The world of golf loses an icon – “Sandy” Tatum is dead at 96

Stanford men’s golf alumnus, distinguished lawyer, president of the USGA (1978 – 1980), and savior of Harding Park golf course—Frank Donovan “Sandy” Tatum left behind quite a legacy when he died Thursday morning, 2-1/2 weeks short of his 97 birthday.

Tatum, who was born in Los Angeles on July 10, 1920, grew up playing golf at the likes of the Wilshire and Bel Air country clubs. Tatum’s father was a serious golfer, and the son grew up to have a strong passion and reverence for the game.

An outstanding player on the Stanford University men’s golf team, Tatum lettered in golf for three straight years beginning in 1940, was a member of the national championship teams in ’41 and ’42, and won the individual NCAA Championship in 1942. Tatum, Tiger Woods (1996) and Cameron Wilson (2014) are the only Stanford men to have won the individual title—a feat which earned Tatum a spot in the Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and a Rhodes scholar, Tatum was the first American to play golf for Oxford University.

In the Bay Area, Tatum is perhaps best known and respected for his role in the design of The Links at Spanish Bay, in Pebble Beach, and the renovation of San Francisco’s Harding Park Golf Course (now known as TPC Harding Park).

Harding, now a tree-lined beauty surrounded by Lake Merced in the southwest quadrant of the city, had, by the late 1990s, deteriorated into a weedy eyesore in the wake of years of neglect. The course was in such poor condition that no one batted an eye when the fairways were pressed into duty as parking for the 1998 U.S. Open being held at the nearby Olympic Club.

Though he held memberships at such distinguished, and exclusive, private clubs as Cypress Point and San Francisco Golf Club, Tatum had for many years played in the San Francisco City Championship, the longest-running municipal championship tournament in the United States. Played at Harding Park and other city venues, the SFCC has long been regarded as a bastion of egalitarian amateur golf, a tradition which Tatum had grown to revere.

Throwing himself into the midst of often-labyrinthine San Francisco politics, and allied with then-Mayor Willie Brown, and Michael Cohen, who was San Francisco’s city attorney at the time, Tatum was instrumental in bringing about a near-miraculous turnaround in the venerable course’s fortunes.

Though it ran $7 million over budget, for which Tatum was roundly criticized, the renovation project elevated Harding Park to a world-class venue which has generated millions of dollars worth of income for city coffers, notably from professional events such as the 2005 American Express Championship, the 2009 President’s Cup, the 2013 Charles Schwab Cup Championship, and the 2015 WGC Match Play Championship. The resurrection of Harding Park was one of the achievements that saw Tatum inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.

Tatum’s influence in the world of golf extended well beyond the bounds of the Bay Area. He served as president of the USGA in the ’70s, and was a member of the organization’s executive committee from 1972 to 1980.

It was during this time that Tatum achieved a measure of worldwide notoriety (well, at least in the golf world) when he directed the setup of famed Winged Foot Golf Club in New York for the 1974 U.S. Open. The narrowed fairways, deep rough, and greens running at roughly the speed of your kitchen floor that are typical of a U.S. Open added up to a 7-over par winning score for eventual champion Hale Irwin. Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson finished at +12, Tom Kite and Gary Player at +13, and Jack Nicklaus at +14.

Players had so much trouble with the course, and scores were so high, that the event was dubbed “The Massacre at Winged Foot”. Some of the players in the field complained that the USGA had made the setup so severe in order to embarrass them. Tatum’s response to the complaint was classic: “We’re not trying to embarrass the best players in the game. We’re trying to identify them.”

No one anecdote can sum up the life of a man like Sandy Tatum, but that one comes close, I think—at least within the scope of the world of golf. He was idealistic, and dedicated to the ideals he held with respect to the game. He was one of golf’s champions, both on and off the course, over a long and successful life, and the game of golf, and the community of people who also love that game, are poorer for his passing.

Return to the Ocean Course – Half Moon Bay Golf Links lures me back

I first played the Ocean Course at Half Moon Bay Golf Links some five years ago, and again, once or twice, in the next couple of years. Realizing that I hadn’t visited in at least three years, I recently booked a tee time there, taking advantage of the combination of their very friendly twilight rates and the long days as the summer solstice approaches.

Half Moon Bay Golf Links’ combination of a classic linksland golf course – the Ocean Course – and the traditional sunset piper may have you thinking you’re playing a round at the home of golf and not in Northern California.Photo courtesy The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

Everything was as I remembered it from earlier visits. The service at the pro shop is exemplary, from check-in to getting your clubs secured in your cart. The course conditions during my recent visit were similarly top-notch. Helped, no doubt, by the past winter’s abundant rain, the fairways and greens were in beautiful shape, and even the rough and native areas were manageable (don’t ask me how I know this…).

As I mentioned in my 2013 article on the Ocean Course, the sister layout to Half Moon Bay’s Arnold-Palmer-designed Old Course is as close to true Scottish links golf as I think you are likely to find on the West Coast. The coastal shelf which lies between the crashing Pacific surf and the Coast Range hills in long, intermittent stretches from as far north as Mendocino to south of Big Sur is perhaps a bit more fertile than the semi-barren linksland which sheep—and bored Scottish shepherds—transformed into the home of golf, but the rolling terrain, fescue turf, and wind-dominated weather present a reasonable facsimile of the ancestral conditions.

There is one small drawback to a twilight round on the Ocean Course, and it’s dictated by a convergence of the course’s physical layout and its geographic setting. We think of the sun setting straight away from the shoreline on the Pacific Coast, but as the sun approaches its most northerly position in the sky in the run up to the solstice, that’s not strictly true, and the golden orb sinks into the sea 30-odd degrees north of west. While the coastline runs almost exactly north and south at Half Moon Bay, the sun is setting further north—and several of the holes on the Ocean Course are laid out at angles that line up almost directly into the setting sun. If you are having a less-than-straight driving day, those into-the-sun tee shots and approach shots, especially on the back nine, can be problematic.

Golf is an outdoor activity, though, so we expect weather and light conditions that are not always ideal—it’s part of the game. Awareness of weather conditions and how they can affect play are part of the deal, and part of what makes golf such a challenging and, ultimately, satisfying game. In the end, what counts is the whole experience, and the Ocean Course at Half Moon Bay Golf Links provides a rare and very satisfying golf experience. The wide, inviting fairways present challenges by way of subtle contours and uneven lies, and the smooth-rolling greens require a bit of close study to determine the breaks and the true line to the hole.

I love a good American Parkland-style golf course (like Half Moon Bay’s Old Course), but the Ocean course is a nice look at the other side of golf – virtually treeless, with close-cropped fescue turf that invites the running game when windy conditions dictate it; and all without the cost of a flight to Scotland! The Ocean course will challenge you, without a doubt; with slopes ranging from 119 (red tees) to 136 (whites, for women) it is definitely a course which demands respect, but which also rewards good play.

Golfers contend for spots in the U.S. National Championships on golf’s “longest day”

The calendar tells us that 2017’s longest day is still a couple of weeks away, but for over a thousand golfers across the United States and in England and Japan, June 5 was the longest day – the day that they would play 36 holes of golf in hopes of earning a spot in the USGA’s two biggest national championships, the U.S. Open and Women’s Open.

Nine hundred hopefuls vie for 72 spots in the ’17 U.S. Open

On the men’s side, 753 players at ten locations across the USA; 111 in England, at Walton Heath Golf Club; and 36 in Japan, at Ono Golf Club, teed it up in sectional qualifying tournaments on Monday, June 5 in hopes of earning a spot in the field at the 117th United States Open, held the week of Fathers Day at Erin Hills Golf Club in Wisconsin. 900 hopeful players, but only 72 – a scant eight out of 100 – would earn their way to the Big Show.

Those 900 players already represent the cream of the crop, because to get to sectionals they had to have either survived local qualifying in the dozens of tournaments that were held between May 2nd and May 18th, or be exempt from local qualifying based on their standing in the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR).

California’s sectional qualifying venue alternates between the northern and southern halves of the state; this year it was Southern California’s turn to host the event, at Newport Beach Golf Club and Big Canyon Golf Club, in Newport Beach. Among the 103 players at the SoCal venue were five from the May 16th local qualifier at The Preserve Golf Club in Carmel – medalist Luke Vivolo, John Crater, Mac McClung, Christopher Marin and first alternate Erick Justesen, in place of the absent J.R. Warthen.

After rounds on the par-71 Newport Beach course and par-72 Big Canyon course, it was amateur players who ruled the day in the California qualifier. Five of the six qualifiers from Newport Beach/Big Canyon were amateurs, led by medalist John Oda, a native of Honolulu who is playing college golf for the UNLV Running Rebels. Oda, a rising senior at UNLV, carded rounds of 64 and 68 at Newport Beach and Big Canyon, respectively, to take top honors with an 11-under 32, two strokes ahead of Arizona’s Mason Andersen, an incoming freshman at Arizona State University.

Five of the six qualifiers form the Newport Beach/Big Canyon sectional qualifier pose in front of the scoreboard. from L to R: medalist John Oda, Mason Andersen, Stewart Hagestad, Sahith Theegala, and Kevin Dougherty (Copyright USGA/JD Cuban)

Next among the qualifiers from Newport Beach, with an 8-under 135, was local player Stewart Hagestad, a 2013 USC graduate. Hagestad is the reigning U.S. Mid-Am champion, and in April became the first Mid-Am champion to make the cut at the Masters – and topped that accomplishment two days later by taking Low Amateur honors at the prestigious event. Pepperdine University sophomore Sahith Theegala was a stroke back of Hagestad with a 136-stroke total, followed by the lone professional in the group, Torrance, CA, native Kevin Dougherty, a 2014 graduate of Oklahoma State.

Northern California was represented by the final qualifier, Sacramento’s Cameron Champ, a junior at Texas A & M, who survived a one-hole playoff against Stanford’s Brandon Wu to take the final spot. Danville, CA, native Wu was the medalist at the May 3rd local qualifier at Yocha Dehe Golf Club in Brooks, CA. Champ and Wu only had a shot at a transfer spot at all because of a late change from five to six qualifiers at the SoCal venue, the result of withdrawals from the Columbia, Ohio, sectional qualifier.

Women take on Lake Merced Golf Club for a chance at the distaff championship

The smaller number of women vying for spots in the U.S. Women’s Open precludes the necessity for local qualifying; the 1,709 contestants who entered are playing for their chance between May 22nd and June 12th at 21 courses across the United States, as well as one each in England, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the People’s Republic of China. The women’s championship will be held in Bedminster, New Jersey, July 13 – 16.

Lake Merced Golf Club, in Daly City, hosted one of six sectional events that were held on June 5th. This was the eighth sectional qualifier for Lake Merced, which hosted the 1990 U.S. Amateur and 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior championships. Seventy-seven contestants took on the tough par-72 LMGC layout, vying for two qualifying spots.

Emily Childs, a professional hailing from Alameda, was the medalist at LMGC, carding an even-par 144 total with rounds of 70 and 74. Childs, a former Cal golfer, was the 2010 NCGA Women’s Amateur champion.

Danville’s Ty Akabane, a member of the NCGA’s Junior Tour of Northern California, carded a pair of 2-over 74’s to move on to the Women’s Open.

Andrea Lee of Hermosa Beach and Danville’s Sarah Banke each carded 5-over totals of 149, just one stroke shy of a potential playoff with Akabane for the second spot.