United States Golf Assn

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Golf

      U.S.G.A. Could Bar LIV Golf Players From Future U.S. Opens

      by

      “I’m struggling with how this is good for the game,” Mike Whan said of the Saudi-backed rival series that has lured aging stars like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson with big paydays.BROOKLINE, Mass. — Since last week, when multiple top golfers exposed a schism in the men’s professional game by spurning the established PGA Tour to join the upstart, Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit, the sport has been waiting for its power brokers to weigh in.The biggest prizes in golf, the events that shape legacies, generate top sponsorship dollars and are marked on every player’s calendar, are the major championships: the Masters Tournament, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the P.G.A. Championship. But none of those four events are governed by a professional tour, be it old or new. They are overseen by four distinct entities sometimes described as the four families of golf (insert organized crime joke here).These organizations are now the linchpins in the battle over the future of men’s pro golf. When the PGA Tour retaliated last week by suspending 17 players who had aligned with LIV Golf, the looming question was whether the major championships’ chieftains from Augusta National Golf Club (the Masters), the United States Golf Association (the U.S. Open), the R&A (the British Open) and the PGA of America (the P.G.A. Championship) would choose a side. Since they have long been allied with the recognized tours in the United States and Europe, would they snub the alternative LIV Golf Invitational series and exclude its players from their events?Phil Mickelson plays a shot from a bunker on the 16th hole during a practice round at the Country Club.Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesOn Wednesday, there was a partial answer and it could not have comforted renowned players like Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson, who have insisted they can still play the major tournaments while accepting the hundreds of millions of dollars being doled out by LIV Golf, whose major shareholder is the Private Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.While all LIV Golf-affiliated players who had already qualified for this week’s U.S. Open at the Country Club outside Boston have been welcomed, Mike Whan, the U.S.G.A. chief executive, said on Wednesday that his organization would consider ways that could make it more difficult for LIV Golf players to compete in the event in the future.Whan was asked if he could see a situation in which the LIV Golf players would find it “harder and harder” to get into the U.S. Open.“Yes,” he answered.Asked to elaborate, Whan said: “Could I foresee a day? Yeah, I could foresee a day.”Whan cautioned that the U.S.G.A. would not act rashly but would unquestionably “re-evaluate” its qualifying criteria.“The question was, could you envision a day where it would be harder for some folks doing different things to get into a U.S. Open?” he said. “I could.”There were other statements from Whan that did not sound like endorsements of the LIV Golf Invitational series, which held its inaugural tournament last weekend outside London and still lacks the support of the majority of top, and rank-and-file, PGA Tour players. But the breakaway circuit has surprisingly lured some leading players, most of whom had professed their loyalty to the United States-based PGA Tour just weeks, or days, earlier.“I’m saddened by what’s happening in the professional game,” Whan said. He continued: “I’ve heard that this is good for the game. At least from my outside view right now, it looks like it’s good for a few folks playing the game, but I’m struggling with how this is good for the game.”Whan, who was the longtime commissioner of the L.P.G.A. until he took over the U.S.G.A. last summer, also emphasized that it was essential for each of golf’s leaders to work cohesively when assessing what role LIV Golf would play.“We have to see what this becomes — if this is an exhibition or tour?” he said. “I’ve said this many times, I’ve seen a lot of things get started in the game, maybe nothing with this amount of noise or this amount of funding behind it, but I’ve also seen a lot of those things not be with us a couple years later.“One event doesn’t change the way I think about the future of the sport.”The PGA Tour suspensions “got our attention,” said Mike Whan, the U.S.G.A. chief executive, at a news conference.Rob Carr/Getty ImagesAnd significantly, when Whan was asked if suspensions imposed by the PGA Tour would get his attention when the U.S.G.A. was reassessing its criteria for future U.S. Opens, Whan swiftly replied: “They already did. It got our attention for this championship.”Whan’s comments come a month after Seth Waugh, the P.G.A. of America chief executive, stood firmly behind the PGA Tour, calling it a part of what he referred to as golf’s ecosystem.“Our bylaws do say that you have to be a recognized member of a recognized tour in order to be a PGA member somewhere, and therefore eligible to play,” Waugh said, speaking of the P.G.A. Championship.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Golf

      How Mike Whan Is Changing U.S. Golf

      by

      The new chief executive, who turned the L.P.G.A. into a thriving tour when he was its boss, is sprinting to advance the game.The United States Open is returning this week to the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., one of the five founding clubs of the United States Golf Association. It will be the club’s fourth U.S. Open. Its first, in 1913, when a 20-year-old amateur won, still lives in sports lore.The club has also hosted several United States Amateur and United States Women’s Amateur tournaments and a Ryder Cup. Founded in the 19th century, it has deep traditions.But this time around, the United States Golf Association, which chooses the clubs and organizes the U.S. Open and 13 other national championships each year, has at its helm a new chief executive who has cultivated a reputation for being the opposite of a traditionalist. The executive, Mike Whan, is a changemaker, in the parlance of the corporate marketing world he came up in.For 11 years before joining the U.S.G.A. last year, Whan was the commissioner of the L.P.G.A., taking it from a struggling U.S.-based entity to a thriving global tour with more events and more prize money.“He rebuilt the tour, and then reimagined its future, by bringing new events, new sponsors and a new value proposition around diversity and inclusion to the L.P.G.A.,” said Vicki Goetze-Ackerman, the L.P.G.A. Tour’s player president, when Whan stepped down. “He has that rare ability to get people of all ages and backgrounds excited and on board with his vision.”While the U.S.G.A. attracts criticism like any governing body, it has created a wildly lucrative event in the U.S. Open, the revenue from which funds most of the organization’s other championships and initiatives around turf grass and water conservation.Compared with the PGA Tour, the U.S.G.A. looks even better. The PGA Tour, whose playing privileges were long the goal of professional golfers, is fending off an attack on its status by the new Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf Invitational Series, which has lured away many players.Add in one more factor: Interest in golf from recreational players is still riding a post-pandemic high. If it’s not broke, as the saying goes, what does Whan have to fix?“Change is in the process,” Whan said in an interview at Merion Golf Club in Pennsylvania. “A 35-year-old Mike Whan would have changed everything. The 57-year-old Mike Whan says, ‘Where am I needed?’ I’m not needed on championship setup. That was Mike Davis’s specialty.”Davis was Whan’s predecessor, a 31-year veteran of the U.S.G.A. who served as its executive director and then chief executive. He pushed for changes to course setups and tried new things like different heights of rough and giving public courses, including Erin Hills in Wisconsin and Chambers Bay in Washington, a chance at hosting a U.S. Open.Davis was given credit for trying different approaches around the championships, some more successful than others, but also for investing in some of the less public research projects that the U.S.G.A. funds. But Davis was also criticized, for how he set up courses (too hard) and for how the association regulated equipment (not tightly enough).The U.S.G.A. plans to build a player pavilion at the Pebble Beach course, the first time it is making permanent improvements to a host site. Douglas Stringer/Icon Sportswire, via Getty Images“Their No. 1 job should be controlling the equipment,” said Alex Miceli, a longtime golf commentator, referring to the debate over the distance a pro can hit a ball. “The U.S.G.A. did a horrible job with that. It’s like the Federal Reserve saying, ‘Inflation is going to be transitory, inflation is going to be transitory, inflation is going to be transitory.’ Well, it isn’t.”Whan said in the interview that he had no interest in wading into the course setup debate. That’s the domain of John Bodenhamer, the association’s chief championships officer.“When I walked into a setup meeting, I said to John, ‘I’m not necessary here, and I might be a detriment,’” Whan said. “The only guidance I’ve given is once you have a plan or a strategy, don’t change it. Don’t let scores or the media change it. Athletes don’t want that. I know that from being the L.P.G.A. commissioner.”Yet when Whan came on board after last year’s U.S. Open, several senior U.S.G.A. executives left, with the chief commercial officer departing on Whan’s first day in charge and the chief brand officer leaving about a month later.Whan then did something that no association executive has done: He brought in a title sponsor for one of the organization’s marquee championships. The United States Women’s Open, which dates from 1946, is now the U.S. Women’s Open Presented by ProMedica. The partnership with the health care company nearly doubled the purse to $10 million. When the Australian golfer Minjee Lee won the championship this month, she took home a record $1.8 million first-place check.Whan said in the interview that his focus was on improving the important things the association did that no one saw.“On planes, I’d get the question, ‘What does the U.S.G.A. do?’” he said, pulling out a card with “U.S.G.A.” written down the side. “I came up with Unify, Showcase, Govern and Advance.”And for him the last one is a priority. “‘Advance’ was the big one that was missing,” he said. “We don’t want to preserve; we preserved croquet and that’s not good.”Big areas of investment are strategies to reduce water usage and to develop junior golfers that way other countries do.While Whan said he had no desire to tinker with the U.S. Open, he’s also not about to neglect the tournament that brings in around 75 percent of the organization’s revenue.“The key is not to take it for granted,” he said, drawing a comparison to professional bowling, which dominated weekend television time when he was a child, but has fallen off drastically. “If we take it for granted, there’s no reason we couldn’t end up like bowling.”He repeated an oft-told story about Jason Gore, a former PGA Tour player who is the senior director of player relations at the U.S.G.A. Where the players win their U.S. Opens matters, Gore told him.While the men’s side is sewed up with stern tests for the next decade, including Oakmont, Shinnecock Hills, Pebble Beach and Merion, Whan has made a push to have equally prestigious sites for the U.S. Women’s Open, with Riviera, Merion, Pinehurst and Pebble Beach on the roster.Securing these sites has come with U.S.G.A. investments. At Pinehurst, the association is building a second headquarters. At Pebble Beach, it is building a permanent player pavilion, which the course can use for other events. Taking a long-term view, the organization has done capital improvements to a host site; in the past it has put up and taken down structures.These initiatives are meant to make it easier for the U.S. Open, an immense logistical undertaking that ties up courses for months, to come back year after year. But it’s also to have sites host other events and work toward his goal of advancing other initiatives.“I don’t need U.S. Open partners,” Whan said. “I need partners in growing the game. We want to make sure these cathedrals of golf accept the responsibility to host not just the biggest and the most financially lucrative events.” More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Golf

      At This U.S. Open Venue, the 17th Hole Is Known for Drama

      by

      The Country Club in Massachusetts is a founding U.S.G.A. venue, and that hole has always provided drama, including an amateur’s U.S. Open win in 1913.One of the most important venues in American golf began as a place to watch amateur horse racing. Founded in 1882, the Country Club in Brookline, Mass, the site of this week’s United States Open, is one of the oldest clubs in America and one of five founding clubs of the United States Golf Association. Yet none of that might have happened if not for the niece of one its members.Florence Boit was visiting Pau, France, in 1894 when “she came across an old course built by Scottish soldiers in the 1850s,” said Fred Waterman, the club historian. When she returned to the United States, she introduced the game to her uncle Laurence Curtis, a member of the club who would become the second president of the U.S.G.A.Soon after Curtis introduced the game, several members, despite never having seen a proper golf course, laid out six rudimentary holes on the club’s grounds. While none of those holes remain today, the rugged and rocky terrain the course sits on set its character.Built on rock outcroppings and winding through ridges formed by glaciers, the Country Club is a creation wholly of its time, with a layout and surface that is challenging to golfers of all skill levels, including the best in the world.Since 2007, Gil Hanse has been the consulting architect at the club, and he said that, unlike similar courses of that era that were “fit into the landscape, the holes of the Country Club seem to have been draped on top of the land that was there.”Part of the course’s charm are its small greens, unlike most in major championship golf. Hanse has worked with the club to expand its putting surfaces where he was able, but players this week will be aiming at smaller targets than usual.The Country Club has a long history of hosting U.S.G.A. championships, beginning with the 1902 United States Women’s Amateur. Including this year’s Open, it has hosted 16 U.S.G.A. championships, one in every decade except for the 2000s.Francis B. Ouimet, center, with Harry Vardon, left, and Ted Ray at the U.S. Open in 1913. Ouimet, an amateur, defeated Vardon and Ray in a playoff.Associated PressA famous championship played at the club was the 1913 U.S. Open, when Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old amateur who grew up across the street, beat Ted Ray and Harry Vardon in a playoff victory. Ouimet’s win catapulted golf’s popularity in the United States. Waterman said that, in the 10 years after Ouimet’s victory, the United States went from having 340,000 golfers to 2.1 million.It wasn’t Ouimet’s amateur status alone that made him golf’s folk hero at the time. He caddied at the club and took up the game using balls he found around the course and his brother’s clubs. He would often hit balls in a pasture at his own makeshift course. Ouimet’s unlikely victory and humble origins were chronicled by the writer Mark Frost in his book “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”In the 1913 playoff, the three golfers came to the 17th hole with its green sitting only 275 yards away from Ouimet’s childhood home and Vardon down one. Ray was already out of contention. Vardon tried to cut the corner of the dogleg left hole, but came up short, his ball landing in a bunker that now bears his name.This allowed Ouimet to take a more conservative route right of the bunker. Unable to reach the green, Vardon splashed out and then shot a bogey, while Ouimet went on to birdie the hole and take a three-stroke lead. He breezed home from there.Ouimet, who died in 1967, had a distinguished amateur career, winning the 1914 United States Amateur. In 1951, he became the first non-Briton elected captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. He never turned pro.Fifty years later, when the U.S.G.A. returned to the club to honor Ouimet’s win, the 17th hole again proved pivotal. Arnold Palmer missed an 18-inch putt that put him two strokes behind the leader, Jacky Cupit.“Cupit didn’t know he had a two-stroke lead on Palmer, and he told me if he had, he would have hit an iron off the tee and played to the middle of the fairway,” Waterman said.Instead, thinking he needed to reach for more, Cupit hit a three-wood, landing in the long grass next to the Vardon bunker, but not in it. He made double bogey on the hole to tie with Palmer and Julius Boros. Cupit still had a chance when he arrived at the 18th green and the 72nd hole of the championship, but he missed a 15-footer “by one inch,” Waterman said. He and Palmer lost to Boros in the playoff.Justin Leonard was mobbed by the American team during the Ryder Cup in 1999 after sinking a birdie putt from over 40 feet on the 17th hole at the Country Club.Craig Jones /Allsport, via Getty ImagesThe three U.S. Opens played at the club have gone to a playoff, and the 17th has always provided the drama. “It’s a match-play hole in a stroke-play event,” Waterman said, causing the golfer to consider his opponent especially down the stretch rather than just allowing the golfer to play his own game.In the 1988 Open, Curtis Strange three-putted the green, forcing himself to fall back into a tie, but he won the playoff the next day for the first of his two consecutive U.S. Open wins. The 17th also provided the 1999 Ryder Cup with a frenzied celebration after Justin Leonard made a putt from over 40 feet to win the hole against José Maria Olazábal, causing the American team and its fans to flood the green.The Country Club has provided a lot of drama. Frost, the author, said he believed that something else was at work at the club.“The course is an enduring American classic perfectly designed for dramatic finishes,” he said, “but my more mystical side thinks Francis might have something to do with it.” More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Golf

      If Mickelson Bolts for Saudi-Backed Tour, Will Young Golfers Follow?

      by

      Mickelson, one of the game’s most popular players, has simultaneously spent nearly three decades vexing the sport’s leadership, while collecting nearly $100 million in earnings.It is hardly a surprise that Phil Mickelson is playing the provocateur in the growing drama over a proposed, breakaway Saudi Arabia-backed golf league that hopes to lure top professional golfers from the long-established PGA Tour. Mickelson, one of the game’s most popular players, has simultaneously spent nearly three decades vexing the sport’s leadership, whether it has been the august United States Golf Association or the PGA Tour, from whom Mickelson has collected nearly $100 million in career earnings.So Mickelson’s pedigree as a freethinking firebrand is well established. But even that reputation could not have forecast the striking comments attributed to him when discussing the proposed Super Golf League, whose main source of funding is the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, a sovereign wealth fund worth more than $400 billion.In an interview for an unauthorized biography to be released in May, Mickelson told journalist Alan Shipnuck, the book’s author, that he knew of the kingdom’s “horrible record on human rights,” but was willing to help the new league because it was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to dramatically increase PGA Tour players’ income.In a story posted on “The Firepit Collective” golf website, Shipnuck quoted Mickelson as saying the Saudi authorities were “scary,” and used a profanity to describe them. He 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 it is punishable by death.“We know they killed Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights,” Mickelson was quoted as saying. “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.”Mickelson’s main target was Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, who he claimed would help players financially only if forced to do so. The upstart league, Mickelson said, gave the players new leverage. Earlier this month, in an interview with Golf Digest, Mickelson castigated the tour for its “obnoxious greed.”For Mickelson, who is 51 and a six-time major champion, his remarks will likely only further isolate him from the young golfers rising in the sport. For the most part, these new kingpins of golf have pledged their allegiance to the PGA Tour, which has vowed to suspend any player aligning with the alternative league., with lifetime expulsion from the PGA Tour also a possibility.Thursday at the Genesis Invitational, a tour event being played near Los Angeles, Justin Thomas, who is eighth in the men’s world golf rankings and active in helping set tour policies, was unsparing when discussing Mickelson.“Seems like a bit of a pretty, you know, egotistical statement,” Thomas said. Referring to Mickelson and any other players who want to defect from the tour, Thomas, 28, added: “If they’re that passionate, go ahead. I don’t think anybody’s stopping them.”While no tour golfer has committed to the upstart league, a few golfers, most of them over 45, have been noncommittal about it and offered mild praise for some elements proposed by the rival league, like fewer tournaments and appearance fees at events that are paid to top golfers regardless of how they perform on the golf course.But the split with the golfers born after 1985 could not be more conspicuous.Rory McIlroy, at the Genesis Invitational on Wednesday, said he is “so sick” of hearing about the Saudi-backed tour.Cliff Hawkins/Getty ImagesRory McIlroy, a four-time major winner, called the proposed new golf circuit “the not so super league.” He added: “I’m so sick of it.”McIlroy, 32, also suggested that it was only older players past their prime looking for a hefty payday who are weighing an exit from the PGA Tour.“I can maybe make sense of it for the guys that are getting to the latter stages of their career, for sure,” he said. “But I don’t think that’s what a rival golf league is really. That’s not what they’re going to want, is it? They don’t want some sort of league that’s like a pre-Champions Tour.”The Champions Tour is a scaled-down, separate wing of tournaments within the PGA Tour umbrella that is open to golfers more than 50 years old.“You’ve got the top players in the world saying ‘no,’ so that has to tell you something,” McIlroy said.Jon Rahm, the top-ranked men’s golfer, was also dismissive of the proposed league.“I don’t do this for the money, which to me is the only appeal to go over there,” Rahm, 27, said. “They throw numbers at you and that’s supposed to impress people. I’m in this game for the love of golf and the love of the game and to become a champion.”Perhaps the hottest young star, Collin Morikawa, 25, shook his head when asked where he stands on the potential for a new league.“I’m all for the PGA Tour, my entire life I’ve thought about the PGA Tour,” Morikawa, who has won two major championships in the last two years, said. “I’ve never thought about anything else; it’s always been the PGA Tour.”Many other players have expressed support for the PGA Tour, most notably the golfer who served as the idol for nearly all the young players now rising to the top of tour leaderboards.“I’m supporting the PGA Tour,” Tiger Woods said emphatically late last year when asked about the proposed venture. “That’s where my legacy is.”When pressed, Woods looked almost annoyed and insisted he had no interest in listening to discussions about a rival league.Tiger Woods, at the 2020 Masters tournament, has spoken in strong support of the PGA Tour.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAdam Scott, who is 41 and the 2013 Masters champion, did not close the door to joining the Saudi-backed league when asked about it this week. In the last decade, Scott has significantly reduced his playing schedule and fallen to No. 46 in the men’s rankings. Lee Westwood, who is 48 and a 25-time winner on the European Tour, said earlier this month that he had signed a nondisclosure agreement and could not discuss the projected new league.But most pros on the PGA Tour do not seem to expect a major disruption of the status quo.Pat Perez, an outspoken tour journeyman, believes Woods’s voice — not surprisingly — carries the most weight. The modern tour, after all, was built on the back of Woods’s towering successes. Perhaps one could consider this another chapter in the longstanding Mickelson-Woods rivalry.“I think the way Tiger’s approaching it is phenomenal,” Perez, 45, said Thursday. “He understands where he made all his money. I think these young kids, they’re backing Tiger. What he says is pretty much gold.”Perez continued: “If you don’t have the top kids doing it, I just don’t know how much water it’s going to hold.” More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Golf

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

      by

      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

    • 75 Shares179 Views

      in Golf

      Annika Sorenstam Reflects on Her Career

      by

      She was one of the best golfers of her generation, winning 10 majors. At 50, she has started playing again.Annika Sorenstam was one of the best golfers of her generation when she retired from competitive golf in 2008 at age 38. She had won 94 times around the world, including 10 major championships, and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2003. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Golf

      Mike Davis Reflects on Running the U.S.G.A.

      by

      As chief executive of the United States Golf Association, he kept a close eye on the game he loves. Now he’s set to retire.The head of the United States Golf Association is among the most powerful figures in golf. Mike Davis’s retirement as the organization’s chief executive a week after this year’s United States Open — his 32nd — provides a moment to look back for the game of golf.Davis, who played college golf, has worked for golf’s governing body in America for nearly his entire career. He is proud of the organization’s accomplishments that go beyond golf championships, which include the U.S. Open and six other events.Davis, who became executive director in 2011 and chief executive in 2016, has thrown the organization’s influence behind programs that have expanded the game to children, including First Tee, and increased the participation of women in the sport, with Girls Golf.But Davis, 56, is also proud of what the U.S.G.A. has done for the maintenance of golf courses, like water conservation and grass research, all with an eye on the environmental impact and cost savings. As recognition, the organization’s Turfgrass Environmental Research Program is being renamed the Mike Davis Program for Advancing Golf Course Management.None of this would be possible if the U.S. Open were not a success. It brings in 75 percent of all the organization’s $200 million in annual revenue. And Davis has kept a keen eye on ensuring the financial stability of that major, starting when he was part of the U.S.G.A.’s decision in 1993 to bring all matters surrounding the U.S. Open in house.Davis, who plans to form the golf architecture firm Fazio & Davis Golf Design with the course designer Tom Fazio II, will be replaced by Mike Whan, commissioner of the L.P.G.A. Tour.The following interview has been edited and condensed.Mike Davis is stepping down as chief executive of the United States Golf Association a week after the United States Open.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesWhat did you before joining the U.S.G.A. in 1990?I worked in Atlanta with a firm that did commercial real estate. Out of the blue one day I got a call from Mike Butz, who was then the No. 2 at the U.S.G.A., under David Fay. Mike and I had grown up in the same hometown in [Chambersburg] Pennsylvania, but I didn’t know him well. He said we have an opening at the U.S.G.A. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to do it. I remember driving up and seeing Golf House [U.S.G.A. headquarters]. It was an image ingrained in my mind since the 1970s. I took the job.What was your first job at the association?I got hired with a focus on championships. I was a kid in a candy store. It wasn’t just meeting people like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Seve Ballesteros. It was getting to see the country’s great courses. That was truly as meaningful to me as meeting some of the greats in the game. At the same time, I got involved in the Rules of Golf. When I got good with the governance, when I got good putting on events like the U.S. Open, when I got comfortable inside the ropes, that was a turning point. Still, if it’s the U.S. Open and a rules situation comes up, there’s pressure. In 1993, at Baltusrol, I got called in for a second opinion. The player in question was Ballesteros, one of my heroes. We were denying him relief. I upheld the ruling. You have those memories that involved great players and lots of pressure.You’re known for how you set up championship courses differently. What influenced you?I remember going to the 1980 U.S. Open at Baltusrol with my dad. On that Friday, Keith Fergus hit his ball on the fifth hole just barely into the rough on the right side. I watched Fergus swing, and he moved his ball five feet. His fellow competitor had hit a horrible shot that was so far off line, out by the rope line where the grass was trampled down, that he had a better lie. He then knocked it 15 feet from the hole. I turned to my dad and said, I know golf is random, but that’s unfair. In my tenure we moved the rope lines out more. It wasn’t spectator friendly, but it kept the championship pure. Then we introduced graduated [lengths of] rough. It allowed the players to showcase their shotmaking skills. There had been this template for U.S. Open courses — narrow fairways, high rough and fast greens. We wanted to move teeing grounds around more and showcase the architecture. We wanted to penalize bad shots and reward good ones, but we also wanted to see players think more about the clubs they were using. It introduced a lot of course management.Mike Davis became the U.S.G.A.’s executive director in 2011 and chief executive in 2016.Jeremy M. Lange for The New York TimesThe U.S.G.A. has always attracted criticism. What criticism during your time was justified?No doubt, we made our fair share of mistakes. One of the biggest examples was what happened with Dustin Johnson at the U.S. Open at Oakmont in 2016 [when he was assessed a one-shot penalty for his ball moving — seven holes after the infraction]. Then there’s criticism around governance. When we said we’re not going to allow anchoring of putters [steadying the handle against the stomach], people got angry. It’s the same thing with distance. If we think it’s in the best interest of the game, we’ll act. Governance isn’t easy. You have to think long term, and then you just take the punches.What did you like the most about your time leading the association?I liked setting up championships and governance. We were willing to take on some tough issues, and we weren’t always right.How did course design become your next career?Going back to my junior days, I’ve had this fascination with golf courses. One of the things I got to do with the U.S.G.A. is see most of the world’s great golf courses. This had been in the back of my mind. I don’t know if I’m going to be good at it, but I’m going to be passionate about it.Any chance you’ll enter a senior amateur tournament?I don’t think so. I was probably at my best as a junior golfer. College golf, I wasn’t quite as good. I won a few things nationally, but I didn’t qualify for any U.S.G.A. competitions. I’m still a 5 handicap. But there’s a huge difference between being a 5 handicap and a scratch golfer. I will start playing in club championships again, which I haven’t done in 25 years. More