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      A Resort Developer Who Puts the Emphasis on Golf, Not Real Estate

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      Mike Keiser has become a star in the golf world by putting the sport over vacation homes. Though he’s sold plenty of those, too.This article is part of our latest special report on International Golf Homes, about some of the top spots to live and play.Mike Keiser started building Bandon Dunes, a remote golf destination in Bandon, Ore., with little care as to where the golfers who came might stay after they played.Bandon is certainly hard to get to: It is hours away from any airport and a five-hour drive from Portland. But in the late 1990s, Mr. Keiser felt the time was right. He also had the funds to make it happen, having built a successful greeting card company, which he sold for $250 million in 2005. And he wanted to test his theory that golfers in America would love links golf — an old form of the sport, invented in Scotland, involving a more open landscape and generally near the water — if exposed to it.“I expected we’d have 10,000 rounds the first year, which was the break-even number,” Mr. Keiser said. “We did 24,000 that first year and that basically paid for two years of development.”Bandon Dunes, built along a barren stretch of the Oregon coast, has 1,200 acres, 48 rooms and a clubhouse. The club and vacation homes were added by Mike Keiser at the urging of Howard McKee, an early partner.Bandon Dunes Golf ResortEven with that sort of success, Bandon needed somewhere for players to stay. Enter an early partner, Howard McKee. At Mr. McKee’s urging, Mr. Keiser built a clubhouse with 12 rooms and four guest cottages with individual rooms for group trips. “It was self-funding after the initial investment in 1,200 acres of land, 48 rooms and a clubhouse,” Mr. Keiser said. “But that wouldn’t have been possible if Howard hadn’t made me build the rooms and the clubhouse. I give him kudos for that.”Mr. Keiser is one of the most successful golf developers of the past three decades. From barren, coastal land in Oregon, he created a new template for the stay-and-play buddies’ trip. He has since built three more.His model is the reverse of many developers who lead with real estate and fit the golf in around it: Mr. Keiser puts the golf courses first, then he listens to what the local market wants. Today his name is spoken of among serious golfers in the same manner as top players and star architects: with reverence, a bit of jealousy and a good deal of amazement.Soon, he was expanding. In 2014, he had opened Cabot Links on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and has recently begun development on Cabot St. Lucia in the Caribbean, both with an outside partner, Ben Cowan-Dewar. In between, he helped spread the model to Sand Valley, a golf resort his sons Michael and Chris opened in 2017 in central Wisconsin.Sand Valley and Cabot Links both have real estate developments within the resort. Cabot St. Lucia is experiencing a pandemic-driven boom in demand for its homes — even though the resort is still years from opening.At Bandon, however, Mr. Keiser had a practical reason to build temporary dwellings and not vacation homes: He could not imagine golfers’ successfully selling their families on trekking out to a vacation home in coastal Oregon.“The Bandon brand is it’s cold and windy and it rains a lot,” Mr. Keiser said. “Does that sound like a marketing hook? Had we tried, we would have failed.”Two decades on, Bandon, with its five full-length courses, two short courses and international reputation, has remained a “spartan” experience, as Mr. Keiser’s son Michael put it. But the resorts under the Keiser brand that have come since Bandon have all found a way to include real estate without cheapening the golf experience with Florida-style condos lining every fairway.“Most developers try to maximize the amount of real estate they can put around their golf course,” Michael Keiser said. “We sell just enough real estate to fuel our golf addiction.”The market for Sand Valley, unlike Bandon Dunes, is one where most guests are driving less than three hours to get to a part of Wisconsin known for vacationing. So the homes can be rented and earn income for their owners.The Sand Valley golf resort in central Wisconsin was built to be family-friendly. “We got golf going first, but we’re adding other things like a pool and a pool house and court tennis,” said Michael Keiser, Mike Keiser’s son.Sand Valley“It doesn’t go against the spirit of Sand Valley,” Michael Keiser said. “Our guests love staying in them. By selling real estate we’re also able to give our resort guests more of what they want, like fire pits and screened porches.”Yet, like his father, Michael Keiser said he was resisting the siren call of money from home sales. He has built only 15 homes at Sand Valley with eight more in the works.“We just want to sell enough to house our resort guests and fund golf courses,” he said. “I’d rather spend my time building great golf courses, and the real estate lets me do that.”At Cabot Links, which opened in 2012, real estate has come slower. For years, Mike Keiser was uninterested in partnering with the prospective developer, Mr. Cowan-Dewar, then a 20-something Canadian golf enthusiast, and did not return his calls.“A friend convinced me to take his call,” Mr. Keiser said. “The deal was land for a dollar. It was remote, but I’d already done that.”“When I finally went there,” he added, “I was flabbergasted that it looked that good.”Cabot sold out its original 19 villas in 2014, but it only recently got zoning approval for 29 additional homes at its second golf course. Those homes sold quickly and are now funding other improvements. Mr. Keiser said that he had never wanted to rush a development and that he had been fortunate to have the money to take his time.After surveying the original homeowners, Mr. Cowan-Dewar said people wanted more non-golf amenities like tennis, walking trails and barns for exercise and entertaining. “As people live in these places, they behave differently than if they just come for golf,” he said. “You start to go to the beach. You don’t just play 18 holes when you arrive, then 36 holes the next day and 36 holes the day after that.”Mr. Keiser did not balk at the different formula. One of his business philosophies is to listen to the clients and shape the resort around what they want.“You need to find the best property you can, but then sit next to the first tee and ask people what they want,” Michael Keiser said. The Dunes Club in New Buffalo, Mich., was an early acquisition of Mike Keiser. A nine-hole course, it is not far from Lake Michigan. Lyndon French for The New York TimesHis father takes that approach literally: When Cabot Links opened, he eschewed the ceremonial first round, and instead sat with Mr. Cowan-Dewar on the first tee, asking people what they liked and disliked.Largely because of its geographical location, the project underway in St. Lucia is the most different. There is nothing cold or unpleasant about the golf season there and it has been a pandemic escape, which Mr. Cowan-Dewar credits for selling out the first 42 homes upon their release.Per the Keiser formula, the golf course in St. Lucia came first: Nine of 18 greens will be on the ocean and the course is being designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, acclaimed architects who have also built courses at the other Keiser resorts. The philosophy of Sand Valley has evolved to be something different still — not a dream buddies’ trip or a Caribbean escape but a family-friendly vacation spot.“Our goal is not spartan, it’s comfort,” Michael Keiser said. “The non-golf activities are the difference at Sand Valley. We got golf going first but we’re adding other things like a pool and a pool house and court tennis.”In addition to its two existing courses at Sand Valley, a third is about to be approved. For hard-core golfers, one of the Keiser family’s favorite course architects, Tom Doak, is in the process of recreating the Lido, a revered Long Island course that closed after World War II. The new Lido, scheduled to open in 2023, will have just 17 homes, with half of them for rent to provide 50 guest beds. Additional rooms might be added above the club house, if needed, he said.“Part of that secret sauce is that nimbleness and ability to flow and adapt,” Michael Keiser said. “Just like at Bandon, my dad didn’t set out to build all these courses. He set out to do what was immediately in front of him.”The success of Bandon begot the subsequent resorts, but that success required a wholesale reimagining of what the golf vacation would be.It started with the land. Then Mr. Keiser added architects who were little known — David McLay Kidd, now a sought-after designer, had yet to design a course when he was selected at age 26 to build the first Bandon course, which opened in 1999. And he asked the designers to make the courses fun, not penal as many top courses had been.“I’m using a no-name inexperienced golf architect at a remote site that had no chance of succeeding,” Mr. Keiser said. “It was ridiculous that it could work. But I had the money to lose, which was good because no bank would have financed it.”That risk has been rewarded. In addition to a steady stream of golf tourists at all the resorts, Bandon was just awarded 13 national championships from the United States Golf Association over the next two decades, starting with the U.S. Junior Amateur next year. Mr. Keiser is proud of getting the recognition but prouder still of having the courses to do something that, again, hasn’t been done before.When Bandon hosts the U.S. Men’s and Women’s Amateur in 2032, the tournaments will be played the same week. “With five courses, we can have two televised golf tournaments going on at the same time,” he said. “It will be very important for girls golf. I’m very proud of that. That’s the direct result of having enough golf courses.” More

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      ‘Golfing Heaven’ in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides

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      This article is part of our latest special report on International Golf Homes, about some of the top spots to live and play.It was his love of fishing that would change Gordon Irvine’s life. In 2005, the golf course consultant, who lives in Ayrshire, Scotland, was casting about for a place to tackle for his next trip.Try the Outer Hebrides — the island chain off Scotland’s west coast — someone told him, casually; the fishing was superb.On one of the islands, a community golf course was being rehabbed, and within a few years Mr. Irvine was offered a simple barter: the locals on South Uist, the second-largest of the islands, would trade advice on how to restore it in exchange for trout fishing rights.Standing on the west coast of that island, he surveyed a nine-hole, par-3 course that had been carved out of the grass runways where mail planes had once landed. It was fine, if unremarkable, but then he heard that it was not the original site of the local golfing greens.“Someone said this famous old golfer had laid that one out, right on top of the old dune system nearby,” Mr. Irvine recalled. He said he became curious when someone mentioned Tom Morris, the prolific 19th-century champion-turned-greenskeeper nicknamed the father of golf.Mr. Irvine assumed it must be folklore, or a hoax. But as soon as he hiked to the dunes and looked out, he was stunned by what he saw: the well-preserved remnants of a world class, 18-hole course. It had been built in 1891 and named Askernish, after the small settlement in which it sits. Mr. Irvine resolved at that moment to bring Mr. Morris’s masterpiece back to playable perfection.Tom Morris, a golf champion and later a master of course design, around 1905. Some call him the father of golf.Print Collector/Getty ImagesThis isolated spot — a tiny island whose year-round population at the last census just topped 1,700 — might seem an unlikely location for such an important course.The coast of South Uist is mostly machair, a low-lying grassy plain that’s extremely fertile and appears only in this corner of the British Isles. The 6,300-yard Askernish course was coaxed from that landscape, rather than carved or sculpted, as might be more commonplace now, according to Mr. Irvine. Mr. Morris would prowl a plot, planting flags in the ground wherever he could envisage a hole.Askernish was particularly precious, Mr. Irvine said, because many of the other courses Mr. Morris designed have been renovated and updated, often destroying his vision in the process.These greens, though, were abandoned by the 1920s, left almost in suspended animation. Mr. Irvine and other volunteers resolved to restore it using old techniques and minimal machinery.The 16th hole, now nicknamed Old Tom’s Pulpit, is particularly noteworthy. “It’s the one we felt reflected him more than any other — it has that classic blind shot Old Tom Morris was in favor of,” Mr. Irvine said. “The view from the elevated tee is just breathtaking.”The course reopened in 2008 and is now operated as a community course, available to anyone. In the winter, the grassland is opened up to local farmers for their animals to graze.Even in summer, when it’s tended, the greens are rougher and more like those used for hickory golf (a classic variation played with hickory clubs) than today’s manicured lawns. “We do have old sets of clubs available in the clubhouse if people want to play that,” said Mr. Irvine, who still goes regularly to South Uist to fish for trout and to golf.Machair, a low-lying grassy plain, covers the island coastline.AlamyBut it is far from the only course in the region. Other impressive playing grounds pepper the 130-mile-long island chain, both nine- and 18-hole courses.“Golf in the Outer Hebrides is golfing heaven, an experience like no other in Scotland,” said Roger McStravick, a golfing historian who lives in St. Andrews. “It’s a time capsule, in many ways, back to the 19th century. It’s the best bit of golf escapism in the world.”There are so many courses here for a reason: It’s all about the unusual history of the Hebrides.Victorian-era British aristocrats often summered here in the 19th century — the islands are surprisingly warm in season, thanks to the Gulf Stream that flows to them.“They were an exclusive place to escape to; it’s where the landed gentry would go on holiday,” Mr. McStravick said. “It was their Aspen, their exclusive resort.”(Its upper-class connections remain — Queen Elizabeth has twice chartered a ship to cruise around here with her family.)That wealthy niche of Britons was among golf’s most avid proponents, and those who lived here commissioned courses to keep their guests entertained.Lady Cathcart, for example, whose father-in-law had bought South Uist in the 1830s, hired Mr. Morris to create one of Scotland’s earliest private golf courses.Elsewhere, her upper-class peers followed suit: Lady Matheson, whose family held sway in Lewis, the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest of the islands, financed a course in its largest town, Stornoway. Her budget did not stretch to hiring a talent like Mr. Morris.With the encouragement of the upper classes — and the convenience of the facilities they funded — golfing culture spread among the working-class locals.More courses followed, including on Harris. The course there has also been restored as a community resource, and all greens fees are paid by the honor system.Mr. McStravick said that the champion golfer Nick Faldo had once played the Harris course and had deposited a signed, five-pound note at the end of his round. “The locals thought that wasn’t enough, and he subsequently apologized for such a meager donation — all in good spirits.” A tournament now recalls the incident, Mr. McStravick said. “Known as the Faldo Fiver, it’s played every year, like a trophy.”The chance to play these links is often cited by those who want to buy property in the islands, according to John Gillies, of Ken MacDonald & Co., a Stornoway-based real estate agency. “Part of the appeal of Askernish is you could phone up in the morning and be able to play that day,” said Mr. Gillies, himself an avid golfer. “There’s an aura about it and it’s worthy of all the accolades it gets. It’s a phenomenal course, like stepping back in time.”Demand has surged for housing on South Uist, but inventory is low. At some point, one real estate agent said, “we’re just going to run out of properties.”DACameron/AlamyThe northerly latitude of the islands are a boon in summer, he added, with games viable until 11 p.m. or so in July; it’s also the reason Askernish hosts its Open every August. (It was canceled in 2020, but returned this summer.)Demand for property in the Outer Hebrides has surged during the pandemic, as have prices. Mr. Gillies noted that another agency in the islands typically had a roster of about 40 homes available at any time, but its inventory had dwindled to four by midsummer this year. “At some point, with the demand there is, we’re just going to run out of properties,” he said.Homes here tend to fall into two broad categories, he noted: older, historic cottages and eco-friendly, contemporary architecture with an emphasis on sustainability.Conventionally, he said, houses here would sell for the price suggested on a surveyor’s home report; in the last six months, successful offers have usually hovered 20 to 30 percent above that number.Tenancies for crofts, or local farms, used to sell for £15,000 to £20,000 (about $21,000 to $28,000), but one that overlooks the picturesque Luskentyre Bay in Harris was seeking bids of £200,000 or more.Of course, there are no homes for sale overlooking Askernish, nestled in the dunes. But it’s worth the drive, or ferry ride, to South Uist from any home in the islands, said Mr. McStravick, the golf historian.“Golf is so much more than a stick and ball game — it’s about escapism,” he said. “And I don’t think there’s anywhere better in Scotland to lose yourself either in the golf, or the scenery.” More

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      Ryder Cup: U.S. Names Finau, Schauffele Among Six Captain's Picks

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      The U.S. captain, Steve Stricker, completed the 12-man roster, which already included Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas.Six golfers were named on Wednesday to round out the 12-man American team that will compete in the latest Ryder Cup match against a team of European golfers to be played Sept. 24 to 26 at Whistling Straits in Haven, Wis.The U.S. Ryder Cup captain, Steve Stricker, selected as his choices Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth, Harris English, Daniel Berger and Scottie Scheffler.Team. Complete.With his Captain’s Picks locked, @SteveStricker selects:🇺🇸 @DanielBerger59 🇺🇸 @Harris_English 🇺🇸 @tonyfinaugolf 🇺🇸 @XSchauffele 🇺🇸 Scottie Scheffler🇺🇸 @JordanSpieth pic.twitter.com/wFGR3bw8IH— Ryder Cup USA (@RyderCupUSA) September 8, 2021
      Six golfers had already qualified for the team based on a cumulative points system linked to recent performances. They were Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas and Patrick Cantlay. The number of captain’s picks on the American side was increased to six from four for this edition of the competition.The European team is the defending champion after a commanding victory in 2018 in France. The European captain, Padraig Harrington, will announce his captain’s picks on Sunday. Paul Casey, Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm have qualified automatically for the European team. The Ryder Cup is typically played every two years but was postponed in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.The American team lost for the sixth time on foreign soil in 2018, a competition that included bickering over player pairings and poor showings by three of the four optional selections made by Jim Furyk, that year’s U.S. captain. Of Furyk’s picks, only Finau (2-1) had a winning record, while Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and DeChambeau failed to win any of their matches.The United States leads the Ryder Cup series, which dates to 1927, by 26-14. But since 1985, when Europe claimed its first victory in 28 years, the United States has won only six of the 16 Ryder Cups contested, often losing by lopsided scores. When the competition has been held in the United States in recent years, the Americans have fared better, with a 3-2 record since 1999. More

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      Venerable Golf Clubs Embrace Fun to Draw More Members

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      Championship play one day, an easier course with piped-in music the next.Many of the world’s top golfers will be among the about 140 players at the BMW PGA Championship, which begins Thursday and is held annually on the West Course at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England. Like they have done for decades, the players will be hitting shots around one of Europe’s most historically rich golf clubs.But like other storied golf-opolises — those vast golf-focused communities built last century — the club is in the midst of a radical reimaging of what it is. This has not always gone smoothly or been well received by its passionate members.Home to the European PGA Tour’s headquarters, Wentworth is where the idea for the Ryder Cup, to be contested later this month, was hatched. The club also has hosted scores of professional tournaments, stretching from the 1950s.Winners at Wentworth have included some of the game’s best: Rory McIlroy, Paul Casey and Colin Montgomerie, who won three BMW PGA Championships in a row. Last year’s championship was won by Tyrrell Hatton, who has qualified for the European squad’s Ryder Cup team.Tyrrell Hatton of England won last year’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.Paul Childs/Action Images, via ReutersYet, in golf as in life, things do not always stay the same. In 2014, the club was bought by Reignwood Group, which is an investment vehicle of Yan Bin, a Chinese billionaire whose wealth derived from selling Red Bull energy drinks. After paying 135 million pounds (about $187 million), he wanted to make some changes, which set off a furor.He decided to reduce the membership rolls to make the club, which has three 18-hole golf courses, more upscale. Instead of having more than 3,500 members, he increased the annual dues to slash the membership count, said Ruth Scanlan, director of marketing for Wentworth.He reportedly wanted only 888 members, 8 being a lucky number in China. And those members had to buy what are called debentures — essentially a bond held by the club. The fee was 150,000 euros (about $178,000), and at last count the club had about half the number of debenture members he wanted, Scanlan said.How Wentworth, which in the 19th century was owned by a relative of the Duke of Wellington, is changing is emblematic of a broader trend of older, once-unassailable golf centers. What has happened is difficult for longtime members, but anything new or different at an established club often comes with grumbling.The bigger issue is how Wentworth and other golf-opolises have had to face down a starker choice: Change now or go into decline as the world of golf resorts leaves them behind.But what has forced these changes?There is not just one answer. Before the pandemic, rounds of golf were in decline and traditional golf courses were struggling to turn a profit. This could be seen as a reason for Wentworth’s looking to go more upscale. But other clubs chose a different route, by trying to add more fun to their clubs or letting nonmembers stay at a private club as a way to play.Which is what Mike Keiser did. Keiser sold his greeting card company in 2005 and parlayed the proceeds into several golf resorts, including Bandon Dunes in Oregon, Sand Valley in Wisconsin and Cabot Links in Nova Scotia. His courses are all about golf and the post-round golf hangout. And they began siphoning off players from the older golf-opolises.In many ways, PGA National in Florida is Wentworth’s equivalent in the United States. It is home of the Honda Classic, which is played on a tough course, and has been the longtime headquarters of the P.G.A. of America.PGA National used to have five courses that were stout tests of golf and attracted business golfers and vacationers, and it hosted tournaments for elite amateurs and professional golfers. One of its courses — designed by Tom Fazio, an architect who has worked on Augusta National — was sliced and diced into a family-friendly nine-holes and another venue just for match play — where winning and losing a hole matters more than the score.Covid-19 was the impetus for the change, said Jane Broderick, club manager and director of golf at PGA National, who has been there for 35 years. “When you see this resurgence of golf, you think, how do we keep these golfers?” she said. “They may not be the die-hard golfer. What we’re trying to do with these courses is make them a social experience.”Broderick said converting the Fazio course to two, more-relaxed courses was driven by the club’s new owners, Brookfield Asset Management, which paid $233 million for the club in 2018. “We’re unbuttoning the top button of our golf shirt, and we’re relaxing the rules,” she said. “We want people to have fun.”Firestone Country Club in Ohio, a private club that was originally the company club for the tire manufacturer of the same name, has long been known for being a strong test of golf. It has hosted decades worth of PGA Tour events, most recently the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational as well as the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship. Tiger Woods has won eight PGA Tour events at Firestone.Yet, more recently, the club has opened up to limited stay-and-play options.“We always had three really good golf courses,” said Jay Walkinshaw, the club’s general manager. “As the club and the membership has evolved, we realized we had these 86 guest rooms on property and some excess capacity. That was when we started thinking about opening up Firestone.”Opening it for semipublic play has brought in revenue without hurting member play. “It’s a destination for golf enthusiasts, and now we’re accessible to them,” he saidEven venerable Pinehurst in North Carolina, the host of four United States Opens in the next two decades, has loosened up. Its main attraction, Pinehurst No. 2, considered among the best Donald Ross-designed courses, remains a sought-after test of golf just as when Payne Stewart beat Phil Mickelson in the 1999 U.S. Open. But it now has the Cradle, a nine-hole course, with music piped in. What it is missing in history, the Cradle aims to make up in fun.“There’s this theme at Pinehurst of going back to our history and tweaking it for the modern era, and the Cradle is a great example,” said Tom Pashley, president of Pinehurst. “Having music at the Cradle is lauded now, but it was a very difficult decision. It’s added to the relaxed atmosphere we wanted. It’s part of the charm now of playing the Cradle.”Likewise, Pebble Beach Golf Links in California this year converted an underused par-3 course into the Hay, a short course designed by Tiger Woods with lengths that commemorate historical moments at Pebble, including a replica of the course’s seventh hole, the short par-3 surrounded by water.“One of the nice things is it’s challenging for the good golfer and still accessible for the new golfer,” said David Stivers, chief executive of the Pebble Beach Company.Yet the company also recognizes that as golf becomes more accessible it needs easier, not harder options. Stivers said Pebble Beach was introducing a shorter set of tees to allow more players to experience the perennial U.S. Open host site.Similarly, Sea Pines in South Carolina, which is open to the public, operates three courses, including the highly rated Harbour Town Golf Links. John Farrell, director of sports operations at Sea Pines, said his focus was not on adding new things but on speeding up rounds, which can be painfully slow at sought-after courses.“Our focus has been to take care of the core values of the golf experience,” he said. “If you do that, everything else takes care of itself. We check pace of play every single day.” More

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      The Deep History of Wentworth

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      The course was designed by Harry Colt 100 years ago, and during World War II a bunker was built for the British government if it had to flee London.Few cathedrals of sport change as much as golf courses. They are subjected not only to nature but also to ownership and the designers they hire to change the course.There is a century of history in the Wentworth Club’s West Course, which opened in Surrey, England, in 1922. This week it will be home to the BMW PGA Championship, but not all of the course originally shaped by Harry S. Colt, one of golf architecture’s most revered names, remains. Since 2005, the course has undergone several redesigns by Ernie Els Design.“It can be argued that Colt is the best and most influential architect of all time,” said Andy Johnson of the Fried Egg, a golf architecture site.Yet some golfers said Wentworth was not one of Colt’s gems. Colt’s roster includes the New Course at the Sunningdale Golf Club in England, Swinley Forest Golf Club in England and the Eden Course at St. Andrews in Scotland.Colt’s talents as an architect were in what is called the routing — or sequence of holes — in his courses. He was able to place holes over the terrain that took advantage of the topography’s natural drama, but he also used hazards that “created alternate lines of play,” Johnson said.“You could go over the bunkers and have a more direct path to the hole or you could go around them, making it harder to score because it pushed out your angle of attack.”Colt’s achievement as an architect was in his ability to make inland courses as interesting as the seaside links courses where the game was invented.The blending of hazards into a course’s natural environment helped create a vitality and interest in such courses that, in some ways, did not previously exist.What makes Wentworth special is nostalgia. It is the site of the European Tour’s headquarters and has hosted the Ryder Cup and was home to the World Match Play ChampionshipYet for all of Wentworth’s history, including building a bunker for the British government if it had to flee London during World War II, as a golf course it does not rank among the world’s most coveted destinations.The course underwent a major renovation in 2009, but the result was not popular and players savaged the changes. Greg Letsche of Ernie Els Design said, “We definitely had a lot of sleepless nights on it,” and in 2017 Els and his team were brought in to redo their redo.Ernie Els at the 2019 BMW PGA Championship at the Wentworth Club. Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWorking alongside the European Tour, Els went back into the course and softened the changes, and Letsche said the course now presented a stern but fair test of golf.“Colt was very good at his initial routing,” he said, “and his balance of par 3s and 4s and 5s speak to his understanding of strategy.”Letsche said that Colt tried hard to ensure a variety of distances for each of those kinds of holes and that he and Els studied old photographs of the course to ensure that they were able to restore the course to its original vision while also modernizing it.One of the challenges for Els and Letsche was to renovate a course that could challenge the world’s best players and not be intimidating to the club’s members.“You have to have the balance,” Letsche said. “You need strategic values for the professional, but then you have to have make it fun and playable, with different angles into the green, so that the aging baby boomer and beginners can feed the ball into the green.”In essence, Letsche said, a designer must build two courses — one for tournament golf and one for everyone else. He said the pros would be tested this week on a course that is meant to play as Colt intended. More

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      Padraig Harrington Faces Hard Choices

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      He is captain of the Ryder Cup’s European team, and he has to pick the last three players for his team.Padraig Harrington of Ireland is back in the spotlight — not as a player, but as the captain of Team Europe in this month’s Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.Harrington, 50, a three-time major champion, will be competing in the BMW PGA Championship, which begins on Thursday at the Wentworth Club in England. There, he will be monitoring how potential members of his team perform.After the tournament, he will pick three players to round out the 12-man squad that will face the Americans. The other nine will have qualified on points.The following conversation, which took place in late August, has been edited and condensed.Can you talk about the BMW, the tournament and the course?Wentworth is the traditional home of the European Tour. It is really a great tournament venue. You can score well on it, but when the pressure comes on Sunday, those tree-lined holes and out-of-bounds get a little tight.How are you going to be able to focus on your own game this week?Hopefully, I won’t be able to focus on my play. Maybe being on the course will be a slight respite.How do you think the event will play out because of Covid-19?I’m interested in that, actually. Will the fans be more excited because they waited so long and there’s a certain level of, “Gee, we’re happy to be here?” I suspect, because of Covid, it might be more of a celebration of golf and the Ryder Cup than anything else.I won’t ask you for your three picks, but do you have certain people in mind?There are three weeks to go, and I’m very aware that things can change, especially with the BMW being such a big event. It would be pretty straightforward right now, but three weeks is a long time in golf.And you’re happy with having three picks?I chose three. They were offering me eight picks when it was at the height of the pandemic. The reason I wanted three is anybody who gets picked is under more pressure and stress because the media and public second-guess whether somebody else should be picked.Your thoughts on Whistling Straits, and how it fits your team?It’s very difficult for the Europeans to beat a U.S. team on a stereotypical U.S. golf course. Whistling Straits is a links-style course. They’ve opened it up as much as possible — I’m sure there will be plenty of birdies — but the elements [wind] will come into play.You sound like you’re saying the Americans are the favorites?To beat them in the States, it’s going to require a momentous effort on our behalf, and we are definitely going to have to figure out how to make the collective more confident than the individual. They look like they’re the strongest they’ve ever been.Are you satisfied with your career or do you feel you didn’t achieve as much as you thought you should?I achieved far more than I could have ever possibly dreamed in this game. I studied accountancy. My goal in life when I took that school was to become an accountant and manage a golf course.I was a good player, but I didn’t think I was good enough to be a professional. And even when I turned pro, my goal would have been to survive on tour half a dozen years and retire and get a good country club job.How much more golf will you play?I will try and play where I’m competitive.If I don’t feel like I’m competitive on the regular tour, I’m very happy to try to compete on the Champions Tour [a circuit for golfers 50 and older]. I will continue to play and do whatever I can around golf for years to come. More

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      Patrick Cantlay Wins the FedEx Cup

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      Cantlay fended off Jon Rahm, the world No. 1, at the Tour Championship in Atlanta to claim the $15 million prize.ATLANTA — Given a head start, Patrick Cantlay proved uncatchable at the season-ending Tour Championship.Cantlay started the week at 10 under par and reached 21 under, never trailing for 72 consecutive holes to beat Jon Rahm of Spain, the world No. 1, by one stroke at the Tour Championship to win the FedEx Cup at East Lake Golf Club. Cantlay and Rahm dueled over the last three days, as Rahm kept whittling away at his initial four-shot deficit but could never draw even with Cantlay.Cantlay’s lead was only one stroke after Rahm converted a par after missing an 11-foot putt for birdie on the 17th hole and Cantlay saved bogey from 6 feet. With $15 million and the FedEx Cup on the line, both players took dead aim at the flag on the par-5 18th hole.Rahm’s approach from 238 yards skipped within an inch of the flagstick and rolled out just over the apron 18 feet past the hole.Cantlay stepped up and delivered a 6-iron from 218 yards that rolled 11 feet short of the hole — the closest eagle chance of the day. When Rahm’s eagle chip attempt slid past the cup, all Cantlay needed to do was lag it to 6 inches to make birdie and secure his victory.“It was the longest lead I’ve ever held, but I just tried to stay, day after day, in the present, and I did an amazing job of that this week because the last couple days I made some mistakes I don’t usually make and I was able to really center myself and hit a lot of good shots when I needed to,” Cantlay said.“It’s such a great honor because it’s all year and I played so consistent all year and just caught fire the last couple of weeks.”In the 18 events in which Cantlay and Rahm both played this season, Rahm finished ahead of Cantlay in strokes 14 times — including this week. But Rahm’s 14-under effort on the course was not enough to overcome the four-shot cushion Cantlay started with on Thursday. Rahm and Kevin Na, the third-place finisher, shared the lowest gross scores, but neither was enough to completely make up ground on Cantlay. Justin Thomas finished fourth.“We had distanced ourselves from the field and it was like a one-on-one match play feel,” Cantlay said of his duel with Jon Rahm, left, in the last round.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockCantlay started Sunday two up on Rahm and quickly extended his lead to three with a birdie on the second hole. But his advantage was down to a skinny stroke as the players made the turn after Cantlay bogeyed the par-3 ninth hole.Cantlay had a great chance to go back up by two on the 13th, but his 4-foot birdie putt took a 90-degree turn around the lip and stayed out. It was a surprising miss from Cantlay, who set a PGA Tour record for strokes gained putting (14.68) when he made 537 feet of putts, including every one that mattered down the stretch, last week at the BMW Championship in Maryland.That hiccup didn’t last, as he buried putts of 4, 6 and 6 feet for par, birdie and bogey on 15, 16 and 17 to take his one-shot lead to the par-5 18th tee.“We had distanced ourselves from the field and it was like a one-on-one match play feel,” Cantlay said.Cantlay has finally manifested as the force he seemed destined to become on tour. A decade ago as a freshman at U.C.L.A., Cantlay ascended to the top of the amateur and collegiate ranks, winning four tournaments and sweeping all of the prestige awards. He ranked as the No. 1 amateur in the world a record 54 consecutive weeks and 55 overall — a standard that held up until broken by Rahm in 2016 — before opting to forgo his final two years of college eligibility and turn professional in 2012 immediately after claiming the silver medal for low amateur at the Masters.It seemed a prudent step considering in his first four tour starts as an amateur Cantlay finished no worse than 24th, including a tie for 21st at the 2011 U.S. Open, and set an amateur record for the lowest score on the PGA Tour when he shot 60 at the Travelers Championship.Cantlay was considered can’t miss.But neither golf nor life is that simple. A combination of physical and emotional traumas shaped Cantlay’s early development. A stress fracture in his lower back derailed his transition almost from the start and affected his progress for four years, two of them (2015 and 2016) spent entirely out of commission. During that period, his best friend and caddie, Chris Roth, died in his arms after a hit-and-run while crossing the street in Newport Beach, Calif., in 2016.“I think as tough as the tough times were, they made me who I am,” Cantlay said. “I’m a better person because of it and I thank all the people that really helped get me through that time and get me to the other side of it.”Since returning to competition in 2017 and reclaiming his card, Cantlay has been a steady presence. He won his first PGA Tour event at the end of 2017 in Las Vegas and has never fallen out of the top 50 in the world since. He has consistently been around the top 10 before last week’s playoff victory in the BMW Championship over Bryson DeChambeau vaulted him to a career-best No. 4.At the other end of the field, Joaquín Niemann played alone after Brooks Koepka withdrew midround Saturday with an injury. Niemann decided to try to break Na’s record of playing 18 holes in 1 hour 59 minutes during a Tour Championship at East Lake. Running with his caddie, Niemann shot 72 in 1:54 and finished 29th.“When I was a kid I used to run a lot in high school and like track and field and stuff, but now I hate it,” he said. “I don’t like running. I just did it for fun and it was pretty fun.” More

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      Patrick Reed Struggles at the Tour Championship

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      A few weeks ago the golfer was in the I.C.U. “battling” for his life. Now it is his last chance to show he’s ready to join the American side for the Ryder Cup.ATLANTA — Ostensibly, Patrick Reed drove 15 hours from Texas to Georgia on Tuesday in the back of a van to chase the FedEx Cup title and the largest possible share of the $46 million on offer at the season-ending Tour Championship.The truth about Reed’s presence at East Lake Golf Club is far simpler.Two weeks earlier Reed had emerged from what he called “a dark space” and “battling for my life” after nearly a week in a Houston I.C.U. bed with bilateral pneumonia. He came to the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club to add to his FedEx Cup points total and prove to U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker that his is healthy enough to warrant one of six captain’s picks for the match that begins on Sept. 24 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. Asked if he would be in Atlanta if this wasn’t a Ryder Cup year, Reed answered succinctly: “No.”Stricker watched on Wednesday as Reed completed his first nine holes of golf since the final round of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis on Aug. 8.“He came out to me when I was on nine and I hit a hybrid to eight feet and I made the putt for him,” Reed said the following day after posting a scrambling two-over-par 72 in the first round of the Tour Championship. “So you know, honestly, the biggest thing is, talking with Stricks and stuff, is just making sure I’m healthy and I think the biggest thing for me this week is just to see kind of where I’m at.“And I know by Ryder Cup my game’s going to be where it needs to be, as long as I feel like my health is where it needs to be and as long as I feel like I can sustain through rounds of golf.”Playing in a fourth consecutive Ryder Cup was the least of the worries the last two weeks. Reed suddenly withdrew from the Northern Trust on Aug. 19 before the first round of the first FedEx Cup playoff event, citing an ankle injury. But he returned home to Houston and was promptly admitted to the hospital. He said the pneumonia hit him in both lungs “like a brick.”“Just all of a sudden I went from feeling OK to literally feeling like I couldn’t breathe and was almost drowning in air,” he said. “It hit me so fast and it was so brutal.”Reed initially told the Golf Channel he had COVID-19, but later retracted it in a vague statement on Twitter: “My primary diagnosis was bilateral pneumonia. I was vaccinated for COVID-19 so I’m not sure if I had the delta variant but I’m just happy to be here.” He said Thursday that the hospital didn’t test him for the coronavirus until he got a negative test result before checking out last week.“Their main priority was to make sure that we fought this pneumonia in both lungs because of how fatal it can be,” he said.“First couple days they were sitting there telling me that make sure you text your family quite a bit, talk to your family, because you just don’t know,” Reed explained. “I mean, this is not good. We’re not in a good spot right now.“With how the hospitals are these days because of Covid and everything that’s going on, it doesn’t matter what’s going on. They won’t allow people in there, so it’s only you in there. So, I’m sitting there and those first two days the only thing that was going through my mind is, I’m not going to be able to tell my kids goodbye. I’m not going to be able to tell them I love them. I’m not going to be able to tell my wife that I love her and give her a hug.”Despite not playing in either of the first two PGA Tour playoff events, Reed still qualified for the last of the 30 spots into the Tour Championship this week when K.H. Lee bogeyed the last hole at the BMW Championship. That allowed him the opportunity to make one last audition before the U.S. Ryder Cup roster is finalized on Wednesday.Normally Reed would be considered a likely pick. However, his health as well as bitterness about pairings after the 2018 event in France have cast doubt on his chances.It’s expected that Stricker will choose Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth and Harris English. Reed is in consideration primarily with Daniel Berger, Webb Simpson, Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns for the remaining two spots.Reed was clearly not at full strength playing his first full rounds in nearly a month. He hit 10 of 14 fairways off the tee but missed 12 greens in regulation on Thursday. On Friday he was a little more consistent but followed an opening bogey with 15 consecutive pars before finishing with two birdies to shoot one-under-par 69, tied for 26th in the 30-player field at one over par.“The good thing is my short game didn’t leave me,” he said.But Reed believes he can be ready when the Ryder Cup starts in three weeks.“It’s like my third day back swinging a golf club, so there’s going to be rust there, there’s going to be things that you want to obviously not do on the golf course,” Reed said. “But the great thing is I felt like I can play now, I feel like I can do what I’m supposed to do. I feel now it’s just get some reps in and just get the energy level and strength back which just takes a little bit of time.” More