The Enduring Nostalgia of Q School

Golfers of a certain age tend to fetishize the old days of metal spikes, persimmon drivers and bourbon hangovers – you know, before the kids showed up with their damned soft spikes, sweet spots and kale smoothies. And among this “get off my lawn” generation, elegies for Q-School are a familiar lament.

For almost 50 years, the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament was the coliseum for Sansabelt soldiers, where battle-scarred veterans and fresh-faced rookies fought it out over six days to earn their stripes. For every career launched at Q-School, many others crashed to earth. Stories from that make-or-break week are plentiful and almost always painful. Like Steve Haskins, a journeyman who entered the arena 14 times but never made it out with a Tour card.

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The Journey Of Tom Doak

Fifteen years ago this week—Thanksgiving, 2003—I spent a week in New Zealand and Australia with Tom Doak to write a profile of the course designer. This is the story that resulted. It’s interesting now to re-read it, the courses he was building then that are now acclaimed, others that never got off the drawing board, and his generally outspoken attitude to the world of golf course architecture. 

Thumbing through his dog-eared diary, Tom Doak is trying to figure out where the year went. Ireland. Texas. Scotland. Georgia. Australia. New York. Hardly a week seems to have passed without a lengthy business trip, and just about any trip is lengthy if you live in Traverse City, Michigan. “I tell my son I travel for a living and design golf courses as a hobby,” he says.

Though just 43 years old, Doak has been a familiar figure in golf-architecture circles for 20 years. And since mentions of his name haven’t always been charitable, he would like you to know that he isn’t the jerk some people think he is.

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Tiger Vs. Phil: A Rivalry Only in Vegas

Only in the city that promoted Mayweather-McGregor as a fair fight and Liberace as a sex symbol could Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson be considered rivals. “The Match” is fresh evidence that Las Vegas can distort any reality just long enough to separate a rube from his billfold.

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Ryder Cup Drug Tests Fuel Rumor Mill

The Ryder Cup had its share of weekend thrills for fans, but for players the drama began much earlier. Tuesday evening, to be exact. And not at Le Golf National but seven miles away at the Trianon Palace hotel, which was home to both the U.S. and European teams. That’s when officials from the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) arrived unannounced to conduct random drug tests.

The players had reason to be surprised. It was the first time drug tests were administered at a Ryder Cup. That it happened in Paris should be less surprising. The French take their anti-doping laws seriously. That’s why Lance Armstrong now owns as many Tour de France victories as Jack Nicklaus.

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Scott Parel Living The Dream, Finally

Scott Parel is a throwback to the early charm of the senior circuit, when guys who had spent a career in golf’s obscure precincts – a Dana Quigley, a Mark Johnson – could author improbable Cinderella stories amid the seasoned winners collecting their reliable annuities.

That contrast in accomplishments will again be apparent this week when the PGA Tour Champions wraps its season with the Charles Schwab Cup Championship at Phoenix Country Club. Parel goes to Arizona second in the season-long standings, trailing only a man with more than 100 professional wins and north of $40 million in career earnings.

Bernhard Langer’s two biggest victories came at Augusta National. Parel lives a couple of miles from the famed club, but his one-way road in professional golf ran out of town.

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Mark Hensby Tries to Battle Back from PGA Tour Suspension

Mark Hensby spent most of 2018 waiting for the year to be over.

An end of sorts finally came on Oct. 26, when his 12-month suspension from the PGA Tour expired, leaving a 47-year-old veteran unsure of how much game he has, where he will play and whether he’s even welcome.

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Mark Hensby.

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Trump’s Golf Game is a Lot Like His Presidency

You can learn a lot about how a president governs by watching his golf game. Bill Clinton, for example, had a reputation for cheating. George W. Bush rushed along, blind to the bigger picture. Gerald Ford was endearingly hapless. And then there’s President Donald J. Trump.

I played with him just once, on August 20, 2010, and it was quite an experience. At the time, I worked at Golf Magazine and had been invited to join the editor in chief and a corporate executive at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Back then, Trump was overly solicitous of golf media, eager to influence their course ranking lists to include his properties. The character I saw and heard over those few hours has since become a familiar part of public life.

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Tom Doak Taking On Old Rival, Your Notions With New Course

Tom Doak waited more than 35 years for the opportunity that was presented to him this summer, ever since he first saw Swinley Forest and Rye. Those two Harry Colt courses in England – renowned for being short on yardage but long on challenge – are the genesis of Sedge Valley, Doak’s recently announced course at Wisconsin’s Sand Valley Resort.

Great architecture exposes weaknesses in skill or judgment, and Doak’s proposed design probes the psyche even before a shot is struck. Sedge Valley is just 6,100 yards, par 68, guaranteeing that some will dismiss it sight unseen as too short to bother with, while others will assume it’s a pushover.

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Is It A Hall of Fame or a Mausoleum?

When the World Golf Hall of Fame announced its “Class of ‘19,” the inclusion of Peggy Kirk Bell illustrated much of what’s wrong with that noble but misbegotten institution.

It’s not that she isn’t worthy of induction. Quite the opposite: She deserved it years ago. Bell lived 95 years, but the Hall waited until two years after her passing to bestow its grace.

Thus can an intended honor seem like a clumsy insult. She deserved better.

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Peggy Kirk Bell, finally a Hall of Famer, two years after her death.

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Patrick Reed Will Save the PGA Tour—Seriously!

Golf has marketed the virtue of its players for so long that you’d be forgiven for assuming PGA Tour cards come with certificates of moral rectitude.

Until we recently began living under par, “These Guys Are Good” was recited with an almost evangelical fervor. The slogan wasn’t intended to refer only to the quality of play evident on Tour, but also to the not so readily apparent qualities of its members: sportsmanship, humanitarianism, charity.

That branding has two potential snares: Even a trivial divergence from the righteous narrative is magnified, and it denies golf fans the manufactured hatred that thrives in other sports. After all, it’s tough to hate a guy when you only hear about his decency and kindness to puppies.

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“Table for One.”

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Buddy System Of Choosing Ryder Cup Captains Bad For U.S. Business

American victories in the Ryder Cup, rare as they are, seldom get the recognition they deserve. There’s always some celebratory chest thumping, of course, but one can only cheer so much when you’ve been told that defeating Europe should be a foregone conclusion anyway.

When the champagne is drained, the trophy is largely forgotten for two years. But on the more regular occasions of an American loss, those two years are filled with autopsies and blame games. The aftermath of 2018 will be no different.

Paris will not have witnessed so many disheartened elite leaving town since the Bastille was stormed.

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Impact of Tadd Fujikawa Coming Out Remains to be Seen

Several things tend to happen when an athlete becomes the first man in his sport to publicly acknowledge he’s gay. Progressives cheer, pearl-clutchers jeer and reaction to the announcement is rapidly conflated with its lasting impact.

So it was last week when Tadd Fujikawa came out in a deeply personal Instagram post, making him the first golfer with even a whiff of name recognition to do so.

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