“The Golf Round I’ll Never Forget”, by Matt Adams ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

Matt Adams, the author of The Golf Round I’ll Never Forget, has a great reputation as an interviewer, and before I got my hands on a review copy of this volume I assumed that I would be reading interviews, or at least some interview content, from fifty champion golfers. (If a little alarm bell went off in your head when you read the word “assumed” in the previous sentence, you get a gold ⭐️.)

The subtitle of this book—Fifty of Golf’s Biggest Stars Recall Their Finest Moments—gives the impression that the players whose “finest moments” are recounted here were interviewed for this volume, but alas, this turn out not to be the case. The chapters draw on previously published material which includes quotes from the players involved, but that’s the extent of it. That caveat aside, this is a nicely curated compendium of memorable golf rounds which any avid golfer would find interesting.

The book is divided into six chapters, collecting anecdotes into such classifications as “History In The Making”,which includes Gene Sarazen’s eagle on the 15th hole of Augusta National in the final round of the 1935 Masters; Johnny Miller’s record-setting 63 in the fourth round of the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont; and Al Geiberger’s groundbreaking 59 in the second round of the old Memphis Classic in 1977. (Little-known fact: Geiberger used the same ball for the entire round, almost unheard of in the days of the wound balata ball.)

Among the other sections are “Big Shots and Defining Moments”, with the story behind Hal Sutton’s famous “Be the right club!”call at the 2000 Players Championship; “Great Comebacks”, which includes the story of Arnold Palmer’s legendary come-from-behind victory in the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills, and more. Most of the stories included in the book will be familiar, at least in outline, to golfers with a sense of history, though a few are less well-known, and all the more welcome additions to the book for that. For example, how many of us are familiar with Kathy Whitworth’s record-setting victory in the 1965 Titleholder’s Championship?

A few shortcuts are taken in some of the stories—for example, Arnold Palmer’s bogey on the 16th hole in the fourth round of the 1966 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club, a key factor in Palmer’s eventual loss to Billy Casper in a Monday playoff, is skimmed over as just another bogey—but each section includes anecdotes and background that will make for fresh reading, even for knowledgeable golf fans.

Presented in a handsome full-color 9" × 11" paperback format, with plenty of photos, The Golf Round I’ll Never Forget makes a nice gift for the golfer in your life—or for yourself.

Cal Golf alum Collin Morikawa outlasts crowded leaderboard to take 2020 PGA Championship

A 95-year-old muni golf course on a chilly, windswept, often fogbound peninsula in Northern California just provided the golf world with one of the most thrilling final rounds in major-tournament golf in decades—and a Cal Men’s Golf alumnus was the star of the show.

2020 PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa poses with the Wanamaker Trophy during the trophy presentation ceremony. (Image copyright: 2020 Darren Carroll/PGA of America)

San Francisco’s Harding Park Golf Course (now TPC Harding Park) was shown to great effect this past week, in wind, fog—and even sunshine—and while some of the biggest hitters in the game were factors in the outcome right to the end, it was a mid-range hitter whose game excels in accuracy who outlasted the bomb-and-gouge brigade to step into the winner’s circle at the end of the day. Collin Morikawa, a 2019 Cal graduate, reigning PAC-12 Men’s Golf champion, and second-year PGA Tour pro who already has two professional wins to his credit, plotted his way around Harding Park with GPS-worthy precision, all the way to the grand prize—the Wanamaker Trophy.

The weather on San Francisco’s west side was overcast but generally calm, with mild temperatures for most of the day, trending chilly as the final pairings closed out their rounds. The firm greens were troublesome for long approach shots, requiring a steep landing angle to hold the putting surface, and the Harding Park greens, derided by some as flattish and uninteresting over the course of the week, befuddled many of the contenders down the stretch with their subtleties.

As many as seven players were tied for the lead over the second half of the round, but their numbers dwindled as bad breaks and bad luck took their toll. Northern California’s Cameron Champ, a Sacramento native and the winner of the season-opening Safeway Open last October at Napa’s Silverado Golf & Country Club, dropped back when an errant drive at the long par-four ninth hole resulted in a double-bogey six, and bogeys on 13 and 15 put paid to his chances for the win. Champ’s 8-under finish netted him his first Top Ten finish in a major tournament, and it is unlikely to be his last.

Bryson DeChambeau, another NorCal native and a big hitter who has achieved notoriety for his recent emphasis on physical bulk as a means to increase his length off the tee, started the day at 6-under and was among a half-dozen or so players who dipped into double-digits under par. Back-to-back bogeys at holes 8 and 9, the one-two punch of hardest-playing holes that closed out the front side, dropped him off the pace. Birdies at 14 and 15 pulled the 2015 U.S. Amateur and NCAA champion back to 10-under, but it would prove sufficient only for a spot in a five-way tie for fourth place.

Dustin Johnson, an early favorite to contend for the title today, has been fighting a seeming majors jinx for much of his career, alleviated only by his 2016 victory in the U.S. Open at Oakmont, and was plagued by near-miss putts in his pursuit of a second major title. Four birdies and two bogeys, at the par-3 third hole and par-4 fifteenth, netted the Carolina native a 2-under round and 11-under for the tournament, good enough for his fifth T2 or solo-second finish in a major.

At the end of the day, and over the closing holes of the final round, it was all about Collin Morikawa. The recent Cal grad posted the lowest round, a 64, and only bogey-free round, among the top 20 finishers. Beyond the raw numbers of the score, his stats tell the tale: 1st in driving accuracy, 1st in approach accuracy, 1st in Strokes Gained-Putting; but those numbers, while impressive, aren’t the thing that people will remember from the final round in his impressive victory— it’s the gunslinger eagle-two that he put up at the par-four 16th hole that will be talked about for years.

Morikawa came to #16 after having chipped in for birdie at #14 to take the lead at 11-under. The course had been set up with a couple of teasingly drivable par-fours, most notably the 16th hole, a scenic two-shotter along the Lake Merced shore that was playing an enticing 300 yards to a center-right pin today, and he had resolved, before the round, not to succumb to the temptation they presented. But on the tee-box at #16, sitting on 11-under, with Paul Casey already in with the same score, and Tony Finau and Bryson DeChambeau in the pairing behind him sitting on -10 and -9, respectively, and both representing threats to pick up another shot or two in the final holes, he made a decision.

“Wednesday night, I had no plans on going for 16 at all. […] Colt Knost, he saw me Wednesday afternoon practicing on there, and he asked me if I was ever going to go for it. I told him a quick no, it’s too much into the wind, why go for it. ”

When his caddie, J.J. Jankovac, asked him what he wanted to do on the tee at #16, Morikawa thought back to the 14th hole at Muirfield Village, in the final round of last month’s Workday Challenge tournament, when he hit a similar shot into the drivable par-four 14th hole, and then went on to win the event in a playoff.

“…It was like 278 to the front, and just a good drive for me. It was going to land just short of that in this weather; it’s going to bounce on up,” Morikawa said in a post-round interview, “(caddie J.J. Jankovac) looked at me, he counted off and asked me what I wanted to do and I told him, ‘Let’s hit a good drive.’”

And “hit a good drive” he did, one that golf fans will be talking about for years. Landing just short of the green, the drive bounded up onto the putting surface, released, and rolled to within seven feet of the hole. After bringing his caddie in to help read the putt, something he rarely does, Morikawa stepped up and rolled it dead-center into the hole for an eagle-two and immediate separation from the field.

Barring some unfortunate mishap on his part, and/or miracle strokes on the part of Finau, DeChambeau, Casey, or Johnson, it was all over at that point; two strokes with two holes to play, let alone three, is too much to ask of any golfer outside of a Hollywood production. Morikawa closed with a pair of pars, though on both holes he came within inches of birdies that would have turned his victory into a late-running blowout.

Morikawa’s 65-64–129 finish is the lowest weekend total for a man in a major championship, and the young man from La Cañada, California, has now joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy in the ranks of players who won their first PGA Championship at the age of 23. Besides the $1.98 million paycheck, the win brings with it a five-year exemption on the PGA tour, and entries to the U.S. Open and the Masters.

Day One of the PGA Championship was a tale of two waves

The first round of the 2020 PGA Championship was a tale of two waves—and despite the proximity to the ocean of Harding Park, the San Francisco muni that is hosting this strange golf season’s first major, it wasn’t Pacific Ocean waves lapping at the shore that shaped today’s results, but the weather affecting the morning and afternoon starting waves, and who got to play when.

Australia’s Jason Day, though not much mentioned in the runup to this week’s PGA Championship, is co-leader after the first round, at 5-under 65. (Image © 2020 Darren Carroll/PGA of America)

Golf, being an outdoor game, is at the mercy of the elements, and never more so that when it is played near the ocean. In Northern California that can mean fog, overcast, blowing mist, or just plain wind, and while that famous line likening summer in San Francisco to a harsh winter was not actually written by Mark Twain, it has certainly persisted because there is so much truth in it.

The players in the field this week saw the accustomed mist and chilly weather; long sleeves, knit hats, and even rain gear (for warmth) were in evidence during practice rounds early in the week,  but players who went out in the morning wave on the first day of competitive rounds were greeted by high overcast, milder-than-expected temperatures, and virtually no wind. 

The friendly conditions for the morning rounds resulted in a spate of low scores, despite the lush rough and tightened fairways of the course’s championship setup. The absence of wind made it easier for players to hit those narrow fairways, and soft(ish), receptive greens meant that even fliers out of the sticky rough—a mixture of Poa annua, bermuda, and rye grass—stood a good chance of holding the putting surface.

Conditions changed for the afternoon wave, and though the later rounds were played under clear or only partially cloudy skies, the westerly winds that are usual in the afternoon on San Francisco’s west side made all the difference. Building steadily and gusting to 20+ mph by the late afternoon, the windy conditions made hitting greens a chancy proposition, as well as drying and firming up the putting surfaces.

The difference in conditions resulted in a scoring differential of nearly a full stroke from morning to afternoon, though the first-round co-leaders, Australia’s Jason Day, the 2015 PGA champion, and Brendon Todd, of Athens, Georgia, came from each group; Day playing in the morning and Todd in the afternoon wave. Day and Todd, each finishing with 5-under 65s, are followed by a group of nine players at 4-under—a group that includes defending PGA champion Brooks Koepka and 2010 PGA champ Martin Kaymer; and another eight who are two strokes back, at 3-under. Tiger Woods, who could tie Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen for the all-time PGA Championship victory record, at five, with a win this week, came in at 2-under.

With Friday’s forecast looking much the same as today’s, the tide will turn, and Thursday’s morning-wave players, though benefitting from a longer rest period and a chance to sleep in, will have their turn playing in the windy afternoon conditions. Today’s afternoon wave will be up at the crack of dawn on Friday, but if the golf gods smile upon them, they will get their chance to work the course in the mild, calm conditions that today’s early wave enjoyed.

However the conditions turn out, it is certain that golf fans, who have been spoiling for major-championship golf since April, will see another full day of exciting play on one of the Bay Area’s best-known and best-loved golf courses, highlighted by the beautiful views afforded by the broadcast’s camera-drones and the ubiquitous Goodyear blimp.

Mix of old hands and newbies top Round 3 leaderboard at PGA Championship

A mix of experienced “old hands” and fresh-faced newbies crowded the top of the leaderboard after an exciting Round 3 at the 2020 PGA Championship at San Francisco’s TPC Harding Park Golf Course. Among them are NorCal native Cameron Champ, of Sacramento, and former Cal Men’s Golf standout Collin Morikawa, a native of Los Angeles.

Sacramento native Cameron Champ is in contention for his first major-tournament title in the 2020 PGA Championship title at TPC Harding Park Golf Course in San Francisco.(Photo by Christian Petersen/PGA of America/PGA of America via Getty Images)

Morikawa, who started the day at two under par, shared low-round-of-the-day honors with 54-hole leader Dustin Johnson and runner-up Scottie Scheffler. His seven-under score after three rounds was good for a T4 finish, which he shares with England’s Paul Casey and 2018 and 2019 PGA defending champion Brooks Koepka.

Cameron Champ opened the current PGA season with an emotional victory at the Safeway Open last October, dedicating the win to his grandfather, Mack, who passed away from cancer soon after the tournament. Morikawa and Champ will be play together tomorrow in the second-to-last pairing, behind Dustin Johnson (-9) and Scottie Scheffler (-8).

Scheffler, 24, of Dallas, has a place in Northern California golf history himself, having won the 2013 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship at Martis Camp Resort in Truckee.

The late stages of today’s third round resembled a game of Whack-A-Mole as players rose through the rankings only to be knocked back down by poor play or just plain bad breaks. The changeable Lake Merced-area weather had the players contending with wind, then calm, then increasing misty and chilly conditions that sapped distance from tee shots, demonstrating that the bucolic Arcadian beauty of the lakeside region can conceal an iron fist in its foggy velvet glove.

Second-round leader Haotong Li found tree trouble off the tee at the 13th hole when one of the notorious Monterey Cypress trees that line the Harding Park fairways grabbed his ball and kept it, as they sometimes do. The resulting double-bogey was followed by a bogey on #14, and another at #16, the drivable par-4 on the Lake Merced shoreline. Five dropped shots and two birdies left him with a 3-over 73, and 5-over, T13, going into the final round.

Brooks Koepka, who unlike Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth, is going into the final round with a shot at a new line in the history books for a third consecutive PGA Championship, got a big dose of “leaderboard gravity” with a string of bogeys on holes 13, 14, and 15. Only a well-executed birdie on #18, the result of a 170-yard approach shot to six feet above the hole, and the clutch birdie putt that followed, pulled him out of an eventual six-way cluster of players at six-under.

Arguably leading that group of six-under finishers sitting T7 after 54 holes is Clovis, California’s, Bryson DeChambeau. The former SMU golfer won the 2015 USGA Amateur Championship, and was NCAA champion as a junior, but dropped out before his senior year and turned pro when SMU was suspended from NCAA championship competitions for recruiting violations.

DeChambeau posted a 4-under 66 today to finish the third round at six under par. Known for his length off the tee after undertaking a “bulking-up” regimen of weightlifting and protein shakes during the PGA Tour’s hiatus, it was, ironically, a 95-foot putt from the front edge of the 18th green that was the highlight of his round today, for a final birdie that lifted him into the top dozen finishers after 54 holes.

Final-round play gets underway tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. local time, with online coverage on ESPN+ beginning at 10 a.m., switching to ESPN online and on television at noon, with CBS-TV taking over from ESPN at 3 p.m.

Record hopes still alive for Woods, Koepka, and Spieth in PGA Championship

The three players I highlighted in my pre-tournament story, Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka, and Jordan Spieth—all of whom were coming into this week’s PGA Championship with a line in the history books hanging on a win this week—are all still alive, so to speak, in the pursuit of their respective accomplishments. But much like what Magic Max said of The Dread Pirate Roberts—“It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead, … mostly dead is slightly alive.”—there are varying degrees of “still alive”.

Brooks Koepka, the 2018 and 2019 PGA champion, is in good position to successfully defend his title going into the final two days of the tournament.

 (Photo by Darren Carroll/PGA of America)

Tiger Woods, who is chasing the PGA Tour all-time wins record and a co-leader spot on the all-time PGA Championship wins podium; and Jordan Spieth, who would lay claim to the Career Grand Slam with a win this week, just scraped their way into the weekend today.

Tiger, after an opening-round 68 in which he made nearly 115 feet of putts with the backup Scotty Cameron putter he brought out for the occasion, couldn’t buy a putt today; his Strokes Gained-Putting score dropped from 1.249 to -1.671. He hit more fairways—nine of 14, vice seven yesterday—but fewer greens; indeed, his SG scores were worse across the board except for off the tee. He scraped into the weekend at even par, one stroke to spare against the +1 cut line, and unless the Big Cat scares up a Big Change in his game on Saturday and Sunday his pursuit of those records will have to wait for another weekend, and another year, respectively.

Jordan Spieth, on the other hand, who cut it even more fine, making the cut on the number with rounds of 73 and 68, saw an uptick in his play today. His stats improved across the board, compared to Thursday—he gained 3.3 strokes on the field today, overall—and a lone bogey at the par-four 18th hole was the sole black mark on his round. Still, going into the weekend trailing the leader, China’s Haotong Li, by nine strokes, and with 57 guys above him on the leaderboard,  his chances of eking out a win aren’t looking good.

And then there’s Brooks Koepka. The man who has won more majors (four) than regular PGA Tour events (three) saw his game dip a bit today, but rounds of 66 and 68 put him squarely in the pack of six players who are two strokes back of the 36-hole leader, Li. Koepka was getting on-course work done by his trainer during today’s round, for a tight adductor muscle—“It’s no problem,” he said in a post-round interview—and his stats slipped across the board from Thursday to Friday, Tee-to-Green and Putting most significantly. 

All three played early-late for the first two days of the tournament, and the extent to which the afternoon conditions—generally windier, and with greens firmed up by a day’s worth of sun (mild, San Francisco-by-the-sea sun, but still sun…)—affected their results is open to speculation. Tiger and Spieth will be going off earlier on Saturday; 9:50 and 8:40 a.m., respectively; but Koepka, with his high finish over the opening two days, will again be playing in the afternoon, with a 2:40 start time. With no significant changes in the weather forecast being predicted, those early start times may prove to be the more favorable.

Still, it’s Koepka, with a red “-6” next to his name on the scoreboard going into the weekend, and a history of coming from behind in majors—he was three shots back going into the final round in five of his last eight majors, and finished outside of the Top 10 in all but two—who stands the best chance of coming out of this weekend with the Wanamaker Trophy, and another line in the history books, in hand.

Who’s chasing history at the 2020 PGA Championship?

The circumstances under which the 2020 PGA Championship is being played—a global pandemic, no spectators on course, a timeframe reversal back to its usual August time slot, and a first-time appearance at an iconic San Francisco venue—are enough to afford the event a highlighted spot in the golf history books. Beyond those circumstances, though, there are three players in the field this week who are chasing history above and beyond a single major championship victory: Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth.

(Image © 2020 Christian Petersen/PGA of America)

Coming into the tournament Woods stands on the threshold of an all-time wins record with the possibility of breaking his tie with Sam Snead at 82 total victories, and maybe even more significant than that, a win in San Francisco this weekend would bring him one step closer to equaling Jack Nicklaus’ major victories record.

Woods tied Snead’s long-standing record of 82 PGA Tour victories in grand fashion in 2019 when he recorded his fifth Masters win after a 14-year drought in the event; the 2019 Masters chop also moved Woods one step closer to sharing the top step on the all-time major-victories podium with Jack Nicklaus, marking his 15th major victory—three less than Nicklaus, with 18; and four more than Walter Hagen, who with 11 majors is the only other member of the double-digit-wins club in professional majors. A win this week would also elevate Woods to the top step of the “PGA Championship wins” podium, which he would share with Nicklaus and Hagen.

Another player who will be spotlighted this week for the potential of an historic achievement is Brooks “Mr Majors” Koepka. With two consecutive PGA Championship victories in his pocket, Koepka is going for a hat trick this week, and while not a record, a win at Harding Park would make him only the second player, after Walter Hagen, to take the PGA Championship title three years running.

Hagen, by the way, was PGA champion four years running, 1924 – 1927, after having won it in 1921. The cup awarded to the winner, the Wanamaker Trophy, mysteriously disappeared after his 1927 victory at Cedar Crest Country Club, in Dallas; Hagen claimed that he gave it to a cabbie to deliver to his hotel. Leo Diegel, who won the PGA Championship in ’28 and ’29; and Tommy Armour, the 1930 champ, had to make do with a firm handshake and a smile from then-PGA president Alex Pirie.

The trophy resurfaced in the fall of 1930, a few months after that year’s event, when workers clearing a warehouse in Detroit found the massive silver cup in a trunk. The owner of the warehouse? The Walter Hagen Company. Hmmm…

Last but not least comes Jordan Spieth, who is chasing probably the most elusive of the potential records that are in the mix this week on the shores of Lake Merced—the Career Grand Slam.

Spieth jumpstarted his run at this career goal in 2015, his third year on the Tour, when he took home the Masters and the U.S. Open titles and served notice that the others were within his grasp with a T4 finish in the British Open at St Andrews, and solo second, three strokes back of Jason Day, in the PGA at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits.

After a T2 finish in the 2016 Masters, the result of an infamous meltdown at the 12th hole, Spieth went into something of a tailspin where the majors were concerned; he didn’t crack the Top 10 again in any of the Big Four until the British in 2017, where he edged the majorless Matt Kuchar for the win at Royal Birkdale.

Since that time, however, Spieth has sputtered. His record in the majors in the interim ranges from a third-place finish in the 2018 Masters to a T65 at last year’s U.S. Open, just down the coast from Harding Park at Pebble Beach Golf Links, with only two other top-ten finishes in that time. He hasn’t won a regular PGA Tour event since the 2017 Travelers Championship, and is 12-for-49 for top-10 finishes since 2018.

Still—coming to the shores of Lake Merced for the first West Coast PGA Championship since Sahalee, in the Seattle area, in 1998; and the first in California since the 1977 event at Pebble Beach Golf Links; and with Masters, U.S. Open, and British Open titles to his credit, the 27-year-old Dallas native has his sights set on the tournament he needs to win to put that last notch in his tally stick.

“It’s probably the No. 1 goal in the game of golf for me right now…. I’d love to be able to hold all four trophies, and this is the one that comes in the way right now.”

– Jordan Spieth 

Spieth is already keeping company with some pretty big names, men who lack just one of the four majors in their CVs —

• Walter Hagen, Masters
• Lee Trevino, Masters
• Tommy Armour, Masters
• Sam Snead, U.S. Open
• Phil Mickelson, U.S. Open
• Byron Nelson, British Open
• Tom Watson, PGA Championship
• Arnold Palmer, PGA Championship

—and a win this week at Harding Park will vault him into even more illustrious company, that of the five men who have claimed each of golf’s major titles at least once: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Gene Sarazen.