It’s a great week for golf but, alas, I won’t be able to do much posting.  For the next few days, I’m afraid my focus and attention will be largely required elsewhere.  Pardon the interruption.

 

 Details when I can.  

So, is the Golf Association of Philadelphia making a bundle off the Philadelphia Open Championship at Pine Valley?

 

That’s the question I’ve gotten in a handful of emails, ever since it became clear that this year’s venue for the Open, Pine Valley, was going to attract more than the usual number of golfers trying to make it into the field of 72.

 

Most years, GAP conducts two or three qualifiers for the Open.  This year, because of the allure and mystic of Pine Valley, GAP increased it to four.

 

Just over 600 club pros and elite amateurs competed to try to claim one of the 41 spots up for grabs in the four qualifiers (31 players were exempted into the field).  According to GAP’s website, club pros paid an entry fee of $185, amateurs paid $135, for an average of $160 per player, multiplied by 600 .  Ballpark total: $96,000.

 

On Friday, I put the question to Mark Peterson, executive director of GAP: Is it the financial windfall it appears to be?  Where is the money going?

 

"There will be a little bit of overflow, but not at the level people think doing the calculations in their heads," said Peterson.

 

Fact is, said Peterson, on virtually all other years, GAP loses money on the Open.  Even with this year’s bump from Pine Valley, if you cost-average over the past five years, GAP still loses money on the Open.

 

"Year in and year out, we lose money on this event," said Peterson.   "We are going to break even this year and potentially make a little profit, but not at the level you presume."

 

The reason, he said, is the cost of putting on the Open, including the expense of spectator control (1,500 are expected) recruiting and feeding lunch to 150 volunteers who will work the event, plus coordinating emergency services with the township.

 

This year, GAP used some of the revenue from the qualifiers to increase the purse from $35,000 to $50,000.  (First place is $10,000, second is $6,500, third is $4,500).

 

At most GAP events, 100 spectators or less is the norm.  For the Open, they have sold 1,506 tickets (proceeds to the J. Wood Platt Caddie Scholarship Trust).

 

"When you conduct an event at Pine Valley, there are logistical things that don’t exits for a regional golf association," said Peterson.   "It is exponentially more difficult.

It’s holes-in-one for the entire family!

 

Hardly week passes that a course in the area doesn’t send me an email about a golfer who made a hole-in-one at their facility.  But this one, from Donna Horvath at Honeybrook GC, stood out from most.

 

All three family members of the Wren family, from Morgantown, have aced a hole at Honeybrook.  Mom Mary Wren is the latest.  Who’s next, the family dog?

 

Thanks to Donna for the following note on the Wrens:

 

One Family; Three Hole-in-ones

 

Honeybrook, PA –  In order to spend time together, many families share the same hobbies and interests. For three members of the Wren family from Morgantown it’s more than just a hobby. Thirteen-year-old RJ, his mother Mary and father Russ are all skilled golfers. Once or twice a week they golf together to bond and improve their game. And now, the Wren’s have achieved something never before done at their home course, Honeybrook Golf Club. Each family member got a hole-in-one.

 
In March of 2010, RJ Wren was the first member of his family to score an ace. While out golfing with his father Russ and two friends, RJ drove his ball onto hole 17’s green with a 5-wood and watched it roll right into the hole. He was only ten years old.

 
A year later in May 2011, his father Russ followed it up with the whole family there to witness. On a difficult par 3, with environmental hazards and

sand traps surrounding the green, Russ hit his 6-iron the perfect distance and received the family’s second hole-in-one.

 
The Wren’s weren’t satisfied yet. On June 15, 2012 it was Mary’s turn. On the exact same hole her husband completed in a single shot, Mary finished the family legacy with a 7-iron to receive her first hole-in-one ever (and the family’s third).

 
While RJ’s parents have mostly picked up golf for fun, RJ hopes to someday play college golf. He began golfing when he was 7 and has since won over 30 tournaments. He was two-time Philadelphia Jr. Player of the Year and was GAP (Golf Association of Philadephia) Boys’ Jr.-Jr. winner in 2011. This spring RJ qualified for the 2012 Kid’s World Championship Tournament at Pinehurst, NC. While RJ continues to improve his game and lower his 3-handicap, his contribution to the Wren’s three hole-in-ones won’t be the last history he makes.

After that win at the AT&T National, I’m officially giving up trying to figure out what to make of Tiger Woods and whether he is back or not, or whether he will break Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors.

 

I now peek at his career through my fingers, like it was a scary movie – everything is fine until suddenly somebody jumps out from behind a door and whacks you with an ax.

 

I’d much rather spend a time trying to figure out what the heck suddenly came over Joe Daley winning the Ford Senior Players Championship.   Joe, from Plymouth-Whitemarsh, has been a bridesmaid but never a bride for his entire pro career.  The guy has banged around the various tours for years, never complaining, just moving on to the next tournament, wherever he could get in the field.  A great guy who never quite got it done – and nobody could ever understand why, most of all him.

 

Even yesterday, as he marched up the 72^nd fairway with a stroke lead the victory his to blow, I squirmed in my chair, fingers crossed that something wouldn’t go horribly wrong.

 

It has happened before, you know.  Remember a few years ago when Joe got that horrible break at PGA Tour Q-School?  He was about to finally earn his card, when a short putt hit the back of the cup and popped out.  Jaws dropped.  No card.  Never seen anything like it, before or since.  At the time, I remember thinking, "That could only happen to Joe Daley."

 

Now the guy’s won a major on the Champions Tour.  You won’t find a more deserving guy.

 

Here’s a little video a nice column on Daley by Larry Dorman of the PGA Tour.

Whew, did Tiger Woods just do that?

 

Did he really get pretty much every sports fan in the world psyched up over the possibility of watching him work his magic of old at the U.S. Open, only to fizzle on the weekend without so much as a whimper.  I mean, watching him shoot 75-73 on Saturday and Sunday to become a non-factor, was embarrassing to watch.  Imagine what it must have been like for him.

 

In the old days, after failing to mount any kind of final-round change in the major, Tiger would have been seething, furious at himself.  But yesterday, in his post-round interview, it was as if the fight had gone out of him.  Tiger shrugged off mediocrity and defeat like he didn’t have a care in the world.

 

I hate to think this is the new Tiger.  I hate to think he can live with himself as a guy who slides down the leaderboard on Sunday.  I hate to think Tiger no longer has what it takes.

 

 

 

COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho -- Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had heard of the golf course with the floating green – not the island green, like the 17^th at TPC Sawgrass, but the floating  green.  But I had no idea it was in Northern Idaho, of all places, and I didn’t know it was at an upscale resort on a giant lake, Coeur d’Alene Resort and Hotel.

 

Now I know, and now I have played (bogeyed) the famous "floating green" at  Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, where a boat actually ferries you from tee to green, which on the recent day I was there was playing 175 yards (185 into the wind).

 

I came out here to Idaho a few days ago with a group of golf and travel writers.  We were brought together by Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel, in nearby Worley, so they could show off the $100 million upgrade to their casino, hotel, steakhouse, spa and their top-notch resort course, Circling Raven GC. 

 

To make the trip even more worthwhile, they threw in a round at the aforementioned Coeur d’Alene GC, plus a third round at another course about 90 minutes north, The Idaho Club Lake & Golf Retreat, a swanky affair with pricey mountaintop homes overlooking a Jack Nicklaus Signature Course.  When we weren’t on the golf course, we were treated to a couple of sumptuous dinners – the kind where the chef comes out and explains each course – and a deep-tissue massage at the spa.

 

There were seven of us writer types on the trip, mostly from the Western U.S. (San Diego, L.A., Portland) and western Canada (Calgary), because all three properties we visited pull most of their business from the West and Canada.   One writer in the group was from Michigan.  I was the token East Coaster.  Northern Idaho is hardly a destination for gamblers or golfers from Philadelphia but they extended the invitation and, hey, I’d never been to Idaho.

 

Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel

 

Back home in the heavily populated East, we might be inclined to describe the Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel as being out in the middle of nowhere.  Technically, it is out in the middle of nowhere, just off the cloverleaf near U.S. Route 95, which is not to be confused with I-95.

 

Here, they think of their casino/hotel as being a beacon of entertainment, gambling and quality golf free from the congestion and traffic gnarls of, say, Center City Philadelphia.  All I know is that your to get here, you fly into Spokane, WA., then hop a shuttle bus for the 40-minute ride to Worley, in the Idaho panhandle.

 

Naturally, I wondered why they call it Coeur d’Alene Casino Hotel if it’s in Worley, 27 miles from the town of Coeur d’Alene?  That’s because just about everything is called Coeur d’Alene, after the Indian tribe of the same name.  The land, the casino hotel and golf course are owned and operated lock, stock and barrel by the tribe.   Not so for the town of Coeur d’Alene nor the similarly-named resort hotel.

 

My fellow writers and I were in new part of the hotel, where suites are equipped with two big-screen TVs and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook a sort of botanical garden and preserve.  They told me that if I look out the windows long enough, I might eventually spot a moose or two.  I never did, although a moose did wander by one of our foursomes on the golf course.

 

I’m not a much of gambler so the casino downstairs was wasted on me.   I walked it several times on the way to a restaurant and the gift shop, however, and I couldn’t help but notice it had one of the best ventilation systems I’ve come across in any casino anywhere.  The cigarette smoke wasn’t that bad.

 

Circling Raven GC

 

A two-minute walk from my hotel room was Coeur d’Alene Casino Hotel’s golf course, Circling Raven.  I played it Monday afternoon, half-pooped from the long flight, and again Tuesday morning, when I was much fresher.

 

Designed in 2003 by Gene  Bates, design partner of Fred Couples, Circling Raven is spread out over a vast expanse of 620 acres.  It’s a terrific resort course, with generous, forgiving fairways, big easy-going greens and vistas of the Idaho countryside and mountains beyond.   There’s very little water to worry about and no beastly forced carries, assuming you play from the proper tees; in two rounds I lost only one ball, when I plunked a tee shot into an environmentally protected area.

 

I was not surprised to see that Circling Raven ranks 66^th on Golfweek’s 2012 list of Top 100 Resort Courses, or that Golf Digest ranks it among America’s 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses and Golf Magazine includes it among Top 100 Courses You Can Play.

 

Coeur d’Alene Resort and Hotel

 

I’d never been to Idaho before, but I imaged it would be full of rugged terrain, ski resorts, and craggy rock formations set against rich blue skies.  What I did not envision was a ritzy high-rise resort and spa on a 25-mile long lake with a marina like you see at the Jersey Shore.  Nor did I expect to find a $200-plus-a-round golf course that hugs the coastline of the lake, which is so deep the U.S. Navy supposedly uses it for submarine training and testing.

 

As pricey as it is, Coeur d’Alene Resort and Hotel attracts precisely the kind of affluent clientele you’d expect.  The golf course turned out to be not only much better than I expected, it was as immaculately groomed and conditioned as any course I can recall playing in years.  It’s one of those courses where you are required to take a cart and a forecaddie.  (The forecaddies wear those white Augusta National-like jump suits and dash around from ball to ball, with a laser gun.  By the time you get to your ball, your forecaddie has all the pertinent info: yardage, pin placement and recommendations about where to miss and where not to.

 

I must also say that in 50 years of playing golf, it was the first time I encountered custom-built carts, with tilted steering wheels, carpeted floors, tee dispensers, built-in trash cans and a hood that opened to reveal an ice chest and a place to store sandwiches and sodas.

 

The star of the course, obviously, is the par 3 14^th, which is billed as "the world’s only floating green."  Golf Channel did a story on it for Golf in America. The green is 15,800 square feet, weights 5 million pounds (give or take, depending on the moisture in the soil) and can be moved to play anywhere from 95 to 200 yards.  On average, they set it up at about 147 yards.

 

It’s a cool hole, obviously, if slightly gimmicky.  If you ask me, even without the 14^th, it’s a memorable round of golf.

 

The Idaho Club Lake and Golf Retreat

 

On our last full day, they piled us back into the shuttle bus for the 90-minute ride north  to the town of Sandpoint for a taste of Idaho that fulfilled every expectation I had.   If Coeur d’Alene Casino and Hotel is a getaway for casino day trippers, weekenders and "buddy" golf trips, and Coeur d’Alene Resort and Hotel is a vacation spot for couples and families with a few more bucks to blow, The Idaho Club Lake & Golf Retreat is the private playground for the moneyed class – at least that was the original idea.

 

It was clear from the moment the guard waved our bus through the gate, The Idaho Club was built to be a second club and getaway for people accustomed to living on Easy Street.  Photo gallery.

 

It’s got a first-class, rough-hewn Jack Nicklaus Signature Course that wends its way through the trees and streams, overlooked by multi-million dollar dotting the hillsides.  In the promotional brochure, The Idaho Club notes that the New York Times described Sandpoint as "Old West Atmosphere in a Sporting Paradise" and Rand McNally named it the "most beautiful small town in America."

 

All has not gone well for The Idaho Club.  Not long after they threw open the doors, the economy tanked, the housing market bottomed out and the golf boom fizzled.   Lawsuits flew, lenders foreclosed, then, if that wasn’t enough, the magnificent log cabin clubhouse burned to the ground. 

 

Still, The Idaho Club limps on, with a steely resolve and sunny outlook, if only about 75 members.    The people who own it and run it couldn’t be nicer.  They are convinced that times will get better and that The Idaho Club will live out its potential.  I wish them luck.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

If anyone is interested in starting a debate about what is the most-overlooked, under-appreciated course in the area, I hereby nominate White Manor CC.

 

I played there last week with a group of 25 or 30 course raters from Golfweek magazine and, so far as I could tell, every one of us came away highly impressed – a couple even mentioned being blown away. (Bausch Collection Photo Gallery)

 

I know that Bradley Klein, the architecture editor for Golfweek, was more than pleasantly surprised.  And after the round, over beers and conversation, I talked to raters in town from Chicago, upstate New York, Maryland and North Jersey who all wanted to know why White Manor, in Malvern, doesn’t get more talk and more respect on the Philadelphia golf scene?

 

I didn’t have a good answer, except to say it’s a tough league around here.

 

It’s not like I’m a stranger to White Manor; I’ve played 10 o 12 rounds there in the past 10 years.  I walked it but didn’t play it in the late 1990s, before the club brought in architect Bobby Weed (GC at Glen Mills) in 2002 to do a complete overhaul.  Boy, did he ever.

 

With the club’s approval, Weed took out hundreds of trees, transforming White Manor’s original early 1960s layout from tight, tree-lined corridors to a course with wide-open vistas.  Weed also shifted several green complexes, repositioned and rebuilt bunkers, and reimagined shot angles across the course.

 

In those days, White Manor one of a handful of predominantly Jewish country clubs in the area, along with Meadowlands, Green Valley, Radnor Valley and Philmont.  Not all the members at White Manor bought into the idea of the renovation, let alone the cost, and the club suffered an exodus of about 80 members.  There were concerns about the club’s future.

 

In 2003, when they unveiled the new-look course to much fanfare in the local media, I was fortunate enough to play the round with Weed, who painstakingly explained every change he made on every hole.  I remember liking the course, but nothing like I do now.  At the time, I didn’t have a full appreciation of the dramatic changes Weed and the club had pulled off.  Plus, it somehow felt too new in a city where the golf scene is largely defined and dominated by classic-era gems.

 

In the years since the renovation, White Manor has recouped many of the lost members; the club has also developed enormous pride in its course, with good reason.  No conversation with a White Manor member goes on too long before they ask: (a) What do you think of the course? (b) Why doesn’t it get the love we think it deserves?

 

Perhaps because of the love denied, White Manor members are constantly on the lookout for a tournament, a qualifier, an event --  anything that will get the course better known on the local and national stage.

 

Until my round last week, I thought they were largely kidding themselves.  Yes, White Manor is now first-rate, but even among modern courses, a couple of locals stood taller in my mind: Philadelphia Cricket’s Militia Hill course and The ACE Club.

 

Now, I’ve come to believe that White Manor gives nary an inch to either Militia Hill or ACE.  It has matured and evolved oh-so-nicely in nine years, and superintendent Donald Brown had the course groomed to perfection last week.

 

As much as the course has changed in nine years, so has the membership – it’s now 60 percent non-Jewish.  The golf chairman is a proud Irishman.

 

Whether White Manor has a shot to crack Golfweek’s list of Top 100 Modern Courses, I don’t know.   But I can say with certainty that it’s no longer a wallflower on the Philadelphia golf scene.