Three years ago, the prospect of Tiger Woods melting down during a final round when he was in the hunt for a title would have been unthinkable.  He was the dominator, peerless in the lead. Now, in the aftermath of his well-chronicled fall from grace, Woods can’t seem to hold himself together in the final round anymore, plagued as much by a balky putter as by ... Read more

Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y. has selected Jon Jennings to be their new golf course superintendent, Shinnecock general manager Greg Deger confirmed. The hiring has been rumored in the golf turf industry for the better part of the last month. Jennings, a Connecticut native, was most recently the head golf course superintendent Chicago Golf Club where he hosted the 2005 Walker Cup. Shinnecock ... Read more

It’s déjà vu all over again: Although the writers at The A Position made a mess of things predicting the top golf stories of 2011, they’re taking another shot this year. A year ago, when most people were recovering from New Year’s hangovers, the members of the leading golf/travel website were guaranteeing that Rickie Fowler and Dustin Johnson would win majors (they didn’t), the Champions ... Read more

It’s looking like 2011 is going to be one of the worst years for golf course superintendent firings in recent memory. Already a number of high-profile golf clubs, mostly in the Northeast, have axed or allowed their superintendent to depart. The two biggest names to get let go were Mark Michaud, the long-time superintendent at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, and Matthew Burrows at Winged Foot Golf ... Read more

Every once in awhile I receive an email that brings equal amounts of surprise and wonder. I don’t know how he tracked me down, but last week, a retired 70-year-old in Wilmington, Del. sent me a brief note. “I finished the top 100 courses,” it read. “Thanks for writing the book. I enjoyed it and the courses. There a story today (Sept. 22) in the Monterey Herald.” ... Read more

Following his 18th green heroics on Sunday, when he sunk a 12-foot birdie putt to force a playoff, George Von Elm (above right) and Billy Burke (left) rejoined their  battle royale Monday morning. For the first time during the 1931 U.S. Open Championship, after 72 holes of golf (normally enough to decide a winner), the two combatants played alongside one another, head to head, and ... Read more

A dapper, big-hitting Utah native, who went by the nickname Gix, George Von Elm is one of those curiously recurring characters who isn't particularly well known but nevertheless continues to crop up as one leafs through the pages of golf history. He won the U.S. Amateur at Baltusrol in 1926, for example, defeating the great Bobby Jones, who had claimed the two previous titles (besting ... Read more

      Several events and turns thereof have me thinking of the 1931 U.S. Open, held way back when at The Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio. This was site of July’s U.S. Senior Open Championship, of course, won by Olin Browne. What’s more, I was in the Midwest, some 2-3 hours west of Toledo, just prior to the Senior Open — I can vouch personally that there’s ... Read more

No extended piece about Ben Hogan can go on for long without mentioning the car wreck in February of 1949 that nearly ended his life, but surely elevated the rest of his career into the stuff of legend. Not that the Dublin, Texas native hadn’t already begun burnishing the Hogan Mystique with his play before the accident. (And has the word “mystique” ever been applied to ... Read more

The U.S. Senior Open revisits the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio this week. Most tenderly-aged avid golfers remember remnants of the story of the ‘Hinkle Tree’ from the 1979 U.S. Open at the Inverness Club. For those who weren’t around, the story goes like this: While waiting to tee off on the eighth hole in the first round at Inverness, a fairly long par five, he ... Read more