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      The Scramble at Southern Hills

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      P.G.A. Championships are planned years in advance, but the club had less than two years to prepare when the event was moved from Trump Bedminster.When players tee off at this week’s P.G.A. Championship at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., they will be playing a course that has been renovated since the last time it hosted a P.G.A. in 2007 (when Tiger Woods won by two). Gil Hanse, who has become the go-to architect for courses hoping to host a United States Open or P.G.A. Championship, renovated the course in 2019.But the players are also competing on a course that wasn’t selected until early last year — an unheard-of rush for a major championship — and one that had not been planning to host its first major after the renovation until 2030.How this came about was something no one involved could have imagined when the course for the 2022 P.G.A. Championship was announced in 2014.Every major golf championship is planned years, if not decades, in advance. The courses that will host are locked in, and the process to get them ready for players, and sponsors, usually requires years.The U.S. Open has planned out past some people’s lifetimes, with Oakland Hills in Bloomfield, Mich., tapped to host the 2051 tournament. The British Open is set for courses until 2025. The Masters, of course, will be at Augusta National Golf Club, unless the world ends.The P.G.A. Championship, which is organized by the Professional Golfers Association of America, has long been on a four-year activation cycle. This means teams have time to get to the next site to plan the tournament, drum up sponsorships and plan the course setup, which includes asking for course modifications.Rory McIlroy putting on the fourth green at Southern Hills on Monday. The course was chosen for the P.G.A. Championship just last year.Michael Madrid/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe P.G.A. Championship is planned out to 2031 — or 2034 if you count a few open years until the championship is at the P.G.A.’s new headquarters in Frisco, Texas.The only exception was this year, when a course and all the planning for the 2022 championship happened in 16 months.So why and how did the P.G.A. of America and Southern Hills have to get ready so quickly?In 2014, the P.G.A. awarded the men’s major to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. Its owner, Donald J. Trump, was then a businessman with a portfolio of 17 golf clubs in the United States and Scotland.That same year, Mr. Trump bought Turnberry, a Scottish course that had hosted the British Open four times. He had a reputation for investing heavily in his clubs and also for wanting to host big tournaments, which can be a hassle for private clubs that have members who can’t play as the tournament gets close.It seemed like a solid plan to host the tournament at what is better known as Trump Bedminster.“The P.G.A. of America is excited to begin a new chapter of major championship history by taking two of our premier championships to venues that bear the Trump label of excellence,” Ted Bishop, then-president of the P.G.A. of America, said at the time.Mr. Trump said: “Having the P.G.A. is a very, very big deal. So, it’s very important to me. It’s a great honor for me.”Then he was elected president in 2016. Fast forward to Jan. 6, 2021, when President Trump gave a speech that fired up a crowd in Washington, which then stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 election results.Five days later, the P.G.A. of America announced it had voted to pull the 2022 major from the Trump course.“It has become clear that conducting the P.G.A. Championship at Trump Bedminster would be detrimental to the P.G.A. of America brand and would put at risk the P.G.A.’s ability to deliver on many programs and sustain the longevity of our mission,” Jim Richerson, the P.G.A. of America’s president, said.And that left the organization scrambling to find a course to host the tournament and get a team there. While a major championship is about top golf, it’s also about building the equivalent of a small town that can bring in the maximum revenue for the governing bodies. Rushing that isn’t ideal.Some 30 courses raised their hands. One of those was Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, which has hosted the tournament three times.“When the P.G.A. of America said we’re going to move the tournament, I said we need to step in and help,” said David Pillsbury, chief executive of Invited (the new name for ClubCorp), which owns Firestone, and a former PGA Tour executive. “I said we can do this. We have a world-class-tested course. We have had the Senior Players Championship there, so there’s a senior staff there.”In the end, none of the suitors were selected. And the P.G.A. went with Southern Hills, which it knew well because it was hosting the Senior P.G.A. Championship that year.“One of the main reasons we ended up selecting Southern Hills when we decided to move it is because we had the Kitchen Aid Senior P.G.A. there in 2021,” said Kerry Haigh, chief championships officer for the P.G.A. “We were working with the community, the city, we had a lot of plans together.”But a senior tournament is not the same as a P.G.A. Championship. For one, the course is set up shorter and easier. And there just aren’t as many fans or sponsors to accommodate. The dollars are much less.But Southern Hills had something that other courses didn’t. “We had staff on site,” Haigh said. “We also had a contract in place for them to host a P.G.A. Championship, albeit for a later year. All the things that needed to happen — agreeing on a contract, moving staff, having relationships with all those people — were already in place.”Tiger Woods playing a shot from a bunker at Southern Hills during practice on Monday.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesThe course, though, would have to play longer. At a par 70, it was set at 6,968 yards for the Senior P.G.A. This week it will measure 7,635 yards for the P.G.A. That added distance can change the angles that players have to take; it can also alter the setups.While Pillsbury wished Firestone had been selected, he said the selection of Southern Hills for a quick turnaround made a lot of sense. “To organize a tournament quickly, the first thing you have to do is mobilize the membership,” he said.And Haigh said they had that from the start. “A big part of selecting Southern Hills was the support of the membership, who is passionate about major championship golf,” he said. “They were very quick to remind us of how much they wanted to host the P.G.A. Championship and that they had the support of the city and the community to turn this around immediately to support the P.G.A.”A major tournament, though, is more than the course. It’s about the fans and the sponsors who will help fund a prize pool worth over $12 million, with more than $2 million going to the winner.“It’s a midsized market, so that concern was raised that they wouldn’t have enough money to go again,” said John Handley, director of championship sales and marketing at the P.G.A. “We didn’t experience a whole lot of that. The membership at Southern Hills was incredibly helpful. We felt we had a good pulse of the market. The concern never materialized.”The experience had the chief executive of the P.G.A., Seth Waugh, pondering if planning years in advance was even worth it. In an interview with Gary Williams, a golf commentator, Waugh said this past year had taught him that a major could be planned more quickly.“Frankly, when you say 20 to 25 years, I think it’s a little bit, possibly irresponsible, because who knows what’s going to happen between then and now,” he said. “You certainly don’t need that much time to lock something in. When I made the decision to move to Southern Hills a year and a half ago, we had 30-plus venues that were willing to take us on.” More

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      This P.G.A. Champion Lost the Wanamaker Trophy. Oops.

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      It goes to the winner of the P.G.A. Championship, but Walter Hagen lost it after he won in 1925.It’s nearly impossible to talk about the P.G.A. Championship‘s Wanamaker Trophy without mentioning how the five-time champion Walter Hagen lost it in Chicago after winning the event in 1925.As the story goes, while out in Chicago celebrating the win, Hagen gave his taxi driver $5 and asked him to take the cumbersome trophy to his hotel. It not only never arrived, but Hagen never admitted the loss to the P.G.A. until he lost the championship in 1928 and had to turn the trophy over to the winner.The trophy is tied to the history of the P.G.A. It was named after the department store owner Rodman Wanamaker, who in 1916 formed the Professional Golfers’ Association of America.“Rodman Wanamaker was a big fan of professional golf and perhaps even more so of Walter Hagen,” said Connor Lewis, a golf historian. “He believed that professional golf was the way of the future — perhaps a decade ahead of the general public — who at that time believed in the ideals of the amateur game.”Wanamaker invited a group of golf professionals, including Hagen, to meet and form the association to help elevate the professional game.“In those times professional golf was not an actual occupation; it was frowned upon,” said Tom Clavin, the author of “Sir Walter,” a biography of Walter Hagen.Wanamaker had two main motives, Clavin said. One was to form a professional association to enhance the position of golf. Another: Money.“Let’s face it,” Clavin said. “There was a commercial motivation for forming the P.G.A. The man was a magnate of department stores. By forming the P.G.A., he could make golf more popular, bring more people into playing golf and sell a lot of clubs, balls and clothing.”The P.G.A. named the cup after him, and the first P.G.A. Championship was held in 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, N.Y. Jim Barnes won the trophy, which was designed by Dieges & Clust — the same company that created the Heisman Trophy in 1934. The P.G.A. silver trophy weighs 27 pounds and is more than two feet tall and two feet wide, handle to handle.“Wanamaker’s prestige and his bankroll gave golf a great jump-start, and it was perfect timing,” Clavin said. “It was after World War I, during the Roaring Twenties, and there were more and more professionals playing. More people started following golf and wanted to know who’s winning. There was Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen catching headlines. Professionals were starting to storm the gates. And Hagen was leading the charge.”Walter Hagen, right, accepting the Wanamaker Trophy from Charles Smalley, the president of the Olympia Fields Country Club, after defeating Bill Mehlhorn to successfully defend his title at the 1925 P.G.A. Championship.Getty ImagesHagen won the first of his five P.G.A. Championships in 1921, but didn’t win again until 1924. For the 1925 event, Hagen lugged the trophy to the event at Olympia Field Country Club, near Chicago. He won again — but that’s also when he lost it.In 1926, Hagen defended his title without the trophy. It was P.G.A. policy for the winner to return the trophy the following year, according to Bob Denney. a P.G.A. historian. Hagen told officials, “I will win it anyway, so I didn’t bring it.” Hagen said the same thing in 1927 to defend his title.“That was Hagen — they just laughed it off,” Clavin said. “He was a showman and great for golf. Everybody was just winking — ‘Hey, that’s Walter.’”It wasn’t until 1928, when Leo Diegel won, that Hagen confessed to losing the trophy. Again, it was awkward, but officials shrugged it off, Denney said. The missing trophy was replaced with one made by R. Wallace and Sons of Wallingford, Conn. It was ready by the 1929 PGA Championship, with Diegel’s name on it. Diegel successfully defended his title in that year’s tournament and finally took home a trophy, but it wasn’t the Wanamaker.“You would be hard pressed to find the Stanley Cup or the Heisman where the winner actually lost it,” Clavin said.In 1931, the P.G.A. announced that the trophy had been found. A janitor cleaning the basement of the building that had once housed the Walter Hagen Golf Products Corporation in Grand Rapids, Mich., discovered a large box containing the trophy, Denney said. How it got there remains a mystery.“The taxi driver probably dropped it at the hotel, and the hotel sent it to his company headquarters,” said Paul Wold, a historian of Rochester Country Club, where Hagen was club professional.Hagen, not one for much introspection, didn’t give it another thought, Clavin said.“You get the impression he was a real prince of a guy,” Wold said. “People loved him, and he really just raised the total esteem of professional golf.”It’s difficult to top the Hagen incident, but there have been minor gaffes over the years.Collin Morikawa reacting to the lid of the Wanamaker Trophy falling off after he won the 2020 P.G.A. Championship at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.Charlie Riedel/Associated PressIn 2014, at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky, the trophy lid fell off as Ted Bishop, who was then the P.G.A. president, handed the trophy to the winner, Rory McIlroy — who caught it before it hit the ground. “You saved me,” Bishop said.At the 2020 P.G.A. Championship at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, the lid fell off again. Collin Morikawa hoisted the Wanamaker, shaking it until the top lid clanged off and dropped to the ground. Morikawa clutched his chest, replaced the lid, gently lifted the trophy again and kissed it.While the Wanamaker Trophy passes to a new champion each year, winners also get a replica engraved on site to keep. The P.G.A. has the original, which will soon be on display at its headquarters in Frisco, Texas.“It would be lousy to have nothing to show for the win,” Wold said. “Wouldn’t it?” More

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      Tiger Woods Calls Phil Mickelson’s Viewpoints ‘Polarizing’

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      In remarks before the P.G.A. Championship, Tiger Woods distanced himself from his longtime rival, Phil Mickelson, who stirred controversy with his support of an upstart Saudi-backed golf tour.TULSA, Okla. — On Tuesday, when Tiger Woods spoke publicly for the first time since his stunning comeback at last month’s Masters Tournament, the expected topic was to be his continuing recovery from a near-fatal 2021 car crash. Woods did indeed say his reconstructed right leg felt stronger as he prepared for this week’s P.G.A. Championship, which begins Thursday at Tulsa’s Southern Hills Country Club.But perhaps for the first time at any news conference in Woods’s 30-plus years in the public eye, he spent nearly as much time discussing a longtime rival, Phil Mickelson, as he did himself. And Woods was not usually chatting about Mickelson in flattering terms.Woods was emphatic about distancing himself from Mickelson, who will not defend his P.G.A. Championship title and has not played since he made incendiary remarks in February in support of a Saudi-backed golf league that hopes to rival the established PGA Tour.While Mickelson in the past has privately reached out to Woods during his struggles, which have included a sensational marital infidelity scandal in 2009 and the aftermath of a tumbling car crash on a Los Angeles-area boulevard last year, Woods said on Tuesday that he has not contacted Mickelson.“I have not reached out to him; I have not spoken to him,” Woods said. “A lot of it has not to do with, I think, personal issues. It was our viewpoints of how the tour should be run and could be run, and what players are playing for and how we are playing for it. I have a completely different stance on that, so no, I have not.”Woods added: “We miss him being out here. I mean, he’s a big draw for the game of golf. He’s just taking his time and we all wish him the best when he comes back.”A poster of Phil Mickelson, last year’s P.G.A. champion, greets spectators at Southern Hills. Mickelson will not play this year.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockBut after conceding that the social media landscape had escalated and quickly polarized the dispute between the PGA Tour and the breakaway league, Woods said: “And the viewpoints that Phil has made with the tour and what the tour has meant to all of us has been polarizing as well.”Mickelson applied for a release from the PGA Tour to play in the inaugural event of the upstart golf circuit, LIV Golf, next month outside London. The PGA Tour denied Mickelson’s request and any made by its members, and it has threatened to suspend or otherwise discipline players who play in the alternative tour’s events. In February, Mickelson provoked a hailstorm of criticism after he acknowledged Saudi Arabia had a “horrible record on human rights” — including the murder of a Washington Post journalist — but said he was still talking with, and aiding, the new tour because it was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to apply pressure on the PGA Tour. Earlier this year, Mickelson accused the PGA Tour of “obnoxious greed.” He later said his remarks were “reckless.”On Tuesday, when Woods was asked how his disagreements with Mickelson could be resolved, Woods replied: “I don’t know if he has to resolve it or not. I understand different viewpoints, but I believe in legacies. I believe in major championships. I believe in big events, comparisons to historical figures of the past. There’s plenty of money out here. The tour is growing. But it’s just like any other sport, you have to go out there and earn it.”When he wasn’t discussing Mickelson on Tuesday, Woods’s rebuilt right leg did look considerably stronger than it did last month when he labored to ascend seemingly every hill during the Masters Tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. During a practice round in Tulsa, Woods actually half-jogged up a steep incline.During the final round of the Masters Tournament last month at Augusta National Golf Club, Woods used an iron to support himself as he walked. Doug Mills/The New York TimesWhen asked how much he had physically improved during the last five weeks of additional rehabilitation for the serious injuries incurred in his 2021 crash, Woods smiled.“The first mountain I climbed was Everest,” he said. “So, yeah, I’m better than the last time I played a tournament.” He added: “I still have tough days, and things aren’t going to be as easy as people might think. Still, I’m doing better — more positive days.”But tellingly, Woods, who used to be known for almost ceaseless practice, especially with his putter, scoffed when he was asked if he can now practice enough.“Practicing a lot? No, I don’t do that anymore,” he answered. “Bending over for a long time, hitting a bunch of putts like I used to? No, that doesn’t happen — not with my back the way it is.”Some things, however, have not changed. Woods never showed up for an event unless he believed he could finish first. That resolve has not wavered.“I feel like I can — definitely,” Woods responded when asked if he could win. “I just have to go out there and do it. Starts on Thursday and I’ll be ready.”Jon Rahm, who is the world’s top-ranked men’s golfer and also in this week’s field, said he was not surprised that Woods wants to win every tournament.“Hey, the world wants him to win,” Rahm said with a grin.In what will be an eye-catching grouping, Rory McIlroy will play in Thursday’s first round with Woods and Jordan Spieth, who has won every major golf title but the P.G.A. Championship. McIlroy expects to see an upgrade from the Woods who started strong at last month’s Masters but faded in the final two rounds.“It’s been six weeks or so since Augusta?” McIlroy asked. “Six weeks is a long enough time to recover from that week and then build yourself back up again.” More

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      Phil Mickelson Praises Saudi-Backed Golf Tour Despite Khashoggi Killing

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      A biographer quoted Mickelson as saying that though he knew of Saudi Arabia’s “horrible record on human rights,” a new golf tour it was funding was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”The pro golfer Phil Mickelson faced a mounting backlash this week for his reported remarks about a Saudi-backed golf tour, with a biographer quoting him as saying that though he knew of the kingdom’s “horrible record on human rights,” the tour was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”Mickelson, a six-time major winner, made the comments during a nearly hourlong phone interview last November, Alan Shipnuck, a longtime golf writer who is completing a biography on the golfer, said on Friday.A former writer for Sports Illustrated and Golf magazine, Mr. Shipnuck reported the remarks on Thursday on The Fire Pit Collective, a golf site.Mickelson, 51, had been asked to comment about his connection to the Super Golf League, an upstart tour whose main source of funding is the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, a sovereign wealth fund totaling more than $400 billion.He called the Saudi authorities “scary,” using a profanity to describe them, and noted the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist who was assassinated in 2018 with the approval of the kingdom’s crown prince, according to U.S. intelligence officials. Mickelson also alluded to the criminalization of homosexuality in Saudi Arabia, where being gay is punishable by death.“We know they killed Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights,” Mickelson was quoted as saying by the biographer. “They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”Representatives for Mickelson, who is one of the biggest names linked to the breakaway tour, and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.A spokesman for the PGA Tour declined to comment on Friday.When reached on Friday, Mr. Shipnuck said that the golfer had previously declined to be interviewed for his biography, “Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar,” which is scheduled to be published in May. But he said that Mickelson had granted him an on-the-record interview in an attempt to explain his potential involvement in the breakaway tour.“Phil likes to play with fire,” Mr. Shipnuck said. “Sometimes when you play with fire, you’re going to get scorched. I don’t think he realized how hot this topic is with Saudi Arabia.”In his online account of the interview, Mr. Shipnuck said that the golfer had enlisted three other unidentified players to hire lawyers to draft the upstart tour’s operating agreement.Several top golfers criticized Mickelson for his remarks, including Justin Thomas, the eighth-ranked player in the world. Speaking to reporters on Thursday at the Genesis Invitational near Los Angeles, he said it “seems like a bit of a pretty, you know, egotistical statement.”Thomas continued: “It’s like he’s done a lot of great things for the PGA Tour, it’s a big reason it is where it is, but him and others that are very adamant about that, if they’re that passionate, go ahead. I don’t think anybody’s stopping them.”Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday, the columnist Peter FitzSimons criticized Mickelson’s comments. He urged Greg Norman, a former golf champion and head of the breakaway tour, to cut ties with the new venture.“Well, anyone with a conscience would resign,” Mr. FitzSimons wrote. “But with you I guess that is beside the point here. Your best plan is probably to do what you have been doing, and do better than anyone — hold your nose and go after more money.”Jane MacNeille, a spokeswoman for LIV Golf Investments — the company who chief executive, Mr. Norman, is starting the breakaway tour — heralded Mickelson in a statement on Friday.“Phil is one of the greatest golfers in the history of the game, and we have an enormous amount of respect for him and his career,” she said. “Any league or tour would be lucky to have him.”Brandel Chamblee, an analyst for the Golf Channel and former PGA Tour player, said on Twitter on Friday that “those advocating for the Saudi backed tour, most notably Phil Mickelson, are trying to obfuscate their greed and masquerade that this is about growing the game.” More

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      Tiger Woods Set to Play the PNC Championship With His Son

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      The golfer, who is still recovering from a serious car crash in February, has not competed in a tournament since he and his son, Charlie, last played in the family team event a year ago.Last week, Tiger Woods was emphatic that he would never again be a full-time player on the PGA Tour because of the serious leg injuries he sustained in a high-speed car crash in February. But Woods conceded that he could “play a round here and there,” which he called, “a little hit and giggle.”Woods is not waiting long to make an informal, and public, return to a golf course. On Wednesday, he announced he would play in a family team tournament with his son, Charlie, on Dec. 18 and 19. The event, the PNC Championship, has a small limited field — it was once called a father/son tournament — and will be contested at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Fla.“Although it’s been a long and challenging year,” Woods, whose doctors considered amputating his right leg 10 months ago, wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “I’m very excited to close it out by competing at the @PNC Championship with my son Charlie. I’m playing as a Dad and couldn’t be more excited and proud.”Although it’s been a long and challenging year, I am very excited to close it out by competing in the @PNCchampionship with my son Charlie. I’m playing as a Dad and couldn’t be more excited and proud.— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) December 8, 2021
      Woods, who turns 46 on Dec. 30, has not played in a tournament of any kind since he entered the 2020 PNC Championship with Charlie, who is now 12, roughly a year ago. The duo finished seventh. Shortly afterward, Woods had a fifth back surgery that sidelined him for the next few months.The PNC Championship’s 36-hole team format should make it easier for Woods to avoid placing too much stress on his lower right leg, which was reconstructed by doctors using a rod, screws and pins during emergency surgery following his crash outside Los Angeles on Feb. 23. Each player in a pairing will begin a hole by hitting from the tee and players will then pick which tee shot is most advantageous to play. Both players hit a second shot from that spot, a process that is repeated until the hole is finished.Importantly for Woods, there will be only two 18-hole rounds rather than the usual four rounds on the PGA Tour and players can use golf carts driven within a few feet of a player’s ball. On the tour, golfers are required to walk.The players will also play from different sets of tees, which means Charlie Woods will play from the forward tees and often make his father’s tee shots, which will be struck from much farther away, unnecessary. While Tiger Woods was hitting golf balls at a practice range during last week’s World Hero Challenge, a PGA Tour event he hosted in the Bahamas, he also made several jokes about how his shots were traveling about half the distance they once did because he lacked strength and the nerves in his right leg were diminished. From 2018 to 2020, Woods averaged about 299 yards in driving distance during tour events.In last year’s PNC Championship, Woods sometimes had his son hit first — from tees that could be dozens of yards closer to the hole — and if Charlie’s tee shot was well-positioned on or near the fairway, Woods did not bother hitting his tee shot. The format, known as a scramble, could conceivably put Woods in a position to primarily hit less physically demanding shots struck with irons, wedges and a putter throughout his rounds. The format would also permit Woods to decline hitting any shots from a challenging, uneven lie or from daunting terrain that might put added force on his right leg.NBC will televise both rounds of the PNC Championship.Woods’s appearance on a golf course next week will likely spawn conversations about when he might return to the PGA Tour. The Masters Tournament, which he has won five times, is only four months away. But last week Woods cautioned against speculation about when, or if, he will return to elite competitive golf.“I haven’t proven it to myself that I can do it,” Woods, who has won 15 major golf championships, said. “I can play a par-3 course and I can hit a few shots. I can chip and putt, but we’re talking about going out there and playing against the world’s best on the most difficult golf courses under the most difficult conditions.“I’m so far from that. I have a long way to go to get to that point. I haven’t decided whether or not I want to get to that point. I’ve got to get my leg to a point where that decision can be made.”Last year, however, Woods talked repeatedly about how much it meant to him to be able to play with Charlie.“We can do this together for a lifetime,” Woods, who was taught the game by his father, Earl, who died in 2006, said. “I like the thought of having that opportunity to play with him for as long as I live.”Several of Woods’s colleagues from the PGA Tour in the previous 25 years will join him in next week’s field, including his good friend Justin Thomas and his father and coach Mike Thomas; Jim Furyk and his son, Tanner; Henrik Stenson and his son, Karl; and the multiple major champion turned broadcaster Nick Faldo and his son, Matthew. Nelly Korda, the world’s top-ranked women’s golfer, will also make her debut in the event playing with her father, Petr. More

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

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

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      Phil Mickelson, at 50, Wins P.G.A. Championship

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      Mickelson became the oldest winner of a major golf tournament after a tense final round on the treacherous Ocean Course at Kiawah Island.KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — Weathering a riveting, roller-coaster test of nerve over five hours, Phil Mickelson, who will turn 51 next month, won the P.G.A. Championship on Sunday to become the oldest golfer to win a major championship. The record was previously held by Julius Boros, who was 48 when he won the 1968 P.G.A. Championship.Mickelson shot six under par for the tournament, finishing two strokes ahead of the runners-up, Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen.Mickelson becomes the latest in a growing group of sports stars who have defied traditional retirement ages for athletes and proved that championships can still be won in careers that last into middle age. Mickelson has followed the lead of Tom Brady, who won his seventh Super Bowl title three months ago at 43. Serena Williams has remained consistently in the hunt for elite titles at 39, an age that historically has seen tennis players recede to a senior circuit. Tiger Woods, although seriously injured in a car crash in February, won his fifth Masters tournament two years ago at 43.“I hope that this inspires some to just put in that little extra work, because there’s no reason why you can’t accomplish your goals at an older age,” Mickelson said after his round. “It just takes a little more work.”Mickelson has been among the most popular American golfers for three decades, and the final scene of his Sunday triumph made it obvious that his appeal had not waned.At the final hole, Mickelson rocketed his tee shot into the gallery left of the fairway, but he lofted a 9-iron from the rough to within 16 feet of the hole as the crowd roared its approval. He walked toward the green shaking his left fist above his shoulder. As he did, he was enveloped by hundreds of fans, who surged past security guards and the police to celebrate alongside him.Hugged, jostled and patted on the back, Mickelson needed several minutes to walk the final 50 yards to the 18th green. With spectators chanting his first name, he finally emerged to a green encircled by the crowd. Two putts sealed his victory.Mickelson later called the experience “slightly unnerving but exceptionally awesome,” and said he would “cherish it for my entire life.”Mickelson, surrounded by security, had to press through a throng of fans on the 18th fairway.Matt York/Associated PressMickelson’s achievement, his sixth major title, could prove to be a bookend to three decades in golf’s spotlight. A four-time college all-American, he won his first professional tournament while an amateur and was unable to cash its hefty check. After turning pro, he racked up victories on the PGA Tour, but soon became better known for his failure to win his first major championship.Mickelson has also had the misfortune of playing most of his career in the shadow of the superstar Woods, who won six major championships before he was 26. But Mickelson did not break through until he was 33, when he claimed the 2004 Masters during his 13th year on tour. Two other Masters championships followed, in 2006 and 2010, as well as a victory at the 2005 P.G.A. Championship, but there were also frequent, dispiriting setbacks, including six second-place finishes at the United States Open, American golf’s national championship. Before Sunday’s victory at the treacherous Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Mickelson had not won a major since the 2013 British Open.Mickelson misses a putt on the par-5 No. 11 hole.Matt York/Associated PressMickelson, however, has remained a fan favorite, in part because of a daring style of play and because of his Everyman physique, which stands in stark contrast to the fit, muscular bodies of the modern golfer best typified by Woods. Known as Lefty because he swings at a golf ball left-handed — even though he is naturally right-handed — Mickelson has spent decades comfortably engaging with golf galleries, often using a smile and a thumbs-up, a gesture he learned from Arnold Palmer.Mickelson’s rush up the leaderboard at this P.G.A. Championship was not foreshadowed by his recent performances. Since missing the cut at last year’s U.S. Open, his best result on the PGA Tour had been a tie for 21st. He finished outside the top 50 nine times.Playing in dark sunglasses and with an air of calm, Mickelson began Sunday’s round with a one-stroke lead over Koepka, who finished the event in a tie for second place with Oosthuizen at four under par.But long before Mickelson’s triumphant outcome was certain, he was locked in a tense, topsy-turvy battle, first with Koepka and then in the closing holes with Oosthuizen.While Mickelson appeared to have a comfortable four-shot lead over the field with six holes to play, his second shot at the 13th hole hooked into a water hazard, which led to an unsettling bogey. On the par-3 14th hole, Mickelson came up short and right of the green. He chipped to eight feet, but missed the par putt for another bogey.Almost simultaneously, Oosthuizen made two steadying pars at the 14th and 15th holes to pull within three strokes of Mickelson, who was at six under par for the tournament. Mickelson made par at the 15th hole, but Oosthuizen birdied the par-5 16th hole — his eagle putt narrowly missed — to cut Mickelson’s lead to two strokes.Mickelson responded with a par on the 15th hole, then hit a towering 337-yard drive to the middle of the 16th fairway. His second shot bounced on the green but skipped off the back. A dicey chip nestled next to the hole for an easy birdie, and Mickelson headed to the hardest hole on the longest golf course in major championship history with a three-shot lead.Mickelson’s 6-iron from the 17th tee took a big bounce just to the left of the hole and trundled into knee-high grass behind the green 60 feet from the flagstick. After several minutes of deliberation, he wedged his ball safely on the putting surface, where he two-putted for a bogey that still kept him two strokes in the lead.Brooks Koepka hitting out of a bunker on No. 16 Sunday. He birdied the par-5 hole.Matt York/Associated PressHours earlier, in the middle of a sunny, humid day along the South Carolina coastline, Mickelson had taken a gut punch to his chances when Koepka wrested the lead from him on the opening hole. In a matter of minutes, a three-putt bogey by Mickelson and a Koepka birdie had reversed the names atop the leaderboard. But Koepka gave away the advantage with a double bogey on the second hole, even as Mickelson continued to struggle with his accuracy.His brother and caddie, Tim, pulled Phil Mickelson aside after the sixth hole and gave him a mild scolding.“Tim said, ‘If you’re going to win this thing, you’re going to have to make committed golf swings,’” Mickelson said, adding that he had been too passive. “It hit me in the head — I have to swing committed. The first one I made was the drive on 7.”Mickelson birded the seventh hole, which Koepka bogeyed. By the turn, Mickelson had pushed ahead by two strokes.When Mickelson’s final putt dropped into the cup on the 18th green, the brothers embraced for several seconds.Celebrating on the 18th green with his brother and caddie, Tim Mickelson.Jamie Squire/Getty Images More

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      Four Major Tournaments in Four Months Is a Lot of Important Golf

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      Professional golfers worry about sustaining peak form, but say that scheduling four championships April through July is good for the game, and anyone who gets on a roll.KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — This is just the second time in the modern era of men’s professional golf that the sport’s four major championships will be contested in consecutive months, one each from April through July. The schedule was similar in 2019 when, after years of deliberation, the P.G.A. Championship opted to move to May, from its long standing date in mid-August.But the pandemic in 2020 forced three major championships, the P.G.A. Championship, the United States Open and the Masters, to be held from August to November. So, when this year’s P.G.A. Championship concludes Sunday at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, the world’s top men’s golfers will have played five majors in 10 months. Moreover, if the 2021 U.S. Open and this year’s British Open are held as expected in June and July, respectively, golf will have crammed seven majors into 12 months.If that weren’t enough, many of the best men’s players will also be competing in the Tokyo Olympics golf tournament from July 29 to Aug. 1.It is unlikely such a grueling schedule would occur again, at least intentionally, but it raises the question of whether golf’s best players can be expected to peak for the sport’s biggest championships repeatedly in a compressed time period. And moving forward, what are the challenges to staying mentally and physically prepared for golf’s new format of four majors in four months? For pro golfers, it is a little like the lengthy playoff runs in professional basketball, hockey, soccer and baseball.“It feels like every two or three weeks we’re at a venue where it’s super stressful because it’s a difficult golf course or a difficult event,” Kevin Kisner, a three-time winner on the PGA Tour, said.Kisner added: “It feels like I’m constantly getting beat up out here with the big schedule. The hardest thing is every event feels big. I haven’t played well in any of them.”It has forced some players to make difficult choices, like skipping regular tour events that they used to play so they can rest for the condensed series of major tournaments. Justin Thomas, the world’s second ranked golfer, made such a decision last month when he took two weeks off after the Masters, even though not playing can diminish a golfer’s competitive edge.“I’m just not in the physical or mental state to be able to play a golf tournament after the grind of a pressure-filled event like the Masters,” Thomas said. “I need the time to relax and then get into it later where I feel like I’m peaking for this big stretch coming up.”While the new schedule has added to the strain of trying to claim what can be a career-defining major championship, most players believe it is worth it for two chief reasons: Golf no longer goes head-to-head with the N.F.L. in the fall, and players can take a break and put their clubs away earlier.Moving the P.G.A. Championship from August to May does both because it allows the PGA Tour’s season-ending FedEx Cup playoffs to start, and end, sooner.“If you poll all the players, I would think they would be happy about the way it is now,” Jordan Spieth, a three-time major winner, said this week. “We can finish our season in August and not compete with football. And then create a little bit of an off-season for ourselves.”Playing the P.G.A. Championship in the spring rather than the summer also allows the event to be played in more parts of the United States. Scheduling the tournament in August meant that areas of the country that experience especially hot summer conditions, which are ruinous to greens, could not stage a P.G.A. Championship. That eliminated wide swaths of the country.“We think the cadence of the schedule is just better for fans — better for players,” said Seth Waugh, the chief executive of the P.G.A. of America, which conducts the P.G.A. Championship. “Obviously it’s exhausting for them to go April, May, June, July, and then if this year you’ve got an Olympics. It’s a long grind.”The P.G.A. of America represents more than 28,000 teaching and club golf professionals nationwide who serve the recreational golfing public. More golf majors early in the year theoretically enhances overall interest in the sport. Said Waugh: “Our chance to kind of light the fire for the game in May is pretty significant.”In the end, Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters winner, thinks that tour players will be better adjusted to the new schedule after having done it a second time in 2021. He pointed to Brooks Koepka, who won two U.S. Opens and two P.G.A. Championships in a 26-month span beginning in 2017, as inspiration for his colleagues.“I look at it as a huge opportunity,” Scott said of the condensed schedule. “And I think seeing what Brooks has done from the schedule of winning a couple in really quick succession, or four in quick time — that’s what is possible if you can get on a roll.” More