Running 2020 PGA Tour thread

Oh yeah Olympic is spectacular (played right before COVID, the approach on 18, uphill, tiny green, deep bunkers all around is unforgettable) and there are some others (Lake Merced CC, SF Golf Club, California Club). I've got a love-hate relationship with that area though, I love golf in the sunshine, I call myself "Solar Golfer" because of my love for sun and that area is almost always misty and foggy which is less than ideal. The ball flies shorter and the grass at times is wispy rather than lush so the lies are different.

 

2020 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP TEE TIMES

PGA used to have fun with some of the pairings. Not anymore.

 

I meant with the names.
IIRC, one of the pairings was Si Woo Kim, Sung Kang and Kevin Na.......
They had the old bastards group......like Freddie, Langer and Stricker.........I know they did a Jones, Johnson and Johnson pairing..........stuff like that.

 

They once put Corey Pavin with Tiger and Daly. Poor little bastard was 50 yards behind on every second shot.

 

That made me laugh.

 

I always thought that was more a USGA thing.

Frank Hannigan always did a prick pairing, but I think once Feinstein wrote about it, David Fay stopped doing it.

 

I played a lot in Contra Costa, Napa and Solano when I moved back and those municipal course greens and fairways bake in the summer to the point where you almost have to land the ball on the front of the green and let it take one or two huge bounces. Dad and I used to get up before the crack of dawn to play Boundary Oaks (Walnut Creek Golf Course, I guess) in the summer. We'd tee off as soon as there'd be enough light to see, and he'd leave for work after nine holes while I'd play all 18. It'd be 60 degrees at 6 a.m. and 95 by the time I finished at 10.

 

I covered the '98 Open at Olympic, and I remember waiting for the press buses by what is left of the course the club tried to build by the ocean. Most of the effort has been in the ocean for decades, but the idea was THIS would be our championship course and the surviving course would be for the members only. I can't imagine what the architect's plans for that one were like.

 

Through the generosity of my buddy, I played both the Lake (championship) and the Ocean (other one) in March just before COVID. The Lake remains a beautiful beast that's damn hard. The Ocean is a wonderful playable course.

Harding Park, which was a parking lot for the 1998 Open, is in great shape now. When the PGA comes around, you can dress it up beautifully and get up there with Olympic, but once the party leaves, there's simply not enough $$ to keep up the beauty show for a public course.