TPC signature: Issue 13

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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 director

Arnold Palmer special contributors

Cori Britt, Doc Giffin contributing photographers

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

Joe Velotta head of advertising sales

Jon Edwards advertising sales

Deric Piper Dean Jacobson Michael Jaiyeola

special thanks & contributors

Daniel Berger Fabrice Bernard Elodie Buquet Geoff Cunningham Anne-Sophie Diligent Julien Gardin Annabelle Grellier Daniel Hartenstein Alastair Johnston Vini Lopez Manuel Louzada Mark McCormick Sylvie & Lucius McPhilemy Ingrid Miossec Kristel Mourgue d’Algue-Lawton Melissa Pastore Matteo Pratesi Ginny Sanderlin Dave Shedloski Art Spander Keith Steinberg Steve Stricker Michael Sullivan Brian Wacker Geoff Witton Ellen Wittenberger

cov e r i m ag e

liberty national

18th hole Photo by Evan Schiller / golfshots.com

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TPC Foreword

T

Fall

here certainly has not been a shortage of excitement this summer for the PGA TOUR and TPC Network, as our properties have hosted seven events from May to July on the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions’ schedules.

Congratulations to all of our champions including Billy Horschel, who claimed his first win in almost three years at the AT&T Byron Nelson hosted by TPC Four Seasons, and Daniel Berger who became the back-to-back winner of the FedEx St. Jude Classic at TPC Southwind.

Jordan Spieth provided a thrilling finish to the Travelers Championship, where he holed a bunker shot to win in a sudden-death playoff against Daniel Berger on the par-4 18th hole at TPC River Highlands. The following week, we traveled down the East Coast to the nation’s capital and TPC Potomac, where Kyle Stanley captured his second win on TOUR at the Quicken Loans Invitational, his first win since the 2012 Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. Take a look inside for an in-depth look at how TPC Potomac was brought back into the TOUR spotlight.

After record rainfall in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, that forced the cancellation of 2016 Greenbrier Classic, The Old White TPC was in impeccable condition after extensive renovations by the resort’s agronomy team, including the re-seeding and rebuilding of all 18 greens.

The course was not re-opened until the start of this year’s tournament, where in just his 23rd start as a member of the PGA TOUR, Xander Schauffele became the champion. Also winning his first PGA TOUR event, Bryson DeChambeau claimed victory the following week at the John Deere Classic hosted by TPC Deere Run. His 14-foot birdie putt and final-round score of 65 was an impressive finale. Last and certainly not least, Paul Goydos reigned supreme in his

win over Gene Sauers, after both shot 66s, forcing a playoff at the end of regulation play in the 3M Championship at TPC Twin Cities. This win was Goydos’ fifth in his PGA TOUR Champions’ career.

More drama is on the horizon as we head into the beginning of the FedExCup Playoffs, where TPC Boston will host the Dell Technologies Championship as the second leg of the Playoffs. Players can expect a change in design on the 12th and 13th holes of the famed Arnold Palmer design, and fans will enjoy the more spectator-friendly experience during play. And finally, you won’t want to miss the action as the PGA TOUR heads to the “Big Apple” for golf on the world’s stage at Liberty National Golf Club. That’s right, it is none other than the Presidents Cup, and it will be on America’s shores and in the shadow of Lady Liberty in just a few short weeks.

Golf fans are among the world’s luckiest, as they’re able to experience their sport at a level that other major sports can’t even begin to touch. And that couldn’t be more true than with the TPC Network, where our clubs let golfers live the PGA TOUR life. Whether you’re tuning in to the FedExCup Playoffs or playing a round at one of our 33 properties, we invite you to make the TPC Network your home for professional golf all year long.

Ron Price

Chief Operating Officer PGA TOUR

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13

Publisher’s Foreword

A

Life Off Screen

year on from the passing of Arnold Palmer it has been heart-warming to see how the world of golf has marked his life with tributes at so many major tournaments and events. More importantly, his legacy of giving is marching on as strong as ever—and if you are not yet one of the thousands who have signed up to support Arnie’s Army and the Arnie’s Army Charitable Foundation, I urge you to do so.

As I write this in early September, Florida is bracing itself for Hurricane Irma and Houston is still reeling from the giant storm that was Harvey. Our thoughts are with everyone in the affected regions, and certainly with all of our friends at the Arnold Palmer-managed clubs down there: the members and staff whose homes are flooded, and the workers and others who, in some cases, have lost everything.

In this age of social media and instant gratification by way of the Internet, we are better informed than ever before. But how often do we stop to put that tablet down and reflect on the seriousness of situations? Do we spare enough time to share genuine compassion with our fellow human beings and, dare I say, even pick up the phone to

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speak with someone as opposed to sending them an email or a text? I suppose that is another reason why I love the game of golf, for when you are at your club you’re talking with fellow golfers, you say hello to strangers, you welcome guests and you even sit and share a beverage with them and talk about how many shots you left out on the course—all with no digital devices in sight.

Autumn is my favourite time of the year, but it is also a time of reflection, and as I look back over the last year at Kingdom and TPC Signature I am resolved to unplug more and to do more, to continue to follow Mr. Palmer’s example and connect with people around me, not just those I can reach via email. With a mind to connecting with more of you this season, I wish each of you a great Fall.

Matthew Squire

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C LUB S EL ECTION I S EVERY TH I NG

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Contents

Issue 13 Fall 2017

24

32

36

Potomac Treasure

A Captain Among Presidents

Bordeaux

TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm makes a celebrated return to the PGA TOUR schedule

48 54 63 64 70 76 80 84

Palmer at the helm of the Presidents Cup

We spill across the fairways, through the vines and down the streets of Bordeaux

The Human Chain of Monterey Jack Lemmon and an insurance company’s nightmare Cloud Game With more courses per capita than anywhere else, New Zealand delights 2017 Presidents Cup Anticipating a showdown on the Jersey shore Within Liberty’s Reach Liberty National and the reinvention of a venue Smiling authority Will one of golf’s most popular players remain so as a captain?

International caliber Nick Price hoping it will be third time lucky in Jersey Coming of Age Daniel Berger and the fight to move forward Four to Follow Captains’ picks at Liberty National

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Contents

Issue 13 Fall 2017

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115

148

Pamplona

TPC Signature Holes

East x West

Wine, bullfights, friends and indulgence—Hemingway would be proud

The photogenic splendour of three golf courses in the TPC Network

Traveling west to go east for India Pale Ales. The road has been long and winding

96 100 110 123 132 134 138 142 154

20

New Sticks Bruce Springsteen’s former drummer takes his sticks on course All the Presidents Greens A dream course of holes from Presidents Cup venues Lacoste Behind the Crocodile at the maker of the Presisdents Cup uniforms Gift Guide New ideas for something special this Fall Flight Partner Rolls-Royce’s top aircraft engines and service Sharpen Autumnal clarity in fashionable accessories Old Fashioned Approach We drop into golf’s oldest pub Shucks Everything you need to know about oysters (almost) Last Page Remembering the King

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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.

All rights reserved.

Printed in USA

057-1576-PM

November 2016

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

P OTOMAC TREASURE After a decade off the PGA TOUR schedule, TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm made a memorable return to the front line of tournament golf this summer when it hosted the Quicken Loans National

Hole No. 2 at TPC Potomac

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W When the PGA TOUR players arrived at TPC Potomac in June, word quickly spread through the locker room that scores were going to be high.

Kessler Karain, caddie for Patrick Reed, thought the set-up was the toughest he’d seen.

“He’s acting as if 85 over par is going to win this golf tournament,” joked Reed, a five-time winner on the PGA TOUR. “But no, the golf course is challenging. It’s a great course. If you hit the fairways and have control of your irons you can attack, but at the same time the greens are really firm and there are some slopes where you think your iron shots are pretty good but end up on the wrong side.

Next thing you know you have 35 feet to the hole, when you only missed your spot by a yard. It’s a good test.”

TPC Potomac—staging a PGA TOUR event for the first time in 10 years and since extensive renovations—did indeed prove to be a great test for many of the world’s finest players, although the winning score did not reach 85 over par. Still, Kyle Stanley and Charles Howell III finished 72 holes in a share of the lead at only seven under par, before Stanley took the title at the first playoff hole.

At the time of writing in late August, seven under par

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remained the highest winning score on the PGA TOUR this season. Only two other tournaments have seen their winners finish less than 10 under; the Masters Tournament, when Sergio Garcia won on nine under par, and the PGA Championship, when Justin Thomas took the Wanamaker Trophy with a final score of eight under par at Quail Hollow Club.

Only 25 players ended the week under par at TPC Potomac as the golf course produced the kind of figures normally reserved for the Majors.

In fact, Thomas called it on the eve of the first round of the Quicken Loans National.

“You could 100 percent host a U.S. Open here starting tomorrow, you really could,” said Thomas, 24 and golf ’s latest Major Champion. “It is not very often we play greens this firm on TOUR other than the Majors. The rough is really tough, which adds another element. It is thick and there are times when you are just going to have to chip out.

It’s very U.S. Open-like.”

And Sullivan concurs with Thomas’s thoughts on TPC Potomac’s caliber.

“It is very much like a U.S. Open set-up, for sure,” he says. “We cut the rough to three and a half inches or so, yet with the U.S. Open it can be as high as five or six inches.

When the rough is that long it is just a wedge to get out.”

Rock Run gold rush

[Top] A rolling No. 16; [Bottom] The pastoral No. 7

Stanley and Howell took advantage of slightly softer conditions after a rain shower during the final round, both shooting exceptional scores of 66, four under par, before Stanley clinched his second PGA TOUR title to end a five-year drought.

“It’s a great golf course and one of the more difficult courses we’ve played this year,” said Stanley, 29. “It is pretty demanding off the tee. If you get a little out of position you create problems for yourself, so being on the fairway was something I knew was going to be big for the tournament and fortunately I drove it pretty well.”

“It’s a great track,” chimed Rickie Fowler, who finished third, two shots off the playoff. “It’s got good variety off the tee and it’s a real test.”

Added Thomas: “It’s a cool course from tee to green, when you are standing on the tees just looking down the hole, and the shape and the bunkering and the grass around the bunkers. It’s a lot cooler to look at [the rough] than it is to be in it though. It’s thick out there.”

General manager at TPC Potomac is Mike Sullivan, and he is understandably delighted with the players’ reactions to the revamped course.

“There were only eight bogey-free rounds for the entire week, it was definitely a challenging set-up, but the players’ comments were great,” starts Sullivan, who has been at TPC Potomac since 2001. “They said it was hard but fair. If they hit good shots they were rewarded but if they got out of position there was a penalty.”

Intrinsic to the design and charm of TPC Potomac is the Rock Run Stream—a tributary of the Potomac River—that meanders around the golf course and ensures that shot accuracy is critical. Back in the 19th century, the Rock Run Stream Valley was invaded in the American Gold Rush, when mercury was used to explode sections of the riverbed. (Even here on the outskirts of Washington D.C., environmental impact studies were not commissioned 175 years ago.)

The side effect of unearthing gold was to destroy the river’s bedrock, and subsequent erosion left the surrounding area susceptible to flooding, even after the original golf course—called TPC Avenel at the time—first opened for play in 1986. A storied tournament heritage began with the 1987 Kemper Open, but as the quality of PGA TOUR venues and facilities at large rose over the next two decades, it became apparent that whole-scale renovations at TPC Potomac were required.

The golf course was closed for nearly two years, from August 2007 to April 2009, and one of the central projects was to restore the Rock Run Stream Valley and to convert 11 acres of riverside land into wetlands, thereby preserving local nature while also creating a flood buffer between parts of the stream and the golf course. For good measure, 12 acres of new forestation were also established.

“We re-worked the entire golf course and made some upgrades to the clubhouse too, so it was a massive project and it turned out really well,” explains Sullivan. “Part of the emphasis on the renovation work was to get the stream valley restored to its original condition. We even planted the same water plants that had been there 200 years ago, so it was a nice environmental result.”

The golf course upgrade was masterminded by PGA TOUR Construction and Design Services, while leading architects Pete Dye, Tom Fazio and Gil Hanse were all consulted, along with senior players including Davis Love III and Maryland’s own Fred Funk.

Lengthened to 7,124 yards and with a tournament par of 70, the golf course benefited from completely new greens, tees and fairways seeded with Bentgrass, underpinned by new irrigation and drainage throughout. A new, 15-acre practice facility was also created, ensuring that TPC Potomac provides the finest and most extensive practice area in the region.

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Howell, runner-up to Stanley at the 2017 Quicken Loans National, was among the golfers in the field this year who remember the course before the renovations.

“I played the old TPC course back in 2000 and I loved it then, and now it’s even better,” he said. “The re-do is fantastic and how great it is to see a winning score at seven under. I hope we stay here for a long time and I would have said that even if I hadn’t played well.”

Maryland resident Billy Hurley III is another PGA TOUR player with a close affinity to TPC Potomac.

“Over the last five years I have played here and practiced here and they do a really, really good job, the staff and the superintendent,” says Hurley, who won the 2016 tournament at TPC Potomac’s neighbor, Congressional Country Club. “The course was in great shape for the tournament, but it’s in great shape 52 weeks a year.”

And herein lies the essence of the club.

“We want to provide a PGA TOUR experience for members and guests every single day,” starts Keith Steinberg, director of sales and marketing at TPC Potomac since 2005. “That includes not only the golf course conditions, but services such as availability of caddies and the level of personal service on and off the course. Our practice facilities are off the charts so we offer a pure golf experience.

“As a PGA TOUR facility we focus on the detail of the golfing experience. The golf course is prepared to TOUR standards every morning before play, the sprinkler heads have three yardages on them—to the front, middle and back of the greens—and we issue pin sheets every day showing exact locations. Overall we want to offer a professional service, but without being stuffy. That attention to detail separates TPC Potomac from a lot of country clubs.”

The Rock Run Stream Valley may have been stripped of its gold all those years ago, but today it is home to treasure of a different kind.

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Back-to-back aces Arnold Palmer played at TPC Potomac in the year it opened, 1986, in the Chrysler Cup, when the story of the week was delivered before the main event even started. Playing in a practice round and the pro-am, Palmer holed-in-one the par-3 third hole not just once, but twice, in consecutive rounds.

Palmer’s teammate that week was Chi Chi Rodriguez: “I thought Arnie walked on water before this. Now I know he does,” he said. “You could give Clark Kent 10 balls and he couldn’t do that.”

TPC Potomac unveiled a magnificent tribute to Palmer on the eve of its return to the PGA TOUR in June, in the form of a life-size, bronze statue outside the clubhouse. Palmer holds a club in his left hand and two golf balls in his right, representing the remarkable double ace.

By the statue is a plaque that reads: “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated… it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening—and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.”—Arnold Palmer

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This full-sized silver replica of the 1996 Presidents Cup was presented to Arnold Palmer a few years after his captaincy and has been on display in the main reception area of his Latrobe office ever since

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A Captain Among Presidents Arnold Palmer was Presidents Cup captain for the United States in 1996 and his final tilt at the helm was memorable indeed, as remembered by here his longtime assistant Doc Giffin, a former journalist on the Pittsburgh Press and PGA TOUR press secretary

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n his early years on the PGA TOUR, Arnold Palmer revered the Ryder Cup match, considering it a high honor to participate in the biennial competition as a representative of the United States. He was particularly proud that he served twice as the captain of the winning U.S. Teams in 1963 and 1975. But he recognized that, even though the format for the opposing team from Great Britain and Ireland was expanded in 1979 to include players from all of Europe, there still was something missing.

A decade or so later, that void was filled when PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem brainstormed the creation of the Presidents Cup as a counterpart to the Ryder Cup, pitting the American stars every other year against the many fine players who were left out of Ryder because they hailed from parts of the world other than Europe.

Palmer threw his support behind this new international event from the get-go, pointing out at the time that golf’s popularity was spreading throughout the world and “these matches are going to help make it grow.” While he maintained a strong interest in the Presidents Cup for the rest of his life, Arnold’s primary involvement as the second U.S. captain came when the event was in its infancy in 1996.

“Being selected to serve as captain in 1996 was a thrill that almost stands by itself,” Arnold would later write in his book, A Golfer’s Life.

The first Presidents Cup was played two years earlier at the elegant Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Washington, D.C. with Hale Irwin as the U.S. captain. His powerful team overwhelmed the Internationals, 20-12, the losers forced to play without their biggest star—Australia’s Greg Norman— who was sidelined with the flu. Irwin turned the reins over to Palmer, again at Robert Trent Jones, and it turned out to be much more dramatic.

In between the two events, though, Finchem and the other members of the event’s governing body faced a minirebellion among players likely to make the International Team, with Norman and fellow Australian Steve Elkington, the 1995 PGA Champion, being the most vocal. Unhappy with the managerial style of David Graham, another top pro from Down Under who had been reappointed captain, they pressed for his replacement and were placated when Graham, under pressure, unhappily gave up the post. Peter Thomson, yet another Aussie whose stellar credentials were highlighted by his five victories in The Open, agreed to take the helm.

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Palmer and his winning team in 1996; with President H.W. Bush; Captains Thomson and Palmer with President Clinton

“I don’t know if my old heart could have withstood more drama,” Palmer wrote of the finale

Palmer had two options as his 12-man team was being arranged a dinner party, busing the group “off campus” to formed. The top 10 players on the PGA TOUR’s money a rustic restaurant. The conviviality of that evening carried list were automatics. Arnold could have gone anywhere in over to the first day, when the Americans jumped off to a America with his final two choices, but diplomatically went 7.5-2.5 advantage in four-ball and foursomes play. However, with the next two on the money list, even though one of the Internationals counter-punched Saturday and narrowed them was an out-of-form David Duval. His powerful roster the gap to 10.5-9.5 going into Sunday’s singles. consisted of Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples, Mark O’Meara, Things remained tight throughout that final day.

Davis Love III, Tom Lehman, Steve Stricker, Corey Pavin, O’Meara nipped Price, 1 up, to finish unbeaten with his fifth Scott Hoch, Justin Leonard, Mark Brooks and picks Duval win and Duval made his record 4-0 with a 3-and-2 victory and Kenny Perry, who were ranked 11th and 12th respectively. over Senior, while Els led the Internationals’ continuing Thomson’s strong International squad, headed by Norman, challenge with a key, 3-and-2 win over Mickelson, his third Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Nick Price, also included Elkington, victory of the week. It all came down to the last match still Frank Nobilo, Mark McNulty, Jumbo Ozaki, Robert Allenby, alive—Couples versus Singh—on the 17th green.

Peter Senior, David Frost and Craig Parry.

In a finish that was nearly duplicated three years later Unlike more recent cups, Presidents and Ryder, the

by Leonard capping the famous American comeback at the captains did not have a flotilla of assistants at their beck 1999 Ryder Cup. With his teammates watching from the and call. While Thomson did have pro Ian Baker-Finch at edge of the green and Palmer from a vantage point on the his side during the week, Palmer had only diligent and able 18th tee, Couples rolled in an improbable 30-foot birdie putt Sid Wilson of the PGA TOUR staff helping him keep track of that, after Singh missed from 15 feet, provided the winning things. The event did live up to its name as former President point in U.S. Team’s 16.5-15.5 victory.

George H. W. Bush was on hand as honorary chairman and “As the drama of the close finish indicated, the quality Bill Clinton, his successor, then in office, showed up to of the competition was extraordinary,” Palmer would write. watch the action too.

“If Freddie Couples hadn’t run in that monster putt on 17 Before play got underway, the U.S. players pulled a to clinch the Cup, I don’t know if my old heart could have surprise on their captain. That Tuesday—September 10th— withstood any more drama.” was Arnold’s 67th birthday and, led by O’Meara, the players Thus Palmer remained undefeated as a cup captain.

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In honor of my friend Financial Adviser, Dick Connolly was Arnold’s Palmer’s long-time trusted wealth manager and friend. A year on from the King’s passing, Dick pays a personal tribute to the man to whom the entire world of golf owes a debt of gratitude. “’In the 38 years I knew Arnold on professional and personal levels, he never changed as a person; not in the way he treated anyone from presidents to maintenance workers to locker room attendants. And when he made a commitment, he stuck to that commitment, no matter what. It is an ethos I have tried to maintain everyday in my professional and personal life.”

Richard.Connolly@morganstanleypwm.com

Bordeaux is the very heart of the wine trade, it has been for centuries; but only very recently has the city emerged as a destination to compare to its wines, as Robin Barwick discovered Pictures: Leon Harris

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The “Right Bank” of Bordeaux, pictured outside the medieval village of Saint- Emilion

e were standing in the middle of one of the giant wine cellars at Millesima, the international wine retailer based in the heart of Bordeaux, within a quick barrel roll of the Garonne River. To imagine the bottles—nay, the oceans—of the world’s finest wines that have left this place to be poured into glasses around the world over the centuries... It is unfathomable.

“If you have the opportunity you must try Chateau Palmer 1961,” recommends Fabrice Bernard, Millesima chief executive, with a broad grin. “One bottle is 10,000 Euros.”

Mention of “Palmer 1961” and pictures of Arnold Palmer hoisting the Claret Jug at Royal Birkdale spring to mind, but that is a different Palmer, wrong game, no relation, and different price range, too; one bottle of this vintage is worth considerably more than the £1,400 Sterling that Palmer the golfer won at the ’61 [British] Open.

Like the ships laden with barrels of claret, I and my traveling companion were on a journey, exploring one of the world’s great wine regions, perhaps its greatest, but our interests lay outside the glass. Bordeaux has grown beyond its vines over the years, and as employees of a top golf-lifestyle magazine we were duty bound to explore its newest charms, which include fantastic opportunities for the game. Of course

that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t stop to appreciate its raison d’être, as the French say. And so, like the region’s vintners, we pressed on.

Our next stop followed the river north and out of the city, upstream to where the Garonne and the Dordogne split from the Gironde Estuary. From there it is not far up to the west coast of France, the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic. But we are only travelling 20 miles north of Bordeaux and to a dusty, quiet village in the heart of what the wine trade calls the “Left Bank,” to the west of the Gironde.

The roads are narrow, winding, and they always will be because they are flanked by some of the most precious plants in the world: the vines of Margaux. Apart from the odd chateau, the occasional farm building and stand of trees, this rolling land is covered with perfectly ordered, leafy vines; predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and where we are heading some Petit Verdot also flourishes. They form the basis of a famous blend.

In Bordeaux, wineries are referred to as “chateaux” (to use the plural) even if most vineyards don’t actually have a chateau on site as such. But the 66-hectare Chateau Palmer estate has evolved in the shadows of a classic, neo-Renaissance chateau built in the mid-19th century, as proudly depicted on the black and gold label of every bottle of Chateau Palmer and its sister wine, Alter Ego.

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Behind the imposing chateau, huge, modern cellars house rows of oak barrels. This is July 2017, and slowly maturing inside the barrels is the 2015 vintage of Chateau Palmer and Alter Ego, which has since been bottled. Across Bordeaux, 2015 is anticipated to become the finest vintage in recent years, but that does not mean it is ready to drink.

“Further aging is done in the bottles,” explains our guide, Chateau Palmer’s Matteo Pratesi. “For Alter Ego it requires between five and 15 years, depending on the vintage and personal taste, and for Chateau Palmer it is between 25 and 40 years. We recommend that for the perfect maturation you should wait 25 years.”

Twenty-five years? Drinkers don’t have to wait that long—you buy a bottle and open it when you want—but it will take time to allow the full-bodied character of the 2015 vintage to emerge. Renowned wine critic Robert Parker described Chateau Palmer 2015 as having “a wonderful bouquet with layers of dark cherry… a classic Palmer… poised and effortless on the finish… real class and sophistication… a Palmer that will repay those with the nous to cellar it for 10-15 years”.

At the going rate of $275 a bottle, patience is a virtue.

By the way, as the years pass and stocks of Chateau Palmer 2015 deplete, the price per bottle will only rise. For the record, expectations for the 2016 vintage are equally high.

In the meantime, the 1961 vintage; that was bottled 56 years ago and should be about ready to go, right?

Matteo leads the way out of the cool main cellar, back into the summer heat and to an ancient stone out-building connected to the chateau itself. It looks like a farmer’s old potting shed. The door is locked—and double-locked—and we crouch to peer through a small window into this pokey, shadowy cellar. It is the owners’ private store, housing a few hundred dark and dusty bottles. At the far end, on a pedestal, is a stone statue of the 15th century Archbishop Berland of Bordeaux, to ward away evil spirits and uninvited guests. He might be eyeing me—can’t be sure in the dim light.

Many of the bottles date back further than even the hallowed 1961 we are chasing, to before the second world war. German forces occupied Bordeaux between 1940 and 1944 and as the Nazis approached, the chateaux did what they could to conceal their produce. Much of Chateau Palmer’s stock was hidden in trusted corners of Bordeaux city during the occupation, and some of it made it back home after the war. Some of those bottles are what we are peering at here.

“Also there are two double magnums from 1961, for only the most special occasions,” adds Matteo. “They are not for sale.”

That’s fine, I don’t want to buy one, just taste it… apparently a wine of this extraordinary quality will keep for 80 years. I relay Barnard’s estimate of €10,000 for a bottle of 1961 (or €40,000 for a double magnum). “For Chateau Palmer 1961 there is no price,” comes the correction. Even Matteo does not have the keys to this cellar.

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Chateau Palmer and (below) its owners’ private store under the protection of Archbishop Berland

2015 is anticipated to become the finest vintage in recent years across Bordeaux

BORDEAUX GOLF

The charming woodland setting of Grand SaintEmilionnais (above) and Golf du Medoc (below)

A short journey beyond the vineyards of Saint-Emilion and tucked away amid ancient forests, Grand SaintEmilionnais Golf Club is as close as golfers can get to realize the old cliché of discovering hidden treasure.

Grand Saint-Emilionnais is home to a stunning parkland golf course designed by Tom Doak—the creator of Bandon Dunes in Oregon and The Renaissance Club in Scotland—that only opened in 2015. It is a young golf course—still rough around the edges—although it is adorned by oak trees that are over 100 years old, as the beautiful par-72 challenge wends through land that was once hunting grounds to French aristocracy.

Grand Saint-Emilionnais is owned by the Mourgue d’Algue family. Gaetan Mourgue d’Algue founded the European Tour’s Lancome Trophy and his daughter Kristel played on the Ladies European Tour. The family-run course—the first Doak design in continental

Europe—is arguably the finest golfing proposition on Bordeaux’s Right Bank.

Yet to be developed at Grand Saint-Emilionnais is a full-service clubhouse. The club’s next major project is to restore a derelict 19th-century manor house behind the first tee, which will serve beautifully as the hub to the golf club once developed.

Starring on the Left Bank is the longer-established Golf du Medoc, a 36-hole resort located 10 miles to the northwest of Bordeaux’s city center. Featuring a 79-room hotel, spa, extensive clubhouse, restaurant and tour-level practice facilities, Golf du Medoc lies on flatter ground than Grand Saint-Emilionnais, yet courses designed by Bill Coore (Chateau course) and Ron Whitman (Vines course) provide appealing challenges of championship caliber. segolfclub.com & golfdumedocresort.com

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© MMXVII Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC. a Realogy Company. All Rights Reserved. Barges, used with permission. Sotheby’s International Realty® is a registered trademark licensed to Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC. An Equal Opportunity Company. Equal Housing Opportunity. Each Office is Independently Owned and Operated.

New age, old city

Saint-Emilion (top), La Grande Maison (above), the bar in Le Grand Hotel (right) and Bordeaux’s bistro culture (below)

Bordeaux has undergone a striking and rapid transformation over the past two or three years. It is no accident. With fine wines now readily produced in so many other countries, Bordeaux can no longer rely on its heritage and on the quality of its produce to remain on its highest echelon.

So the city and its industry is opening up to tourism and welcoming visitors like never before, literally. The chateaux are welcoming VIPs to stay in their historic guestrooms, and all-comers are welcomed daily through their previously locked gates, for tours and tastings. The city has built an impressive and interactive Cité du Vin museum to promote and educate—partly funded by Bordeaux’s wineries—and the gastronomic offering in the city is subsequently reaching new heights. The hotels are filling up, more flights are coming in and a new high-speed train connection delivers travelers from Paris in only two hours.

Visitors are discovering that Bordeaux—a city featuring some of the most impressive and carefully restored medieval architecture in France—scrubs up beautifully.

“People used to leave Bordeaux for the public holidays— the city would be empty—but now they come here for the holidays,” says Julien Gardin, director at La Grande Maison, a five-star boutique hotel with just six guestrooms, near the center of Bordeaux. The hotel opened in 2014 and is owned

by Bernard Magrez, who owns 40 wineries around the world and is a noted art collector. The hotel’s Restaurant Pierre Gagnaire comes with two Michelin stars.

“We were fully booked for the public holiday at the end of May and it was our best week yet for the restaurant,” adds Gardin, “even though it was hot and sunny and great weather to go to the beach. Our occupancy rate is constantly increasing; every month this year is around 10 percent up on last year.”

Also enjoying ever-increasing demand is Bordeaux’s Le Grand Hotel, a five-star, 130-room InterContinental Hotel located in the very heart of the city, on the Place de la Comedie and opposite the city’s equally imposing Opera House. The hotel features two Gordon Ramsey restaurants, Le Bordeaux Gordon Ramsey, which is streetside, and Le Pressoir d’Argent, offering an exquisite fine-dining experience and which has been awarded two Michelin stars.

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Visitors to Bordeaux are well anchored in the center of the city as it has a singular charm of its own, while also serving as a pivot to the vineyards. The “Left Bank” is to the west and to the north of Bordeaux, while the equally renowned “Right Bank” is to the east, wherein just 30 miles away sits the enchanting and ancient village of Saint-Emilion. Like Margaux and practically all of the countryside around Bordeaux, SaintEmilion is steeped in the wine trade and completely surrounded by vineyards such as the famous Chateau Soutard, which welcomes visitors with a fascinating tour and opportunity to taste a beautifully crafted range of wines.

There is just so much to see, but critically and as much as anywhere in the world, so much to taste.

Perhaps the ideal spot to take it all in on a summer’s evening is the Night Beach rooftop terrace at Le Grand Hotel. Affording guests a 360-degree view around Bordeaux and beyond, a fitting aperitif here is a gin and tonic expertly mixed with Fever Tree tonic, plenty of ice and a double of G’Vine Gin, which is produced in the south of France and is gently infused with grapes and the vine flower.

The perfect Bordeaux evening might progress a few floors down to Ramsey’s Le Pressoir d’Argent for dinner and a bottle of, well, Chateau Palmer? If you do order, just double check the vintage.

Greens & Grapes It’s the same when you visit any great city; it’s only great if you know where to go and how to get there, and much depends on who you know. For Kingdom’s trip to Bordeaux we struck gold with travel company Greens & Grapes, which is established with the specific mission of organizing Bordeaux vacations that incorporate the finest golf, gastronomy and vineyard experiences.

“We are based in Bordeaux and we organize complete holiday packages that include accommodation, golf, wine and gastronomy,” starts Sylvie McPhilemy, who runs the business with her husband Lucius. “We can offer standard packages or tailor-made itineraries.

“We are providing our clients with the kind of service we would love to receive when we go abroad. We are a small business offering a personal level of service that can’t be done by a travel agent who isn’t local. It can’t be done over the phone from another country.

“We have personally visited every single vineyard, golf course, restaurant and accommodation that we send clients to.

Flexibility is also key, and in every package we include concierge and chauffeur services.”

Beyond Bordeaux, Green & Grapes offers a dualdestination package that brings in the 2018 Ryder Cup course, Le Golf National in Paris. greensandgrapes.com

Market day in Bordeaux (bottom left) and the view from the rooftop terrace at Le Grand Hotel (below)

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Saint-Emilion is steeped in the wine trade and completely surrounded by vineyards

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LOOKING TO THE FUTURE Located in the heart of Bordeaux and filled with 2.5 million bottles, for fine wine aficionados Millesima holds perhaps the most valuable warehouse stock in the world. Kingdom was welcomed in for a tour

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t is cool and slightly humid in the Millesima cellar in Bordeaux, as it is all day, every day, without fail.

The conditions are not geared for human comfort— although they offer welcome relief from the July heat in southwest France—but for the well being of the finest bottles of wine in Bordeaux.

Wine has been stored within these double-thick stone walls for two centuries, dating back to a golden era of Bordeaux wine production in the mid-19th century. The industry prospered back then thanks in large part to a free trade agreement with the UK, where Bordeaux wines were— and remain to this day—highly prized. The other crucial development was the Bordeaux 1855 Classification, which gave the wine trade a hierarchy and structure that is still adhered to.

Millesima’s cellars are just across the road from the Garonne River, and in past generations, barrels of wine would be rolled down from the cellar and straight onto ships heading up to the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic, and from there, very often to the ports of the south of England.

Millesima is a wine shop, but on a global scale, selling the world’s finest wines to clients in over 120 countries.

Bordelaise (native of Bordeaux) Patrick Bernard founded the business in 1983 in what was a revolutionary move in an industry wrapped up in age-old tradition. Bernard had worked as a ‘negociant’, a wholesale wine merchant, but he took a new direction by selling direct to consumers.

Bernard retired at the end of 2016 and his son Fabrice has taken up the reins on a business that turned over $36 million in 2016, with 80 percent of sales made via Millesima’s website.

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“When my father founded Millesima he wanted to create a wine shop that he would want to buy from,” starts Fabrice Bernard, as we take the long walk through the biggest wine cellar you could imagine, from where 22,000 customer deliveries are made each year. “Today we have something like 11,000 different products but we are working towards a range of 20,000 over the next three years. We want to improve the range of Spanish, Australian and American wines we offer.

“Three years ago we started selling Italian wines and now they represent six percent of our turnover. In 10 years we want to reach a turnover of 50 million Euros.”

Call that $60 million.

While 40 percent of Millesima’s stock now comes from outside its home region of Bordeaux, 60 percent remains homegrown and Millesima has become one of Bordeaux’s most significant dealers in ‘en primeur’ wines, or what is also known as ‘pre-release’ or ‘futures’ wines. This is where Millesima’s international service really comes into its own; enabling fine wine enthusiasts and collectors to invest in the best wines while they are still in the barrel, which often means securing bottles at their cheapest price. Once a fine wine is bottled its price generally rises, and as long as demand for such a wine continues as predicted, the price tag on the bottle rises as stocks gradually deplete.

“Every year we buy 300 futures products,” says Bernard. “Mostly from Bordeaux but also from Burgundy and the Rhone Valley.”

Like any futures market, investing in future wines is a

New York state of mind

gamble and Bernard has to trust his intimate knowledge of the wineries and growing conditions in deciding in which futures to invest, but more than anything he needs to trust his keenly developed sense of taste.

“Tasting the wine is very important,” he adds. “We taste wines all the time, and one tasting session might include 40 wines. That is the only way to be sure that the wine is of the quality that we want, and to make sure a wine truly represents its terroir.

“Our goal at Millesima is to give you wines you want in your cellar, so I have tasted all the wines two or three times and it is my job to say, okay, this wine is very nice this year, so instead of 10 cases, I want to buy 100 cases.

“With 2016, for example, it is a great vintage. I have bought 24 million Euros of 2016 wine and we are very excited about it. It is really incredible.”

Millesima’s Ingrid Miossec, who manages sales to the United States, adds: “And we only buy direct from estates to guarantee that the wines have only ever been sold twice, by the wine estate and by us. This way, we know for sure the storage conditions are perfect and that we can provide our clients with exactly what they want.”

The valuable stock in Millesima’s Bordeaux cellars (above)

“2016 is a great vintage. We are very excited about it”

Millesima has a store in New York City, on Second Avenue in Lenox Hill. The company offers the broadest range of Bordeaux wines in the United States and saw US sales grow by 20 percent in 2016, with similar growth forecast for 2017. The US has now become Millesima’s second biggest market, after France itself.

The other advantage of buying futures wines is that customers can choose what bottle formats they prefer, whether it be bottles, magnums, double magnums (or “Jeroboam”), or even larger.

We arrive at some shelves filled with Champagne in large format bottles. The wooden box containing a melchior of Champagne would not fit into a small-format car. This Drappier Carte d’Or has a price tag f $3,000, it’s 36 inches tall and contains the equivalent of 24 bottles. Perfect if you want to serve 100 guests from the same bottle, but you’ll need at least two people to handle the pouring.

Bernard puts me on the spot: “Do you know how many people you need to drink a magnum of champagne?”

What? Me? “How many people?” he demands Er, I dunno. 10? 12? (Obviously the wrong answer.

We’re in a Bordeaux wine cellar for goodness’ sake, not the Convent of the Blessed St. Mary.)

“Oh no, I do not want to drink with you!” Bernard finds this hilarious. “The answer is two people, but only if one is not drinking!” More laughter. “That is what the owner of Laurent Perrier used to say.”

But there is a serious point with these large formats and it comes back to the thought of Patrick Bernard establishing Millesima to be “a wine shop that he would want to buy from”.

“Wine is a passion,” says Fabrice Bernard. “If you have a dinner for 10 friends it is very nice to have a double magnum of wine on the table.

“We want people to have exactly the double magnum on their table that they want, and that is why we give so much attention to what we buy, to storage, and delivery conditions are also very carefully controlled. We take great care.”

If you want the best of Bordeaux delivered to your home visit millesima.com for more information.

TEN GREAT YEARS Great estates with gifted winemakers often make excellent wines in lesser vintages, just as even in outstanding years mistakes and mediocrity can override the benefice of Mother Nature. With that full glass of caveat in hand 10 of Bordeaux’s best recent years are:

1982 1985

1990 1995

2000 2005

2009 2010

2015 2016

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The Human Chain of Monterey While Jack Lemmon was an Academy Awardwinning actor and a Hollywood legend, his golf was almost completely forgettable, apart from one famous moment at the Crosby Clambake when Clint Eastwood took him over the edge…

By Art Spander

O

n the screen, he was special, an actor One time, in 1998, when he seemed destined to who could make us weep or laugh, an succeed, it wasn’t his golf or that of his pro partner, Peter eight-time Academy Award nominee with Jacobsen, which kept him from breaking the barrier, it was two wins. On the course, Jack Lemmon scornful Mother Nature. was an “Everyman,” a 15 to 17-handicapper That was when yet another storm pounded who loved golf and yet, as most of us, he played it with the a tournament infamous for wretched weather and the constant fear that the next shot would bring not joy or relief decision was made after two soggy rounds—during the but disappointment. usual February dates—to return in August. Yes, nearly Bing Crosby once made a hole-in-one at Cypress six months later, following the PGA up in Washington Point’s famed 16th, the 219-yard par three on a bluff set State—the third round was played at Pebble… without any among the crashing waves of Monterey Bay. Whereas on amateurs. Sad, so sad. the same hole Jack Lemmon once had to be kept from “We made the cut; we just didn’t play Sunday,” said falling over the cliff in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Jacobsen, now a commentator for Golf Channel, who won tournament created by Bing as the Crosby Pro-Am. the pro division in the 1995 AT&T. Jacobsen still refers to Many remember Lemmon from his roles in more than Lemmon, who died at 76 in June 2001, as “a golfing hero.” the 60 films including “China Syndrome,” “Save the Tiger”— He certainly was a poster boy, literally. This most for which he earned the 1973 Oscar as best actor—“Some recent AT&T was the 30th anniversary of the so-called Like It Hot” or the “Odd Couple.” “human chain at Cypress” and artist Geoff Cunningham, Others think of Lemmon as the embodiment of links working from a photo as uplifting as it is worrying, turned frustration, a forlorn contestant in no less than 25 Crosbys, the scene into the AT&T’s official poster for 2017. who never made the official 54-hole cut and so never enjoyed That Day in 1987, Lemmon nearly whiffed his tee shot the added kudos of competing on a Clambake Sunday. at 16 and the ball bounced into the succulent ice plant, which

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Jacobsen grabbed Eastwood’s belt. Then Eastwood’s pro, Greg Norman, grabbed Jacobsen’s belt. Then Norman’s caddy, Pete Bender, wrapped his fingers around Greg’s belt.

“The crowd is going nuts,” said Jacobsen. “The cameras are everywhere. Jack amazingly gets the ball out of the ice plant back onto the fairway. It’s a heck of a shot.”

But this was Jack Lemmon, not Jack Nicklaus. After the heroics he shanked his next shot into the water.

Lemmon belonged to Hillcrest Country Club in West Los Angeles, a place full of actors, singers and bedlam.

Lunches there became one joke after another, depending who could top someone else, but the food was fantastic.

It wasn’t quite the Crosby or Bob Hope, but Lemmon and fellow Hillcrest member, the late Walter Matthau, used to stage a tournament there that benefitted a hospital in southern California.

Matthau didn’t play golf so Lemmon got the attention and the questions. He had plenty of answers, especially about his rounds at Cypress—the highly private course that was dropped from the AT&T rota after 1990—at Pebble and in the desert during what then was the Hope event.

“I’d be OK,” Lemmon once said, “until the damn TV cameras came on, and then you’d think I’d never seen one in my life.”

Where Lemmon could be seen late afternoons or early evenings during the Crosby was walking the family poodle down the streets of Carmel, saying hello to passers-by.

Immediately after a round he might drop at the Tap Room at Pebble Beach, the golf bar a few feet away from the

I’d be OK until the damn TV cameras came on, then you’d think I’d never golfed in my life had been brought in decades ago from South Africa. It works wonderfully as ground cover, especially in sandy soil along the California coast, but for golfers it’s the devil’s device.

Trying to get out of ice plant is like trying to hit from lettuce leaves or broccoli.

“Jack’s ball is a foot from the edge of the cliff,” recalls Jacobsen about that day at Cypress. “I’m talking 70 feet straight down to the water. There’s no way he can try and hit it. That ice plant is slippery.

“Clint Eastwood is playing in our group, and he gives it his best ‘Dirty Harry’ squint and says, ‘C’mon, Jack. Hit that sonofabitch. I’ll help.’ He gets behind Lemmon and grabs his belt. I’m thinking, ‘Holy cow. Two icons of the American cinema are about to fall to their death. I got to do something.’”

Lemmon and Eastwood bringing star power to the AT&T National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach in 1997

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first tee—and maybe a hundred yards from the 18th green. I ended up at a table there with him and two other journalists.

He didn’t at all mind talking about the shooting of his movies or his tough time with shots on the course. He was affable and delightfully candid.

“I’ve yet not to be nervous in a big tournament,” he confessed. “I’d rather do ‘Hamlet’ on Broadway and open with no rehearsal, ad lib the sucker, than I would tee off in the Crosby . . . It’s just incredible what an ass you’re making out of yourself in front of all these people.”

But all those people almost didn’t care. They and tournament sponsors were thrilled to have Jack in the field, if only for three rounds.

Because it’s winter and because of the severity of the courses and weather, amateurs get extra strokes at Pebble, so the first time he entered, in the 1970s, when he carried a 15 handicap more or less, Lemmon arrived with confidence.

It didn’t last long. Neither did the liquid in the pint bottles his assigned caddie carried in the lining of his coat.

By the 18th, according to an interview Lemmon did with Scott Ostler, now with the San Francisco Chronicle, Lemmon’s score was into triple figures, and he was playing 11 on the par five, a waterside hole that could be a problem even for the pros. The other Jack, Nicklaus, once pulled his tee shot into the water in the early 1960s and blew a chance to win.

Lemmon with one of his Oscars, 1974

My ball misses some people, hits Chi Chi, and he putts right off the green “I got a 40-foot putt for a sextuple bogey,” this Jack, Lemmon, said of his situation. “My caddie, who is in a catatonic state of shock, is right behind me. I’m plumbing my putt. I look over my shoulder and say, ‘Which way does this one break?’ And he said, ‘Who cares?’ That’s the greatest line from a caddie I ever heard.”

The late John Ross was editor of the American monthly, “Golf,” which like so many others, is full of advice on how to improve. Grip this way. Swing that way.

Ross once met Lemmon at the annual Met Golf Writers’ dinner in New York. “I tried all those things you had in your magazine,” Lemmon advised, shaking his head.

“But don’t worry. I won’t tell anybody.”

One year, just before the start of the Hope event, Chi Chi Rodriguez told Lemmon, “Nobody in the history of golf has made more impossible shots than you.” And this was before the Human Chain.

Lemmon took umbrage. His game was better, he insisted. So later, as Lemmon, in the group immediately behind Chi Chi’s came into earshot, Rodriguez shouted to Lemmon, ‘How you doing so far?” Lemmon gave the OK sign and stepped to the tee.

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“I take out the big one,” Lemmon said, “The driver, and swing as hard as I can. I hit a screaming low line drive, very left. Just clears the heads of some people, hits a palm tree flush and comes screaming back at me like a bullet. I duck.

Chi Chi is bent over putting on his green, 30 yards away. My drive takes one bounce and hits him. And he putts right off the green.”

Jacobsen very much enjoyed Lemmon, as friend and partner. “He was incredibly warm,” said Jacobsen, “and so incredibly friendly to people that would stop him on the street. He would always have time for everybody. He treated people the way he wanted to be treated.”

It was golf that mistreated Lemmon. He said on occasion that he would trade one of his Oscars to make the cut in the AT&T. The exchange never was to be. However, Jack’s quest and his memory will always be part of the event. Starting in 2002 the trophy for the amateur who helps his pro the most was named the “Jack Lemmon Award.”

A deserving tribute for someone who, borrowing Bobby Jones’ line of the inequities of golf, too often became a dogged victim of an inexorable fate—and one year the victim of ice plant.

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When we wanted to know about golf in New Zealand, we turned to our friends at NZ Golf, Leisure and Lifestyle magazine for some expert advice.

Here, publisher Geoff Witton shares his local knowledge and makes a strong case for heading down under

The breathtaking Cape Kidnappers

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T

The Maori call it Aotearoa, “the land of the long white cloud,” while others know it as the home of the All Blacks rugby team or of superlative Sauvignon Blanc wines. When it comes to golf, however, there’s only one word for New Zealand: paradise.

The country consists of two narrow main islands: the imaginatively named North Island and South Island.

Geographically and socially they’re completely different— “like chalk and cheese,” in local parlance. But together, over roughly 900 miles tip to tail (measuring along the country’s north/northeast axis) and with a maximum width of 250 miles, these islands hold some of the world’s greatest golf.

In fact, there are some 400 golf courses in New Zealand, many along the 9,300 miles of coastline. Some time ago, two young entrepreneurs spent a year playing all of them in a massive challenge to raise money for charity, which they achieved.

While most won’t have the time or energy for a trip like that, getting to New Zealand from the USA is quite easy. The vast majority of flights to Auckland (our largest city) depart from either Los Angeles or San Francisco and, in general, they are direct and overnight, meaning you can wake up as you land in the early morning, ready to go.

Immigration at Auckland is usually fast and painless, as are the baggage carousels, and then the fun begins—but where to start?

Golf courses here can be grouped into four categories: resort courses; championship courses; standard local/club courses; and rural courses, which can be rustic and “old school.” Here’s a small sample of what’s on offer:

Kauri Cliffs is a comfortable three hours’ drive north of Auckland, near the Bay of Islands, and it’s a course of international championship standard. It can also be reached directly by helicopter or via a short drive after a quick flight to Kerikeri. It is a full service resort—golf, spa, infinity pool, bush walks and several other activities—and the cuisine is of the highest quality. Similarly, Kauri Cliffs’ sister course, Cape Kidnappers, is on the east coast of the Bay of Plenty about halfway down the North Island. The course is of a different style to Kauri Cliffs but the experience (as mandated and delivered by American billionaire owner Julian Robertson) is also of the highest quality. There is again helicopter service between the two resorts and Auckland, and the facility has been expanded to transport visitors to all parts of the country, including to Queenstown in the South Island.

Other resort options: Millbrook is 20 minutes from Queenstown on the South Island, where the course is designed by national golfing hero Sir Bob Charles. 27 holes shaped from the rugged mountainous landscape have been recently renovated by Greg Turner. Tara Iti, a new and exclusive links course at Mangawhai, borders a seabird sanctuary and is 90 minutes from Auckland. Golfers are required to spend the night but this outstanding Tom Doak design justifies the visit.

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Swain Destinations

Auckland (bottom left); Kauri Cliffs (above left); Taupo Bay (above right) and deer at Wairakei Golf + Sanctuary (below)

The premiere provider of custom vacation experiences, Swain Destinations assembles personalized travel itineraries and oversees every detail from start to finish. For golfers who want to visit New Zealand, a Swain Destinations getaway means playing the country’s finest courses, staying in its finest accommodations and experiencing the country at the highest level: helicopter tours, wine tasting, spa treatments and so much more, including meals and top-drawer adventures. Swain Destinations’ deep local knowledge and relationships with top service providers in New Zealand—as well as other destinations—mean that clients receive the best of everything, exactly as they want it, in a hand-tailored itinerary. For more on how Swain Destinations can create your ultimate golf getaway, visit them online—and have your dreams, and your clubs, ready. swaindestinations.com/golf

There are 400 courses here, many offering epic views and simply sublime playing experiences

There are plenty scattered about but the highlight has to be Wairakei Golf + Sanctuary, often voted New Zealand’s No.1 course. Close to the popular city of Taupo (which sits on Australasia’s largest lake), Wairakei is easy to find and simply beautiful. It used to be known as Wairakei International, but over the last ten years or so a great course was transformed into one of the world’s truly great wildlife sanctuaries as well (See sidebar: Wairakei Golf + Sanctuary). Today the sanctuary successfully cohabitates with golfers of all shapes, sizes and skill sets who play within the nearly 200 acres of native flora and fauna, including some endangered native birds. Watch for baby deer, especially around the 5th hole.

If you’re staying in Taupo, there’s plenty to do beyond the golf. The city is well populated with a range of accommodations and the trout fishing is internationally renowned, as is the thermal activity.

Heading South to Wellington, the political capital of the country, Paraparaumu Beach course is on the Pacific

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Auckland

Taupo NORTH ISLAND

Wellington

Christchurch

SOUTH ISLAND

Queenstown

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Queenstown (below); the serene Jack’s Point Golf Course (right)

coast. Host to a number of New Zealand Opens, this is where an in-his-prime Tiger Woods competed in 2000.

Tough and beautiful, it won’t disappoint.

Further beauties are found on the South Island, on its southern tip in the city of Queenstown. With exhilarating mountain scenery, the deep and dark waters of Lake Wakatipu, a plethora of varied dining experiences, numerous activities and several fantastic golf courses, Queenstown is a breathtaking “must visit” for any visitor to New Zealand.

About 10 minutes by road from Queenstown Airport is Jack’s Point Golf Course, named after Jack Tewa (or “Maori Jack”), the first person to find gold in the region. The property offers 360-degree vistas of the razorback Remarkables mountain range and Lake Wakatipu, and the course’s 18 holes wind through native bush, tussock, rocky outcrops and steep bluffs on their way to the clubhouse on Lake Tewa.

As well as being a welcoming place to relax whilst enjoying the ambience, the golf shop and golf services operations here have quality rental clubs and a fantastic array of merchandise to tease the most conservative of shoppers.

Though the course is well established, the surrounding area is still under development and so your best bet for accommodations currently is a Hilton group about eight minutes away by car.

Other championship options: Clearwater Golf Course is close to the airport in Christchurch, South Island, and has hosted several worldclass tournaments attracting major champs including Americans Jason Dufner and Bubba Watson. Royal Wellington Golf Club in Upper Hutt, a 40-minute drive from Wellington at the bottom of the North Island, is also a popular choice.

Wairakei Golf + Sanctuary Around 25,000 native trees and 5,000 exotics have been planted at this course-cum-sanctuary over the last seven years to encourage bird life and to further improve the park-like surroundings. Mixed color pheasants, guinea fowl, ducks and fallow deer have also been released on to the property, which is protected via a six-foot high boundary fence that prevents climbing and burrowing animals from coming in. The predator-free environment is now used as a crèche for kiwi chicks and it has been home to the rare takahē bird as well, only 280 of which remain in New Zealand. Since 2015, Wairakei has welcomed its first takahē chick along with two kārearea (New Zealand falcon) chicks, making this one of the most responsible golf environments (and one of the most beautiful) in the world.

Palmer Down Under

New Zealand is home to a number of club and municipal courses of varying sizes and styles, and if you’re staying around Auckland consider playing Remuera in the city or Titirangi in West Auckland or Muriwai on the rugged west coast, a true links-style track with pounding Pacific waves at the course’s edge. Down South, Terrace Downs is a charming course that won’t be too busy, and only 50 minutes from Christchurch Airport by car If you’re looking for a truly memorable New Zealand experience, the country has a few rural courses that are still “mown” by sheep and which provide a great day out. Among these, Taihape in the central plateau of the North Island was once visited by Arnold Palmer, who called the 12th hole here “the best natural par-3 in the world.” Another, Mercury Bay Golf and Country Club in Whitianga on the Coromandal, has a clubhouse that’s only open when members are present and features an “honesty box” to pay your greens fees. These are just two options; ask around and you will find more.

Whether you play a rustic course and finish the round with a cold local beer or take a helicopter to a luxury resort and end the day with a five-star meal, New Zealand offers a world of golf adventures for every taste and skill level—far more than could be covered in a single article. All you have to do is to get on a plane and head into the long white clouds.

We’ll be waiting.

Arnold Palmer made two trips to New Zealand, one in 1966 and one in 1978. The latter saw him play in the New Zealand Airlines Golf Classic at Titirangi, after which he took some time to tour around, go jet boating and even try his hand at cricket. In 1966 he played a series of exhibition matches with New Zealand great Sir Bob Charles and impressed the New Zealand Herald with his travel schedule: “So far this year, [Palmer] has flown nearly 120,000 miles and won nearly as many dollars,” the paper reported on Oct 18, 1966. “His official tournament prize money stands at approximately $90,000.”

To plan your own itinerary, visit swaindestinations.com/golf

Arnold Palmer tries cricket in ‘78 (above); the rugged links-style layout at Muriwai (left)

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Hit the Green IN AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

Whether you’re striving for a perfect front nine or eager to explore natural wonders, Swain Destinations will curate your ultimate journey to Auckland.

With more courses than any other region in New Zealand, this vibrant city is home to world-class greens nestled alongside magnificent sea views and rolling hills. Between tee times, discover beautiful beaches, climb a dormant volcano, or day trip to an island overflowing with wineries. Auckland, New Zealand provides endless opportunities for distinct golfing experiences, unique landscapes and one-of-a-kind accommodations.

To start planning, contact your local Travel Professional.

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Gulf Harbour Country Club

Waiheke Island

Auckland Harbour

Titirangi Golf Club

Waitakere Ranges

Liberty National

WWW.BOBCUPP.COM

THE PRESIDENTS CUP

PERFECT DOZEN The 12th chapter of the Presidents Cup is about to be written and the International visitors have their work cut out as they strive to win the famous gold cup on American soil for the first time

11 matches

Mark O’Meara became the first player to go 5-0 in the Presidents Cup, anchoring Arnold Palmer’s US team to a 16 ½ - 15 ½ victory in 1996

UNITED STATES = 9 wins INTERNATIONAL TEAM = 1 win 1 match tied

3RD TIME LUCKY Jack Nicklaus has been Presidents Cup captain a record four times (1998, 2003, ’05, ’07), although the United States did not win the cup until his third attempt in 2005.

His captaincy record stands at 2-1-1

The Presidents Cup trophy, made by Tiffany & Co., weighs 28 pounds, and is made from sterling silver and 24-carat gold

Points won in 11 Presidents Cups United States = 197 International = 165

most matches won:

has been on every presidents cup team since its inception

Tiger Woods

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WITHIN LIBERTY’S REACH The site of the 2017 Presidents Cup represents one of the most dramatic transformations of regenerated land in the United States. Brian Wacker reports course photography by

Evan Schiller / golfshots.com

Liberty National No.17

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THE PRESIDENTS CUP

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It was 1992 and Tom Kite had just won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, one of the world’s most picturesque golf courses. That same year, Kite and Bob Cupp—a course designer and something of a design mentor to Kite—were asked to take a look at a swath of New Jersey land just across the Hudson River from New York City. There had been a movement to rehabilitate the area’s waterfront, and a golf course certainly would fit the bill, with the property sitting just south of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, right across from the southern tip of Manhattan.

What Kite and Cupp saw (and smelled) though, was a diametric contradiction to the Monterey Peninsula’s gem:

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a toxic landfill heaped with trash, including rusted vehicles, rotted furniture and more. Over the years the property had seen its share of hard use—as an ammunitions dump during World War I, and later as an oil tank depot and a home for giant storage warehouses, one of which was utilized by the Gambino crime family.

Once Kite and Cupp looked past the piles of trash, however, the appeal was obvious, starting with unobstructed views of the Big Apple and its iconic skyline.

After a few years of designing and tweaking and getting through heaps of red tape, the plans for a golf course and residential component were finally approved in 1998; now someone just needed to fund it, and that’s when Paul Fireman entered the picture.

Fireman grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, and came to the game through Thorny Lea Golf Club, where he was caddying by age 10. He eventually attended Boston University but didn’t graduate, instead working a series of jobs, including one at a family-owned sporting goods store.

Then in 1979 he mortgaged his house to borrow the $35,000

he needed to land the North American rights to sell a littleknown British sneaker called Reebok. Five years later he bought Reebok, taking it public a year after that and then selling it to adidas in 2006 for $3.8 billion, netting more than $600 million for himself.

That same year, Fireman, who had by this point opened an impressive portfolio of golf clubs across a number of states and Puerto Rico, opened Liberty National on the former toxic wasteland, calling it his “legacy.”

And a handsome one it is. The course cost $250 million to build, shoehorned into 150 or so acres and rising 52 feet above sea level. The club, which costs $500,000 to join, features a helipad, yacht services, a spa and restaurant and future plans for some 900 adjacent homes. In 2009, it held its first PGA Tour event, the Barclays (now the Northern Trust), and it did so again in 2013.

THE FORMER DUMP IS NOW A TOP-CLASS COURSE WITH A HELIPAD AND YACHT SERVICES

SEARCHING FOR SEVEN Now, it plays host to an even bigger audience as the stage for the 2017 Presidents Cup, where the United States will try to extend its winning streak to seven straight against the Internationals.

“Liberty’s going to be a fantastic venue,” International team captain Nick Price beamed.

Added Liberty National managing director of golf, Derek Sprague: “This is going to be a much bigger event.

Having hosted two [PGA Tour events] this event is probably double in size, at least, not only with the number of attendees but with the excitement surrounding it.”

International team member, Australian Marc Leishman, said: “The views are just spectacular and the crowds will be massive.”

Some of those views, at least from a routing standpoint, will also be different from when fans last saw the host course.

In order to bring the course’s signature holes—and all of those dramatic views—into every match, what was previously the 5th hole will serve as the opener, with the 6th as the 2nd and so on. That means matches that go the

L-R: Priceless views; Tiger Woods at The Barclays in 2009; No.5 (above)

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distance will feature two par 3s over the final three holes, including the 18th (normally the 4th), a 193-yard par-3 with the Manhattan skyline acting as the backdrop behind the green.

On the front nine, there will also be four par 5s and just one par 3, a 250-yard doozie that has water left and long.

The back, meanwhile, will have three par 3s and no par 5s.

And while some were initially critical of the course in the beginning—which led to a dozen greens and tees being retooled, portions of 13 of the bentgrass fairways being re-contoured and fairway bunkers being repositioned after that first tour event—Liberty National has not only grown in stature but also in the eyes of the ones who will be hitting the shots in the Presidents Cup.

NUMEROUS SETUP OPTIONS MEAN IT’S GREAT FOR MATCH PLAY AS WELL

LIBERTY NATIONAL GOLF CLUB founded:

cost to build: cost to join:

number of holes:

“They can change a lot of the tees and make a lot of the holes play differently,” said Justin Thomas, who played Liberty National with Rickie Fowler for the first time in August. “They can take some risks with the lines on a few holes.”

Given its demand for accuracy off the tee with lush rough and tall fescue grasses, and for precision ball-striking thanks to small but receptive greens, it also makes for a strong match play venue.

“They can tuck pins and have really nice par 5s and par 3s,” said Leishman. “It’s a terrific course from that standpoint.”

Liberty National has come a long way over the last 25 years. In a way, it stands as tall as the skyscrapers across the river—and it looks (and smells) much better.

yardage: par:

course rating: slope rating:

course record:

2006 $250 million $500,000 18 7,458 71 77.7 155 62 (Kevin Chappell, 2013)

NOTABLE MEMBERS: Mark Wahlberg, Justin Timberlake, Rudy Giuliani, Robert Kraft, Eli Manning, Matt Harvey, Phil Mickelson, Cristie Kerr.

PGA TOUR HISTORY: 2009 The Barclays (won by Heath Slocum) 2013 The Barclays (won by Adam Scott)

Rickie Fowler putts for birdie on No.13 during the third round of The Barclays in 2013 (above); the tranquil No.2 (left)

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SMILING AUTHORITY Steve Stricker during the second round of the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club

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THE PRESIDENTS CUP

Steve Stricker, voted by his peers as one of the most popular players on the PGA Tour, has headed into unchartered territory this year by taking the lead role on the United States’ Presidents Cup team.

Dave Shedloski checks in with the first-time captain...

A After rallying for a one-under-par 70 in the second round of the 99th PGA Championship last month at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, Steve Stricker, who still exhibits a youthful smile and nerves at the age of 50, had little time to relish making his 26th straight cut in a major championship, currently the best streak in golf.

About 30 minutes earlier, Phil Mickelson had crashed out of the championship with an abysmal two days of golf and Stricker had to put on his captain’s hat and address the question of Mickelson’s chances of making the U.S. Presidents Cup team. Since the Presidents Cup began in 1994, Mickelson has competed for America, and America has dominated the competition, going 9-1-1 against an International Team comprised of players from around the world, excluding Europe.

Unless Mickelson’s form improved, the five-time major winner was going to have to rely on a wild-card pick from Stricker to play in the matches at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey, in late September—just as he did for the 2015 matches in South Korea, when Jay Haas selected him.

Widely considered one of the nicest and most humble players in golf, Stricker couldn’t help exhibiting the kind of self-effacing humor that one would expect from someone

who four years ago was elected the nicest guy on the PGA Tour in a Golf Digest survey of his peers. Stricker, who has 12 career wins but nowhere near the record Mickelson has assembled, had talked to the Hall of Famer the week before at the World Golf Championship event in Akron, Ohio. And he couldn’t believe what he was hearing himself say.

“I would love to see him on the team. But just like anybody else, I have got to see who is playing well at the time,” Stricker said. “I know he’s struggling a little bit right now, but… I told him in Akron I would like to see him play well here on out to show me something basically—and that doesn’t sound right coming from a guy like me talking to Phil. ‘Hey, show me something.’ That doesn’t sound right.

That’s basically what I said. Show me that you are playing good at the end of the year. Because I would love to have him on the team.”

Stricker laughed. And he laughed later recalling the scene again. “It’s still a little strange being in this position, having those kinds of conversations, making some big decisions,” he said. “There are a lot of great parts to this job, including telling two guys they are on the team. But I don’t like the thought of telling five, six other players they aren’t going to be picked. That bothers me. It’s going to be hard.”

But that is exactly why Stricker, a thoroughly grounded individual from a modest Midwestern upbringing, is the sixth man to take the helm as United States Presidents Cup captain. The first four—Hale Irwin, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Fred Couples—all were major winners and Hall of Famers. Stricker is more in the mold of the man he succeeded, Haas, who like Stricker had a solid career but never achieved a defining victory, yet nonetheless garners immense respect because of his agreeable personality and professionalism.

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UPS AND DOWNS Not that Stricker hasn’t had stretches of brilliance on the golf course, earning more than $43 million since he joined the PGA Tour in 1994, after being an All-American golfer at the University of Illinois. Because his prime coincided with the reign of Tiger Woods, he never reached No. 1 in the world ranking, but he did get as high as second in 2010 and spent 253 weeks among the top 10. He’s played on five Presidents Cup teams, making his debut in the ’96 edition captained by Palmer, and three Ryder Cup teams.

And make no mistake, Stricker is tough. He endured two protracted slumps, the second of which nearly drove him to pursuing another vocation in golf. But like Ben Hogan digging the answers out of the dirt, Stricker found his game in the middle of a bleak Wisconsin winter while beating yellow range balls off a green plastic turf mat into snowdrifts.

“That’s the time I remember best, at the end of ’05, when I knew I needed to do something or just simply move on,” he said. “That’s when I feel like I had more of a purpose than at any time in my career.”

The work paid off with a solid 2006 season that earned him Comeback Player of the Year on the PGA Tour.

When he improved on his form significantly the following year, winning for the first time in six years and rising to No. 4 in the world, his peers voted him the award again.

“He’s one of the most underrated players in the world,” Woods said of Stricker in 2009 when he teamed with him to go 4-0 in the 2009 Presidents Cup at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. Woods will serve as one of Stricker’s vicecaptains at Liberty National. Pairing with Woods, anyone could get overlooked, but Stricker found his own path to success by simply being himself.

“I’ve always just tried to do my own thing. I’m happy with what I do,” said the late bloomer, who won eight of his titles having turned 40. “It might not be the flashiest thing at times, but I do other things well. I chip and putt well. I drive it pretty well still. Everybody has got a little bit of different game, and that’s the way I just kind of look at mine and do the things I know how to do the best.”

A devoted family man to his wife, Nicki, who has caddied for him when he first turned pro and again for most of the 2017 season, and to his two daughters, Stricker cut back on his playing schedule as far back as 2012 to spend more time at home, and yet he still entered the 99th PGA Championship ranked 76th in the world. This past summer he was medalist at one of the 36-hole sectional qualifiers to earn a spot in the U.S. Open at Erin Hills, the first in his home state of Wisconsin. Once an amateur champion of the Wisconsin State Open, it doesn’t hurt that his coach is Nicki’s father, Dennis Tiziani, the former University of Wisconsin golf coach.

“He has the same game he’s always had,” Matt Kuchar said. “He still hits it solid, hits it straight, putts great, and chips and wedges it well. You see him facing certain shots and you think, ‘This is in Steve Stricker’s wheelhouse,’ and sure enough he goes and makes birdie. It’s impressive.”

Clockwise from top left: Arnie & team, Presidents Cup, 1996; Woods and Stricker at TPC Harding Park; Stricker with family at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in 2012

LEARNING FROM THE BEST But, actually, what he does best is make everyone around him feel comfortable. Just being himself will serve him and his team well as a captain, even though he admits that the men who he has played for in the past on national teams have shaped his ideas about how best to be a leader. Two captains in particular have had the most impact.

The first is Paul Azinger, who successfully captained the U.S. to a home Ryder Cup victory in 2008 at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. Without an injured Tiger Woods and with a collection of rookies, including Stricker, Azinger marshalled his team to an extraordinary 16 ½ to 11 ½ thrashing of a European squad that hadn’t been beaten since 1999.

“From the standpoint of organization, the pod system he had in place, making everyone a part of the process and his general overall enthusiasm, I think Paul is the guy who has influenced me the most,” Stricker said. “There was nothing he left to chance. We could not have been more prepared to play golf that week. He was on a mission and that fed into all of us when we got on the golf course.”

The other, not surprisingly, is Palmer (who, by the way, had his own streak of 26 straight weekend appearances in majors). Stricker had won his first two titles in 1996 to make his first Presidents Cup team, and although he knew Palmer a bit—he played Palmer’s Peerless Golf Equipment when he turned professional—the prospect of playing for him was more than slightly overwhelming.

“I have a picture in my office still of me going out on the course the first day of the matches and he’s shaking my hand and he’s giving me one of those looks; he’s got that stone face on him, almost glaring, like, ‘You better go out and get me a point.’ And you definitely didn’t want to let down Arnold Palmer,” Stricker said, smiling wide. “It’s your first one, and I was 29 years old, playing an international team that we didn’t know how in the heck we were going to beat when they had Greg Norman, Ernie Els, Nick Price, Vijay Singh… we just didn’t know how we were going to do it.

We had our studs for sure. But we also had Arnie. How can you lose with Arnold Palmer leading the way?

“You know, looking back, absolutely it was overwhelming. I don’t know how I hit a shot those first few days of practice,” he added. “But then it’s Arnold Palmer, and he had that way about him that always put you at ease.

He was so down-to-earth.”

Like the guy in charge of America’s fortunes this year.

But we also had Arnie.

How can you lose with Arnold Palmer leading the way?

Paul Azinger celebrates with Anthony Kim and Steve Stricker at the 2008 Ryder Cup; Peter Senior, Stricker, Nick Price and Tom Lehman, 1996 Presidents Cup

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SUPPORT FORCE Steve Stricker has a squad of four assistant captains for the Presidents Cup who look as strong as the team itself. He’s got a threetime winning captain, the current U.S. Ryder Cup skipper, the last Ryder Cup captain and arguably the greatest player of all time. All four are major champs. Actually, you couldn’t pick a stronger collective, winning mentality

FRED COUPLES

JIM FURYK

DAVIS LOVE III

TIGER WOODS

Fred Couples (pictured) has an enchanted association with the Presidents Cup. He played on four U.S. teams and clinched the decisive singles points in the first two episodes, in 1994 and ‘96. He captained the US team in 2009, ‘11 and again in ‘13 and remains the most successful captain of all time with a 3-0-0 record.

Jim Furyk owns one of the most dominant Presidents Cup playing records. He has played in the event seven times, accumulating 20 outright wins from 33 matches, including a 5-0-0 performance in his last appearance in 2011. The U.S. Open champ of 2003, Furyk is the U.S. Ryder Cup captain for 2018.

Davis Love played on the first six U.S. Presidents Cup teams, claiming an outstanding 16 wins from 28 matches played.

He led the U.S. Ryder Cup team twice; first to defeat at Medinah in 2012 and then to dramatic redemption by winning at Hazeltine last year.

The players loved his brand of leadership.

Tiger Woods has played in the Presidents Cup eight times and holds the record for matches won at 24. His greatest rival in individual golf, compatriot Phil Mickelson, is one behind on 23 points going into Liberty National. It’s a team event but don’t underestimate what Mickelson would give for two wins and a tally of 25.

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THE PLAYERS’ CHOICE Nick Price playing PGA Tour Champions golf in 2011

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THE PRESIDENTS CUP

Jack Nicklaus famously captained the American Presidents Cup team four times, but it was not until his third attempt that his team enjoyed victory. Nick Price, twice captain of defeated International teams, hopes to emulate Nicklaus at Liberty National

A After the Presidents Cup in 2015—which the United States won by just a single point in South Korea—captain of the defeated International team, Nick Price, suspected his time at the helm had drawn to a close. The Zimbabwean golfer had captained the Internationals twice, having led the visitors to another painful defeat at Muirfield Village, Ohio in 2013.

An 0-2 record may not stand as a glowing testimony to Price’s captaincy, but what said a lot more about this three-time major champ and his credentials were the feelings of his players. It burns that the Internationals have only won the Presidents Cup once in 11 attempts.

The seniors players—Ernie Els, Adam Scott, Louis

Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel—feel the disappointment deeply, they are desperate to start building towards equality in the win-loss column, and Price is the man they want to pull it all together.

“Nick did a great job solidifying the team passion,” said Adam Scott on Price’s captaincy in 2015. “The entire extended unit certainly bonded and it was really evident after the last few Presidents Cups how tight-knit we were across the entire team.

“If you want to beat an American team, which always has 12 unbelievably good players, you have to be all in and all playing for each other.”

And don’t forget, the Internationals only lost by a point in Songdo two years ago, in the closest Presidents Cup since the scores were tied 17-17 in Fancourt, South Africa, in 2003. Price has built his team, the players have bought into his leadership and they asked him to carry on his work.

“I didn't say initially that I would do it again but I think the guys phoned the commissioner up and said, ‘Listen, we want Nick to do it again’,” starts Price, 60, on making the decision to lead the team again. “I gave it a month or so, and then I said, ‘Boys, I'd love to do it again if you want me to’.

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“It is certainly a nice feeling. Adam Scott stood up when we had our dinner on the Sunday night [in South Korea] and spoke and was incredibly kind to both my wife and I, because I think they appreciate the amount of time we put in. This wasn't something that we took lightly and it made me feel so good that the boys recognized that.

“The guys understand the passion I have for the Presidents Cup, and I want to pass that passion on. There's no doubt there's no bigger thrill than to win as a team.”

And Price is one of the very few golfers to have represented the Internationals in the Presidents Cup who knows first-hand how it feels to win. The first and only time the Internationals prevailed was in the first Presidents Cup held outside of the United States, at Royal Melbourne, Australia in 1998. Aussie legend Peter Thomson led his team to a convincing victory over Jack Nicklaus’ American team, with a squad featuring Price, his close friend and career rival Greg Norman, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh; a quartet of major winners and four of the toughest competitors of their generation.

For the only time in Presidents Cup history to date the Internationals dominated, with Price contributing two wins and two halves from his five matches. The home team won each series of fourballs and foursomes outright on their way to a 20½ - 11½ victory.

“There’s no doubt there’s no bigger thrill than to win as a team”

Price kisses the Claret Jug at Turnberry in 1994 as Open champ (top); the International team celebrates in 1998 at Royal Melbourne (left); (above, l to r) Thongchai Jaidee, Tony Johnstone, Nick Price and Mark McNulty at the Presidents Cup in 2015

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BRINGING THE EMOTION But 1998 is ancient history and none of the players in that International team are playing at Liberty National this year.

The focus for Price is bringing forward the momentum his team found two years ago.

“Korea gave us a lot more hope than we had going into that week,” says Price, a former world number one.

“The previous four or five Presidents Cups were not really closely contested.

“In our team room after Korea on that Sunday night there was more feeling in that room then, and more camaraderie, more motivation, than I've seen probably since we won in 1998. It was very moving for me to be honest with you, and the fact that in the end they asked me to come back and do a third captaincy. It was a fantastic evening and that feeling that everyone had of being so close is what we need to bring to Liberty National.

“The guys are fired up. That's my most important role; to get the guys motivated early. I've been with my assistant captains and in Ernie, Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Weir and Tony Johnstone, I've got really four wonderful assistant captains there, great match players and guys who really understand team golf. That's the big thing. They are all excited about it.

They are motivated and I think that motivation has filtered back into the team. It's a great time for us.”

The Internationals will enter the 2017 Presidents Cup as underdogs but history beckons, and if they prevail they will be the first International team to win the Cup in the United States. Who knows, they have Price at the helm and he has never been afraid of making history.

Price in 2015 (above), and with fellow captain for 2017, American Steve Stricker (left)

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Daniel Berger is set to be a U.S. team rookie at the Presidents Cup, but as Brian Wacker reports, this is a young golfer in need of no shelter

DANIEL BERGER

learned the value of competition at an early age. He was 14 years old and picking range balls and caddying to earn playing privileges at the Dye Preserve in Jupiter, Florida, when he met Steve Marino. Marino, who was 30 at the time and earning millions of dollars playing the PGA Tour, took a shining to the cocky little teenager. One day, Berger challenged Marino to a game. The bet? Five hundred bucks.

The only problem? Berger had $12 in his pocket. The match came down to the final hole and Berger won. Marino, meanwhile, was so mad he challenged Berger to another four holes and beat him.

Other times it went a lot worse for Berger. “A few times I lost all my caddie money that I made that day, maybe a couple hundred bucks, and I lost it all by end of the day,” he said. “That wasn’t fun.”

What he lost in cash he gained in experience, specifically performing under pressure. The truth is, though, Berger was competitive out of the womb.

Growing up in South Florida, he played several sports—soccer, baseball, basketball, wakeboarding, water

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skiing—but the one he was best at early on was tennis.

Berger’s father, Jay, played professionally, winning three singles titles and one doubles crown on the ATP Tour and reaching as high as No. 7 in the world in 1990, the year after he reached the quarterfinals in the French Open and U.S. Open. After chronic knee injuries forced his retirement in 1991, he went into coaching, first at the University of Miami and later for the United States at the 2012 Olympics, as well as for the U.S. Davis Cup team and the USTA. At age 11, though, Berger attended a golf camp. That’s when his priorities changed, and by his teens he was spending every waking hour at the course.

“I’d be out there from the minute I got out of school until dark every day,” Berger said. “On weekends I was there when it opened until it closed.”

Success wasn’t far behind. He made his first holein-one at age 13 and though he didn’t play high school golf, Berger played at Florida State University, where as a sophomore he won two tournaments, finished in the top five in six of his eight starts and led the conference in scoring average at 69.36. He tied for second in the NCAA Championships and was named a two-time first-team

THE PRESIDENTS CUP

All-American by the Golf Coaches Association of America and Golfweek. He turned pro that same year at the age of 20.

In his second year as a pro, Berger finished second at the TPC Stonebrae Championship and ended the year 15th on the Web.com Tour money list to earn a PGA Tour card for the 2014-15 season.

After an inaugural season on the PGA Tour that included two runner-up finishes and Rookie of the Year honors, in his second year Berger shot a final-round 6-under 64 at the Honda Classic to force a playoff with Padraig Harrington. Berger lost but the experience again proved valuable. A month later, Berger was in a Mexican restaurant at the tour’s stop in Houston with reps from one of his sponsors. Who did they bring to the table to join them?

Harrington. The two ended up having dinner a handful of times in the months that followed.

“He’s a good young fella,” Harrington, three times a major champ, said. “Good guy to hang out with. Got the right attitude for the game. He’s competitive, wants to get out there and win. He wants to take on the challenge, but all in the right way. He’s not one-dimensional in any shape like that. He’s not over-committed and too focused on what he’s doing. He seems to have the right balance and he’s a fighter, which is really what you want. You know, I see a very bright future for him.”

I probably didn’t belong in the playoff, but the loss was still tough That future, so far, has included two wins, both at the FedEx St. Jude Classic in 2016 and 2017.

“You gain confidence with each win,” Berger said.

“When I lost in that playoff, I probably shouldn’t have even been in it because I had basically one hot round, but it was tough because even though you’re young you don’t know how many of those opportunities you’re going to have... It motivated me, and every year I’ve gotten a little bit better.”

His wedges improved (he now leads the tour in proximity to the hole from 125 yards) and he’s statistically one of the game’s best putters. He’s also a top-30 in the world and now he has made his first Presidents Cup team.

“It’s going to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,” Berger said. “To make a Presidents Cup team in my first three years on tour—and at age 24—is pretty special.

“I remember my rookie year, seeing Jordan Spieth on the team and thinking that could be me one day. The last couple of years that was on my list of goals, to win an event and play in a Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup.”

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Berger’s maiden Tour victory came at the 2016 FedEx St. Jude Classic at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee. He shot a final-round 67 to win by three over Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker and Brooks Koepka.

Berger checked into the exact same hotel room for the defense of his title in June this year. Realizing another win was probably too much to hope for, the week did not start well for Berger when he broke his driver. Yet in the end he drove the ball beautifully and produced another great finish, shooting a bogey-free 66 on the last day to erase a three-stroke deficit and win by one over Charl Schwartzel and Whee Kim.

Spieth and Berger both graduated high school in 2011, as did Justin Thomas, Emiliano Grillo, Patrick Rodgers and Ollie Schniederjans—the collective new face of the post-Tiger Tour, and friends off-course, too.

“It’s extra motivation to continue to get better, especially when you see guys the same age and guys you have been playing against your entire lives,” Berger said. “The last 10 years we’ve played basically the same tournaments against one another. I don’t know why so many good players have come out of that class, but it’s a tribute to the quality of tournaments we played growing up. We’ve been competing against each other forever.”

Now, some of them will get to be teammates, something Berger is looking forward to with Spieth and Thomas.

“Any kind of team competition is going to be fun and entertaining,” Berger said. “When you get 24 of the best players in the world together, there is going to be a lot of emotions and a lot of competitiveness.”

The latter is something that is right up Berger’s alley.

“The cool part about match play is it’s one on one,” he said. “Every week you play golf against 156 guys, or you’re playing against the course, but I grew up in sports like tennis where it’s one person against another. It’s cut and dry.

You win or you lose.”

Berger would have it no other way.

DANIEL BERGER — Lacoste is proud to support the new member of the 2017 U.S. Team.

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If the toughest part of team captaincy is breaking the news to the golfers who did not get picked, the opposite applies when handing out the good news to those who get in. Here are the anointed four in the 2017 Presidents Cup

PHIL MICKELSON U N I T E D S TAT E S

T

he biggest question leading up to the 2017 Presidents Cup was: will Phil make the team?

Mickelson is the only golfer to have played in all 11 Presidents Cups to date, he has played in the last 11 US Ryder Cup teams too and has long been an inspirational on-course leader for his country.

It would have marked the end of an epic era if Mickelson had been left in the cold, but he left his return to form as late as he could.

Captain Steve Stricker told Mickelson over the summer to “show me something” but the 47-year-old missed the cut at The [British] Open and PGA Championship. Then in the Dell Technologies Championship Mickelson shot four rounds in the 60s for the first time since June, finished sixth for his best result in 17 stroke-play starts this year and jumped up from 18th to 15th in the Presidents Cup ranking.

It was enough.

“I got reports from other players that it was the Phil of old,” Stricker said. “He’ll be ready. He’s shown that over the years.”

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CHARLEY HOFFMAN U N I T E D S TAT E S

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C

harley Hoffman was not a difficult pick for Stricker. The 40-year-old has posted one of the most consistent seasons of his career in 2017. He has been in contention regularly yet has just fallen shy of adding to his four career wins on the PGA Tour. The lack of a trophy left Hoffman an agonizing 0.173 points out of the US Presidents Cup’s automatic top-10, but Stricker had seen enough to reward Hoffman with his rookie appearance.

“He’s got a lot of confidence,” said Stricker.

“He’s knocked on the door a lot this year, he just hasn’t punched through it.”

EMILIANO GRILLO I N T E R N AT I O N A L

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ike Hoffman in the American ranking, Argentine Emiliano Grillo finished one place out of the automatic top-10 for Nick Price’s International team. Grillo, who turned 25 a fortnight before the Presidents Cup, has struggled in 2017 to progress from a brilliant rookie season on the PGA Tour in 2016, when he won the Frys.com Open the week after earning his PGA Tour card by claiming the 2015 Web.com Tour Championship.

Grillo grew up playing golf at a small golf club called Chaco GC in the remote Argentine city of Resistencia. Remarkably, he is the third PGA Tour champ to have come from the club, after Jose Coceres and Fabian Gomez.

He was a unanimous choice to play at Liberty National among the International players, assistant captains and skipper Nick Price.

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ANIRBAN LAHIRI I N T E R N AT I O N A L

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I

ndia’s Anirban Lahiri has some unfinished business with the Presidents Cup, perhaps more than any of the other 23 golfers at Liberty National. Two years ago at Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in South Korea, Lahiri had a putt from three and a half feet on the final hole of his singles match against Chris Kirk.

Lahiri needed the putt for a half, which would have given the Internationals 15 points for a tie, but Lahiri missed.

“I was pretty sure what the line was and I made a good stroke,” he said afterwartds. “But I did what I’ve done all week: misread putts.”

Lahiri is popular and well-liked in the team, room and he will bring steely emotion to Nick Price’s squad from day one.

FINE HOMES & LUXURY PROPERTIES

Perpetual Spain

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Nestled between the lauded wine regions of Rioja and Bordeaux lies the ancient Kingdom of Navarra. The capital, Pamplona, found international fame in the 1920s when Ernest Hemingway travelled here to indulge his love of fishing, bullfighting and wine. Less bearded, Kingdom pays a visit and finds the bulls still running and the wine still flowing—all of it in perfect harmony

San Fermin draws crowds throughout the day and night, with thousands braving the run with the bulls each morning

“Mas de vino.” I wasn’t sure if this was a command, a question or the title of a Catholic ceremony for wine. During Pamplona’s legendary festival of San Fermin all three interpretations are possible—and perhaps complementary.

But whatever you think has been said, when your host is legendary winemaker Manuel Louzada and there’s an empty glass in your hand, the correct response is always “Sí.”

San Fermin I was staying at the stunning Arinzano winery in Pamplona and it was from there, freshly showered and clean-clothed, that I emerged for the festival. Walking into town as a group, we passed the previous night’s revelers stumbling in the opposite direction, their whites blotched red with wine stains, their words happily slurring and their fiesta souls sated. We had risen before dawn to drive to the edge of the city, and after strolling through sunrise into the old town center we squeezed onto a balcony overlooking the Calle de la Estafeta. Later today the street would hold a melee as six vexatious bulls and thousands of adrenalin-fueled humans scurried and screamed up its narrow path on their way to the town’s famous bullring. For now, the quiet hung in the air just as it has for centuries on such mornings, waiting to be broken.

Dating back to the Middle Ages, San Fermin is the party that never stops. At noon sharp on the sixth of July the fuse is lit on a wild pyrotechnic in the opening ceremony

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known as “El Chupinazo.” Following the rocket that signals the festival’s start, there’s a wine-drenched celebration in the main square and then nine days of rituals and parties.

Each day begins with the 8a.m. release of six bulls, which have been moved into a pen at the edge of the old city walls late the night before. Thousands of thrill-seekers run for short bursts alongside the bulls as a rite of passage (the infamous “running of the bulls”) and thousands more watch from along the route.

The run is but a half-a-mile long, and it’s over almost as soon as it starts. From the safety of a balcony over the street the action below looks like a maelstrom of meat, horns and humans, and within the blur of movement accidents happen. Death is rare—only 15 have died since Hemingway’s visit in the 1920s—but injuries are a daily occurrence, so frequent in fact that the local TV station keeps a reporter at the hospital to cover the day’s casualties.

With between 200 and 300 injuries each year there is much to discuss, although most issues come from falls rather than from an actual goring. Still, during this year’s festival an American runner was gored through the scrotum; an early point to the bulls, then.

Following the run into the ring, some begin to party straight off (following a traditional calorific breakfast of chocolate y churros). We sauntered around town variously joining and leaving impromptu bar parties before stopping for a long and leisurely lunch that was as much about tasting wonderful Arinzano wines as it was about sampling the Michelin-starred food. Replete and refreshed, it was time to make the short walk to the bullring for the late afternoon bullfight.

Bullfight Opinion is divided on bullfighting, and even in Spain it is much protested—and banned outright in the region of Catalunya. It is certainly easy to see the activity as nothing but one-sided entertainment that celebrates a cruel, taunting and drawn-out death, and I won’t argue against that perspective. But being in Spain did compel me to consider how animals are treated at home and elsewhere, hunters using laser scopes on sophisticated weapons and hunting on fenced preserves, spectacles like the circus, which only recently fell out of favor after running for centuries, and even, some would say, horse racing, in which so many animals are hurt and subsequently killed each year. The fighting bull lives a full and natural life for four to six years, free and roaming naturally, king of his environment, and he does get the chance to gore his opponent and survive (which happens on occasion). I’m not sure that makes bullfighting better, exactly, but I’ve found it’s often wise to check one’s sense of moral outrage at the border rather than risk hypocrisy. Here in Pamplona, the ceremony, the matador bravado, the strut, the arrogance, the primordial duel

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Pamplona’s 20,000 capacity bullring in the late afternoon [above] and a solitary bull facing off the crowd during the early morning run [right]

between man and beast, all of that is a Spanish ritual and it’s compelling. Would I want to see bullfighting introduced elsewhere? Good God no. But while it remains in the cultural blood of Spain and bull meat is eaten, I will sit with Spaniards and watch it, and try to do so without judgement.

For their fans and participants bullfights are reverential affairs, with a level of etiquette and ceremony that makes a sport like golf look utterly informal by comparison. San Fermin, though, is a party, and the crowd in Pamplona is more like that in a wild soccer stadium than what traditionally might fill a bullring. With almost 20,000 attending daily, it can be overwhelming. Ranged against each solitary bull is a fighting team made up of a matador, three assistants called banderilleros, and two horse-mounted picadors. With six bulls in each meeting and three matadors, each matador gets two fights, with recognition awarded after the sixth fight to he who fought and killed with the most bravery, grace and clinical skill. For those unfamiliar with bullfighting here’s a quick breakdown of the order of

things, highly ritualized and split into three phases.

In phase one, the bull is released into the ring with the matador initially observing rather than engaging. The matador has a short time to try to understand the nature and movement of the bull, as the bandilleros run in and out of cover distracting the animal and provoking it to charge. After a while, the two horse-mounted picadores are trumpeted into the arena, each armed with a lance.

The bull generally attacks one of the horses, trying to gore its underbelly. As the horse stoically takes the blow the picador uses his lance to stab deeply into the neck muscle of the bull, drawing blood for the first time, weakening the animal’s strength and increasing its fury.

In the second stage the bandilleros reappear, and with speed and nimbleness stab the back of the bull with pairs of brightly decorated barbed-sticks. By this point the bull, after countless charges and with blood streaming down his sides, should be close to exhaustion. Only when the bull is tired, frustrated and angry does the matador truly command center stage to dance, taunt, and strut around the bull with as much buttocks-clenched red-flag-waving style and arrogance as he can muster.

Then, at the last, the final stage: de Muerte. The matador calls for a sword, and after further passes with the bull he faces the animal head-on and plunges the blade precisely and deeply into its spinal cord, killing it with one final masterful stroke.

That’s the plan, anyway, and the first fight we watched was indeed a master class of controlled bravery and accurate stabbery. The second one, however, proved more engaging to me. Like many observers of a neutral contest, I tend to side with the underdog—and in bullfighting that means the bull. Although relatively small, this second bull was strong and brave, and he simply wouldn’t weaken. He ran full pelt at the bandilleros, and when attacked by a picadore he managed to get right under the horse, goring and up-ending his equine opponent and spilling its mount. Horse and picadore only managed to escape further injury thanks to quick diversionary work from the bandilleros. Then, when the matador came to dance and to kill the supposedly weakened and exhausted bull, this bloodied tank-beast managed to rip and flip the fellow twice, nearly crushing him before its final death. Yes, the matador ultimately survived—and won the day—but not before he was cut, battered, bruised and probably broke a rib or two. Such was the fire burning through that bull that I felt they should have let him live, which does happen on occasion.

After the bullfighting, with the heat of the afternoon passing and dusk descending, the parades and revelry started ramping up across town. We ate some more, drank some more and stayed to watch the nightly fireworks over the old city ramparts before heading back to the winery, reluctantly leaving the fiesta to party-on until dawn.

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Arinzano Winery If you are going to wake up thirsty, where better to rise than in a winery? And what a winery to wake up in: the Arinzano estate is simply stunning. Vines were first grown here in the 11th century, but the estate was more recently resurrected in the 1990s by the long-established wine-producing Chivite family. They invited renowned architect Rafael Moneo to build the winery, and he accepted on the basis that he was given sole artistic control. The result is a state-of-the-art operation that sits beautifully among the estate’s original 19th century buildings and which looks as much a part of the landscape as the vines and the valley’s trout-filled River Ega. The estate has eight rooms for guests and several tasting and dining spaces. With those, vine-surrounded buildings, an on-site organic vegetable garden that serves the excellent kitchen and the splendor of the sun-drenched surroundings, Arinzano has no shortage of beauty and harmony. The estate encourages visitors and with its own chapel, complete with papal letter, you can even host a wedding here.

It also has no shortage of potential, despite Navarra not being known for wines in the same way that Rioja, Priorat and Ribera del Duero are, for example. Navarra is more the epicurean center of the country, but with Louzada now taking over at Arinzano everything changes—and if he’s excited about the place, then wine drinkers should be positively elated.

Originally from Portugal, Louzada credits his grandfather, owner of Caves Messias vineyards, with introducing him to the wine business at the ripe old age of five. A young Manuel played in the caves, rolling and climbing wine barrels and running among the vines. Later, he went to Madrid and earned a degree in agricultural engineering and a Masters of Winemaking before returning to Portugal to work for the family winery. A position as head of Ports and winemaking at Rozes LDA was followed by a move to Argentina, where he was eventually appointed director of Winemaking of Chandon, Terrazas de los Andes and Cheval des Andes. After a return to Spain and creating excellence at the lauded Numanthia and Termanthia brands, Louzada saw something special in Arinzano and the Navarra region, and it begins with the climate.

Navarra is separated from the sea by a long mountain range, with constant cooling winds balancing the region’s natural low precipitation and high temperatures. These conditions mean vines are locked into a perpetual struggle for survival, forcing deep roots into vines that yield an intensity of fruit within the grapes. The aforementioned River Ega acts as a climate stabilizer as well, taking the edge off the higher temperatures while also minimizing the risk of frost in colder weather. (This made a huge difference earlier in the year when Bordeaux, Rioja and Tuscany reportedly lost 50 percent of their crops to late frosts in April, while Arinzano escaped unscathed.) Altitude is another factor; the river is at a lower level while the

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Clockwise from top right: View across the estate, Louzada amongst his prized Chardonnay vines, the chapel and original buildings, barrels in storage and Louzada talks Tinto

bordering hills, which also catch different sun cycles and wind patterns, rise to 1500 feet above sea level. All of these conditions together on a single estate means that Arinzano can produce a range of grape varietals, including Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay. And if some of that seems ambitious for a Spanish winery (perhaps especially the last), remember that Louzada is the man who created a 100-point wine from an area not formerly known for wine, working with the ancient and rugged Tinto de Toro vines at Termanthia.

Passion is everywhere here, wielding a red cape and a sword or sitting quietly in a bottle Try his Gran Vino Chardonnay and you’d swear you were drinking a top-quality Burgundy—clean, deep, with a sharpness and beautiful clarity of expression. Likewise with the Merlot, Arinzano produces the superb “La Casonna” and there are plans for an organic offering as well, completely estate grown. Three “Hacienda de Arinzano” wines (red, white and rosé) are good values while a Gran Vino Tinto is exceptional, and only made in exceptional years. The Tinto (Tempranillo) is deep in color with a strong black-fruit nose and a persistent mineral finish, and as good as it and the other existing wines are, there are even more exciting bottles on the way, as I learned during a tour of the vineyards and a barrel tasting with Louzada and two young winemakers, Diego Ribbert and Jose Manuel Rodriguez Aguado.

There is a degree of soothsaying to barrel tasting; the impacts to individual wines of barrel quality and properties, storage conditions, and the effects of aging make immense impacts to individual barrels of wine, and of course most wines are blends from various barrels, so along with the science there is a degree of imagination required in barrel tasting. Working through Louzada’s barrels, from his Gran Vino Chardonnay to his Merlot and Gran Vino reds, he discussed ongoing improvements to the vines, the investment in canopy management and various aspects of the barrels he uses. The authority in his words is unquestionable, backed by his tremendous resumé of past success in the bottle. But as he spoke another element became clear as well, driving his inexhaustible creativity and vision, and that is his passion.

It is this, more than anything else, that is responsible for the harmony here, the seamless integration of the modern winery into the ancient valley, of the valley into the region and of the region into the country. Friends and strangers racing up a narrow street with raging bulls, the roar of a crowd as a man flamboyantly confronts death, wine spilling over a throng under the racket of fireworks and even the rugged vines grown deep in the harsh soil and the expert hands of the man who spends his life tending to them. Passion is everywhere here, wielding a red cape and a sword or sitting quietly in a bottle. If I didn’t know what it meant when I arrived, I surely knew by the time I left: “mas de vino.” More wine, more friends, more everything. Even if you’re not sure what’s been said, if you’re in Spain and your glass is empty, the answer is always “sí.”

To learn more about Arinzano wines or book a stay visit arinzano.com

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NEW STICKS

The E Street Band, 1973 (L-R, back row: Dave Sancious, Vini Lopez, Garry Tallent; Front: Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici)

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Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez was the original drummer for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, banging it out for many unpredictable, hard-rocking, cashstrapped years before the limelight found The Boss. Just before it did, life took a turn and Lopez is now a caddie.

Working at the 2017 U.S. Senior Open, he takes a break to share his story with Dave Shedloski

F

or whatever reason, the rhythms of golf are soothing to musicians. Whether it’s hard rock’s Alice Cooper, pop singer Huey Lewis or jazz saxophonist Kenny G, or dozens of others like them, the game sings to them. Heck, crooner Bing Crosby drew his last breath on a golf course.

Vini Lopez is no different. But then again, he is.

Introduced to golf while attending Monmouth University, Lopez fell in love with the game immediately, and after his musical career took an unexpected detour in the mid-1970s, he turned to golf as a refuge and it became a meaningful pursuit that he enjoys to this day. However, while he’s carried a handicap as low as 11, it’s carrying a bag that’s been, well, his bag.

In July, Lopez caddied in the U.S. Senior Open at Salem Country Club, near Boston, for Mark McCormick, the club pro at Deal Country Club in Deal, New Jersey. It was the first appearance in the championship for both, but it wasn’t the highlight of their 25-year collaboration. In 2012, Lopez was on the bag when McCormick qualified for the U.S. Open at Olympic Club in San Francisco, and they teamed up in the championship proper. One of their practice round partners that week was Phil Mickelson.

And Mickelson was in awe. So were Matt Kuchar, Gary Woodland and other tour pros. Same thing happened at Salem Country Club. Steve Pate, Joey Sindelar and Olin Browne all wanted to play a practice round with McCormick. Because of Vini Lopez, who might not be a household name to the average music fan, but is nonetheless famous in the industry and among people of a certain age. The band he co-founded certainly is well known: The E Street Band. Yes, that E Street Band.

The E Street Band that accompanies rock legend Bruce Springsteen. Lopez was the original drummer.

Heck, Lopez found Springsteen, not the other way around.

“How many times do you go to a tournament and the caddie is the celebrity and not the player? It happens a lot with us,” McCormick says with a laugh remembering how people were putting drumsticks in front of Lopez to sign at Olympic Club.

“At Salem, guys were wanting to talk to him, and a couple of times I was like, ‘Vini, come on, let’s go, we have to go play golf. We’re not here for you, we’re here for me.’ We have a lot of fun together.”

So, how did Lopez end up taking his E Street shuffle to the golf course?

It began by getting fired from the band he helped to form. A native of Neptune, New Jersey, Lopez was a drum-playing prodigy in grammar school who eventually hooked up with another young musical genius, the late Danny Federici. They played together in several bands and founded a band called Child. In 1968, the pair went looking for guitarists who could write music. They found one at the Upstage Club in Asbury Park, N.J., who mesmerized them.

“The guy just had that charisma, and we knew it,” Lopez says of seeing a young and raw Springsteen perform.

“We said to him, ‘Hey, let’s jam.’ He had actually seen us play before, so he kind of knew who we were. And that’s how it started. It was that simple.”

HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU GO TO A TOURNAMENT AND THE CADDIE IS THE CELEBRITY, NOT THE PLAYER?

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The band, which also included late bassist Vinny Roslin, soon changed its name to Steel Mill. But it didn’t become the E Street Band officially until 1973, after Springsteen’s first record deal, which produced Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. The band was touring in Texas—the story of its name goes—when they pulled up to the childhood home of keyboardist David Sancious at 1105 E Street in Belmar.

Simple as that.

Later that year, Springsteen and his troupe recorded their second album, entitled, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Commercial success followed in 1975 with Born to Run and the rest truly is history. Unfortunately for Lopez, he was history before that breakthrough, having been fired in late 1974 after accusing Springsteen’s manager of financial shenanigans and getting in a fight with the road manager. Lopez went by the nickname “Mad Dog” for good reason, and that is what Springsteen called him.

Lopez won’t deny that he came to loggerheads with the two men, who were brothers, but the details have been sensationalized over time, he says. Plus, he and Springsteen never carried hard feelings.

“They tried to put a wedge between us, but we wouldn’t let that happen,” Lopez, 68, says. “People think it was some nasty thing that went on and that it was some kind of ugly split. We weren’t enemies. We were still brothers. I went over to his house in Long Branch and actually helped him with some harmonies on Born to Run. I didn’t play on the album, but whoever was singing, they took cues from what I did with Bruce in his little kitchen.”

YOU LOOK AT A GOLF SWING AND YOU KNOW THERE’S SOME KIND OF A BEAT GOING ON IN THERE

MOVING TO HOLLYWOOD (N.J.) Lopez took his next cues from his heart. He had kept his hand in golf and had gotten quite proficient at it, and now he was ready to put both hands into it. He began to caddie and then took over as caddie master at Deal Golf & Country Club in N.J. Among the clients for whom he caddied was none other than Alice Cooper. Neil Young was another bag he picked up. Eventually, he moved across the street to Hollywood Golf Club, and in 1992 he met McCormick, who was looking for a caddie for an upcoming tournament.

“I grew up down at the Jersey Shore and I knew who Vini was, and I also knew he was a good caddie,” McCormick says. “He’s got a lot of energy and he’s always upbeat. He’s probably in better shape than I am. He never gets tired.

He never gets down. He’s a pretty cool cat. I really think caddying is an extension of who he is as a musician. He has this attitude, just like he is a drummer working in harmony with the rest of the band and supporting the band; as a caddie he approaches it as supporting me. He does everything I need him to do and blends into what we’re trying to accomplish.”

And, apparently, Lopez has quite the sense of humor about his musical past.

“Once in a while, he’ll call me ‘Boss.’ Pretty funny,” McCormick says.

But there’s a sincerity there as well. Says Lopez: “We recently did a radio show, and I said ‘The rock star I work with right now is sitting next to me and his name is Mark McCormick.’ And I really meant it.”

Unfortunately, however, McCormick missed the cut at Salem. “Mark is a great player,” said Lopez afterwards. “We

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Bruce Springsteen and inductees the E Street Band at the 29th Annual Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony.

Lopez and McCormick at the 2017 US Senior Open (left)

Bruce Springsteen on Vini Lopez: “I love Vini and still do. He’s a great guy, distinctive drummer and singer, and loyal true-blue friend. We’d been through a lot; Vini’d thrown me plenty of hard-core support, he was tough n’ ready… His drumming graces my first two albums with a beautiful soul and eccentricity that perfectly fit the eclectic spirit of those songs. He was part of the E Street Band through its toughest times, when it was truly a folk band up from the streets of Asbury Park”

have a lot of fun together. We’ve had some great experiences.

I wish we could have done a little better here but, man, we had a blast. We always do.”

Lopez still enjoys a music career but it’s something he does more often in his spare time. He and Blues Hall of Fame guitarist Gary Cavico play together as part of a group Taken from Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen (Simon & Schuster 2016) called the Wonderful Winos. They play blues songs and— with permission from Springsteen—they do some E Street Band numbers and even some older songs from their Steel Mill days. In the intervening years he has played on four have always felt that. It’s a refreshing thing for me,” he said. other Springsteen albums.

“Yeah, golf is a grind, but it’s a different kind of grind. We About six weeks before the Senior Open, Lopez played musicians, I think we love it because we get out there, we with Springsteen at an Upstage reunion at the Paramount in have time to think. You look at a golf swing and you know Asbury Park. They did one of their old songs together, “The there’s some kind of a beat going on in there. I know that Ballad of Jesse James.” The legendary frontman couldn’t I never really separate the two. Golf and music, I know remember all the lyrics, so Lopez sang and Springsteen I’ve had it pretty good. There isn’t anything I would do harmonized. All is good with him and the Boss. differently in either of them.”

As he talks about his own discography outside the In April, 2014, Lopez was inducted into the Rock Salem clubhouse, Lopez notices Peter Jacobsen walking by. and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band.

Jacobsen is emphatically beating some imaginary drumsticks. A month later he was on McCormick’s bag for a local golf Lopez can’t escape who he is. He doesn’t try. tournament. His E Street Shuffle has been all his own, Golf is the perfect complement. “It’s a break, and I authentic, and always, always in rhythm.

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ALL THE PRESIDENTS’ GREENS 1

TPC Harding Park, California

Par 4, 395 yards, H/cap 10

From San Francisco to South Korea, from Montreal to Melbourne, the Presidents Cup will be played for the 12th time this year and upon its eighth golf course. Here we have carefully selected 18 of the best holes from the Presidents Cup courses to make a new global 18.

It is a routing short on yards—and controversial with a par of only 69—but it is long on excitement and full of golfing beauty

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One of America’s great public golf courses, TPC Harding Park in San Francisco hosted the Presidents Cup in 2009.

It was the eighth Presidents Cup but the first in which both captains—Fred Couples and Greg Norman—had previously played in the event.

The famous Harding Park Course was substantially renovated in 2005 to better suit tour golf, with 400 yards added to its length. Crucially, the restoration maintained the integrity of the original design by Willie Watson and Sam Whiting, who saw the course first open in 1925, set beautifully against the cypress tree-lined Lake Merced.

An idyllic opener, the par-4 first at Harding Park reaches an accessible 395 yards from a back tee that is shared by both the Championship and Blue scorecards.

Golfers have the opportunity to be aggressive from the start here if they opt to take driver, while a kidney-shaped green is protected by just a single bunker, front-right.

2

Royal Montreal, Canada

3

Jack Nicklaus GC, South Korea

Par 4, 385 yards, H/cap 9

Par 5, 529 yards, H/cap 6

Royal Montreal GC was founded in 1873, making it the oldest golf club in North America, although the club moved to its current site at Ile Bizard in 1959, where Dick Wilson originally laid out 45 holes. Rees Jones would later come in to renovate the Blue Course, which hosted the seventh Presidents Cup in 2007.

The second hole on the Blue Course is a par four that is short by modern tournament standards, and we are heading off the full yardage of 385. The fairway doglegs from left to right, with the elbow of the fairway well protected by bunkering on both sides. Accuracy is clearly the priority here, before the approach heads slightly uphill to a green with a gaping bunker to be avoided front-left.

The Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in Incheon City, South Korea, achieved a special niche in golf history by becoming the first Asian venue to stage the Presidents Cup, in its 11th instalment in 2015. Offering views of high-rise developments alongside the natural scenery of South Korea’s west coast, the Nicklaus design enjoys breezes from the West Sea while bent-grass fairways—unusual for courses in South Korea— ensure it remains green and receptive all year.

The third is a mighty par five with a lake waiting to capture any tee shots struck short and left. The hole plays to 593 from the back, but as it is early on our Presidents Cup tour we’re on a White yardage of 529. The fairway leans slightly to the right past the lake, and plenty of landing room should give you some confidence to let loose off the tee.

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4

Jack Nicklaus GC, South Korea

5

Royal Melbourne, Australia

Par 4 yards 332, H/cap 15

Par 3, 176 yards, H/cap 11

The Jack Nicklaus Golf Club opened in 2010 and the club quickly proved its status as a tournament venue by becoming the first club in Asia to host an event on the PGA Tour Champions, when Russ Cochran won the 2010 Songdo Championship.

The fourth hole is the shortest par four on the front nine at Songdo, and we are heading off the Blue tee yardage of 332, while tour players deal with an extra 54 yards from the back. The fairway hugs a lake on the left so accuracy is everything, and with a green positioned right at the water’s edge, any approach shots just slightly pulled or hooked are in serious danger.

Royal Melbourne GC—to very many housing the finest 36 golf holes in the entire Southern Hemisphere—has a special place in the history of the Presidents Cup, as the only club at which the Internationals have won. It was the third Presidents Cup in 1998 and the first time the event had been played away from its birthplace, the Robert Trent Jones GC in Virginia.

Home hero Peter Thomson, five times champ of the [British] Open, captained his side to a convincing 9-point victory with Japan’s Shegeki Maruyama rising to the occasion by taking five points from five matches.

The fifth hole of the West Course—and of the tournament Composite Course—is both the first par three at Royal Melbourne and the first of our own Presidents Cup composite. Little room off the tee is afforded to golfers as they play up to this raised green, with a steep slope down off the front of the putting surface and broad bunkering on either side.

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6

Royal Montreal, Canada

7

Royal Melbourne, Australia

Par 5, 545 yards, H/cap 5

Par 3, 148 yards, H/cap 17

The tide of the Presidents Cup has really flowed in American favour since the 2007 event in Canada. This was the seventh staging of the cup but the first time the United States won on International soil. The US has won every Presidents Cup since.

From the very back, the par-five 6th at Royal Montreal matches the 12th as the longest on the Blue Course. Coming this early in our compilation we are showing generosity by taking you up three tee positions to the White yardage of 545. Still, this par-five will only be a two-shotter to the finest pair of strikes.

Gently bending from left to right as the fairway heads to the northwest extremity of the golf course, there is plenty of room on the fairway of this tree-lined hole, until the approach to the green. From distance, the entrance to the green from the left seems extremely narrow, and golfers must fly their approach onto the putting surface to ensure they avoid plummeting into a deep bunker, front-right.

Royal Melbourne was founded in 1891 and features 36 holes.

The West Course was designed by the great Dr Alister Mackenzie in 1926, while the East Course was designed by former Australian Open champ Alex Russell and built in 1931, with the intention to maintain the style of course laid down by Mackenzie.

When Royal Melbourne hosted the World Cup in 1959 the club created a Composite of the two layouts—12 holes from the West and 6 from the East—which has remained one of the world’s great tournament routes ever since.

There are two par threes on the front nine of the West Course and Composite routing at Royal Melbourne, both of which adorn our own Presidents Cup front nine.

The 148-yard seventh plays uphill with a bailout area to the left, above the green. Chipping down from there can be a thankless task though, although bunkers heavily protect the right side of the green.

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8 The Links, Fancourt, South Africa

Par 3, 166 yards, H/cap 14

9

The Links at Fancourt Hotel, in George, right in the middle of South Africa’s southern shoreline, hosted perhaps the most famous Presidents Cup of the 11 so far, in 2003. At the end of the singles matches the score sat at 17-17, so Tiger Woods and Ernie Els were sent out to battle in a sudden-death playoff. In rapidly fading light both golfers held their nerve to hole match-saving putts. After three holes it was virtually dark, and with nothing to separate the two players it was decided to call the Presidents Cup a tie for the first, and so far only, time.

“One of the most nerve-wracking moments of my life,” said Woods at the time.

The 8th on the Links is the third par three in four holes on our composite course. It is an unconventional twist yet each of the short holes has proved to be a great match play test.

The hole can play to 185 yards but we’re opting for the Green tee at 166 yards. It is ideal to work the ball into the green from the left-hand side as wetlands await to the right.

Robert Trent Jones, Virginia

10

Liberty National, New Jersey

Par 3, 200 yards, H/cap 4

Par 3, 150 yards, H/cap 18

Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Prince William Country is really the spiritual home of the Presidents Cup in America.

It staged the first two Presidents Cups, in 1994 and 1996, all of the first four occasions in which the event was held Stateside, adding 2000 and 2005 to the reckoning. What is more, the home team won the cup on all four occasions, so this stunning retreat is indelibly bedecked in the Stars and Stripes. The course is routed in a traditional out-and-back fashion of the ancient links courses in the UK, with par-3 9th making a turn to the south. As the fourth par-3 of our front nine we are taking this one on from the back Gold tee and a true long-game test of poise at 200 yards.

Once on the green, do soak in the southerly view down Lake Manassas; it’s one of the great spots in golf.

With the hole order shifting by four holes at Liberty National for the Presidents Cup, the 14th hole at the Jersey club— Liberty National’s signature hole—will become the 10th for one week only, and that is where we are placing it in our own order. The shortest hole on the course by 43 yards from the Tournament tees, our 10th will play to 150 yards in the Presidents Cup and we are going to stick with that.

With Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop no one will forget, a clean strike off the tee here is critical, with bunkers in front of the green to the left and right.

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Patrick Drickey | STONEHOUSEGOLF.COM

11 Robert Trent Jones, Virginia

Par 3, 165 yards, H/cap 16

12

If Muirfield Village is the greatest legacy of Jack Nicklaus’s design career—to which we turn in three holes’ time in this Presidents Cup selection—then the golf course bearing the name of its creator Robert Trent Jones Snr might be the finest example of his own mastery.

Located 35 miles to the west of Washington DC and perched on the northern shores of the stunning Lake Manassas, no hole brings the lake into view or play better than the famous par-3 11th hole. While the Gold tee requires players to go long from 215 yards, as we took on the 200-yard 9th at full value, for the tempting 11th we will dial in Green tee and a yardage of 175.

This is a superb match play hole with a peninsula green demanding that golfers play over an inlet of the lake. It serves a birdie opportunity for sure, but glory does insist on sitting so snuggly next to disaster.

TPC Harding Park, California

13

Liberty National, New Jersey

Par 5, 480 yards, H/cap 8

Par 4, 428 yards, H/cap 2

TPC Harding Park’s suitability for the world’s most important events has been confirmed by its selection as host for the PGA Championship in 2020—which will be the first major championship ever played at a TPC property—before the Presidents Cup is scheduled to return here in 2025.

“It’s a fair test of golf,” says Rory McIlroy, who won the WGC Match Play at Harding Park in 2015. “I like big trees that frame holes and you’ve got a lot of definition to work the ball off. I really enjoy this golf course.”

The 12th is typical of the golf course. Lined by cypress trees and with a dog-leg bending gently from right to left midway down the fairway, accuracy off the tee and with the second shot is far more important than power. Keep the ball on the fairway and this can be a good scoring hole.

In keeping with our 10th hole (which is normally the 14th at Liberty National) we are sticking with the Presidents Cup hole order for our 13th hole, by bringing in what would usually be the 17th at Liberty National. A long par four at 445 yards from the Tournament tee, with the Statue of Liberty standing as virtually the line marker for this tee shot, we think it fitting to tee off from the Liberty tee and a slightly more accessible yardage of 428.

Only the worst of sliced drives will find the lake on the right, and golfers should aim left of center from the tee to open up the angle to the green as the fairway gently leans to the right and up to a raised putting surface.

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14

Muirfield Village, Ohio

15

TPC Harding Park, California

Par 4, 363 yards, H/cap 13

Par 4, 405 yards, H/cap 3

“Jack’s Course”—the dream project for Jack Nicklaus, in his home state—was opened in may 1974, when Nicklaus took on friend and rival Tim Weiskopf in an exhibition match.

An inspired Nicklaus shot 66 that day, six under par, which would remain the course record for five years.

When the Presidents Cup was held at Muirfield Village in 2013 the club became the only one to have staged each of the Ryder Cup (1987), Presidents Cup and Solheim Cup (1998).

We are taking on the short par-4 14th at its tournament yardage of 363. It is an utter stunner with which not to be tinkered, particularly with such an inviting, downhill tee shot into a stream valley. The stream comes into play 245 yards from the tee so the longest hitters need to be wary, as the water emerges from the left and runs across the hole and to the right of the green. Bunkers await to the left so accuracy is essential with the approach. The perfect short par-4.

From an elevated tee on the par-4 15th at Harding Park, tour professionals might opt for a fairway wood to ensure they stay short of a bunker that sits on the outside of the dogleg as the fairway turns from right to left towards the green.

For most amateurs, a straight driver is the right club off the tee, to buy as much loft as possible for the approach to the green. Only a single bunker protects the 15th green, but it is on the short-right side, it’s not small and its rakes are rarely kept idle for long.

Appropriately for a Presidents Cup venue, TPC Harding Park was originally named after President Warren G. Harding. Harding was the 29th President, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923 at the age of 57. He died from a heart attack suffered in Harding Park’s hometown, San Francisco.

Dan Murphy | STONEHOUSEGOLF.COM

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SEPT 28 - OCT 1 LIBERTY NATIONAL GC | JERSEY CITY, NJ PRESIDENTSCUP.COM

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

16

Royal Montreal, Canada

Par 4, 429 yards, H/cap 1 The magnificent 16th hole at Royal Montreal is a hooker’s demise. The hole pays to 456 yards from the tips but we are giving you a break by shifting up to the Gold tee and a yardage of 429. This remains formidable, with a large lake to the left of the fairway, before golfers must play over the water to find the green, across a narrow bridge. There is pressure to put the tee shot into a good position so golfers have as short a club as possible in their hands for the treacherous second. A classic match play hole.

Royal Montreal is not only the oldest golf club in North America, but it was one of the earliest clubs to receive Royal patronage, issued by Queen Victoria in 1884.

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18 The Links, Fancourt, South Africa

Par 5, 502 yards, H/cap 7 Keeping emissions low and excitement high, we stay in South Africa for the final blows of our compilation, with the magnificent closing hole on The Links at Fancourt. The uphill par-five hole of final reckoning can reach 563 yards from the Black tee—a mighty test of straight driving—but we are giving you a better opportunity of birdie from the Green tee and a distance of 502 yards.

Golfers will be pleased so see plenty of room on the fairway for their final tee shot, but the trouble on 18 comes at the very end, where a green full of undulations might be the hardest to two-putt in our 18-hole selection. No one ever said this game was easy, particularly not in the Presidents Cup.

KINGDOM SCORECARD

Hole

Course

1

TPC Harding Park

4

395

10

2

Royal Montreal

4

385

9

The Links, Fancourt, South Africa

3

Songdo

5

529

6

Par 3, 170 yards, H/cap 12

4

Songdo

4

332

15

5

Royal Melbourne

3

176

11

6

Royal Montreal

5

545

5

7

Royal Melbourne

3

148

17

8

Fancourt

3

166

14

9

Robert Trent Jones

3

200

4

17

The Presidents Cup was played on Fancourt’s famous Links course— designed by Gary Player, Phil Jacobs and Fancourt owner Dr Hasso Plattner—that was built with a view to bringing some of Britain’s links character to South Africa.

The land had previously been used as an airstrip and Player described the design as his greatest feat as a designer.

The 17th hole here is our final par-3 and so we are taking it on from the back tee at 170 yards. It is a great test of nerve with a stream—reminiscent of the burns of St Andrews or Carnoustie—running in front of the green and to its left-hand side.

A single bunker awaits to the right of the green so golfers who can find the middle of the green will breathe a sigh of relief.

FRONT 9

Par

34

Yards

H/cp

2 8 76

10

Liberty National

3

150

18

11

Robert Trent Jones

3

165

16

12

TPC Harding Park

5

480

8

13

Liberty National

4

428

2

14

Muirfield Village

4

363

13

15

TPC Harding Park

4

405

3

16

Royal Montreal

4

429

1

17

Fancourt

3

170

12

18

Fancourt

5

502

7

BAC K 9

35

3092

TOTA L

69

5968

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Always Smile French brand Lacoste is built on a legacy of fashionable victories—no wonder it’s the apparel of choice for the Presidents Cup

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In 1922, three years after he started playing tennis (at the age of 15), an inexperienced René Lacoste was knocked out in the first round at Wimbledon by Pat O’Hara Wood, the 1919 Wimbledon champ. Three years later Lacoste was standing on Centre Court holding the Wimbledon trophy, and anyone in the tennis world who didn’t realize he was a star was either blind or watching a different sport.

Beyond his on-court victories—and there were many—the fashionable young man from Paris came to be known as an innovator, with a head for both creativity and for business. The combination would come to serve him well, not least in 1933 when he founded La Société Chemise Lacoste, with André Gillier, who ran France’s largest knitwear company at the time. Known simply as “Lacoste,” today the company is responsible for some of the finest sportswear in the world, visible on court, on course, at sea and wherever the upper echelon of sporting men and women are found, including at this year’s Presidents Cup.

L-R: Henri Cochet and Rene Lacoste Shaking Hands; Simone Thien de la Chaume in action at Poges; Catherine Lacoste, 1969 British Ladies Open Championship at Portrush

The Crocodile It was 1923 and René Lacoste was traveling for the International Lawn Tennis Challenge, now known as the Davis Cup. A crocodile suitcase caught the young player’s eye and his coach, Alan Muhr, noticed: “If you win, I’ll buy it for you!”

Muhr apparently said. A reporter from the Boston Evening Transcript overheard the conversation and ran with it, leading to Lacoste’s nickname of “The Crocodile” and inspiring one of the world’s great emblems. Or at least that’s how one of the stories goes…

When Lacoste took the 1925 Wimbledon over fellow Frenchman Jean Borotra, he’d already won that year’s French Championships (also over Borotra). World No.1 in 1926 and 1927, part of “The Four Musketeers” who dominated tennis in the 1930s, along with Borotra, Jacques Brugnon and Henri Cochet, and winner of seven Grand Slam singles titles and three doubles titles, Lacoste’s most lasting legacy might have begun in 1929 when he created the first premiere tennis shirt, hinting at what was to come. The year after that he married golf champion Simone de la Chaume, and their daughter, Catherine Lacoste, became a champion golfer as well. (Perhaps that’s why Lacoste’s golf wear displays such attention to detail and such tremendous versatility.)

One of the rare brands to successfully transcend sport into fashion—and to maintain relevance in fashion while also being functional in sport—Lacoste is the official apparel provider for this year’s Presidents Cup. Unquestioned as appropriate apparel at the finest clubs the world over, Lacoste’s influence on golf cannot be overstated—even if it all began on a tennis court.

To find out more about the iconic brand and its contributions to sports and to sports apparel, visit lacoste.com

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Presidential Attire The iconic French brand known for its crocodile logo and well-crafted sportswear is the official apparel provider for this year’s Presidents Cup. Lacoste worked closely with Captains Steve Stricker and Nick Price to create the respective team looks, which are elegant and evocative of Lacoste’s sporting history. The U.S. team uniform draws inspiration from the

American flag, while the the Internationals’ kit follows their team flag with blue and gold. With well-considered layering options and the finest fabrics that are both comfortable and technical, the Presidents Cup collections from Lacoste are worthy of the tournament and of the brand that has dressed the finest in sport for more than 80 years.

U. S .

TEAM

lacoste.com

I N T E R N AT I O N A L TEAM

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DIS TINGUISHED

BY TASTE

Enjoy elit® Vodka responsibly. elit® Vodka. 40% Alc/Vol. (80 proof). Distilled from grain. Stoli Group USA, LLC, New York, NY ©2017.

All rights reserved. ® - registered trademarks of ZHS IP Americas Sàrl or Spirits International B.V.

IN THE SILENCE OF A FOLDED FLAG TRUE PATRIOTS HEAR A RESOUNDING CALL.

The Folds of Honor Foundation provides educational scholarships to the military families of our fallen and disabled armed forces.

Your ongoing support returns a life-changing difference in the children and families who’ve sacrificed for our freedom.

WE NEED PATRIOTS. JOIN US.

FOLDSOFHONOR.ORG

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 MICHIGAN

TPC POTOMAC THE OLD WHITE TPC AT THE GREENBRIER

TPC RIVER’S BEND

TPC WAKEFIELD PLANTATION TPC LAS VEGAS TPC SCOTTSDALE

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 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 Boston, HOLE 12

The newly redesigned 12th hole at TPC Boston measures 510 yards from the Championship tee, where the pros compete during the Dell Technologies Championship, the second of four FedExCup Playoff events. The Principal’s nose bunkers are placed in the center of the fairway to make the player choose the left or right of the fairway. The shot into the green now plays downhill with a long iron or fairway wood. A large bunker protects the front right portion of the green.

TPC Kuala Lumpur, West Course HOLE 13

The par-4 hole 13 at TPC Kuala Lumpur’s West Course stands at 459 yards and is considered one of the more challenging holes on the course. Although there are no fairway bunkers, length and accuracy is required with the tee shot. A solid mid iron will be necessary to reach the elevated undulating green which is protected by three large bunkers. History has shown there to be more bogeys than birdies on this hole.

TPC Jasna Polana, HOLE 3

Two well-struck shots will reach this 480-yard uphill par-5 in two, but be cautious; trouble lurks everywhere. The tee shot must navigate two fairway bunkers on the left and one on the right. A meandering creek and waterfall guard the fairway from 150 yards in on the right, and fronts the entire green—which is 46 paces deep and slopes from back to front. Any shots above the hole will lead to very fast-breaking putts.

ONE CHAMPION. DELIVERED BY FEDEX. T H E N O RT H E R N T R U S T | G L E N O A K S C L U B , O L D W E ST B U RY, N Y D E L L T E C H N O LO G I E S C H A M P I O N S H I P | T P C B O ST O N , N O R T O N , M A B M W C H A M P I O N S H I P | C O N W AY FA R M S G C, L A K E F O R E ST, I L T O U R C H A M P I O N S H I P | E A ST L A K E G C, AT L A N TA , G A

CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS © 2017 PGA TOUR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Player appearance subject to change.

GIFT GUIDE

Thoughtful Gifts well-considered are gifts well-delivered, whether for friends or for oneself

Wine Arinzano Gran Vino As a rule it is not often we feature a white wine in Kingdom, let alone one from Spain, but Arinzano’s Gran Vino Blanco 2010 is the exceptional that makes the exception. Aged 11 months in French Oak and from a spectacular year, the nose is fresh, mineral, lemon and with an intensity that is somehow both refreshing and complex in the mouth before a finish of great persistency. arinzano.com

Soul Artwork Nephew to John Ashworth, Geoff Cunningham grew up fully immersed in golf, even folding clothes in the Ashworth Clothing Company at the age of 14. Today the former art director for Quiksilver’s golf line is the founder of Linksoul and a dedicated artist. His paintings evoke the timeless quiet inherent in golf, which arguably is responsible for its longevity and universal appeal: the game as a pathway to introspection, self-realization and, ultimately, to peace. geoffcunninghamgolf.com

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K40

Classic Sport German writing precision The birth of the Kaweco CLASSIC Sport line of pens and mechanical pencils goes back to 1911, and the colors in which they’re offered today harken back to an earlier time, when life and golf seemed simpler.

Perfectly sized for a pocket and shaped to stay put on a desktop or table, the mechanisms function silently and flawlessly, ensuring ages of great use from these German instruments. Use the available 3.2mm tip to record birdies (and the less-bold .7mm option to record bogeys). Precise and timeless. kaweco-pen.com

Summerfield Silver Club

Ketel One

Rich game room trophy

Collector’s Edition Palmer bottle

Golf ’s first-ever competition was held at Leith Links, Edinburgh, in 1744, and the rules drawn up for it still fundamentally define the game of golf today. The competition’s trophy was a full-size silver golf club, with the winner’s name engraved on a silver ball. This version, The Summerfield, draws on that immense history, with the same silversmithing techniques used to craft the original nearly 300 years ago.

Honoring the King, Ketel One have produced a special collector’s edition Arnold Palmer bottle. A must have for Arnie fans and vodka aficianados alike, the brand is also making a sizeable donation to Arnie’s Army Charitable Foundation. Stocks won’t last so don’t delay your purchase.

leithsilver.com

ketelone.com

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GIFT GUIDE

Vessel Bag

Lacoste

The perfect partner

Well-attired

Vessel Bags, perhaps the best bag-maker going, gets it right again with the Lux Cart 2.0, a full-featured premium bag loaded with Vessel’s innovative and thoughtful design touches. Seven pockets, including a velour-lined valuables pocket, hold the goods, with well-considered details such as a removable ball pocket and large insulated cooler pocket separating this from more common offerings in the genre. For those who expect the best, this is it—and more.

One of the few sportswear companies to be fashionable and one of the few fashion labels to be functional in sport, Lacoste brings its classic Parisian style and its determined athletic credibility to bear in modern attire accepted the world round as fit for clubhouse and course alike, worn by royalty, champions and the fashionably aware—including both Presidents Cup teams. lacoste.com

vesselbags.com

Callaway Epic drives Epic distance requires an epic driver—like the new GBB Epic Driver from Callaway. The company builds on its legacy of performance clubs with its new Jailbreak Technology, completely changing how the head and face behave in a driver. The forgiving Exo-Cage/Triaxial Carbon construction and adjustable perimeter weighting ensure this is as cutting-edge as a driver gets, while numerous real-world reviews online confirm this is the real deal. callawaygolf.com

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K40

Cedes Milano

Dior

Toilet shaving set

Eau Sauvage Cologne

The chrome plating and carbon fiber mean this is the perfect shave set for modern men. The Gillette Fusion razor means you won’t have to send away for custom blades. With a small styptic pen concealed in the well-balanced razor handle, this is as functional as it is beautiful—a perfect complement to your luxury vanity area.

The first-ever men’s fragrance from the house of Dior, Eau Sauvage is decidedly male and decidedly discrete, offering wood and fresh spice notes that complement a spontaneous and vibrant personality—without overwhelming it.

An instant classic from a firm known for timeless compsure. dior.com

cedesmilano.com

Daimon Barber Cooling post-shave balm Just-shaved skin demands a light touch, not a thick salve. This lighweight moisturizing lotion is just the thing, invigorating and regenerating skin with its blend of rosehip, apple seed, lime seed and camellia seed oils, all full of vitamins, antioxidants and essential fatty acids that work on a cellular level to revive and to hydrate. Free of parabens, this will refresh and renew with maximum effect. Look after yourself—your face deserves it. daimonbarber.co.uk

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GIFT GUIDE

Rolex

B&W New speaker series

Cellini Moonphase Rolex brings elegance with the Cellini Collection, a contemporary celebration of timepiece classicism. The Cellini Moonphase dresses Old World styling in a robust modern frame, using a white lacquer dial with a blue enameled disc at 6 o’clock depicting the full moon and new moon, which circle through the lunar phases even as the date is displayed via a centre hand with a crescent moon at its tip. Exquisitely top drawer at $26,750. rolex.com

Bowers & Wilkins has thrilled audiophiles once again with the introduction of its 700 Series speakers, the first outside of its flagship 800 Series to eschew kevlar drivers for the firm’s house-developed Continuum material, eminently transparent for audio.

Sublime, cutting-edge sound delivery from a legendary firm in an exciting new speaker range worth hearing. bowers-wilkins.com

BMW The open road awaits The kind of machine that makes dreams come true, BMW’s K1600B is a bagger with an inline 6-cylinder motor that’s ready to eat up the miles with speed and style. Sleek and burly, it’s also a BMW, which means loads of stalwart tech available (including Hill Start Control, keyless operation and more) to keep you rolling, not wrenching. bmwmotorcycles.com

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K40

Finex Cast Iron Skillet The best cast iron skillets are tools passed down through generations, perfectly seasoned over time to perform, and the cast iron skillet from Finex is one worthy of starting a family’s legacy.

Polished smooth and finely constructed, with numerous spouts for pouring sauces and liquids, it’s perfect for a fresh catch on a campfire or for cornbread in a cutting-edge oven. The best. finexusa.com

Victorinox Chef’s Knife with Extra Wide Blade The lauded Swiss Army company moves into the kitchen with its perfectly balanced Grand Maître Chef’s Knife from the Victorinox series of forged knives. Its full tang extra wide blade is uniformly hardened, while its rosewood handle is both elegant and hard-wearing. Hand-polished and ergonomically designed, this is a large-scale piece ready for meat, fruit or vegetables. swissarmy.com

KitchenAid Fantastic grinder There is, perhaps, no quicker way to dramatically improve your morning than to grind your own coffee beans. KitchenAid makes it easy (and precise) with its new conical Burr Grinder, which offers 15 grind levels for French Press, Pour Over, Drip, Espresso and more. Slow burr RPM means no friction heat affecting bean taste while a glass hopper helps avoid the “static cling” of ground beans. Durable, effective, and essential for coffee lovers. kitchenaid.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.

Now the magazine is also available for subscription to all TPC fans and golfers with a taste for fine living. If you would like to subscribe, or are a member or guest of a TPC Network course and would like to gift a subscription to a friend, then simply tear out and fill in one of the below forms.

25% of all subscription revenue will be donated to charity by the PGA TOUR.

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DOMINION CHARITY CLASSIC OCT 20 - 22, THE COUNTRY CLUB OF VIRGINIA, JAMES RIVER COURSE POWERSHARES QQQ CHAMPIONSHIP OCT 27 - 29, SHERWOOD COUNTRY CLUB, THOUSAND OAKS, CA CHARLES SCHWAB CUP CHAMPIONSHIP NOV 10 - 12, PHOENIX COUNTRY CLUB, PHOENIX, AZ

© 2017 PGA TOUR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Player Appearance Subject To Change.

Flight Partner Rolls-Royce doesn’t just build the best engines in the air, it builds the best relationships—the kind that last a lifetime. See what the company’s CorporateCare® can do for you and your business:

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f the variables involved in the purchase of a business jet, the aftermarket maintenance program could be among the most significant in terms of determining aircraft usability and overall cost of ownership.

Long understanding that proper oversight and service are key to effective jet use, market leader Rolls-Royce has offered its fixed-cost CorporateCare® engine maintenance program for more than a decade. Unsurprisingly, just like the company’s aircraft engines, the program has set a high bar for service and for customer expectations, and it has become a near-vital facet of sales.

What this means for CorporateCare® clients is more time in the air, fewer incidents of on-demand delays and ultimately, a better ownership experience that nets owners more for their money. “We have significantly improved averted missed trips to over 97% and our average aircraft on ground (AOG) response resolution time is under 24 hours,” said Rolls-Royce Senior Vice President Customers-Business Aviation, Scott Shannon.

In fact, average AOG response resolution time for Rolls-Royce engines had fallen to just 17.9 hours (a far cry from the allowed 24-hour upper limit), according to an article in Aviation International News, an industry publication that keeps a close eye on such things. Further, the low incidence of averted missed trips has meant that in hardly any cases at all are Rolls-Royce engines responsible for canceled or postponed travel—an absolutely critical bit of data where business travel is concerned, in which on-demand travel is an essential part of jet ownership, if not the point, really.

Milestone There are engines, and there are legendary engines. Among the latter, certainly, is the RollsRoyce BR710 powerhouse, which passed the 10 million flight hour mark this summer. Found on such lauded large-cabin business jets as the Bombardier Global 5000 and 6000, and on Gulfstream’s GV and G550, among others, the engine has set numerous speed and range records since its introduction in 1995. There are more than 3,200 BR710s in service and more than 70 percent of those are enrolled in the company’s CorporateCare® program, ensuring that 10 million hours is only the start for this efficient and reliable powerhouse from Rolls-Royce.

The Best Rolls-Royce CorporateCare® fixed-cost engine maintenance management program covers new and in-service BR725, BR710, Tay and AE 3007 engines. Just a few of the aircraft that use these engines include the following: • • • • •

Cessna Citation X Embraer Legacy 600 and 650 Bombardier Global Express Bombardier Global 5000 and 6000 Gulfstream G650, G1V, GIV-SP, G350, G450

Rolls-Royce’s high performance in the maintenance area is achieved via a comprehensive and extensive global support network of more than 72 Authorized Service Centers. Using sophisticated data systems, this network is able to stock or to obtain parts as needed and even ahead of time, ensuring a proactive approach to aircraft oversight and the most cutting-edge service available.

CorporateCare® benefits more than 2,000 RollsRoyce-powered aircraft at the moment, with more enrolling all the time. Since it launched in 2002, the program has seen steady growth and now, according to Aviation Week, it has become an assumed facet in all areas of aircraft sales. Speaking to that publication, Shannon added that “The pre-owned market no longer sees Rolls-Royce’s CorporateCare® as adding resale value to an aircraft, but as a detraction if it isn’t enrolled.”

In addition to the more than 2,000 aircraft currently covered, more than 70% of all new Rolls-Royce deliveries are covered as well by the program that enhances asset value and liquidity, mitigates maintenance risk and protects against unforeseen costs and unscheduled events anywhere in the world. The fixed-cost is per-flying-hour, with the client getting the most for his or her money from Rolls-Royce in alignment with the client’s aircraft manufacturer of choice.

Rolls-Royce has been at this for a long time—it introduced its “Power by the Hour” engine and accessory replacement service program in 1962, and it has more than 50 years of experience servicing large-cabin customers.

Today, CorporateCare® continues that legacy of top-drawer service, ensuring that the best engine in the air isn’t all that Rolls-Royce customers receive; they also get a firm willing to stand behind its products as a proper flight partner for life.

For more on Rolls-Royce aircraft engines and to learn how CorporateCare® can benefit your business, visit rolls-royce.com or contact corporate.care@rolls-royce.com.

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SHARPEN Summer’s hazy days are gone; with Fall comes clarity— welcome it

FINE LINES

Philippe Starck handed top design house Kartell a challenge with his now-iconic Victoria Ghost chair, which is constructed from a single piece of injection-molded polycarbonate. The medallion back in particular proved troublesome to manage, but the firm’s expertise served it well and today the Italian-made seat is a welcome specter at many a table—bringing so much beauty in its near absence shopkartell.com

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ST RA I G H T BLADE

The full hollow carbon steel blade in Dovo’s Carre Straight Razor is an instrument fit for a master, but the masterpiece itself is the shave this razor gives you. Complemented by the black grenadine scales with Mother of Pearl inlay, this German-made message to our tech-driven world couldn’t be more clear: slow down, some things are worth doing right; and it’s your face, after all dovoonline.com

Holdalls from top custom bag-maker Vessel are incredibly well-considered and planned, like this seemingly simple tote that manages to be exquisite in both form and function. Supremely useful, expertly crafted, modern and luxe, Vessel bags can be trusted to hold your dearest possessions and everyday kit in style

K E E N LY HELD

vesselbags.com

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RU ST CUT

Now available to all, “raw” wedges were a tour-only option in the 1990s, conceived by Roger Cleveland in response to pros’ complaints about glare. Cleveland killed the chrome and let ’em rust, like this aged-toperfection 60˚ Mack Daddy wedge from Callaway. No glare, perhaps a softer feel (debatable) and street-style cred are the only real advantages. Some claim rust boosts spin as well, but testing has taken the shine from that notion… callawaygolf.com

A full 50 years of top audio engineering went into the design of Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature headphones, and to hear music through them is to summon a private concert in the finest hall imaginable.

With cutting-edge materials, “floating” decoupled ear cups and balance beyond measure, there’s nothing between you and the music bowers-wilkins.com

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P OI N TE D C L A R I TY

SHARP E YE

To see and be seen, that is the mission; no eyewear is made from finer materials—gold, gems, precious metals—and none is as finely tuned as that from Leisure Society. Seemingly infinite styles of perfection leisure-society.com

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Old Fashioned approach Kingdom drops in on the oldest golf pub of them all, the Golf Tavern in Edinburgh

T

he Golf Tavern in Edinburgh—or “Ye Olde Golf Tavern” as it is also known—is thought to be the oldest golf pub in the world. It is said it dates back more than five centuries to 1456 and we can’t find any trace of a golf-related pub or clubhouse that comes even close to this depth of history, even 50 miles up Scotland’s eastern coastline at St Andrews.

This is Edinburgh though, a city partly defined by some of the finest medieval architecture in Britain. Edinburgh’s oldest building, St. Margaret’s Chapel, dates back to 1130 and stands resolute and beautifully restored within the walls of Edinburgh Castle.

The Golf Tavern was established to cater for golfers on the Bruntsfield Links, which lies immediately outside the tavern’s front door. We are a 10-minute walk to the south-east of Edinburgh’s city center and just outside the heart of Edinburgh University. You would not expect to find a golf course in this leafy suburban neighborhood, yet in Scotland golf courses have a habit of appearing where you least expect them.

Two of golf’s oldest societies—the Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society and the Royal Burgess Golfing Society—both played on the original five-hole set-up on the Bruntsfield Links and used the Golf Tavern as their meeting place, dating back as far as 1735 at least, and probably much earlier.

The Bruntsfield Links remains in play to golfers today.

The course started out as a five-hole challenge in the 15th century but has eventually evolved into a 36-hole pitch and putt course.

And there is something quite rare about this modest golf course; established on public land and maintained by Edinburgh City Council, it is one of the world’s very few free golf courses. There is no green fee to play the Bruntsfield Links. You just turn up, line up by the first tee if you have to, and play golf. And if you are in town without your clubs, you can rent a wedge, a putter and some golf balls from the Golf Tavern, and pick-up a scorecard.

The Golf Tavern is a delightful Scottish pub, with an interior dominated by polished dark wood and wallpaper montaging old golf tournament newspaper clippings. The exploits of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin are there to be revisited.

In truth, there is little remnant of the 18th century inside—let alone the 15th—and the pub is geared towards this neighborhood’s young and thriving student community.

The food is straightforward, hearty and good value, the vibe is young but best of all, the place gets busy. A lot of pubs in the UK today cannot say the same.

The Golf Tavern might have a wine list somewhere— not sure—but more importantly, and in keeping with its Scottish heritage and golfing roots, it has a decent shake at a whisky menu that is 30-strong.

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An Old fashioned at the Golf Tavern The Old Fashioned is best known as an American cocktail, designed to take the edge off some of the early and less than refined bourbons, but it has found a welcome haven in the Golf Tavern.

“With the Old Fashioned, we invite customers to choose whichever malt they would like, although I would recommend a single malt,” starts barman Tom. “Here I am going with Deveron 12, which is a personal favorite from my own hometown of Macduff, right up on the north coast of Aberdeenshire. It is quite lively, has a kick to it, but it is not harsh. It balances quite well with the sweetness and the fruit in an Old Fashioned.”

Tom starts with a cube of raw Demerara sugar in a tumbler, adds a few dashes of Angostura Bitters—and some orange bitters for good measure—drops in an ice cube and crushes it together into syrup.

“The single cube of sugar adds sweetness without over powering, and then once you have the syrup, pour in a large whisky,” he says. “A large whisky [double measure] is the only whisky in an Old Fashioned. Then add three ice cubes, garnish with orange peel and that’s her; very simple, very tasty.”

Tom is right, it is delicious, with its gentle sweetness allowing the flavors of the whisky to hold sway, while it is more refreshing and zestier than a straight whisky. And the great thing about an Old Fashioned; it doesn’t matter if you drink it before dinner, or afterwards, or both, or at either end of a round on the Links. It’ll fit right in.

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Ingredients: • Raw Demerara sugar, 1 cube • Angostura Bitters & orange bitters, a few dashes • Ice cube to boost syrup • Deveron 12, double measure • Orange peel garnish • Ice cubes to taste

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Shucks Toss the pearl; the real jewel is the oyster itself

“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster,” observed Jonathan Swift. Doubtless correct, Swift might have written “a bold caveman,” for in 2007 anthropologists in South Africa found evidence that humans were eating oysters more than 164,000 years ago—presumably not in an Oysters Rockefeller. That makes raw oyster-eating one of the earliest

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examples of modern human behavior, and how pleased would our shell-smashing ancestor be to find bivalve mollusks still served on the half shell today—albeit on ice and often with Champagne. (Modern improvements for modern men, no matter how prehistoric our instincts.) With no fire required, here’s a pearlescent look at the humble oyster:

T Y P E S Despite a nearly infinite number of oyster varieties, there are only a handful of oyster species, five of which are harvested in the United States:

Eastern

Kumamoto

(Crassostrea virginica - aka Atlantic) common varieties: Bluepoints, Wellfleets, Malpeques, Beausoleils origin: Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic coast of North America shell: brownish taste: briny, clean

(Crassostrea sikamea) common varieties: Kumamoto origin: Southwestern tip of Japan shell: small, deeply cupped taste: sweet

Olympia

(Ostrea edulis - aka European Flat) common varieties: Wescott, Maine oysters, Damariscotta origin: Europe shell: large taste: strong, almost smoky, coppery

(Osstrea lurida) common varieties: Puget Sound, British Columbia origin: North American Pacific coast shell: small (quarter- to half-dollar-sized), round, pearlescent Taste: earthy, vegetable + salt

*Belon

(Crassostrea gigas) common varieties: Fanny Bay, Hamma-hamma, Penn Cove origin: Japan’s Pacific coast shell: ruffled, colorful taste: sweetish, with hints of melon or cucumber rind

*The Belon oysters found in the U.S. chiefly are from the Damariscotta River in Maine and are harvested in limited quantity. The original Belon oyster is still cultivated in the Belon River in France and tastes quite different from its American progeny, with hazelnut and lemony wood on offer. Nearly impossible to find in the States, Montreal’s best-known fish market La Mer reportedly gets a shipment every Spring.

Flavor

OT H E R Kiwa

Pacific

In wine it’s “terroir,” with oysters it’s “merroir.” Like wine, oysters take on the characteristics of their surroundings, pulling from local minerals and sediment, even plant life and algae, to grow.

Protected saltwater bay? Salty oyster.

Near freshwater? Less salty. And so on.

Oysters from New Zealand have been coming on in recent years, gaining in popularity worldwide. Ostrea chilensis is a relatively rare species and is more commonly marketed as a Kiwa oyster or a New Zealand Flat. Related to the Belon and also found in Chile, Kiwa have a pleasing brine/cream/ sweet balance and a clean taste that immediately evokes the sea in the best way. Cultivated under a strict code of environmental stewardship, they’re well worth a try if you see them on the menu.

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Bordeaux ©Peter Ellegard

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S H U C K I N G You’ll want a purpose-built knife for this. The blade will be roughly 3” long, thick, and the handle should be sturdy and non-slip if possible. “Dagger” type blades seem to work better.

And don’t forget a glove—absolutely essential.

Step 1

Step 4

Scrub your oysters clean and submerge them in ice water while you work. Prepare either a tray of ice or salt to set them on (or a bowl sitting in ice, if you’re removing the oysters from their shells completely)

Clean your blade to avoid transferring mud (or anything you didn’t scrub off) into your oyster

Step 2 With a hand towel folded over half of the oyster, using your gloved hand, hold the oyster belly-side down on your work space (the rounded side is the belly, the flat side is the top). The oyster’s hinge should be accessible

Step 3 Work the knife tip into the hinge; you shouldn’t have to press overly hard, just look for a soft spot where you can sneak in; once you’re in, work the knife a bit and twist; you’ll feel (and you should hear) the oyster relent; use the knife to pry the shells apart a little more

Step 5 Sever the muscle connected to the top shell; start at the hinge end and feel your way toward the front, sliding the knife along the top shell, keeping it as flat as possible until you feel the muscle; once cut, you can remove the top shell; this takes practice so as not to damage the oyster

Step 6 Look for shell fragments or anything else in the oyster; also ensure it looks clean and fresh—and that it smells clean and fresh; discard anything questionable; after confirming it’s good, sever the bottom muscle, test to make sure the oyster slides around freely and then set it aside for later (or just put it in your mouth)

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Damariscotta Shucker R. Murphy Knives Tough, beautifully balanced, loved by pros $37 No.9 Oyster Knife Opinel A folding shucker, take it along for beachside feasts $20 Edisto Oyster Knife (pictured on previous) Williams Knife Co. Brilliantly functional, completely customizable $325 Victorinox Saf-T-Gard Glove Stainless steel mesh, this well-crafted glove fits either hand—much cheaper than a trip to the emergency room $125

Beverage Walk into a local beach bar or seafood “joint” in Florida and you might find an advertised special for a dozen oysters on the half shell and a pitcher of beer, and when you’re out with friends there is nothing wrong with that (as the Florida-born editor of this magazine will confirm). Something with a little hop to it or a typical lager is good, but you’ll want to avoid anything with too much character (Weissbiers and sours seem particularly ill-suited, we think). Otherwise, typically recommended are white wines with some mineral flavor and acidity (but not too much of either) as they’ll cleanly enhance and reveal an oyster’s best characteristics.

Think Sauvignon Blanc, Sancerre or Muscadet. And you can never go wrong with Champagne.

Mignonette

Storage Our rule with oysters is “buy ’em fresh and eat ’em quick.”

If there’s any distance between the shop and your mouth, keep them on ice (and serve them on ice or on salt, please). Don’t let them get above 43˚F if you can help it. Most oyster lovers have had a bad experience over the years, and they’ll all tell you it’s not one they want to repeat.

The most common accoutrement for oysters, this perfect complement can tame a strong oyster with balance or give an acidic lift to one that’s overly creamy; likely necessary for oyster beginners, it’s well appreciated by connoisseurs as well.

• 4oz red wine vinegar • 2 shallots, peeled and minced • A few grinds of black pepper, to taste Mix and let sit for an hour before serving

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In the late 18th century the British started exporting lightly hopped “pale” ales to India, slaking the thirst of expats in their new territory with beer brewed from a pale malt. Bow Brewery—located near London’s East India Docks—was the first to start shipping a more heavily hopped version of this to Brits in Calcutta and Madras, a beer that weathered the ocean journey well and which was

designed to be cellared for two years.

The Allsopp brewery and others followed suit and by 1840 “India” Pale Ale was a beer in demand. Even before 1900 breweries in America had picked it up, and by 2015 IPA was the best-selling beer in the United States with, like, the best of the stuff totally being brewed in California. Here, then, are a few of the best West Coast IPAs, by way of England and India.

6.3%

Taste

Clean, citrusy, floral, some lemon and stone fruit… This a perfect West Coast IPA for people who might be nervous about leaving their lofts in New York—and we mean that in a very good way

Hailing from San Francisco’s Fort Point Beer, Villager IPA lives up to the brewery’s goal of creating “thoughtful beers that reference traditional styles but are by no means bound to them.” Fantastically drinkable, its packaging is thoroughly modern and beautiful as well, from San Francisco’s “Manual” graphic design studio, and if that bothers you then you don’t understand West Coast IPAs at all, at least not as they’re realized in San Francisco. We love it.

FO RT P O I N T B E E R .CO M

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Cascade: The foundation of so many West Coast beers, this spicy and citrusy hop with its floral grapefruit aroma and bite premiered in 1972 West Coast IPAs feature a number of different hops (Lagunitas IPA uses 23); here are “The Three Cs,” as some brewers call them, plus a possible fourth, among the most commonly used hops in U.S. craft brews

Centennial: Sometimes referred to as“Super Cascade,” with less citrus and a flowery, clean bitterness; appeared in 1990

Columbus: Great for adding bitterness and kick, it has a seriously pleasing aroma

Chinook: Appeared in 1985 and is used to add bitterness; can yield smoky, herbal notes as an aromatic

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6.9% Lots of lemon rind with fruity cereal and pine greet you before the malt balance pours the citrus over your palate on the way to a smooth finish; another easy drinker

Taste

By many accounts this is the one that started it all, launching in 1997 and going on to define West Coast IPAs. It’s all here: pine, hops, citrus, plenty of malt character and all the biting nose an IPA lover could want. Try it with shishito peppers or ceviche, spicy Thai food or jambalaya. It likes a dance partner with kick.

STO N E B R E W I N G.CO M

8.5% Taste

It’s big, with earthy herbal notes and some dark pineapple mixed with fresh mint and tree tones; uncommon, but then so is the brewery

Kernville is in cowboy country, on the Kern River on the way to Death Valley from Los Angeles, and this double white IPA (think Belgian white + hoppy pale) is named for the “bunnies” who shuttle bikers/hikers/boaters/etc to start points and then pick them up from end points—people often in need of a cold brew. It took bronze at this year’s California State Fair, and that’s likely because it’s a surprise of sorts, though once you start driving toward the desert “surprise” is a relative term.

K E R N R I V E R B R E W I N G.CO M

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7%

Taste

Fruity, with apricot, peach, mango and lemon—but don’t be fooled: this beer has a sting, “just like a Sculpin fish,” according to the brewer

This beer is hopped at five different stages, and if it’s not typical neither is it overly distant within West Coast IPAs. In fact, this gold-medal-winning beer is one of the most popular to come out of the San Diego brewery, and whether it’s turkey time or sunshine, it’s one of the most enjoyable IPAs anywhere. Look for a grapefruit version as well—often sold out when it appears.

B A L L A S T P O I N T.C O M

6.5% Taste

A big bouquet of wildflowers, citrus and pine that goes smooth almost instantly, an easy drinker with character

Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co. is located on California’s Central Coast, in the heart of Santa Barbara wine country and not far from some of the best Pinot Noir in the world.

Hoppy Poppy is its celebration of the state flower (the poppy) and offers plenty of wildflower bouquet along with a tempered grapefruity bite, glazed with lemon zest and orange oil. Balanced and easy to drink, it’s a solid West Coast IPA. F I G M T N B R E W.CO M

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Throughout his life, Arnold Palmer gave generously of himself. He gave his full effort to his work. He gave his full attention to every person who crossed his path.

It didn’t matter how busy or tired he was, how famous he became, or who the person in front of him was. His powerful example reminded us that no matter who you are, the most precious gift you can give is your time and attention – yourself. That’s the kind of gift that is remembered – the kind that changes lives.

The newly-formed Arnie’s Army Charitable Foundation intends to show the world what can happen when we all take the time to give of ourselves the way Arnie did.

Visit ArniesArmy.org today and learn how the Foundation is continuing that good work, starting with the #LifeWellPlayed Challenge.

After all, what better way is there to honor Arnold Palmer than to follow his example. Give your time and attention to something bigger than yourself.

Mr. Palmer made you feel like what you did mattered.

And it does.

©2017 Arnie’s Army Charitable Foundation. All rights reserved.

T Noble

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he statue at Bay Hill is 13 feet tall, but the man himself was larger than life. Over 87 years Arnold Palmer graced us with some of the most exciting golf ever seen, giving fans and sports itself so many reasons to stand up and cheer. More than that, the kindness and love he exhibited every day—both for the game and for people—might stand as his greatest legacy, eclipsing his achievements on course and in the air. One year after his death our hearts remain heavy, but we’re compelled to smile as we remember the good times we shared with the man who gave so much to golf, to this magazine, and to the world.

Statue of Arnold Palmer by Bruce Wolfe, installed at Bay Hill, Orlando, Florida, unveiled ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 11, 2017