Short Game

Sahalee Country Club, which stepped up on short notice to host the 2016 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and helped enhance the status of the second oldest women’s major, has been awarded another one.

The PGA of America, which took over running the KPMG-sponsored event for the LPGA Tour in 2015, announced in December that the Sammamish club had been selected to host the event in 2024. The date for the event is still uncertain but likely will be the third week in June.

“We have an active championship committee,” says Bryan Nicholson, the club’s director of golf. “The mission statement of the club is to host significant championships.”

The tournament, originally known as the LPGA Championship, was first held in 1955 at Orchard Ridge GC in Fort Wayne, Ind., where a match play final (Bev Hanson beat Louise Suggs 4&3) followed three rounds of stroke play. Following the 2015 event, played at Westchester CC in Harrison, N.Y., and won by Inbee Park, the PGA of America elected to rotate the event throughout the country.

The announcement gave Sahalee just 11 months to prepare. In 2016, it pulled off an incredibly well-attended event that included a Women’s Leadership summit fea- turing Condoleezza Rice, and a thrilling finish as Brooke Henderson defeated Lydia Ko at the first playoff hole.

“They reached out to us, and the club threw together an unbelievable championship that year,” Nicholson says. “We got unbelievable crowds which speaks to the interest for professional golf in the Northwest as well as the power of the women’s game.”

Sahalee opened in 1969 and was designed by Ted Robinson with a renovation by Rees Jones in 1996. It has 27 holes with the North and South nines being used for the tournament. The media center, merchandising, sponsor tents and other tournament-related operations, meanwhile, will go on the East Course.

When the club hosted the 2016 Women’s Summit in the clubhouse’s ballroom with speeches by Rice (the former U.S. Secretary of State under George W. Bush) and other women’s leaders, there was concern the event would not be well attended. In fact, it was oversubscribed, and people had to be turned away. Nicholson is expecting a similarly-large gallery for the 2024 tournament which will feature 156 of the best women golfers in the world — a number that includes 20 club professionals.

Canada’s Henderson took the title seven years ago becoming the youngest ever winner of the event. The then 18-year-old birdied the first extra hole to beat Ko, a New Zealand native and 18. Then the best women golfer in the world, Ko slipped for a couple of years before regaining her form in 2022 when she recorded 14 top-10 finishes and three wins, making 19 LPGA Tour victories in all, including two majors.

Also expected to compete are the talented Korda sisters, Nelly, and Jessica. Nelly, now 24, was still burning up the junior ranks when Sahalee first hosted the event. She turned professional in 2017 and has now won eight times with one major (2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club). Jessica, 29, has six wins.

Sahalee just completed a $2.5 million bunker renovation and plans a tree removal and championship tee expansion following the KPMG.

NBC plans full coverage all four days of the tournament. Tickets are expected to go on sale this summer. The 2023 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship will be held at the Baltusrol Golf Club (N.J.) on June 22-25.

Perhaps the most consistent and highest compliment we get about our Cascade Golfer Cup is ‘can I play with so and so again? We met them at the last event and they were awesome to play with.’

Although we don’t take pairing requests, we love to hear how enjoyable the experience has been for the folks that tee it up in our CG Cup events. Sure, the prizes are totally bonkers, and yes, the courses are fantastic and the formats terrific, but in the end having fun is what matters.

This year we changed it up a bit, teeing off our first CG Cup event, our Season Opener on April 29 at a Northwest favorite, The Home Course in DuPont. If you want fun, this track is about as enjoyable to play as any, plus the two-person best ball is an exciting format.

From there we take the show on the road to one of Washington’s most pristine tracks, May 20 at Salish Cliffs in Shelton with our 13th annual Cascade Golfer Challenge. If you like good course conditions, that’s the place

We love shambles and that’s the format for the season’s third event, the Puetz Golf Shootout June 10. Kingston’s White Horse Golf Club is the host, which sets up nicely for this format, a beautiful, forested course that can be a tough test for all skill levels.

Making the turn, the Cup’s fourth event keeps it on the Peninsula, July 8 at Port Ludlow. This might be the most underrated course in the state as the conditions there have been nothing short of spectacular these last few years.

The Michelob ULTRA Open, an aggregate Stroke Play event, will be Aug. 12 at Oakbrook, quite a fun course as just about any golfer in Lakewood and the south end can attest.

This is followed by another two-person best ball, Sept. 9 at The Classic, the Spanaway layout that is a tough and tight challenge.

Of course, our schedule wouldn’t be complete without our annual pilgrimage to Chambers Bay, with the Fall Classic Sept. 30.

Prizes and the CG Cup go hand in hand, since, well, nobody does it better. Just like we have done over the past 14 years, a ton of loot is handed out at every event. Once again, we will prize out the top 10 teams in both the Net and Gross Divisions (all teams are entered into both).

These aren’t just your run-of-the-mill book money from the pro shop. We are sending folks all over the country, including half a dozen stay-and-play packages to

Maui, golf packages to Bandon Dunes, Central Oregon, Myrtle Beach, Pinehurst and several other destinations. Plus, we have dozens of products, including drivers, wedges, putters, bags and, of course, a ridiculous amount of great golf to offer, such as twosomes and foursomes sent off to Gamble Sands, Chambers Bay, Suncadia, Salish Cliffs, Home Course, Loomis Trail, Port Ludlow, Cedars at Dungeness, The Classic and Oakbrook. The list is long.

In addition to prizing out each event, the CG Cup is also a season points race, so there are prizes for the top 10 teams in Gross and Net on the season. Plus, you are allowed to have an alternate, so when you have a conflict and your buddy still wants to grab a partner and play, no problem. Consider it a three-person team for the season.

Nothing is more fun than playing golf with your favorite golf partner. Each event is a two-person team game, varying from best ball, best ball Stableford, stroke play and shamble.

Sounds like a good time? Time to get a partner and get inside the ropes. Anyone can play. You just need an established handicap, a playing partner and the desire to have fun. Visit CascadeGolfer.com/Cup or email simon@ cascadegolfer.com. We hope to see you in the fairway.

Now read this — 234 holes for $299. Does it get any better? That is what our Cascade Golfer Players Card holders have in store for them in 2023. The card, our largest ever, offers greens fees to a baker’s dozen of golf tracks throughout western and central Washington. It is a golf bonanza — all you have to do is go play.

The Cascade Golfer Players Card is simply ‘golf for less.’ The 2023 card will cover you at 13 different Northwest courses, all unique in their own way. This is the 11th edition of our Players Card, and the courses involved are many of the Northwest’s finest, spread throughout the state. All are back from our 2022 card, already a great lineup and now we added two more, Snohomish and High Cedars.

The card has 13 great courses individually but also sets up nicely for those looking to play 36 in a day or maybe make a two-day journey out of it. We have the favorites, like Salish Cliffs in Shelton and Apple Tree in Yakima, no doubt two of Washington’s most enjoyable loops. Hit up Sun Country on your way over to Yakima and maybe High Cedars or Eagles Pride on your way to Shelton.

Take a trek to Wenatchee to play Highlander and make a pit stop at Snoqualmie Falls before you go over the pass or Kahler Mountain Club just outside of Leavenworth.

From the north you have Sudden Valley, Whidbey and Camaloch, plus one of our favorites Snohomish, a first-time participant. The peninsula offers some great golf, and we are excited to have Port Ludlow and Cedars at Dungeness part of the card once again. That is a great day of golf.

The number of Players Cards is limited, at the time of printing less than 50 remained. How long they last is uncertain as folks know they can save a bunch of cash. The card costs $299 but that’s a fraction of the $850 in golf you get. Log on to CascadeGolfer.com and get your card today. See you on the first tee.

It’s back, and bigger and better than ever. The 2023 Northwest Golfers Playbook once again is packed full of golf savings, making sure you can golf all year long and save as you play.

In addition to the usual suspects -- several of the best tracks in the Northwest such as Gamble Sands, Wine Valley, Suncadia, Apple Tree, White Horse, Port Ludlow – we are happy to see a few new faces, Snohomish, Lakeland Village and Swinomish Golf Links. This is in addition to all our local favorites, too many to list.

Golf is busting out and we are also seeing the indoor golf craze in full bloom. We’ve had several new indoor facilities jump into the book, including Five Iron Golf on Capitol Hill, Lounge by Topgolf in Kirkland, Kutting Edge Fitness in Redmond and Loft Golf out of Olympia.

This is in addition to our NWGPB vets, Golftec, Back 9 Parlor and Pacific Northwest Golf Centers. Oh, and, of course, Puetz Golf. You get $10, as usual, with other offers included.

Whether you live in Seattle, lay your head down up North, or call the South end your home, the NWGPB has a ton of options for you. Plus, if you love to hit the road, we have 18 tracks on the peninsula or across the passes to central and eastern Washington.

What type of offers you ask? Anything goes. If you are looking for 2 for 1’s, 4 for 3’s, percentage discounts, free carts, lessons, range balls, twosome specials, foursome specials…you will find pretty much any offer imaginable in the book.

We are coming off a three-year stretch with so many new players getting involved in the game. Even with courses packed, we are excited to be able to put together a book still jammed with so many great offers. With more than 120 pages of golf deals, you simply need to use a coupon or two and you’re already in the black.

You can purchase a book online for $39.95. Use the code SAVEBIGONGOLF to save another $5. Put the book in your golf bag and count the savings all summer long. Maybe even open it up and find a new course to go play. Either way, pick one up at NWGolfersPlaybook.com and start saving today!

Even if you might not be a basketball fan, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of March Madness, the annual NCAA tournament that engenders as much intensity as it does insanity in its win-or-go-home format.

For Cascade Golfer, our Match Play event might not be in March, but it brings out just as much chaos. One shot can steal a win from the jaws of defeat. That’s what makes it so fun.

A 64-player field begins play at the end of May. The field is then whittled down to the Elite Eight, who advance once again to Salish Cliffs for a two-day tournament in August. This year marks the tournament’s 11th edition.

Like the NCAAs, players are seeded in regions. Your opening match will be against someone in your area with a similar handicap. You and your opponent decide what course to play, and which tees to use. The winner moves on and plays a match every four weeks. Keep winning and the prizes only increase, with the final eight duking it out for two days at one of the great match play courses in our state, Salish Cliffs, where we cover your green fees.

Yes, it’s competitive, but everyone can play because of the handicap system. A qualified handicap is therefore necessary to participate. Low handicappers need to play at their best throughout the tournament because the higher handicappers can occasionally spring up with an exceptional round for the upset.

But consistency pays off as one bad round can lead you to the exit. Whatever the skill level the tournament puts a premium on clutch play. Can you hit the shot when you are tied sitting in the 18th fairway?

The cost to enter (and a Salish Cliffs 2-for-1 deal — a $100 value) is only $90. Keep winning and the prizes only get better. Enter at CGMatchPlay.com and let the fun begin. Log on to CGMatchPlay.com to learn more and register, or email Cascade Golfer Tournament Director Simon Dubiel at simon@cascadegolfer.com with questions. We will see you in the bracket. The only question is how long can you survive?

The Home Course, opened just 16 years ago, has become one of the country’s go-to venues for USGA competitions, and will host the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship event in May.

The DuPont, Wash. facility was built for championship golf and has already co-hosted stroke play rounds for the 2010 U.S. Amateur Championship and 2021 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship alongside Chambers Bay. It also hosted the 2014 Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship, an event that had begun in 1922 but which ended at the Home Course after the USGA decided to replace it with the Four-Ball championship. This year’s edition of the tournament will therefore be the eighth.

“When we held the Men’s Four-Ball with Chambers Bay, we showed the USGA what we were able to do,” says Justin Gravatt, the course’s general manager. “I think that event pushed our name toward the top of their list. We enjoy hosting USGA events. We also host the Canadian Tour Q School annual event, and we’ll stage the PGA Northwest Open the week after the Four-Ball.”

The reason The Home Course is an ideal venue for tournament play is partly because of the perception that it’s playable. The fairways are wide, it rolls well, and the greens are ample and receptive. But it can become championship-tough and show its teeth with tight pin positions and by pushing the tee markers back.

How the USGA will set up the course isn’t certain, but it will be long — somewhere around 6,900 yards (the men played it at around 7,400 yards). That’s plenty of golf course for the women who’ll play in this year’s tournament and who likely average around 260 yards off the tee.

“Instead of hitting a mid or long-iron to the green, they may need to hit a hybrid,” says Gravatt. “That brings the bunkers more into play. It’s the green complexes, not the tee shots, that will be their main challenge. It’s a different perspective when you take a step back. It’s more of a challenge.”

Twenty-six qualifiers were held across the country between August 22 and December 7 last year when entrants could not have a USGA Handicap Index exceeding 14.4. Seven-hundred-and-thirty-two players participated (366 pairs) with 128 (64 pairs) making it through to May’s event to be held from the 13th to the 17th.

The format is essentially two-player best ball. For the first two days it’s stroke play, as each golfer plays her own ball with the best team score recorded for each hole. After stroke play, the field is cut in half with the top 32 teams proceeding into a match play bracket.

As is so often the case these days, many the players who qualified are teenagers. In fact, 80 of the qualifiers are aged 18 or younger. The reason for that might be because the event, generally held in late spring, presents a conflict for many of the top collegiate golfers. Those women are deep into their college schedules and don’t have the opportunity to qualify or play in this event.

High-Schoolers Angela Zhang of Bellevue and her partner Alice Ziyi Zhao of California were among the top qualifiers at the Home Course last September and will start among the favorites. “Angela has been out here at different times for other events,” says Gravatt. “She came through here for the Drive, Chip and Putt event then went on to Augusta National. She played PGA Junior events here too.”

Zhang and Zhao will no doubt be hoping their familiarity with the course proves crucial.

The Home Course, whose essential mission is to be known as the ‘Northwest Golf House,’ has added another element designed to improve every golfer’s game.

On Oct. 22 last year, the 16-year-old facility, cooperatively owned and operated by the Pacific Northwest Golf Association (PNGA) and WA Golf, opened a state-ofthe-art Performance Center adjacent to the driving range. It joined the growing number of indoor facilities in the Northwest where you can work on your game even in the roughest of weather conditions and, so far, the response has been hugely positive.

“We had been talking about it for some time,” says Justin Gravatt, The Home Course’s General Manager. “It’s a teaching and fitting hub for the south Sound. We’re centrally located.”

It’s the next step for The Home Course in its effort to provide a space for all aspects of the Northwest golf community. Under its umbrella, the club has plans to build a facility housing the PNGA, WA Golf, and local USGA offices as well as a junior golf association plus a turfgrass research and environmental stewardship department.

The Performance Center features the GC Quad System by Foresight Sports which uses four cameras to record shot data. “The focus is on the clubhead,” says Gravatt. “It’s a great tool for fitting.”

The GC Quad is the only launch monitor on the market to use Quadrascopic Imaging and, says Foresight Sports, delivers the most accurate and detailed image of ball and club head performance in the industry.

There are two hitting bays in the teaching center with 14-foot-high garage doors that open out on to range. The facility is heated so the teaching can go on year-round. There’s also the fitting system for putting called L.A.B. (Lie Angle Balance), which is designed to keep the putter balanced and completely square to the target for repeatable strokes.

The Performance Center is headed by PGA Professional John Cassidy along with PGA instructors Mitch Runge and Shane Prante.

The Home Course is one of just a handful of courses around the country that was developed and is operated by state golfing associations. It welcomes tournaments of virtually any size, mostly amateur.

Three USGA events have been held there with a fourth — the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship — scheduled for May 13-17. The course, designed by the late Mike Asmundson and opened in 2007, also holds national and Canadian qualifiers as well as annual WA Golf and PNGA championships.

At some point during the night of December 23rd last year, a lateral irrigation line short and to the left of the 15th green at Chambers Bay burst, sending thousands of gallons of water rushing down the hill and onto the putting surface. Water takes the path of least resistance, obviously, so this sudden deluge began to erode the sand core beneath the poa annua turf.

This, says Casey Kalbrenner of Ridgetop Golf which was hired to mitigate the impact and restore the characteristics and dimensions of the green, created large washouts under the existing turf and carried rocks, debris, etc. into the green cavity. “When breaks like this happen,” Kalbrenner adds, “the damage can be extreme, especially on sandy sites like those at Chambers Bay.”

It meant visitors to the 2015 U.S. Open venue had to play a 17-hole course as the 15th is one of the course’s few holes with no viable alternate location. “We had a lot of conversations as a team about other modifications to provide 18 holes,” says General Manager Zac Keen- er. “But all of these would either modify another hole — thereby impacting two holes or would have dramatic flow/pace-of-play impacts.”

It took a couple of weeks for Director of Agronomy, Eric Johnson, and Senior Assistant Superintendent, Heather Schapals, to prepare the ground for the arrival of Ridgetop on Jan. 20, the highly respected golf course construction and renovation company that has worked on dozens of courses throughout the Northwest.

Kalbrenner didn’t really know what to expect but went in fearing the worst and “hopefully then being able to adapt to a much smaller scale of work.” Fortunately, Kalbrenner adds, there was no damage to the existing drainage or pea gravel layer which, according to the USGA, “allows the rapid movement of excess water out of the rootzone and into drainage pipes”.

“The impact was only contamination to the greens mix,” says Kalbrenner. “So, our next job was to excavate out all of the contaminated materials. This was rough- ly 30 percent of the green. Then we imported the new greens mix.”

The challenge here was to match the compactions and get a consistent soil profile throughout the green. So Kalbrenner, and Ridgetop’s other employee on-site Josh Jahns, tilled the complete green and tied it all in together when the complete regrade of the surface needed to happen.

Using the most up to date Straka data (shows the existing percentage slopes), Kalbrenner matched the new contours to the old as closely as possible. He and Jahns were on-site for about five days and left once architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr., had approved the work (and added a little more pin-able space). Sod was then brought in from Chambers’s own nursery, and Johnson, together with his maintenance team, took over to ensure a smooth grow-in.

Keener says that at some point in March, when consistent growing temperatures arrive, he will be able to provide a timeline for reopening.

Michelle Wicks Cypher and her husband Michael, travel agents who have been fashioning golf trips all over the world for nearly a decade now, have put their expertise together for what they hope will be an ultimate golf trip in May 2024 to Cancun.

The couple, who run the Travel There and Back agency in Monroe, Wash., are taking orders for a fournight, five-day stay at Moon Palace Cancun, a five-star, all-inclusive resort on the Caribbean. There is a 27-hole Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course on the Moon Palace property that participants will play.

“We wanted to do this before COVID,” says Michelle. “But travel is coming back and we’re happy to be part of this.”

The event is planned for May 2-6, 2024. Golfers will play the Moon Palace course each day except Saturday, when they’ll move over to the nearby Riviera Cancun Golf and Resort course, also a Nicklaus-design.

Moon Palace is a massive 1,300-room property right on the beach. Six large pools, all interconnected, feature swim-up bars, a FlowRider double surf simulator, and a kids’ pool with slides and water features. Tennis courts, pickleball courts, basketball courts and a mini-golf course are dotted throughout the property. There are nightly theater shows, a dance club and 11 restaurants. The Moon Palace also connects to the Grand Palace next door.

It’s an all-inclusive property, which means all food and drinks are included in the up-front price. The golf is also unlimited. If golfers want to play more than one round in a day, they can schedule that, sunrise to sunset. For any accompanying non-golfer, the Cyphers have secured a $250 credit that can be used for the full-service Awe Spa.

The cost of the trip is $1,995 per person, based on double occupancy (air fare not included). “We were happy we could get it at that price,” Michelle adds.

The trip is open to anyone, though it will likely have a decidedly Northwest flavor. The Cyphers will promote it through golf shows from Seattle to Kansas City to Connecticut and, of course, through Cascade Golfer which reaches more than 100,000 readers in this region.

The Cyphers have operated the Travel There and Back agency for the past eight years, offering all varieties of travel packages including golf tours which have gradually become a prominent part of the business.

The company has put together hundreds of trips to Scotland and Ireland so customers can play the ancient links courses. They have put people on some of the best courses in the world, but golf takes up only four-five hours a day which means the Cyphers need to find enjoyable ways for people to fill the rest of the day.

Golf may be the connecting factor for many in the group but, invariably, some non-golfers are along for the culture, climate or cuisine. Those interests need to be accommodated in some fashion so that no one feels they are giving up their vacation for the benefit of others.

Travel There and Back takes pride in offering a variety of side trips and adventures, such as museum visits, beer and/or whiskey tours, glassblowing or cooking classes. The Cyphers can also set clients up with ancestry experts. They’ve planned golf trips to Africa that might include a safari and domestic golf trips to eastern Washington, Oregon and California (with the obligatory wine-tastings, of course).

The couple has developed a system of ‘travel fittings,’ in which all the vital questions are asked/answered. After a sit-down session, they determine what the priority is for each traveler. Then, working within the travelers’ budgets, they assemble travel packages based on their interests and what they might find interesting.

For more information on the Moon Palace trip, you can contact Travel There and Back at Michelle@travelthereandback.com or call 425-361-5212. There is a discount for anyone signing up for the trip before March 31.