K.J. KO’s David Toms on Isle of Terror

SUNDAY’S DUEL AT THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP was going to turn out well. And it wasn’t. Let me explain.

I like David Toms. I’m a sucker for the quasi old guy who has been down and now has the chance to win a big one like The Players Championship. NBC had me all set up with the father-son story. Sappy, yes. I loved it. You got me, Dan Hicks. I would nod my head in approval if Toms won.

But I’m also a huge K.J. Choi fan. I like everything about him. I like the way he carries himself. I like how he turns up and grinds it out on tough golf courses. And I like the way he respects the game, the fans and his fellow players.

So, the Toms-Choi duel was going to turn out well for me. I was going to cheer either guy as he hoisted the enormous crystal trophy. But there was also the downside of watching one of them lose. I knew it would be worse if Toms lost—and that’s what happened.

The 17th at TPC Sawgrass is such a contrived golf hole. A short iron over water to an island green. Is it a wedge? Is it a little 9 iron? What’s the wind doing? Why did I wear white pants? Say what you will about Pete Dye’s signature hole, it’s always dramatic.

As we saw in the sudden-death playoff, it’s not over once your golf ball safely reaches the Isle of Terror. The green is as slippery as bacon grease. Choi eased his long birdie putt to within about two feet of the hole. Going for the win, Toms slid his putt three feet by. Knock it in, David. You’ve got this. Oh, man! NBC shows family. Son buries face in mom’s shoulder. K.J. taps in for the win. Sigh.

Turning back to regulation play, I’m not in the layup at 16 camp, like Johnny Miller and so many others. Toms had that shot in his bag. This wasn’t crazy Phil trying to thread the ball through a keyhole or carry it 350. Toms had about 240 yards to the green and could bail out left like so many others had. He just made a bad swing. Chalk it up to the pressure of the moment. A bad shot, not bad shot selection.

Toms went on to play the 18th like a champ. That birdie out of a sand divot was as clutch as you’ll ever see. Then that yanked three-footer. All you can do is shake your head and go get a hug from the family.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: James Marvin Phelps, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Hoping for More Heritage

I’M AMONG THOSE WHO HOPE The Heritage can attract a title sponsor so it can stay on the PGA Tour schedule for its 44th year and beyond. I admit to being nostalgic. I’ve watched the tournament for a long time and know many of the holes and landmarks at Harbour Town Golf Links, even though I’ve never attended the event or played the golf course.

I even have some love for those loud Tartan sport coats that no one would be caught wearing outside of the club entrance gate. Here’s a partial list of the men in plaid:

Plaid Jackets
Davis Love 5
Hale Irwin 3
Johnny Miller 2
Hubert Green 2
Tom Watson 2
Fuzzy Zoeller 2
Payne Stewart 2
Stewart Cink 2

Opening in 1969, Harbour Town is old-school Pete Dye, with tight fairways, overhanging trees, sand, water and small greens. It’s certainly not a grip it and rip it layout. So it’s no surprise that straight hitters with stellar short games have excelled there. Winner Brian Gay overwhelmed the field in 2009 with his 20-under total, but no one else bettered 10 under. That’s Harbour Town. Posted by Brandt Snedeker and Luke Donald, yesterday’s winning score was 12 under, a testimony to the course’s difficulty.

Was it the last Heritage? As AP reported, there were rumors of a “Sunday surprise,” a new corporate sponsor to rescue the event as the sun set on the 2011 tournament. It didn’t happen.

“We will not be making any announcement regarding a new title sponsor today,” tournament director Steve Wilmot said on Sunday, “but the sponsorship search continues in earnest …. The efforts of the Foundation and the PGA Tour will continue with the care that The Heritage name and tradition deserves.”

If it was the last Heritage, then it was a fitting finish. Donald and Snedeker went three extra holes. They matched birdies on the par-4 18th and pars on the par-3 17th. Then Luke of Arabia failed to get up and down from a bunker after so many spectacular sand saves, and “Sneds” slipped on the Tartan coat. I hope he’s not the last man to wear plaid.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: danperry.com, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

How Pete Dye’s Dog Killed Herb Kohler’s Sheep

Editor’s note: This tale originates with Monte Burke at Forbes.com. Visor tip to John Strege at Local Knowledge.

HERB KOHLER LOVED HIS black-face sheep that wandered Whistling Straits, the Wisconsin golf course that hosted the 2010 PGA Championship won by Martin Kaymer in a sudden-death playoff against Bubba Watson. (And, of course, the home of the bunker controversy that ruined Dustin Johnson’s bid for his first major.)

The sheep made the Kohler property on the edge of Lake Michigan seem more like Scotland. They also provided photo-ops for golfers. They even trimmed the rough.

(Photo: The black-face sheep of Whistling Straits /
Dan Perry, Flickr)

In advance of the 2004 PGA Championship, famed course designer Pete Dye was summoned to Whistling Straits to build an ambulance road. Dye brought along one of his Belgian shepherds for company as he mapped the road. It was a habit of his. Apparently, Pete loved his dogs. But a problem arose.

“I wasn’t paying attention to my dog,” Dye told Monte Burke. “And the next thing I know, that dog is chasing the sheep.”

Desperate to escape the canine, one of the sheep plunged into Lake Michigan. The dog jumped in after it! The sheep swam out farther. The shepherd followed.

“I ran down and jumped into the lake and grabbed the dog, but by that time, the sheep had gone upside down,” Dye said.

Uh-oh.

Steve Friedlander, general manager of Kohler’s golf courses, descended a hill and made a beeline for the course architect. You are in big trouble, he told Dye. Dye: I know. I’ll tell Mr. Kohler. But that wasn’t what Friedlander meant. An editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was playing the course and saw the entire dog-sheep episode.

Dye trailed the editor and approached him on the 14th. He asked the editor not to make a big story about what he saw, otherwise Dye could write the following day’s headline: “Herb Kohler shot Pete Dye.”

The editor smiled and returned to his mediocre golf game. The anecdote ran as a small item the next day, and Dye surely breathed a sigh of relief.

−The Armchair Golfer

Q&A: Sandy Lie on Bunker Controversy at PGA Championship

IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, Sandy Lie spoke to ARMCHAIR GOLF about the bizarre ending to the 92nd PGA Championship.

Q: What did you make of the controversial ruling involving Dustin Johnson?

SANDY LIE: That’s golf. It can ruin your life. It has mine.

Q: Can you elaborate?

SANDY LIE: The game is run by people obsessed with arcane rules and played on alien landscapes designed by men who like to push massive amounts of dirt around and shovel me into odd-shaped holes of all sizes. Look, I feel sorry for Dustin Johnson, but he chose to be on the golf course. I sure didn’t.

Q: How has golf harmed you?

SANDY LIE: You mean, besides not knowing who or what I am? Everywhere else in the world I’m just Sandy, but in golf they’ve put all kinds of crazy labels and definitions on me. Two words: identity crisis. The players don’t even read the rules. They admitted it on TV! What kind of game is that?

Q: What do you think of Whistling Straits?

SANDY LIE: Don’t get me started.

Q: How about Pete Dye?

SANDY LIE: I wish he’d leave me the hell alone. I’ll bet he never got to play in a sandbox growing up.

Q: So how do you deal with it?

SANDY LIE: I’m in therapy.

Q: How’s that going?

SANDY LIE: I make some progress, then something like Whis … Whis … Whis… sorry, I can’t say the words. Then I regress. It’s a process.

Q: Do you think Dustin Johnson got a raw deal?

SANDY LIE: Hey, did you hear the PGA has a new headliner at their Las Vegas show this week?

Q: No. Who?

SANDY LIE: The Blue Dot Men Group.

Q: Pretty funny.

SANDY LIE: Thanks. Saw it online today. I don’t what it means.

Q: Getting back to the Dustin Johnson thing, David Feherty said he, Feherty, didn’t know it was a bunker.

SANDY LIE: Who?

Q: Feherty.

SANDY LIE: The burrowing animal?

Q: No, that’s a ferret. Nevermind.

SANDY LIE: Are we about done here?

Q: Pretty close. Do people get you mixed up with Sandy Lyle?

SANDY LIE: Our names are somewhat alike and we’re both involved in golf, but that’s where the similarities end.

Q: Sandy Lyle’s Masters victory was directly from a sandy lie on the 72nd hole. Coincidence?

SANDY LIE: You’re overreaching.

Q: Do you prefer to be raked or unraked?

SANDY LIE: This interview is over.

−The Armchair Golfer

(This is an ARMCHAIR GOLF spoof.)

(Image: rsutton 198/Flickr)

The Land of 1,000 Bunkers, But Who’s Counting?

AS YOU CAN SEE at left, Whistling Straits, site of this week’s 92nd PGA Championship has sand fairways. This player’s ball has split the middle, and he looks to have a decent lie from which to hit his next shot to the green.

OK, Whistling Straits doesn’t have sand fairways. But it does have sand, lots and lots of sand, and it’s on display in countless (and I do mean countless) configurations, including furry little baby traps that want to be scary cavernous bunkers when they grow up. This former army base along Lake Michigan has a 1,000 bunkers, give or take ... well, no one is quite sure.

Why so many bunkers?

Because billionaire Herb Kohler wanted a wild-looking Irish links course on the Wisconsin shore. And what Herb wants, Herb gets. Just ask course architect Pete Dye. Although, in actuality, Dye’s handiwork more resembles a Scottish links. (When Herb or Pete can’t sleep, there’s no need to count sheep. They can count bunkers on Whistling Straits. There are more than 50 per hole. Sweet dreams.)

“The bag drop at Whistling Straits is more heavily bunkered than the greens at Augusta National,” wrote SI’s John Garrity.

“I feel bad for the fans,” Hunter Mahan was quoted as saying, “because it seems like you could be walking and all of a sudden you’re falling in a hole of sand and don’t even know it.”

Garrity had a solution for that very real possibility: lugging along a hamper with charcoal, lighter fluid, hot dogs, buns, marshmallows and two sharpened sticks. From watching on TV, it does look like a perfect spot for an afternoon picnic or late-night bonfire.

Seriously, who’s counting every last bunker at Whistling Straits? Apparently, no one. Call it a 1,000. Or 1,200. Close enough. You see, the task is far too tedious, only slightly less difficult than taking the U.S. Census or fixing Social Security.

Besides, if someone did come up with an authoritative bunker count, how would we know it was authoritative unless someone checked it?

No one would want to do that.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Dan Perry/Flickr)