The following books would make great stocking stuffers
Posted: Tuesday December 17, 2002 4:26 PM
Your Christmas shopping still isn't done? C'mon, I had mine finished in September. Let me help you find something for your golfing friend or relative that isn't a golf club-shaped shoe horn or or a doormat with a bad golf cartoon printed on it. Think golf books. Here are some I've checked out for you:
MAILBAG
As general manager of Eagle Spring Golf Resort in Eagle, Wisc., I was saddened to read your comments regarding our golf course. Your thoughts reflected a very different era in our history. Mike Bolan, Eagle Springs' current family owner, has made many, many updates to that farmer field. I cannot tell you how many golfers are amazed at our present playing conditions. I have always thought of you as a hero for writing the "You Need to Believe" article (in The Milwaukee Journal) many years ago because I felt you understood the charm of this one-of-a-kind establishment. I now can only hope your article will not diminish the past 15 years of blood, sweat and countless dollars that have been poured into making Eagle Springs what it is today. Next time you feel the need to discredit a course you should not base it on an experience from years ago. We take pride in offering a natural, yet challenging, nine holes of golf at a very affordable price. You are no longer my hero.
--Luanne Ervin, Eagle, Wis.
Guess you missed the sentence where I said Eagle Springs wasn't bad golf; that it was antique and quaint. Describing the unusual first two holes makes me, and I think a lot of other adventurous golfers, want to play there. It's well worth the trip. Those opinions certainly do not discredit the course.
I just finished reading your Golf Magazine article on the need for a new Skins Game format. I think my idea has merit. Continue with the same format, but instead of using the top four golfers, have three PGA players and a public course player. Someone like myself, a guy with a personality, and a mid-range handicap. Viewers would watch so they could cheer on someone like themselves -- a guy with a mortgage and kids to put through school -- instead of three stuffy millionaires who treat the event like another entitlement. In subsequent years, the network could run a nationwide search for the next Mr. Average to compete for the big dollars at the Skins Game. You are free to use this idea, as long as I get to be the first participant!
--Bill Mudge, Glen Ellyn, Ill.
Your big idea to save the Skins Game is to let you play? I hope your tongue was planted firmly in cheek when you wrote that one. While there's the glint of a good idea in there, throwing an underdog in with the big dogs isn't the answer. Make Annika Sorenstam the fourth instead of you and perhaps you're onto something. Better yet, how about making it a golf writer?
First, your column advising the lofty New York Times to issue a reporter boycott rather than calling on Tiger to skip the Masters made oodles of sense. I'm sure The Times is cancelling its credentials as we speak. Your points were valid, but the extended riff regarding the Vietnam War and your draft card may have been inspired by another Us vs. Them issue. Golf writers always get the good grass, methinks. Second, the query regarding "to tee or not to tee?" brings to mind one of those old Ben Hogan tales, many of which should no doubt be classified as urban legends. As the story goes, a fan once asked Mr. Hogan why he always used a tee on par-3 holes. "Only one reason," replied the Ice Man. "Money." --Ben Storey, Seattle
And now he's dead. Good tale, Storey Time. Thanks.
In majors, players with late starting times can watch TV coverage of those out early and learn how putts are breaking on that day's pin position. Often Ken Venturi or whomever will say: "Nobody's made it from this area so far because they're overreading the break left," or whatever. Why isn't TV-watching banned for competitors so the playing field is kept level? --Jim Mangan, San Antonio
Just how would you enforce that, Mango? Especially since there are TVs in the players' locker room?
Nicklaus by Design, by Jack Nicklaus with Chris Millard: If you purchased this oversized book just for the golf course photos, I don't think you'd be disappointed; they're excellent. But there's more to this tome than images. You get Nicklaus' thoughts on design philosophy and, more important, stories about how some of his famous courses came about. It's like VH-1's Behind the Music for golf courses. You probably need to be a Nicklaus fan or a golf course junkie to fully appreciate the text, but I think most golfers do fall into one, if not both, categories.
Some cool nuggets from this book: Harbour Town at Hilton Head Island is considered a Pete Dye design, but Jack, doing some of his first design work, was part of the creative team. Dye, who wrote the foreword for the book, asked Nicklaus what he saw on the seventh hole and Nicklaus replied, "A green surrounded by sand." And so Dye built an island green surrounded by sand. Those cypress boards/railroad ties that Dye first used at the 13th hole? They were the idea of Dye's wife, Alice.
When Nicklaus built Old Works Golf Club in Anaconda, Montreal, it was on a Superfund cleanup site. After the black slag on the site (left over from mining operations) was found to be harmless, Nicklaus used it for mounding and for the bunkers, giving them a unique visual look. The course cost $23 million to build, a huge amount, but only half of what Arco Corp. would have had to pay to rehab the mining land without a golf course.
At Glen Abbey, future site of the Canadian Open, near Toronto, Nicklaus wanted to cut down trees on the ridge along the 16th hole and left of the 10th fairway so spectators could see most of the back nine holes, located in a deep valley. But he couldn't get environmental approval even to prune branches to improve the view, much less do away with the trees. Nicklaus didn't like the feel of the holes. He turned around and started walking the other way. He liked what he saw in that direction, so he reversed the direction of the front nine and put the greens where the tees were supposed to be.
A secret to the success of Castle Pines, south of Denver, is that it's built on a south-facing slope. Nicklaus believed that when you build courses in the north, the grass grows faster with maximum sun exposure.
Golf Nuts, by Ron Garland with Brian Hewitt: This book is by the guy who started the Golf Nuts Society. Yes, Garland is the Head Nut. What he's done here is compile many of the anecdotes and nutty adventures of the society's members. He also reveals the golf obsessiveness of his top celebrity Nut, Michael Jordan, who wrote the foreword and to whom a whole chapter -- plus the photo on the back cover -- is devoted. It is a lot of fun to read about Jordan's golfaholic side, such as the time he snuck out a side door at a hotel and jumped in Garland's car to get in a quick 18 holes in the morning. Garland got Jordan back to the hotel in time for basketball practice and then picked him up again afterward so they could squeeze in another round.
I can't say Garland has a lot of deep thoughts and hilarious comments to go with all these anecdotes but hey, he doesn't need to. Just listing some of these Nuts and what they've done is goofy enough. Like Bob Ball, who achieved the GNS [Golf Nuts Society] Slam -- playing golf on New Year's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas in the same year; Nut Marty Price developed tendinitis in his right wrist, but rather than heed his doctor's advice to quit playing, he started using his left hand; and Pete Schenk, who went camping to get away from the game for a few days, ended up building a makeshift nine-hole course in the woods.
You get the idea. These people are crazy. You're probably related to them.
America's Top Golf Courses, Zagat Survey: Since I used to live in Wisconsin and have played more than 150 courses there, I immediately flipped to that state's section and was disappointed to find listings for only 22 courses, most of them of the high-end variety. There are nearly 500 courses in Wisconsin, so 22 listings seemed remarkably incomplete. I don't understand not listing courses such as The Springs, Chaska, Yahara Hills, Quit Qui Oc, Rivermoor, Old Hickory, Dretzka Park and the five other Milwaukee County courses (Brown Deer Park was listed), Rainbow Springs, Wild Bluffs, Mascoutin, Kettle Moraine, Lake Park, Petrifying Springs, Silver Spring and Ives Grove, to name just a few.
SentryWorld is listed under "Madison" but is actually located in Stevens Point, a two-and-half-hour drive from the state capital (it appears the Zagat folks are geographically challenged in the Badger State). The course gets a rating score of 26 out of a possible 30, putting it just into Zagat's extraordinary to perfection category. It has a mundane par-3 that's surrounded by 90,000 flowers, which makes it a real photo op, but it's an overrated hole. The course is maintained quite well, but by no means extraordinarily well. No way.
The lack of listings and geographical misalignments for Wisconsin makes me wonder how good the listings for other states could be. Minnesota, another golfing hotbed with a lot of good public golf, gets only a dozen courses listed while sparsely populated Vermont gets seven. Hmm, smells like somebody doesn't know squat about golf in the Midwest.
Checking other states, Michigan has 32 listings, an incredibly small number considering how many courses have sprung up in the northern part of the lower peninsula. Even more curious, tiny Massachusetts has 37 courses listed.
Or how about the Phoenix/Scottsdale area? I was just in Scottsdale last week and I'd agree with We-Ko-Pa getting a 28 rating as a course, but the two courses at Troon North also got 28s and We-Ko-Pa's layout blows them away, in my humble opinion.
Oh, there's a lot to like about the guide, such as the prices. Each course includes player comments and the peak-season weekend rate -- in other words, the most you'll pay to play.
Arizona's Greatest Golf Courses by Bill Huffman: If all you care about is golf in Arizona, forget the Zagat's guide and get Huffman's book. I'm not usually a big fan of coffee table-sized books, but this one tells you everything you need to know about the state's courses and features fantastic photography. I just returned from a trip to Phoenix, but paging through Arizona's Greatest Golf Courses makes me want to go back. There are exotic course names -- Phantom Horse Golf Club, Elephant Rocks, Apache Stronghold Golf Course, Moon Valley Country Club -- and even more exotic-looking photographs; check out the Longbow Golf Club, Estancia, Stone Canyon Club and the Boulders.
There's an article about each course, and Huffman often includes quotes from the designers. Discussing Talking Stick, a terrific 36-hole complex on Indian land in Scottsdale, co-designer Ben Crenshaw admits he likes the North Course a tad better, and adds, "Which might surprise some people after they play the South." Tom Fazio tells you about Estancia, Tom Weiskopf talks about Troon, Nicklaus and Lyle Anderson cover Desert Mountain ... it's all here, plus photos suitable for framing (if you have to guts to tear a page out). It's a nice marriage of a golf guide with first-class photos.
Nevada Golf, The Straight Ball Guide by Guy E. Torrey IV: Here's another golf guide, this one for courses in Nevada. The difference between Nevada Golf and Zagat's is that you can tell Torrey's book is written by a golfer, for a golfer. Torrey, like the title says, shoots straight. In a listing for the Revere at Anthem Lexington Course, under player notes, he writes, "A recent change in cart policy from paths only to 90-degrees may help reduce the typical five-plus hours needed to complete a round here." Each course has an Ammo comment. For Revere, he wrote: "Your golf ball supply could ride off into the sunset at the 'Severe.' Bring a boxload." That's exactly the kind of inside info real golfers need and want.
Other cool things to know: Glenbrook was the site of a 1948 exhibition by Ben Hogan, with some memorabilia from that day still on display in the clubhouse; Hogan also still holds the course record, 63, at Washoe Golf Course; Angel Park has a 12-hole, par-36 layout, with nine holes lighted for night play; Rio Secco is home to Butch Harmon's School of Golf and frequent visiting celebrities, including Tiger Woods, who owns the course record with a 64; Greg Maddux and Andre Agassi are members at Spanish Trail; Shadow Creek carries a $500 fee (which includes a resort stay) and Torrey says this: "This tight layout is no place for the lesser skilled although some high handicappers may consider it an honor to get spanked here."
The Straight Ball Guide also provides highlights of each course -- Key Hole, Course Best, Card Wrecker and Photo Op. This guide is very thorough. In addition to course information, it ranks the best courses for advanced players and high handicappers. It also covers the best settings, greens, layouts, side trips to take and top 10 course restaurants -- everything you need to know about Nevada golf.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle writes for the magazine's Golf Plus section and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
