It’s a well-known fact that Gareth Bale’s retirement from football in January meant he was going to be playing more golf. Well, more golf than all the golf he was already playing, something he was criticised for (wrongly, in our opinion, of course) during his career. But just a few months later, Bale can already claim another huge accomplishment on his golfing resume: a hole-in-one.

And not just any hole-in-one. Bale aced the famed third hole at Torrey Pines’ South Course. You know, that downhill beauty with the Pacific as a background that everyone pauses to snap a photo when they play. With that view, the course’s PGA Tour/US Open history, and the fact that Bale could actually see his golf ball roll into the cup, it would be tough to pick a better spot for this momentous occasion. But it gets even better!

Bale had a friend video his shot. And that friend also wound up providing some electric commentary when the ball went in, setting off a celebration from Bale as if he had just scored the winning goal for Wales in the World Cup. Check it out:

 

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Great stuff, Gareth. And Ollie. “This is a video for the ages!” Indeed. At 33, Bale has a lot of golf ahead of him, but it will be tough to top that.

The post WATCH: Gareth Bale aces one of golf’s most famous par 3s, celebrates as if Wales won the World Cup appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Alan Shipnuck
LA JOLLA, Calif.—Sometimes, if we’re lucky, the man and the moment collide on the 72nd hole, producing transcendence. Think Seve at St. Andrews or Tiger at Torrey or Phil at Augusta. Time will tell if Jon Rahm deserves to share the same sentence as those legends. Early indications are affirmative, especially after Rahm’s moment arrived on Sunday at Torrey Pines, at the end of a frenetic day during which brand-name players were flying up and down the leaderboard. By the time Rahm reached the par-5 18th hole he had separated himself with relentless excellence. There was only one last heart to break: Louis Oosthuizen, the co-leader playing a few holes behind who was just going about his business, unaware of the incoming thunderbolt. A perfect drive, mediocre long-iron and then a delicate bunker shot left Rahm with 18 feet for birdie, with the 121st United States Open hanging in the balance.

Holing a putt like this has almost nothing to do with technical proficiency. It is an X-ray of the soul, a referendum on the unseen parts of a golfer that cannot be measured with a Trackman: heart, guts, balls. Scroll through the softies near the summit of the World Ranking and ask yourself how many would you trust with a putt like this? It’s a very, very short list. But now, in the glorious, nerve-wracking silence enveloping Torrey’s final green, Rahm met the moment. Thirteen years after Tiger Woods holed his greatest putt to the same hole location on the same green, Rahm buried his own curling left-to-righter, a putt as inevitable as it was thrilling.

“You kind of knew he was going to make it,” said his playing partner Matthew Wolff. “With some guys you just have that feeling and he was obviously relishing it. That putt was really special. I got goose bumps for sure.”

The whole sport did. Rahm, 26, has always been a can’t-miss-kid. After he fleeced Phil Mickelson for some pocket change when he was still an undergrad at Arizona State, Lefty told friends he thought the kid was already one of the top 10 players in the world at that moment.

Like his mentor Mickelson, Rahm deferred big money and stayed four years at ASU. “I promised my parents I would get a degree and a promise is a promise,” he once told me. He turned pro in 2016 and 12 worldwide wins followed, as well as a stint at No. 1. But Rahm was unable to get it done at the major championships, the tournaments that were supposed to define his legacy. Given that there are no holes in Rahm’s game, a Vesuvian temper was often cited as the only explanation for his stumbles. In truth, Rahm has been working on himself for years and his putter-bending tirades had become less frequent. Following the second round he was asked how close he came to losing his temper given the attendant frustrations of a U.S. Open setup and Rahm said with only a tinge of exasperation, “Am I ever going to escape that question?” Having a baby two months ago certainly accelerated his maturation.

“He had a kid and said his whole world changed,” says Wolff, 22. “Not like I’m gonna go out there and try to have a kid so I can be calm on the course but you can see a difference in him for sure. Everyone forgets how young he is but it feels like he has grown up a lot all of a sudden.”

Rahm’s enlarged perspective has been evident throughout the Covid era; he was one of the most eloquent and empathetic voices at the start of the crisis and he showed considerable class two weeks ago at the Memorial when he tested positive and he had to withdraw on Saturday night despite a six-shot lead. Though his U.S. Open preparations were compromised he turned up at Torrey with surprisingly good mojo. Asked on Friday about maybe the golf gods owing him one, Rahm said, “Well, I do believe in karma in the sense that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to people that do bad things. What happened a couple weeks ago is something I can’t control, unfortunately. But I can control what I do, every time. Just every second of the day, just following the routine, make sure I’m hydrated, make sure I’m eating, and make sure I’m thinking the right things out there on the golf course. So far I’ve done a great job, and hopefully I can keep going.”

He actually fell back during the third round, including a double bogey on the 14th hole after getting a bad bounce off the flagstick. The 73 left Rahm tied for sixth, three shots off the lead, but he remained undeterred. Asked about his Sunday strategy he said, “Well, as simple as it may sound, shoot as low as I can.”

Birdies on the first two holes announced Rahm’s attention. If he had never looked so calm under pressure, there was a reason for that: “I could just tell, just going down the fairway after that first tee shot, that second shot, and that birdie, I knew there was something special in the air. I could just feel it. I just knew it.” Another birdie on the 9th hole got Rahm in the thick of things and from there he made a series of gritty U.S. Open pars while other would-be contenders beat themselves: Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa made fatal double bogeys while Bryson DeChambeau imploded spectacularly with a beefy back nine 44.

Rahm came to the 17th hole one stroke off the lead and left himself with a 25-footer for birdie. “I stayed patient all day,” he says. “I hadn’t made many long putts all week.” But the moment had arrived, and he drained the big breaking putt, unleashing a lusty fist-pump to celebrate. Rahm’s approach shot on 18 will not go down in U.S. Open lore alongside Hogan’s 1-iron but the ensuing bunker shot to a short-sided hole location was pure class. “That showed some magical hands,” said Paul Casey, who plays a lot of golf with Rahm at Whisper Rock in Scottsdale. “The British lads, we sometimes joke about Spanish hands. He’s got them. Seve had them, Olazabal had them, but Rahm does too, this touch and feel that just can’t be taught. But unlike the others, he combines that with so much brute force in his long game. It’s quite a combination, innit?”

Sean M. Haffey

So now all that was left was to make a life-changing putt. In such moments, Woods displayed an eerie Zen-like focus, reducing the moment to its smallest component parts. Rahm, for all the duende he usually exudes, seemed utterly at ease, as if he already knew the putt was going in. “I mean, I might have looked calm. I was not calm, “ he said. “I wish people could see our heart rate when we’re playing in those moments because that was tense. But you practice to let your body basically take over, right? That’s what I did. My mindset was the same on the first putt on Thursday to the last one on 18. Situation does change a little bit, but routine and really staying in the present is what helps.”

After the putt clanged into the hole and Rahm did some gyrations on the green he repaired to the driving range to keep loose in the event of a playoff. But Oosthuizen gave up the ghost on 17, hooking his drive into the hazard and making a bogey that left yet another glittering trophy just beyond his reach. Rahm won the U.S. Open standing on the range and he fell into a teary embrace with his wife Kelley and their young son Kepa. Beaming nearby was Phil Mickelson himself, who had returned to the course to be there for his friend, just as Rahm had waited on the fringe of the 18th green to congratulate Lefty last month when he won the PGA Championship.

“We’ve played a lot of golf together,” Mickelson said, “and supported each other and it’s a unique dynamic where we want the best for each other as opposed to always trying to beat each other down.”

His voice was thick with emotion so I asked Mickelson if he was feeling emotional. “A little bit, yeah. I mean, we have a very special relationship and I’m just really happy for him.”

He expounded further on the seismic shift that may come from Rahm’s breakthrough. “I actually think there’s a lot of guys who win one [major championship] and they feel like they’re done,” said Mickelson. “I feel like [Rahm] has incredible support from his wife and he’s got a great caddie and a great team behind him. He has a great game and a lot of heart. I think he’s going to elevate even higher than what we saw today.”

That’s a scary thought.

“Yeah, fortunately, I’m 51 and I’m not gonna have to deal with it,” Mickelson said.

The rest of the golf world won’t have it so easy. Rahm called his victory “a fairy tale story that I knew was going to have a happy ending.” But most fairy tale good guys are too soft to hole a putt on the 72nd hole to steal a U.S. Open. From this day forward, Rahm is golf’s big, bad wolf.

The post Jon Rahm’s late heroics produce the major title he seemed fated to win appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Tod Leonard
SAN DIEGO—The ceremony to present Tiger Woods with the 2008 U.S. Open trophy was barely over when San Diego city officials put the press on the USGA’s honchos. Torrey Pines and the game’s biggest superstar delivered one of the greatest shows in the history of all majors, and the folks who hosted the party already had the next invitations engraved.

The people from Far Hills, N.J., in the blue coats politely nodded and smiled—and then very much went silent for a couple of years. Feeling a bit put off, a San Diego golf championship committee filled with local businesspeople sent a letter to the PGA of America inquiring about hosting a future PGA Championship or Ryder Cup.

That did the trick. The USGA came quickly courting and awarded the ’21 U.S. Open to San Diego.

Now what does the USGA do after a second week of tremendous theatre? This wasn’t Woods, on a broken leg, making birdie on the 72nd hole to force a playoff he’d win over everyman Rocco Mediate, but it comes about as close as any Side B could. In an embarrassment of storylines, World No. 3 Jon Rahm emerges on the back nine from a pack of show ponies with birdies on the last two holes to shoot four-under 67 and beats Louis Oosthuizen by one shot … two weeks after Rahm tested positive for COVID-19 while dominating the Memorial … on Father’s Day with his wife and 2-month-old son looking on … at one of his favorite courses and places in the world.

We had a back-nine battle and bloodbath that make any major memorable. Rory McIlroy made a double-bogey at the 12th, as did Paul Casey. Collin Morikawa doubled 13. Oosthuizen bogeyed 17 by watching his ball roll over hardpan into the canyon. And then there was the monumental collapse of Bryson DeChambeau and his inward 44.

Hello? What more do you want?

“Another home run,” Rees Jones, the Torrey Pines South architect, said on the phone on Sunday night while having dinner with his wife at The Lodge at Torrey Pines. Jones, 79, walked the course all day and saw a number of the key shots in person.

“The [soon-to-be] No. 1 player in the world won,” he said. “That’s really what you’re trying to do, have the cream rise to the top, and it certainly did. You still had good scores like 67, but by the same token you really had to keep your concentration.”

The Torrey Pines South Course doesn’t get much love from some aficionados. It ranks in the second 100 of Golf Digest’s America 100 Greatest Courses—barely making that tier at No. 198. Despite being the anchor course for a PGA Tour event every year, it gets raked for being too straight, too predictable, and maybe too public in its birthright as a municipal layout. Maybe parasailers cruising by don’t make it “legit” enough. Who knows?

And yet, piggybacking on Jones’ analogy, it’s like the .180 hitter delivering the ninth-inning homer in the seventh game of the World Series.

Torrey proved once again that between the USGA’s setup and just the plain old nature of the course, that great things can happen here. First, just look at the pedigree of who has won the Farmers Insurance Open in February: Rahm, Patrick Reed, Justin Rose, Jason Day, Bubba Watson, and Woods on seven occasions.

All major champs, and there’s a reason for that. The South plays tough in the winter, but the USGA can basically do anything it wants to it come June. This time around, the fairways weren’t overly narrow and the rough was up, but either by design or growing circumstances this spring, the deep stuff was spotty and not overly brutal. The yardage was manageable and the greens were, by all appearances, still alive on Sunday night—a positive step compared to some U.S. Opens.

“The rough was substantial,” Jones said. “This was the old U.S. Open setup that I think they’re going to be using moving forward.”

Probably most telling, there was almost no complaining, at least in public, of how the course played.

“Yeah, I love this golf course,” two-time U.S. Open and four-time major champ Brooks Koepka said after finishing four strokes out of first. “It’s fun to play. I think it’s perfect for a major championship. The way it sets up, you’ve got to be able to put the ball in the fairway, control your irons, and you’ve really got to putt well out here. That’s kind of the basis of a major championship. You need to be able to do everything really well. I think this course is perfect for that.”

Ezra Shaw
Russell Henley and Rory McIlroy walk up the 18th hole during the final round of the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

The U.S. Open is supposed to be the most democratic of tests, and if it’s not always that, it certainly is at Torrey. Remember that a 45-year-old Mediate, with a history of back problems, took Woods to the brink. Going into Sunday, two short hitters, Mackenzie Hughes and Russell Henley, were tied for the lead with a 38-year-old mid-range guy, Oosthuizen.

In the end, it was a big hitter in Rahm who won, and two shots behind Oosthuizen in solo third was Harris English, a well-regarded ball-striker who ranks 80th on the PGA Tour in driving distance.

“You have guys who are long hitters, guys who are short hitters, a lot of different strategies, and it comes down to execution,” Phil Mickelson said. “It hasn’t limited everybody—like everybody’s had a chance if they play well. I just think they did a great job. I’m really impressed.”

Somebody get some smelling salts for Mike Davis. The outgoing USGA CEO and Mickelson have not always seen eye-to-eye. (Remember Lefty chewing him out late on Sunday at Merion in 2013?) But Mickelson, who was possibly doing a bit of local promotion, said the setup was the best he’d seen in 30 years. After shooting 75 on Sunday to finish at 11 over, Mickelson praised the fourth-round setup by the USGA’s John Bodenhamer because it kept some of the easier holes scoreable while accentuating the challenges on the toughest holes.

“With the firmer greens, yes, it’s going to be more difficult, but there’s still opportunities on certain holes,” Mickelson said. “It’s just really nice. It’s going to be a good finish.”

Lefty knew what he was talking about.

English had an interesting shoutout after he closed with a 68: “I think what Jason Gore has done to this tournament has been awesome. It’s a tough test, but it’s very fair out there.”

Gore is the former tour player who has become a USGA liaison to the players. Apparently, whatever message he’s passing on is being heard.

Will the golfers’ love of Torrey Pines and the drama produced here be heeded? It’s hard to tell. There’s been speculation of late that the USGA will emphasize a tight core of its traditional venues—”cathedrals of the game,” Bodenhamer said this week—with maybe only a few “others” sprinkled in. Bodenhamer says he “loves” Torrey Pines and all that it represents.

The next open date for this championship is in 2028—far too soon to even consider a return to Torrey, but maybe something in the ‘30s? Or if the USGA takes a pass, maybe the PGA of America gets interested again.

“After what we saw this week I would thnk Torrey Pines would be part of the rotation,” Jones said, “because it’s so well-accepted by the players. The players really love it. What you get is what you deserve.”

Maybe that should be Torrey Pines’ new slogan.

The post Torrey Pines stages another blockbuster, but its major championship future is murky appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Tod Leonard
SAN DIEGO — It was the most “Phil being Phil” way of going out of the U.S. Open in his hometown.

Maybe Phil Mickelson visualised lifting the trophy on Sunday afternoon at Torrey Pines on the 18th green. There is absolutely no way he ever imagined what actually happened, combining the memorable with the ridiculous in a scene that included one of golf history’s longest and most circuitous cart-path bounces.

In the final round on the South Course, Mickelson was limping in at 18 at one over for the day, having already made four bogeys on the back nine. He no doubt wanted to give San Diegans one more cheer in a tournament not filled with many of them for him. But he sliced his drive above the right fairway bunkers, and with a lie well below his feet, pulled out a fairway wood.

“Oh boy,” Justin Leonard said on the NBC broadcast. “What is he doing here?”

Mickelson took a mighty swipe, and NBC’s cameras just froze. For viewers, it was as if the ball never came down from the sky.

What it actually did was hit a cart path far right of the green amid a large crowd. Somehow, it began rolling down the concrete, and as if it was being remote-controlled, made a slight turn, rolling some more, before settling against a temporary fence behind the first tee. The USGA’s version ShotLink had the ball travelling a total of 299 yards, 65 yards past the flagstick. With the grandstands in the way, it looked like miles.

“I was on the phone with my stepdad,” recounted Steve Remedi, from Phoenix. “And he was, like, ‘Phil’s shot is bouncing down the cart path. Are you right there?’ And it skipped right by me. I was, like, holy sh-t! And I jogged next to it. And there were some people bending down to go mess with it, and I told him not to touch it.”

Volunteer marshal Darin Bowles was minding his position near the fence when he heard a commotion.

“I saw a ball rolling and rolling down, and I thought someone had dropped one of the souvenir balls,” Bowles said. “And then there’s this USGA marshal at a sprint—’Stay back! Stay back! Keep people away!’ The ball is still moving and then it stopped. People are asking, ‘What [kind of ball] is it?’ It’s a Callaway! It’s Phil’s!”

Photo courtesy of Darin Bowles
Phil Mickelson’s ball rests against a fence after it rolled down a cart path on the 18th hole.

Bowles is a member of the Torrey Pines men’s club. He’s played hundreds of rounds on the course, and he said he’s never seen anybody ever hit the ball to where Mickelson did. He loved it, though. He took pictures and will be telling the story for the rest of his life. “It’s wild! Just wild!” he said.

Mickelson was less pleased. He had to make the walk of shame to his ball to identify it, and then walked back to take a drop—without penalty because of all of the obstructions. He had 100 yards to the hole with his third shot, and put that in the bunker. When he couldn’t get up and down, Mickelson finished with a 6, a 40 on the back nine and a closing effort of four-over 75. His total score of 11 over put him near the bottom of the weekend board and was five shots worse than his total in the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

Asked a question about the 18th hole, Mickelson offered an answer that was shorter than the time it took his ball to roll. “Oh, I just got on the cart path, and it just ran down 100 yards past the hole,” he said. “So we had to go 100 yards the other way.”

Mickelson entered the week coming off the high of his historic win in the PGA Championship, becoming the oldest man, at 50, to win any major. But Torrey Pines South always figured to be a tough test for him because he’s rarely played it well since the redesign in 2001. He did, however, laud the USGA for the way it set up the course this time.

“I’m disappointed I didn’t play better,” Mickelson said. “I’m very surprised that, in the 30 years that I’ve played the U.S. Open, this is the best I’ve seen. I thought they did a remarkable job, and I’m really proud and happy that it’s here at Torrey.

“I think this afternoon is going to be awesome. The setup is the best I’ve ever seen, and it allows on some holes—what they did really well is they made some of the hard holes harder pars, like 11 and 12, and they made some of the easy holes, like 2, easier so you can make birdies.”

The post Phil Mickelson finishes with one of the craziest cart-path bounces of all time appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Unlike Dustin Johnson—who is undisturbed by his surroundings, beholden to an inner command only known to him—you can tell how McIlroy is doing by his walk. When things are going bad, his steps are heavy and slow. When they are going good, he struts with his chest puffed out and head held high. And when it is going really good, he bounces like a kid on Halloween trying to hit as many houses as possible.

Which is to say this: McIlroy swaggered around Torrey Pines Saturday as if each hole was handing out full-sized candy bars.

McIlroy turned in a third-round 67, asserting himself as a very real contender at the 121st U.S. Open.

“Yeah, it’s definitely the best that I’ve played this week,” McIlroy said. “I felt like I played well on Thursday, and 70 felt like the worst I could have shot.”

McIlroy’s gait towards the first tee was reserved Saturday morning, which is to be expected. He started the round outside the top 20, six strokes back of the leaders. That didn’t mean he was out of the hunt; this is the U.S. Open, where chaos reigns, and he is a former U.S. Open champ. Conversely, since that breakthrough at Congressional in 2011, McIlroy has not contended at the USGA’s marquee championship, at least not truly. His next best finish was a T-8 last year, but he was 12 shots back of winner Bryson DeChambeau. An opening tee shot into a bunker did not offer a rebuttal.

RELATED: Why have there been so many nasty bounces off flagsticks at Torrey Pines?

However, from a less-than-favourable lie, McIlroy put his approach to 15 feet. The birdie didn’t fall, but no matter; as he made his way to the second tee, McIlroy’s stride, if ever so slightly, grew stronger. Conviction does not guarantee success at the U.S. Open, but it is a prerequisite, and it was clear in that moment that McIlroy was feeling himself.

A look at this front nine will not convey that; he birdied the second after nearly jarring his second shot from 65 yards out, but followed with seven pars. A one-under 34 is a damn fine score at this tournament, and while it does not signal something special it kept the chance of something special alive.

“I hit a lot of fairways starting out, hit a lot of greens, gave myself a lot of birdie chances,” McIlroy said. “Didn’t actually make that many, but I just stayed really patient knowing that, if you’re not making bogeys out there, you’re not losing ground.”

That spirit changed with a birdie at the par-5 10th to get to red figures. The fans were starting to awaken to McIlroy’s move, so they were deflated when he missed a makable birdie try on the par-3 11th. But McIlroy revived them on the 12th, holing out a chip from 30 yards, and for the first time all week there was a current of energy running through this major championship.

What happened at the 13th was just as electric. McIlroy, 3-wood in hand from 270 yards out, hit the flagstick, his ball ricocheting some 50 feet right of the pin. This time it was the crowd that revived McIlroy, cheering him on despite the bad break. He thanked them with a lag and no-nonsense clean-up for birdie to move to three under and, in that second, it sure felt like this championship was McIlroy’s for the taking.

Sean M. Haffey

However, that is not how golf works. That is definitely not how the U.S. Open works on Saturday afternoon. Because after a par on the 14th, McIlroy snapped his drive down a canyon at the 15th, and when his ball went down it appeared to bring up all the demons he has fought at majors over the last seven years.

Only McIlroy, taking a penalty drop, was able to scoot his third under some trees to 50 yards short of the flag, and made a marvellous up-and-down for one of those “good bogeys” that are a cliché at this event but a cliché because it’s true.

“Yeah, huge, huge to keep momentum,” McIlroy said of the 15th. “As I said, this is the only tournament in the world where you fist pump a bogey.”

He added pars at the 16th (from another up-and-down, this time from the sand) and 17th. At the par-5 18th, he was left with just 200 yards and change to the flag. His second shot was long, which is the right miss with the flag tucked just over Devlin’s Billabong, with a two-putt moving him back to three under and ensuring he will be part of the Sunday conversation.

Being a part of the conversation has been foreign to McIlroy as of late, and not just at this championship. His major slump is well known, yet McIlroy himself was briefly stumped on the last time he was in the mix come Sunday.

“I mean, I’m trying to think of the last time where I really felt like I had a chance,” McIlroy said about his major shortcomings. “Carnoustie in ‘18 felt like I maybe had half a chance, going into the final day at Pebble in 2019. But apart from that, there’s been some good finishes but never felt like I was in the thick of things.”

RELATED: The chicken sandwich (yes, chicken sandwich) that could snap Rory McIlroy’s major championship drought

He’ll be offered such a shot on Sunday. What is on his plate—a chance at a fifth major, a number only 15 male golfers have accomplished; a chance to reinsert himself as the best player in the world; a chance to silence all the doubts and whispers and criticisms that have followed him since Valhalla—is, well, unrelatable.

But to get the chance to prove that you’re as good as you once were and still can be, to others and yourself … no matter your walk of life, that is a song we can all dance to. McIlroy will get such a chance Sunday. Walking off the property Saturday night—chest out, head held high—it’s clear what he thinks about his chances.

“I’ve done the first part of that job,” McIlroy said. “Now it’s up to me tomorrow to go out and try to play a similar round of golf, and yeah, that’s it.”

The post Rory McIlroy still has a gear others don’t and Saturday was proof appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
It’s been a rough couple days to be a flagstick at Torrey Pines. If you’ve watched this week’s U.S. Open, you’ve probably noticed ball after ball pinging off them. Rory McIlroy hit one on the fly (with a fairway wood!) on Saturday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Sergio Garcia nipped a perfect wedge that clanked off one and came right back to his feet. On Thursday, it was Phil Mickelson who hammered one.

???@McIlroyRory | #USOpen pic.twitter.com/Ewfn8Veufa

— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 19, 2021

???#FromManyOne | #USOpen pic.twitter.com/WoaCkODDNN

— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 19, 2021

On one hand, it’s to be expected. These are the best golfers in the world, after all. But the sheer number of flagstick strikes has been uncanny—and so have the resulting ricochets, which seem to be sending balls screaming in the other direction faster than normal.

So, is this a textbook case of recency bias, or is there something different about the flagsticks at the U.S. Open?

Turns out, it’s the latter, actually. Credit here to the Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Beaton, who investigated this in detail earlier this week. Turns out the flagsticks used at USGA events are indeed different than the ones used on the PGA Tour. They’re the same material—fibreglass—but the thickness is different. PGA Tour flagsticks are a uniform 1/2-inch in diameter from top to bottom, while the USGA’s are tapered: from 3/8 of an inch at the bottom to up to 3/4 of an inch at the top.

In summary: If a ball bounces off the bottom of the stick—like, on a putt—it would likely bounce less than had it knocked off a PGA Tour flagstick, since a thinner stick would theoretically produce a softer reaction. This is why you’re seeing guys who always putt with the flagstick in, like Matt Fitzpatrick, stick with that strategy this week. But if it bounces off the middle of the stick or higher, as McIlroy’s and Garcia’s and Mickelson’s did, good luck.

Just another obstacle for the fellas to deal with in “golf’s toughest test.” Actually, come to think of it, having to worry about how your ball will bounce off a flagstick would be a rather nice problem to have.

The post Why have there been so many nasty bounces off flagsticks at Torrey Pines? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 32-year-old was saying on Wednesday that when he first saw Congressional Country Club in 2011, he immediately believed it was a course on which he could shoot strong numbers. “It’s the same as here,” he said, waving his hand toward the South Course at Torrey Pines. “You hit fairways, you hit greens and you can shoot good scores. It’s just a matter of getting into a little more of a positive mindset going into the tournament.”

McIlroy will admit that since being a mop-haired 22-year-old who notched his heretofore only U.S. Open win in record fashion in 2011, shooting 18 under, he’s become a bit guarded, maybe even jaded, going into this particular major. “Cynical” is the word he chose on Wednesday.

The results can beat you down, and though the Ulsterman has a T-8 and T-9, respectively, in his last two appearances in the national championship, he hasn’t truly contended on a Sunday since ’11, when it wasn’t much of a competition at all, considering McIlroy prevailed by eight shots. There were also three consecutive missed U.S. Open weekends that preceded the most recent top-10s.

But—and yes, we know Rory loyalists have heard this before—it seems there are legitimate reasons to think that McIlroy can meld attitude and optimism with an improving swing to make some noise this week.

The recipe starts with confidence, and that comes from having competed well on the South Course over a rather condensed span. McIlroy didn’t play in his first PGA Tour Farmers Insurance Open until 2019, mostly because of the guaranteed money he got going to the European Tour’s Middle East swing. But he’s played three straight years at Torrey, and the results are impressive: T-5 in first appearance, T-3 in 2020, and then a T-16 this past February—the latter not a terrible placing considering he’d begun working on significant swing changes.

In nine rounds on the South Course during the Farmers, McIlroy has a scoring average is 69.8, and he made a nice weekend charge on Sunday in 2020, shooting 67-69 to finish three shots back of Marc Leishman.

The key point being that this isn’t Oakmont, Erin Hills or Shinnecock Hills—all layouts where McIlroy missed the cut in competing on them for the first time. It’s the same for everyone, of course. Tiger Woods built his career on winning at the same courses over and over, including Torrey Pines.

“It’s nice to come to a venue where we all know it pretty well from sort of being on the PGA Tour schedule,” he said. “There’s not really any secrets out there. We all know what to do and how to play it, and it’s just a matter of who can execute over the four days.”

It also helps that McIlroy arrived this week, played 18 holes on Tuesday and immediately deemed the setup as “great.”

“The rough is playable. You can hit it in the rough and at least have a chance to get it up around the green and sort of use your short game to scramble and save par,” McIlroy said. “It’s not as penal as some other U.S. Opens. … It’s really fair. I’ve heard nothing but positive praise from a lot of the players.”

McIlroy was 19 and already a professional golfer when Woods won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. But he had played in only one major at the time, as an amateur in the 2007 Open Championship, and he was a year away from tying for 10th in his U.S. Open debut at Bethpage Black.

The conditions this time around at Torrey are very much like in ’08, when Woods and his playoff mate, Rocco Mediate, were the only players to break par, at one-under. The kikuyu rough, with a mix of overseeded rye, was not overly brutal that year or this, but it was still thick enough to produce concern. And there will probably be more of an element of luck—good or bad—than players would like.

“I think if you see your ball sailing into the rough, you hope you’re just going to get lucky,” McIlroy said. “It can settle into the kikuyu that’s sticky and juicy, or there’s the patches of Poa out there that are more of the yellowish, brownish colour, and you hope your ball is going to land in one of those patches and you can get it out onto the green.

“There’s no substitute for hitting the ball off the fairway here. It’s a pure—it’s fairways and greens. It’s a proper U.S. Open test. The one way to keep you from injuring your wrist is by not going in it.”

Sean M. Haffey
Rory McIlroy hits his drive from the 18th tee during a practice round prior to the start of the 2021 U.S. Open.

McIlroy ranks second in driving distance (318.6 yards) on the PGA Tour this season, countered by being 173rd in driving accuracy (55.17 percent). But missing fairways doesn’t seem to hurt him much—he’s ninth in strokes gained/off-the-tee. It’s his short game around the green—which figures to be heavily tested this week in heavy rough around the putting surfaces—that has been an issue. He’s 98th in that category.

Last week, McIlroy worked with Pete Cowen, the instructor with whom he teamed up in March after he missed the cut in the Players Championship. They’ve been reinforcing their previous efforts, which resulted in McIlroy capturing the Wells Fargo Championship in May, only to see him not score better than 72 in the PGA Championship.

“The technical and mechanical parts of it are all there,” McIlroy said. “It’s just a matter of going out in a U.S. Open setting and just trusting what I’ve been doing in practice, and then that gets more into the mental side of things and just being really clear and really committed in what you’re trying to do and being as free on the course as I am on the range.

“That’s the big challenge, but in terms of where everything’s heading, it’s definitely in the right direction.”

The post Torrey Pines might be the perfect venue for a Rory McIlroy recharge in majors appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
SAN DIEGO—There is a chance you, dear reader, are in the throes of wedding planning, a ring of hell Dante could not have fathomed. And if you’re in that pit, we’re afraid it is too late, for no ladder extends that deep to get you out.

But for those who have not ventured into this abyss, there is hope. Let Lee Westwood be your shining lighting in the darkness.

Westwood recently was married to longtime girlfriend/part-time caddie Helen Storey in Las Vegas. And we do mean “recently;” this week’s US. Open is serving as the pair’s honeymoon, according to Westwood. That new marriage bliss had Westwood in high spirits Wednesday when speaking to the media at Torrey Pines. Or perhaps he was in high spirits because Westwood was able to avoid the trappings that usually comes when organising nuptials.

“No, there was a huge amount of planning that went into it,” Westwood said. “About four weeks.”

Four weeks! Most have to set aside four weeks, minimum, for table arrangements. Choosing a DJ is half a baseball season. What is the secret, Lee?

“It was amazing how easy it was to do,” Westwood explained. “They obviously have a lot of weddings in Las Vegas, and it’s a finely tuned machine. Picking up the licenses was no great trauma. I think we were in and out in about ten minutes. Fortunately, Helen said I do, so yeah.”

In other words, while the rest of us poor bastards climbed a mountain in weighted boots, Westwood decided to take a helicopter to the top, waving and smiling at us through the cockpit.

However, it’s not all smooth sailing, as Westwood says he and Helen’s definition of “honeymoon” differs. “I keep telling her [this counts], but I think she’s got her eye on somewhere where I don’t take the golf clubs,” Westwood said.

Still … four weeks. On behalf of everyone who has ever torched a year (or longer) worrying about a ceremony that’s over in six hours, thank you, Lee, for being the hero we need.

The post Let Lee Westwood save you from wedding-planning hell appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
In the time between last month’s PGA Championship and this week’s U.S. Open, the feud between Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka—which was re-ignited by a rogue, viral video—has dominated our sport’s discourse. Who’s side are you on? Is it good for the game? And, perhaps most saliently: Should they be paired together at the U.S. Open?

It’s a fair question, given the USGA’s history of cheeky pairings for the opening rounds of its marquee championship. The last time the U.S. Open was at Torrey Pines, the powers that be grouped the top three players in the world—Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott—in a precursor to the modern “supergroup.” They’ve lumped together small guys and big guys (literally), U.S. Amateur champions and guys with long last names … you get the picture.

And while there’s been some concern—given the antics at the Memorial Tournament, when fans repeatedly referred to Bryson as “Brooksy”—that having the two men play together on Thursday and Friday at Torrey Pines would devolve into a fracas, allegedly the USGA actually considered the possibility. At least, according to Brad Faxon.

Faxon, an eight-time PGA Tour winner who worked as a broadcaster when Fox held the U.S. Open rights, was discussing the possibility of a Brooks-Bryson pairing in an appearance on SiriusXM PGA Tour radio.

“I found out last night that the USGA actually did call Bryson DeChambeau and his agent, and asked them if they would be okay with that, and Bryson declined.”

“Bryson declined”

Brad Faxon tells Michael Breed what he’s heard about Brooks and Bryson possibly playing together at the US Open@BradFaxon I @MichaelBreed I @usopengolf pic.twitter.com/rhqHyh8AfN

— SiriusXM U.S. Open Radio (@SiriusXMPGATOUR) June 15, 2021

DeChambeau’s agent, Brett Falkoff, denied Faxon’s accounting.

“The USGA did not reach out to Bryson regarding a potential pairing the first two rounds with Brooks Koepka,” Falkoff told Golfweek. “Bryson is fully focused on defending the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines this week.”

Golf Digest has requested comment from the USGA.

While DeChambeau initially stoked the flames with Koepka on social media, he has since tried to distance himself from the back-and-forth. After Koepka released a video promising free beer to fans who’d been ejected from the Memorial, DeChambeau was asked about where this kerfuffle is headed.

“I think that’s something the tour needs to handle; it’s something I can’t control,” the World No. 5 said. “I tried to take the high road numerous times, and I think that, from my perspective, I’ll continue to keep doing so and people are going to do what they want to do.”

If Faxon’s suggestion is not accurate, as Falkoff suggests, it wouldn’t be the first time he reported information regarding Koepka that was subsequently disproven. Back in March, also on PGA Tour radio, Faxon offered some insight on Koepka’s knee injury.

“There was rumours around here, the Honda Classic was last week where I live, I was on the range with caddies and talking, and I have instructor friends, I think this injury is way more serious than Koepka’s letting on. I’ve heard, you know, patella injury, post collateral ligament, PCL. I’ve dealt with multiple ACL injuries, and I’ve heard rumours he’s out for six to eight months. So I don’t think the Masters has a chance.”

Koepka did indeed play in the Masters, missing the cut just a month after undergoing surgery to repair the medial patellofemoral ligament in his right knee. A month later, he finished tied for second at the PGA Championship.

The post Did Bryson DeChambeau really turn down a pairing with Brooks Koepka? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
It is U.S. Open week, and how can you not be romantic about this U.S. Open? Torrey Pine’s Pacific backdrop and a return to Father’s Day elicit gushiness, sure, but also a return to the ethos of this championship. The most egalitarian of majors felt anything but in 2020 with qualifiers cancelled and no fans in the stands. This year the U.S. Open is “open” again with more than 9,000 entrants and more than 40 percent of this week’s field earning their invite through qualifying. And though it won’t be a full house there will be people at the people’s championship, at a people’s course no less.

“People’s course.” Maybe that’s where the romanticism lies, a prestigious event visiting a public venue. What a simple and beautiful concept. But a concept that warrants a requiem, as Torrey Pines likely marks the end of an era for the U.S. Open.

The 2021 edition will be the sixth time in 20 years that the U.S. Open is played at a municipal or daily-fee facility—places where 90 percent of golf in the U.S. is played—a remarkable frequency considering the tournament didn’t stop at a purely public site for its first 101 championships. However, there is not a single such facility among the U.S. Open’s future venues. Seven of the next eight years are spoken for, 2028 the only open date, and Merion is a good bet to start the new decade in order to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Bob Jones’ U.S. Amateur win that clinched the Grand Slam in 1930. That may be the last open date for quite some time. (Before we go any further, yes, Pebble Beach and Pinehurst are technically open to everyone, but so are commercial space flights and courtside NBA seats. If you want to play them, be ready to stay at the resort and have a bank account that rivals the GDP of Switzerland.)

The USGA christened a new U.S. Open strategy in 2020, outlining how its flagship event will scale-down its list of future courses in order to play at a cherished few more frequently. Pinehurst was named the first “anchor site,” and though the USGA did not reveal its nucleus, CEO Mike Davis telegraphed the set—Pebble Beach, Oakmont and Shinnecock Hills joining Pinehurst—the previous summer.

“Those four meet all our criteria,” Davis said. “They’re great tests of golf, they set up logistically either very well or well enough, and—being honest—we’re going to make money when we go there.”

The USGA says it’s a decision based on extensive feedback from players, who prefer iconic venues they are more familiar with. The blueprint calls for a select group of courses to be visited every five to seven years; Pinehurst, for example, has already locked in five host dates (2024, 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047). It is not a set rota a la the Open Championship, and the USGA wants to make that delineation, hence the “anchor” label. Because, along with the anchor sites, a subset of courses will be in the U.S. Open mix every decade. “This allows us to meet the expectations of players and fans alike while providing a platform to grow and elevate the championship,” Craig Annis, USGA chief brand officer, told Golf Digest.

The USGA insists it will add diversity to those eight- to 10-year venues. “It will create a framework that allows us to introduce gems like the Los Angeles Country Club or a Chambers Bay,” Annis said. But with the next decade mostly accounted for and the anchor sites leaving few openings, it’s evident the true publics won’t be a frequent voice of the discussion.

“The reality is there are more pretty girls than one,” says former USGA executive director David Fay. “It’s an embarrassment of riches.”

TIMOTHY A. CLARY

Fay ushered in the public U.S. Open movement, convincing his team and organization that Bethpage, a state park in New York, was the model facility to host a tournament. The 2002 U.S. Open was a resounding success, spurring other public venues to ask “Hey, why not us?” Torrey Pines, run by the city of San Diego, petitioned and received a U.S. Open in 2008, which ultimately became one of the most memorable majors in golf history. “Bethpage and Torrey were excellent, and it certainly helps when the ‘right’ man wins,” Fay laughs, a nod to Tiger Woods taking the title at both venues. The success of Bethpage and Torrey beget a U.S. Open at Chambers Bay (owned by Pierce County in Washington state) and Erin Hills (owned by an individual proprietor).

However, after a hiccup with Chambers Bay (arguably self-inflicted by the USGA and made worse by a shaky first-year FOX telecast), a tepid fan response with Erin Hills and losing Bethpage to the PGA of America (the Ryder Cup comes there in 2025), the anchor strategy indicates the USGA treats its 2002 triumph as an aberration. The USGA’s stated reasons for the anchor strategy are sound. There’s also a more elementary factor at hand, Fay insists.

The undertaking of hosting a U.S. Open requires a years-long rapport between the USGA and tournament site. If the venue is a country club or resort, that means dealing with a few hundred members and a board or two. If the venue is public, the USGA is dealing with, well, everyone.

“The local governments are wildcards,” Fay says. “You could be working with a set of officials who weren’t in place when the original negotiations happened. You could be working with non-golfers or those who don’t understand the game. You could have people just trying to make your life difficult. You have to hold your breath.” Given the amount of preparation and headaches that already come with a U.S. Open at a trusted club, this unknown element, Fay asserts, is why the USGA wants to whittle down its future sites.

We’d be remiss if failing to mention money’s role, which Davis alluded to; North Carolina is gifting more than $40 million in financial incentives as part of its Pinehurst agreement. But not just in the amount to be made on-site. Fay says TV negotiations are one of the chief components of this new arrangement.

“You have to keep an eye on [the fact] the USGA is priming itself for the next TV deal. You want a showstopper at the end of the deal, and when the new deal begins,” Fay says. NBC took over the final eight years on FOX Sports’ U.S. Open contract last year, running through 2027. Pebble Beach will host that year, and, mentioned above, the USGA has not announced a 2028 venue.

J.D. Cuban

These are well-reasoned positions, and fans won’t be disappointed with more of Oakmont, Shinnecock, Pebble and Pinehurst. In that same breath, for all its TV money and course deals, what keeps the USGA afloat is the people and its sense of democracy in a game prone to exclusivity. That is the romanticism that fuels the U.S. Open. “From many, one,” after all. It is the true anchor. So it’s easy to interpret the USGA’s new strategy as a referendum on its public experiment.

Fay, however, says that’s not the case. Instead he views the era as a tip of the hat to the USGA’s constituents. “People who play public facilities, they could say a true public links was good enough to host a U.S. Open,” Fay says.

As for its goodbye? Fay says don’t get too sentimental, because in this world goodbyes don’t exist. “I understand why golfers who play true publics would be disappointed, I do. But golfers love their history, and history lives. Once a U.S. Open has come, you are a U.S. Open course in perpetuity.”

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