Of course
+ A look back into TFC's vault about the Golden Era of golf architecture; Bookmarked showcases Augusta National and its road to recovery; David McLay Kidd opens the rugged GrayBull in Nebraska.
THE STARTER
🏌️ Tyrrell Hatton won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship for the third time, including an 11-under 61 at the Old Course at St. Andrews. Is Hatton locking up a place for himself on the European Ryder Cup team?
🏌️ Including Hatton, four LIV players finished in the top 10 at the Dunhill — David Puig (T4), Jon Rahm (T7) and Brooks Koepka (T10). Still think LIV players aren’t hungry?
🏌️ Europe’s captain Luke Donald indicated that talks are ongoing that Sergio Garcia could be part of the Ryder Cup team. As a player or a vice captain?
🏌️ Donald and U.S. captain Keegan Bradley met on the traditional day that marks one year to go for the Ryder Cup. It was highlighted by a crazy magic trick by Oz the Mentalist, in which he made a golf ball appear in Bradley’s previously empty hands. Do you suppose Bradley signed Oz as an assistant captain?
🏌️ The PGA Tour is exploring a smaller number of fully exempt players and smaller fields, ostensibly to strengthen the fields to meet its TV contract obligations. Isn’t that like companies increasing profits by cutting expenses rather than growing the product?
🏌️ Rory McIlroy called out the golf media for being negative. Wouldn’t he be better off if he didn’t talk so much?
🏌️ Caitlin Clark will play in pro-am of The Annika tournament in November. She says she might become a professional golfer. She’s good at making 3s, isn’t she?
🏌️ The match pitting Scottie Scheffler and McIlroy against Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau now has a name and a date — “The Showdown” will be played Dec. 17 at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas. Will the players be trying a little harder than usual?
🏌️ In the first round of the Black Desert Championship, Peter Malnati jacked two tee shots out of bounds on the par-4 6th, got the next tee shot in play and then holed out from 177 yards for double bogey. He was heard saying, “Golf sucks so bad.” Anyone disagree?
:: Mike Purkey
FEATURES
The Golden Age of golf design lives on
The First Call dips into its vault for this piece from May 2023. Thanks to devoted admirers, the work of a bygone generation of course architects is being preserved and celebrated by societies and associations bearing the designers' names.
:: Tony Dear | Read
BOOKMARKED
Good reads that are mainly about golf, but not always.
📖 On Augusta and the long road ahead
Helene devastated the community and home of the Masters. The club has pledges over $5 million in local support while images confirm the "significant" damage done to the course.
:: Geoff Shackelford | The Quadrilateral | 10.08.2024
📖 The miraculous resurrection of Notre-Dame
In 2019, a fire nearly destroyed the crown jewel of France—and the nation set a breakneck five-year deadline to bring it back from the ashes. This is the story of how an army of artisans turned back centuries to restore Notre-Dame by hand, and wound up reviving something even greater than the cathedral itself.
:: Joshua Hammer | GQ | 09.17.2024
📖 Chip Kelly, Ryan Day and the early days of an American football revolution
No. 2 Ohio State faces No. 3 Oregon in a pivotal Big Ten matchup this weekend. And the Buckeyes’ offense has been shaped by head coach Day and offensive coordinator Kelly, who have roots that wind back to early days in New Hampshire.
:: Stephen J. Nesbitt | The Athletic | 10.11.2024
📖 The 100 best TV episodes of all time
Inside every great show is a 22- to 60-minute story that stays with you forever.
:: Alan Sepinwall | Rolling Stone | 09.02.2024
BUSINESS
THE FIRST CALL
Week in Review: The industry’s names, news and notables making headlines. | Read
This week’s editions: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday
Golf Industry Press Releases | Read
Industry press release videos | Watch
TFC / PR Newswire Feed | Read
PERFECT PUTT
The spider web of money in pro golf
Pro golf has consolidated. Will it continue?
:: Jared Doerfler | Read
Publisher Jared Doerfler analyzes the business of golf. Subscribe to Perfect Putt.
LIFESTYLE
THE STYLE LINKS
Signs of Halloween: Pumpkins, ghost decorations, candy, and True Linkswear’s “Dead Golfer Month.”
:: Janice Ferguson | IG: @janiceferguson_thestylelinks
19TH HOLE
Each episode of the “Course of Life” podcast closes with the guest sharing a favorite 19th hole experience.
Kristen Nuss, who represented Team USA in Beach Volleyball at the Paris 2024 Olympics: “It's definitely some Tex-Mex or Mexican food after a long day for me. Maybe some tacos or enchiladas and a margarita for sure.”
:: Alex Lauzon | Co-host of “Course of Life” podcast
HOME FRONT
Tributary | Driggs, Idaho
Listing: Palisades at Tributary.
Listing Agent: Spain Short.
Stats: 3,330 square feet | 4 bedrooms | 4.5 baths.
Price: $4.4 million.
About: Just over the hill from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, sits the Rocky Mountain west’s last best-kept secret, Tributary. The four-season, private club community that spans 1,500 acres is a basecamp for adventure-seekers offering a one-of-a-kind setting rich in wildlife, fly fishing ponds, 500-acre fen-designated wetlands, and charming mountain culture. Residents have access to the following amenities: newly remodeled 18-hole David McLay Kidd-designed golf course; wellness facility; restaurant and bar; pool/hot tub; seven fishing ponds; a two-mile, elevated boardwalk; trails for cross-country skiing; kid-friendly snowmobile track and ice-skating rink; archery- and tomahawk-throwing center; and a members-only ski lounge at the Grand Targhee Resort base, which is a 25-minute away. A modern-day homestead, the Palisades Cabin reflects the natural beauty of its surroundings, including nearby Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Inspired by the vernacular of the valley, this spacious four-bedroom home features a great room with a stunning fireplace, a dining room with floor-to-ceiling picture windows and a large backyard deck. Speaking to the ongoing trend of toy barns, especially in places touting all-season play, the home includes a detached, heated toy barn ideal for stowing recreational equipment and spacious enough to house two cars. The Palisades Cabin also includes en suite bathrooms throughout and an attached, heated, two-car garage.
RELATED: Home Front archive
TFC EVENTS
The Friars Golf Club: Cabot Citrus Farms
February 21-23, 2025 | Cabot Citrus Farms | Brooksville, Florida
:: Event and registration information
ARCHITECTURE
DESIGN NOTES
David McLay Kidd opens Nebraska’s GrayBull
GrayBull Club, designed by David McLay Kidd, opened for play in mid-August.
Located 13 miles north of Maxwell, a small village in the Sandhills of western Nebraska, the 7,181-yard, par-72 layout is the seventh course under the Dormie Network umbrella of properties, and the first facility to be built from the ground up. Kidd was on the site selection team with Dormie Network executives when they finalized the acreage that would be used for the project in spring 2021.
"The site is extremely unique," Kidd said. "It’s like nothing I have ever seen before."
Built as a private club that’s open to members of other Dormie Network clubs, GrayBull is a links-style course, wide open in the dunes, with few trees and firm-and-fast conditions that will allow shots to roll. With bentgrass greens and fine fescue low-mow bluegrass mixture on the approach areas, the course will test all aspects of any player’s game.
"Everyone that plays it can see that it’s got the Mammoth Dunes, Gamble Sands DNA about it," said Kidd, referring to designs he did in Wisconsin and Washington, respectively. "It might be a little tougher than both of those. The greens are a little smaller, but not much. They’ve got a bit more spice to them, but not massively. It’s super playable off the tee."
Kidd also produced a feature unique to the Sandhills courses by avoiding using pathways of any kind. "There are no hard paths at all," he said. "We figured out how we could keep people on grass from the first tee to the 18th green without the visual intrusion of paths."
RELATED: Design Notes archive
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