Towns has boasted about his prodigious power on the golf course in the past, once claiming he could drive it 400 yards. Well, we certainly believe him if these incredible simulator numbers are real.

Somehow we just came across this jaw-dropping video from August that shows the Minnesota Timberwolves star taking a swing — and absolutely crushing a golf ball. Have a look:

 

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“Two hundred and 31 with a 7-iron,” Towns says admiring his handiwork. “Down the middle.” Wow.

And if you look closely, the screen backs it up. Actually, it was a ridiculous 231.7 yards total with 224.9 yards of carry. Even more absurd are KAT’s swing speed (101.8mph) and ball speed (138.1mph). Imagine having this guy as your partner in a scramble?

To put those numbers in perspective, according to TrackMan, a PGA Tour pro averages a 90mph swing speed with a 120-mph ball speed with a 7-iron. And that produces an average carry of only 172 yards. Weak.

At the 2021 Masters, Bryson DeChambeau, who finished runner-up at the World Long Drive Championship last year, said: “Once you get somebody out here that’s a 7-foot-tall human being and they are able to swing a golf club at 145 miles an hour effortlessly, that’s when things get a little interesting. That’s when I’m going to become obsolete, potentially.”

Well, Karl-Anthony Towns is 7 feet tall. And if he ever quits his day job in the NBA, well, you never know. At the very least, Kyle Berkshire and the rest of the guys on the World Long Drive circuit better watch their backs.

Main image: FIBA

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Appearing on this week’s Zach Lowe podcast, the rising star declared he’s the best golfer in the NBA. Yep, that includes Stephen Curry, who made a walk-off eagle to win the American Century Championship, AKA the Super Bowl of Celebrity Golf, in July.

“Who is the best golfer among NBA players,” Lowe asked.
“Me.”
“You know who would be the consensus answer to this among fans who watch highlights?” the ESPN basketball analyst continued.
“For sure,” Reaves said. “I know.”
“Steph,” Lowe interjected.
“Yeah.”

Wow, that’s a bold claim.

 

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“Hey, I’m down to play golf whenever, wherever against anybody,” Reaves continued. “I love golf so much, I’d go play Tiger. Obviously, I don’t have any expectation of winning that one … but I would love to play against Steph.”

Reaves, who has a TikTok account named Hillbilly Bogey that’s dedicated to his golf adventures, added that the two crossed paths on a Bay area golf course during the Lakers-Warriors playoff series in May. But the two sharpshooters didn’t tee it up against each other.

“I actually saw him out on the course between Game 4 and 5 playoffs,” Reaves said. “He came and said: ‘What’s up?’ I’ve seen him play golf many times. He’s a good golfer.”

Yeah, that’s a bit of an understatement. Curry once shot 71 in a Korn Ferry Tour event and currently holds a +3.3 handicap index. Pretty darn good, indeed.

Reaves, who has estimated his handicap at around 2, also told Lowe that he resisted saying something to Steph after he and Warriors teammate Klay Thompson lost to Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce in The Match in June.

That’s probably for the best, because he should save any trash talk for the course. Come to think of it, has the next The Match been set yet?

Main image: Harry How

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By Coleman Bentley
Monday was a big day in the golf world, but not because of anything happening on the professional circuits. Instead, the buzz centred around the Elon Phoenix Invitational, an innocuous college golf tournament turned viral epicentre thanks to the NCAA golf debut of two-time NBA champion J.R. Smith.

followed @TheRealJRSmith for the first five holes today in his first tournament as a member of the @NCATAGGIES Golf Team. Had a pair of birdies, a great chip and stuck his approach on No. 9 to within a foot from the pin. @WFMY @ncatsuaggies pic.twitter.com/s7q6rpk1pa

— Brian Hall (@bhallwfmy) October 11, 2021

In case you missed the countless, breathless news bulletins over the past six weeks, Smith enrolled at North Carolina A&T in August in order to pursue not only a liberal studies degree, but a collegiate golf career. A short while later, he made the team, clinching his tee time at Alamance Country Club by advancing in the team’s qualifying tournament by a single stroke. In other words, Monday’s opportunity was earned, not given, and Smith showed up with his game face (and hoodie) on.

Pulling up to the range at my first college tournament! pic.twitter.com/RDNJGhiRaw

— JR Smith (@TheRealJRSmith) October 11, 2021

It’s all fun and games until some drops the Tiger Bellerive gif. The 36-year-old freshman then backed it up with an opening par …

.@TheRealJRSmith with a par of his first hole as a collegiate golfer at @NCATAGGIES …@WFMY pic.twitter.com/BC94mQHA01

— Brian Hall (@bhallwfmy) October 11, 2021

… before settling into a solid opening nine, including two birdies and a clutch approach on the ninth hole that he stuck to within a foot.

Grant Halverson
J.R. Smith hits an approach shot to the 7th green during the Elon Phoenix Invitational.

Grant Halverson
J.R. Smith lines up a putt on the 8th green during the Elon Phoenix Invitational.

Grant Halverson
J.R. Smith fist bumps North Carolina A&T golf coach Richard Watkins during the opening round of the Elon Phoenix Invitational.

All the while, Golf Twitter followed along with glee …

JR Smith is currently beating or tied with an Addison, a Bronson, a Lleyton, a Graham, multiples Dawsons, a Logan, two Parkers, and a Mason.

Strong first 10 holes.

— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) October 11, 2021

Naa his ass COLD, they gone have to make a JR Smith PGA Tour 22 https://t.co/LFLoBE2Bcv

— Montee (@monteeee24) October 11, 2021

Love pulling over to the side of my street to see JR Smith hit one onto the dance floor pic.twitter.com/WTzIH1g6Ap

— Cooper Watt (@cooperwatt) October 11, 2021

Unfortunately, Smith struggled after his hot start, finishing with an opening-round 83 that put him in a tie for 77th place midway through the tournament’s opening 36 holes on Monday. That, however, shouldn’t put any damper on Smith’s story, which, if his dedication is any indication, will continue come hell, high water, or even the occasional triple bogey.

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By Joel Beall
JR Smith will get a chance to shoot his shot.

Smith, who played 16 seasons in the National Basketball Association before joining North Carolina A&T’s golf team this summer as a walk-on, will play in his first collegiate match next week the school announced. The tournament is Elon’s Phoenix Invitational, being played at Alamance C.C. in Burlington, N.C.

Smith earned his tee time by advancing in the team’s qualifying tournament by a stroke.

Smith, who bypassed college in his basketball career when drafted straight from high school to the NBA, enrolled in school following his NBA retirement and was given a waiver by the NCAA to play on the golf team in late August. He was drawn to North Carolina A&T due to his interest in HBCUs.

As for his game, Smith has been playing for the better part of a decade and said earlier this summer his handicap hovered around 5.

“Golf is one of those games that has you feeling really high and or can bring you down to your knees and humble you,” Smith told reporters earlier this year at the Wyndham Championship. “And to have that feeling and knowing that all of the game’s pretty much on my own hands, and I don’t have to worry about teammates to pass the ball and receiving passes and playing defence… I can play my game and just have fun.”

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By Dave Shedloski
Who could forget Charles Barkley’s brutal assessment of the quality of golf Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson displayed in the first rendition of “The Match” two years ago in Las Vegas?

“This is crappy golf. Y’all know that,” the NBA Hall of Famer-turned-broadcaster drawled with his typical honesty to a pay-per-view television audience. “I could beat these two guys today.”

Welp, give Barkley credit for stepping from behind the microphone onto the tee box to bring to the franchise his own brand of golf—which through the years has been chronicled to be uniquely, um … oh, heck … crappy. On Friday, the Round Mound of Sound (nee Rebound) teams with Mickelson in “Capital One’s The Match: Champions For Change” at Stone Canyon Golf Club in Oro Valley, Ariz. Their opposition in the modified alternate shot competition is the duo of Stephen Curry, NBA All-Star, and Peyton Manning, retired NFL great.

“Obviously, I’m a golfing degenerate,” Barkley said with a chuckle during a telephone interview with Golf Digest.

And, obviously, he has no problem putting his game, such as it is, on display. Barkley, 57, is a regular competitor at the American Century Celebrity Golf Challenge. In July, he finished second-to-last in the 70-man field, scoring minus-68 points in the modified Stableford scoring format. (Curry, by the way, ended up fourth with 56 points.)

“Honest to God, I don’t know why he’s subjecting himself to this,” said Gary McCord, who will serve as an on-course reporter for the telecast, which begins at 3 p.m. EST on TNT. “He’s gone from talking about the chaos to stepping on the tee and creating chaos. He’ll be the agent of chaos in this thing, and it’s going to be really, really interesting.”

So, why is he doing it? “They invited me, and I couldn’t turn it down,” Barkley replied. “I was really flattered that they asked me.”

Christian Petersen
Barkley, along with actor Samuel L. Jackson, was part of the broadcast team for the original ‘The Match’ at Shadow Creek in 2018.

McCord, who plans to join Barkley on Tuesday for a practice round at Stone Canyon, said Barkley exhibits an acceptable level of proficiency away from prying eyes and cameras. “I’ve played with Chuck, and he’s OK,” the former tour player said. “The swing goes up, and the swing goes down. There’s no stopping. But he gets under pressure, there’s anxiety, and that hits him, and he gets to hitching on the downswing. Everything changes.”

Similar stories abound of Barkley showing decent form at the annual TNT cast and crew party he hosts at a Topgolf facility at the end of each NBA season.

Barkley intends to be ready for this latest public challenge. He said he has been practicing resolutely for months, “even before I got invited to the match.

“I have put the effort in, I put the work in, and I’m hoping I just can handle it under the pressure,” he said. “Let me just say this: I’m not bragging about it, but nobody has worked harder than me to be better at golf. I have hit balls five hours a day for the last six months. I just really wanted to get better at golf.

He credits former tour player/turned instructor Stan Utley with putting him on a path to enjoying the game again. “I met him at Tom Lehman’s golf tournament about two years ago, and he said, ‘Charles, can I work with you a little bit?’ I said, ‘Stan, I’ve done worked with every teacher in the land.’ And he says, ‘Well, one more won’t hurt.’ And let me tell you something, I have played better in the last year and a half than I played in the last 20 years. It’s fun for me to play again. It’s been amazing.”

Christian Petersen
Not all of Barkley’s swings, like this one from the American Century Reno-Tahoe event in July, are polished.

While flattered, Utley said he can’t take too much credit, having worked with Sir Charles only a few times. “I gave him hope,” Utley said. “No one is ever really fixed. When you work on the wrong thing for 20 years, you can’t just flip a switch. Every player has these neurological patterns programmed into them, and you cannot get rid of a neurological pattern. The good news is you can build a new pattern. That doesn’t mean the old pattern goes away. But with a lot of work, you can override it.

“I gave him something to work on, which is basically throwing the club from the top of the backswing with his wrists. It took about 40 minutes, and he got it. But I can only say I helped him a little. When he’s not hitching, he hits it well. He’s a big man. He’s so strong and can hit it really long if he does it right.”

If he does it right.

Preternaturally good-natured, Barkley takes his struggles—and the many barbs about his game—in stride. They’ve even come from his partner.

“I’m really appreciative of Charles Barkley, because Sir Charles is putting himself out there in front of the public in an area that he is not competent at all and taking all the hits,” Mickelson said. “I mean, that type of self-deprecation and ability to laugh at himself and put himself out there I have a lot of respect for. I’m honored to have him as my partner. I’m not overly optimistic about having him as my partner, but I do think we’re going to be able to come out on top. We’re going to find a way.”

More recently, he has been skewered in several match promos, and Manning said in one, “The only thing I can think about is, what will Charles not do?”

Well, there’s no telling. Barkley is sure of one thing, however.

“It’s definitely going to be fun,” he said. “I mean, as long as I don’t stink up the joint.”

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By Brian Wacker
Kevin Kisner has apologised for an insensitive tweet he’d posted earlier in the day in response to former NBA player Rex Chapman.

Chapman tweeted that a friend’s parents died as a result of COVID-19 and related issues, that his own parents had been in and out of the hospital and that one of his children had also tested positive for it. He also expressed his displeasure over President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic.

My friends parents have died from Covid & Covid related issues. My parents are in & out of the hospital. One of my kids tested positive for Covid today.

Forgive me if I’m upset over 200,000 dead when the President told us 6-months ago we would be down to 0 cases “in a few days.”

— Rex Chapman?? (@RexChapman) September 12, 2020

Kisner responded, saying, “Guess they can’t follow the guidelines.” Several hours later and after receiving heavy backlash, Kisner deleted the tweet and eventually issued a statement.

Earlier this morning, I made a reckless comment. I diminished the real experience of pain and loss suffered by many during the pandemic. I am not without empathy, but I certainly exercised poor judgement. I apologize to @RexChapman and anyone else that was hurt by my comment.

— Kevin Kisner (@K_Kisner) September 12, 2020

The PGA Tour also issued a statement following Kisner’s apology.

“We found Kevin’s comment this morning to be both disappointing and out of character,” a spokesperson said. “His remarks do not reflect the nature of our sport or organization, both of which strive to offer compassion and unity. We were pleased to see Kevin take ownership of the situation and have since spoken to him directly. We will have no further public comment on the matter.”

Chapman, meanwhile, said that he would block Kisner on the social media platform and following the apology added, “People don’t get to continue to say shitty things to other people and just apologise like everything is fine. Words matter.”

He then offered another parting response to Kisner’s apology, saying: “Not accepted. Done with people like you. We all are.”

Not accepted. Done with people like you. We all are.

— Rex Chapman?? (@RexChapman) September 12, 2020

There have been nearly 6.5 million cases of coronavirus in the United States since the start of the pandemic and more than 190,000 deaths.

Earlier this month, Kisner, one of four player directors on the PGA Tour’s policy board, urged for fans to be allowed back at PGA Tour events, noting that tournaments aren’t the same and that revenues aren’t the same without them.

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By Joel Beall
The PGA Tour issued a statement Thursday morning as professional athletes in several sports protested against racial injustice and police brutality.

The statement comes a day after NBA players sat out playoff games in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday. Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times in Kenosha, Wis., as he attempted to enter a vehicle with his children in the car. Three MLB games were also called Wednesday, with athletes from the MLS, WNBA and professional tennis deciding not to play in their respective contests in protest.

“The MLB, MLS, NBA, WNBA and WTA protests are player-led, peaceful, powerful ways to use their respective platforms to bring about the urgent need for change in our country,” read a statement from the tour. “There have been a number of efforts in the past to send a message that the current climate is unacceptable, and these teams, leagues and players now taking this step will help draw further attention to the issues that really matter. The PGA Tour supports them—and any of our own members—standing up for issues they believe in.”

Cameron Champ, one of the tour’s four players with Black heritage, issued his own statement through the PGA Tour Wednesday evening, and has been wearing shoes with “Jacob Blake” and “BLM” messages. “People ignore it for so long. And then it gets to a point where it just blows up,” Champ said. “This is just the tipping of the iceberg. Change needs to happen. I feel like it’s going in the right direction, but again, with all the stuff that’s going on, it has to end.”

The PGA Tour pledged earlier this summer to be part of the solution, stating it is actively working to make “deeper and more specific commitments to racial equity and inclusion in the communities where we play, as well as supporting national organizations within this movement that we had not previously engaged with.”

“However, we understand that now is not the appropriate time to highlight our programs and policies, but rather to express our outrage at the injustice that remains prevalent in our country,” read the tour’s statement. “Sports have always had the power to inspire and unify, and we remain hopeful that together, we will achieve change.”

The tour’s BMW Championship remains scheduled to begin Thursday morning at Olympia Fields in the suburbs of Chicago.

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By Joel Beall
Major League Baseball was scrambling to save its 2020 season Monday, just three days after it had belatedly begun. More than a dozen members of the Miami Marlins roster and front office tested positive for COVID-19, forcing league officials to cancel Monday and Tuesday games between the Marlins and Baltimore Orioles. The New York Yankees-Philadelphia Phillies game was also postponed Monday as the Marlins had just played in Philadelphia, sparking fear the Phillies were exposed to the outbreak.

Given baseball’s rushed approach to conducting its season, this development is not necessarily a surprise. Not helping matters has been the United States’ inability to curb the virus’ spread, to say nothing of the pandemic’s continual politicisation. But baseball’s issues arise during a week where the National Basketball Association resumes its regular season and the National Football League welcomes players to training camp, begging the question if sports are truly ready to come back.

It is a question that has multiple answers, none that are entirely right or wrong. However, for those seeking hope, the PGA Tour can serve as a guide.

The tour wrapped up its seventh PGA Tour event in its return to golf on Sunday at the 3M Open outside Minneapolis, with two tournaments on its slate this week. What it has been attempting this summer—traveling around the country with a caravan of 350-plus players, caddies and other personnel—is nothing short of a high-wire act. Each step has not been graceful, and in Weeks 2 and 3 specifically, the rope began to wobble. There’s also a long way to go before the “Mission: Accomplished” banner can be unraveled. Yet as the tour finishes up its second month (along with holding seven Korn Ferry Tour events), what it has pulled off has been a success.

But can its success be replicated? Golf is a non-contact sport, played individually, held outside without real need for a locker room. Its inherent nature is what allowed the game to return months before baseball, basketball, hockey and football. The dynamics don’t lend themselves to an apples-to-apples comparison.

“I think we’re so fortunate in our sport, it’s different. We don’t have the contact that basketball has, that football has. Baseball, we’re not touching the same thing as in a baseball,” Justin Thomas said Tuesday at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis. “I have no physical touch with anybody in my group. I can stay away from them. And we’re outside. It’s so different compared to other sports.”

Mitchell Leff
The Miami Marlins celebrate winning their opening day game, but did so at the expense of strict adherence to social distancing best practices.

Still, there are lessons other leagues can learn from the tour’s foray into the unknown. Which starts with universal buy-in from players.

In a sense, that seems elementary, especially with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan threatening punishment to those who do not heed the tour’s COVID-19 guidelines. In that same breath, players are contractors, beholden to no one but themselves. Most are 35 and younger and all are professional athletes; as one tournament director told us as the tour was making plans for its return, there’s a certain amount of ego needed to reach this level, a conviction that can occasionally render as cockiness. In short, tour pros are a group that doesn’t like to be told what to do.

Luckily, the buy-in has been almost universal. Players and caddies have exercised caution to the tour’s expansive restrictions, holding themselves and others accountable. Players have self-reported possible symptoms to protect their fellow players and all others at an event. They acknowledge that if this endeavor falls apart, it’s on them.

“I’ve tried to be really careful, but I could probably be more careful,” said Webb Simpson, RBC Heritage winner, during that week at Harbour Town. “I hadn’t really gone out to dinner. I’ve gotten takeout every night. But in terms of even wearing the mask, any time I’m out of my comfort zone away from the golf course, I think it’s smart. And really, the six-foot rule I’ve been good about, but I probably could be better.”

There are still the occasional breaches of social distance, but on the whole players and caddies are doing their part. They are staying in their hotel rooms and rented houses, having food delivered rather than dining out, wearing masks where required. Even the lone “outbreak” during the Travelers Championship, where multiple players due to COVID concerns, at a human level, was understandable, as the caddies in question might have caught virus while attending a funeral.

Streeter Lecka
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan looks on during a practice round prior to last month’s RBC Heritage. Buy-in from players on the tour’s COVID protocols helped the tour resume play so quickly.

Which flows into the second part of this equation: the tour’s environment. Despite entering a handful of coronavirus hot spots, the tour has maintained a safe working space for its membership. No, the process is far from fool-proof. In fact, the bubbles the NBA and NHL have enacted have proven safer environments in the early going: The NHL announced that it performed 4,256 tests on more than 800 players and had zero positives, while the NBA had zero positive tests after one week in its stay at Disney World. The tour doesn’t have a true “bubble,” per se, not with weekly travel and players and caddies arranging personal travel and accommodations.

Nevertheless, that only seven PGA Tour pros in seven weeks have tested positive is not providence. A lot of this stems from stringent policing of who is and is not allowed on site and re-engineering tournament properties to meet COVID-19 protocols. When leaks emerge, the tour does its best to plug them up. Every aspect of tour life is being recalibrated on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis.

Perhaps the biggest lesson, and possible salvation for baseball as it tries to dig itself out of its hole, is malleability.

The tour’s health and safety protocols were comprehensive when announced in May. Of course, every league has laid out a detailed approach in COVID-19 prevention (MLB has orders on how to properly flush an airline toilet, for example). What has spurred efficiency on the PGA Tour front, though, has been the evolution and continual tinkering of those rules. And they have, particularly when the protocols showed vulnerability.

“You know, [we’re all trying to] learn to live in an environment of COVID-19,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said during last month’s Travelers Championship. “I’m concerned but I’m also confident in the program and protocols we’ve put in place, and our ability to be able to sustain the PGA Tour and give our players opportunities on both of these tours over the course of the year, so long as we continue to be as diligent as we intend to be.”

It wasn’t that Nick Watney tested positive (the tour’s first COVID-19 positive player) in the second tournament that was a sore point for critics; it was that he was allowed on property while awaiting the results, potentially exposing other players. Within a week, the tour adjusted its protocols on player/caddie clearance, declaring no one would be allowed at a tournament site without a passed in-market test.

Additional testing was added for those on the tour’s chartered planes. Fitness trailers were brought to courses to discourage visiting gyms out of the tour’s jurisdiction. They have adjusted tee pairings to prevent possible transmission from players who have tested positive but are no longer showing symptoms. (On Tuesday, the tour adjusted again to do away with its “COVID-19 pairings.”) In short, as our collective knowledge of the virus grows, so does the tour’s abilities to combat it.

Obviously, the tour’s success is predicated off of more than buy-in from players, its work environment and its adaptability. But they lay a foundation for the rest of the operation to function. Without those pillars intact, as evidenced in baseball this week, the proverbial house falls apart.

The post What Major League Baseball, the NBA, NFL and others can learn from the PGA Tour’s return amid the pandemic appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
ESPN’s documentary, “The Last Dance,” on Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls has delivered a trove of fun and insightful stories. His competitiveness—and love of golf, of course—are well documented and have been prevalent elements throughout the series.

Which brings us to one particularly memorable round that Brooks Koepka played with his Airness in South Florida. Appearing on Monday night’s edition of “SportsCenter” with Scott Van Pelt, the four-time major champion recounted the day.

“I was 1 up going to 17 tee,” Koepka said. “We’d been jawing all day and we have like a 40-yard walk back to the 17th tee and he hasn’t said much the last couple of holes. I said something like, ‘I’ve got you right where I want you.’”

Or not. Koepka quickly learned that it’s best not to trash talk Jordan, no matter the playing surface.

“He just tees the ball up, takes his practice swing and looks at me. ‘It’s the fourth quarter, baby, I don’t lose,’” Koepka recalled.

You can guess what happened next.

Jordan went on to win the 17th and 18th holes and won the match, according to Koepka.

Lesson learned.

“It’s probably the last time I’ve smack-talked him,” Koepka said. “I have not played him since, but hopefully we’ll tee it up again soon.”

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“That’s my ocean.”

Weed is standing outside the nearly completed clubhouse at The Grove XXIII, the uber-exclusive golf course he built for his client, NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan (it opened in the fall of 2019), explaining how Shinnecock Hills became the inspiration for the design even though this particular site—formerly a citrus grove near Hobe Sound—is South Florida flat and unambiguously landlocked.

“We started to gradually raise this land where the clubhouse is, and as we did, we realized we had views across the whole course,” he says. “We could see everything.” The vastness of the property and the sandy, grass-covered spaces between the holes reminded Weed and senior design associate Chris Monti of the famed U.S. Open venue on Long Island. A visit to Shinnecock to double-check their instincts confirmed the idea.

LC Lambrecht
WET & WILD The brutish par-4 12th

The logic works. Seen from the patio, The Grove XXIII’s holes spool and unspool against the open backdrop of undeveloped pasture—the sea. And from the golf course, the clubhouse is never out of sight, a modernist stand-in for Stanford White’s omnipresent, wood-framed landmark.

The Grove XXIII (the Roman numeral represents the number Jordan wore with the Chicago Bulls) twists in an ingenious double-helix routing that can be played in four nine + nine combinations, and in shorter three- to six-hole loops. The key to the flexibility is the clustering of greens and tees, and a crossover junction after the fourth and 13th holes. Walking off the fourth green, for instance, play can continue on at the fifth, or it can switch over to the 14th and finish in the opposite direction, so each nine can be broken into sections. In fact, it’s possible to play continuous internal circuits without ever returning home, enhancing the likelihood of ongoing presses, overtimes and emergency holes.

LC Lambrecht
The par-3 13th, playing towards the “sea.”

Architects love to work with nature’s broken lines and irregular shapes, but little of that splendour existed here. Each hole was cajoled and massaged using fill from a chain of lakes that Weed transformed into a marshland habitat. Jordan’s primary requirement that the course play fast and firm with features that produce dramatic matches gave way to broad fairways that glide over dips and swales and melt into low-slung putting surfaces. Watching players putt or bump 7-irons onto greens from 20 yards makes Weed giggle.

In an era when nearly every new and remodelled course bears a naturalistic or faux-historical aesthetic, The Grove XXIII skews clean and contemporary, all short grass and sophistication. Weed’s “collection architecture,” rife with hollows, depressions and shallow scoop bunkers that gather shots, celebrates the centripetal force of gravity.

LC Lambrecht
A look behind the eighth green.

There’s certainly nothing pacific about the 15th and 16th, two holes that can quickly flip matches. The first is a par 3, drawing diagonally over a ridge of moguls to a partially blind green kicking everything rightward into a deep chipping hollow. The other, just 260 yards from the regular tees, features a strand of central bunkers separating routes to the hole and a convex putting surface that moves chips and putts in irrational directions.

LC Lambrecht
An aerial of the 17th hole.

Although limiting in some ways, the old, agricultural property did offer an unexpected bonus in the form of two deep irrigation canals bordering the north and eastern boundaries. Weed notched slender strips of tees atop the high banks on the opposite sides, using the canals as the rarest of features in American golf: long, dead-straight hazard lines that play like inverted versions of the stone walls at North Berwick in Scotland.

“We kept asking ourselves if we were overdoing it [hitting across the canals],” Monti says, “but then we’d cross to the other side, and it was a better hole from over there.”

Architecture’s best rule is: Use what’s there. Sometimes that’s a perfect landscape, a Shinnecock Hills with wild grasses, sand ridges, a distant bay. Sometimes it’s Florida citrus land, a pasture and canals.

LC Lambrecht
A view from the fifth hole, playing along the canal.

LC Lambrecht
The clean, sharp edges of bunkers evident at Grove XXIII’s 12th hole.

LC Lambrecht
A view behind the 18th green, and its intricate bunkering surrounding the green complex.

The post Welcome to Michael Jordan’s new course, The Grove XXIII appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.