing well. And then on Sunday we handled the pressure, obviously, much better than we did at Medinah.”

The victory was sweet and vindicating for Love. But it wasn’t even the best part of the endeavor. “What I keep explaining to people is that 2012 as Ryder Cup captain was an incredible experience. We had a great team and I have great memories. I’ve had great memories of any team I’ve been on or around. But this one was different because we really grew as friends, and that made it so much more rewarding for me.”

As a member of the PGA of America’s Ryder Cup committee going forward, Love will remain involved in America’s biennial fortunes, but he won’t be captain again, feeling like he already had taken a spot that should have gone to one of his contemporaries. He spent the latter months of 2016 rehabbing a sore hip and he hoped to compete more frequently on both the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions in 2017. However, those plans were scuttled in early January after he underwent surgery for a broken collarbone he suffered while snowboarding with his son over the holidays.

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The moment of vistory at Hazeltine [above], and [left, l to r] celebrations with Dustin Johnson, Tiger Woods and J.B. Holmes

He was uncertain when he could compete again, but he does have his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame in the fall to look forward to, held in conjunction with the Presidents Cup at Liberty National in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Whatever 2017 brings, it will be tough to surpass the year just completed: “You know, it was an incredible year, but bittersweet, obviously, with the loss of Arnold. How can you ever replace him? You just can’t,” Love says. “On a personal level, almost everything meaningful had nothing to do with what I did on the golf course. I was disappointed in my play and having to be out so long, but in some ways, it was one of the more rewarding years of my career.

And having that memory of Arnold tying back to the Ryder Cup is something that will stay with me the rest of my life.”

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All in a day’s work

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Receiving the greatest media perk in golf was electrifying, but also a bit terrifying.

It was my fifth Masters and the third time I had entered the media draw. A handful of “working media” fourballs are invited to play each year, and Augusta National likes to spread around the opportunity, the joy, the sleepless anxiety. In advance I had even arranged my travel home for the Tuesday after the Masters, just in case my name was plucked (a couple years ago, one writer played his tee shot on 13 before rushing off to catch a flight; it gives the “walk of shame” new meaning).

I love golf, though like so many I am not very good, and certainly not at the level to which Augusta is accustomed.

There is a song by Chris Isaak called, Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing. It’s about a woman, but whenever I hear the song it’s about my golf ball and a long line of failed, short-term relationships. Many rounds of golf end for me the way Isaak sings it: “I feel like cryin’, I feel like cryin’...”

While working at the 2016 Masters, our managing editor Robin Barwick saw his number pulled out of the media draw to play Augusta National the day after the final round. He told us he had a meeting with a guy about a story…

Monday, April 11, 2016 Having set a new land slow-speed record driving up the shady idyll of Magnolia Lane, I was anxious to head out to the tournament practice ground to get some swings in on a set of brand new clubs lent to me by a local country club. Mint condition Titleist cart bag, pristine Titleist AP2 forged irons, unblemished Titleist 917 woods, gleaming Scotty Cameron putter. Beautiful, but totally new to me and my fragile game.

So it was a quick turnaround in the Champions’ Locker Room—yup, we were allowed in there—and so the day unfolded, with one highlight rolling in after another: Magnolia Lane, Champions’ Locker Room, the world’s finest practice ground, the first tee, the first green... You get the sequence, and it ends where it began, back in the Champions’ Locker Room, Magnolia Lane.

The most striking feature about the Champions’ Locker Room is its quiet intimacy, which is typical of the central section of Augusta’s clubhouse, the original plantation manor house built in 1854. The building has been painstakingly preserved and extended since it was converted into a clubhouse by club founders Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts in 1931, and the manor house steadfastly retains a beautifully antiquated feel, including its limited proportions.

On the range, my caddie, Charles, was standing by my Titleist tour bag in white Augusta overalls, standard issue, polishing the clubs (not that they needed it, but nice touch).

I started with the ol’ reliable 7-iron, the safe play. I had asked for regular steel shafts but I now discovered—on the turf upon which the world’s finest had been warming up just 24 hours before—that these glinting shafts were as stiff as

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reinforced iron. There I was, a moderately high handicapper heading out at Augusta National with a set of clubs made for Adam Scott.

Tense and swinging too fast, I miss-cued a couple, the balls skimming wildly towards sand traps. Then I hit a couple of sliced line drives, so I turned to the 8-iron, while trying to laugh about how I’d never seen these clubs before.

Charles’ heart must have sunk at the prospect of zigzagging around Augusta with this heavy cart bag.

After a handful more ugly step-sisters, I choked down on the grip, slowed down the whole sorry display and hit some half-swing pitches, which assured me these irons did have sweetspots after all.

Running out of time, I turned to the 3-wood—which at least had a graphite shaft—and I don’t know if Amen Corner delivered an answer to my desperate prayer, but I finally found a club I could hit out of the middle, straight and high.

Hole No. 1: Tea Olive Jones wrote how he never forgot his first walk out back from the manor house of what had been Fruitlands Nurseries, in the spring of 1931.

Previously, I had only stepped onto the unfailingly green turf of Augusta during Masters week but this atmosphere, the morning after the night before, was completely different and it took a few moments to compute.

There was hardly anyone out there— just other, distant fourballs making their progress. I don’t know the tee-time intervals but there was no sense of hustle. No security guards. All the fairway ropes had been taken down overnight and so here was a true sense of what Augusta National is really like. This stunning tranquility is what the members enjoy and we were given an inkling of what Jones must have felt 86 years ago.

We could appreciate how much space there is at Augusta, and never more so than off the first tee, particularly if you take aim with a 3-wood from the Member tee. Over 18 holes, the Member tees cut 1,070 yards off the Masters scorecard, from 7,435 down to 6,365, and on the first it is a decent walk down from the Masters tee at 445 yards, to the Members’ at 365. Even so, the fairway is more than generous.

I had never met the three guys who made up our 11:00 slot. We were an Englishman (me), an Irishman and two Americans and I hoped I would not be the butt of the joke.

Sentiments around Jones’ first visit and enjoyment of Augusta’s warm, spring sunshine flew off in a flash when my name was called to tee off. Well, I don’t know how, but blessedly—almost unbelievably after my awkward swipes

on the range—I striped a tee shot right up the middle. High and straight, I nearly called it a day right there. I somehow stumbled my way to a 6 after that but who cares, the tee shot is the one I’ll remember.

I am not going to chart my round shot by shot, none of us would make it to the end. And as we all know, some things are best left unsaid.

But I can report that playing Augusta National—from the Member tees remember—is not as tough as you might imagine, even with the Sunday pin positions. Before we teed off, Charles assured me that losing golf balls did not happen often at Augusta, because the “second cut” here is shorter than some “first cuts” elsewhere, and beyond that most of the ground is carpeted with pine needles. Almost the only spots where golf balls are in mortal danger are where water comes into play, and how much water features on the front nine at Augusta National? Zilch.

Water does not feature until the 11th, and—having been worried about running out of balls—I did not lose one until I did a “Spieth” at the 12th. Back to that in a moment.

First there were two pars to report on the front nine, neither of which would have occurred without Charles’ reading of the greens. A chip and a putt on the par-3 fourth produced my first, followed by holing an almost straight 15-footer on the par-5 8th. I was made up already.

“If in doubt, all putts lean towards Amen Corner,” was one of Charles’ Southerngrilled nuggets

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Rae’s Creek

Readers who have not visited Augusta National might not know that Amen Corner is the lowest part of the course. In fact, Rae’s Creek is the lowest point. “If in doubt, all putts lean towards Amen Corner,” was one of Charles’ many Southern-grilled nuggets, echoing Jack Nicklaus, who once warned that when putting at Augusta National, “You always have to remember where Rae’s Creek is.”

On a quiet morning with its huge grandstand completely empty, the sense of peace and seclusion at Amen Corner is magnified, hemmed in by towering pines apart from the green avenues of the 11th and 13th fairways. One way in, one way out. During the Masters, Amen Corner—the Mecca of American golf—has a constant hum. On this idyllic morning though, all you could hear was the trickle of Rae’s Creek, the singing bluebirds, a heron paddling at the creek’s edge. The swirling breezes for which Amen Corner is renowned were at ease on our visit, which heightened the tranquility.

I have walked the course many times and was sold on the attractions of Augusta a long time ago, but taking a welcome pause on the 12th tee—the pivotal point of Amen Corner—dug a deeper appreciation of this golf course.

Snapshots from a day at Augusta, including Robin’s winning ticket [above], and [bottom left] see if you can spot Robin’s ball on 16 (clue: it’s near the pin)

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By the time we reached the 12th—Golden Bell, one of the all-time great par-3s—I had adjusted to Scotty’s irons a bit, particularly with attempts at shorter back swings. From 145 yards on the Member tee I had nothing to lose with a three-quarter six-iron. I nearly got it just right, aiming over the front bunker—as Nicklaus and Bernhard Langer, among others, always do—and my ball soared high, and while it looked for a moment that it might reach safety, the ball faded and dropped into the same spot of Rae’s Creek that Jordan Spieth found on his first attempt in the previous day’s final round. Admittedly, Spieth’s ball bounced back off the bank whereas mine was a slam-dunk. Minor detail.

And Isaak wails: “It hurts so bad when you finally know just how low, low, low, low, low she’ll go.”

Yet the truth is I have never been less disappointed to find water off the tee. If it’s good enough for Spieth, it’s good enough for me (and the young Texan would hate that).

It was not until I crossed the Ben Hogan bridge and approached my second ball—over the green, back right— that I got a true realization of how small the 12th green is.

You hear the pros going on about it, but credit where it’s due.

There is nothing of it, so little wonder that despite being the shortest par-3 at Augusta, it has inflicted an average score of 3.23 over Masters all-time history.

Similarly to the first tee, for golfers like me who opt for a 3-wood off the Member tee on 13 (Azalea) there is more space that you would imagine. A hook should result in a ball lost among the azaleas (unless you hit a left-handed “slap cut,” as Bubba Watson calls them, 366 yards onto the fairway, as he did in the final round in 2014 on his way to a second Green Jacket), but the high fade I struck had all the fairway in the world.

After a grass-cutting hybrid, I hit a 6-iron onto the 13th green from the left of the fairway to snag another cherished moment. But that 13th green is long, and while my ball was front-left, the pin was back-right, 50 feet away.

Robin and his caddie Charles on the 12th tee, and [right] a close-up of the Masters trophy in the clubhouse, with some familiar names

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SPRING 2017

“This putt is shaped like a candy cane,” explained Charles as he paced it out. “You need to putt the ball past the hole before it turns right around back towards the hole.”

That was a read I would never have seen. Slightly downhill, with a ridge to cross, I hit the putt pretty hard to make sure it rolled clear past the hole and Charles liked its chances. As the ball slowed down past the hole, as if pulled by a magnetic force, it turned around in a 180-degree loop and started a new course straight for the hole. It would be stretching editorial license too far to say I holed it—no fake news here—but it stopped less than a foot shy of the cup for a tap-in par. I won’t forget the candy cane putt.

Another cut-down 6-iron found the 16th green and left me the only genuine birdie chance of my round from 12 feet, with a hint of right-to-left. With that back-left pin position my putt was one all Masters viewers have watched a million times. I had a clear vision of how the ball would turn into the hole, but it wasn’t to be. It wasn’t a bad putt but it skirted around the lip for another tap-in par. I was moderately ecstatic but tried to keep it contained.

This was the only round when I wanted pace of play to slow down. I didn’t want it to end and could not believe it as we marched up the 18th (which, as you may know, really is much steeper than in the pictures).

But the round did end, and I walked back up to the Champions’ Locker Room with a single, clear thought: now I wanted to play the course again more than I did in the first place. Augusta National had not been brutal after all. It was the golfing experience of my lifetime—but in future I will pack my own clubs for the Masters, just in case.

This was the only round when I wanted pace of play to slow down. I didn’t want it to end

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The 17th tee. So often pivotal in a round of golf.

Standing there, one shot up or one hole up—or perhaps one down—is a test of nerve to which all serious golfers can relate. It has been said it is the most uncomfortable moment for a would-be champ on tour. So much at stake, yet still time for it all to burn to toast. The 18th tee is the final fling—light gleaming brightly at the end of the tunnel—but on the 17th there remains enough twists and turns ahead that the light is but a dim glimmer

THE GREAT PENULTIMATES

Patrick Drickey | STONEHOUSEGOLF.COM

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1

National Golf Links of America, New York

2

Cabo del Sol (Ocean), Mexico

Par 4, 375 yards, Handicap 15

Par 3, 162 yards, Handicap 17

With a name seemingly full of self-aggrandizement it’s a good job National Golf Links of America is indeed one of the great golf courses of the United States. It opened back in 1908 and was built by Charles Blair Macdonald—the first U.S. Amateur champion, in 1895, and protégé of Old Tom Morris in St Andrews—who had already built the country’s first 18-hole layout at Chicago Golf Club.

National Golf Links is integral to one of the all-time great golfing neighborhoods, a private enclave along the shoreline of the idyllic Peconic Bay, outside Southampton on Long Island, along with vintage U.S. Open venue Shinnecock Hills and modern classic Sebonack Golf Club.

The 17th at National is one of the world’s great short par-fours and while we hate to take it out of its natural position as penultimate hole, it will serve royally as an opener with a generous fairway target to open our imaginary round.

Golfers are best to hug the left of the fairway off the tee to open up the green around the corner of this dogleg right. Boosted by a gentle downward slope from the tee, we are going to take on the hole from the back tee.

Los Cabos, down at the southern tip of the Baja California Sur peninsula in Mexico, has become of the great winter-sun destinations in the world. Some 1,000 miles south of Los Angeles, it is here where the warm waters of the Pacific meet those from the Sea of Cortes, with the conflicting currents forging the distinctive “El Arco” rock formation that juts out from the shore.

Long renowned for its pristine beaches, marlin fishing and tequila, a stunning corridor of golf has been developed between the resort towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, pivoting around the Jack Nicklaus-designed Cabo del Sol. One of the world’s truly spectacular par threes, the 17th at Cabo del Sol is its signature hole. A hole that offers unforgettable beauty as well as a stern strategic challenge, the 17th boasts five tees and yardages that vary from just 112 yards up to 178. We want you to feel at least the pinch of pressure and so will opt for the gold tee and a distance of 162 yards, with unrelenting rocks and scrub surrounding the green, with the deep blue yonder beyond and to the right.

Clean strike required.

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3

3.

Wentworth (West), Surrey, England

4

Bay Hill Club & Lodge, Florida

Par 5, 549 yards, Handicap 10

Par 3, 177 yards, Handicap 12

The West Course is one of the great English heathland variety, designed by Harry Colt and opened a short hop from southwest London in 1926. Venue for the 1953 Ryder Cup, the West is most famous for hosting the sadly deceased World Match Play between 1964 and 2007 (famously won

by Arnold Palmer in its ’64 inauguration), and it has staged Europe’s PGA Championship since 1984.

The West’s splendor is epitomized by its 17th, a mighty par five that today reaches 610 yards from the back. Within our concoction there’s no need for a hole that could prove pretty endless, so we are settling for the white-tee yardage of 566—still no pushover. The crescent-shaped hole—the longest on the course—veers from right to left, with a raised green perched in the back left corner. A two-shotter for hardly anyone, it is so tough there is not a single bunker to worry about. Golfers just need to make sure they don’t get greedy and try to cut the corner. Thick woodland guards the left-hand side, awash with abandoned golf balls.

The 17th at Bay Hill; one of the most revered holes on tour.

Intertwined with Orlando’s Butler Chain of Lakes, the course was designed by Dick Wilson and opened in 1961, and later revised by Palmer and Ed Seay.

Bay Hill has been home to the Arnold Palmer Invitational since 1979, and while the tour pros play the par-three 17th at a very formidable 221 yards, as the hole features one of the smaller greens on the course—and an awful lot of water awaiting sliced tee shots—we are going off from the blue tee with a yardage of 177.

The raised, tabletop green is guarded by a deep and broad bunker that eats into the front right, with two shallower sand traps to the left of the green. The conservative tee shot is aimed at the front left portion of the green, but the pin is usually positioned at the back or in the shallow part on the right. Another word of warning—anyone long off the tee can expect to bounce down a steep slope into the stream which runs round the back.

Mark Alexander

5 Paraparaumu Beach, Wellington, New Zealand

Par 4, 385 yards, Handicap 6

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SPRING 2017

Paraparaumu Beach is a treasure of the southern hemisphere; a links that opened in 1949, designed by Australian Alex Russell, the 1924 Australian Open champion. Paraparaumu Beach has hosted 12 New Zealand Opens, dating back to 1959 when Peter Thomson won, with the last played there in 2002. One American golfer has won here; a curly-haired Corey Pavin in 1984.

Hailing from Melbourne, Russell had assisted Alister Mackenzie at Royal Melbourne, and Russell proved he had learned well here on New Zealand’s North Island, overlooking the Cook Strait and Tasman Sea. As with all links, wind direction is critical on the par-four 17th.

Golfers taking on the uphill challenge into the wind could feel the bite of this picturesque hole. A two-tier fairway presents a challenge straight from the tee, and any hopes of running a low approach into the green are dashed by a pair of bunkers protecting the front of the green.

6

TPC Sawgrass (Stadium), Florida

7

Cypress Point Club, California

Par 3, 137 yards, Handicap 13

Par 4, 386 yards, Handicap 7

Described by one writer as bringing a dash of Evel Knievel to the most genteel of sports, this is golf’s most nervewracking hole. You know what’s there: tee, water, island green, bunker. Oh, and dropping zone. Then a huge crowd bays for glory or disaster, one or the other but nothing in between. The permutations are Satanic, especially when there’s a breeze. That’s when the world’s finest are grateful for landing in the sand, even from just floating in a 9-iron.

In the 1984 Players, gusts reached 40mph during the first round and 64 balls splashed in the lake. The day’s stroke average of 3.79 was the highest for a par three in PGA Tour history. In fairness to players, at least the green banks up toward the back, with a tier across the middle.

The Stadium Course was built in 1982 specifically to hold the PGA Tour’s pride and joy, the Players Championship.

Creator of the Stadium Course, Pete Dye, only envisaged the 17th after being forced to dig out tons of dirt to fill other pits and chasms around the layout. With no land left, the hole had to be 90 percent water.

“It’s great,” former Players Championship winner Sergio Garcia says. “Any hole where you get to the tee and think, ‘just hit it onto the green’ has to be good.”

Cypress Point, once a host course for the AT&T Pro-Am in its clambake days, when Bing Crosby ruled the roost, is now as fiercely private as it is famous. When asked to compare Alister Mackenzie’s masterpiece with its neighbor Pebble Beach, Julius Boros once said: “Pebble has six great holes— all those that lie on the coastline. Cypress has 18 of them whether they lie on the coast or not.”

Of Cypress’s 18, the 17th is a doozy of a par-four. It is the last of Cypress Point’s fantastic four holes that follow this jagged Pacific shoreline. The hole features a left-to-right dogleg and a stand of cypress trees that split the fairway, placing it among the most admired holes by professionals and amateurs alike.

The drive, from an elevated tee above the deep cliffs behind the 16th green, carries across a Pacific inlet to a wide fairway and towards those trees. It’s a shot that has to be seen to be believed. Golfers opting for safety will steer left of the trees while the more aggressive birdie hunters can aim to the right of the trees and risk loss to the Pacific if the tee shot is less than true. The green is backed and banked by massive bunkers and fronted on the ocean side by a stone retaining wall.

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8

Royal Lytham & St Annes, England

10

Carnoustie, Angus, Scotland

Par 4, 432 yards, Handicap 4

Par 4, 433 yards, Handicap 2

Royal Lytham is a wonderful golf course, as long as you can stay out of most of its 206 bunkers. Ninety percent of them are disconcertingly deep and none are merely decorative.

When the breezes pick up off the nearby Ribble Estuary, the final five holes here are among the toughest in majors golf— one of the reasons Lytham has hosted 11 [British] Opens.

From the tee, the right-to-left dogleg 17th narrows between a line of bunkers on the left and a bank of sand hills. The correct strategy is to find the right of the fairway before firing at a deep green sandwiched between traps.

Bobby Jones pulled off an immortal shot here en route to winning the 1926 Open—Lytham’s debut—after hooking his tee shot. Lying in sand 175 yards from a green he couldn’t see, he took his hickory-shafted mashie iron, picked the ball clean and flew it over gorse and thick scrub into the heart of the green. His playing partner and rival Al Watrous, on the green in two, muttered: “There goes a hundred thousand bucks,” and promptly three-putted. The host club installed a plaque at the spot where Jones executed his miracle shot.

They say that golf has been played over the ancient linksland of Carnoustie, on Scotland’s eastern seaboard, since the 16th century. It was the man considered to be golf’s first professional, Scotland’s Allan Robertson, who laid out Carnoustie’s first official 10 holes, before Old Tom Morris and later James Braid oversaw extensions and renovations that resulted in Carnoustie’s Championship Course being invited to host The Open. it has done so seven times between 1931 and 2007, and the longest course on the Open rota—at 7,421 yards—will stage The Open again in 2018.

The par-4 17th—called “Island”—plays to a forbidding 461 yards from the back so we are edging forward to the White yardage of 433. Take what small mercies you can.

The Barry Burn twists and turns its way around this hole and splits the fairway near a good drive’s landing distance.

A hooked tee shot is likely to take a dip whereas the right side of the fairway opens up away from the burn. Then it is a tough second to a raised green with four ruthless pot bunkers ready to collect anything short.

9

Promontory (Painted Valley), Utah

Par 5, 542 yards, Handicap 14 Promontory’s Painted Valley golf course, a Jack Nicklaus signature creation, is rightly regarded as one of the finest golfing challenges in the state of Utah. An instant classic that opened in 2007, Golf Digest ranked the Golden Bear’s prized layout as the third best “New Private Course” in the United States that year. It is one of the longest golf courses in the world at 8,098 yards from the Gold tees, yet as it is at high altitude at 7,000 feet above sea level in Park City, golfers can enjoy the satisfaction of added ball-flight distance.

Beautifully complementing the Painted Valley course is the recently opened and completed Nicklaus Clubhouse, blending breathtaking golf course and mountain views and sophisticated comfort with a high-class Peak restaurant, offering a contemporary menu with Asian influences and an international wine list. The bar completes an exceptional hospitality proposition with an extensive and creative cocktail menu with signature and classic concoctions.

Always with an eye on a spectacular finish to a round, Nicklaus has crafted a par-five 17th hole to his course that reaches a very stern 605 yards from the Gold tee at the back.

We are opting for the Black tee and a yardage of 542. Length is not the only challenge on this hole, as a green well-protected by bunkers left and right demands an accurate approach.

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11

Pebble Beach, California

12

Royal Birkdale, England

Par 3, 177 yards, Handicap 11

Par 5, 527 yards, Handicap 8

Arnold Palmer was instrumental in renovating the famous Pebble Beach Golf Links over the past two decades, taking it back towards its original design—including work on the 17th green—and bringing the golf as close to the sea as possible.

The update ensures the challenge will befit the U.S. Open when it returns in 2019, in Pebble’s centenary year.

The par-three 17th is one of the more historic golf holes in America. In the 1972 U.S. Open, Palmer was determined to wind back the clock and win at Pebble for the first time and he nearly did, until arch nemesis Jack Nicklaus surged ahead over the closing stretch. Playing into the setting sun and the teeth of an ocean wind, Nicklaus fired a one-iron off the 17th tee. His ball struck the pin and finished inches from the hole for a tap-in birdie.

Nicklaus was on the wrong side of 17 himself 10 years later in the U.S. Open, when Tom Watson chipped in for birdie here from a terrible lie—his ball racing up to the hole and rattling the pin—as he beat Nicklaus by two.

This stunning hole is encased by the Pacific Ocean as golfers tee off towards the deep blue yonder, and a long, two-tier green slants diagonally from front right to back left and is surrounded by a cluster of deep traps. For us, the blue tee and a yardage of 177.

The dunes of Lancashire’s Sefton Coast rise and fall over an area of 5,000 acres and in one section—the Birkdale Sandhills—this course is defined by dunes as majestic as at any Open venue. The course opened in 1889 but The open did not arrive until 1954, three years after the club had received its Royal Command from King George VI. Once the championship unfolded between these famous dunes the first time, an epic bond had begun.

The 17th epitomizes Birkdale, inviting golfers to drive between imposing dunes. A (right-handed) draw is ideal and then the green is reachable, even if the hole is a lot longer than it used to be. The green was moved back and re-contoured ahead of Birkdale’s last Open in 2008, making a tighter approach. Playing 572 yards in 2008, Padraig Harrington struck the five-wood of his life from the fairway to find the green, uphill, from 249 yards. Not only that, his ball rolled up and stopped three feet from the hole. The eagle three sealed Harrington’s successful defence of the Claret Jug. We’ll play from the white tee yardage of 527, hopefully to encourage one or two more eagle putts.

With its 10th Open approaching in July, Birkdale remains the only Open venue that has not produced a winner from the United Kingdom.

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13

Oakland Hills (South), Michigan

14

K Club (Palmer Ryder Cup), Ireland

Par 3, 191 Yards, Handicap 9

Par 4, 424 yards, Handicap 3

After winning the 1951 U.S. Open here with a peerless, closing 67—for Ben Hogan’s third straight major title—he claimed that if Robert Trent Jones “had to make a living playing the courses he builds, his family would be on the bread line”. The unrepentant Trent Jones said the world’s best players needed “shock treatment” as their game had outgrown so many great courses.

Trent Jones had been brought in to bolster the defences of the Donald Ross-designed South Course at Oakland Hills, outside Detroit, which opened for play in 1918 and whose first pro was Walter Hagen. Trent Jones converted two par fives into killer par fours and the newspapers branded the course a ‘Monster’. The name stuck.

For the 2008 PGA Championship the players had to cope with a tee shot of 238 yards on the 17th, up to a two-tier green that is 30 feet higher than the tee and surrounded by five sand traps. We are opting for the Blue tee and plenty of golf to play from 191 yards.

It was here that Arnold Palmer won the inaugural U.S. Senior Open in 1981.

The Palmer Ryder Cup course opened in 1991 but before a single shot had been struck, Palmer suggested to owner Michael Smurfit that the course could be the perfect stage for the 1993 Ryder Cup. The Belfry got the ’93 event but the designer’s recommendation became reality when the K Club was awarded the 2006 Ryder Cup, won by Ian Woosnam’s home team.

Named ‘Half Moon’, the demanding right-to-left dogleg 17th, requires accuracy from the tee. The River Liffey serves as a watery grave to a pulled or hooked drive (for the right-hander) while there is little solace for those who choose to bailout right towards thick woodland. Palmer says: “The ideal drive is down the left side of the fairway but this is very risky. Much easier is to hit a long iron or rescue club to the middle right of the fairway, but this can leave a lengthy shot into the green.” With the putting surface also sloping sharply from right to left towards the Liffey, a delicate touch is essential around the green.

The 17th played to 424 yards in the 2006 Ryder Cup and we are heading to that Blue tee.

15 Turtle Bay (Palmer), Hawaii

Par 4, 408 Yards, Handicap 5

Arnold Palmer and Ed Seay designed the Palmer course at Turtle Bay, which opened in 1992 on Oahu’s North Shore. The championship test meanders through Oahu’s natural wetlands and circumvents natural waterways and dense Hawaiian jungle that offer some protection from the coastal winds. The course horseshoes around the Punaho’olapa marsh—100 acres of protected wetlands and bird sanctuary—which is fringed by sandy beaches, with water coming into play on 14 holes. Golfers play right up to the beach on the signature 17th. The Palmer tee takes the yardage to 452 but we will go one tee forward and play the par-four from the 408-yard Blue tee. A dogleg right, golfers tee off amid the Oahu jungle before turning the corner and facing an idyllic Pacific panorama behind the green. There are nine bunkers to negotiate between tee and green and sandy scrub to avoid beyond the two-tier green.

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16

Sahalee, Washington

17

TPC San Antonio, AT&T Oaks Course, Texas

Par 3, 173 Yards, Handicap 16

Par 4, 317 yards, Handicap 18

The idyllic woodland course at Sahalee was built in 1969 on the Sammamish Plateau, east of Redmond. “Sahalee” means “High heavenly ground” in the region’s native Chinook language and it is fitting, with 27 holes wending through magnificent forests of red cedar, Douglas fir and hemlock.

Sahalee became the second Washington club to stage a major (Manito was first with the 1944 PGA Championship) when it received the 80th PGA Championship in 1998.

“Everybody heard there were a lot of trees,” said Justin Leonard, “I don’t think anybody imagined this many.” Vijay Singh won his first major that week.

The long par-three 17th (the 8th of the North nine) was decisive in that ’98 PGA. Both Singh and Steve Stricker found the back bunker, but while Singh holed out from 18 feet to save par, smooth-stroke Stricker missed from 11 feet.

The hole played to 215 yards then, but we are going off the Blue tee at 173. From an elevated tee golfers must avoid a lake that flanks the hole from the right, while bunkers protect the green from the left and at the back.

In contrast to the typically big and broad courses of modern tour golf, there is a retrospective quality about the AT&T Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio, designed by Greg Norman and Sergio Garcia and opened in 2010. Home to the Valero Texas Open, the Oaks Course plays through woodlands, its narrow fairways demanding precision over power, while its bunkering provides a degree of punishment more in keeping with Britain’s ancient parkland layouts.

Says former world number one Norman: “The topographic subtleties of the rolling Texas country terrain, framed by magnificent stands of mature live oaks, create a pristine natural setting that is as playable as it is beautiful.”

Tour pros play the 17th to 347 yards but we are opting for the ‘Players’ tee at 317 to give club golfers a better chance of reaching the green with a mighty drive or at least a drive and a wedge. There are two expansive bunkers to avoid here.

One will collect faded attempts at the green off the tee, to the right, while the other will receive balls short and left, leaving a narrow corridor up the middle to run balls onto the green.

Michael O'Bryon

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Dan Murphy | STONEHOUSEGOLF.COM

18

St. Andrews (Old), Scotland

Par 4, 436 yards, Handicap 1

And our journey comes to its end at the oldest of them all—the mother ship—the Old Course at St Andrews, and to its famous 17th, the “Road Hole”. The Old Course is the spiritual home of golf and for The [British] Open, which has been played over the Old Course 29 times, far more than any other course. The clubhouse of the R&A is stationed like a throne behind the first tee, and while it would be too simplistic to describe the Road Hole as the signature hole of the Old Course, it is certainly its most distinct. A brutal par four if played into the wind, with a glint in his eye Seve Ballesteros—Open champ on the Old Course in 1984—once described 17 as “the best par five in golf”.

A new tee extended the Road Hole to almost 500 yards in time for the 2010 Open, which only added to its sheer majesty and complexity, although we are going off the Yellow tee at 436 yards, from which there remains plenty of golf hole to negotiate. It is the ultimate double-dogleg. Off the tee, the drive needs to be fashioned as a slight fade over the wall of the Old Course Hotel to hold the fairway; then a second shot shaped gently from right to left is the best route into a long, tantalizing green protected to the right by the eponymous road and its stone wall beyond. To the front left of the green lies the shadowy, sheer-faced bunker that has ruined more scores than any other bunker in golf.

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KINGDOM SCORECARD

Hole

Course

Par

Yards

H/cp

1

National Golf Links of America

4

375

15

2

Cabo del Sol

3

162

17

3

Wentworth (West)

5

549

10

4

Bay Hill

3

177

12

5

Paraparaumu Beach

4

385

6

6

TPC Sawgrass

3

137

13

7

Cypress Point

4

386

7

8

Royal Lytham & St Annes

4

432

4

9

Promontory (Painted Valley)

5

542

14

FRONT 9

35

3 ,1 4 5

10

Carnoustie

4

433

2

11

Pebble Beach

3

177

11

12

Royal Birkdale

5

527

8

13

Oakland Hills

3

191

9

14

K Club (Palmer Ryder Cup)

4

424

3

15

Turtle Bay (Palmer)

4

408

5

16

Sahalee

3

173

16

17

TPC San Antonio (AT&T Oaks)

4

317

18

18

Old Course, St Andrews

1

4

436

BAC K 9

34

3 ,0 8 6

TOTA L

69

6,231

100 00

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Provence Don’t ask how, just enjoy the fact that things are better here

R

Reine Sammut—the Michelin-starred chef twice voted “Best Woman Chef in France”—is a delight. Her kitchen seems always to be in full, exuberant swing, and it certainly was on the day my wife attended one of Reine’s cooking classes. Without so much as a bonjour my wife was handed an apron and ushered to a spot between two other women.

Heads down, they soon were engaged in filleting sardines— something that seemed impossible to my spectating eyes.

To make the task even more difficult, Reine was giving instructions in French, which my wife does not speak.

And yet somehow it worked. My wife, a very good cook but never a deft butcher of pin-sized fish (that I know of ) suddenly mastered the task under Reine’s smiling guidance.

And Provence is like that. You’re troubled? The task seems impossible? Have another glass of wine, another bite to eat.

And now tout va bien, oui? Yes Provence, truly, somehow, now it’s all good.

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P

Provence is a far cry from Paris, with that city’s glittering lights, bold culinary and arts scenes and frenetic pace that often seems bent on separating tourists from their cash or ignoring them completely. In contrast, much of Provence seems calmly frozen in time. A medieval village here likely must be approached as it was 1,000 years ago, via a narrow single-lane road up a hill. And when one gets to the town, invariably there will be older men at tables by a fountain in the town center drinking wine and glaring at tourists. But a few glasses of wine later and somehow you’re communicating with them, no matter how good or bad your French, somehow you’re all laughing and telling grand stories. In Provence, life just works.

Arriving in Avignon from London via train, we rented a quirky little Renault and drove to our first destination: the beautiful Domaine Des Peyre. A vineyard, winery, art gallery and collection of gites (apartments) set in a meticulously renovated 18th century farmstead, its long driveway leads past Italian artist Stefano Bombardieri’s sculpture of five mouths pronouncing the Italian word Torno, which translates to “I’ll return”—and so most visitors do after discovering the area.

Following a career as director of the renowned guide Gault & Millau, proprietor Patricia Alexandre enlisted her partner, hotelier and entrepreneur Georges Antoun, to create the property. He loves classic cars, so there’s his collection on display in front of the maison. They both love art, so there are works by top artists here and a full gallery on site. They both love wine, so there’s a vineyard that produces phenomenal rosé. It all came together, and it all works. Here, entering the ancient courtyard and hearing the gentle dripping of a fountain behind the long strands of a weeping willow, one is sure to succumb to Provence’s charms, and it’s a great place to begin a visit. We made our way up a grand old staircase, past paintings and statuary, to our gite. We opened the shutters, threw open the windows and looked out to the hills and rows of vines along the remnants of a Roman road.

Recent archeological excavation actually shows that the Domaine des Peyre is built on what was once a Roman villa.

People have been living on this little piece of earth, looking at these hills, for a very long time, and you can feel it.

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When we weren’t tasting the property’s excellent wine or lounging in its infinity pool, we explored local villages and found a fabulous dinner at L’auberge de Carriers in nearby Robion—in spite of the Renault’s navigation system.

Though the car spoke English, its directions were more like poorly translated suggestions than useful navigation, and so we mostly found our own way. We picked up a few staples at the Super U, France’s equivalent of a Target but stocked with obscure cheeses, organic produce, artisan meats, local wine and farm-fresh dairy. We cooked in our little kitchen and ate on our terrace. Our daughter ran free and loved it.

We took a day trip to Chateauneuf-du-Pape where we tasted at the legendary Chateau La Nerthe and posed for pictures in the ruins of a 14th century castle frequented by Pope John XXII. Every second of it was engaging without being exhausting, but before we knew it we were moving on.

Rolling past fields of sunflowers we made our way to Lourmarin, passing the castle where the Marquis de Sade lived and wondering how someone so dark could come from a place so full of sun. We drove on through the idyllic hillside village of Bonnieux and eventually arrived at our next stop: Auberge La Fenière.

Scenes from the charming Domaine Des Peyre and one of the area’s fantastically stocked wine shops [above]

Entering the courtyard and hearing the gentle fountain, one succumbs to the area’s charms

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Great

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Relaxed and unpretentious, this is Reine’s place, and here, sitting in chipped metal chairs under hanging vines by candlelight, listening to the cicadas sing and sharing perfect dish after perfect dish (some of which my wife helped to prepare), it occurred to me that life couldn’t get much better.

Our last stop was Gordes. Perched on the side of a mountain, this medieval town is dramatically charming.

Stone pathways wind among ancient buildings covered in flowering vines. There’s the proverbial cat on the windowsill, lace curtains shifting in the breeze, open-air cafés by the fountain… A postcard picture.

Just outside the main village, up a hill and down again into a verdant glen, we found Villa Hautvallon. This is the house you imagine when you conjure up French fantasies.

An ancient stone mansion with terraced gardens, lavish rooms, a regal pool and a private chef; compared to any hotel it makes a great accommodation. On our last night we enjoyed a dinner the chef prepared for us from ingredients bought that day at the local farmers’ market. Paired with Champagne from the owner’s private cellar, it was heavenly.

The next day was Sunday, which meant the antiques market was on in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. The town is like a collection of little islands spread out over the many tributaries of the river Sorgue. Stone bridges span the clear water and connect the islands to one another. There are water wheels and waterfalls and on Sunday the streets are packed with antique vendors and shoppers. Amazingly, pushing through the throng, we ran into Patricia from Domaine des Peyre—it made Provence feel more like home than ever.

Michelinstarred Chef Reine Sammut at work during a cooking class; L’Isle-sur-laSorgue [below]

From there we left the markets and continued up the road to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse. It’s a quiet little town with a river of the clearest water you’ve ever seen, like liquid crystal, fed by France’s deepest and largest spring. We ate at Restaurant Philip, right near the source. The rush of the water here was almost deafening and the food superb—even the kids’ menu, which offered chicken breast with vegetables and mashed potatoes presented so beautifully and prepared so perfectly that our picky daughter ate every bite.

The day was infernally hot, and with the water everywhere we decided to cool off. We found a spot by the river in a park where others had gathered, but even with the heat no one was swimming. We were puzzled—until we put our feet in. The water was painfully, alarmingly cold.

Bone-hurting cold. After just a few minutes, laughing but barely able to walk on our numb feet, we piled back into the Renault and returned to Gordes.

We had an extravagant snack at La Bastide De Gordes and a beautiful late lunch at La Trinquette, to which we returned a few days later for dinner. It is tiny and divine and the owners are lovely.

On the day of our departure we almost missed our train, and so our car had its last laugh. The calm woman’s voice coming from the Renault’s navigation system hid a completely insane sadist. Trusting her to get us back to a highway, she instead led us on a wild route, at one point directing us to drive up a staircase not three feet wide. We had to reverse out of that situation (and others) and wound up on a seemingly endless road that took us deeper into the mountains and further from the train. And yet somehow we made it. But then bien sûr, of course we did. This is Provence, after all, and here, life just works. We’ll be back.

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Terre Blanche Resort & Spa

A Kingdom staffer and his wife enjoy one of the best golf resorts he’s ever visited: The food had been sublime, Provençal cuisine at its best, and the cognac “on le maison” after the fine bottle of burgundy had taken us from relaxed to ebullient. Feeling confident of finding our way back to the room, I turned down the offer of a ride from one of the stretch-carts that taxi guests up and down the hill from the spa to the main hotel building down past guest villas and suites before reaching the clubhouse, opening holes and practice facilities at the bottom of the valley. We’d arrived in late afternoon and it was our first night. The sky was full of stars, we held hands, and I promptly got us lost in the dark. Thirty minutes later we found our villa, where my wife, who’d been trekking around in heels, forgot to (or decided not to) chastise my navigational skills, so beset was she by the grand evening.

The next morning we had a wonderful breakfast on our terrace overlooking the golf course some 200 feet below— and ended up being a good 10 minutes late for our tee time.

Embarrassed, I paid little attention to the starter before rushing off to the first tee. There was no one in sight on the tee, let alone anyone waiting, and essentially alone we both hit great drives. Checking the distance from the cart I took a 5 iron for my second and ended up 20 yards short of the green.

“Odd,” I thought. “I hit that quite well.” And so it went: for the next four holes I was consistently 10 percent short with every shot—not necessarily a bad thing, given my inaccuracy!

Finally I remarked upon this shortness to my wife and was about to speculate on the ball flight altering due to weather conditions or because of the rich food when she interjected with, “You are remembering that all the distances are in meters, not yards, like the starter said, aren’t you?” “Uh… Of course!” And so it was that for the next 13 holes my shots went a full 10 percent further into the woods, rough and water, and occasionally onto a green.

The two 18-hole courses here, an hour’s drive inland from Nice on the Côte d’Azur, are incredible. The Chateau and Riou tracks were both laid out by former Ryder Cup

player Dave Thomas in the rolling hills of Provence’s wine country. Valleys, waterfalls, ravines and white-sand bunkers abound across the wonderful 750-acre location, so it’s no surprise that the courses play host to two professional European tournaments: the French Riviera Masters and the Terre Blanche Ladies Open. The resort also has the highest professional seal of approval for its Albatross golf performance center, being the first to be certified a “European Tour Performance Institute.” It features a 64-tee, two-tier driving range, an indoor putting green, two outdoor greens, practice bunker and chipping facilities, and a teaching academy.

After an enjoyable round, visitors can relax in the pleasing ambience of a tastefully appointed clubhouse and perhaps indulge in some fine dining in the Restaurant Les Caroubiers or in any of the other four on-site eateries. In addition to golfers, Terre Blanche appeals to a multitude of visitors, be they couples in search of a romantic hideaway, gastronomes or families with children. The hotel has a total of 115 independent rooms, a mixture of suites and villas, and plenty of activities on offer beyond the course.

The centerpiece of the fabulously appointed resort is an indoor/outdoor pool that I can only describe as something out of the set of Roman Villa scene as imagined by a 1960s Hollywood producer on an unlimited budget. My wife loved the spa, proclaimed that she received the best massage of her life there and said she would return to Terre Blanche anytime. It is a resort that manages to combine the range of amenities, space and quality golf of the very top American properties with the superior cuisine and style of Provence at its finest—truly a winning combination. I would return in a measured shot too, even in meters.

Terre-Blanche.com

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h e t R n o w a o d

Americans and cars are as inseparable as cowboys and horses—and while both of those pairings come with a big helping of apple pie and fireworks, the modern truth is that a lot of horses have been replaced by pickup trucks, just as some of America’s best car brands have taken the long highway over the horizon and disappeared. Here, we look at a few of the companies and some of the cars we kinda wish had stuck around.

Variously innovative, inspiring, thrilling or whimsical, it’s a fun exercise to ponder what might be parked in our garages today had these endured and continued to shape and to influence the industry.

Gentlemen, start your engines…

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Tuck

e r C a r C o r p o r at i o n

1944-1949

Perhaps the greatest “what if?” in motoring, Preston Tucker’s company might have been the automotive equivalent of Apple Computer in postwar America. Tucker himself was a tremendous innovator, creating such vehicles as his “Tucker Tiger” armored car, which reportedly could reach 100mph and which featured a brilliantly designed “Tucker Turret” rotating gun enclosure, later used on the B-17 and B-29 bombers. Working with Harry Miller, an engine builder whose motors had taken numerous wins at the Indianapolis 500, Tucker’s greatest achievement arguably was the “Tucker 48,” named for its model year. Innovations included a steerable “Cyclops Eye” third headlight that sat dead center on the front of the car and which engaged at steering angles greater than 10 degrees, illuminating the path around corners. Tucker had a patent for a collapsable steering column and the steering box was located behind the front axle to provide driver safety in the event of a front-end collision, while an open and padded “crash chamber” in front of the front-seat passenger provided protection there (the glove box had been relocated to the doors to make room for this). Further, the dashboard was padded, the front windshield was made of shatterproof glass and made to pop out in the event of a wreck, a perimeter frame encircled the passenger area to protect all occupants, and there was a roll bar integrated into the roof for protection in case of a rollover. The parking brake had a separate key and could be locked to prevent theft, the doors were quite high, curving into the roof to help with ingress and egress, and the entire drivetrain was secured to a separate subframe by only six bolts, making for simple removal and replacement.

Tucker had the idea that “loaner engines” could be installed

while a car was in for service, with the swap-out taking only 30 minutes. Self-sealing tubeless tires, fuel injection, disc brakes and other pioneering innovations were also tested for the 48 but sadly didn’t make it in, and only 51 examples of the car were built. Many of the vehicle’s innovations were firsts, and there’s ample evidence that the “big three” of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler didn’t like Tucker’s company and drove him out of business by using powerful political connections to deny raw materials, for example, as happened when Tucker was refused permits to purchase steel under questionable circumstances. A highly publicized stock fraud trial, in which Tucker was acquitted, didn’t help, nor did negative publicity surrounding the launch of the 48. The prototype unveiled to the press and public was nowhere near ready for its debut, and the resulting criticism was damaging. That, powerful enemies in high places and some bad luck all conspired to bring down the company that produced so many innovations now common on vehicles, including directional headlights, safety glass windshields and more. Tucker himself went on to design a sports car called the Carioca, though it never reached production, and he later died at the age of 53 from pneumonia related to lung cancer. A film starring Jeff Bridges as Tucker was made, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, and his cars are now highly collectible. In 2016, Road and Track reported that a “barn find” Tucker 48 sold for nearly $3 million. Amazingly, and in testament to the car’s quality design and production, the man who restored it told the magazine that after trailering it back to his shop from the Ohio barn where it was found, replacing the belts and hoses and doing only basic maintenance, the vehicle started right up.

N as h M ot o r s

1916-1954 Probably best known for its Rambler and Metropolitan vehicles, Nash Motors was actually one of the more innovative companies of the early and mid 20th century.

First-time-use technologies included the now-standard design for automotive heating and ventilation systems, unibody construction, and seat belts, while the marque was also the first U.S. company to produce a compact car and a muscle car. Its Jeffery Quad truck, produced between 1913 and 1919, featured four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering and was widely viewed as the best of its kind, while its Airflyte (to which top Italian firm

Pininfarina contributed some design cues) was one of the most innovative cars of its day, offering a “twin bed” arrangement via a front seat that folded flat to meet the rear, window screens for people who wanted to camp in their car and a 28.5 cubic-foot trunk to hold all the gear. In 1954 Nash merged with Hudson to create American Motor Corporation (AMC), which eventually came to house Jeep as well before becoming part of Chrysler. The Nash name was phased out in 1957, after which the Rambler and Metropolitan models were sold under their own badges until they, too, disappeared.

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Charley Hoffman ,2016 Champion

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pa c k a r d

1899–1959 Responsible for the modern steering wheel, the first production 12-cylinder engine and the first use of air conditioning in a car, Packard was America’s premiere luxury auto for many years. At a time when most cars sold for around $500, Packards started at $2,600, putting them at the top of the market in the early 20th century. The company’s 3.5 million square-foot plant in Detroit was the first to use reinforced concrete for industrial production, and it is still standing. At Packard’s height between 1924 and 1930, the Japanese royal family owned 10 of the cars and the marque was the top-selling luxury car anywhere. In contrast to other brands, Packard increased both the opulence and the price of its cars following the Great Depression, hoping to reach the top-end of the market that had survived the crash. But by 1935 they began building more affordable vehicles, culminating with the popular “Six,” a Packard priced below $1,000 for the first time. However popular that car was, ultimately the shift lead to a long downward slide in terms of prestige and market share. In the mid 1950s, in a bid to remain competitive, the company merged with Studebaker, which was in poor financial shape. The merger and subsequent internal divisions in leadership ultimately led to Packard’s demise in 1959, marking the end of one of the finest vehicles ever built.

The shift to a more affordable car in the “Six” preceded Packard’s demise

so Hud

n M o t o r C a r C o m pa n

1909–1954

y

As with so many of the independent marques, Hudson racked up a number of industry firsts that would eventually be used by other brands. These included dual brakes, oil-pressure warning lights, a balanced crankshaft (which helped the car’s straight-six engine develop more power due to the shaft’s higher rotational speed) and a number of other drivetrain innovations. There was even a vacuumpowered automatic clutch option as early as the 1930s and, by 1942, a Drive-Master system that allowed drivers to press a button and select from among three transmission modes: manual shifting and clutching; manual shifting with automatic clutching; and automatic shifting and clutching.

Amazingly, the system is said to have worked well. The company continued to push the industry—even in hiring practices, bringing on Elizabeth Thatcher in 1939, one of the first female car designers—but by the 1950s sales were down and the company was in trouble. Part of the merger (with Nash) that created American Motors, the brand was retired after the 1957 model year.

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P o n t i ac

1926–2010 A longtime GM brand that remained popular from its beginnings clear through to the end, Pontiac produced such legends as the Bonneville, the Tempest (which utilized a flexible seven-foot shaft to get power to the rear wheels, helping the car achieve a 50/50 weight balance) and the GTO, but anyone who grew up in the 1970s will remember it for the 1977 Firebird/TransAm used in the Smokey and the Bandit films starring Burt Reynolds. The Firebird was actually a Camaro variant brought in to compete alongside the Chevy against the Ford Mustang. A widening of models—minivans, sedans, tiny sports coupes like the Fiero and others—didn’t save Pontiac from being cut when GM execs tried to display fiscal prudence to Congress prior to receiving bailout funds after the financial crisis of 2008. Still, one of its final new designs, the Solstice, was a beautiful last act. Lauded for its eye-catching design, the lightweight two-seat convertible was offered in a turbocharged GXP trim that made 260 horsepower and which blew the doors off nearly anything in its class. Upon the Solstice’s debut in 2006, 1,000 of them were sold in the first 41 minutes of the car being available, and another 7,000 were sold over the next 10 days. Of its design, car site Edmunds’ editor-in-chief wrote that “[The Solstice is] sexy as hell. Park it next to the Miata and only the president of the local Miata Club will notice the Mazda.”

St u d e b a k e r

1852–1963 One of America’s premiere independent marques, along with Packard, Nash and Hudson, Studebaker began by making wagons for agricultural and industrial use and ended up as a car manufacturer known for steady, solid vehicles. Its first cars in 1902 were electric, though it quickly switched to gasoline-powered cars in 1904. Known more for dependability and volume than for innovations, Studebaker nonetheless was the first to employ monobloc engine casting, which greatly improved engine build integrity and which became the norm for almost all engine manufacturing. Solid designs and widespread popularity in the early 20th century gave way to poor decision-making in the wake of the Great Depression, setting the stage for major financial problems later on. A merger with the more financially solvent Packard in the mid-1950s didn’t help either company, and by the time the peculiar but forward-thinking Studebaker Avanti was produced in 1962, it was too late.

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St

ey M anl

ot o r C a r r i ag e C o m

1902–1924

pa n

y

Known for its steam-powered “Stanley Steamer” automobiles, the company’s innovative designs ultimately couldn’t compete with more conventional gasoline-powered vehicles. Nicknames like “the coffin nose” suggested one of the perceived problems with the car, safety, though there was never a recorded instance of the high-pressure boiler located in front of the driver ever exploding while in use.

The high pressure came with benefits, in fact, as a Stanley Steamer broke the mile record for an automobile in 1906 with a top speed of 127mph, a record that stood until 1911.

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TPC S I G N AT U R E HOLES TPC properties open a whole world of superlative lifestyle experiences for their members and guests, and chief among them is tournament level golf. With courses and clubs that are among the best anywhere, there are venues to fit every personal taste, budget and style of play. In this issue we look at three classic signature holes from the TPC collection, all of which require solid golf to make par and a combination of strategy and exceptional ball striking to go under

TPC BOSTON

TPC RIVER HIGHLANDS

TPC TWIN CITIES

TPC JASNA POLANA TPC DEERE RUN TPC STONEBRAE TPC SUMMERLIN TPC HARDING PARK TPC VALENCIA

TPC COLORADO (Coming Soon)

TPC POTOMAC THE OLD WHITE TPC AT THE GREENBRIER

TPC RIVER’S BEND

TPC LAS VEGAS TPC SCOTTSDALE

TPC MICHIGAN

TPC WAKEFIELD PLANTATION TPC PIPER GLEN

TPC SOUTHWIND

TPC MYRTLE BEACH

TPC CRAIG RANCH TPC SUGARLOAF TPC FOUR SEASONS TPC SAN ANTONIO

TPC SAWGRASS

TPC LOUISIANA

TPC TAMPA BAY TPC PRESTANCIA

TPC EAGLE TRACE

TPC TREVISO BAY

RESORT/DAILY FEE PROPERTIES PRIVATE CLUBS

TPC CARTAGENA AT KARIBANA

TPC DORADO BEACH

TPC KUALA LUMPUR

CARTAGENA,

DORADO,

KUALA LUMPUR,

COLOMBIA

PUERTO RICO

MALAYSIA

TPC San Antonio, AT&T Oaks Course HOLE 13 The first par-3 on the back 9, TPC San Antonio’s Hole 13 on the AT&T Oaks Course is also the longest, measuring over 240 yards from the back tee. One of the more picturesque holes, golfers can see beautiful downtown San Antonio from the tee box. Whether you’re a leisure golfer or a pro competing during the PGA TOUR’s annual Valero Texas Open, the best play is to aim at the famous “Tower of the Americas” landmark, and a right-to-left will find the center of the green. This green is one of the largest on the course and if you find it with your tee shot you’ll be rewarded with the opportunity of a makeable putt.

TPC Potomac HOLE 7 One of the most scenic tee shots on the course, the green on TPC Potomac’s par-4, 452-yard Hole 7 was renovated in 2015 in anticipation of the 2017 Quicken Loans National, the first PGA TOUR held there since 2006. Long hitters may be tempted to carry the bunker on the right, but this often results in little gain. It is recommended to play to the left, short of the left-side fairway bunkers, for a flat lie into this generous green. Using a good mid iron will benefit in a possible look at a birdie.

TPC Sugarloaf, Stables Course HOLE 9 Hole # 9 on TPC Sugarloaf’s Stables Course is a challenging par-4, acting as the conclusion to a strong stretch of golf holes. Measuring at 472 yards from the TPC tees, the tee shot demands both length and accuracy as players attempt to avoid the creek and trees that protect the right side. Players that play away from these obstacles will find their second shot blocked as a wooded hill squeezes the fairway from the left side. Well placed tee shots are rewarded with an open approach to a multitiered green that is protected by the adjacent creek and a pot bunker on the right side as well as a large bunker on the left side. Par on this hole is a great score, and a birdie is sure to pick up a stroke on the field!

DOING WHATEVER IT TAKES TO KEEP THE DREAM ALIVE.

THE PATH TO THE PGA TOUR

Every player’s path is different.

Watch their journey unfold on the Web.com Tour.

PGATOUR.COM/WEBCOM ©2017 PGATOUR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Player appearance subject to change.

GIFT GUIDE

Spring Flings With the ebullient season in full swing, gifts given and received seem a joyful inevitability. Consider the following:

Rolex Submariner Date in 18 Ct Yellow Gold Rolex was Arnold Palmer’s timepiece of choice for more than 50 years—and for good reason. Palmer was only interested in the best, whether that was in his golfing performance, business interests or the watch on his wrist.

Featured here is the Submariner Date from the classic Oyster Perpetual series. A superlative chronometer, it comes in 18 carat gold and is waterproof to a depth of 1,000ft. rolex.com

Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature The iconic British brand's largest over-ear headphone exemplifies all the acoustic and design innovation skills that Bowers & Wilkins have amassed over their amazing 50-year journey in sound. It looks great, but in this case the proof is in the listening: try them and you will instantly realize the P9 Signature sets an exceptional standard for performance from a headphone. An absolute must for audiophiles. bowers-wilkins.com

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K38

LSA International

Oban 14

Boris Decanter

Superlative whisky

We are not sure if this is named for the former London mayor, Russian president or German tennis star, but there is no doubt that the Boris decanter would happily host any international party, and in fine style. The contrast between the broad base and narrow neck not only provides a classic weighted look but also ensures that leading and award-winning spirits are well presented. Pour, tilt and enjoy.

Situated on the wild west coast and dating back to 1794, Oban is one of Scotland’s oldest distilleries and the 14 year is the single malt’s signature marque. Rich, viscous, beautifully substantial by texture, nonetheless the scotch is gentle and pleasing in flavor.

Only in the finish can you sense a hint of salt drifting in with the mist from the sea opposite, at which point it is time to pour another. malts.com

lsa-international.com

Small Cups Elegantly portable When someone in your foursome produces a flask, elevate his spirit with four 1oz stainless steel cups in this fine Small Cup Case from leather experts Ettinger. With a waxy hide exterior and soft pig suede interior, it is perfect for Scottish links and Florida clubs alike, a most elegant way to celebrate a great shot or to blur the memory of a bad shank. ettinger.co.uk

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GIFT GUIDE

KitchenAid Wine Cellar Protect, perfect, then present American-made, KitchenAid’s wine cellar ensures your resting wines are well looked after and ready when you are. Fitting 46 bottles and featuring two separate temperature-controlled zones, whites can be chilled while reds can be kept at preferred temperatures.

Built with a glass door and wood-front racks, the Wine Cellar is finished with a chrome frame and comes with a satin, textured handle that opens easily, joyfully—and, we presume, often. kitchenaid.com

Quimera From Achaval-Ferrer

Common among waiters accustomed to opening fine wines—and highly effective at doing that—this type of corkscrew employs a double hinge that allows the cork to be incrementally removed, ensuring cork integrity. French company Laguiole produces attractive options, offering exotic woods and finishes to complement what’s in the glass.

A relative newcomer to the wine world and founded by a mixed group of Italian and Argentine friends, including Misters Achaval and Ferrer, over the last 19 years the Mendoza winery has succeeded beyond the founders’ wildest dreams. Featured here is Quimera, one of the winery’s best expressions. A powerful wine excellent with red meat, we strongly suggest drinking earlier vintages and putting the 2012 away for at least another five years.

laguiole-imports.com

achaval-ferrer.com

Laguiole Waiter-style opener

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K38

Goyard Toiletry Bag French excellence From the most historic of French luggagemakers comes this black, tan and ivory handpainted coated canvas Goyard toiletry bag, complete with with silver-tone hardware, black leather trims, slit pocket at exterior, yellow canvas lining, single slit pocket on the interior wall and zip closure at top. goyard.com

Aesop

Tom Ford

Buly 1803

Elemental Facial Barrier Cream

Vert de Fleur

Tortoiseshell Acetate Dressing Comb

If you are planning a trip to harsher climes this fabled cream is ideal for those exposed to cold, harsh conditions.

Emollient ingredients soften, hydrate, and provide a barrier against the elements. A smooth, sustained finish leaves skin feeling protected, calmed and supple, ready for whatever the road (or luxury golf course) brings.

Words like “poised,” “glamorous,” and “flourishing” adorn this eau de parfum, but we’ll just stick with “classic” when it comes to Vert de Fleur, a men’s fragrance with a green floral overlayer of iris and hyacinth that adds timeless character and not a little bit of sophistication to any modern man’s daily routine.

From the country that gives us watches to die for and capable, bottomless bank accounts comes this luxurious handcrafted comb. Made in Switzerland from tough tortoiseshell acetate, it has variegated teeth designed to prevent damage to your scalp and hair—fit for bankers and watch-builders alike, and for those who appreciate their work.

aesop.com

tomford.com

buly1803.com

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GIFT GUIDE

Liebherr Fantastic humidor A must for the cigar collector, Liebherr’s XS 200 humidor features an innovative system to precisely control the proper balance of temperature and humidity for optimal storage of fine cigars. The cabinet can be set from 60ºF to 68ºF, while humidity can be set from 68% to 75%, depending on owner preferences.

The lighting with dimmer function emits virtually no heat, meaning cigars can be exposed to light for long periods of time without damage. Crafted from Spanish cedar wood, the XS 200 includes two presentation boxes and shelves, perfect for storing loose cigars and easily removed for presentation to your guests. liebherr.com

Vessel Bags

J.Crew

Designed with purpose

Italian cashmere cardigan

This clever Garment Duffel combines the functionality of a garment bag with the portability of a luxury duffel—perfect for traveling professionals that need a suit or two while on the road. The single-zipper system opens flat like a traditional garment bag but can be zipped up to pack like a duffel. It also features two interior shoe compartments and a shoulder strap, and it meets international carry-on requirements.

Made with yarns from the renowned Cariaggi Lanificio family-owned operation in Italy, there is no need to spin too much of a tale about this cardigan from J.Crew. It is warm, luxuriously soft and maintains the established style for which the label has long been celebrated. jcrew.com

www.vesselbags.com

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K38

Chrome Soft X Golf Balls Control and conquer

St Andrews Dunbar Leather Golf Bag An absolutely classic leather golf bag evocative of the great Tom Morris era, this bag features two pockets, a single carry strap, towel ring, a handle for easy lifting and a whole lot of head-turning. The TM1848 logo features on one of the pockets and there’s a silhouette of Tom Morris on the bottom of the bag, but a tweed-attired witty caddy with a wry smile is not included.

Following the highly successful introduction of the Chrome Soft ball in 2015, the clever folks at Callaway have recently released an updated version that takes all the existing qualities of the Chrome Soft but adds “a piercing trajectory and more workable ball flight desired by many tour professionals and elite amateurs.”

Meanwhile, the new O-Works Putter from Odyssey Golf features a stainless steel clubface built with microhinges and backed by a soft elastomer inner layer, which should encourage forward roll. callawaygolf.com

standrews.com/shop

Ecco Mens Casual Hybrid A long walk enjoyed As the drier, warmer weather comes in, many golfers will turn to a lighter, more comfortable shoe. This Ecco offering combines good looks with performance and outstanding comfort for an unpretentious kick that’s able on course. Constructed from nubuck and available in a range of colors, these are a great addition to any man’s golf kit. ecco.com

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SUBSCRIBE TO TPC Signature magazine is available on a complimentary basis to the members, players and guests at all the courses in the TPC Network.

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© 2017 PGATOUR, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PLAYER APPEARANCE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

THE BIGGEST STARS. AMAZING GOLF. S U B S C R I B E TO P GA TO U R L I V E FO R E X C LU S I V E A CC E S S TO B R O A D CA S T S , F E AT U R E D G R O U P S , L I V E S T R E A M I N G , P GA TO U R A R C H I V E S A N D M O R E . S I G N U P TO D AY AT P G ATO U R L I V E . C O M .

North Carolina

James Taylor is always going there in his mind, but we prefer a plane, train or automobile when it comes to some of the South’s best golf. Can’t you just see the sunshine…

J 132 00

ust a little bit north of South Carolina (to twist an old Dean Martin song), North Carolina serves up a lot of good: broad beaches in the east, rolling green hills in the center and old, rounded mountains in the west. There’s plenty to do here—surfing, hiking, biking, whitewater rafting and even a little skiing when the snow falls—and if you’re a fan of barbecue like we are, North Carolina offers three distinct styles.

But the club and ball set loves the state for its plethora of top tracks, which include some of the best Donald Ross designs in the country and a few modern surprises as well. Narrow, broad, strategy-based or go-for-broke, North Carolina golf courses offer all the game a Southern boy could want—or a Yankee, for that matter. Starting on the Atlantic coast and working our way west to the Smoky Mountains, here are just some of the reasons we like our greens under Carolina blue. Visit any of these and you’ll see why North Carolina really is “a better place to be.” Just don’t forget the napkins—ribs go great with a Lexington Dip, but you don’t want it on your grip.

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EAST Expect wind and links-style elements

Lonnie Poole Golf Course Raleigh

Currituck Club Corolla

Cape Fear Country Club Wilmington

It’s no surprise that NC State University’s course is so good: architects Brandon Johnson and Erik Larsen are both graduates, and chief designer, Arnold Palmer, went to school just up the road in Wake Forest. A public course that serves the varsity teams, its large greens are fast, its sand traps deep and the wind fierce. But the views and sheer delight of this course make it a must-play when you’re in town.

Rees Jones let the land do the talking here with 6,885 yards of natural dunes, wetlands, maritime forest and sound-side shoreline setting the scene for some great Outer Banks golf. The semi-private track opened in 1996 but recalls a far earlier time in the game, with osprey and eagles riding the salted breezes off the Atlantic and natural coastal vegetation lining the beautiful fairways.

lonniepoolegolfcourse.com

currituckclubobx.org

The state’s oldest private country club features a beauty of a Donald Ross design, and in fact golf was the entire purpose for the club’s founding in 1896. In 2015, the course, which features all manner of strategic possibilities and challenges, was ranked No.12 in the state by the North Carolina State Golf Panel, a proper distinction for a club course among so many greats. Over the years, it has hosted exhibitions and tournaments featuring the likes of Arnold Palmer, Tommy Bolt, Ben Hogan, Bob Toski and Jimmy Demaret, to name but a few. A classic course in a classic setting. capefearcountryclub.net

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CENTRAL Rolling green hills and forested fairway edges

Pinehurst #1–9 Pinehurst If Bobby Jones had been just a little better in 1929, Pinehurst might not be what it is today. Jones lost the first round of the 1929 Amateur at Pebble Beach and spent the rest of the week playing the Alister MacKenzie-designed Cypress Point, among other Monterey courses. Enthralled, he asked MacKenzie to design his new project near Atlanta. Trouble was, he’d already tasked Donald Ross with the job. Ross wasn’t happy about being replaced and, with the new course at Augusta squarely in his sights, set to work re-tooling his prized No.2 at Pinehurst to eliminate any question of whose design was best. The result was incredible.

Originally opened in 1907, the track’s revival as host to the 1936 PGA Championship established Pinehurst

No.2 as one of the greatest ever, with complex, crowned, undulating greens and challenges posed at every hole. Today, No.2 has hosted more single golf championships than any other course in America, and a 2010 re-tooling by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw restored it to Ross’ original vision. A legend to be sure, it is but one of nine courses at Pinehurst Resort, which also features courses by George and Tom Fazio, Rees Jones and Jack Nicklaus, among others. Stay at the copper-topped century-old Carolina Hotel or at The Holly Inn, built in 1895 as Pinehurst’s first hotel.

Dining options abound as well, making this nine-course resort one of the world’s great destinations to indulge a love of the game.

pinehurst.com

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Patrick Drickey | STONEHOUSEGOLF.COM

Pine Needles / Mid Pines Southern Pines

Another of North Carolina’s Donald Ross originals, this one from 1924, Linville Golf Club is a proper classic. Mule-and-pan graded, the course follows the natural contours of the land and presents what the club describes as “small, severe greens” and other challenges in its impeccable design. The course’s No.3 is a standout, a 449-yard par-4 with an over-the-hill tee shot and then uphill approaches over a creek to a small green. Incidentally, the creek that runs through the course is crossed 14 times over the round. The on-site Eseeola Lodge is the place to stay.

Not far from Pinehurst, the two Donald Ross designs here are particularly beloved by his fans, especially the course at Mid Pines Golf Club which is essentially untouched since Ross’ time. Your best bet is to stay at Pine Needles Lodge or Mid Pines Inn and then play to your heart’s content, reliving the past on course while enjoying modern (though traditionally styled) amenities inside. Pine Needles is a Ross design built in the 1950s and restored to reflect his intentions for the course, with fairway bunkers placed as meaningful hazards and re-built greens that are testing indeed. Mid Pines remains exactly as Ross built it in 1921, a charming track and a snapshot of what a fun resort course was meant to be in the days when the architect was at his peak.

Both are challenging enough for serious golfers, but really these are about enjoying the game and escaping the frenetic pace of modern life.

eseeola.com

pineneedles-midpines.com

Linville Golf Club Linville

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WEST Mountains mean plenty of elevation changes and forest Cullasaja Club Highlands

Wade Hampton Golf Club Cashiers

Sequoyah National Golf Club Cherokee

Arnold Palmer designed the course at this private club and it’s a beauty. The championship track seamlessly integrates into the natural landscape, rising and falling as a “mountain masterpiece” that includes granite cliffs, streams and forest among its assets.

Three waterfalls distinguish this from other area courses while two lakeside holes pull mountain breezes and stunning views into play, the latter of which there is no shortage. We especially like the club’s social calendar, which features a weekly Twilight Golf event, kicking off at 4pm and culminating with cocktails and dinner. Friendly people, top-quality golf and a lovely mountain setting: what could be better?

The Tom Fazio design at this private club and residential neighborhood regularly makes top spots on “best of” lists (it was the state’s No.1 for 2015-16 in Golf Digest) and it’s no wonder: Measuring 7,302 yards from the back “Fazio” tees, heavy hitters are welcome but will do well to note the beautiful forest alongside immaculate fairways. The trees, elevation changes and clever bunkers present a challenge matched only by incredible beauty.

For fresh mountain air and the best of the game, this is one of the state’s finest.

Located in the town that serves as headquarters for the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, this Robert Trent Jones, Jr., design makes great use of the area’s oak and fir trees.

Bent grass greens and bluegrass fairways are carved into the land and offer views of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as well as providing fantastic play. More than just offering great golf, the area has a fantastic cultural resource in the Cherokee Nation, with a dramatic presentation of the tribe’s story in the theatrical production Unto These Hills, an historic village and more. Well worth a visit.

wadehamptongc.com

sequoyahnational.com

cullasajaclub.org

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© 2017 PGATOUR, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PLAYER APPEARANCE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

TI CKETS AN D TR AVEL PACK AG ES AVAI L ABLE AT TH E PLAYE R S C HAM PI O N S H I P.C O M MAY 8-14 TPC SAWG R ASS PO NTE VED R A BEACH, FL

The realm of sports sponsorship can be fickle: Deals come and go, partnerships are created and broken, and continuity is so elusive.

But sometimes it’s different, as it is with Rolex and its support for golf, which in 2017 marks 50 years of unwavering commitment. It is an epic tale, one that began on a handshake with Arnold Palmer

I

“The fabric of golf”

t was in 1961 in Japan when Arnold Palmer first met Andre Heiniger, who was chief executive of Rolex at the time. Palmer was in the irresistible prime of his playing career. He was halfway to becoming the first golfer to win the Masters four times (his first two Green Jackets came in 1958 and 1960); he had stunned the U.S. Open and all who saw it in 1960 by overturning a seven-shot deficit in the final round; and in July of 1961 Palmer claimed the fourth major title of his career at The [British] Open at Royal Birkdale, triggering a revival of golf’s oldest major championship.

In the 1960s Palmer was not only golf’s standardbearer, he dragged the sport from the fringes of post-war consciousness, out from the shadows, into the sunlight and onto prime-time television.

“He was not only the game’s undisputed king,” Jack Nicklaus would later write in his book My Story, “but the emperor-in-chief of contemporary American sports heroes—indeed, a national figure as renowned and admired as any man of his generation.

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“It is hard to conceive that anyone in history boosted a nation’s consciousness of a sport quite as phenomenally as Arnold did… with his still-unparalleled combination of superb performance and personal magnetism.”

Palmer was captain of golf, Heiniger was captain of the finest Swiss timepieces ever made, and the two leaders became firm friends. Underpinning a friendship that would last the rest of their lives was mutual respect and a shared philosophy, a commitment to preserving great traditions while looking to the future and embracing innovation. That, and an unshakeable dedication to pursue perfection no matter how hard or unlikely it may be to achieve.

Fifty years ago, as Rolex looked to strengthen its association with golf, Palmer was the perfect fit to become the company’s first “Testimonee.” The relationship between Palmer and Rolex is among the longest between any professional athlete and a company, and although the golfer had already worn a Rolex for much of his professional career to that point, the deal was sealed in 1967 with a gift to Palmer of a stunning Gold Oyster Perpetual.

ine of Rolex in golf A timel

1967

Rolex becomes Official Timekeeper of The Open

1986

Rolex becomes Official Timekeeper of the European Tour

1999

Arnold Palmer becomes the first Rolex Testimonee in golf

1979

Rolex becomes partner of the USGA, Official Timekeeper of the U.S. Open and Official Timekeeper of the LPGA Tour

1981

Rolex becomes Official Timekeeper of the American Junior Golf Association

1997

Rolex becomes International Partner of the Masters

Rolex clocks appear on a tournament golf course for the first time at The Open at Royal Lytham & St Anne’s

1994

Rolex becomes Official Timekeeper of the Ryder Cup for the first time

2000

1980

Annika Sorenstam becomes a Rolex Testimonee and Rolex becomes Official Timekeeper of the Solheim Cup

1995

Rolex becomes Partner of the Evian Masters (which would evolve into the Evian Championship and a women’s major)

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Rolex suited Palmer, and into the 1970s the golfer became synonymous with the Rolex Day-Date chronometer in 18-carat yellow gold, with a President bracelet and hidden clasp. It is a self-winding watch in a robust but elegant Oyster case, waterproof to 330 feet (100 meters). Like Palmer, it is a timeless classic. As the years ticked by, Palmer would also enjoy keeping time with the Rolex Datejust and LV Submariner.

“It’s been one of the best and most compatible relationships that I have had in my life,” Palmer once said of his abiding partnership with Rolex. “There’s far more to the relationship than I could ever tell you.

“I have had the pleasure of getting to know a lot of people at Rolex very well and to be able to count them among my friends, so I have great feelings for Rolex. Not only have I learned a lot from the company, but Rolex has done so many great things over the years that have been of tangible benefit to golf as a sport.”

Bertrand Gros, chairman of Rolex today, said this after Palmer passed away last September: “Rolex and Arnold Palmer maintained a privileged and warm relationship for nearly 50 years, working side by side to develop the game as it opened up to the world. He was an exceptional friend, a true sportsman and a real gentleman. We are forever grateful for the standard of excellence he set.”

Rolex sponsorship in golf started with Palmer and gradually grew from there. As a Swiss watchmaker renowned for absolute precision and peerless quality, Rolex has always devoted the same high standards to its sports associations. By the mid 1960s, “The Big Three” team of Palmer, Nicklaus and South Africa’s Gary Player had become the vanguard of the world game, and both Nicklaus and Player would follow Palmer into the Rolex family, where they remain today.

Other golfers have followed as well, including Tom Watson, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama, Annika Sorenstam and Lydia Ko. The list goes on.

“Golf played at its best is a very stylish sport,” says Paul McGinley, the Irishman who captained the European Ryder Cup team in 2014 and a Rolex Testimonee. “So it is ideal if companies that partner golf can also reflect a strong sense of style. Rolex clearly achieves this in everything it does. Professional golf is also a game of endeavor, strength, precision, consistency and integrity, and I cannot think of another company that reflects these values as clearly and as constantly as Rolex.”

Rolex support for the sport branched in different directions while the core philosophy remained sturdy and resolute. Rolex embarked on its partnership with the R&A in 1979, when the Swiss watchmaker’s clocks were stationed on The Open golf course for the first time, and the bond there strengthened in subsequent years.

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Rolex became a patron of The Open in 2002, and its support for the R&A has extended more recently to programs such as the World Amateur Golf Ranking, the translation of the Rules of Golf—which the R&A currently makes available in 92 countries and in over 30 languages— and to amateur championships like the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, which started in 2009.

Rolex’s partnerships among golf ’s governing bodies and organizers extend to the USGA in the United States and the U.S. Open, to Augusta National and the Masters, to the PGA Tour, the European Tour and the Ryder Cup. “Rolex has truly become part of the fabric of golf,” says Peter Dawson, former chief executive of the R&A. “No other brand I can think of is more globally and passionately involved in our sport. The far-reaching commitment of Rolex is deeply rooted in promoting and developing the game worldwide, from grassroots programs through to major championships and elite players.”

These partnerships and initiatives are laying the foundations for the growth of the game on a global scale, delivering the opportunity to play and enjoy golf to as many people as possible. So it is little wonder that Rolex and Arnold Palmer were so proud to be associated with each other.

“Rolex and Arnold Palmer maintained a privileged and warm relationship for nearly 50 years”

Rolex advertisement with Palmer, 1970

Rolex becomes Official Timekeeper of the Presidents Cup

2006

Rolex expands relationship with the R&A to support the production of the Rules of Golf

2005

Rolex becomes founding and title sponsor of the Rolex Women’s World Golf Ranking

Rolex becomes Official Timekeeper for the Asian Tour

2007

Rolex becomes Official Timekeeper for the PGA TOUR and the World Golf Championships

2011

Rolex becomes Founding Partner of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship

2012

2004

Rolex becomes Founding Partner and Sponsor of the World Amateur Golf Ranking, and Presenting Sponsor of the Senior Open Championship

2013

The Rolex Series of tournaments is launched on the European Tour

2009

Rolex becomes Official Timekeeper of the World Cup of Golf, and also for the PGA Tour in Latin America & Canada

2017

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One’s own T

Don’t bother with the buzzer at the gate, don’t ask for a tee time and don’t enquire about membership. You can keep your private clubs—these courses were built for private homes.

We asked Tony Dear to have a look over the hedge...

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here exists a handful of golf courses whose memberships are so restricted they make the selection policies at Augusta National and Cypress Point look positively casual and openly inclusive.

One such course is the nine-green, 18-tee layout at the 220-acre Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California, which was once the winter home of publishing magnate, diplomat and philanthropist Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore. Sunnylands was built in 1963 and it is now a peaceful retreat owned by the Annenberg Foundation, used for high-level talks between key world leaders that “address and find solutions to real-world problems that promote peace, facilitate international agreement and better serve the public good.”

Eight U.S. Presidents have stayed and played golf at Sunnylands, most recently Barack Obama, who last year hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for a historic summit-level gathering away from

Presidential stature at Sunnylands

the Washington spotlight. In June 2013, Obama met with Chinese President Xi Jinping here—the two men agreeing to pursue a “new model of major-power relations”—and in February 2014, he discussed the Syrian refugee crisis here with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

A keen golfer, Obama would undoubtedly have played the course at Sunnylands several times. It opened a year after the house in 1964, and was created by Dick Wilson, a fairly prolific designer in the 1950s and ’60s who built the original course at Bay Hill, as well as the famous Blue Monster at Doral.

In 2010, at the age of 46, the course was renovated by the firm of Jackson Kahn Design, whose principals Tim Jackson and David Kahn began their careers working for Tom Fazio, spending 14 years working on some of America’s finest courses. They left to form their own company in 2009 and were soon applying for the renovation job at Sunnylands, submitting a 120-page booklet that detailed their plan for the project.

“We really did our research,” says Jackson. “Our progress was hampered a little by the fact Wilson’s original plans for the course were destroyed in a fire in the 1980s, but David and I spoke with the course’s first superintendent and we visited several Wilson-designed courses. We were constantly asking ourselves ‘what would Dick Wilson do?’”

The man whose decision it was to hire Jackson and Kahn was Patrick Truchan, Sunnyland’s Director of Operations. “Sunnylands is not a golf-centric place,” he says.

“We obviously didn’t need to market it and make a big media splash, so we didn’t need a big name architect like Fazio or Tom Doak. Tim and David were incredibly passionate about the job and clearly very talented, so they were ideal. They

Eight U.S. Presidents have stayed and played golf here while practicing diplomacy were very experienced, having worked on 15 or so projects with Fazio, but clearly very eager and determined to make a go of it themselves.”

The course was in need of renovation because it had begun to look very tired. “It was just inevitable,” says Truchan. “Spend 50 years exposed in the desert, and the wind and sand are naturally going to cause a good deal of erosion. The bunkers were rebuilt, the greens re-sized and re-laid with 419 Bermuda, and the irrigation system updated.”

Jackson was pleased with the results, which were put in play in the winter of 2011. “I think it turned out well,” he says. “We just wanted to uncover Dick Wilson’s course.

We saw some opportunities and made some suggestions, but this wasn’t about building a Kahn/Jackson course. We wanted to restore the mid-century feel of Wilson’s design.”

This is an incredibly elaborate and expensive project (no information was forthcoming on the cost of the project, but it was likely north of $1 million given the new irrigation system and new greens turf) for a course where the “Rounds per Year” figure is probably measured in the hundreds, but it’s the way of things at Sunnylands. “The estate’s founding documents require the trustees to maintain Sunnylands ‘in excellent repair and condition,’” adds Truchan.

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Seeking Sanctuary The ratio of cost of construction to number of rounds at Sanctuary in Sedalia, Colorado, half an hour south of Denver, was also pretty lopsided. Jim Engh designed an incredibly scenic course over 220 acres that other architects had rejected as too rugged, and he estimates he spent about $5 million building it, which is actually very reasonable considering the cost of constructing waterfalls, uprooting and replanting over 200 pine trees and installing a computerized irrigation system.

Sanctuary’s owners—Re/Max International founder and CEO Dave Liniger and his wife Gail—are the only two members of the course, which averages roughly 8,500 rounds a year, the majority of which are played during the two dozen charity days the owners host every year, events that are estimated to have raised over $90m for various causes since the course opened in 1997.

Engh says Liniger’s brief had three main components: build as spectacular a course as possible while preserving the land and trees, and make the course playable for Gail who had suffered various injuries in an airplane accident.

“Mr. Liniger was committed to protecting the environment,” Engh stresses. “But it was only after construction was complete that he decided to make Sanctuary a philanthropic venture. So, my design concept wasn’t affected by how many or how few rounds the course might record.”

Sanctuary is certainly a very desirable and highly prized tee-time, but 8,500 rounds? That’s pretty packed compared to one privately owned course in southern Texas which—were it accessible to a wider audience—would surely appear somewhere on America’s Top-100 lists.

Wolf Point, located on the Gulf Coast, about 120 miles southwest of Houston, was the work of architect Mike Nuzzo, a former aerospace engineer at Lockheed Martin who decided in 2000 to follow his heart’s desire and design great golf courses. It took him one try to come up with a course that Adam Lawrence in Golf Course Architecture magazine described as “astounding,” “full of clever design work,” and “probably the best first course by a modern architect I have seen.”

Nuzzo built the course for Al Stanger, a submariner in the 1950s who later became an executive at ElectroMethods LLC, which made parts for commercial and military jet engines. After relocating to Olivia, Texas in 1997, the Stangers set up several small businesses in the area while developing Wolf Point Ranch, a 1,300-acre cattle ranch where they bred award-winning Brangus cattle.

Stanger wanted a fun and challenging course he could play every day, and that minimized searching for stray golf balls. Nuzzo’s ingenious design cost just $3 million to build.

Overseeing construction was turf expert Don Mahaffey who stayed on as greenkeeper.

The course cost $5 million to build and it has only two members: Dave and his wife

Sanctuary’s 13th hole [left] and 4th [above]

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Members not allowed Here are 10 more ultra-exclusive courses:

USA Cherokee Plantation – Yemasee, SC Owned by Peter de Savary The Institute – Morgan Hill, CA Owned by John Fry Morefar Back o’Beyond – Danbury, CT Owned by Maurice Greenberg Porcupine Creek – Rancho Mirage, CA Owned by Larry Ellison Anne Arundel Manor – Harwood, MD Owned by Albert Lord Pocantico Hills – Tarrytown, NY Owned by the Rockefeller Family Three Ponds Farm – Bridgehampton, NY Owner not known

“Don and I wanted to make it as interesting as possible Swinley Forest in southeast England to keep Mr. Stanger engaged,” says Nuzzo, adding the owner Rest of the World would play the course “hundreds of times a year.” Stanger Domaine Laforest – Canada also hosted the annual Angel Flights charity event, and invited Owned by Power Corp friends and potential clients to play the course, which architect Ellerston – Australia Tom Doak said possessed Owned by the Packer Family the finest set of greens in Le Prince de Provence – France Texas. Even with Stanger’s Rumored to be owned by a group of enthusiasm, the charity Norwegian businessmen events and the invitations, it’s likely the total number of rounds at Wolf Point didn’t quite reach four figures. positions at two regular member clubs in England before Stanger passed away last July, so the course is even answering the call from Hay to return to Birch Grove. emptier now than it used to be. It is still owned by Stanger’s Smith set out unearthing the course in the spring estate, however, and Stanger’s widow Dianna, along with of 2012, and though he misses the welcome pressures of Don Mahaffey, is exploring future options. working for a busy golf club and interacting with a club Access to Wolf Point was extremely limited, but even membership, he also considers it “heavenly” to have so its exclusivity pales against that of Britain’s most private much time and unlimited resources to keep Birch Grove in and confined course—Birch Grove in West Sussex. Part of the 1,200-acre estate once owned by Harold Macmillan— immaculate condition.

“My brief is to see that whoever plays here leaves Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963—whose visitors included Winston Churchill, Charles De Gaulle and John F. Kennedy, feeling it is the best course they have ever played,” Smith told pitchcare.com, before adding that not seeing any golfers the course was built by Larry Yung, the Chinese businessman who bought the property from the Macmillan family in 1993. for weeks could be demotivating but that he didn’t let that stop him from doing the best job he could. “I never fall So little is known about it that there are plenty in the into the trap of letting things go, even temporarily,” he said.

UK who remain unconvinced the course even exists, though a recent article on pitchcare.com proved beyond doubt the “That would be unprofessional. If that’s your style, Birch Grove isn’t for you.”

Donald Steel-designed masterpiece is open once again Next time you tee it up at Augusta National or Swinley after Yung virtually abandoned it. The course’s revival was ordered by Dr. James Hay, the Scottish chairman of Dubai- Forest—down the road from Sunningdale and Wentworth, based JMH Group, who bought the estate from Yung in 2011. southwest from London—you’ll certainly be treading hallowed ground that 99% of golfers would abandon their Despite the fact it might see only 150 rounds a year, Birch honeymoon to play. But rest assured, there are a handful Grove has a full-time greenkeeper—Pete Smith—who works of courses dotted around the world where even Augusta with two full-time assistants. Smith worked at the course members might have a hard time getting on. during construction, then left to take up course maintenance

The course is maintained to perfection, despite the lack of golfers

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Know Thyself The genomics-based health program that could save your life—today

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eople stared across the vastness of the sea for ages before someone built a boat. And how many more years was it before a sailor dared venture out of sight of land? In broad terms, the sea never changed. But as technology met curiosity and curiosity eclipsed fear—when the boat got built and the sailor sailed—our understanding of the sea changed, and that understanding affected everything we thought we knew about our world. Similarly, the scientific community has been aware of DNA for more than a century, but it wasn’t until the human genome was decoded that we could begin to consider exploring DNA’s true possibilities. One of the people who first sequenced that code of life is J. Craig Venter, Ph.D. and one of the possibilities he’d like you to consider is that you don’t know much about your body, not much at all—but you could, and right now.

Health care long has been reactive, not proactive— something hurts, you go to the doctor—and so the idea of utilizing DNA and other testing to anticipate and to address health concerns before they become problems might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it’s not.

Just over a year ago, Venter launched the Health Nucleus, a project in San Diego that uses cutting-edge genomics paired with advanced testing and machine learning to do just that. More than an esoteric research endeavor (though it’s that as well), the Health Nucleus is a consumer health experience that, with no hint of exaggeration, could save your life.

You go to the firm’s high tech headquarters in California, your DNA is analyzed, your personal health history is examined, a series of other tests is performed, and the result is a deep and complete picture of your health that can be used to address and to curtail potential health problems. This genomics-based approach is undeniable, it’s effective, and eventually it’s going to change everything about health care.

“The definition of a ‘healthy’ person is something out of the Middle Ages,” Dr. Venter says, speaking in his office in San Diego. “If you apparently don’t have disease and you feel okay, you’re deemed healthy in this world and therefore there’s no reason for you to get MRIs or to go to the hospital or do anything. You’re supposed to wait until you’re no longer healthy—you have extreme pain from your cancer metastasizing to your bones for example—to go and get help. Our goal is to detect things early before people even know that they have anything, when they’re more actionable.”

In 2013 Dr. Venter launched Human Longevity, Inc., with co-founders Peter Diamandis and Robert Hariri.

This company has built the world’s most comprehensive database of human genomic and phenotypic information (all the physical trails and features that make each of us, us).

HLI then uses that information to detect and potentially fight diseases associated with aging. The Health Nucleus is a consumer arm of that, if you will, an immediate application of the science, and it’s already making a big impact. The price tag for the Health Nucleus is $25,000 which enables a client to partake in a full day of testing that includes the complete genome and other omic measures such as microbiome, along with clinical tests such as MRI, CT Scans and DEXA bone and body density screening. HLI’s team of clinicians, genetic counselors, and computing specialists then review and analyze all your results. It’s not inexpensive, but consider what the cost could save you: “About 30 to 40 percent of people that go through the Health Nucleus, we’re finding significant medical issues that they were mostly unaware of,” Venter says. “Things like brain aneurysms or aortas that could pop or different types of cancers that are in early stages, significant heart disease, etc. So people come in here healthy and they leave sick, which isn’t a great marketing slogan, but the good thing is they don’t remain sick for long.”

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Unlike conventional medicine, in which a cancer would need to present either as pain or in a significant enough size to be discoverable by a routine test, the kinds of cancers detected by the Health Nucleus are Stage 0, Stage 1 and early Stage 2, Venter says.

“Thus far every one that we’ve discovered has been treatable or outright curable—in fact, I was one of them. I was diagnosed with advanced stage prostate cancer through the MRI imaging system that we have here. I knew I had prostate cancer for about four weeks, seven weeks ago I had it surgically removed, and tests yesterday showed I am completely cancer-free… I had prostate biopsies two years ago that were totally negative, that said I didn’t have any cancers. My cancer was a particularly fast-growing, aggressive cancer that came up in a couple of months, and so I’m a believer in my own system of early detection, early action and getting rid of disease.”

Importantly, Venter says his team combed through his genetic profile and found evidence that his prostate cancer had been a risk. Although the discovery was retroactive, a proactive discovery that he was at risk from melanoma led to his being vigilant about skin cancer and, some years ago, that vigilance saved his life.

“Just knowing my genetic risk for melanomas, I learned how to identify them,” he says. “I identified one on my back.

It was a tiny little speck but I was certain it was a melanoma, and it was. If I had just thought it was a funny little mole and watched it for a year, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

The knowledge gained by a visit to the Health Nucleus

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is shared with your primary health care provider, who is looped- into the process at various points. Upon completing the program, participants receive a comprehensive report which identifies issues and potential issues that need addressing or watching.

The Health Nucleus and Human Longevity are working to build a base of knowledge so that risks can be more readily identified within genomic data. Dr. Venter’s risks for both melanoma and prostate cancer existed within his genome, but only one was detected proactively because of the range of available correlative data. In the future, the idea is that genomic sequencing will yield a comprehensive and immediate list of risks—and that’s certainly coming, but it will take more data. At present Venter says his team has roughly 40,000 genomes but that they’re aiming to have as many as 1 million with associated phenotypes and health records for better analysis. Even with the data they have now—which to be fair is a vast amount—the Health Nucleus is able to reveal more than just risk of cancer and, importantly, it is able to offer a baseline snapshot of health on which future health care decisions can be made.

“We’re finding a lot of people that had, for example, early vascular events in their brain,” Venter explains. “Maybe you got hit in the head with a football when you were 12 or some other type of brain injury. By knowing that’s part of the baseline now, if you have a serious event, you go and get an MRI, they’ll know that was baseline and not the cause of your problems. Everyone should have a baseline as soon as they’re old enough and can afford it.”

In addition to that, using carefully curated data from an individual’s personal and family health history, the Health Nucleus can determine the risk for diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular issues or problems like Alzheimer’s which, as Venter points out, can be actionable information.

“I believe it is actionable,” he says. “There is a growing amount of data that points to prevention or at least delayed onset of Alzheimer’s through using your brain and keeping good cardiovascular health. At the Health Nucleus we look at each person holistically, actually examining people as an intact unit and measure things across the genome and across every organ system. Your cardiovascular system very much determines whether you’ll have diminished brain function as you age, so if you don’t have good blood flow to your brain, or if you have severe hypertension, that’s not good. We’ve found a number of people who have episodic atrial fibrillation for up to eight hours a day by having them wear our small portable devices. A-fib is a very big risk factor for stroke, so they could have had a massive stroke or even died from a massive stroke and now they’re simply on anticoagulants.”

As Venter points out, the Health Nucleus is about information—the most comprehensive and substantial picture possible of your body and its health profile—and for what might end up seeming like a bargain, that information could save your life. As he says, “If you have knowledge and you act on it, knowledge is power.”

Find out more at healthnucleus.com

J. Craig Venter, Ph.D.

HOW IT WORKS Initial Visit Your visit to the Health Nucleus includes eight hours of comprehensive testing—genomic and other omic testing, cardiometabolic, neurological and early cancer detection— complete with private accommodations for brief breaks in your day. The team finds out more about you, your health, and your family history to build an in-depth health profile.

Data Integration The team at Health Nucleus integrates your genomic, microbiome, and metabolomic data with your clinical data, and produces a risk assessment for various issues. A virtual consultation with your primary care provider can be scheduled to review the report.

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Spring Chill

Refreshed and lined up for success, the new season is wild for structure

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Bugatchi Spring is sewn into this Shaped Fit Check Sport shirt from the contemporary label bugatchi.com

Geometric Tie From the Men’s Shop at Nordstrom, this geometric silk tie is as brilliant as it is orderly nordstrom.com

Paul Smith Mini Stripe cuff links and leather card case from the illustrious Paul Smith paulsmith.com

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Biagio Barile

Molton Brown

Handmade in Italy exclusively for Neiman Marcus, this geometric wood box will hold your valuables or your not-so-valuables with equal aplomb neimanmarcus.com

Travel well with Black Peppercorn Body Wash, Tobacco Absolute Shower gel and more in the Men’s Mini Jetsetter Stowaway moltonbrown.com

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Happy Feet Combed cotton keeps feet cool, comfy and happy—no surprise, given the brand happysocks.com

Bowers & Wilkins Stunning sound from the premiere name in audio, the wireless T7 Bluetooth Speaker offers 18 hours of sublime play bowers-wilkins.com

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BUBBLING SPRING Grass is shooting and flowers are blooming, perfect time for an uplifting Champagne cocktail

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Spring is all about renewal and refreshment, and no libation supports those quite so well as Champagne. But the season is also about rejoining your social network, coming out of hibernation to celebrate winter’s end with friends. Josh Curtis, who runs the bar at the Malibu Beach Inn in California, is all about togetherness, and in the case of Champagne he’s only too happy to join it with its perfect companions to create beautifully uplifting concoctions that are great any time of year. Here, he shares the blueprints for bold mixes, appealing to a wide array of tastes while holding fast to the one universal truth of celebration: when in doubt, add Champagne.

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FRENCH 75

Charles Dickens might have enjoyed these in the late 1800s, though it would have been a Champagne Cup in his day. Substituting Champagne for soda water turned an ordinary Gin Collins into a masterwork, and so a better story and name were needed. WWI French and American soldiers provided both at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris in 1919 when they named the drink after the powerful French 75mm field artillery gun. Elegance with a kick.

2 oz Tanqueray Gin .75 oz fresh Lemon juice .75 oz simple syrup 1:1 2 oz Champagne ț

Build in a Collins glass. Stir to mix

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Fill with ice. Lemon wheel garnish

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DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON

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Another drink tied to an author, this cocktail has a strong relationship with Ernest Hemingway. Either he read a 1910 recipe published in The Washington Post and adopted it as his own, or he invented the drink outright and took the title for one of his novels.

Either way it’s a page-turner.

.5 oz Pernod Absinthe 1 Lemon wedge Fill with Champagne Lemon zest garnish Build in Champagne flute. Pour absinthe & squeeze lemon wedge. Fill with Champagne & zest lemon peel

Č›

FULL MOON FEVER The floral St. Germain is tempered here by the grapefruit and by bartender Josh Curtis’ own lime bitters. With acid to cut the elderflower, the St. Germain’s character is allowed to shine alongside the Champagne, which provides a bubbly and tempered stage for the citrus.

.5 oz fresh lime juice .75 oz fresh juiced grapefruit .75 oz St. Germain elderflower 5 dashes Curtis’ Lime bitters 4 oz Champagne ț

Pour ingredients into a tall vintage glass. Stir to emulsify ț

ț

Fill with ice

Blood orange quarter-wheel for garnish

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20 years of the Palmer Cup As the Arnold Palmer Cup goes from strength to strength it is continuing its tradition of being played at only the world’s finest venues, when in June it heads to Atlanta Athletic Club

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tlanta Athletic Club is one of the grandees of golf in the southern states. The storied Georgia club was founded in 1898 and numbered Bobby Jones among its early members. Its acclaimed Highlands Course hosted the U.S. Open in 1976, followed by PGA Championships in 1981, 2001 and in 2011, and then the U.S. Amateur Championship in 2014.

In June 2017 the club can add the Arnold Palmer Cup to its honor roll, on the event’s 20th anniversary.

It’s amazing how fast two decades can pass. It hardly seems possible it was 20 years since the Arnold Palmer Cup made its inauguration at Palmer’s beloved Bay Hill Club in Orlando. Palmer said: “I had long thought that an international competition such as this would enrich the lives of young men through the universal bond of the great game of golf.”

Back then, an eight-man US team of college golfers— including future tour star Bo Van Pelt—defeated Great Britain & Ireland in the Ryder Cup-style, match play format by a score of 19-5.

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Not for the first time or the last, Palmer, one of golf ’s great visionaries, was proved right. Created in collaboration between The Golf Coaches Association of America and Palmer, the event has gone from strength to strength.

For the young, aspiring players the Arnold Palmer Cup represents a career highlight to cherish. Some golfers who have played in the Palmer Cup have gone on to find fame and fortune on the world’s professional tours—49 of them at the last count—while for others the Palmer Cup has remained the pinnacle of exceptional amateur careers.

At the last count, five Palmer Cup collegians have gone on to win major titles: Ben Curtis (2003 British Open), Lucas Glover (2009 U.S. Open), Graeme McDowell (2010 U.S. Open), Webb Simpson (2012 U.S. Open), and Dustin Johnson (2016 U.S. Open) who is world number one as this issue’s pages rolled through the presses. PGA Tour stars Rickie Fowler, Billy Horschel and Justin Thomas also have Palmer Cup pedigree, while one other world No.1 has come through the event, England’s Luke Donald.

As the Arnold Palmer Cup has grown in stature, the teams have grown to include 10 golfers each, with GB&I following the Ryder Cup example and expanding its parish to include all European college players, since 2003. Another big step will follow in 2018, when women college golfers will be included for the first time, when the event appropriately heads to Switzerland’s Evian Resort by Lake Geneva, the home of European golfing chic and also to the Evian Championship, the final women’s major each season.

Evian as a Palmer Cup venue should come as no surprise, because the quality of venues for the event are of such peerless quality that they sometimes eclipse even

Rickie Fowler, 2008

Bo Van Pelt, 1997

Bill Haas, 2002

Matt Kuchar, 1998

Dustin Johnson with Arnold Palmer at the 2007 Arnold Palmer Cup

the Ryder Cup stages. From Bay Hill in 1997, the Palmer Cup headed across to St Andrews in Scotland and played over the hallowed Old and New courses, while subsequent venues have included Royal Liverpool, Baltusrol, Irish classic Ballybunion, Whistling Straits, The [British] Open’s original home Prestwick, 1960 U.S. Open venue Cherry Hills (remember who won the 1960 U.S. Open?), and also Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, where The Open will return in 2019.

Meanwhile, in 2019 the Palmer Cup will move to the stunning Alotian Club in Arkansas, where the Tom Faziodesigned golf course is ranked among the very finest in the United States.

Businessman Warren Stephens built the club, whose late father, Jackson T. Stephens, was chairman of Augusta National from 1991 to 1998 and a friend and confidant of Palmer’s. When Stephens took the call from Palmer last year asking if Alotian would host the Palmer Cup, he knew there was only one answer, no matter how much his club prized its privacy and low profile.

There is a lot to play for at Atlanta Athletic Club, June 9-11. The all-time Arnold Palmer Cup record stands at 10 victories for the US, nine for GB&I and Europe and one tie, and reflecting how Palmer conducted himself throughout his life, there is something other than victory for the Palmer Cup players to play for: a place in the Arnold Palmer Invitational on the PGA Tour for the golfer from the winning team who best displays Palmer’s core values of sportsmanship, camaraderie and courtesy. All 20 Palmer Cup golfers vote for the golfer who they think best represents the “Arnold Palmer Legacy”, and the winning

"Golf depends on simple, timeless principles of courtesy and respect" player and his caddie will head to Bay Hill the following year to compete in one of the most prestigious pro tournaments in world golf.

The first Arnold Palmer Cup API Exemption was awarded to Maverick McNealy of Stanford in 2016 while Matthias Schwab, of Vanderbilt and Austria, received the 2017 honor and will tee up at Bay Hill in March.

Winning the Arnold Palmer Cup is very important to all those involved—naturally—but it is a fitting tribute to the event’s founding patron that winning really isn’t everything, and it is not even most important.

As Palmer himself once put it: “Golf, more than any game on Earth, depends on simple, timeless principles of courtesy and respect. I don’t think it’s by accident that golf is the most polite and well-mannered game I know, a sport where every man or woman rises on the merits of his or her own skills and personal integrity.”

Bobby Jones could not have put it better himself.

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Fresh I Design Spring is here, and the excellent team at the Arnold Palmer Design Company (APDC) is particularly fond of the season—something to do with new greens sprouting up everywhere no doubt. For 2017 it’s full steam ahead as the crew presses forward with the business of designing the best courses in the game 160

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n the “most recently opened” category, APDC’s design at Lakewood National Golf Club debuted on January 21st. Located within the Lakewood Ranch community just outside of Sarasota/Bradenton, Florida, the club is nestled next to the Little Brayden River within Lennar Homes’ latest development. A contemporary twist on traditional development golf, Lakewood National’s terrain, along with its wide variety of setup options and core golf feel make it unlike any other residential course in the state, and it’s sure to be a source of pride for its members.

“Our intent was to create a fun and beautiful golf course that utilizes meaningful width and contour—rarely found in this region of Florida—as the main aesthetic and strategic elements,” said Brandon Johnson, APDC Vice President and Senior Golf Course Architect.

In fact, the broad, rolling terrain and sweeping elevation changes make Lakewood National unique among Florida courses, and certainly among the state’s residential tracks. Generous fairways will allow players to choose a variety of lines and attack angles, while errant shots could be saved by ridge lines running across the fairways. Also: the greens and green surrounds incorporate useful sideboards, backstops, on-grade approaches and other subtle nuances to encourage shot creativity and a variety of recovery

Lakewood National

Ironwood plan

options. A variety of green sizes, shapes and pin locations, and six sets of tees stretching play from 5,194 yards to a challenging 7,184 yards, ensure that everyone will enjoy a round here, especially as the challenges can change daily.

Not terribly far away, the team is getting set to refresh a course at Naples Lakes, and it’s going to be a stunner.

“It’s a big renovation,” says Thad Layton, ADPC Vice President and Senior Golf Course Architect. “A complete re-grassing, reshaping all bunkers and tees, some holes we’re going to try to shift bunkers around to make it more strategic, add width where necessary, add some character to the greens… Basically we’ll be giving them a new golf course on top of an old one.”

Set in a Toll Brothers community in “a nice part of the world,” as Layton says, the course is known for its No.4, a 350-yard par-4 that features an island green set eight feet above the water and surrounded by rocks. It will be a special project for Layton in some ways as he worked on the original design in 1991 when he was still an intern with APDC. On the other side of the country, there’s noise in the desert about work at Silver Rock in La Quinta. A project there is looking to complete the next phase of its development, and it could prove interesting as APDC tweaks the existing course to improve things.

“There will be a new No.11, a par-3 that’s going to be fantastic,” says Johnson. “It will play over the water with a mountain view in the back. Also, the current No.12—a long par-4—will become a par-5 and we’re going to swing the tees over to take advantage of the mountain views, which you don’t get now. It’s going to be beautiful.”

No doubt, and with construction starting in early summer we’re looking forward to the next cool season.

There are a few ongoing projects as well: the Oakhurst design at Greenbrier—conceived by the all-star team of Palmer, Nicklaus, Player and Trevino—is holding steady while the property deals with recent flooding (and in any case, Greenbrier owner Jim Justice is rather busy, having recently been elected Governor of West Virginia). Likewise, the Ironwood project in the Cayman Islands is moving forward, with work on the course beginning in earnest this year. The entire undertaking is immense, involving some fantastic eco-friendly technologies, a substantial new roadway and plenty of top-quality golf, exactly the kind of thing the APDC team enjoys. We’re looking forward to all of these and more as the year gets underway.

For more information on Arnold Palmer Design Company, visit arnoldpalmerdesign.com

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A Toast to the King Here at Kingdom we remember the drinks we enjoyed with Arnie, and we can think of no more appropriate glass to raise in his honor than one poured from this new Palmer limitededition tribute bottle from Ketel One, the King’s vodka of choice. The label honors Palmer and the brand is making an associated donation of $100,000 to Arnie’s Army Charitable Foundation. The only question is, to drink or keep?

We say avoid the dilemma and just buy two.

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