Money talks – Rory McIlroy flips his stance on PGA Tour–LIV Golf standoff

Rory McIlroy, who became the first invertebrate[1] winner of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am a couple of weeks ago, has totally flipped, in more ways than one, from PGA Tour crusader to LIV-accepting, bootlicking Donald Trump sycophant. According to a pair of articles penned by unabashed Rory fanboy Josh Schrock at Golf.com (‘Get over it’: Rory McIlroy says PGA Tour-LIV unification works only in 1 way; ‘On the Tour’s side:’ Rory McIlroy thinks Donald Trump can help PGA Tour-PIF negotiations), McIlroy has shed his guise as stalwart defender of the PGA Tour, not only adopting a “can’t we all just get along” attitude with respect to the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league, but sucking up to the convicted felon who lied and hoodwinked his way into the White House for a second term (to our nation’s shame), saying that the convicted felon, failed businessman, and oligarch suck-up can help with negotiations between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf league.

With the exception of the reigning U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau (and just typing that made me throw up in my mouth a little) few, if any, of the defectors were or are still players in the top tier of the game—and I say good riddance to them all.

The greedy pros who ditched the PGA Tour to join LIV signed on with an outfit whose goal was to destroy the tour that had, in many cases, made them multi-millionaires, joining a league that is funded by a blood-soaked, misogynistic, religio-authoritarian monarchy with one foot in the Middle Ages who see it as a way to put a good face on their heinous government by participating in international sports[2].

Rory and other LIV apologists on the PGA Tour are caving in because the Tour leadership panicked at the loss of a few big names to LIV and instituted changes that will open the way to making players who stuck with the PGA Tour even richer. (Rory himself has benefitted from these changes: as the winner of the Signature event at Pebble Beach two weeks ago, McIlroy banked a $3.6 million paycheck thanks to the now-$20 million total purse for those select events.)

And now McIlroy is sucking up to the heinous grifter and convicted felon who lied his way into the White House, again, in hopes of cementing an agreement that will put the PGA Tour in bed with not one but two criminal regimes—the Saudis and the current U.S. administration—all in the interests of padding his own already-over-stuffed bank account[3].

Some in the golf media see this attitude shift as personal “growth” on Rory’s part, viz the following quote:

“Everyone sees things through their own lens. McIlroy has  changed his opinion on a multitude of things, but that’s a sign of growth and evolution in any person. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with how the stance has changed or that the contradictions can’t be addressed.”

– Josh Schrock, Golf.com

Others, like myself, see it as giving up in the face of the realization that you are going to make a butt-ton of money no matter what happens, so why bother to push back any more?

Any number of the LIV defectors have shown a similar lack of character, notably Spaniard Jon Rahm, who very publicly declared that he was “playing for legacy, not money” and pledged to remain a PGA Tour player, until the Saudis waved a contract under his nose that has been reported[4] to be worth $300 million over several years. In a press conference after his 2022 win in the Open Championship at St Andrews, Aussie Cam Smith waved away questions about a possible move to the Saudi-backed golf league, saying that he just played golf, his “team” worries about that stuff:

Q. Cam, apologies for having to bring this up in these circumstances, but your name continues to be mentioned, has been mentioned to me this week about LIV golf. What's your position? Are you interested? Is there any truth to suggestions that you might be signing?
CAMERON SMITH: I just won the British Open, and you're asking about that. I think that’s pretty not that good.
Q. I appreciate that, but the question is still there. Are you interested at all? Is there any truth in that?
CAMERON SMITH: I don't know, mate. My team around me worries about all that stuff. I'm here to win golf tournaments.

But Cam is the one signing on the dotted line and banking all that Saudi gelt.

Ever since two big sea-change events in the world of men’s professional golf—the immense popularity of Arnold Palmer (which coincided with the advent of television coverage of golf and the influx of that sweet TV money), and the arrival of Tiger Woods on the scene, which brought step-changes in both endorsement deals and tournament purses—the game has been a road to generational wealth for those at the top of the heap. No one is saying that it’s easy—golf is still a difficult game to play well, consistently, and fields are deep, but the money is there. Not everyone achieves multi-million dollar status, of course, but a damned good living can be made by those who make it into the pro ranks, and can stay. As middle-tier pro Kevin Kisner said in an interview back in January, 2021[5], “They give away a lot of money for 20th.”

(My favorite quote on the subject of making money in professional golf comes from the great Dan Jenkins, speaking through his character Kenny Lee Puckett in his 1974 golf novel, Dead Solid Perfect: “Compared to your basic millionaire like Jack Nicklaus, I’m nobody. But I can win myself about $200,000[6] a year if I can just manage to thump the ball around with my dick.”)

The ranks of men’s professional golf have become increasingly stratified in recent years—especially in the last couple of years, as the PGA Tour’s response to the emergence of LIV Golf has been to create the Signature Events mentioned above, limited-field no-cut events with purses bumped to $20 million from the measly $9 million paid out at run-of-the-mill Tour events. Rory McIlroy and some other inhabitants of the upper tiers of the game are pushing for more separation between the Haves and the (relatively speaking) Have-Nots in the game, greedily seeking entry into the One-Percenters Club on the back of their ability to knock a little white ball into a small hole in the ground starting from hundreds of yards away, doing so in fewer strokes than can those of us who play the game for recreation.

My final word on this subject again comes from the typewriter of Dan Jenkins, speaking as Kenny Lee Puckett:

“Now if you ask me why so many people want to put up so much money for us to compete for, I can’t give you a sensible answer. There’s no law that says there has to be a golf tour. 

If all the sponsors got together and decided they were weary of seeing us every year, it would be all over. Most of us would have to sit down on the curb and learn to play the harmonica, or something.”

[1] (That is to say, spineless.)

[2] (Also known as “sportswashing”.)

[3] (Rory’s current net worth is estimated at around US $170M.)

[4] (Jon Rahm LIV Golf contract, explained: How much money does he make from LIV deal in 2024?)

[5] Kevin Kisner had a hilarious response when asked if he can win anywhere on tour, https://www.golfwrx.com/644924/kevin-kisner-had-a-hilarious-response-when-asked-if-he-can-win-anywhere-on-tour/ Jan. 14, 2021.

[6] (Quote is from the 1999 edition of the book; that number is chump change these days.)

Starting my second decade at the Crosby

Once again, my favorite week of the year has rolled around. No, it’s not Spring Break, or even Christmas vacation – it’s Crosby Week.

The poster for the first “Crosby” hints at the
fun-loving nature of the event in the early days.

For those in my audience who are below the age of, say, 50, “the Crosby” (officially the “Bing Crosby Pro-Amateur Golf Championship”, aka “the “Crosby Clambake”) is what the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was called before AT&T brought a bucket of money to the table and started a decades-long run as presenting sponsor of the tournament. Started in the 1930s by crooner Bing Crosby (you youngsters can Google him) as a weekend get-together  for a bunch of his showbiz friends at Old Brockway Golf Course on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore, the tournament was later moved to Rancho Santa Fe, just north of San Diego, where the event’s pro-am format began. Bing would pair touring pros with amateur players drawn from the ranks of his show-business friends and the member of the Lakeside Golf Club in Hollywood, where he was a member (and five-time club champion).

The event came back from a 1942 wartime postponement with a move to the Monterey Peninsula in 1947, where it was played at Pebble Beach Golf Links and a rotating cast of supporting courses such as Cypress Point, the Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course, Poppy Hills (home of the NCGA) and Spyglass Hill, over the years. In 1986 the people at AT&T bought out Bing’s widow, Katherine Crosby, changed the name of the tournament, and have been carrying on the tradition ever since.

My own history with this tournament started with watching it on TV as a kid growing up in nearby Salinas. I didn’t play golf, nor did any of my friends or their fathers, but everyone we knew watched the tournament. When I finally got interested in golf, many years later (thanks to the golf writing of Dan Jenkins…) and started playing and then writing about golf, I was lucky enough to get a foot in the door of the golf media world as a part-time freelancer, and get the privilege of entry to the media center at Pebble Beach for this event.

I actually wrote about this event for the first time in 2011, the year that saw long-time celebrity entrant Bill Murray and his then-new pro partner D.A. Points score the historic double, their team taking the pro-am trophy while Points won the pro event. I wrote that article (Cinderella Story) based on watching the event on TV at home, but two years later I was walking into the media center in the conference rooms above the Pebble Beach Gallery shops, a 50-something semi-rookie (I had started my official golf media career the previous year at the 2012 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club), rubbing elbows with the men and women who do this for a living.

I have covered the event every year since (though physically absent during the lockdown year of 2021), so the 2023 tournament marks my eleventh go-round, and the first year of my second decade as more than just a fan of the event.

In that time I have made friends amongst the ranks of the people who cover sports for a living. I kept my ears open and my mouth shut (for the most part), learning what I could from the pros in what used to be called the “press room”, and have enjoyed enlightening conversations with the likes of Bay Area sports writing legend Art Spander; the San Francisco Chronicle’s Ron Kroichick; and Mark Purdy, the now-retired sports maven for the San José Mercury News. When my first media affiliation, with the Examiner.com website, ended with the site’s demise in 2016, the connection I had made with the NCGA through my fellow Salinas homeboy and now NCGA Communications Director, Jerry Stewart, has kept me “in with the in-crowd” (PGA Tour press credentials are not available to freelancers without an affiliation with an acknowledged media outlet.)

It has been a privilege to walk the cart paths of Pebble Beach and the affiliated courses over the past decade, and to write about the events that transpire over these four days. I have seen a varied cast of characters leading and even winning this event, from big names like Phil Mickelson (twice) to no-names like Ted Potter, Jr. (sorry, Ted), and the storied venue and its companions in the rota haves never failed to provide drama and excitement – not to mention the best scenery on the PGA Tour. I look forward to at least a few more years of bringing my audience the stories from Pebble Beach (I’m no spring chicken, after all…) and hope that people enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoy writing about it.

Equipment Review: Edge EX irons from Ben Hogan Golf ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

August 5th, 2022: I felt that I should post an update to this article to share some sad news – the Ben Hogan Golf Equipment Company is no more. I wrote about it here.

****************************************

Let’s get this out of the way right from the start—I am a big fan of everything Ben Hogan. Though I first got my hands on a golf club in junior high school, I didn’t really get interested in golf until about 18 years later, when I was introduced to the golf writing of the legendary sportswriter Dan Jenkins.

Jenkins, like Hogan a native of Fort Worth, Texas, started covering Hogan’s career as a college freshman writing for the old Fort Worth Press. His admiration for Ben Hogan rubbed off on me through my reading, and my interest in all things Hogan eventually extended to the golf clubs manufactured by the company Hogan founded in the early 1950s, Ben Hogan Golf.

Over the years I have acquired four sets of Hogan irons of various vintages (most recently a nice 3–PW set of Hogan Apex Plus cavity-back irons with the rare Apex 4 graphite shafts), so it was with much interest that I followed the revival of Ben Hogan Golf as an equipment manufacturer back in 2016. I tested and reviewed their original Fort Worth irons back then, and was very impressed by their design, build quality, and performance, even though I felt that their use of loft numbering rather than traditional club-numbering designations was a bit odd.

Jump forward five years to 2021 and we find the reboot of the Ben Hogan Golf Company going strong, having defined the direct-to-consumer business model for golf clubs. I have been keeping my eye on the company’s offerings since 2016, and a couple of months ago I took advantage of their demo program to try (and buy) my first new driver in more years than I care to admit. When I first saw the new Edge EX irons I knew I would have to try them, too.

Why the Edge EX?

I was drawn to the Edge EX, Ben Hogan Golf’s new entry in the “Game-Improvement Irons” category, by their resemblance to the Apex Edge irons of the original Ben Hogan Golf Company (of which I own a pair: new-old-stock 5-iron and 6-iron with Apex 4 graphite shafts), and by the fact that though they are labeled “game improvement” they don’t have that “shovels for duffers” look that is so common to many entries in the category.

The hybrid cavity/muscle-back “Open Cavity” design, which the Edge EX has in common with the Apex Edge of 20 years ago, is a proven way of combining the low/rearward mass placement that is instru-mental in helping get a ball up in the air with the (moderately) wide sole that helps make these clubs friendly in the hands of mid-to-high handicappers.

The open-cavity back and perimeter weighting of the new Ben Hogan Edge EX irons combine for its high-launch characteristics and forgiveness on mishits. (Photo by author)

Speaking of the sole, the Ben Hogan V-Sole design, which combines a high-bounce leading edge with a low-bounce trailing edge, is a big contributor to the player-friendliness of the Edge EX, easing turf inter-action across a wide range of conditions.

The dual-camber Hogan V-Sole design helps the Edge EX irons work smoothly through a wide range of turf conditions. (Photo by author)

The thickish topline of the Edge EX, while a feature that is disparaged by aficionados of butter-knife blades, is evidence of yet another “friendliness factor” design feature: the perimeter weighting which increases forgiveness on mishits.

While some may not care much for the topline view of the Ben Hogan Edge EX irons, the perimeter weighting that it represents increases forgiveness on mishits. (Photo by author)

Other features I like are the lofts and gapping which are employed in the Edge EX design. The people at Ben Hogan Golf believe in con-sistent gapping—all of their iron sets use 4º loft increments—and the Edge EX irons use lofts that are two degrees stronger than their Icon and PTx Pro irons for that little bit of extra help, distance-wise, for the players for whom these clubs are designed. (It is worth noting, how-ever, that the Edge EX lofts are two to three degrees weaker than offerings in the same category from most other manufacturers.)

Personally, I think that a high launch is more desirable than the potential distance gain from jacked-up iron lofts, and higher-lofted irons are easier to hit, so Edge EX lofts that are only a couple of degrees stronger than Hogan’s player’s irons seem a reasonable compromise to me.

Demo-ing the Edge EX

I took advantage of Ben Hogan Golf’s demo program to try out the Edge EX for myself. As part of the tryout I did a bit of a comparison test against the 7-iron from my current gamers, the Sub70 Golf 639 CB irons with stiff KBS Tour-V 90 shafts, as well as the 7-irons from three of my sets of vintage Hogan irons: Apex Plus with Apex 4 (stiff) steel shaft, Apex Plus with Apex 4 graphite shaft, and Edge CFT with Apex 3 (regular flex) graphite shaft. My demo Edge EX 7-iron was fitted with the KBS Tour 90 S-flex shaft.

I chose to play off the Edge CFT, a lesser-known offering from the old Hogan Company, against the Edge EX because it is a similar open-cavity design, but with a Compression Forged Titanium (ergo “CFT”) face brazed into a stainless-steel body. The use of strong, lightweight titanium for the face, in conjunction with the open cavity back and perimeter-weighted design, maximized forgiveness in these clubs which were, in my estimation, ahead of their time and never fully appreciated for their playing qualities.

In two range sessions with the Edge EX and my lineup of comparison clubs I particularly noted the similarity in feel and ball flight between the Edge EX and the Edge CFT, which I attribute to the similarities in design shared by the two. Both feature a high, controllable ball flight and a smooth feel at impact (even if you’re not wearing a nickel-sized bald spot into the center of the club face.)

The loft of the Edge EX 7-iron, at 32º, was two degrees stronger than the clubs I was comparing it to, and relying on eyeball evaluation of ball flight alone I judged it be similar in distance, with higher ball flight (in my hands), especially compared to the older Apex Plus irons, regardless of shaft material. The V-Sole design of the Edge EX allowed the club to work smoothly through even the less-than-ideal turf conditions at the range where I was testing the club (they move the ropes on Mondays, but I was only able to get to the range on weekends—because I still have a day job—so the hitting areas were generally a bit chewed up.)

Despite its standard lie and regular-sized grip, rather than the 1º flat and midsize grip that is my preferred setup, I found the demo Edge EX to be a comfortable, consistent club to play with, and even in the hands of this high-handicapper (slightly higher than average, I admit—I need to get out and play more golf) it is workable, right and left, if you feel the need to play with ball-flight shape.

The bottom-line result of my club testing of the Edge EX—two range sessions, comparing shots to some vintage Hogan irons and my current Sub70 gamers—is that slightly more than a year after buying the Sub70s, I am contemplating the purchase of another new set of irons.

To be honest, if the folks at Ben Hogan Golf were to combine the updated open-cavity design of the Edge EX with the titanium face technology of the 2003-vintage Edge CFT, I wouldn’t be thinking twice about that purchase.

If You Can’t Play Golf, Read About It – A Recommended-Reading List of Golf-Related Books

In this time of shelter-in-place and social distancing, with people turning to indoor pursuits as their chosen outdoor pursuits are, largely, curtailed for the duration of the health emergency, “Top 10” lists of movies to TV shows to watch, or books to read, are flourishing. Since I publish two blogs, one on golf and another on books, what is more appropriate than for me to publish a golf-book reading list of my own? Here then, in no particular order, is my personal rundown of golf books that I have found to be especially rewarding to read, with a brief description of each.

Let’s start with the man who started it all for me, Dan Jenkins:

Dead Solid Perfect, by Dan Jenkins
This is the book that was my introduction to Dan Jenkins’ work, and to golf writing in general. Dead Solid Perfect was recommended to me by the father of a girl I was dating, years ago, with this caveat, “Don’t read it anywhere where laughing out loud will bother other people.” I went out and bought a copy, and read it straight through over a weekend. It lived up to its billing.

A bit raunchy in parts (though not a patch on Jenkins’ big football-based bestseller, Semi-Tough), and far from politically correct at any time, DSP relates the adventures of Fort Worth-based pro golfer Kenny Lee Puckett—growing up in Fort Worth, pursuing life and love on the pro golf circuit, and making a run at the U.S. Open title. (If the name sounds familiar, Semi-Tough’s pro football player protagonist Billy Clyde Puckett is Kenny Lee’s nephew.)

DSP is the genre-defining grandaddy of all golf novels; no golf-reading list can be considered complete if it does not include this book.

More by Dan Jenkins:

NOVELS
The Money-Whipped Steer-Job Three-Jack Give-Up Artist: Winner by two lengths for the “longest title in my bookcase” prize, this book is kind of Dead Solid Perfect, Pt II. Published in 2001, just shy of 40 years after the publication of Dead Solid Perfect, Jenkins revisits familiar territory with another Fort Worth-based pro golfer, Bobby Joe Grooves, who is on a quest for a spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup squad.

Slim and None: Bobby Joe Grooves is back in this 2005 sequel, with a new girl friend, and a new quest—a major championship title and membership in an exclusive club: major winners aged 44 and over.

The Franchise Babe: Jenkins switches gears in this 2008 novel—instead of a pro golfer from Fort Worth, his protagonist is a golf writer from Fort Worth who has jumped the fence from the PGA Tour to cover an up-and-coming young LPGA star. Predictable, maybe; but also funny in Dan’s resolutely non-PC manner. Look for a cameo appearance by a thinly disguised Ron Sirak, a good friend of Dan’s who has worked the LPGA beat for years.

NON-FICTION
The Dogged Victims of Inexorable Fate: The classic, must-read collection of golf essays, some real, some fictional. Dan’s second book, written in 1970, contains the single best comic essay on golf ever written, “The Glory Game”.

Fairways and Greens: This 1994 collection of Dan’s writing is divided into two sections: essays on the (then) current-day game, and a “nostalgia” section, heavy on the Hogan (of course!) Also contains a reprint of “The Glory Game” re-titled as “The Glory Game at Goat Hills”.

Unplayable Lies: Another collection of essays, published in 2015. Half existing works that had appeared previously in Golf Digest or Golf World (in some cases slightly updated or reworked for the book), the other half new work, written specifically for this book.

Jenkins at the Majors: Another collection of Dan’s work, 94 of the brilliant, written-on-deadline pieces on golf’s majors, written for the Fort Worth Press, Dallas Times Herald, Sports Illustrated, and Golf Digest that he turned in during his career as a newspaperman and magazine writer—during which he covered 232 majors—arranged chronologically and chosen for the historical significance of the particular event.

Mr Hogan, The Man I Knew, by Kris Tschetter
This 2010 volume by LPGA player Kris Tschetter is unique in the Hogan bibliography, relating as it does how South Dakota-native Tschetter became acquainted with Hogan while she was on the golf team at Texas Christian University in Forth Worth. She and her older brother, Mike, who also played golf for TCU, were gifted junior memberships at Shady Oaks Golf Club—Hogan’s golf hangout in his retirement years—by their parents. Hogan noticed Kris for her diligent practice sessions (one of his trademarks) and they became sometime practice partners. Kris and Mr Hogan remained close for the remainder of his life, and her stories of their time together and his surrogate-grandfather role in her life are heart-warming and genuine.

I haven’t conducted a formal count, but Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer have to be running neck-and-neck in the number of books that have been written about them, Palmer because he was so open and charismatic, and Hogan because he was pretty much the opposite (or at least perceived that way), so this book is important for the depiction of a side of Ben Hogan that few knew existed.

For more on Ben Hogan, I recommend two fine (though very different) biographies, Hogan, by Curt Sampson, and Ben Hogan: An American Life, by James Dodson; also Grown at Glen Garden, by Jeff Miller, about Hogan, Byron Nelson and the Fort Worth golf course where they both grew into the game; and Miracle at Merion, by David Barrett, which relates the story of Hogan’s comeback from a near-fatal 1949 automobile collision, leading to the much-lauded 1950 U.S. Open victory at Merion Golf Club, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Men in Green, by Michael Bamberger

This 2015 book by (now-former) Sports Illustrated writer Bamberger is a delightful road trip around the United States to connect with some legends of the game of golf, both well-known and little-known/unknown. The names involved run the gamut from Arnold Palmer to Dolphus Hull. It is full of Bamberger’s wry observations and enlivened by his deep knowledge of and love for the game of golf. (The talks he had with Arnold Palmer are themselves worth the price of the book.)

More by Michael Bamberger: 

The Green Road Home: Bamberger’s first book, published in 1986, is about the six months he spent caddying in the PGA Tour the previous year, at the age of 24. Twenty-three tournaments, including the British Open and the PGA Championship. Caddying for a disparate array of players such as Al Geiberger, George Archer, Brad Faxon, and Steve Elkington. It is a great look at a bygone time in pro golf, and the beginning of the career of one of the best writers in the game of golf today.

To The Linksland: Six years after The Green Road Home, Bamberger and his adventurous and very understanding wife, Christine, left their office jobs—he a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, she a New York ad executive—to see the other side of golf: Scotland, the Continent, and the European Tour. It is an adventurous travelogue, and a journey to the heart and soul of the most soulful game in the world.

This Golfing Life: A stirring retrospective, published in 2005, looking back at twenty years in golf, from caddying in his twenties to reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he covered golf part-time, before moving on (and up) to Sports Illustrated.

Bud, Sweat, and Tees, by Alan Shipnuck

Former Sports Illustrated writer, now wielding a pen for Golf.com, my fellow Salinas, California native Shipnuck can always be counted on to find a quirky story among the goings-on in the world of professional golf. This book, which follows PGA Tour pro Rich Beem’s early career, from his 1999 rookie season to his early (and ultimate) peak as the 2002 PGA Championship winner, is a great example. It’s a crazy ride from Beem’s stint as a minimum wage cellphone salesman, to hooking into the wilder side of life on the PGA Tour accompanied by his equally hard-living caddie Steve Duplantis.

More by Alan Shipnuck:

Swinging From My Heels – Shipnuck collaborated with San Jose, California native Christina Kim on this inside look at the 2009 LPGA Tour. Kim, the youngest LPGA player in history to reach one million dollars in career earnings—back when a million bucks was still a lot of money—has never been one to pull a punch, and this no-holds-look at a season on the distaff Tour raised some eyebrows when it came out in 2010.

The Battle for Augusta National: Hootie, Martha, and the Masters of the Universe – The first book by Shipnuck explored the Hootie Johnson/Martha Burke controversy that affected the 2003 Masters golf tournament.

The Swinger—A collaboration with (then-)fellow SI scribe Michael Bamberger, this roman-á-clef novel is thinly-disguised run at the infamous trials and tribulations of Tiger Woods.

The Greatest Game Ever Played, by Mark Frost

The inspiring story of Francis Ouimet, the 21-year-old American amateur golfer who defeated two titans of golf, England’s Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, to take the 1913 U.S. Open title. The account of how Ouimet, accompanied by his 10-year-old caddie, Eddie Lowery, took down these two giants of the game in a nerve-wracking playoff at The Country Club, in Brookline, Massachusetts, is a sports story for the ages.

More by Mark Frost:

The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf – No name in American golf resonates more strongly throughout the game than that of Bobby Jones. Frost delves deeply into the life of this American sporting icon in this well-received 2004 biography.

The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever – Though I have always felt that the event doesn’t live up to the billing of the subtitle, this book about a private match at Cypress Point Golf Club in 1956 between two of the top professional golfers of the era, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, and two top local amateurs, Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward, is an engrossing read, with plenty of infill back-story on the participants, as well as the instigators of this fabled confrontation, San Francisco auto dealer and amateur golf supporter Eddie Lowery (yes, that Eddie Lowery) and Oklahoma oil and cattle millionaire George Coleman.

A Course Called Ireland, by Tom Coyne

An eccentric golf-centric travelogue, in which Coyne, an associate professor of English at a small Midwestern college, explores his Irish heritage by walking around the perimeter of Ireland in sixteen weeks, playing every golf course that he comes across (60, eventually). He doesn’t miss many pubs along the way, either.

More from Tom Coyne:

A Course Called Scotland – Coyne’s fourth book, this 2018 volume is something of a followup to his 2009’s A Course Called Ireland. Also a golf-centric travelogue, this time around Coyne plays all of the links courses in Scotland (and a few notable ones in England and Wales) on his way to an attempt to qualify for the Open Championship at Bruntsfield Links in Edinburgh.

Paper Tiger – Coyne’s first “golf quest” book, this 2006 effort is about a year spent attempting to qualify for the PGA Tour. Funny and poignant by turns, it is an exploration of a secret desire harbored by many good-but-not-quite-good-enough recreational golfers.

A Gentleman’s Game – Coyne’s first book, and only novel, about a talented high school golfer and his clashes with his father, a self-made businessman who is envious of his son’s talent and the entry it gives the boy into the rarified social circles of the local country club.

Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History, by Bill Fields

Subtitled Heroes, Underdogs, Courses, and Championships, this 2011 volume by Bill Fields, a former senior editor at Golf World magazine, a compendium of his columns from a 30-year golf-writing career, is a condensed master course in “How to write about golf”. The best golf writing isn’t about the score or who won, or what clubs they used—it’s about the people in the game, winners or also-rans, and their journeys to achievement. Fields is a master at identifying and illuminating the essence of the story he’s telling, with tremendous empathy for the people involved, and he has a poetic flair for a well-turned phrase that makes his prose a joy to read.

The Longest Shot—Jack Fleck, Ben Hogan, and Pro Golf’s Greatest Upset at the 1955 U.S. Open, by Neil Sagebiel
I had the pleasure of meeting author Neil Sagebiel at the 2012 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. I was there covering the event for my then-media outlet, Examiner.com, and Neil was there for this book. The victory, in an 18-hole playoff, that unknown muni-course pro Jack Fleck scored over Ben Hogan, one of the brightest stars in golf’s firmament at the time, was truthfully one of the biggest upsets in golf history. Sagebiel delves deeply into the background of Fleck, who was something of a character, and a minor player of the sort who inhabited the fringes of the professional game in those days. It is a well-balanced look at a great moment in sports history, and the only one that I have read which does not approach the story from the standpoint of “Wouldn’t it have been better if Hogan had won?”

Also from Neil Sagebiel:

Draw in the Dunes–The 1969 Ryder Cup and the Finish That Shocked the World. Just about any golf fan is aware of the finish of the 1969 Ryder Cup, when Jack Nicklaus conceded a putt to Britain’s Tony Jacklin – a concession that resulted in the first tie in the history of the competition (while allowing the U.S. squad, as defending champions, to keep the cup.) The reactions at the time ranged the gamut, from U.S. Captain Sam Snead’s self-righteous indignation to frank relief on the part of many on the GBI squad. In this book Neil brought a significant moment in golf history to life, combining the results of exhaustive research and extensive interviews with his prodigious storytelling talent to paint a complete, and very satisfying portrait of a complex series of events. 

The Story of Golf in Fifty Holes, by Tony Dear
Tony Dear, a British golf writer living in the Seattle area, explores the history of golf in unique fashion in this 2015 book, ticking off fifty significant events in the history of the game, in chronological order, by looking at the golf holes where they happened. I have met and played golf with Tony on a couple of occasions, and found him to be a knowledgeable and erudite scholar of the game, qualities which this book puts on display superbly. I think that any golf fan with an interest in the history of the game will find this book to be very interesting (though I do hope that Tony will revise his selection for #50 if he ever publishes an updated edition.)

Pebble Beach and the Forgotten Men, by Jerry Stewart

We have all heard the story of Phil Mickelson’s maternal grandfather, Al Santos, a poor kid growing up in Monterey, California, son of a Portuguese fisherman, who at age 13 became one of the first caddies at the newly opened Pebble Beach Golf Links. Well, in this 2005 book by Jerry Stewart, then a sportswriter for the Monterey County Herald (and now Communications Manager for the Northern California Golf Association) you will read some great stories about, and told by, many of the other caddies – a colorful bunch, to be sure – that have paced the fairways and greens of Pebble Beach over the years.

Jerry is another local guy, born and raised in Salinas like myself, and a good friend whom I first met in the media center for the Champions Tour’s First Tee Championship tournament at Pebble Beach. In Pebble Beach and the Forgotten Men he has put together a great collection of the kind of stories that are usually heard over libations in the Men’s Grill after a round of golf. It’s a fun read for anyone who has been fascinated by the long history of one of America’s greatest golf courses, and a lot cheaper than buying a round of drinks for the bar.

Dan Jenkins’ Last Hurrah – “The Reunion at Herb’s Café” ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (out of five)

I’ll admit that it is difficult for me to be totally objective when I write about Dan Jenkins. Reading Dan’s work, specifically, his first golf novel, Dead Solid Perfect, sparked my nascent interest in golf and inspired me to try my hand at writing about the game myself. Since that first encounter with his words I have done my best to keep up with everything he wrote subsequently, and have backtracked to read his old columns in Sports Illustrated and Playboy, and his earlier books.

Jenkins’ death, on March 7, 2019, was a great loss to the world of sports writing, but fans of Jenkin’s work got a welcome bit of news when it was announced that the manuscript of a final book was on his desk when he passed, which would be published after a quick polish by his daughter, Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins. This book, The Reunion at Herb’s Café, is the result.

Reunion is a walk down Memory Lane for Dan Jenkins fans. Built around the core story of Herb’s Café being purchased from Herb’s widow by Fort Worth hometown boy Tommy Earl Bruner, the story is mostly an excuse for bringing back some beloved characters from Jenkins’ earlier novels and providing a “where-are-they-now”–style wrap-up on what they’ve been doing with their lives since the novels they featured in were closed out.

It’s a fun read, especially for fans of Semi-Tough and its followups, Life Its Ownself and Rude Behavior, and Baja Oklahoma, whose characters are featured. New character and narrator Tommy Earl Bruner, a long-time buddy of Billy Clyde Puckett, Shake Tiller, and Barbara Jane Bookman, is introduced and given the usual Jenkins protagonist treatment, mirroring the author’s own life. Twice-divorced but newly hooked-up with a fabulous new gal, former Paschal High/TCU/pro footballer Tommy Earl becomes a business partner of Barbara Jane’s daddy, “Big Ed” Bookman, when he strikes oil on a large plot of snake-infested prairie that he inherits from his parents.

It’s difficult to have to say this, but this book is further evidence, after 2017’s weakly conceived and executed Stick A Fork In Me, of Jenkins’ final-years decline. It is, overall, a nice stroll down Memory Lane for Jenkins’ fans, unfortunately marred by the increasingly strident diatribes against “libs and socialist college professors”, and an ending—which I will not discuss specifically, to avoid spoilers—which is ridiculous, and frankly, disappointing. It is these aspects of the narrative, which come late in the book, which let the reader (or at least this reader) down. I rank Reunion a notch above  Stick A Fork In Me, which is faint praise, but it falls well short of  Dead Solid Perfect, Semi-Tough and his other classic romps through the worlds of sports, and Texas.

Dan Jenkins and Me

Dan Jenkins, one of the finest American sportswriters in history, and arguably the finest ever to write about golf, died Thursday, March 7, 2019. He was 90 years old.

In the days following his death, better-known and more-accomplished writers than myself have written, and will be writing, about Jenkins and what his work and career meant to them. Among them there may be other besides me who can make this statement:

Dan Jenkins is the reason I became a golf writer.

I might have run across one or two of Danֹ’s golf columns in Playboy in the mid ’80s, thumbing through the pages of the magazine on the way to perusing the photos of the “shapely adorables” (as Dan would have called them), but I first fell in love with his work in 1987, when I read his golf novel Dead Solid Perfect. The father of the young lady I was dating at the time recommended the book to me, footnoting his recommendation with this piece of advice: “Don’t read it anyplace where laughing out loud will bother other people.” I picked up a copy, read it straight through over a weekend, and was hooked.

Though I was born and raised in Salinas, California, I flatter myself that I have a connection, at two removes, to the part of the world that shaped Dan—a native of Fort Worth, Texas—in early life. My paternal grandfather was born in nearby Krum, Texas, growing up there before moving to Oklahoma, where both of my parents were born. And while some of my attitudes and beliefs would probably have struck Dan as a little liberal and “PC”, as a “CIO” (California-Improved Okie), in many ways I can relate to the point of view of a native Texan like Dan.

Prior to reading Dead Solid Perfect my sole exposure to golf had been one round with some 8th-grade friends on the local nine-hole muni in Salinas, and a few P.E. classes in high school—from which I took away a decent understanding of the Vardon Grip and little else. Even after falling under the thrall of Jenkins’ words, reading and re-reading his fiction and non-fiction books, it was years before I picked up golf clubs again. I was knee-deep in an engineering career; had embarked upon what is, to date, a 29-years-and-counting marriage (to a different young lady…); bought a house; started a family—all the usual things.

Most important of all was the fact that I didn’t know anybody who played golf, so I hesitated to take it up with serious intent (and am still shy about inflicting my game on strangers.) So, my investment in the game stalled out at reading about it, and watching the occasional tournament on TV. For years then, while I probably had more golf trivia at my fingertips (from reading Jenkins’ work) than most people who actually played the game, I had no one to talk to about golf, to share my interest with. As an outlet for that interest, which all started with Dead Solid Perfect, I started this blog.

On February 2, 2011 I posted the first, introductory column on Will o'the Glen on Golf, wherein I wrote:

I have only been playing golf with any level of intent for about a year and a half, so I am relatively new to the game, but I have been reading about and following golf for nearly 25 years, having gotten that bug when the father of a friend of mine recommended that I read Dan Jenkins’ book Dead Solid Perfect. I quickly set about getting hold of as many of Mr. Jenkins’ books as I could track down (golf-related and otherwise), and have read everything new that he has come out with since then. Mr Jenkins’ writing, and viewpoint, set the tone for my own viewpoint on the game of golf, so expect to hear a lot about Dan and his golf writing, and Ben Hogan—the mid-20th century golf legend who Mr Jenkins was privileged to know, and whose career he covered from 1951 until Ben’s retirement from competitive golf in 1967.

Jenkins and Hogan have been with me ever since. After an initial two columns about the 2011 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (“Crosby Weather”, and “Cinderella Story”), I took it upon myself to pen a story about Ben Hogan and his record at Riviera Country Club (the event there followed the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at the time): “Hogan’s Alley — Riviera Country Club and Bantam Ben”. I continued to read, and review, every book by Dan Jenkins, or about Ben Hogan, that I could find.

In 2012 I responded to an ad on the Monster.com jobs web-page for an events website called Examiner.com, applying for a part-time, freelance position as a writer covering golf for the San Francisco Bay Area and Monterey Peninsula. I was accepted, and with the legitimacy conferred upon me by being affiliated with a recognized media outlet, in June of that year I found myself in possession of a media credential for the 112th United States Open golf tournament at the Olympic Club, in San Francisco.

I was 55 years old, with 30 years’ of experience as a mechanical engineer, but in the world of golf writing I was a wet-behind-the-ears newbie. I was a little star-struck as I walked into the huge media-center tent and looked around, spotting a double-handful of golf writers whose work I had been reading for years—and more so when I spotted Dan Jenkins himself, three rows up and half a dozen seats to the left of my work station in the cheap seats in the back row.

It never occurred to me to walk up and introduce myself to him—I was afraid of tripping over my tongue and looking like a fool in front of the man whose work I revered above all others in the field. 

I did have a face-to-face encounter with Dan during the Open—accidentally. Walking up the steps to the fancy portable restrooms that had been installed next to the media center tent, Dan stepped out of the door just as I reached the landing. A quick recollection of the story of Ben Crenshaw’s first time meeting Jack Nicklaus—in the bathroom of the men’s locker room at Merion—flashed through my mind, so I just stepped back out of his way with a muttered “Excuse me”, clearing the way so he could walk down the steps.

****************************************************************

As melancholy as the news of Dan’s death made me, there was a glimmer of brightness in the column written by his daughter Sally Jenkins—a supremely talented sportswriter in her own right—about her father, in which she stated, “A new manuscript of a novel my father just finished is still open on his desk[…]. The novel, titled The Reunion At Herb’s Café, tells readers where his major fictional characters ended up.”

Dan’s words have made me think and have made me laugh as over the years I read and re-read my collection of his books, and delved into the Sports Illustrated “Vault” online archive—a wonderful resource—to read past articles of his that reside there.

His body of work—a treasure trove of sharply etched observations and finely tuned sentences, all delivered in take-no-prisoners style by a man who saw the humor, and the humanity, in sports and in life—has inspired me for years, and I expect it to continue to do so for many years to come.

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.