Book Review: “The Murder of Marion Miley”, by Beverly Bell ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆

Given that The Murder of Marion Miley is about the murder of a talented and in her time, well-known, American amateur golfer, I debated whether to place this review in my golf-related blog, Will o'the Glen on Golf, or my book-review blog, Will o'the Glen on Books. Solomon-like, I decided to have it both ways and post it in both.

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Though this book reads like fiction, Marion Miley was a real person, and the broader outline of events described in the book actually happened: 27-year-old Marion and her mother, Elsie, were shot and killed during a late-night break-in and robbery at the Lexington, Kentucky, country club where they shared an upstairs apartment. Marion’s father, Fred Miley, formerly employed at the Lexington Country Club, was still married to her mother, but had taken a job at another golf club, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and lived apart from his wife and daughter.

Marion was a well known amateur golfer who competed against, and often defeated, such legends of the women’s game as Glenna Collett Vare, Babe Didrikson, and Patty Berg. Amateur golf being a much more glamorous and high-profile game at the time, Marion was a well-known name, and rubbed elbows with such famous personalities as Bing Crosby, and the former British king, Edward VIII, and his wife, the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.

The timing of the events recounted in the book, just over two months before America’s entry into the Second World War on December 7, 1941, meant that this story has largely been relegated to a footnote in history. Beverly Bell’s efforts to bring the story of Marion’s death to the attention of the public 80 years after the fact are well intentioned, but, in my assessment, fall short of the mark.

The novelization of true events is a problematic task, even when preceded, as was done in this case, with an author’s note disclaimer that “(a)ll dialogue and journal writings are imagined.” Given the amount of the text that is given over to such imagined entities, the imaginary content seriously overtakes the factual, and I couldn’t help but think, after closing the cover on the final pages of the book, that this was a case of a strong magazine article being teased out to book length, and doing a disservice to the story in the process.

I found the book’s structure problematic, opening as it did with a clinical—and not for the squeamish—description of Marion’s injuries from the two bullets that took her life; even more problematic were the subsequent random meanderings of the narrative voice between a variety of points-of-view: the police investigating the crime; Marion’s father, as he attempts to deal with the loss of both his wife and daughter at one stroke; Marion’s best friend, Frances “Fritz” Laval; and the perpetrators of the murders. The constantly changing voice was confusing, and made it difficult to keep track of both events and characters—some of whom, it turns out, were fabricated from the whole cloth by the author.

Given the fact that the publisher, South Limestone Books, is an imprint of the University of Kentucky Press, I was also surprised by instances of clumsy phrasing and sentence structure which an attentive and competent copy editor would have caught and corrected. Such matters detract from the overall impression of a book, more so perhaps for technically savvy readers than for others, but they can be like little trip-stones that interrupt one’s reading by interjecting a jarring sense of discord into the flow of the story.

I will stop short of a full dismissal of this book, but I cannot, in conscience, give it a strong recommendation. Marion Miley’s life and tragic death is a story that was worth the telling, and it’s unfortunate that this effort falls so far short of what the story of her life deserved, because given its relatively minor status in the larger scheme of the events of the time, even within the confines of the game of golf, it is unlikely that there will be another attempt.

Book Review: “Palm Springs Golf”, by Larry Bohannan – Local history book with widespread appeal ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Local histories are often charming, well-written – and only of interest to residents of the local area about which they are written. But when the local area being written about is a world-renowned golf destination, not to mention a well-known playground of stars from the worlds of entertainment and politics, and the book is authored by a longtime area newsman possessed of a deep knowledge of the game of golf and a keen interest in local history, the book takes on a wider appeal.

The 2015 release Palm Springs Golf – A History of Coachella Valley Legends and Fairways is just such a book. Authored by Larry Bohannan, the award-winning golf writer and columnist for the Coachella Valley region’s Desert Sun newspaper, Palm Springs Golf is a complete history of the evolution of the Palm Springs, California, region from sleepy desert hideaway to dynamic vacation destination – all through the power of the game of golf.

Bohannan’s prose, fashioned by a writer who has been honing his craft since 1982, brings the history of the Coachella Valley alive for the reader. From the first chapter, in which the reader will learn a bit of the earliest history of the Coachella Valley; to the last, in which the state of the region’s world-famous golf resorts and renowned professional tournaments, in the present day and beyond, is detailed, the author faithfully chronicles the people, places, and events that made the region what it is today.

It is the presence of high-quality resort golf and top-level professional and amateur golf competition which has, in large part, forged the region’s identity as a wintertime resort destination. Television coverage of golf competitions being played under sunny skies in shirt-sleeve conditions while much of the rest of the country is shivering in frigid temperatures and shoveling snow off the doorstep has for decades been some of the best advertisement the business and development communities in the Palm Springs area could hope for. 

Even before the advent of televised sports coverage, the ability to play golf in sunny conditions in wintertime was a draw the Coachella Valley business leaders exploited. From nine-hole courses associated with the early resorts such as the Hotel La Quinta and the Desert Inn of the 1920s, to the full 18-hole courses of the 1950s built at the Thunderbird  Country Club (the first in the area, in 1951), Tamarisk, Indian Wells, and many, many others, golf and the beautiful winter weather brought everyone from movie stars to presidents to the desert.

Golf competitions are a big part of the Palm Springs story which Bohannan relates in the book. Early amateur competitions were draws for top golfers (and enthusiastic vacationing golf fans) and professional competitions followed. The Coachella Valley’s best-known pro tournament was for years the star-studded Bob Hope Desert Classic (known by different names over the years as sponsorship changed) and it was joined by a variety of smaller, shorter-lived made-for-TV events such as the CBS Matchplay Classic and The Skins Game.

And not only was golf good for the desert, the desert was good for golf—two visits to the Palm Springs area by the international Ryder Cup competition, in 1955 and 1959, were instrumental in raising the profile of that event from that of an obscure USA vs GBI trophy event to the important position in the international sporting calendar which it now enjoys.

Women’s golf has long been a part of the desert scene, and author Bohannan gives the distaff game its fair share of attention in the book. The Colgate Dinah Shore Classic, played at Mission Hills Country Club, became a major event on the LPGA schedule, and remains so to this day in its current incarnation as the ANA Inspiration.

From early settlers and quaint, practically home-made courses built alongside the early resort hotels to the present day’s numerous resort and country club courses carpeting the valley floor; from everyday folks looking for a respite from the crowding of the Los Angeles Basin or the frigid wintertime conditions of the East and Midwest to the movie stars and political figures (including presidents from Eisenhower to Obama) who added a tinge of glamour to Palm Springs, the story of the Coachella Valley golf scene is more than just a local success story. Larry Bohannan’s book lays out the fascinating history of this world-famous golf destination in a diligently researched, well-written account that every golf fan who has ever visited the area (or dreamed of it while shivering through a frigid East Coast winter) will want to read.

Palm Springs Golf is available online at Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions; at Barnes & Noble, also in paperback and an electronic ‘Nook’ edition; from your local independent bookseller (of course…)—and if you are lucky enough to be visiting the region already, at pro shops in the area.

Book Review: “Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History”, by Bill Fields ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you have an interest in the history of the game of golf beyond the current headlines of the PGA Tour, one of the people whose work you should read is Bill Fields. Fields, a former senior writer at Golf World magazine, is a four-time winner of the Golf Writers Association of America’s annual writing contest whose work has also appeared in Golf Digest and the New York Times.

Fields’ 2014 book, Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History, is a condensed master course in “How to write about golf”. Of course, 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.

Drawn from his 30-year body of work, the individual articles which make up the book are segregated into sections on the greats of the game—individual men and women who stand tall in the annals of golf; great championships—competitions that defined turning points or significant moments in golf history; and underdogs—characters from the rich history of golf, some champions, some just obscure names in the agate, who are nevertheless part of the rich weave of the tapestry that is the history of the greatest game.

Some of the people you’ll read about in this book are Harry Vardon, the great English champion to whom 95% of the golfers in the world pay homage every time they pick up a club—he invented (or at least popularized) the overlapping grip; John J. McDermott, still the youngest man ever to win the United States Open, in 1911, at the age of 19 years, 10 months—a great champion who repeated the win the following year, becoming the first to complete the tournament under par, and who faded away into mental illness and obscurity; and Glenna Collett Vare—one of the great champions of the early years of women’s golf in the United States, a woman who combined marriage and motherhood with the accomplishments of a champion golfer.

Fields writes with compassion and understanding, whatever the subject, from well-known incidents like Arnold Palmer’s well-known meltdown in the 1966 U. S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, to footnotes in golf history such as the first 55 recorded in an eighteen-hole round of golf—and still the only one in a competitive round—a 16-under carded by a little-known Texas pro named Homero Blancas, on an oilfield course in the flatlands of east Texas.

With a foreword by a man who is simultaneously a great champion of the game, and an avid student of its history, Ben Crenshaw, Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the history of the people and events of the game of golf.

Lexi Thompson’s 2021 U.S. Women’s Open – a tale of two nines

The golf weather gods gave with one hand and took away with the other for today’s final round of the U.S. Women’s Open. The foggy, damp conditions of the previous three days were just a memory as Friday morning dawned sunny and bright—with brisk, blustery winds but otherwise picture-perfect conditions as the final pairing of the day— leader Lexi Thompson; Yuka Sosa, 19, of the Phillipines; and the Low Amateur leader, 17-year-old Megha Ganne—stepped up to the first tee.

Lexi Thompson hits her tee shot on the 12th hole during the final round at the 2021 U.S. Women's Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, Calif. on Sunday, June 6, 2021. (Darren Carroll/USGA)

As the pair of young, talented teenagers with whom she was paired struggled early in the round, Lexi Thompson, a veteran of 14 U.S. Women’s Opens and 36 other major championships, started out strong with a birdie on the par-5 first hole, then stuttering slightly with a bogey on #2. She made up the lost stroke with a birdie on five that was set up by a slingshot from the right rough that caught a good slope and rolled to near kick-in range.

Throughout the front nine Thompson looked cool, confident, and in command of her game, but on the second nine she resembled nothing so much as a front-running race car that was down on power, leaking oil, and struggling to hang on to an early lead.

That apparent command of her game started to drift away on the 11th hole. A wayward drive led to a hard chop out of the left rough that fell short, and was in turn followed by a duffed chip shot that came up short of the green, and a dead-push bogey putt. It was Thompson’s worst hole of the day, a double-bogey six that halved her (then) lead over China’s Shanshan Feng.

Not that her command of her game had totally left her—apparently unfazed by a flyer out of the right rough on #12 that raced through the green and over the back side, she rolled a long-range masterpiece of a putt to kick-in distance to save par.

After a fairly routine par on the par-three 13th hole, more trouble in the deep rough left of the 14th fairway left Thompson chipping on for her third and leaving nearly 16 feet for par—a putt that was spot-on for distance but misread for line by nearly a foot. The resulting bogey cut her lead, once again, to two strokes, now over the trio of Megan Khang, Nasa Hataoka, and Shanshan Feng.

On 15, with room to shoot at a back-center flag, Thompson played short, leaving herself 51 feet for a desperately needed birdie that, true to recent form, she didn’t get.

In the meantime, Thompson’s playing partner Yuka Saso had righted the ship after her par-double-double start, putting up four pars and a birdie to close out her front nine with a 3-over 38. Saso stumbled slightly at 11 with a bogey, but eventually closed strong with birdies on 16 and 17 to finish regulation play, and narrowly missed a potential tournament-winning putt at 18, to finish at four under.

Also moving up fast on the inside was Japan’s Nasa Hataoka, who put up six birdies against a double and a bogey to post 34-34–68, catching up to Thompson at four under as the Floridian approached the final hole.

The death knell for Thompson’s hopes of a 15th-time-lucky U.S. Women’s Open win was her second shot at the par-four 18th hole. From a good lie on the right-hand side of the fairway, she chili-dipped her approach into the deep, bowl-shaped right-front bunker. From a good lie on flat, groomed sand she overshot the tight-front flag, leaving herself a slippery, downhill 11-foot putt that she had to make to join Saso and Hataoka in a playoff.

She missed.

That putt was the climax to the latest in a long line of close calls and missed opportunities for Thompson, whose major championship record now includes three second-place finishes, four third-place finishes, 11 Top-5s, and 17 Top-10s. A certain five-letter word that starts with “c” is being thrown around in the commentary surrounding Lexi Thompson’s performance in this Women’s Open, and being as charitable as possible, it is still hard to argue with.

And those two young, talented teenagers that comprised the rest of Lexi Thompson’s group? Megha Ganne gamed up with a string of pars and one last bogey after a front-nine 41, making a got-to-have-it birdie at #17 to clinch Low Amateur honors. Yuka Saso went on to defeat Nasa Hataoka on the third hole of a playoff, stiffing her approach shot on their second time through #9 and sinking the birdie putt for the win. With this week’s effort she has made history as the first Filipino major champion in golf, and has exactly equaled Inbee Park’s age as youngest U.S. Women’s Open winner from her 2008 win in this event: 19 years, 11 months, 17 days.

Good going, ladies.

Friday – Cut Day at the U.S. Women’s Open

For most folks Friday is a day to celebrate. The weekend is almost here, and we are looking forward to knocking off of work and having a couple of days to relax and have fun—maybe play some golf. For tournament golfers, though, Friday has an entirely different meaning—Friday is Cut Day.

They call Saturday “Moving Day”, the day when players put the pedal to the metal and try to move up the scoreboard to be in position to make a run at a win on Sunday, but to get to Moving Day you have to get past Cut Day.

While we recreational golfers pay to play, the pros play to get paid, and Friday is when it gets real. The field in most professional events—and USGA championships, too, though there are amateurs in the field—is around 150 to 156 players, and less than half of them get to play the weekend for a chance at a trophy and a paycheck (or just the trophy, in the case of the amateurs).

Friday is the day when you sink or swim. If you had a bad day on Thursday, in the first round, you had better step up on Friday; if you rocked the house in the first round, you better keep it up and stay in that Top-60-and-ties group.

Missing the cut was known as “trunk slamming” back in the days when Tour pros drove from tournament to tournament. I guess now they just slam the tailgate of the SUV courtesy car before they head to the airport—but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

Who made a move today?

There were few big moves on Cut Day at the Olympic Club for the 76th U.S. Women’s Open—mostly just a lot of hanging on grimly to a position above the cut line.

Less than half of the players who occupied the top 20 spots on the leaderboard after the second round improved their scores from Thursday to Friday, and with few exceptions they improved, if at all, by one or two strokes.

Sarah Burnham, a second-year pro out of Michigan State, orchestrated a ten-stroke turnaround. After carding a 5-over 76 in the first round she came back and hammered out a 5-under 66 in the second. She turned her first round birdie/bogey of 1/6 count on its head, carding six birdies against one bogey and turning a T-84 and a likely missed cut into T-12 and playing on the weekend.

A little outside the Top 20, NorCal player Yealimi Noh, the winner of the 2018 U.S. Girls’ Junior at the NCGA’s home course, Poppy Hills, also made a dramatic move, as she went from a 5-over 76 in the first round to a 2-under 69 in the second. 

Noh’s seven-stroke turnaround came on the strength of five birdies against a bogey and a double, as opposed to her first-round count of three birdies against six bogeys and a double, floating her fifty-five spots up the leaderboard from T-84 to T-29.

San Francisco-born Danielle Kang made a four-stroke improvement from Round 1 to Round 2, obviously carrying no scar tissue from a triple-bogey 8—yes, the dreaded snowman—on the long par-five 16th hole in Round 1.

How did the rest of the NorCal players fare?

Between Danielle Kang at T-12 and Yealimi No at T-29, two more NorCal players made the cut. Lucy Li, the one-time girl wonder who qualified for the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open at age 11, posted 73-71–144 for T-20, tied with Monterey native daughter Mina Harigae with 71-72–144.

Harigae, whose round I followed today, missed a much higher finish by a cumulative 18 inches or so, based on the number of close-call putts that just didn’t drop for her today. If she figures out the mysteries of the Lake Course’s greens over the weekend she could well be a contender for the title.

In other news…

In other second-round news, anyone who was waiting for the Megha Ganne bubble to burst was disappointed. The 17-year-old amateur, whose biggest success previous to this event was in Augusta National’s Drive, Pitch, and Putt competitions, matched three bogeys with three birdies to card an even-par 71 and hold on to her 4-under score. She was dropped out of her co-leading position when Yuka Saso of the Phillippines added a second-round 67 to her first round 69 to take over the lead, and Korea’s Jeongeun Lee6 moved to 5-under and solo second after posting 70-67–137.

Ganne shares third place with Megan Khang, an LPGA pro since 2016. Khang, of Rockland, Massachusetts, can call on a familiarity with the local conditions based on having played in the 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, which was held at nearby Lake Merced Golf Club.

Reid and a surprise player hold co-lead after Day One of 2021 U.S. Women’s Open

When the men last played the national championship at the Olympic Club, in 2012, some British golf fans took umbrage at the USGA’s course setup, claiming that the event was “spoiled” by a course setup “designed to expose stars” and “humiliate our heroes”. Well, I hope those same blokes were watching the first round of the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open from the Olympic Club, because one of the UK’s finest distaff players, Mel Reid, showed the fellas how it should be done.

Reid posted a 4-under 67 on the par 71 setup, with five birdies and a lone bogey on the par-4 eighteenth hole spoiling the fun, taking only 28 putts on greens which were running at 12 to 12-1/2 today.

Reid was chased down at the last by comes-out-of-nowhere amateur Megha Ganne, who carded 32-25–67 to tie for the lead in the clubhouse, while Canada’s Brooke Henderson sweated ice chips over a slippery 3-foot downhill putt on the 18th hole as the sun set into the Pacific, hoping to close her round as part of a three-way tie for the lead. She missed it, but sank the comebacker back to join the trio of Angel Yin, Megan Khang, and Lexi Thompson at 3-under, one off the lead.

Among the NorCal-affiliated players in the field Mina Harigae’s even-par 71 tops the list, with Lucy Li at +1 right behind. Danielle Kang survived a beating at the par-five 16th, holing out a chip to get away with only a triple-bogey eight, to finish the day at +2, and 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champ and new San Francisco resident Michelle Wie West came in at +4. Amateurs Rachel Heck and Claire Choi joined San José native Christina Kim at +4 on the day.

A quick note from Wednesday at the U.S. Women’s Open

Wednesdays at a golf tournament have a certain feel, a “calm before the storm” quality that is palpable, and never more so than at a USGA championship. All USGA events are special, of course, but the Men’s and Women’s Opens are the crown jewels of the championship season, and it is the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open that I have the pleasure to find myself at this week.

Pulling into the media parking lot today at San Francisco’s Olympic Club, where I have covered a U.S. Open (2012), the inaugural Men’s Four-Ball Championship (2015), and the NCGA’s California Amateur (2017), I could feel the energy in the air even before I got to the entrance gates. Then I walked past the practice green, across the street from the club’s pro shop, and saw dozens of the hopefuls—well-known and practically unknown—who will tee it up in the opening round tomorrow, grinding over their putting, getting a feel for what is, for many of them, a very different environment for golf.

Further up the way and around the curve, at the practice range, players are working on full shots, accustomizing themselves to the dense, cool air a little more than a long par-5 from the crashing Pacific surf. On the course competitors are playing their final practice rounds, learning their way around the slopes and canted, rumpled fairways of one of the most challenging championship venues they will ever play. Belying the name, there are no water hazards on the Lake Course, and only one fairway bunker—on the inside of the slight dogleg-left on hole #6. The angles, uneven lies, and demanding putting surfaces comprise the championship test here at the Olympic Club—and they have tested, and bested, the games of some of the legends of golf—Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer, just to name two.

Will local knowledge help a NorCal player on their way to a championship this week? Two past U.S. Women’s Open champions with roots in the area are in the field this week: 2010 champ Paula Creamer grew up in Pleasanton, across the bay in the warmer, drier, inland reaches of Alameda County; and Michelle Wie West, a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, who studied at Stanford University while playing on the LPGA Tour, and who now lives in San Francisco. Will her membership and frequent playing time at nearby Lake Merced Golf Club stand her in good stead at the Olympic Club this week?

I’ll be out early on Thursday morning to follow a pair of NorCal competitors who are teeing off at 7:15 a.m. and who represent two extremes of experience in the event: San José native Christina Kim, who is playing in her seventeenth U.S. Women’s Open; and Pleasanton’s Jaclyn LaHa, a rising high school junior who is playing in her first. Kim was co-medalist in her qualifying tournament at Dedham, Massachusetts’s Country Club with a 3-under 137; LaHa placed second at the Marin Country Club qualifier with a 7-under 137 (70–67).

I can hardly wait for it to begin.