Los Angeles Country Club

Subterms

    Latest story

    75 Shares169 Views

    Wyndham Clark Captures the U.S. Open

    by

    Clark, with only one PGA Tour victory to his name, seemed to come out of nowhere to dominate the field at Los Angeles Country Club.Two Tuesdays ago, as the golf world erupted into chaos and fury, Wyndham Clark did not rush to write a shock-and-awe Twitter post. He did not fume in a meeting with the PGA Tour commissioner about the surprise pact with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. He did not moralize or criticize or, really, do much of anything other than play golf.His chosen course that Tuesday was the Los Angeles Country Club, which would host the U.S. Open, its debut major tournament, nine days later. A member of the club was Clark’s caddie, a friend turned tutor who knew some of the secrets of a North Course that only a handful of the game’s biggest stars had ever seen: how a putt might break here, how the speed might vary there, how firm the fairways might become.The payoff came Sunday evening, when Clark, 29, outlasted Rory McIlroy at the U.S. Open by one stroke and lurched into the hallowed fraternity of major championship winners.”I’ve dreamed about this moment for so long.”Soak it all in, @Wyndham_Clark! #USOpen pic.twitter.com/0LO1hgyocV— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 19, 2023
    Until Sunday, Clark’s best finish in a major had been a tie for 75th at a P.G.A. Championship. His two previous Open appearances were even worse, ending with missed cuts.But his mother, his “always there supporter” who died nearly a decade ago, used to offer an ambitious admonition: “Play big.”This tour season, he has, emerging as a perilous foe and suggesting that he, despite his major record, could soon be a power on the game’s greatest stages. With his irons adjusted a few degrees and his swing monitored and finessed not by a platoon of advisers but only by Clark and his caddie, he arrived in Los Angeles having won the Wells Fargo Championship and having earned four other top-10 finishes since early February.That Wells Fargo win, in May at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, N.C., had come against a foreboding list of rivals whose surnames — McIlroy and Spieth, Scott and Day — were bywords for golfing brilliance even before Clark finished college.The victory at Quail Hollow, a past and future P.G.A. Championship site, emboldened Clark. He had, he reasoned, beaten major champions on a major-tournament-caliber course.“I just feel like I can compete with the best players in the world,” he said last week, “and I think of myself as one of them.”Now he most certainly is.“There’s been so many times I’ve visualized being here in front of you guys and winning this championship, and I just feel like it was my time,” Clark said during the trophy presentation near the stately clubhouse.By the time Clark waited on Sunday afternoon in the first tee box with Rickie Fowler, the other half of the Open’s final pairing and a prince of golf’s close-but-not-quite club, he had been adhering to his mother’s creed all week. He had fired a six-under-par 64 on Thursday, better than many major champions in the 156-man field, and followed it with a 67 and a 69.It was good enough for a share of the lead heading into the final round, with Fowler and Clark both at 10 under. McIlroy, a four-time major victor mired in a nine-year drought, trailed by a shot at sunrise on Sunday. Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked player, was three back from Clark and Fowler.Clark after sinking his final putt on No. 18.Etienne Laurent/EPA, via ShutterstockClark required only four strokes to assume the lead. The first hole, with its wide fairway and a view toward the Beverly Hilton, had been one of his favored spots all through the tournament, ever since he started his Open with a putt of nearly 33 feet for eagle. He did not achieve the same feat on Sunday, but his birdie was enough to take lone control of first place after a McIlroy birdie had allowed him to snatch briefly a share of the lead.Clark’s time on top ended swiftly, when he bogeyed the second hole for the second time this week. Fowler also slipped with a bogey, the beginning of a flameout for a player who on Thursday shot a 62, a single-round record for an Open.Clark made a birdie on the fourth hole, the first of five par-3 tests on the course along Wilshire Boulevard, to take him to 11 under. McIlroy was at 10 under, and Fowler at 9. Scheffler, steady but not spectacular, had not changed his score in either direction.The sixth hole had unnerved players for days, a par-4 concoction with a blind tee shot and demanding terrain. Clark had managed a birdie there on Thursday, before making par on Friday and Saturday.On Sunday afternoon, seeking a slightly larger gap between himself and everyone else, Clark stood at the tee and sent his shot soaring 266 yards. It came to rest in grass that was thick but, by the standards of some other locales on the course, not prohibitive. He cocked his head to the left, peered toward the pin about 54 feet away, looked down and swung. The ball crashed onto the green, rolling past the cup but setting up a short putt for birdie and a two-stroke lead.It took Clark two attempts to get his ball out of a tangle of foliage on No. 8.Etienne Laurent/EPA, via ShutterstockIt was on the eighth hole where Clark’s advantage could have fully unraveled, when his second shot landed in green-vicinity foliage that looked more receptive to a scythe than a club. Clark’s first escape attempt went all of eight inches, according to tournament officials — a sum that seemed about eight inches too high. He escaped by lifting a shot over the green into the right rough and ultimately saved bogey, his lead shaved to a stroke.Clark and McIlroy both played the front nine to 34, one under. For both, though, the back nine had typically been more bruising. Their positions on the leaderboard were static until the 14th hole, when McIlroy’s wedge shot sent his ball thumping into the side of a bunker. Granted free relief, he dropped into the fescue near the hole but could do no better than departing the green with a bogey.Clark’s experience was far more comfortable, his second shot leaving him less than two dozen feet from the par-5 hole’s pin, setting up an eagle opportunity. Clark’s putt went just to the right of the cup, but a subsequent birdie attempt dropped, building his margin to three strokes.It was brief. Clark missed a par chance on the 15th hole when his putt did not sufficiently break, and then his tee shot on No. 16 wound up in a bunker. Despite dazzling wedge play with his third shot, a short putt soon enough lipped out for Clark’s second consecutive bogey.Down by a stroke, McIlroy, who struggled on the greens for much of the day, barely missed a birdie putt on the 17th hole, his familiar anguish reappearing.“I’m right there,” he would say in a television interview afterward. “It’s such fine margins at this level, and I just got to keep putting myself in these positions and, you know, sooner or later it’s going to happen for me.”Finishing at nine under, McIlroy recorded a par on the final hole, where Clark had made par or birdie during each of the first three rounds. If Clark could stick to that history, the galleries knew, he would be a major champion — just as he concluded last month he was all but ready to be.Par, to stay at 10 under, to finish at 10 under. His eyes glistened.“Your mom was with you,” Fowler soon told him. “She’d be very proud.”He had played big.Clark said his mother, who died 10 years ago, always told him to “play big.”Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Golf

      It’s Sunday at the U.S. Open, and the Leaders Are Tied

      by

      Los Angeles Country Club has sometimes seemed forgiving. But the final round could pose a formidable test for the contenders.The LatestThe U.S. Open, one of golf’s most fearsome tests, is headed into its final round at Los Angeles Country Club. Although the course has sometimes seemed more forgiving than past Open venues, any championship round has the potential to become excruciating — especially when the final round starts with a tie atop the leaderboard.Rickie Fowler, who shot an even-par 70 in the third round, left the course Saturday evening knotted with Wyndham Clark, who birdied the 18th hole to go to one under on the day. Both men are at 10 under for the week, leaving them with one-stroke advantages over Rory McIlroy.Golf is expecting its third major tournament champion of 2023, with Jon Rahm, who won the Masters Tournament, and Brooks Koepka, who won the P.G.A. Championship, far down the leaderboard.Wyndham Clark ended the third round of the U.S. Open tied for the lead.Etienne Laurent/EPA, via ShutterstockWhy It Matters: Someone will earn a(nother) place in sports history by sundown.Of the players in the top five, only McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler have won majors.McIlroy’s last major victory was in 2014, and a win on Sunday would be his fifth major title. Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked player, won the Masters in 2022; he rocketed up the Los Angeles leaderboard when he holed out from 196 yards for an eagle on No. 17. He ended Saturday at seven under, putting him three strokes off the lead.But Fowler is a perpetually popular talent with a long history of close-but-not-quite major finishes. On Thursday, he, along with Xander Schauffele, shot a 62, an Open record. Fowler elicited gasps on Saturday when he sank a 69-foot birdie putt on the 13th hole. He provoked groans later when, at No. 18, he missed a par putt of less than five feet.Clark is playing his third U.S. Open, and this is the first time he has made the cut. His best showing in a major before this one? A tie for 75th at the 2021 P.G.A. Championship.Harris English, who trails Fowler and Clark by four strokes, came close in that year’s U.S. Open, finishing third.Rickie Fowler missed a putt for par of less than five feet on the 18th hole on Saturday.George Walker Iv/Associated PressBackground: The U.S. Open is taking place during a period of turmoil in golf.With the major tournaments offering some of the biggest prizes in golf and the surest paths to greatness — Koepka noted this past week that a golfer’s tally of major victories is what his career is “judged on” — players ordinarily like to focus on golf, and golf alone.That has not been so easy at this Open. On June 6, the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the force behind the LIV Golf circuit that divided the sport, announced a plan to form a partnership. The deal, if it closes, could end golf’s most bruising clash in generations, but it has already led to widespread uncertainty about the future of the game.In public and in private, players have spent much of the past two weeks mulling what that future might look like.For what it’s worth, the PGA Tour and LIV are knotted at one major victory each this season: Rahm plays for the tour, while Koepka is a headliner for LIV.What’s Next: 18 holes for everyone — and, perhaps, the first playoff since 2008.NBC will air final-round coverage beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern time. The tournament’s presence on the West Coast means the Open will not be settled until well into the evening in much of the United States, with the championship expected to be decided by about 10 p.m. Eastern time.All bets are off, though, if there is a tie at the top after everyone has finished 72 holes.The Open has not reached a playoff since 2008, when Tiger Woods won at Torrey Pines. The format has since changed: If the leaders are tied after regulation play, there will be a two-hole aggregate playoff, contested on the first and 18th holes. If the leaders are still knotted after those two holes, a sudden-death competition will commence. The idea is to have a winner on Sunday evening, not Monday, as has happened in past Opens. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Golf

      Few Birdies, but One Double Bogey, on the Shortest-Ever U.S. Open Hole

      by

      The 15th hole at Los Angeles Country Club on Saturday was only 81 yards long, but the field struggled mightily.At 81 yards, the par-3 15th hole at Los Angeles Country Club on Saturday was the shortest hole in the history of the U.S. Open.Only a golfer can fully grasp the mental torment that such a bite-size challenge poses, but here is one way to understand the situation: No one likes a hole where it’s easier to throw the ball onto the green than it is to hit it there with a golf club.Add to the third-round setting a severely sloped 15th green; three massive, menacing bunkers surrounding the target area; and knotty, knee-high grass all around. And — oh, yes — the approach shot is uphill, and there is a gusty wind at the players’ backs.Step right up, who wants to go first? How about you, Brooks Koepka, five-time major champion?Didn’t Koepka suggest earlier this week that L.A. Country Club might be too easy? He said he worried about a “birdiefest.” Maybe he had a hole less than 100 yards in mind. (The old record for shortest U.S. Open hole was 92 yards, at the 2010 event.)Koepka was three under par for his Saturday round and firmly in the top 10 when he stepped to the 15th. But his tee shot had none of the touch required and soared to the back of the green. His first putt was way short. His next putt was way long. The third putt just plain missed the hole. Koepka tapped in for a double bogey and is now extremely unlikely to win a sixth major at this year’s Open.Brooks Koepka needed four putts to finish the 15th hole on Saturday.Warren Little/Getty ImagesWho’s next? Don’t be shy.Next came Tom Kim, the hottest golfer in the early wave of players on Saturday, to the 15th tee. Kim made seven birdies as he tamed 5,637 yards of L.A.C.C. terrain in his first 14 holes. He had just made par at the fearsome 627-yard, par-5 14th hole.So, really, how hard could an 81-yard hole be?Trying to play with finesse, Kim deftly flipped a tidy little wedge. One problem: It was about two yards short of the green and trundled backward in a yawning bunker. His blast from the sand bounded to the back of the green, 22 feet from the hole. Two putts and one bogey later, Kim walked away shaking his head as he glared over his shoulder at the 15th green.After his round, Kim summed up the diabolical, tiny test presented on Saturday by the historic 15th hole.“If you’re long, you’re dead,” he said. “If you’re short, you’re dead. You don’t want to bail out left because then you have a 40-footer down the hill. A bogey from 80 yards isn’t great stats-wise, but, you know, a double bogey is definitely in play there.”Kim finished the day at three under par for the tournament and is still in contention.Bryson DeChambeau, golf’s mad scientist, looked very determined during his time on the 15th tee. He did not even flinch when he was almost beaned by an errant shot from the 14th fairway by a fellow competitor, Keith Mitchell. DeChambeau pitched a wedge to 10 feet and made par.“I’m the happiest man alive that I hit that green,” he said. “Super happy.”“If you’re long, you’re dead,” Tom Kim said of the 15th hole. “If you’re short, you’re dead.”Matt York/Associated PressDeChambeau said he chose a 60-degree wedge and teed his golf ball extra high to create more spin and loft.“Very difficult, demanding shot,” he added. “Par is a great score.”Even if it’s only 81 yards?“I’d rather it be longer tomorrow,” said DeChambeau, who finished at three under par.The 15th hole did not play as one of the most difficult holes on the golf course on Saturday. But it seems a surprise that the scoring average on the hole was 2.92 with 11 birdies, four bogeys and one conspicuous double bogey in the field of 65.Forty-nine of the best golfers in the world made par, and no better, on an 81-yard hole. Then again, as is often said, golf is a game of opposites. For example, you must hit down on the ball to make it go up. So in that way, the 15th hole in the third round of the 2023 national golf championship was, perhaps, perfect.Shane Lowry, the 2019 British Open champion, may have said it best.“It was different, and that’s interesting,” he said with a smile. “Different is OK. But I had a plan. The plan was par.” More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Golf

      At the U.S. Open, Wyndham Clark Is Confident, and It Shows

      by

      Bold play in honor of his mother, who died nearly 10 years ago, had Clark flirting with the top of the leaderboard for part of his second round on Friday.When Wyndham Clark was a kid, his mother, Lise, would tuck short written notes in his knapsack, little missives meant to lift his spirits or motivate him during the day. Clark tried to hide the notes from classmates because they became a source of teasing, especially when he was younger.During interviews in the 10 years since Lise Clark died of breast cancer at 55, Clark has often said, “I’d give anything to have those notes now.”But Clark, among the leaders after the second round of this week’s U.S. Open, has no trouble recalling the most lasting of his mother’s messages — at least as it relates to his professional golf career.“When my mom was sick,” Clark, 29, said on Friday, “I was in college and she told me: ‘Hey, play big. Play for something bigger than yourself. You have a platform to either witness, or help, or be a role model for so many people.’“And I’ve taken that to heart. When I’m out there playing, I want to do that for her.”Clark conjured the memory in the wake of two consecutive stellar rounds at the national golf championship at Los Angeles Country Club. After shooting a sparkling 64 in Thursday’s first round, Clark followed it up with a three-under-par 67, which had his name atop the U.S. Open leaderboards for several hours before the Friday afternoon wave of golfers teed off.Clark’s distinguished play was not a fluke. He has steadily been climbing the world golf rankings with six top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour during the 2022-23 season. Last month, he earned his first tour victory at the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, N.C., a milestone that Clark, now ranked 32nd in the world, said significantly bolstered his belief in himself.“It was big, to me, it felt like a major championship,” he said on Friday. “I just feel like I can compete with the best players in the world, and I think of myself as one of them.”Several years ago, Clark did not have the same confidence. In the months after the death of his mother, who had introduced him to golf as a toddler, Clark struggled on and off the course.When he competed poorly, Clark would storm off the golf course and, he said, “just drive away as fast as I could, I didn’t even know where I was going.”“The pressure of golf and then not having my mom there and someone to call was really tough,” he said after his Wells Fargo victory last month.He missed cut after cut and withdrew from Oklahoma State University before eventually settling at the University of Oregon. Slowly, he said, he found his equilibrium. He debuted on the PGA Tour in 2017, and while the acclimation to the vicissitudes of a pro golfer’s life took time, by last season his play was consistent enough to earn more than $1.5 million in prize money.“I was building my confidence bit by bit, which is, of course, so vital in this game — or any profession,” Clark said.His self-assurance was on display as he played the L.A. Country Club’s devilish par-5 14th hole on Friday. Clark’s second shot settled in deep, gnarly rough about 30 yards short of the green. His third required a gutsy flop shot from a sketchy lie that had to land with spin and precision on a blazing fast, sloping green.He kept the shot on the green and then drained the 13-foot putt for a spectacular birdie. After his round, Clark, with a wide smile, conceded that his third shot was “very risky.”He estimated that in a normal PGA Tour event, he would successfully execute the shot 70 percent of the time. Friday’s round, though, was conducted under the withering pressure of a U.S. Open, so the chance of averting a bogey, Clark said, “was way less because you have the nerves.”But Clark insisted he never wavered about what shot he had to try.He would play big.“When I’m out there playing, I want to do that for her,” Clark said of his mother. “I want to show everyone the person I am and how much joy I have out there playing.“I was walking the fairway yesterday and just kind of smiling because I was playing well. And I go, ‘Man, I wish you could be here, Mom, because it’s a dream come true to be doing this at the highest level.’”He added: “But I know she’s proud of me. I am who I am today because of her. I mean, I’m getting a little choked up. I miss her, and everything I do out here is a lot for her.” More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Golf

      U.S. Open Shows a Fiercer Side, but Low Scores Abound Anyway

      by

      Brooks Koepka dreads a “birdiefest” at a major. But Los Angeles Country Club is giving the Open field only so much heartburn.Few golfers relish a U.S. Open quite like Brooks Koepka. One at the Olympic Club was his first major tournament appearance. An iteration at Pinehurst saw his debut top-five finish in a major. He first lifted a major trophy at Erin Hills in 2017, and then he did it again the next year at Shinnecock Hills.But Koepka has this week become a paradoxical, brand-name exhibit in an unexpected debate: Is this U.S. Open, the first at the venerable and cloistered Los Angeles Country Club, too easy? It was only on Tuesday that Koepka had been talking about how the tournament’s historical ferocity was a perverse source of comfort.“I just love when, I guess, maybe somewhere closer to even par wins,” said Koepka, who captured his first Open victory with a score of 16 under at Erin Hills — and his second by shooting one over at a Shinnecock Hills course where the rhetoric about the setup was about as fiery as the greens.“If it’s going to be a birdiefest where 20-, 21-under wins,” Koepka added, “that’s really not the style.”But so far, the par-70 Los Angeles course has offered up an awfully forgiving Open, at least by the standards of a major that takes pleasure in being known as golf’s most treacherous.The first round on Thursday included two players, Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele, racing into the record books with 62s that were the lowest single-round scores in Open history. The field as a whole posted a first-round scoring average of 71.38, the lowest mark in Open history.Friday sometimes seemed to have as many safe harbors as punishments, even as green speeds picked up and the course played a little firmer. Dustin Johnson, who had a quadruple bogey on the second hole on Friday, proceeded to card five birdies and enter the weekend at six under. Harris English began his Friday at three under and wound up at seven under. Wyndham Clark, who has never made a U.S. Open cut, held the lead for a time, having fired a 64 on Thursday and a 67 on Friday.The dynamic has left wait-them-out players like Koepka, who was at even par after the second round, in a peculiar spot: still in the field but not much in the mix (yet), wondering whether a war of attrition will, or can, emerge fast enough on a course where the first tee looks toward the Beverly Hilton and California’s “June Gloom” is often looming.“I won majors on golf courses that I haven’t really liked too much,” Koepka, who tied for second at the Masters in April and won last month’s P.G.A. Championship by two strokes, said on Friday. “But, yeah, this one, I don’t know, it’s just — it’s not my favorite.”The weather forecast for the weekend suggests that the course could become a little more perilous — “Hopefully,” said Cameron Smith, “this place gets really baked out and we can have some fun out there” — and the U.S. Golf Association could impose diabolical pin placements to help achieve what nature cannot. On Friday, the tees were back, and Charley Hoffman, who is playing his ninth Open, cautioned that organizers “haven’t tricked anything up yet” with pin locations.“If you’re in position, you can attack,” said Hoffman, who shot a 67 on Friday to bring his tournament score to two under. “If you’re not, you are sort of trying to make par.”Still, course commentary has often seemed like a study in gentility, just about a month after players raved over the revamped Oak Hill Country Club, which hosted the P.G.A. Championship that concluded with 11 players under par. Around the time Koepka walked off the course on Friday afternoon, with the last tee times still to come for the 156-man field, 35 players were under par for the week, including Rory McIlroy, who picked up three strokes on Friday to stand at eight under heading into the third round.Koepka, left, with a caddie and Rory McIlroy, right, who headed into the weekend at eight under.Ross Kinnaird/Getty ImagesOnly a handful of headliners were in jeopardy of missing the cut as the U.S.G.A., which spent the previous months mulling how to set up one of the widest Open courses in memory, looked toward the weekend.In some ways, the association is learning as it goes, with Los Angeles the third course to make its Open debut in the past decade. The other two offered wildly different winning scores. Erin Hills, a par-72 course, saw Koepka win with a 272. At Chambers Bay, a par-70 setting, Jordan Spieth’s five-under showing was enough.“Obviously now they can see, hey, we can put a little bit more into it, so, yeah, I would be expecting a little tougher over the weekend,” Padraig Harrington, a three-time major winner, said of the tournament organizers. He noted that players see the ideal tournament as playing to 14 under and that the U.S.G.A. could grow flustered at the notion of a winning score belonging to a golfer in double-digits below par on Sunday evening.Harrington, after all, had been quoted in the Irish press this week as signaling a willingness to surrender “body parts” to be at four under after the final round. It was a number, he mused after his Friday round that put him at two over, that was now apparent would not be enough to win this tournament, given the conditions and the scoring.“They’re not giving up body parts for that anymore,” he said.McIlroy, who played in Koepka’s group on Thursday and Friday, confessed that he, too, had not anticipated seeing so many low numbers.“The course has played maybe a little easier than everyone thought it would, but wouldn’t be surprised on Saturday/Sunday to see it bite back,” he said, adding: “It should be tough. It should be just as much of a mental grind out there as a physical one.”Koepka, the sensation of this spring in golf, could not hope for much more. But he was skeptical on Friday that the course could be made sufficiently fearsome in a hurry, perhaps opening the way for him to rise on the leaderboard.In the meantime, he suggested, Los Angeles seemed like a better place for an ordinary round, not one of the ones that really count. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Golf

      Rickie Fowler Reserves His Flash for the U.S. Open’s First Round

      by

      Fowler no longer wears blinding colors and his shaggy hair is long gone. But after years of struggle at major tournaments, the popular golfer quietly made U.S. Open history on Thursday.No golf fans followed Rickie Fowler on Thursday dressed the same as he was. That used to be a thing in 2010 when Fowler, then 22, rode his relaxed dirt-biking roots and a boy band vibe complete with a top-to-toe orange outfit and a flat-brim hat to enormous popularity.Fowler, now 34 and a husband and father, was still dapper in Thursday’s first round of the U.S. Open at the Los Angeles Country Club but hardly flashy in a soft blue-gray pullover with white trim that matched his white cap, pants and shoes.The crowds were somewhat understated, too. Nine holes into his round, which had started on the 10th hole, a packed grandstand politely applauded when Fowler made a birdie putt to tie for the tournament lead at three under par. A fan called out, “Keep it going, Rickie.” But the reaction was hardly the same as the raucous quasi delirium that the longhaired younger Fowler once elicited.Finally, as he marched toward his final nine holes, the volume began to ratchet up. With five birdies and four pars in the closing nine holes, Fowler shot an eight-under 62. It was the lowest round in the history of the U.S. Open. Not long after, Xander Schauffele would match it.That did not alter the quiet smile on Fowler’s face as he hugged a group of friends and colleagues afterward. They had watched his many recent struggles on the golf course — “dark days,” he once called them — and admired how his countenance had never changed.“He’s always been the same guy,” said Justin Rose, who had played with Fowler on Thursday and shot a disappointing 76. “It was fun to watch Rickie today. That was the highlight of my day. Good for him.”Thursday’s result was something of a surprise for Fowler, but not a shock. He has been predicting some kind of revival for months. Once the fourth-ranked golfer in the world, Fowler had plummeted all the way to No. 173 last year. In 2014, he had finished in the top five at each of the four major tournaments. By 2022, he had played in only one, the P.G.A. Championship, and finished tied for 23rd.People wondered if he would defect to the LIV Golf circuit just to get a final big paycheck while his name still meant something. But Fowler stayed with his PGA Tour pals Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, with whom he once took beach vacations, and persevered. He could regularly be seen alone, grinding on the range or practicing putting by himself late in the afternoon or evening during tournaments.Fowler, left, and Jason Day walk from the eighth green on Thursday.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockLast month, after several encouraging results, Fowler vaulted back into the top 50 of the rankings, which qualified him for last month’s P.G.A. Championship. Fowler talked as if he had turned a corner.“Getting back to this stage, I mean, it’s never fun,” he said. “But in many ways, I’ve actually enjoyed it. I learned things about myself. Not that I lost faith, but I came to almost embrace the grind.”To that end, Fowler would have been forgiven if he had sauntered around the L.A. Country Club grounds on Thursday with a giant grin that never left his face. But interestingly, Fowler was mostly stoic, flashing a thin smile occasionally. When he sank a three-foot putt for par on his final hole — the uphill, par-3 ninth hole — he barely raised his right hand to acknowledge the cheers roaring from a nearby grandstand.Interviewed afterward, Fowler maintained his laid-back mien. He insisted he was actually uncomfortable with the L.A. Country Club layout for most of his practice rounds.“Then, yesterday, finally a couple things clicked and that gave me confidence,” he said, admitting that it had not hurt to have birdied three of his first five holes (with one bogey mixed in).Having started his round just after 8 a.m. Pacific time, Fowler reached the halfway point of his round before 10:30 a.m. when a late arriving fandom had yet to fill the grandstands or line the fairways. But as Fowler birdied the first, second and third holes (his 10th, 11th and 12th holes played), larger crowds found Fowler on the golf course. They were treated to a show.At the drivable par-4 sixth hole, he hit a long iron to 51 yards and then spun a wedge shot to within eight feet and sank that putt for birdie. On the par-5 eighth hole, his drive found the devilish barranca right of the fairway, but he rescued himself with a gutsy chip back into the fairway. “I tried not to overthink it and take too long with that recovery,” he said. His pitch to the green left a 13-foot left-to-right birdie putt that Fowler sank with aplomb.A record low U.S. Open score was on the table with a closing-hole par, which Fowler also made look easy, despite having to sink a dicey final putt.“This week is off to a good start,” he said moments later — nonchalantly, as if that were all his performance meant to him.Later, he would reveal otherwise. Asked to characterize his journey from 173rd in the world to a record-setting round in the national championship, Fowler said: “It’s definitely been long and tough. A lot longer being in that situation than you’d ever want to. But it makes it so worth it having gone through that and being back where we are now.” More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Golf

      What’s a Barranca? U.S. Open Golfers Hope They Don’t Find Out.

      by

      The Los Angeles Country Club’s barranca, a narrow gully, winds through the course, providing drainage during rainy season and a challenge to the players.Not many major golf championships have also served as an opportunity for fans to broaden their vocabulary, but this year’s U.S. Open at the Los Angeles Country Club may do just that. Across the four days of the tournament, beginning Thursday, expect broadcasters — and perhaps the golfers — to routinely use a word that may be unfamiliar to many in the international viewing audience.The word is barranca — pronounced “burr-ahng-kuh” — and it describes a narrow, winding, steep-walled gully or river gorge typically found in Southern California landscapes.The barranca on the L.A. Country Club’s North Course comes into play repeatedly during the 18 holes, especially as protection in and around the greens. Errant golf balls that land inside the barranca may be unplayable and result in a one-stroke penalty. In other instances, expect to see competitors descending into the barranca with hopes of rescuing their golf balls. It may be a successful recovery ploy, or it might just provide a good photo op — a golfer submerged several feet below the fairway thrashing away to try to make par.The L.A. Country Club barranca, however, is far from a random curio of the course layout. It serves an important, effective drainage role during rainy seasons and adds a natural, craggy aesthetic to the course design, which originated in the 1920s. By the 2010s, however, the barranca, which meanders throughout the property with tributaries extending in multiple directions, had largely been grassed over. A renovation of the grounds, completed in 2017, by the golf architect Gil Hanse, with his design partner, Jim Wagner, and a design consultant, Geoff Shackelford, restored the barranca to its original appearance — and tactical purpose.Meg Oliphant for The New York TimesMeg Oliphant for The New York TimesIt first comes into play on the second hole, a 497-yard par 4 where players will face a long approach shot over the barranca. The golfers will encounter the barranca five other times on the front nine.At the 520-yard, par-4 17th, Hanse removed several trees so the serpentine barranca would be visible from the tee, reminding players of the danger that lurked. It could test the nerves of the tournament leaders entering the championship’s penultimate hole in Sunday’s final round.“The barranca just flows throughout,” John Bodenhamer, the chief championships officer of the United States Golf Association, which conducts the U.S. Open, said on Wednesday. “There’s a brilliance to how it is used.”Bodenhamer added that the barranca had three feet of water running through it when he visited the site in March. The water was still as high as two feet last month. But with a limited amount of rainfall in June, Shackelford said on Wednesday, the barranca was now mostly sandy or dry, a condition that was expected and desired.“You’ll see players playing out of them — that’s how they were intended,” Bodenhamer said. “You’ll see a lot of heroic shots, a lot of excitement. The barranca is just magnificent.”And maybe educational, especially to those hoping to add to their vocabulary.The barranca snakes through the course, including near the fourth green.Meg Oliphant for The New York Times More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Golf

      ‘Different Than What You Expect From a Los Angeles Golf Course’

      by

      For much of Collin Morikawa’s life, the Los Angeles Country Club was a mystery.The course, designed in 1921 by George C. Thomas Jr. with its North Course restored by the architect Gil Hanse in 2010, was off-limits to most — even Morikawa, a son of Southern California and one of its most promising golfers.But entering this week’s U.S. Open, he is one of a handful of professionals with meaningful experience at the club, which has not hosted a PGA Tour event since 1940 and has never been in the spotlight of a major tournament. Its most recent high-profile competition was the 2017 Walker Cup, an amateur team event played every two years. The United States won that year with a team that included Scottie Scheffler and Morikawa, who first got to play the course when he was a student at the University of California, Berkeley.“It’s demanding — it’s very different than what you expect from a Los Angeles golf course,” Morikawa said in an interview. “The grasses are very different. The West Coast is known for Kikuyu grass and very sticky poa annua greens, bumpy greens in the afternoon. That’s not what Los Angeles Country Club is.”Instead, players will confront a course of Bermuda grass, with bentgrass on greens that Morikawa sees as PGA Tour-like because of their slopes and designs. This year’s Open will include five par-3 holes for the first time since 1947, when Lew Worsham beat Sam Snead in an 18-hole playoff at St. Louis Country Club.Morikawa does not see that as a problem.“Just because there is a heavy focus on par-3s at L.A.C.C. doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a great championship golf course,” he said.No. 6Par 4, 330 yardsThe club’s first five holes pose challenges, but in Morikawa’s mind, it is not until No. 6 that the course offers a fearsome proposition of risk and reward. For the field, it will appear to be an eminently drivable par-4, even with a blind tee shot.But if the greens are as ferocious as the United States Golf Association hopes, good luck. The depth of the green demands perfect distance control, Morikawa said. The ideal landing zone is perhaps five yards in diameter and a bad bounce sends the ball toward the long rough.“Let’s just say it’s 295, 300 yards,” he said. “From that distance, no one is that accurate to hit every drive within a five-yard diameter.” Instead, he said he expects players to layup, often from somewhere between 215 and 240 yards, leaving enough space to the green to test their wedge games. (Morikawa said this week that his caddie had persuaded him to consider going for it instead of laying up.)“When you show up on six, you’re going to be thinking birdie,” he said. “But you’re going to see a lot of bogeys because of how difficult the strategy is going to be.”Nos. 6 and 8 — a par-5 hole measuring 547 yards — at Los Angeles, he said, can be like the second and third holes at Augusta National Golf Club, where players eagerly seek the low scores that are there for the taking.“You want to walk out under par, you have to play smart and you can’t be too aggressive,” he said.No. 9Par 3, 171 yardsFairly few ninth holes are par-3s — the last U.S. Open to have a par-3 on No. 9 was the 2017 edition at Erin Hills in Wisconsin — but the trek back toward the clubhouse includes one Morikawa has judged “deceiving.”A back pin might be merely 200 yards away, but Morikawa warned that the challenge comes from the slope of the green.“With fast greens, if you’re behind the hole, you’re going to be hoping for a two-putt par,” he said. Excessive aggression could very well land a player and his ball in the bunker and poised for a bogey.“For the most part, you’re going to be putting from the middle of the green,” Morikawa said. “You’re going to take four pars and walk out of there very, very happy.”No. 11Par 3, 290 yardsGet over the distraction, on a clear day at least, of the Los Angeles skyline, and face the downhill hole that is the course’s longest par-3. Thanks to its length, Morikawa figures it will be playing somewhere between 200 and 270 yards.“It’s going to be tricky because you have to land it in the right spot,” said Morikawa, who predicted that some in the field would see their tee shots land perhaps 15 yards short of the green and end up dealing with a 30- or 40-yard pitch shot.“If you miss it left, it’s going to run off,” he said of the hole, where the front of the green includes a slope that can fuel headaches if a player is too aggressive toward a back pin. “If you miss it right, it’s going to run off.”Even though the hole is formally a par-3, Morikawa predicted at least some high scores because of its length.No. 13Par 4, 507 yardsWhen Morikawa imagines a quintessential par-4 hole at a U.S. Open, he pictures No. 13: “Long, demanding. You’re going to have a long iron in, the tee box is miles away from the 12th green.”OK, maybe not miles, but it might feel like it after 12 holes of championship golf.And just about everyone — long hitters, short hitters, guys in between — is going to need to keep his tee shot to the left.“Long hitters who hit it right, it’s going to kick down the slope, right into the right rough,” said Morikawa, describing the perils for much of the modern Open field. In Los Angeles, the challenge with the right rough is that it all but forces the player to take a second shot with little visibility.A poor drive, Morikawa said, might require a 5-wood.He is expecting plenty of up-and-downs, and lag putt after lag putt, on a test that has plenty of angles along the way.“It’s a very long hole, but the green in regulation percentage is not going to be there,” he said.No. 14Par 5, 623 yardsThe lone par-5 hole on the back nine, No. 14 first demands that players decide whether they want to try to carry its right bunker. Even with the distances pros are logging off the tee, there will be only a handful who can carry the bunker and will also dare to try it, knowing that they need a drive of 310 yards or so.Edging toward the left, Morikawa said, will leave a player farther from the hole — and “it’s not the easiest layup because the fairways are going to be so narrow.” Being stuck in the rough for a third shot, he said, can be especially troublesome if a right pin is in play for the day because of how the green slopes.“No. 14 is going to require a lot of precision,” Morikawa said. “With 14, if you are a long hitter, you can go for it, push it up there, have a nice little wedge shot and make birdie.”There will be what Morikawa classifies as “stupid bogeys” since the hole is a par-5, ending a four-hole stretch where he senses the Open will not be won, but can be lost.“I think I’ll be pretty happy if I walk out of those holes even par throughout the week,” he said. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Golf

      The U.S. Open Returns to Los Angeles After 75 Years

      by

      The last time it was there, Ben Hogan set an Open record. This time, players will have to get used to a course few of them have seen.Lights, cameras, championship golf.As the United States Open comes to the Los Angeles Country Club on Thursday, it will be the first time in 75 years that the championship has been played in the shadow of Hollywood.The last time the event came to Los Angeles, in 1948, it was unforgettable. Ben Hogan won at the Riviera Country Club and set a U.S. Open scoring record that stood until 2000 when Tiger Woods broke it.While Los Angeles has not hosted a U.S. Open since 1948, the championship has often been contested in California. Pebble Beach Golf Links in Northern California is now part of the regular U.S. Open rotation — it’s also where Woods broke Hogan’s scoring record in relation to par — and Torrey Pines in San Diego hosted in 2021. The Olympic Club in San Francisco has held five U.S. Opens.But the private and exclusive Los Angeles Country Club, or L.A.C.C. as it’s commonly known, has long been on the United States Golf Association’s short list of venues it wanted to host a U.S. Open. It’s a classic design, by George C. Thomas Jr., who was part of an influential group of early 20th-century architects. It has challenging and uneven terrain. And it sits in Beverly Hills, with views of the Los Angeles skyline.Walter Hagen teeing off during the Los Angeles Open golf tournament at the Los Angeles Country Club in 1935. Historically, the private club has been reticent about hosting a major championship.Associated PressUntil a decade ago, club leadership had demurred about hosting a championship. But in 2017, the club held the Walker Cup, a biannual match pitting the top amateur players in the United States against their counterparts from Great Britain and Ireland, and that experience changed the membership’s view of opening up its private course.John Bodenhamer, the U.S.G.A.’s chief championship officer, said there wouldn’t be this U.S. Open without that successful Walker Cup. In 2010, as the course was being restored by Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner and Geoff Shackelford, Richard Shortz, then the club president, inquired about hosting a Walker Cup, which the association approved. The players at that tournament loved the course, and that led Shortz, who is an older brother of Will, The New York Times crossword creator, to ask about hosting a U.S. Open.The golf association said yes, but then came the hard part: logistics.“It wasn’t easy from the standpoint of, ‘How do we do this in the middle of Los Angeles?’” Bodenhamer said. “Where do we house the players? How do we manage the traffic? How do we build a city within a city?”Yet the great interest in the course pushed the event forward. In many ways, it’s like inviting the public inside one of the Beverly Hills mansions around the club. So many have tried to steal a glimpse from the road, but few have ever been inside.“I played in the Pacific Coast Amateur when it was at L.A.C.C. in the ’80s,” Bodenhamer, the U.S.G.A. championships officer, said. “I remember setting foot through the door and seeing this place in the middle of Beverly Hills and saying, ‘This is crazy.’ All the celebrity houses on holes. But as I played, it was just so different than anything I’d ever seen.”This year, the golfers who will really know the course are those who have played it before: Collin Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler, who played it during the Walker Cup and qualified for the U.S. Open, and Max Homa and Jon Rahm, who played it during the 2013 PAC-12 tournament. Similar tournament knowledge proved valuable last year for Matthew Fitzpatrick, who won the 2022 U.S. Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., after winning the 2013 U.S. Amateur Championship on the same course.Because few professionals have played L.A.C.C. in tournament conditions, Shackelford is both worried and excited to see how it holds up to the best players in the world.In addition to working on the course restoration in 2010, Shackelford wrote the biography “The Captain: George C. Thomas Jr. and His Golf Architecture,” and is also the author of “Golf Architecture for Normal People”; he said he’s concerned about how players would react to what he considered a nuanced, complicated course.“I’m nervous about what they might say,” he said. “I want them to like the course. I want them to enjoy it. This course has elements that will take some time to get to know. Those who do get to know it will have a good week. Those who don’t won’t.”He has been consulting with the golf association on where to put the pins on the greens and the markers on the tees, but he also recognizes that, at the end of the day, it’s a huge stage.JJ Bennett working on the ninth hole at the Los Angeles Country Club. John Bodenhamer described the club as “this marvelous rural oasis in this urban setting.” Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated Press“They haven’t really had a good test run,” he said. “The Walker Cup is a great event, but it’s not the same thing. They’ve just never had anything with the quality of players and the number of them.”Bodenhamer said the golf association was confident in the course’s star turn, despite some challenging weather — like more rain than usual — leading up to the event. “We’ve studied all the wind and weather patterns, but who knows,” he said.There’s also a certain liberation and excitement of going to a course so few people know.“I’m excited about the mystery and the allure of what L.A.C.C. means for caddies, fans, viewers,” he said. “People are going to turn on the TV and say, ‘Wow, that’s a lot different for a U.S. Open.’”“L.A.C.C. is this marvelous rural oasis in this urban setting,” he added. “It’s so natural, it’s gnarly.”One player who knows it well is confident the course will hold up and that the players will do well. Stewart Hagestad, a member of the 2017 Walker Cup team and a longtime club member, downplayed the need for local knowledge.“When I was picked for the Walker Cup team, I wanted to be this big brother player,” he said. “The reality is, these are the best players in the world, and their golf I.Q.s are so high that it doesn’t take a lot of trips around the place to understand it. It just comes down to execution.”Hagestad, who won the United States Mid-Amateur Championship twice and almost qualified for this U.S. Open, made one prediction that runs contrary to the Open’s ethos.“L.A.C.C. will have a score lower to par than a lot of people are expecting,” he said. “What makes major championships is weather. On Saturday at the Country Club” in Massachusetts last year, “it was cool and windy. Right now, in L.A., the low temp goes between 56 and 59 degrees and the high is from 68 to 73. The wind is going to blow six [miles per hour] and gust to eight.”Beautiful conditions, but Hagestad did have a warning: If the greens start to glow pink or purple, that’s not Hollywood makeup— its bent grass surface has been sped up beyond what players can imagine. More