ON THE TEE
🏌️ Tiger Woods was named to the PGA Tour Policy Board at the insistence of the players, giving the players an equal number of seats as non-players. How much of a difference will he really make?
🏌️ Justin Thomas is playing the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro because he’s currently not in the FedEx Cup playoffs. He has missed five of his last seven cuts and failed to break 80 twice in the last two majors. What are his chances to make the playoffs?
🏌️ Jon Rahm says he believes LIV Golf will continue and that Phil Mickelson tells him that Rahm doesn’t need to be a member of LIV. Is that code for, “We sure hope you’ll join LIV”?
🏌️ In the midst of talk about penalties for LIV players returning to the PGA Tour, Mickelson tweeted, “not a single player on LIV wants to play PGA Tour.” Is he right?
🏌️ Wesley and George Bryan Jr. — the famous trick-shot Bryan Bros — were in a 6-for-2 Monday qualifying playoff for the Wyndham Championship. Unfortunately, only Wesley — who is a regular on the PGA Tour — made it through. If George had made it, too, would there have been a trick-shot show on the range?
🏌️ Alex Cejka outlasted Padraig Harrington at brutal Royal Porthcawl to win the Senior Open. Would you have known that Cejka now has three senior majors?
🏌️ Carlota Ciganda was disqualified at the Amundi Evian Championship for refusing to sign her scorecard that included a two-shot slow-play penalty. Too harsh or justified?
🏌️ Someone on the social media desk of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune tweeted out, “Golfer no one has ever heard of blows out no-name competition at Minnesota’s PGA Tour event,” to describe Lee Hodges’ seven-shot victory at the 3M Championship. Is that what everyone was really thinking?
🏌️ Is anyone else wondering where the summer went?
:: Mike Purkey
FEATURES
Tom Lehman's touch elevates Cragun’s Resort's status
British Open champion renovated Minnesota destination's two courses — one of which will host a PGA Tour Canada event — in hopes of expanding resort's brand beyond state lines
:: Dan Vukelich | Read
BOOKMARKED
Good reads that are mainly about golf, but not always.
📖 The decathlete-turned-grifter who conned L.A.
David Bunevacz flaunted his luxurious lifestyle, pulling in friends and acquaintances. How was he able to operate for more than a decade?
:: Andrea Marks | Rolling Stone | 07.23.23
📖 A small-town paper lands a very big story
In Southeast Oklahoma, a father-son reporting duo’s series on the county sheriff led to an explosive revelation
:: Paige Williams | The New Yorker | 07.24.23
📖 Why the famed Appalachian Trail keeps getting longer — and harder
As America has transformed, so too has its celebrated footpath. Less than half the A.T. remains where it was originally laid
:: Lizzie Johnson and Lauren Tierney | The Washington Post | 07.27.23
SCORECARD
1️⃣8️⃣ The golf industry’s week in review — the names, news and notables that are making the headlines. :: Read
LIFESTYLE
19TH HOLE
Each episode of the “Course of Life” podcast closes with the guest sharing a favorite 19th hole experience.
Seamus Power, PGA Tour winner: “Ooooh, that's a good one. I'll have to be partial to Irish beef here (at the K Club), so I'll say a good steak and beer is my pick for the 19th hole."
:: Alex Lauzon | Co-host of “Course of Life” podcast
DESIGN NOTES
Martin Ebert plan beefs up Hankley Common
⛳️ Busy Martin Ebert of Mackenzie & Ebert has embarked on a substantial bunker renovation at Hankley Common in Surrey, England, southeast of London. MacKenzie & Ebert are best known for the firm’s renovation and restoration work on such high-profile courses as Royal St. George’s, Turnberry, Royal Portrush and Japan’s Hirono. At Hankley Common, the firm submitted a master plan in 2020 to revise the layout that directly addressed a critique formulated five years prior by Tom Doak.
In Doak’s most recent edition of "The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses," he marveled at Hankley Common’s setting, but believed the bunkering was too plain or otherwise lacking on the 1922 James Braid heathland course. Ebert’s plan called for renovating bunkers, creating new sandscapes to blend in with the surrounding features and also to address green complexes, tees, paths and heather management.
"The project has focused upon bringing the bunkers to life, making them blend into the heather surroundings and giving them a more classic, rugged look," Ebert told GolfCourseArchitecture.net. "The majority of the old bunkers were very simple in shape with little to commend them visually. There have been some adjustments to the bunker layout as well as to ask the right questions of the better players.
"The green surfaces have not been touched but there has been quite a lot of work to the green surrounds, which has raised the interest level around the putting surfaces. In some ways, that seems to have drawn out the features of the green surfaces themselves a little more.
"Some bare sand areas have also been developed which make a real impression. They provided heather for the bunkers and other areas and these will soften into the landscape as they establish."
Shaper Quinn Thompson, who handled much of the heavy lifting at Hirono, is assisting in the construction at Hankley Common with MJ Abbott and the club’s greenkeeping team. Fourteen holes on the project are now complete.
"In terms of bunkering, I think that the changes have been as dramatic as any project we have been involved with,” Ebert said. "Some of the bunkers were so simple and frankly, disappointing. There is still another phase to go to complete the implementation of the plan, but I think we are well on the way to achieving the overall vision for the course and the members seem to be very supportive of what has resulted, which is the most important result of course."
Ebert expects the final phase at Hankley Common to be completed late in 2023.
READ: This week’s complete Design Notes
RELATED: Design Notes archive
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