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      Lee Elder, Who Broke a Golf Color Barrier, Dies at 87

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      In his prime he played in a league for Black players, but in 1975, at 40, he became the first African American to take part in the Masters tournament.Lee Elder, who became the first African American golfer to play in the Masters tournament, a signature moment in the breaking of racial barriers on the pro golf tour, died on Sunday in Escondido, Calif. He was 87.The PGA Tour announced the death but provided no other details.When Elder teed off at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia in April 1975, he was 40 years old. Years earlier, in his prime, he played in the United Golfers Association tour, the sport’s version of baseball’s Negro leagues. The PGA of America, the national association of pro golfers, accepted only “members of the Caucasian race,” as its rules had spelled out, until 1961.Elder was among the leading players on the UGA tour, which over the years also featured such outstanding golfers as Ted Rhodes, Charlie Sifford, who was the first Black player on the PGA Tour, and Pete Brown while offering comparatively meager purses.Elder first played regularly on the PGA Tour in 1968, and that August he took Jack Nicklaus to a playoff at the American Golf Classic in Akron, Ohio, losing in sudden death.“The game of golf lost a hero in Lee Elder,” Nicklaus said in a statement on Monday.The Masters, played annually at Augusta National, had no clause barring Black golfers, but unofficially it remained closed to them. With the rise of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, however, it came under pressure to integrate its ranks.The tournament eased a bit in 1971 by announcing that any player who subsequently won a PGA Tour event would automatically qualify for it. Elder came close, finishing second in the Texas Open and losing a playoff to Lee Trevino in the Greater Hartford tournament in 1972.But those performances did not persuade the Masters to bend its new rule and accord Elder a spot. Elder broke through after capturing the 1974 Monsanto Open at the Pensacola Country Club in Florida, where six years earlier he and other African American PGA Tour members playing there had been refused entrance to the clubhouse. They had to dress in a parking lot.That victory finally brought the 1975 Masters invitation. In the run-up to the tournament Elder received death threats. He rented two houses near the Augusta National course and moved between them as a security measure.When he teed off for his first shot, a huge crowd lined the fairway. “I remember thinking, ‘How am I going to tee off without killing somebody,’” he told The New York Times in 2000, wryly reflecting on the pressure he faced.Elder at the Masters in 1975. Black employees of the Augusta National Golf Club lined the 18th fairway when he played it. “I couldn’t hold back the tears,” he said.Leonard Kamsler/Popperfoto via Getty ImagesHis shot off the first tee was straight down the middle, but he ended up far back in the field in the first two rounds, shooting 74 and 78, and missed the cut to continue to play through the weekend by four strokes. He received a fine reception from the galleries, though.“The display from the employees of Augusta National was especially moving,” Elder told Golf Digest in 2019. “Most of the staff was Black, and on Friday, they left their duties to line the 18th fairway as I walked toward the green. I couldn’t hold back the tears. Of all the acknowledgments of what I had accomplished by getting there, this one meant the most.”Elder played in the Masters six times, his top finish a tie for 17th place in 1979. He won four PGA Tour events and finished second 10 times, playing regularly through 1989 and earning $1.02 million in purses. He also played for the U.S. team in the 1979 Ryder Cup. He joined the PGA Senior Tour, now the Champions Tour, in 1984 and won eight times, earning more than $1.6 million. He won four tournaments overseas.Elder and his first wife, Rose Harper, created a foundation in 1974 to provide college scholarships for members of families with limited incomes. He promoted summer youth golf development programs and raised funds for the United Negro College Fund.In 2019, he received the United States Golf Association’s highest honor, the Bob Jones Award, named for the co-founder of the Masters and presented for outstanding sportsmanship.Elder in November 2020 at the Augusta club after he was named an honorary starter for the 2021 Masters.Doug Mills/The New York TimesRobert Lee Elder was born on July 14, 1934, in Dallas, one of 10 children. His father, Charles, a coal truck driver, was killed during Army service in Germany in World War II when Lee was 9. His mother, Almeta, died three months later.Elder caddied at an all-white club in the Dallas area, earning tips to help his family, then went to Los Angeles to live with an aunt. He worked as a caddy again and dropped out of high school to pursue a career in golf, at times touring the Southwest as a “hustler,” winning private bets against players who had no idea how good he was.At 18, after playing against the heavyweight champion Joe Louis, an avid golfer, Elder became a protégé of Rhodes, who was Louis’s golf instructor.Following two years in the stateside Army, Elder joined the United Golfers Association tour in 1961. In one stretch of 22 consecutive tournaments, he won 18.Gary Player, the South African native and one of golf’s greatest international golfers, invited Elder to play in his country’s Open and PGA championships in 1971, having received permission from the prime minister. Black people mingled with white in the crowd at what became the first integrated golf tournament in South Africa since the adoption of apartheid in 1948.Elder’s survivors include his second wife, Sharon, with whom he lived in Escondido. He returned to Augusta National in 1997 to watch Tiger Woods win the Masters by a record-setting 12 strokes, becoming the first African American golfer to win one of golf’s four major tournaments.Elder with Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus, right, during the opening ceremony of the 2021 Masters tournament in April. They were honorary starters. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters“Lee Elder came down, that meant a lot to me,” Woods said afterward. “He was the first. He was the one I looked up to. Charlie Sifford, all of them. Because of them, I was able to play here. I was able to play on the PGA Tour. When I turned pro at 20, I was able to live my dream because of those guys.”On April 8 this year, Elder became the first Black player to take part in a decades-old Masters tradition, joining Nicklaus and Player as that year’s honorary starters, who strike the tournament’s ceremonial first shots. Though he brought his clubs with him, arthritis in his knees left him without enough stability to take a shot.But he received a standing ovation. The ceremony, he said, “was one of the most emotional experiences I have ever been involved in” and “something I will cherish for the rest of my life.”Alex Traub contributed reporting. More

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      Photos From Lee Elder's Groundbreaking Golf Career

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      At a dinner at Pebble Beach in 2019 to honor Lee Elder with the Bob Jones Award for sportsmanship, bestowed by the United States Golf Association, the commentator Jim Nantz told the golfer in a speech: “Your life will have meaning for years and centuries to come.”Elder, whose death at 87 was announced on Monday by the PGA Tour, in 1975 became the first Black golfer to play in the Masters Tournament. He was honored at the tournament this year for his 1975 appearance at Augusta National Golf Club, which was, as Richard Goldstein of The New York Times writes in Elder’s obituary, “a signature moment in the breaking of racial barriers on the pro golf tour.”Before the start of that tournament, Elder wrote in an article for The Times: “The one thing on my mind this past year is the fact of being at Augusta, something I’ve wanted quite some time. I think I made it clear, when I first came on the tour, that I would be happy to qualify for the Masters. But I wanted to qualify on my own merit, I didn’t want anyone giving me a special invitation.”As The Times golf reporter Bill Pennington wrote from Augusta, Ga., in April: Elder’s role in the ceremonial opening tee shot, viewed as long overdue, had been much anticipated. After being announced the year before, it was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.The significance of Elder’s appearance was not lost at a time when the country was undergoing another racial justice reckoning. Nor was the substance of his career, which will indeed have meaning for years and centuries to come.Lee Elder played exhibition matches in Kenya and other African countires in 1971.Elder leapt for joy upon winning the Monsanto Open in 1974.Bettmann/Getty ImagesElder was driven from the 18th green by Dwight Thompson, chairman of the Masters press committee, after his practice round for the Masters in 1975.Bettmann/Getty ImagesElder signing autographs at his first Masters.Leonard Kamsler/Popperfoto via Getty ImagesTeeing off in the rain at Augusta National in 1975.Elder, third from the left in the back, with the United States team after it won the Ryder Cup at The Greenbrier in West Virginia in 1979. Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto via Getty ImagesElder during the GTE West Classic in Ojai, Calif., in 1993.Gary Newkirk /AllsportTiger Woods got a hug from Elder after becoming the first Black champion of the Masters in 1997. Amy Sancetta/Associated PressElder giving pointers to children at the Driftwood Community Recreation Centre in Toronto in 2010.Vince Talotta/Toronto Star via Getty ImagesElder at the 2020 Masters, where it was announced that he would be honored by the establishment of scholarships in his name. He was also invited to be an honorary starter for the 2021 Masters. Doug Mills/The New York TimesElder and Jack Nicklaus during a ceremony for the honorary starters on the first tee with Gary Player, right, at the Masters this April.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe honorary starters’ names and ages were posted at the first tee of the Masters in April.Doug Mills/The New York Times More

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      Brooks Koepka Bests Rival Bryson DeChambeau in 'The Match'

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      Never paired together at one of golf’s majors, the rivals Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau instead went head-to-head in a spectacle for charity off the Las Vegas Strip.Black Friday, an unofficial American holiday dedicated to commercialism and being sold to, felt like an appropriate date for the fifth installment of “The Match.” This made-for-TV series of golf matches started three years ago behind the star power of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and has since included superstars from football and basketball. This time it came calling for major championship winners with golf’s most out-in-the-open conflict, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.The matchup came after a highly public summer feud that existed largely on social media and that fans hoped would move to the course. But the two were then never paired in a major championship or a PGA Tour tournament, so in came this lower-stakes, 12-hole event at the Wynn Golf Club in Las Vegas.“This is what the world’s been waiting for,” Koepka told the TNT broadcast on the third tee Friday afternoon. Koepka, a strong player at the major championships, later said the match was “kind of like my major right now,” as he hit a precise approach shot to close it out with a 4 and 3 victory on the ninth hole. There were no significant moments of tension or any real contretemps, just the usual pleasantries, mild encouragements and civil interactions accompanying a golf round.Koepka and DeChambeau spent much of the summer engaged in public sniping and expressions of distaste for each other. The feud reaches back further, into 2019, when a putting green confrontation occurred at the Northern Trust regarding Koepka’s disapproval of DeChambeau’s pace of play. There have been subtle comments and social media posts for a couple of years, with DeChambeau at one point mocking Koepka’s physique on display in the body issue of ESPN the Magazine, saying he “didn’t have any abs.” Koepka promptly replied with a tweeted image of his four major championship trophies, captioned, “I am 2 short of a 6 pack!”“I’ve said it like 10 different times: I’ve never really liked him,” Koepka said of DeChambeau in the run-up to the event.David Becker/Getty ImagesThe dispute was a source of occasional drama and consistent amusement among the smaller golf audience. It expanded to a much larger audience this year when footage of a Koepka interview with the Golf Channel from May’s P.G.A. Championship leaked on Twitter. In the video, Koepka loses his train of thought and lets loose a string of expletives as an unaware DeChambeau loudly passes by in his metal spikes. The video racked up 10 million views on Twitter before it was removed, and the image of Koepka’s eye-rolling annoyance became a meme.The video ignited a summer of back-and-forth between the two, with fans getting in on it, too. Security at the Memorial Tournament in June occasionally approached fans shouting “Brooks-y!” near DeChambeau. The PGA Tour said that security was informed of the heckling but that DeChambeau did not request the tour to remove fans from the grounds. Koepka responded to the development that night with a video offering free beer from his sponsor to any fans whose stay was “cut short.” The jeer then became a staple wherever DeChambeau played, leading to Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, saying in August that it would be classified as “harassing behavior” under the tour’s fan code of conduct and not be tolerated.“It’s disgusting the way the guy has tried to knock me down,” DeChambeau said during promotional interviews for the match. “There’s no need for it in the game of golf. He’s just tried to knock me down at every angle, every avenue. For what reason, I don’t know.”DeChambeau continued, offering one reason: that Koepka may be motivated by benefiting from the tour’s Player Impact Program. The program distributes a $40 million bonus pool to 10 players based on a number of metrics, including popularity in Google searches. The feud, and Koepka’s pinpoint comments and social media tactics, certainly boosted both players’ profiles this year.Koepka reiterated his distaste for his opponent during the run-up to this match, adding, “I’ve said it like 10 different times: I’ve never really liked him.” There is an authentic dislike and irritation there, even if a made-for-TV match heavy on commercial breaks felt like a reductive attempt to display and resolve that.There were several charitable components to the match, and the overall series of matches had donated $30 million to various charities before this week’s edition. But this was a more commercial endeavor, hyped around a competitive beef. A lush green golf course with ornate man-made waterfalls set aside the Las Vegas Strip in the middle of the desert was an apt venue. Various one-liners and moments from their feud were emblazoned on Koepka’s cart with his beer sponsor. There were closest-to-the-hole side competitions sponsored by a sports book, a private jet company, an automobile and a recruiting service, and a long-drive challenge sponsored by a bank.“It’s disgusting the way the guy has tried to knock me down,” DeChambeau said leading up to the matchup.David Becker/Getty ImagesFrustrations about a “long-drive challenge” most likely started this beef, more so than any publicized tweet or putting green confrontation. It was at the 2019 P.G.A. Championship that DeChambeau felt flustered by the major championship style of golf, where Koepka had so excelled. “If you really want to prove who the best champion is, it’s not a long-drive contest,” DeChambeau told the Golf Channel about the Bethpage course setup. “That’s why they have long-drive contests out here. It’s about precision. So when you start making it really tight, I get the tight part. But when you start lengthening it to the amounts that they’ve been lengthening it to, I just personally think that it’s a mess-up.”DeChambeau argued against major championship setups that simply use length as the primary test and defense of the course. “That tests the best ball-striker,” he said then in May 2019. “That’s what majors are supposed to be about. It’s not supposed to be a driving contest.”Koepka won his fourth major that week at Bethpage. DeChambeau, who walked away frustrated, would soon undergo a complete body transformation that made him the PGA Tour’s driving distance leader the last two years, and a major champion at last fall’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot in New York.The match was nothing like that crucible of a major that both have won, but Koepka will walk away with some form of bragging rights that will certainly provide more social media fodder. More

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      Race to Dubai Players to Watch

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      They are all among the leaders in the Race to Dubai, and a victory in this tournament could put one of them on top.The European Tour winds down for the year this week at the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai with a close battle over who will win the Race to Dubai and be crowned the No. 1 golfer in Europe.After 42 tournaments in 23 countries, the winner walks away with a portion of the record $9 million in prize money.Here are five players to watch.Will ZalatorisHe is one of this year’s breakout stars. Zalatoris, 25, of the United States, tied for sixth at the United States Open, eighth at the PGA Championship and won the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year. Most notably, Zalatoris crashed onto golf’s center stage when he took second at the Masters, losing to Hideki Matsuyama of Japan by one stroke“This past year has been pretty crazy,” Zalatoris said in an interview. “But it’s all good stuff. It’s been a lot of fun. Augusta is the one I’m most proud of, though. Just knowing that I can put myself in that position and be in contention and handle it. It’s nice to know that you can do stuff like that. It’s motivating.”Zalatoris, who is No. 11 in the Race to Dubai, has been working on distance control, but said there is no secret to his success. “The good is really good,” he said. “We just need to make the bad a little bit better.”Matt Fitzpatrick is the defending champion and comes to Dubai after winning the Andalucia Masters in Spain. He is sixth in the Race to Dubai rankings.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesMatt FitzpatrickFitzpatrick, 27, of England is the defending champion and comes to Dubai fresh off a win at the Andalucia Masters in Spain, making for a total of seven wins on the European Tour.“I really think my game is trending in the right direction,” he told reporters recently. “Playing well in the next few weeks, I’ll hopefully have some good results.”Fitzpatrick, No. 6 in the Race to Dubai, said it was important to manage the amount of pressure he puts on himself and to be patient.“I think for me it’s just about trying to have consistency throughout the whole four aspects of my game,” he said. “This year it’s been driving and putting, but my approach play’s been off, so hopefully I’ll get that to a better level and keep going with that.”Collin Morikawa is leading the Race to Dubai. He has won two majors on the PGA Tour.Atsushi Tomura/Getty ImagesCollin MorikawaMorikawa, 24, of the United States, made his Dubai debut last year and is leading the Race to Dubai this year.“I’ve put myself in a pretty strong position to win,” he said in a phone interview. “Now, I’m trying to get prepped, just like any other event. I’m coming out trying to win. It’s going to be a great field of players. I’ve seen this course, and I know what to expect.”Morikawa is working on “a few small things,” he said. “Some things are physical, and some things are mental. It’s just about getting a little sharper. It’s the end of the season, and sometimes you get a little too relaxed. So it’s just about staying sharp when you’re out there.”Morikawa, who has won two majors and five tournaments on the PGA Tour, is trying to pare his approach to the game.“You try to think back to when you played well and try to put yourself in that situation and realize what you did. You try to be consistent and keep a routine. It’s about being simple and thinking simple things when you’re out on the golf course. Sometimes that’s not so easy. I can’t think about protecting my lead. I just need to go out and hit the target.”Richard Bland has been on a hot streak recently that puts him eighth in the Race to Dubai.Sean M. Haffey/Getty ImagesRichard BlandBland, of England, made headlines in May when he took his first European Tour win at the British Masters at 48 years old.After grinding his way through 478 tournaments over more than two decades, Bland finally won. He’s been on a hot streak ever since, with six top-10 finishes that place him at No. 8 in the Race to Dubai.What did Bland change in his game to achieve the recent results?“I haven’t done anything different,” he said in a phone interview. “I think it was just my time. It’s hard to explain why a win didn’t happen earlier. I just carried on playing well since the win. I haven’t changed the way I practice. I’m not trying to do anything different. Everything just clicked into place, and then you get the confidence of winning. It just snowballed from there.”Comfort, consistency and a clear head work for Bland. “I’m not a big tinkerer, or changer of things,” he said. “If it ain’t broke, then don’t try and fix it. If your game is in good shape, then just go play. I don’t want too many thoughts going around in my head.”This season Min Woo Lee of Australia has had his first two wins on the tour, and he is No. 5 on the Race to Dubai.Dan Peled/EPA, via ShutterstockMin Woo LeeLee, 23 of Australia, is the latest to crack the Race to Dubai top 10 after three recent performances on the European Tour. He tied for second at the Andalucia Masters, tied for eighth at the Portugal Masters and tied for fourth last week at the AVIV Dubai Championship. The results place him at No. 5 on the Race to Dubai.“I was going to take this week off, but I thought my form was pretty solid and it would be another challenge in front of me and I could overcome it,” Lee said in a statement. “It is tough, I haven’t been home in six months, but I’m looking forward to going home and relaxing.”Earlier this season, Lee notched his first two wins on the tour, narrowly edging out Fitzpatrick at the Scottish Open and finishing two shots ahead of Ryan Fox of New Zealand at the ISPS Handa Vic Open. More

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      An American May Finally Win the Race to Dubai

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      It’s never happened before, and the sport is wondering what it means if a golfer from the United States wins the European championship.In the 50-year history of the European Tour, something could happen on Sunday at the final event of the season, the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, that has never happened: An American could win the Race to Dubai competition.Collin Morikawa, who won the British Open this year, is in first place, followed by Billy Horschel, winner of the BMW PGA Championship. Both players are Americans and members of the PGA and the European Tours.This time last year, Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, was in contention. But Lee Westwood of England won the title for the third time. (The race had previously been called the Order of Merit.)Jon Rahm, the top-ranked player in the world, was lurking in third place but he announced on Sunday that he wold not play in Dubai.Still, why top Americans are surging on the European Tour and what it means is not obvious, except that professional golf is in flux.The tour was once the province of European and non-American players. Then it became a testing ground for future stars, the way Brooks Koepka of the United States played on the European Tour early in his career to test his mettle and gain membership on the PGA Tour. He went on to win four major championships.Today, the nationality of who is leading the Race to Dubai may be unimportant because next year the European Tour will not even be called the European Tour. Last week, the tour’s parent company, European Tour Group, announced its flagship tour will be known as the DP World Tour starting in 2022.Even Keith Pelley, the European Tour’s chief executive, was at a loss when asked about American dominance in the yearlong race and what it meant.“I’d have answered that question completely differently before November 2020,” he said, referring to when a strategic alliance was announced between the PGA Tour and the European Tour.“Before the PGA Tour became our partner, as opposed to a competitor, it would have meant a lot more for an American to be in contention in the Race to Dubai,” Pelley said. “We are no longer competing for top players. Collin Morikawa and Billy Horschel are great players and great ambassadors of the game, and we are grateful for them. The importance of an American winning would have been much greater in the past.”Collin Morikawa at the PGA Championship in South Carolina in May.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesThe PGA Tour and the European Tour have historically been rivals for players and commercial dollars. But out of the Covid lockdown came a partnership.When major events — like the Masters, the United States Open, PGA Championship and the British Open — were initially canceled or postponed last year, the two tours came together to see which events could be salvaged and staged safely. While many regular-season events were lost, three of the four majors were held — albeit without fans. (The British Open was canceled.)From that cooperation, the PGA Tour took a 15 percent stake in the European Tour Group in May. They also began to coordinate their schedules so the top players would be able to play in each tour’s big events. At the same time, the players excluded from those events because of their rankings would have other events to play that would count toward the rankings on both tours.Next year, there will be three such events: the Genesis Scottish Open, the Barbasol Championship and the Barracuda Championship.“There’s no question both organizations are going to be made stronger by working together,” said Rick Anderson, chief media officer for the PGA Tour.Still, what this cooperation means for the golfers was not as easy to hash out as the scheduling, commercial licenses and big advertising dollars.This mash-up of tours in partnerships and branding comes when the golf ecosystem is increasingly intertwined, but also incredibly scrambled. There used to be clear distinctions on what the tours meant. The PGA and the European Tours were rivals through the 1990s, with each tour’s players really only crossing the Atlantic for majors like the Masters or the British Open.But starting in 1986, the European Tour started the Challenge Tour to serve as the proving ground for future European Tour players. Four years later, in 1990, the PGA Tour created the Ben Hogan Tour, now known as the Korn Ferry Tour, to serve the same purpose for the PGA Tour.At the time, the developmental tours fed into the main tours. But over the decades, players began to shuffle among them as playing privileges became harder to come by in the Tiger Woods era.“Our tours were vertically integrated,” Pelley said. “Now they’re horizontally integrated, and it’s a significant difference. What does that mean in the long run? That’s the $1 million question. I can’t emphatically give you an answer.”There is definitely opportunity for the top players. Horschel realizes he could accomplish two firsts in winning or finishing high enough at the DP World Championship, Dubai, which ends on Sunday, to claim the Race to Dubai. In addition to being the first American to win the European Tour’s season-long title, he could be just the second player to win both the Race to Dubai and the FedEx Cup, the PGA Tour’s equivalent.Billy Horschel won the BMW PGA Championship in September.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYet Horschel, 34, who lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., where the PGA Tour is based, said he grew up watching tournaments like the BMW PGA Championship on the European Tour early in the day and then being inspired to play afterward. He has a growing fan base in Europe and said he hoped to play five to seven tournaments on the European Tour each year.Facilitating this is what the alliance between the two tours and the increased sponsorship from DP World would achieve. Each tournament under the DP World Tour will have at least a $2 million prize purse, while next year’s version of the season-ending DP World Championship will have a $10 million purse, up from about $9 million this year.There will also be more cooperation so the elite players can play in each tour’s biggest events. “The thinking was how can we organize our respective schedules, so this is more planned out,” Anderson said. “If you organize these things, it’ll be better for both organizations and not be disruptive to the tours.(Neither Pelley nor Anderson would comment on Greg Norman’s new Saudi-backed golf venture, LIV Golf Investments, which aims to create a premier golf league to lure the top players.)Where the new focus on the big events is less thought out is on its impact on all the other golfers who are not ranked in the Top 50. Their path is not as clear as it once was. Younger American and European players had a system of working their way from the Korn Ferry and Challenge Tours to the PGA and European Tours. But the alliance and higher prize money from DP World could crowd them out.One nod to that is both tours are sanctioning two lesser events next year, in the Barbasol Championship and the Barracuda Championship, giving playing opportunities to professionals who did not qualify for the Scottish or the British Opens that are held the same weeks.“Today the different ways you make it to the PGA Tour are varied, and there isn’t a clear path to get there,” Anderson said. “We want to identify clear lanes for the players who ask, how do I progress in our sport and create options?”For now, though, all eyes are on golf’s elite players to see who will win this year’s Race to Dubai.“Collin and I have a chance to do something that hasn’t been done before,” Horschel said. “It’s going to be a tight race. You have a lot of great players who have the chance to win the Race to Dubai.” More

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      The Two Worlds of Billy Horschel

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      He has won the BMW PGA Championship and is now close to winning the European Tour’s Race to Dubai.Billy Horschel of the United States, ranked 20th in the world golf rankings, enters the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai this week in second place in the Race to Dubai, the season-long points race on the European Tour. To win it all, he will have to pass fellow American Collin Morikawa, ranked second in the world and leading the Race to Dubai.If Horschel wins, he would enter elite company in winning the Race to Dubai and the FedEx Cup, the race’s equivalent on the PGA Tour. Henrik Stenson of Sweden is the only one to win both, capturing the FedEx Cup in 2013 and the Race to Dubai in 2013 and 2016.Horschel is a member of the PGA and the European Tours. This year he has played four events in Europe: the Scottish Open, the British Open, the BMW PGA Championship, which he won the same week he found out he would not play in the Ryder Cup — and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.Horschel said he embraced his dual tour status, and in return he has been embraced by European fans.The following interview has been edited and condensed.How does winning the BMW PGA Championship rank in your year?It was a top highlight. I played it in 2019, and I fell in love with the event. I watched it as a kid. It was the first week we were out of school. I’d watch it and go play afterward. To win there — the support I got was unbelievable. It made me feel like I was an English golfer with so many people rooting me on to victory. Being the flagship event on the European Tour, it has that same level of importance as the Players Championship on the PGA Tour. Being able to say I’ve won there is important. That event can rival any event on the PGA Tour. It’s comparable to the majors.Horschel playing last month in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in St. Andrews, Scotland.Mark Runnacles/Getty ImagesHow did you feel about the Ryder Cup?I’m ecstatic the U.S. Team won. Many times we had a strong team on paper, but these guys produced, and I knew they would. The majority were really close knit, but they also knew how to get away and have fun off the golf course. I wanted to make the team, but I knew I had a very low percentage chance of making it. I was just more upset thinking I should have gotten a call. At the end of the day, it was my little perceived knock, but it worked out in the end.How do you think about splitting your time on the PGA and European Tours?The European Tour’s gotten so much tougher. After winning the BMW PGA, I’ve gotten so much support traveling overseas that I’d like to get over more. I’m trying to give myself enough events on the PGA Tour to give myself an opportunity to win the FedEx Cup again. But I’m also trying to support the European Tour and how it’s trying to grow. Over the next five to 10 years, I’m going to try to get over there at least five times, though seven would be ideal.You are in second place in the Race to Dubai. What are you thinking going into the DP World Tour?It’s a pretty unique situation. No American has won the Race to Dubai. I think Collin and I have a chance to do something that hasn’t been done before. It’s going to be an unbelievable week. It’s going to be a tight race. You have a lot of great players who have the chance to win the Race to Dubai. To add your name to that prestigious list is something you can’t get away from. I’ve already been thinking about it since I won the BMW PGA.What do season-long contests like the Race to Dubai and the FedEx Cup mean to players?I’m always trying to win the tournament. I hardly ever know where I stand in points. I’m always trying to get better through the year. But in a couple of events, you’re coming down 18 and you don’t have a chance to win, and you say to yourself, “Let’s not do anything stupid and take away a top-five finish.” At the end of the year, one shot can be a massive difference. More

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      125 Years After the First College Golf Match, a Rematch

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      Intercollegiate golf was born in 1896 when Yale thrashed Columbia with mashies and niblicks. Armed with titanium drivers, Columbia sought revenge.On a fall day in 1896, a group of Yale students, caught up in a new sports craze called golf, traveled from their New Haven, Conn., campus by train and stagecoach to a course north of New York City — one of the few clubs in the country at the time — to take on some chaps from Columbia.In what became the first intercollegiate match in the country, Yale swept Columbia, with all six golfers winning their matches.Earlier this month, after 125 years, Columbia finally got its rematch.“This is an extraordinary day for our game — the collegiate game was born 125 years ago,” Columbia’s current coach, Rich Mueller, said to the two teams gathered on the practice green of the Saint Andrew’s Golf Club in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.Yes, the first college golf match was played between two Ivy League teams that have rarely cracked the top 100 Division I schools in decades.Of course, these were different times in college sports. For decades after the first intercollegiate football game was played by Princeton and Rutgers in 1869, Ivy League football teams would remain athletic powerhouses making national headlines.Similarly, in college golf, the 1896 match signaled the beginning of Ivy dominance. The following year, the first college national championships were held, and nearly every team and individual title through 1930 was won by an Ivy League school — especially Yale, whose 21 national titles are still the most of any college.The original article in The New York Times on Nov. 8, 1896.The New York TimesThis was long before big warm-weather state schools like Houston (16 national titles) and Oklahoma (11) enjoyed dominant eras after the N.C.A.A. took over the national championships in 1939 and became feeders for the P.G.A. Tour.The Yale men’s golf coach, Colin Sheehan, who loves his golf history, recently came across two New York Times articles from 1896 covering the Yale-Columbia match, which he promptly mentioned to Mueller.The coaches arranged a commemorative replaying of this match that became the crucible of intercollegiate golf, to get their players fired up about college golf history and traditions, and to make for some spirited competition.The original match was played on Nov. 6, 1896, at the Ardsley Casino, which had opened the previous year as one of the country’s first 18-hole courses and whose members included prominent financiers such as Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt and J. Pierpont Morgan.The club, now called the Ardsley Country Club, in nearby Dobbs Ferry, was not available to host the match this fall. And because of logistical problems with the original date, the coaches scheduled the match for Oct. 22 at Saint Andrew’s, which is Columbia’s home course and has its own place in golf history.Athletes from Columbia University practice golf indoors in 1932.Columbia University ArchivesFounded in 1888, the club claims to be the oldest continually operating golf club in the country (though several clubs make claims to various versions of this title) and is one of the five clubs that in 1894 founded the United States Golf Association.In fact, Columbia and Yale have had many rematches over the years, with Yale winning most, but both teams now largely play a tournament-only schedule instead of head-to-head matches.So they agreed to play this one as an unofficial scrimmage. Still, the importance of this momentous challenge match seemed to register with the players as they pulled up to the club not in stagecoaches but in sleek passenger vans.They filed out dressed in bright golf shirts, baseball hats and khakis or shorts — a far cry from their 1896 counterparts, who wore knickers, monogrammed blazers, tweed caps, dress shirts and bow ties.The 1896 teams played their best six players in a holes-won format, with the victor being the team with the most total holes won by all players. The coaches decided to keep that now-obscure format for the rematch and to play their full starting lineups of seven players each.Columbia defeated Yale in the rematch.Misha Friedman for The New York TimesAn official on the first tee — Mueller’s son, Kurt, 9 — announced each twosome along with the names of the 1896 golfers who played in the respective group.In one group, William Sung, 18, a Columbia freshman, was paired against Yale’s Darren Lin, 21, a senior.Their counterparts 125 years ago were Yale’s Roderick Terry Jr. and Columbia’s G.C. Pier. Terry beat his opponent 7-0 and carded an 88, the day’s lowest score. It was also an impressive feat, given that Terry and his teammates were hitting rubberlike gutta percha balls with handmade wooden-shafted clubs that, instead of numbers, bore names like brassie, niblick, spoon and cleek.As for Lin and Sung, both grew up in California competing in junior golf tournaments and honing their swings with the help of top teaching pros, video aids and various learning tools. On the course, they use range finders that give exact yardage to a target.Yale’s 1907 varsity golf team.Yale University Library“It’s cool to see how far golf has come. It’s really surreal how important the technology has become,” said Sung, whose driver had a head made of aerospace titanium.In 1896, golf was just beginning to take root in the United States and had only recently “found its way among the colleges,” as a preview of the match in The Times noted.A second Times article, recapping the match, detailed how Yale blanked the fledgling Columbia squad 35-0. The victorious Yale players each received a “First Intercollegiate Golf Meet” medal.The Yale and Columbia University golf teams posed for a group photo.Misha Friedman for The New York TimesColumbia’s defeat was no shock. Located in Manhattan, Columbia had no home course and had only pulled a team together weeks before the match. Its star player, mentioned in an 1896 Columbia Spectator article as L. Tappin, was “off his game” and lost by four holes as his team was “beaten by a large score but still did not disgrace themselves.”“They were basically bringing a knife to a gunfight,” Mueller said. “You can imagine how quiet that stagecoach ride back was for Columbia.”So this time, the Columbia men were playing “with the weight of history on their shoulders,” he said.“We got such a big butt-kicking the first time around,” he said. “Some of my guys said they were never more nervous than on that first tee.”The superior Yale team grew out of an explosion in golf popularity in New Haven coupled with the 1895 opening of the New Haven Golf Club near campus.Yale had dozens of golfers on its team, and the starting six was stocked with skilled players from prominent golf families, including John Reid Jr. and F.C. Havemeyer, whose fathers helped found the U.S.G.A.A yearbook photograph of Columbia’s golf club in 1905.Columbia University ArchivesReid Jr. won his match against Columbia by 10 holes and would win the first Yale individual national title in 1898. He was the son of John Reid, a Scottish immigrant who helped found Saint Andrew’s in 1888 as a three-hole track in a cow pasture in Yonkers.The elder Reid’s old golf clubs are displayed in the John Reid Room at Saint Andrew’s in the original clubhouse where members like Andrew Carnegie and Stanford White relaxed, said Rick Powers, a member of the club’s historical committee.Ivy League athletic dominance, including golf, eventually faded as big state colleges outside of the Northeast grew in stature and the Ivies prioritized academics over athletics.“I joke that everyone on the team is here because Conrad Ray didn’t make them an offer,” Sheehan said of the men’s golf coach at Stanford, the golf powerhouse where Tiger Woods played.Golfers from Yale and Columbia at the Saint Andrew’s Golf Club.Misha Friedman for The New York TimesYale is still a dominant force in the Ivies, and despite its unfamiliarity with Saint Andrew’s, it had its moments in the recent match. There was Ben Carpenter’s tricky up-and-down from just off the green to win the 16th hole and Lin’s back nine comeback that included a chip-in on 18 to edge out Sung, 1-0.But in the end, the day belonged to Columbia, whose 15-2 victory rubbed some balm on that 125-year-old spanking.Seeing his team rise to the historic moment, Mueller said later, was “by far the proudest moment in my 22 years of coaching.”That night, he said, he texted his players that the Columbia chaps from 1896 would be proud.“Despite the fact that they’re dead now,” he wrote, “I’m also certain that tonight they’re smiling down upon you all basking in the redemption.” More

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      Greg Norman Takes Aim at PGA Tour With New Saudi-Backed Golf League

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      Norman has tried to get a competing league off the ground before, but top players like Rory McIlroy have shown only disinterest.A group headlined by Greg Norman is the latest new venture preparing to offer an alternative league to the dominant PGA Tour in professional golf.On Friday, Norman, 66, who is a multiple major champion and was the world’s top-ranked player for more than five years, announced his association with LIV Golf Investments, whose major shareholder is the Public Investment Fund, an investment arm of Saudi Arabia’s government.Norman’s group has committed to stage an additional 10 events on the Asian Tour in the next decade. But the enterprise’s goals are for a prominent worldwide presence, with play beginning as early as next year.“This is only the beginning,” Norman said in a statement. “LIV Golf Investments has secured a major capital commitment that will be used to create additive new opportunities across worldwide professional golf.”The announcement comes only weeks after a group led by the Public Investment Fund purchased the Premier League soccer team Newcastle United after a yearslong pursuit. That deal was nearly derailed by the fund’s involvement; critics of Saudi Arabia say the investments in sports by the PIF are merely an effort by the kingdom to obscure accusations of human rights abuses. For more than 25 years, Norman has hoped to create a global golf tour as a rival to the PGA Tour. In the 1990s, he proposed a world golf tour and tried to lure top players to play in a collection of small field events that would have enlarged purses. The PGA Tour commissioner at the time, Tim Finchem, succeeded in fending off Norman’s tour, which the PGA Tour viewed as unwanted competition to its circuit.Since then, several versions of a world tour that would challenge the PGA Tour have been proposed without a significant change in elite professional golf’s landscape. The latest was the Premier Golf League, based in London, which had a plan for more than 15 tournaments and limited fields of 48 players that would begin in 2023. A host of PGA Tour players, most notably Rory McIlroy, who was then No. 1 in the men’s worldwide rankings, were emphatic in their disinterest in the new league. The PGA Tour also informed its players that if they played in the upstart league they would not be permitted to compete on the PGA Tour.Norman, known for his bold play and attacking style — his nickname is “the shark” — is undeterred.“The Asian Tour is a sleeping giant and we share ambition to grow the series and unlock what we believe is significant untapped potential,” Norman said. “We see our promotion of these new events as a vital first step in supporting emerging markets, creating a new platform, rich with playing opportunities that create valuable player pathways.” More