ON THE TEE
🏌️ Rory McIlroy, No. 1 player in the world, wins the Hero Dubai Desert Classic at the wire but fans couldn’t see it on Golf Channel, presumably because of a Monday finish. Isn’t the DP World Tour a partner with the PGA Tour? And isn’t Golf Channel the Tour’s broadcast partner?
🏌️ After Patrick Reed placed himself in the middle of a(nother) rules controversy in Dubai, involving identifying his ball that was thought to have stuck in a palm tree, guess who was the first to defend him? McIlroy.
🏌️ The Monday following Max Homa’s come-from-behind win at the Farmers Insurance Open, he celebrated by playing in the weekly skins game at Papago Golf Course in Phoenix, near his home in Scottdale. Homa walked away with the first prize of $400 — cash.
🏌️ Bryson DeChambeau had surgery recently to remove a cyst in one of his sinuses that had been causing vertigo. “I feel like I’m back to 2018 me,” he said.
🏌️ The PGA Tour asked Pebble Beach to grow the rough a little higher and thicker near the edge of the cliff at the eighth hole where Jordan Spieth hit an ill-advised shot last year. Wonder if Spieth’s wife, Annie, had already forbidden him from trying that again?
🏌️ The Twitterverse has been touting a match between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as captains. Mickelson says it won’t happen but not for the obvious reasons. “We would dominate them so soundly and it would be over so quick that TV would have to fill an hour of dead time,” Lefty said. He didn’t really say that, did he?
🏌️ Thirteen major winners have entered the Aramco Saudi Ladies International, Feb. 16-19, including world No. 1 Lydia Ko, Lexi Thompson, In Gee Chun, Danielle Kang and defending champ Georgia Hall. The event is presented by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. Care to comment?
🏌️ Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who won’t be playing in next week’s Super Bowl, blew off the Pro Bowl — and its flag football game — to play at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. It wasn’t really a choice, was it?
🏌️ Apart from you warm-weather dwellers, how many of you have already been to the range in 2023?
:: Mike Purkey
FEATURES
Omni PGA Frisco already shining bright
PGA of America's new home outside of Dallas features just about everything, but it's the 36 holes of golf that will open later this spring that is garnering major attention
:: David Droschak | Read
WGC-Dell Match Play, Austin to say goodbye
PGA Tour and Austin Country Club at odds on extension negotiations of event that has been played in the Texas capital since 2016
:: The First Call Staff | Read
BOOKMARKED
Good reads that are mainly about golf, but not always.
📖 The violin doctor
He’s trusted to repair some of the world’s most fabled — and expensive — instruments. How does John Becker manage to unlock the sound of a Stradivarius?
:: Elly Fishman | Chicago | 01.17.2023
📖 The 18 best live sports experiences on earth
From a medieval horse race in Siena to a breathtakingly beautiful ultramarathon in a small French village, consider this the ultimate travel bucket list
:: GQ | 01.25.2023
📖 Behind the scenes of Netflix's highly anticipated golf docuseries
:: Shane Ryan | Golf Digest | 01.31.2023
🎥 Netherlands Tour Film — Part 1
:: Cookie Jar Golf | 01.31.2023
OFF THE PLAYLIST
One golfer’s song of choice for the course. Hey, and if you don’t like it? Share your choice. Seriously.
🎶 “Say Something” | Justin Timberlake / Christ Stapleton [Spotify | iTunes]
HOME FRONT
Martis Camp | Truckee, California
Listing: Home 49 | 8376 Valhalla Drive.
Stats: 6,911 square feet | 1.35 acres | 5 bedrooms | 5 bathrooms | 2 half baths.
Price: $15,995,000.
About: With stunning backyard views of the Tom Fazio 18-hole Martis Camp Club and the pleasantly hypnotic lull from the water feature by the entry of this Martis Camp home, it may be challenging to ever step foot inside. But inside is further mesmerizing. There’s a great room with a stone fireplace, peaked ceilings with distressed wood beams, and windows that frame an idyllic vista of the sixth tee box and the distant Carson Range. En route to the primary suite with an intimate fireplace, private deck and tall sunrise windows is an office that shares a window with that same alluring water feature. The kitchen is just off the great room and is centered around an island that’s ideal for morning breakfasts and evening socials. There’s a handcrafted, French Lacanche stove and a rustic farm table. Just out the kitchen door is a heated, and covered dining room on the deck with a barbecue bay. The dining room just beyond the kitchen is seated in the evening glow that arises from west-facing windows. Down the sleek, modern hallway is another suite that receives the morning sun and at the top of the stairs is another bedroom with elevated views of the golf course. Downstairs is an expansive media room with full bar, glassed-in wine cabinet, billiards, shuffleboard, three big screen TVs, a lounge, a cove for board games, a golf simulator room, and accordion doors that open to a patio with a hot tub and large firepit, and views of the lawn, forest and golf course. There’s also a bunk room with two full beds, two twin beds and one sleeper couch.
19TH HOLE
Each episode of the “Course of Life” podcast closes with the guest sharing a favorite 19th hole experience.
Cassandrea Meyer, World Long Drive competitor and influencer:
”I’m a big fan of tequila after golf, so probably just straight tequila with extra lime. I eat healthy (generally) ... but I love a good golf course hot dog as well.”
:: Alex Lauzon | co-host of “Course of Life” podcast
DESIGN NOTES
Tom Clark creates The Battlefield
⛳️ Virginia-based architect Tom Clark is looking at a spring opening for The Battlefield, an 18-hole par-3 layout at Shangri-La Resort on Monkey Island in the northeast Oklahoma town of Afton.
Clark, a partner in Ault, Clark & Associates and a past ASGCA President, is best known for his designs of TPC Avenel in Potomac, Maryland, and the Woods course at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia. He previously worked at Shangri-La a decade ago, when he remodeled the resort’s 27-hole championship layout.
Located on land north of the resort behind the Monkey Island Fire Station, the layout is draped across 80 wildly undulating acres. More than 100 feet of elevation change defines this rugged property as it ventures from a hilltop to the bank of Grand Lake.
Architect Kevin Atkinson of Atkinson Design and Dale Forrest of Tulsa-based construction firm United Golf assisted in the design and construction. The name and motif of the course was suggested by the setting’s resemblance to a World War II battlefield, in a wooded area with dramatic elevation changes, according to Shangri-La Resort executive chairman Jason Sheffield.
“I conceived a three-tier design, a course to serve low handicappers with yardages from 130 to 230; the average member and resort guests with yardages from 100 to 210; and a chip and putt, where you can utilize just three clubs, for members and guests with families or just for sharpening your short game skills," Clark told golfcoursearchitecture.net.
Although most modern Par-3 courses are designed to be walked, Clark recognized that he was dealing with an unusual site, and made allowances. "Due to the topography that was rather severe in many areas, it became a necessity to install golf cart paths to accommodate the players, help direct drainage and prevent erosion," he said.
⛳️ Change is a constant for golfers who find their way to the eastern Caribbean island of Anguilla in the British West Indies. From 2006 through most of 2022, Anguilla had only one golf course, an 18-hole Greg Norman design that was first called Tenemos Golf Club at St. Regis Resort, then later CuisinArt Resort & Spa.
After the previous owner passed away, billionaire businessman Richard Schulze, the former CEO of Best Buy, swooped in to restore Norman’s championship layout and in the process, commissioned the Shark to add a nine-hole short course. The new par-28, 1,315-yard layout is called Avalon Links, which opened in November, and is situated on 19 acres between the sixth and seventh holes of the big course. The walking-only course consists of eight par-3s, and one par-4, the 345-yard second hole. The par-3s range in yardage from 90 to 169.
⛳️ Valdosta Country Club, one of Georgia’s oldest private clubs, is undergoing a massive course transformation under the guidance of Bill Bergin. Work has started on the transformation of the club’s 27 holes into an 18-hole layout, enhanced practice facilities and a new six-hole short course.
Valdosta’s long golf history dates to 1917. The club underwent a significant alteration in 1977, when Joe Lee and Rocky Roquemore designed two new nines, the Bottom and the Plantation, atop of the old layout. Bobby Weed added the Bellemeade nine in 1988. Eliminating nine holes will yield big benefits.
The work began in December and will include rebuilding fairways, bunkers and cart paths, in addition to modernizing the irrigation system. The transformed course and new short course are expected to open in October 2023.
THE STYLE LINKS
I know, not necessarily a golf post, but it had me at Tiffany/Nike collab.
:: Janice Ferguson | IG: @janiceferguson_thestylelinks
SCORECARD
1️⃣8️⃣ The golf industry’s week in review — the names, news and notables that are making the headlines. :: Read
THE LAST CALL
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