I’m partial to Jeff Ritter’s take, but the Somax Performance analysis (H/T Geoff Shackelford) below of Tiger Wood’s swing problems is thought-provoking.
As an aside, I continue to maintain that Wood’s ill-advised training regimen has had an underappreciated impact on his swing problems.
One of the many endearing qualities of golf is the cast of characters that the game attracts. So, it naturally follows that the game generates wonderful stories, many of which are hilarious.
Golf Digest‘s December issue passes along a couple of dozen of those funny anecdotes (see more here) and I can think of no better way to start off the New Year than to take a few minutes and enjoy them all. One of my favorites is one that NBC golf commentator Roger Maltbie passes along about an interview with the legendary Sam Snead:
It’s 1999, and we’re doing the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. I’m in the tower at 18 with Dan Hicks. We decide to do an interview with Sam. He was what, 87 or something?
We were advised that Sam had good days and bad days, so we decided to do the interview on tape. The last thing you want to do is embarrass anybody.
It started slowly, but all of a sudden Sam turns to Dan and says, "You know, I sat down and thought about it once, and if I had shot 69 in the final round of the Open, I’d have won eight of them."
From that moment, he snapped in and he was lucid. Clear as a bell. So then Dan asked him about his longevity.
Sam said, "Well, I never drank much. Always took pretty good care of myself. Got to bed early, got a lot of sleep."
Then, with an old Sam Snead grin, he looked at Dan and said,
"Course, I did shake those bedsprings every now and then!"
With that, we lose it. So the interview never aired, but it was tremendous.
There are many other classics, such as the one about Boo Weekley’s boxing match against an orangutan and Gary McCord’s first meeting with Ben Hogan. And an article about funny golf stories would not be complete without one from Clear Thinkers favorite Dan Jenkins, who describes his nervousness in addressing his first tee shot while playing an exhibition with Arnold Palmer and Dow Finsterwald in front of a big gallery:
I simply stood there, waiting for some divine power to move the clubhead back. I don’t have any idea how or where the ball went. All I could hear was Finsterwald saying, "Go ahead and hit another one."
I suavely turned around, pitched the driver to my caddie and said, "Let’s play it, baby."
"It’ll be kind of tough off that roof across the street," said Palmer.
Houston is well-represented, with anecdotes from longtime residents Jackie Burke and Steve Elkington, who tells a great one about watching Colin Montgomerie polishing off a massive dessert before a big match.
But the late Dave Marr — who was one of Houston and golf’s finest storytellers – takes the top prize among Houstonians with this anecdote about a pro-am incident involving the legendarily caustic wit of the late Tommy Armour:
The best one I remember hearing involved Tommy Armour, who was acute, to say the least, in his observations of people.
He was playing in a pro-am with a guy who showed up the first day in an all-blue outfit, including his bag and headcovers — even his shoes. And he shot a 95.
The next day he came out in an all-red outfit — bag, shirt, shoes, everything — and this time he shot a 96.
And he said, "Mr. Armour, I’ve played two days with you, and I would really appreciate any comments you have about my golf game."
Armour looked at him a minute and then said,
"I think you’re a shot better in blue."
Check out the video of Geoff Shackelford’s retro round earlier this year at Kingarrock Golf Club in Scotland.
As the warm autumn days of southeast Texas give way to the cooler days of winter, I want to pass along some photos that I took earlier this fall of the Braeburn Country Club golf course, which is one of Houston’s oldest and most interesting tracts.
A group headed by Houston’s legendary PGA professional Jimmy Demaret developed Braeburn on what was then a suburban piece of property off of Bissonnet Road in the the mid-1920’s. The group hired well-regarded architect John Brademus (Colonial in Ft. Worth; Memorial Golf Club in Houston) to design the course, which turned out to be a short but challengingly tight tract.
Unfortunately, as with many clubs developed during the Roaring 20’s, Braeburn fell on hard times after the stock market crash of 1929 and was sold at a foreclosure sale by the bank that had financed Demaret’s group. Jack Burke, Sr. – then the pro at Houston’s River Oaks Country Club – formed another group that purchased the golf course from the bank in the early 1930’s.
Interestingly, Demaret and Burke’s son – Jack Burke, Jr. – went on to develop Houston’s storied Champions Golf Club 25 years later in the late 1950’s.
But the defining moment for Braeburn came almost 60 years after its creation when the club entered into a creative deal with the Harris County Flood Control District in which the district allowed the club to use almost $2.5 million in funds earmarked for flood control to renovate the course in a manner that transformed it into a flood runoff area for a nearby bayou during periods of heavy rains.
The club hired the late Carlton Gipson to oversee the renovation of the course and the result was a masterpiece that ranks among Gipson’s best. Gipson had his crew move over 300,000 cubic feet of dirt in creating the flood retention areas and, in so doing, transformed what had previously been a flat-land Houston course into one that has numerous elevation changes that are rarely seen on Houston-area golf courses.
So, say good-bye to autumn by taking a tour of Braeburn in the slideshow below or download an MP4 version of the slideshow here. Enjoy!
Grand Pines Golf Club is the newest of the three courses at Bentwater, which is a residential development and country club on the north side of Lake Conroe about 60 miles north of downtown Houston.
The first two Bentwater courses – Tom Weiskopf and Jay Moorish designed the first (1989) and Scott Miller the second (1992) – are subdivison courses with homes built along some of the fairways and around some of the greens.
Grand Pines, which was designed by local golf course architect Jeff Blume (2007), is a different animal altogether from the first two Bentwater courses. Built on the north side of FM 1097 across the highway from the rest of the Bentwater development, Grand Pines is not a subdivision course – there are no homes to be seen around the course. Built literally next to the Sam Houston National Forest, Grand Pines is also quite hilly, which is unusual for courses built in the relatively flat coastal plain of Texas. As you will note from the slideshow below, the combination of trees and elevation changes makes Grand Pines both a delight to look at and a challenging test of golf.
Grand Pines plays to a 133 slope rating and a tad over 7,200 yards from the tips and a 131 slope rating and about 6,700 yards from the men’s tees. It is clearly in the top 10 of Houston-area golf courses and a fine addition to the bustling Lake Conroe golf scene. Enjoy!
Who would have thought that Ben Crane is the PGA Tour’s budding comedian?
