Cleveland RTX-4: A versatile performer from a well-known name in wedges

The Cleveland RTX-4 wedge line has been on the market for a few months now, and you have probably already read a number of reviews of this new offering from Cleveland Golf. I might not have bothered to add to the list, but I have enjoyed this club so much that I felt that I had to chime in.

Of course, Cleveland Golf is a name that golfers associate very strongly with wedges. Roger Cleveland, who now designs wedges for Callaway Golf, built the company largely on the quality of the wedges they produced. Now a part of the Srixon family, Cleveland continues to produce innovative products that keep the company on the leading edge of the wedge market.

The RTX-4 features “Tour Zip” grooves, which Cleveland describes as “sharper and deeper” (though we all know that the USGA and R & A define groove configuration limits); laser face milling in the spaces between the grooves that takes face roughness right to the conforming limit; and additional Rotex face milling that extends to the toe of the club for that extra little bit of bite.

I was lucky enough to obtain an RTX-4 test club from Amazon.com through their Amazon Vine program. The club I got for review is a bog-standard mid-bounce 56/10 Cleveland RTX-4 in the Tour Satin finish, with a Golf Pride Tour Velvet grip on a True Temper Dynamic Golf Tour Issue shaft—straight-up, no bells and whistles. It felt good in my hands as soon as I took it out of the box, and that good feeling carried over to its performance on the golf course.

The Mid-Bounce grind is advertised as being suitable for medium to soft conditions (which describes my usual daily-fee course to a tee) for players who want stability on full shots and who like to open the face when the shot warrants. I played the RTX-4 from sand, rough and fairway lies, and was very happy with its performance. It flowed smoothly through moderate rough, glided cleanly across tight fairway lies, and worked through the not-always-ideal sand conditions in my local course’s bunkers with ease.

While I am a decent wedge player, I have never had the kind of wedge shot that zips the ball back on a string—I just don’t get that kind of super-spin on the ball with my slightly shallow angle of attack. The combination of swing weight (D5), well-situated center of mass, and optimized face milling in the RTX-4 seemed to suit me, however, and I was hitting beautiful drop-and-stop shots from bunkers and on short-approach fairway shots, with both straight and open face.

A nice illustration of the RTX-4’s drop-and-stop capabilities. This was a straight-face, 3/4-swing, 80-yard approach from a fairway lie to a slightly elevated green (≈six feet). (Photo by author.)

The Mid-Bounce RTX-4 is available in 2° loft increments from 46° to 60°, with the Full grind in 56° to 60°, Low in 56° to 64°, and Extra-Low in 58° to 62°. Retailing for $139.99, the RTX-4 is available in Tour Satin, Black Satin, Tour Raw finishes. A wide range of optional shafts are offered, in both steel and graphite; numerous grip options are available, as are loft, lie, and grip customization, all at additional cost.

As the most versatile grind in the RTX-4 range, the Mid-Bounce is probably the best all-around choice for most golfers. The RTX-4 is recommended for low- to mid-handicap golfers (three dots on their four-dot low-to-high handicap range), but it suited this 24-handicap player quite well.

Bay Area golf fans face a decision next September

2019 holds the promise of being a very good year for Bay Area golf fans. The 119th U.S. Open will be played at Pebble Beach Golf Links, in the storied seaside course’s centennial year; a new PGA Tour event sponsored by the Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry will appear on the schedule, played at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City†; and the LPGA will return with the second year of the reboot of their Bay Area tournament of recent years, also at Lake Merced.

However, a week before the Steph Curry event, in the last week of September, Bay Area golf fans will have a decision to make. In late September, as the 2019-2020 PGA Tour season is starting up, and the 2019 PGA Champions season is winding down, both tours will be playing in Northern California, at the same time, 160 miles apart. The PGA Tour will be kicking things off with the Safeway Open, at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, and the PGA Champions will be bringing along the next generation of golfers in the PURE Insurance Championship Impacting the First Tee, at Pebble Beach and Poppy Hills in the Del Monte Forest.

How did this happen? Aren’t the PGA Tour and the PGA Champions part of the same organization? Do their scheduling people talk to each other? Do they own a calendar—and a map?

Call it a first-world problem for Bay Area golf fans: Which world-class destination do we head to that week to watch golf—the Silverado Resort & Spa in America’s most venerated wine region, the Napa Valley; or Pebble Beach, the ne plus ultra of American public golf, on the picturesque Monterey Peninsula? Do we want to see the young guns of the PGA Tour (but probably few, if any, big stars), or the old-pro PGA Champions, playing alongside youngsters the same age as their grandkids?

What’s a golf fan to do?

Actually, there’s no wrong answer here—either choice results in a great time at a beautiful venue. Late September is prime time for visiting either the California coast or the Napa Valley; the weather is ideal: neither too hot nor too cold, generally sunny and clear, and there’s rarely any fog at the coast. It’s a shame that this scheduling conflict prevents local golf fans from possibly enjoying two weeks of great golf, but we’re still lucky that we have the choice of these two great events at beautiful destination venues.

† (Correction: In early January it was announced that talks with the potential title sponsor of the Steph Curry-sponsored event, Workday, had fallen through, and that the event would not be held in 2019. There is hope that the event will appear in the schedule in 2020, potentially at TPC Harding Park, in San Francisco.)

Review: “Sports Makes You Type Faster”, by Dan Jenkins ⭐️⭐️⭐️-1/2

Uneven offering from the dean of living American sportswriters

It can be difficult to see someone you have admired for decades – a parent or other relative, an athlete, or a writer or performer whose work you have enjoyed – start to decline, losing the powers of mind and body that were the reasons you looked up to them. I find myself in just that position with regard to Dan Jenkins, the quick-witted dean of American sports writing; and I present as evidence his most recent book, Sports Makes You Type Faster.

Dan has always cultivated something of a curmudgeonly persona, and it was his somewhat world-weary, even cynical, outlook, and his eye for the absurd, which attracted me to his work when I first started reading his books in the mid-’80s. In the last few years, however, and in his last couple of books, the inner curmudgeon has manifested itself more and more strongly, and it comes through in full force in many of the essays which comprise his latest book. He falls back, especially in the first part of the book, on tired clichés, and geezer-esque, get-off-my-lawn-style rants against PC-ism and liberals

He has arranged the essays in the book—most of which are new, with a few warmed-over and updated pieces mixed in—into two major groups: team sports, and individual sports, working, in order, from football (pro and college), basketball, baseball, soccer, and hockey to golf (the high point of the book, in my opinion), tennis, winter sports (skiing and skating, mostly), track and field, boxing, and auto racing.

The essays range from the snarky third-person pieces he often does which are cast in the voice of a pro football owner or coach, or a pro athlete; to otherwise thoughtful essays on the state of college football or golf (the two sports where his interest mainly lies, and where he shines brightest) that are peppered with rants about the “PC crowd” and liberal professors, etc.

Dan is at his best when he tunes in to thoughtful, nostalgic reminiscence about the past. The chapter entitled, “When The Furniture Talked”, about the days of sports broadcasting in radio, is one of the finest pieces in the book. Part Two, which turns from team sports to individual sports, starts a little weak, with the golf piece “The Tour Stop”, which is a rework of a piece that appeared in his 1994 collection, Fairways and Greens (updated with current players’ names), but picks up three chapters later, with ponderings on the old days in Beware: Rascals Loose, and the following few essays in which he waxes nostalgic about Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, and Dan’s own amazing, never-to-be-equaled run of 230 majors covered. The book continues on a pretty good run from there, as Dan gets onto the subjects of tennis, skiing, track and field, boxing—even airplane racing.

The pieces in the second half are, on the whole, gentler and more thoughtful than those in the first half. I would go so far as to say that the second half saves the book, but all in all, I will stop short of calling Sports Makes You Type Faster a must-have book, except for the most ardent Dan Jenkins aficionado. For the golf-centric reader I recommend tracking down a copy of 1994’s Fairways and Greens, a more recent collection entitled Unplayable Lies, or his classic collection of golf writing, The Dogged Victims of Inexorable Fate.

Caddie stories: Like my miss off the tee, they work both ways

Caddies have to put up with a lot of nonsense. Toting staff bags for big-dollar resort golfers whose lack of skill is matched only by their excess of ego, searching for errant drives, reading three-foot putts for double-bogey, etc., they do it all, and have seen it all. It should come as no surprise, then, that the website The Caddie Network should put together an article on the best (funniest, most caustic…) caddie one-liners recorded or overheard on the golf course. Written up by the website’s Director of Content, T.J. Auclair, the article lists the 23 best caddie one-liners they had ever heard, and had me laughing out loud from #23 on.

Funny as the anecdotes are, however, you will notice that some of them are pretty harsh, and indicative of a certain lack of, shall we say, forbearance and perspective on the part of the loopers. I guess that you can’t fault them for developing a cynical outlook, but there are times when the bag-toters themselves deserve a little comeuppance.

Personally, I haven’t had much experience with caddies. I am more of a muni golfer, but through my writing efforts I have lucked into opportunities to play some pretty cool courses—higher-end layouts than my budget would normally support—where caddie service was provided. One such circumstance was when I played Pebble Beach for an assignment—yes, I actually got paid to play Pebble Beach—and had a little run-in with a caddie whose cynical outlook cried out for a response:

In 2014 I was approached by the media company which was producing the Monterey Convention and Visitors Bureau’s guide book—the big glossy magazine you find in hotel rooms with information on restaurants, attractions, etc., in the area—to write an article about playing Pebble Beach for the first time. The project was postponed to the next year because: 1) I had never played Pebble Beach, so it would have been fiction; and 2) there wasn’t time before the publication deadline to arrange a tee time for me.

So, the next summer they approached me again. I was told that a tee time would be arranged, with this proviso—the green fee would be deducted from my payment for the article. I agreed—but not too eagerly, wanting to avoid setting a dangerous precedent—and a week or so later I showed up at Pebble, parking my 15-year-old Volkswagen well away from the Jags, BMWs and Range Rovers arrayed along the road, and presented myself at the pro shop.

I had been slotted in with a threesome, three friends—businessmen from Kentucky and Tennessee—who were out here on a buddy trip. They had hired two caddies between them, and true to my muni-golf roots (and to avoid spending what was left of my fee on a caddy and tip…), I was carrying my own bag.

My round got off to a rough start—first-tee jitters—when I teed the ball up too high for my four-hybrid and hooked my tee shot off of the wall behind one of the houses that use to line the left side of the first fairway (before the new Fairway One development went in.) I found the ball with some help from one of the caddies, but it was not an auspicious start.

I had mixed results over the next few holes—for example, I made par on #2 after getting on in two, and then three-putting, on the first par-5 on the course; and I put down an “X” on #6 after losing the tee shot right and the next shot left.

At # 8, the spectacular par-4 with the well-known second shot over the cove—the “greatest second shot in golf” according to Jack Nicklaus—I pulled my tee shot somewhere into the no-man’s-land between the sixth and eighth fairways, but true to my “Second-Shot Hall of Fame” credentials, after reloading, I pured a 3-wood shot to beautiful position in the left side of the fairway, where I had 175 yards on a perfect line to the friendly, center-of-the-green flag.

One of the threesome’s caddies, the same one who had helped me find my ball on the first hole, came over while I was checking the yardage with my rangefinder, and said, “You know, there’s that nice layup area short of the green. You can hit it there and leave a nice pitch to the flag.”

Now, I know that I hadn’t been showing great chops on the holes we had played so far, but this remark kinda got up my nose, and I might have sounded a tiny bit teed-off when I responded with, “What makes you think I can’t hit that green?” I didn’t wait for an answer, and pulling my Taylormade five-hybrid, I lofted a beauty of a shot (one of my best of the day, if I say so myself…) that landed, and stayed, low on the green, pretty much straight below the flag. I two-putted for a six—net par—but it felt like an actual par despite the lousy tee shot and the lost ball.

That caddie and I got along great for the rest of the round—not least of all because he didn’t offer me any more advice.

Greatest comeback in golf? Don’t even talk to me about Tiger Woods…

When the final putt dropped at East Lake in the 2018 PGA Tour finale, cementing Tiger Woods’ 80th career PGA Tour victory–in the Tour Championship, no less–the expected chorus started up: “What an achievement! Greatest comeback in golf!” It was a comeback, and it was pretty good—but great, let alone greatest ever? Excuse me while I scoff…

Now, I’m not going to diminish Tiger’s achievement in winning the Tour Championship tournament. He returned from potentially career-ending back issues, after four surgeries; after developing cringe-worthy glitches in his short game; and after a general downturn in his game as a whole, to cap a 19-event season with a win in the final tournament of the year, against a field which consisted of the 30 survivors from the Top 125 of the 2016-2017 season.

Tiger started this season in December 2017, in his own event, the Hero Challenge (for which he didn’t qualify on the numbers, but, you know—he knew a guy…); he played a total of 18 official tournaments, made 14 cuts (the WGC-Bridgestone, and the Tour Championship were no-cut events, and he missed the cut in the Genesis Open and the U. S. Open), with a win, a second, seven top 10 and 12 top 25 finishes. Not bad for a guy whom many people had written off just a few months before.

But… does this constitute the “greatest comeback in golf history” as many folks, fans and media alike, are calling it? Does it really compare to Hogan’s recovery from life-threatening injuries sustained in a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus? Many of those who put Tiger’s return on a par with, or above, Hogan’s comeback are adding into the account his personal (marital) problems as well, with the resultant bad publicity, and his relegation to counseling for a “sex addiction” (AKA the inability to not be a horndog like his imminently unlikable father.)

Me, I don’t think it counts if you threw yourself in front of the metaphorical bus that hit you…

Ben Hogan’s crash occurred on the morning of February 2nd, 1949,  on Highway 80 just outside of Van Horn, Texas. The poor visibility due to foggy conditions had Hogan moving along cautiously at no more than 30 miles per hour. Despite the conditions, a Greyhound bus with an inexperienced 27-year-old driver at the wheel was passing a truck on a narrow bridge. Hemmed in by the concrete bridge abutments, Hogan had nowhere to go. At the last moment, he flung himself to the right to shield his wife—and in the process, saved his own life, as the steering column speared the space where he had just been.

Let’s look at what Hogan endured in the wake of that horrific collision: a broken pelvis (in two places), a fractured collar bone, a broken left ankle, extensive damage to his left leg, and a broken rib.

This is what the Cadillac that Ben Hogan and his wife,Valerie, were driving looked like after a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus.

He was in the hospital for 59 days. Doctors detected potentially fatal blood clots in his legs, and in the absence of the modern anti-clotting medicines that we now have, an eminent thoracic surgeon was flown in from New Orleans to perform a radical procedure—tying off Hogan’s vena cava (the major vein which returns blood to the heart from the legs.) The resultant poor circulation would plague Hogan for the rest of his life, requiring him to wrap his legs in elastic bandages from calf to thigh every day that he played golf.

In a recent weekly round table on the subject of Tiger’s return to form, golf writer Josh Sens, of Golf.com, wrote, “Hogan got badly injured and then recovered to dominate on much, much less competitive terrain. Tiger fell much farther and rose much higher in return.”

This is an interesting take, given that there are those who credit Tiger’s dominating years to competing in an era of weak players (for the record—I don’t agree with that assessment.); it also gives short shrift to Hogan and the level of skill of the players on the Tour at the time. Regardless, it is a futile exercise to make absolute comparisons of performance across eras. The competition was what it was, and each player’s record must be evaluated within the appropriate context.

As far as falling farther, whether you take that in the context of physical injury or level of dominance in the game pre-injury, it just doesn’t wash.

Tiger’s dominating years were put in the rearview mirror in 2009 when his marriage hit the rocks and his Escalade hit a fire hydrant. He had racked up 31 wins in the five seasons preceding those events, including six majors.

Hogan’s solo-win total for a similar time period preceding his accident was 41, including 11 wins in 1944, with three majors.

And what about rising “much higher in return.”?

Post-hydrant, Tiger had two winless seasons in 2010 and 2011, then a mini-comeback with three and five wins, respectively, in 2012 and 2013, before another round of back injuries and personal complications brought on the longest winless stretch of his career, from 2014 to 2017. In his much lauded return to the U.S. Ryder Cup squad, in the week following his Tour Championship victory, he went winless in four matches, bumping his overall losing record of 13-17-3 to 13-21-3.

By contrast, Hogan, returning from a level of physical injury that far surpassed Tiger’s, and contending with continuing physical problems that limited his participation to a select list of events that included the majors and the Colonial Invitation (in his home town of Fort Worth, Texas), won the U.S. Open in the year following his car crash. He had 11 wins in the six years following his accident, of which six were majors—three U.S. Opens (two of them back to back), two Masters, and a British Open. Oh, and three of those majors, his “Triple Crown”, came in 1953, when he won the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the British Open, the first such string of major victories since Bobby Jones won the U.S. and British Amateurs and Opens in 1930. Hogan was named non-playing captain of the 1949 U.S. Ryder Cup squad, which defeated the British team 7 and 5; two years later he played on the again-victorious U.S. squad, winning both of his matches in the 9-1/2 – 2-1/2 victory over the British team.

So, Tiger comes back from essentially self-inflicted back injuries (a result of the violent action of his swing), a bad marriage, and the yips to win again—and OK, against a pretty stiff field—once, at the end of a 19-event season. Hogan came back from life-threatening injuries, and after doctors predicted that he would never walk again, let alone play golf, let alone play championship golf—went on to win 11 times in the next five years, including six majors.

So, you tell me—who made the better comeback?

Book review: “The Prodigy”, by John Feinstein ⭐⭐⭐-1/2

I have been aware of John Feinstein’s writing, especially his golf writing, for many years; in fact, his 1996 chronicle of a season on the PGA Tour, A Good Walk Spoiled, was my introduction to non-fiction reading about professional golf. Though I have concentrated on his golf writing, Feinstein has written several well-regarded books on basketball, baseball, and football—and I have only recently learned that he has also authored a series of sports-related YA (young adult) novels, including the recent release, The Prodigy, the first of his books for younger readers on the subject of golf.

The Prodigy is the new YA sports novel from John Feinstein—his first that is set in the world of golf.

The Prodigy is the somewhat fanciful tale of a 17-year-old golf phenom named Frank Baker, a nice kid from a small town in Connecticut who has amazing golf skills. The book is set in the recent past—2017 and early 2018, to be exact—and we pick up the story when Frank is preparing to play in the 2017 U.S. Amateur at Riviera Country Club, in the upscale Los Angeles-area city of Pacific Palisades.

Frank is being raised by his father, Tom, a divorced single parent who is a freelance stock trader—and a full-time golf dad. Frank is looking forward to playing college golf, and given his record, which includes making it to the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur the previous year at the age of 16, he is assured of a multitude of offers, from the best programs in the country. His father, on the other hand, has his eyes on a different prize.

Frank’s prowess on the golf course has attracted attention from more than just college coaches; agents and equipment company reps have shown interest, and the book’s story arc is built around the conflict that arises when Frank’s dad gets too cozy with an agent from a big sports-representation firm. Frank is under pressure from his dad and the agent to forgo a college career and turn pro. The pressure gets more intense when the youngster earns a spot in the field at the 2018 Masters, heating up even more when Frank shows that he can keep up with the big boys on one of the biggest stages in the game of golf.

There are two people in Frank’s corner in all of the drama surrounding his college / pro dilemma: his swing coach, Slugger Johnson—the head pro at Frank’s home course; and Slugger’s longtime friend and college golf teammate, Keith Forman, a former low-level pro golfer turned golf writer. Forman’s involvement raises journalistic dilemmas for him as he finds himself becoming part of Frank’s story—even coming into conflict with Frank’s father and the ever-present agent—and not just a dispassionate observer who is reporting the story.

Feinstein creates an air of conflict that the Keith Forman character has to work through, describing a number of rather hostile encounters between Forman and tournament volunteers and security personnel, even citing a USGA training session for marshals in which media-badge holders are singled out as untrustworthy (based on a real experience of Feinstein’s—I guess I had better watch my P’s and Q’s the next time I’m at a USGA event on a media credential!)

The conflict between Frank (with Slugger and Keith in his corner), and his dad and the agent, along with his extraordinary play at one of the most high-profile golf tournaments in the world, are the main factors that combine to bring the action to a dramatic conclusion at the 2018 Masters.

One thing you can be sure of in a John Feinstein book is the insider’s touch. Feinstein knows everybody in the game, from players to agents, equipment reps, media folks, and officials and functionaries from the USGA and the PGA Tour. This knowledge is on full display in The Prodigy, to the extent that it starts to feel like rather gratuitous name-dropping. Players, including big names like Phil Mickelson, Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, and Justin Thomas, not only have cameos, they play significant roles in the story, interacting with Frank and the other characters.

And it’s not just players, though they are the most recognizable names. Some of the other real-life names that are dropped include golf media personalities from TV, print journalists, and behind-the-scenes folks from the USGA and the technical side of broadcasting. As for the agents and equipment reps, they get the same short shrift that Florida real-estate developers get in a Carl Hiaasen novel—and I wonder how many of them are still going to be speaking to Feinstein after reading this book.

For the golf-knowledgeable teen audience at which this book is aimed, the big-name golfers who are mentioned will be well-known figures, and those readers might get a kick out of reading a story in which these stars of the PGA Tour interact with a teenaged golfer, even if the conversations and situations feel awkward and contrived—which they do.

The inclusion of real people from golf broadcasting, such as Joe Buck, Paul Azinger, Brandel Chamblee, and Holly Sonders, will pique the interest of young readers who watch golf on TV, but the use of the real names of people from the behind-the-scenes operations, and from the print-media world, will go right over the heads of the young reading audience (and many older readers, too…). On the other hand, readers and reviewers who actually know these people (and I know, or at least have met, a few of them) will find it odd to see in print a fictionalized version of a known person. This aspect of the book rings false with me, and seems rather pointless, all things considered.

Other aspects of the story are also rather uneven. While the overall “voice” of the book has a decided YA tenor, it wanders back and forth between over-explaining simple aspects of the game, as if catering to non-golfers, and using shorthand references that only a reader who is well-versed in the game will understand.

There are curious (and admittedly, mostly minor) lapses that will bother the knowledgeable golfer (or maybe just golf writers who are also editors…). For instance, when setting the scene for the section of the book in which Frank is playing in the 2017 U.S. Amateur, at Riviera Country Club, Feinstein describes the club’s location as being “…a few miles east of the Pacific Ocean…”, but Riviera’s westernmost border lies a scant mile or so from the beach. (Yeah, it’s a nit, but it caught my eye because I specifically checked it for a column I did a few years ago about Ben Hogan’s history at Riviera.) 

Another little faux pas that caught my attention was a misquote of the tagline from the USGA’s pace-of-play campaign of a couple of years back (a line borrowed from a scene in Caddyshack), which is cited as “While we’re still young”, rather than the correct line, which is just “While we’re young.” There are a few other instances like that scattered throughout the book—small things, but noticeable to the knowledgeable, and attentive, reader.

One thread that runs through the latter part of the story, and one which I relished, is a series of subtle, and not-so-subtle, digs at Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters—and their fussy rules and regulations, which are capriciously enacted and vigorously enforced, such as their insistence on referring to spectators on the grounds of the club as “patrons”, a ban on cellphones on the grounds (which Frank is gently but firmly admonished for joking about in an interview), and the use of the terms “first nine” and “second nine” instead of “front nine” and “back nine”. The Keith Forman character is characterized as “…(knowing) he was privileged to cover the Masters and (that) he was in a place any golf fan would kill to be, but the atmosphere of the place—the entitlement of it all—made him feel a bit squeamish.” I’m with Keith on that one.

All in all, while The Prodigy is an engaging read, especially for young golf fans, the overall scenario—which I cannot fully describe without introducing spoilers—is a little over-the-top, and the scenes which involve real-life people from the golf world feel forced and unrealistic. These things might not matter to, or be noticed by, the intended teenage audience, but adult readers, especially those with a bit of familiarity with the personalities involved, will squirm a little over some of those passages.

Jacobsen, Nantz, to be honored with Langley Award

Peter Jacobsen, 38-year PGA Tour pro, Champions Tour player, and CBS-TV on-air golf commentator, and Jim Nantz, lead commentator for CBS-TV golf coverage, will be honored Monday, August 20th, at the Langley Awards ceremony at  Pebble Beach Golf links.

The Langley Award is named after the late Jim Langley, the former head golf  professional at the Cypress Point Club. Born in Denver, Colorado, in 1937, Langley moved with his family to Salinas in 1942. After graduating from Salinas High School in 1955, Langley attended Cal-Berkeley on a basketball scholarship, and was a member of Cal’s 1959 NCAA Champion basketball team. Langley joined the United States Marine Corp after graduation, competing Marine Corp Reserve service in the Bay Area. A five-year stint as a PGA Tour player was followed, in 1971, by his appointment as head golf professional at Cypress Point Club, a post which he held for 34 years.

The Langley Award is presented by the Northern California PGA to men and women who are recognized as legends of the game of golf. Former recipients of the award include Langley himself, Arnold Palmer, Ken Venturi, Johnny Miller, Nancy Lopez, and Roger Maltbie. The two-day charitable event comprises a dinner and awards presentation on Monday night, followed by a charity pro-am golf tournament on Tuesday, August 21st at Pebble Beach Golf Links.

The event benefits PGA HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere), a program which provides free golf lessons to disabled and able-bodied military veterans as a therapeutic tool in support of their mental, social, physical and emotional well-being. Lessons are taught by PGA Professionals who receive special training in adaptive golf teaching methods. Created in 2017, PGA HOPE is a flagship program of the NCPGA Foundation, and part of a national outreach by the PGA of America. The program has served nearly 750 veterans since 2015; it is offered at ten program sites in Northern California

Peter Jacobsen has always been known as an easygoing, fun-loving personality, both on the golf course and in the broadcast booth, but the PGA Hope program strikes a serious chord with him. Jacobsen’s father was a naval aviator who served aboard the USS Intrepid and USS Enterprise in World War II, and was awarded the Navy Cross – a fact which Jacobsen and his siblings did not discover until after their father’s death. Jacobsen is a strong supporter of programs for military personnel.

Pebble Beach Golf Links and its associated tournaments have always been favorites of Jacobsen’s, who first got to know the Monterey Peninsula region and Pebble Beach on family golf vacations as a teenager.

Jim Nantz is known to millions of television sports aficionados for broadcasting NFL football games, NCAA basketball, and PGA Tour golf, most notably the annual Masters tournament from Augusta National Golf Club. Besides his annual stint in the broadcast booth for the AT&T National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach, Nantz’s ties to the Pebble Beach run deep. He and his second wife, Courtney Richards, were married in a ceremony held on the 7th hole at Pebble Beach, and he owns a home in the area – complete with a half-scale replica of the famed par-3 in the backyard.

All-NorCal final a possibility in 70th U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship

A week of “June Gloom” fog delays for the 2018 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at the NCGA’s Poppy Hills Golf Club peaked on Friday, when the completion of the last Round of 16 matches, and tee times for the Quarterfinal matches were eventually pushed back six hours from their original 7:00 a.m. starts.

When the fog had cleared and play was completed, the semifinal matchups are down to a quartet of American players, including two from NCGA territory – Yealimi Noh, 16, of Concord; and Lucy Li, 15, of Redwood Shores. Noh will face off against Gina Kim, 18, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the semifinal round; and Li will play Alexa Pano, 13, of Lake Worth, Florida.

Yealimi Noh, of Concord, is one of two NorCal players in the semifinals of the 70th U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, being played at Poppy Hills Golf Club this week. (Copyright USGA/JD Cuban)

Noh, who is fresh off of a record-setting 24-under win in the PGA Jr Girls’ Championship last week, is particularly strong on the par-5s at Poppy Hills, though she has yet to see the par-5 18th in match play (she birdied all three of the par-5s that she played in her quarterfinal match) – her matches have finished on 16, 16, 17, and 13.

Li, who played in the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open as an 11-year-old, will face a tough opponent in Pano, who has only played past the 15th hole once in the match play portion of the tournament, when her Round of 16 match against Stephanie Kyriacou of Australia went to the 18th hole. Li has been played down to the wire in two of her matches, but closed out her opponents in the Round of 32 and Quarterfinal matches with late birdie runs.

Semifinal matches are scheduled to start Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m., with Li/Pano, followed by Noh/Kim at 7:15 a.m. – weather permitting. The 36-hole championship match will be split: 18 holes on Saturday, after the conclusion of the semifinal round, and the final 18 on Sunday morning.

Is Pebble Beach as good as they say it is?

Each year at the beginning of January, Golf Digest magazine publishes its Top 100 lists for golf courses. Some of the local courses from the Bay Area and Northern California make those lists each year, and it should come as no surprise that Pebble Beach Golf Links is the highest-ranked public course in this area.

Pebble Beach is one of only 24 courses in the United States that have appeared in Golf Digest’s rankings every year since the first list, The 200 Toughest Courses in America, was published, in 1966. Pebble is currently ranked No. 7 in the America’s 100 Greatest Courses list, and the classic layout on Carmel Bay enjoyed a brief stint atop the overall listing in 2001-2002, when it ousted Pine Valley, an ultra-exclusive bastion in the Pine Barrens country of New Jersey, from a long run in the top spot. Pebble Beach also occupies the No. 1 spot in the America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses ranking—a position it has held, unchallenged, since the public courses list was introduced in 2003.

Views like this, looking down Pebble’s ninth fairway toward the tenth hole, with the sweep of Carmel Beach in the background, are part of what makes Pebble Beach Golf Links a must-play destination for golfers all over the world. (photo by author)

As with all rankings lists, there is a degree of subjectivity involved, and there is disagreement among golfers and golf writers about the relative merits of the courses which are named. I encountered some disagreement about Pebble Beach from a colleague—an experienced golf writer based in the Northwest—who posted the following comments in a conversational thread on Twitter:

“Sound list sure, but always surprised by Pebble Beach’s ranking.

“I know it’s sacrilege but I’m not American so feel I can say it safely enough... PB is the most overrated course in the world.”

“It’s incredibly beautiful and has 5 [or] 6 of the best holes in the world. But there are too many bland holes to be top 10.”

“There’s nothing wrong with 1, 2, 3, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 but they’re not that special. 11 is terrible and 17 is a huge waste.”

To a golfer who is a native of the Monterey/Salinas region and a lifelong resident of the Central Coast/Bay Area, those are fighting words. To characterize any of the holes at Pebble Beach as bland, let alone terrible, demands a response, and to describe No. 17 as a huge waste—this, the iconic oceanfront par-three where two of the greatest moments in the history of the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach have played out—is beyond the pale.

Amazing on another course is only average at Pebble Beach

The problem, as I see it, is that the most spectacular, most memorable holes at Pebble Beach are so good that they overshadow the rest; the holes cited by my colleague suffer only by comparison with their more glamorous peers. The landward holes at Pebble—1-3 and 11-16—while lacking the spectacular vistas of their seaward cohorts, are far from bland.

That is not to say that the holes which hug the coast are great solely because of their locations and the views—far from it. Even the simplest of them, the short par-3 seventh, poses a strategic conundrum because of the elevated tee box, the bunkers which almost totally encircle the green, and the rocks and water right and long. Throw in windy conditions and even this short par-3, the 18-handicap hole on the course, can be a daunting prospect.

There is little question, however, that 4 through 10, the magnificent stretch of coast-hugging holes which contains three of the four toughest par-4s on the course—8, 9 and 10—comprise the heart and soul of Pebble Beach, with 17 and 18 the dramatic denouement (despite my colleague’s misgivings about 17.) The fact is that the less-renowned holes which are dismissed as bland or unremarkable are anything but.

Underrated opening trio — anything but bland

Take No. 1, a simple-appearing but potentially nerve-wracking par-4. Part of its distinction comes, admittedly, from being the opening hole at the top-ranked public golf course in the United States. You step up to the tee well aware of the hole in your wallet where the $495 green fee once lay, and are now faced with the reality of making golf shots that are worthy of the expenditure. 

A dogleg-right par-4 of about 345 yards from the gold tees, No. 1 tempts you to cut the corner, but the fairway narrows past the bend, and the inside of the dogleg is heavily forested. The elevated, back-to-front slanting green will hold a long approach shot, so there is just no upside to taking on the corner to gain a few yards. It’s guarded by a pair of unwelcoming bunkers flanking the entrance, but is generously sized from front to back, so mind your distance and stay below the flag.

While Pebble’s first hole lacks the visual drama of the famed cliff-top trio of par-4s that come later—holes 8, 9, and 10—it is certainly a hole which requires your attention if you are going to get your round off on the right foot.

The second hole is the first par-5 on the course. At just 460 yards from the golds, No. 2 presents an inviting tee shot to a fairway that slopes away. As welcoming as this hole is off the tee, once on the fairway, even in good position, the player is presented with a daunting approach to the putting surface—a yawning tank-trap of a bunker, flanked by trees, bisects the sweep of the fairway about 75 yards from the green. This looming trench and its arboreal guardians are a visually arresting obstacle which has cowed more than one golfer into laying up to the end of the fairway for the easier 90-odd-yard approach.

The long, narrow putting surface at No. 2 is subtly contoured, requiring a deft touch and a good read to get close to the hole if you’ve left yourself a long putt. I’ve seen many a potential eagle end up as a routine par on this green—including one of my own—so even if you are safely past the big bunker and on the green in two, there’s no letting your guard down on No. 2.

Pebble’s third hole is the last of the inland opening stanza, and while it does offer a first teasing glimpse of the ocean from the fairway, its real distinction lies in the shape of the tee shot it requires. While No. 1 tempts you to work your drive around the corner from left to right, and No. 2 just says “Boom it straight!”, the third hole, a downhill 337-yard par-4, demands that high, arcing, right to left shot that most of us see more often in our dreams than from the tee box. The 3rd fairway turns 45° downhill from a straight line off the tee boxes, so that sweeping high draw is required not so much to hit the fairway—a straight 250-yard pop from the gold tees will hit the center of the short grass—but to hold it.

The third hole’s fairway is topped by a generous landing area at its inland end, but unless downhill approach shots of 170 to 185 yards are your idea of fun, you don’t want to be there. Painting a high draw against the California sky to a spot well down the fairway is the best way to assure yourself of good position on this hole. The kidney-shaped green pitches front-to-back but has a subtle drop-away at the back edge that will allow an over-zealous approach to run down the steep seaward bank. As always at Pebble Beach, this green’s diabolically subtle contours are best attempted from below the hole.

After the seaward stretch – then what?

Of course there is no question about the quality or distinction of the next seven holes. Holes 4 through 10 combine spectacular vistas with outstanding design to create a stretch of the best-known and most-revered golf holes on the planet. After the 10th hole, the course turns inland for holes 11 through 16, which, according to my opinionated colleague from the Northwest, range in quality from “not that special” to “terrible”.

These holes get little of the respect that they deserve, even among folks who should know better. During a recent discussion on social media that began with folks ranking a list of six great California courses, which included Pebble Beach, in their order of preference, another golf writer stated that “…11 at PB exists to get you from 10 green to the resort course stretch, where the most interesting things are the audacious homes that line the fairways.”

As the first hole of the inland stretch after a run of seven visually stunning oceanside holes, the 11th hole at Pebble Beach occupies an unenviable position, and it does lack the visual drama of its immediate predecessors. The fairway is generous in size, which may lull you into thinking the hole is a pushover, but the shape, configuration and bunkering of the green dictate the shape of your first shot from 349 yards away.

The skinny, steeply slanted green runs left to right, with a narrow entry, so for the best angle into the putting surface your position in the fairway should be as far to the left as you can get without being in the rough. The steepness of the green and the bunkering left, right, and long dictate a high, drop-and-stop approach shot—or if you managed a drive into the “A” position on the left side of the fairway, a low pitch that hits short and stops below the hole is your best play. Either way, below the hole is the place you want to be. Play this hole once and you will recognize the strategic genius underlying its undramatic first impression—fairway position is everything.

The twelfth hole is the first par-3 on the back nine, and yet another hole which has a subtle genius underlying its design. At 187 yards from the gold tees, No. 12 is the longest par-3 on the course, and the wide-but-shallow green with its massive front-left bunker and narrow entry poses a strategic conundrum for the golfer. The trees to the left of the green, and left and forward of the 13th tee box, will lift and swirl the usual onshore breeze above No. 12 without affecting the flag, giving little clue to the havoc they can play with a high ball flight. Running the ball up onto the green is a risky proposition at any time—the entry to the green is less than seven yards wide, and being offset to the right, is little help for a low-left hole position. This is another benign-looking hole for which layout and environment dictate the best approach at any given time. 

The thirteenth hole, a 376-yard par-4, is probably the most benign hole at Pebble Beach. The initial flight of your tee ball is shielded from the wind, if present, by some of the trees which also affect the drop into the green at No. 12. The generous width of the fairway is a blessing, but it necks down considerably past the landing zone. Stray right or left and fairway bunkers—three individual ones on the right, and one long bunker complex to the left—will make getting onto the green with your second shot problematic, and even from a good position in the fairway you will be faced with a slightly uphill approach to what was for many years one of the steepest, fastest putting surfaces on the course.

“…13 is a great driving hole and the second shot takes so much geometry and touch.”

– Golf magazine’s Alan Shipnuck, on Twitter

Renovation of the 13th green after the 2017 AT&T Pro-Am added 400 square feet to the top right, reduced some of the more severe contours, and also added a sub-air conditioning system to control moisture. The new green has more available hole positions, but the added lobe brings the right bunker into play when the flag is located there—so 13 green is still no pushover.

#14: Longest, hardest—and only the third-best par 5 at Pebble

Then comes No. 14, a dogleg-right par 5 which is the longest (560 yards from the gold tees) and meanest (No. 1 handicap) hole on the golf course. As part of the aforementioned discussion on ranking California courses, GOLF magazine’s Alan Shipnuck wrote, “Fourteen is better than any par-5 at (Cypress Point), and it’s only the third-best at Pebble Beach.”

Tee shots at #14 should flirt with the inside corner of the dogleg, but too big a bite will bring a pair of fairway bunkers into play. The fairway bends again, just slightly, about 100 yards from the elevated green, demanding precision in your second shot.

The green at No. 14 has probably the smallest usable area of any at Pebble Beach, despite the reshaping which was unveiled at the 2016 First Tee Open, and the green is fronted by a bunker which looks like nothing so much as a huge standing wave of sand guarding the direct line to the flat top of the green. Stray right on your third shot and you’re likely to catch the drop-away front slope that has deposited many a poorly placed approach shot back on the fairway. It’s a kinder, gentler green since the rebuild, but is still not to be taken lightly.

The 15th hole at Pebble Beach, a medium-length par-4, could be bland, but the blind tee shot/forced carry lends it spice. Throw in a middle-of-the-fairway pot bunker, OB left and right, and a tricky bunker complex on the left (added by Arnold Palmer in 1999), and “bland” might not be the word that comes to mind when you get to your tee shot. Even if you land in the short grass off the tee, there is a tricky swale in the fairway about 250 yards out which can leave you with an unwelcome downhill lie.

“The second shot into 16 is sooo much fun.”

– Golf magazine’s Alan Shipnuck, on Twitter

Number 16 tempts you off the tee with a generously sized fairway, and a middle-of-the-fairway bunker that is rarely in play. The trick here is to put the ball in good position in the fairway without catching the downslope 235 yards out and leaving yourself a downhill lie. Similar to #2, there are trees flanking a trench-like bunker fronting the elevated green, another putting surface whose slope and contouring demands vigilance, and respect.

This brings us to the 17th, denounced by my Seattle-area colleague as, “…a huge waste.” The hourglass green, though opened up and reshaped in 2016, remains a severe test even in mild conditions. Bring in the wind and this 150-odd to near 180-yard hole (depending upon hole location) is nerve-racking as a penultimate test in Pebble’s 18-hole examination of your golf game.

And of course, there’s the history attached to #17. Who can forget Tom Watson’s chip-in from the rough in the 1982 U.S. Open, the called shot that led to his victory over Jack Nicklaus? And speaking of Jack, there was his pin-rattling 1-iron in the 1972 U.S. Open, another shot that clinched the Open, this time for Nicklaus over Australia’s Bruce Crampton.

The answer to the question is… YES!

No one questions the quality of the oceanside holes at Pebble Beach, for shot qualities or scenic value; and the inland holes, taken on their own merits and not just in comparison to their sister holes along the water, deserve more credit than they are usually given.

The truth of the matter is that the question, “Is Pebble Beach as good as they say it is?” has a simple answer, and that answer is “Yes.”

Putting, Part IV: Harvey Penick was right…

Scrolling through my Twitter feed the other evening, I came across a tweet from the British golf magazine National Club Golfer (@NCGMagazine) with a video featuring golf coach Gary Nicol (@GaryNicol67) explaining how in putting pace determines line, and gives you options for how to deliver the ball to the hole.

Now, I have insisted in the past that pace and line are of equal importance, because they are co-dependent. There are multiple combinations of line and pace that will get the ball to the hole – a higher line requires a faster-moving ball (more pace), and a lower line requires a slower-moving ball (less pace) – but a change in one always requires a commensurate change in the other to get the same result.

But that’s where I was wrong – in thinking about “…the same result”  – because as I watched the video clip I realized that while my assertion is accurate, it is only true in a limited-case scenario; pace and line are of equal importance and precisely co-dependent only for getting the ball to the same position at the hole – like in the illustration below:

Slower pace (in blue) requires a higher line; faster pace (red) requires a lower line. Pace & line are directly related, and of equal importance – if you want to get the ball to the same target on the cup.

As Gary Nicol explained in the video clip, there is a usable target width at the hole that is essentially three balls wide, as shown in the next illustration. Recognizing this fact, you can give yourself a wider target line to aim at, essentially the full area shaded in green, instead of thinking that you have to hit a narrow, very specific line at just the precise speed. Keep reading and I’ll explain how this opens up your possibilities for making more putts.

The size differential between the hole and the ball allows a target area that is about three balls wide, giving the golfer a wider selection of line than they might think at first. Higher line still takes a slower pace, but learning to recognize the wider target area will help you make more putts.

Why pace rules in putting

I touched on this concept, a bit, in my June 23rd post, Putting is hard – but you already knew that, right?, in which I wrote:

“…(T)here is a minimum ball speed that will get the ball to the hole, and a range beyond the minimum within which the ball will go into the hole and not bounce or lip out.

To further complicate matters, this speed varies depending upon how close to center the ball is when it gets to the hole. A ball traveling at a speed which allows it to fall into the hole on a dead-center hit may lip out if it arrives at the hole off-center. The more off-center, the slower the ball must be moving when it encounters the edge of the hole.”

Right there you have the basis for pace having the edge over line in importance: There is a minimum ball speed which will get the ball to the hole (“Never up, never in” as the old saying goes) – and if the ball comes up short, it doesn’t matter if it was on the right line.

The real argument for stressing pace over line is right there in the second paragraph from my June 23 post: it is the fact that, on a given line, pace also determines whether the ball will actually drop once it gets to the hole. Even if the ball hits the hole dead-center, it can hop out if it is moving fast enough (≈ 5 feet per second or faster, by my calculations); that max-allowable pace drops off dramatically as the ball’s interception point with the edge of the hole moves off center and the dreaded “lip-out” comes into play.

So, from the minimum speed that gets the ball to the hole, to the maximum speed at which it will actually drop into the hole and stay, there is a range of speeds which you must keep the ball within if you want to make that putt. And for every speed increment within that range, there is a target window within which the ball will actually drop – and if you haven’t figured it out by now, the slower the ball is moving when it gets to the lip of the hole, the bigger that target window is.

Wait, there’s more…

I started looking at the dynamics of the interaction between a moving golf ball and the rim of the hole – as in how to avoid the dreaded lip-out – and I started getting dizzy before I had even finished listing all the variables, so let’s just go with the broad concepts, without getting mired down in the math: A ball that skims the edge of the hole, with the center of the ball just inside the apex of the rim, has to be moving pretty slowly to drop into the hole – but at that low speed it will drop into the hole from any point at which the center of the ball is inside the diameter of the hole. In other words, at the minimum speed that gets the ball to the hole, the target window is pretty much the full diameter of the hole – 4-1/4 inches.

Conversely, the faster the ball is going the narrower the window gets. A faster-moving ball’s greater momentum increases the likelihood of the ball lipping out or just plain skimming over the edge of the cup, because it passes over the free space beneath it before it has had time to fall the distance required to let it drop.

Bottom line: the slower the ball is going, the more options there are for the line that will allow the ball to drop – which means that pace rules over line when it comes to making putts.

Harvey was right

There is one caveat to this discussion. Since the putting green is a highly variable surface, with grain, and bumps, and small irregularities – not to mention the dimpled surface of the ball itself – the ball tends to wander and not hold its line if it is moving too slowly. 

“I like to see a putt slip into the hole like a mouse.”

  – Harvey Penick

This factor dictates a minimum speed – which puts me in mind of the putting maxim of Harvey Penick, the revered Austin, Texas golf pro who taught such greats as Tom Kite, and Ben Crenshaw, who was one of the greatest putters the game has ever seen. Harvey said, “I like to see a putt slip into the hole like a mouse.” Harvey knew what he was talking about.

There is another putting maxim which defines a reasonable upper threshold for ball speed on the green: Get the ball to the hole at such a speed that it will roll no more than 18 inches past the hole if it misses. There are two reasons why this is good advice: 1) that 18-inches-past speed is not so high that you will have squeezed yourself into a narrow target window; and 2) if you do miss the putt, you have a short comebacker.

Speed rules

So there you have it. Pace dictates line, and the lowest speed that gets the ball to the hole on a steady course gives you the best chance of making the putt. Practice hitting your putts with consistent speed, and when you are warming up on the practice green before a round, do some distance drills and get a feel for the speed of the greens you’re going to be playing on. It will pay dividends on the course that will show up on your scorecard.

Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Scotland” charts a physical and metaphysical journey around the Home of Golf ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tom Coyne is the author of the novel A Gentleman’s Game, and two previous non-fiction books – Paper Tiger, about a year spent pursuing a plus-number handicap and a toehold in professional golf; and A Course Called Ireland, which chronicles a journey, on foot, around the coast of Ireland, playing every course that he encountered along the way. Now he has returned with another book about another journey through golf, this time in the ancestral land of the game, Scotland. The book is A Course Called Scotland.

It would not be unfair to say that Tom Coyne is obsessed with golf, though in that characteristic he is far from alone. Where he stands out is in acting on his obsession, and then bringing us all along for the ride through his words. His lofty goal, this time around, was to play his way around the links courses of Scotland, 111 rounds of golf in 57 days, logging 36 and often 54 holes per day – and on one memorable occasion, 72 – on a quest for the Secret of Golf, and incidentally, a chance at qualifying for the 2015 Open Championship at St Andrews.

He expanded his quest beyond Scotland in order to tick off all of the courses in the Open Championship rota, six of which are in England, and shoehorned in some non-rota tracks in the south – in Cornwall and Wales – before heading north. Accompanied along the way, for a few rounds here and there, by a rotating cast of friends and strangers-who-became-friends, Coyne pursues his quest for golf’s secret through a string of well-known, not-so-well-known, and virtually unknown links courses – always links, or at least coastal, courses – in fair weather and in foul, under sunny skies and through wind and rain (of course, this is Scotland, after all), carding scores ranging from 82 to 62 (full disclosure: it was a par-62 course.)

The book chronicles not only the physical journey, but also a spiritual or metaphysical journey as Coyne, who strikes me as a restless soul, sought to find a match between his inner feelings for the game and their outward manifestation. I think that he found it, in the end, with little pushes along the way from his playing companions, and the serendipity that is an inevitable part of epic quests of this kind.

Coyne is candid, along the way, about his up-and-down relationship with the game of golf, and about other issues. A promising player as a teen, he self-destructed during a tryout for his college golf team, then, in his late twenties pushed himself to achieve the pinnacle of his game on a quest to make it through PGA Tour Qualifying School (a quest chronicled in his 2006 book, Paper Tiger). A couple of years later he undertook a four-month-long walking journey around the coast of Ireland playing links courses along the way (see his 2009 book, A Course Called Ireland) and in the interval between that journey/book and this one, lost his golf game, and almost lost his life as an addiction to alcohol overtook his addiction to golf.

There is a somber moment or two in the book when the latter subject comes up, but they pass with a quiet solemnity followed by a light-hearted comment as the conversation returns to golf.

The cavalcade of playing companions who joined the author along the way is a fascinating cross-section of people with the time, spare cash, and inclination to take part in this eccentric journey. My favorites among them are Paddy the Caddie, an ex-pat Philadelphian who lives in Kinsale, Ireland, and who featured in A Course Called Ireland; and Garth, a Philly local, new to the game but newly married into a golf-mad family, who accompanied Coyne along the stretch from Aberdeen to Inverness. Garth of the 38.4 handicap, who greeted every day on the trip with, “Guess what, Tom? We get to golf today.” Garth, who broke 100 for the first time on his last round of the trip and proudly texted his wife back home to report the feat – only to have his 2-handicap brother-in-law ask him what he shot on the back  nine.

The variety of courses that Coyne pegged-up on ran the gamut from the near-holy ground of St Andrews Old Course itself to literal sheep tracks in the outer islands – places that in my mind’s eye I pictured as looking something like Luke Skywalker’s refuge in the Star Wars re-boots. He had the good grace to be unimpressed by the two courses he played which are owned by the current POTUS – or as he is known in my household: “He Who Must Not Be Named”–  both the travesty which he has foisted upon the Aberdeen coast in a formerly protected dune-lands preserve, and the unfortunate Turnberry, which he has befouled with the vulgar trappings of his other properties – outré fountains, a faux crest, and his name writ large, and first, at every opportunity.

The heart and soul of this book, however, is Coyne’s running commentary about the sights, sounds, and experiences of his golf vision-quest, and his inner monologue as he flirts with the highs and lows of the game; swings that sometimes rival the amplitude of the Highland hillsides and valleys that he encounters. Golf is a game that can beat you down, if you let it, with lost golf balls and missed birdie (or par) putts, and in the next moment lift your spirits at the sight of the soaring flight of a golf ball fairly singing its way to a brilliant position on a distant green, and Coyne has a gift for describing all of those highs and lows. (My only niggling complaint about his prose is the constant use of “golf” as a verb – a Midwestern, and I suppose, Philadelphia, usage that grates on my California ears.)

Coyne communicates that range of experiences and emotions beautifully in this jewel of a book, and never better than in the ultimate culmination of his journey – which I will not describe any more than I would give away the ending of a much-anticipated movie.

Buy this book; read this book. And even if you never make your own pilgrimage to the ancestral home of the game we love (and in my case, the literal home of my ancestors) you will get a glimpse, a wee taste, of the beating heart, and maybe the secret, of the game of golf.