Pay Me to Play Me
+ Has 'The Match' jumped the shark?; growing the game — girls style; the Scarecrow is sure to entertain.
THE STARTER
🏌️ Rory McIlroy won the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai for the sixth time, tying Seve Ballesteros. McIlroy is now chasing Colin Montgomerie’s record of eight titles. Is it somehow easier for McIlroy to win the Race to Dubai than to win a major?
🏌️ McIlroy recently revealed he has a total of 18 (??!!) club memberships around the world. Doesn’t he know golf has a 14-club rule?
🏌️ The first prize at the LPGA Tour’s CME Group Tour Championship is a record $4 million. Yet, Saturday’s third-round TV coverage will be tape-delayed. Terry Duffy, CME Group chairman and CEO says, “That’s (BS), isn’t it?”
🏌️ President-elect Donald Trump has met with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and officials from PIF to discuss the progress of a deal between the two entities. Meddling or making a difference?
🏌️ LPGA star Charley Hull has everyone talking with her “ruthless” idea to solve slow play, which involves penalty strokes and, for the worst offenders, immediate revocation of tour cards. Good idea or going overboard?
🏌️ Rafael Campos won his first PGA Tour event at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. He had missed the cut in 13 of his previous 15 events and his wife had the couple’s first child a few days before. Isn’t this the kind of story we miss when the emphasis is on elite players?
🏌️ The 10th playing of “The Match” featured eight celebrities in two-man teams that was televised Thursday and Friday. Do you know who won? Do you even know who was playing?
🏌️ What does it say that WNBA star Caitlin Clark has more fans following her in an LPGA Tour pro-am than the number of fans who follow the golfers?
🏌️ Golf Channel is one of the cable networks to be spun off by former parent company Comcast. Could this be the opening the new PGA Tour Enterprises needs to buy Golf Channel and make it PGA Tour Network?
:: Mike Purkey
FEATURES
Ryder Cup: Playing for pride or pay?
American players will be compensated at the 2025 Ryder Cup, a fact that does not sit well with The First Call readers.
:: TFC Inbox | Read
TFC Holiday Market No. 1: Lifestyle
A curated collection of items that are sure to spice up any gift-giving list.
:: The First Call | Read
BOOKMARKED
Good reads — and listens — that are sometimes about golf, but not always.
📖 How one woman became the scapegoat for America’s reading crisis
Lucy Calkins was an education superstar. Now she’s cast as the reason a generation of students struggles to read. Can she reclaim her good name?
:: Helen Lewis | The Atlantic | 11.13.2024 | Read
📖 Did LPGA capitalize on women’s sports boom? Or did it fall short?
Prominent Tour players weigh in on the topic.
:: Nick Piastowski | Golf.com | 11.20.2024 | Read
📖 How does your post-round routine compare with a tour pro’s?
An inside look at the evolution of the 19th hole and how golf's best have changed with the times.
:: Christopher Powers | John Huggan / Dave Shedloski | Golf Digest | 11.29.2024 | Read
📖 Connor Bedard’s no days off
The Blackhawks’ teenage sensation is already drawing comparisons to hockey’s greats. Just how good can he get? He’s single-minded about finding out.
:: Wayne Drehs | Chicago | 11.12.2024 | Read
THE LIBRARY
Recent drops to The First Call’s video and podcast section.
▶️ LPGA*USGA Girls Golf not stopping at 1 million
LPGA Foundation's Stephanie Peareth joins host Mo Gesualdi to discuss the transformative initiative for female junior golfers.
:: The Coach Mo Golf Show | 11.21.2024 / Watch
TFC Libraries: 🎧 Podcasts | ▶️ Videos
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
Industry press releases | Read
Industry press release videos | Watch
TFC / PR Newswire feed | Read
PERFECT PUTT
Topgolf continues to slide
Topgolf same-venue sales declined by 11% in the third quarter.
:: Jared Doerfler | Read
Publisher Jared Doerfler analyzes the business of golf. Subscribe to Perfect Putt.
LIFESTYLE
THE STYLE LINKS
Hands down the most popular collab ever.
:: 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.
World No. 1 Nelly Korda after winning The Annika: “As for celebrations — I have (the CME Group Championship) this week and I don't want to be feeling bad. So I will be going to sleep.”
:: Alex Lauzon | Co-host of “Course of Life” podcast
HOME FRONT
Tumble Creek at Suncadia | Cle Elum, Washington
Listing: 210 Gold Fountain Lane.
Stats: 4,513 square feet | 5 bedrooms | 5 bathrooms.
Price: $3,200,000
About: Situated in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, this escape tucked within the private enclave of Tumble Creek features ample space for guests with five en suite bedrooms and entertaining areas with an outdoor pool, golf simulator, wine room and large driveway. Elevated above the Tom Doak-designed golf course with views of the eighth green and ridges in the distance, the home includes private acreage at the end of a cul-de-sac adjacent to a paved bike trail. The great room features an accordion door out to a massive, elevated deck and a stone walkway to the pool with a grassy area to enjoy. The kitchen will not disappoint with a Wolf Range and double oven, 48-inch paneled fridge, double dishwasher and wet bar area. The home also includes a golf membership. Beyond the home itself, the greater Suncadia community offers 40-plus miles of hiking and biking trails, three award-winning golf courses, the acclaimed Glade Spring Spa, an onsite winery, a swim and fitness center, and robust programming like guided fly-fishing excursions and biking tours.
RELATED: Home Front archive
TFC EVENTS
The Friars Golf Club: Best of Napa '25
July 23-27, 2025 | Napa, California
:: Event and registration information
ARCHITECTURE
DESIGN NOTES
David McLay Kidd bets big on Gamble Sands’ Scarecrow
Gamble Sands, the top-100 golf resort located in Brewster, Washington, recently unveiled the name of its new 18-hole, David McLay Kidd-designed course. Scarecrow will open for public and resort guest play on Aug. 1, 2025.
Located near the apple and cherry orchards of the Gebbers’ family farm (owners of Gamble Sands) and overlooking the Columbia River Valley, McLay Kidd and associate Nick Schaan have transformed a twisted saddle of rolling terrain and river-view ridgeline into the second 18-hole golf course. Golfers will find the course as a contrasting experience to Gamble’s original and award-winning Sands course. Scarecrow will play to a par of 71 and stretch to 6,900 yards.
With the property’s original McLay Kidd-designed Sands course firmly entrenched as a top-100 golf course in the United States, one may ask, “How do you make the new course different, while also making it a relative to the first course?”
McLay Kidd and Schaan had the same question. The answer started (and ended) with the land itself.
“This part of the site has higher, peakier spots that were more akin to classic sand-dune, sandhills-type blowouts and we exposed some of those, we preserved some of those,” Schaan said. “The piece of land [for the new course] is just smaller. If you draw a circle around the first course, it sits on 350-500 acres depending on how you draw it. This new course sits on about 300 acres, and so it’s a lot more compact, things are a bit closer together. But the fairways are still wide — in some cases, they are even wider [than the original Sands course]. The whole golf course kind of climbs over this knob, through a saddle, up another knob, through a valley — you see a lot more of the river, hole after hole after hole. And you see a lot more golf that you’re not playing across the site.”
Besides the land, another key difference between Scarecrow and Sands is the size of the greens.
“The greens are smaller,” added Schaan. “Once we got out onto the site and were walking around and looking at the tightness and steepness of the contours versus the first course’s greens, the greens needed to be made smaller to fit into the spaces that made good green sites. There’s still tons of turf around the actual cup-able areas because all the steeper contours that you can’t count as ‘green’ you can still use to roll a ball around. It’s different but the playability is the same [as the Sands course].”
Big expansive views are a hallmark trait of Gamble Sands; so too are the large sand bunkers on the original course. McLay Kidd and Schaan took a different approach with the bunkering on Scarecrow.
“Gamble Sands has this big, open-expanse sandy character to it — it’s so massive that if we replicated that again in the same fashion, that alone would make the golf courses look similar,” Schaan said. “But doing that again in the same fashion becomes cumbersome, so the sand areas are broken into chunks and smaller pieces and compositions of clusters instead of these massive sand areas.”
RELATED: Design Notes archive
SUBSCRIBE | FOLLOW
The First Call [Monday-Friday edition]: Subscribe
Facebook | Instagram | Linkedin | X
Only Saturday’s LPGA coverage is tape-delayed. Not only is Sunday’s live, it’s on NBC, not Golf Channel.