And each of them left an indelible imprint.  To this day, even though most golfers never laid eyes on any of them, their personalities stand as archetypes.   Nelson is the supreme technician, the mechanical man (and the namesake of the USGA’s ball testing device, Iron Byron); Snead is the ultimate natural, the hillbilly blessed with nonpareil athletic ability; Hogan is the single-minded perfectionist whose passion, discipline, and commitment finally yielded a measure of command that remains a standard — and a mystery.

Three utterly different individuals, but their stories are braided together like the strands of a rope.   Golf history buffs won’t find many new revelations in “American Triumvirate,” but by telling the stories side-by side, Dodson creates a fresh perspective.  He shows how much they competed with one another, and how their stories reveal the mood and spirit of a country as it moved through a Great Depression and a World War into an era of power and prosperity.

It makes so much sense to write about these three golfers together that you will wonder why it took so long for this book to get written, and wny “American Triumvirate” isn’t a standard phrase in the lexicon on golf, as familiar as Grand Slam.  It certainly has more heft and meaning than various efforts to promote groups like the Big Three or, more recently, the Big Five.   Those phrases were marketing tools, coined for promotional purposes, but Dodson is doing something far more substantial.  He’s asking his readers to reflect on the way that American golf achieved its shape and character.

All three golfers were, in the richest sense of the term, self-made men.  They all started as caddies, and they all developed their golf game without the benefit of the coaches, schools, psychologists, gurus, and hovering parents that seem to surround every promising young golfer today.   As Hogan famously said, he had to “dig his game out of the dirt.”   Even though all three golfers at different times held coveted positions as pros at prosperous clubs, the golf environment of mid-century America seems to have been healthy and democratic, with interest in the game at all levels of society.

Hogan, Nelson, and Snead all became rich and famous; their stories and personalities resonated with other Americans who came from similar backgrounds, and who’d left their own small towns to pursue success in a country that was discovering itself as a world power.    In “American Triumvirate,” the routes they travel, driving coast-coast in their Buicks and Cadillacs, crisscrossing the country on two-lane roads, show a country that is emerging from regionalism into a larger sense of its identity as a nation — and these three iconic golfers contributed to that identity.

Dodson describes the high and lows of their careers, and the evolution of their swings — the swings that have served as models for generations of golfers.  And though he doesn’t make the case implicitly, many readers will conclude, as I did, that the way they played the game left a legacy just as important.   Their individuality and integrity, their respect for each other and for the game itself,  were exemplary.    They played hard, they played fair, and they showed America that champions could come from any background in any corner of the country.

I am just old enough to remember stories of these golfers. My grandfather, who wasn’t a golfer himself, was the first who told me about them — about Slammin’ Sam the hillbilly, about the way that Hogan had thrown himself in front of his wife when he realized that they were about to be hit by a bus, about Nelson’s steak.   He described them as heroes, and that impression has remained.  Today, it’s a lot harder to find heroes in any sport, and some books have the effect of tearing heroes down.   In “American Triumvirate,” Dodson makes his readers understand that these golfers were flawed and limited, like all human beings.  But in their devotion to a game and their will to succeed, to develop their natural talents along the lines of excellence, they were heroic, and they were bred-in-the-bone Americans.

I sat stunned in a Russian-owned Laundromat in Burlington, Ontario, following the first round of the Canadian Tour qualifier. I’d just shot an 81 in what felt like a monsoon.  Outside it was raining hard.  I could think of many low moments in my career as a professional golfer.  I once shot an 88 in U. S. Open local qualifying, prompting the USGA to send me a letter verifying I was in fact good enough to compete in the following year’s event.  In a Golden State Tour event after I had gotten myself into the hunt with a first round 69 I almost had a full-on panic attack, missing short putts until my entire body was shaking and my head was pulsing with fear and anxiety. While holding a one shot lead on the 18^th tee, I hit my tee shot so far to the right it went soaring past an out of bounds stake I didn’t even realize was there.

But on this day I was feeling the disappointment in a very different way.  Two thousand miles away from my pregnant wife and 3 year old son, the word dejected did not quite fit.  I had a sense of finality about my career, and gasp, my life that I had never before felt.  My play over the summer had been the best of my career.  I am a different breed of golfer in that I’d come late to competitive golf.  I turned pro at age 30.  After playing baseball my entire life and through college at Northwestern University I decided I could play this game instead.  Now I am 35, gasp again, playing with 25 year olds who have been playing competitively since they were kids.  I bring this up not only because it is a constant reminder of my place in the world but more because I have noticed a different attitude between these young kids and those of us who have come to the game later in life or through a different path.  The young guys are fearless and tournament golf brings about a sense of pressure for them that is comforting.  The older players, like me, oscillate between playing fearlessly and cautiously, letting the state of their game on that day dictate their attitude.

Playing baseball, the sport I started playing as soon as I could throw, I can remember being unaffected and in the moment as the pressure built.  The same was true when I played basketball in high school. In both those sports, I went through a natural progression that got me to a place where being on the field was like driving a car.  The process is akin to raising children.  You look at your 3 year old and then at a 15 year old and think there is no way I can be a parent to that adolescent monster. But you don’t have to be a parent to that monster tomorrow.  Your child grows up and you grow up with him and when the time comes you are equipped to deal with the monster.

These young kids are equipped to deal with the monster but –to carry out the analogy– I have spent the better part of my career trying to tame the monster without ever learning how to change a diaper.  While I learned a lot in a short and intense period of time, I was basically unprepared to deal with the pressures of tournament golf when I turned pro.  In addition there are a slew of real world problems and pressures younger golfers don’t have to deal with.  Never mind the logistical nightmare I face on a weekly basis scheduling my life around childcare and a wife who works full time.  What I am talking about is the mental stress of time going by.

In most careers, it is natural and necessary to think about your professional progress, but on the golf course it can be a disaster.  For me personally it becomes difficult, especially in the midst of a bad round, NOT to think about my place in the world and “idea” of a 35 year old struggling touring pro.  So in addition to all the sports psych mumbo jumbo of committing to the routine, staying in the moment, and making fearless swings-which I believe in 110%-players like myself have other pressures or fears standing as obstacles to playing high level golf.

That was why I felt so stunned at the Russian laundromat that rainy afternoon, because for the last 3 months I had played golf like I played baseball.  I had worked so hard on my mental game and it was paying off.  Really, for the first time in my career I was playing very consistent and very good golf.  More importantly the strategies I was using to deal with the stress were proving to be very effective and the game was feeling like less of a chore.  My scoring average for the year was under par and I was consistently cashing checks.  In 20 competitive rounds on the Golden State tour, Dakotas tour and U.S. Open qualifying I posted 14 at par or better and 8 in the 60’s including a 62. Qualifying for the Canadian Tour was my goal, and I had raised enough money to pay the entry fee and make the trip.

I can’t remember feeling more confident than I was on that Monday morning in Ontario.  The weather was bad, however, and my tee time was worse.  We played the front nine in high winds and spitting rain.  On the back the wind let up a little but the rain intensified.  Despite my umbrella and club cover and hundreds of dollars worth of rain gear I was soaked thru by hole 12.  Despite wearing rain gloves, my hands were, cold, slippery, and ineffective by the 15^th.   Even so, it was possible to play decently.  My playing partner shot even par but I couldn’t keep it together.

The woman who owned the laundromat yelled at me as I transferred my clothes from the washer into another washer that seemed to be disguised as a dryer.  She yelled at me again as I tried to put a toonie into the machine instead of a loonie.  In Canada you can get a handful of change that is worth like $17.  I couldn’t figure out what coins to use, but I was thinking very clearly.  I was finished playing golf competitively.  I was going to finish the event and go home and get a job.  Maybe I could find what I was looking for in a different place.  Surely if I approached a different endeavor with the same amount of effort and relentlessness as I did with golf I would be successful and happy.  I was already happy, my family was happy, and I didn’t want to lose that.  But I wanted professional satisfaction, not the kind of frustration I felt that night.

I went to the range the next morning actually feeling confident and having a rare moment of clarity.  It’s not that hard to shoot 65,I thought.  The feeling was quickly dashed by maybe the worst warm up of my life.  I was hitting it left, right, fat, and skinny.  I literally had NOTHING.  I contemplated getting in my rental car and leaving. I hit a few putts then ran back to the range to hit 2 more shots.  I hit a snap hook and a block slice almost into the road.  A friend of mine was next to me, and from the twisted expression on his face I knew what he was thinking, “you poor sad little man”.  I told him to play well and made off for the first tee.

No doubt I had a crazy look in my eye when I arrived to the tee.  My  brain was scattered and my heart was thumping.  One of the things I like to do to calm down is have conversations with myself.   That morning my conversation went something like this: Self, you have no idea what you’re doing right now, you haven’t hit a good shot since the 10^th hole yesterday, scrap whatever you were doing on the range and just get as relaxed as you possibly can.

Nervousness gave way to a calm and I hit a decent shot. I mean it was left of the trees guarding the left side of the fairway but it was in play.  I hit my next one right of the green and hit a poor chip to 15 feet.  I fought back the urge to roundhouse kick my bag and stayed relaxed.  When I made the putt, I was on my way.

What ensued was the most laid back, stress free 66 of my life. Every moment of tension I countered by telling myself my goal was to be as relaxed as possible.  The highlight of the round came on the short par 5 14th.  I drove into the left rough leaving 205 to green guarded by water hard on the front, and I’d have to hit my approach into a hard right to left wind.  The lie was well below my feet and bad enough that I considered laying up even though I had a perfect yardage. After some deliberation I decided that this was a time to be aggressive.  I launched a 4 iron directly at the stick, the sidehill lie and the wind cancelled each other out, and it never left the flag, coming to rest 3 feet from the hole.  On my card I had 3 birdies to go along with that eagle and no bogeys (par was 71).

I gave some shots away but who cares? I was back into the event, somewhat, and more importantly, I wanted to play golf again.

The next day the tee times were moved up and players were going off both number 1 and number 10 because of the potential for weather that afternoon.  This irked me.  Those of us with late tee times on day 1 had to deal with foul weather-why shouldn’t the leaders on day 3 have to as well?  The official reason was that the forecast was much worse on day 3.  In spite of my narcissistic feeling that I was getting hosed I did realize the tournament director did not have a vendetta against me. As a professional golfer, you just have to accept that sometimes the weather works in your favor and sometimes it does not.  Over the course of a lifetime or a year it all evens out.

In any case I did my best to approach round 3 with the same attitude as I did the day before and after blocking my opening shot from the 10^th tee off the map to the right I strolled down the fairway as though my ball was in the middle of it.  I found my pellet and actually had a wide open look at the green.  A perfect 7 iron to about 15 feet and a holed putt got the day started with a birdie.  Another good round of 68 basically stress free.  I carded one bogey against 4 birdies.  The only downer was that I shot 3 under on my first 9 and had a good chance to shoot a great score.  Unfortunately I made 9 pars on the second nine.  Still, I had moved into the top 25 after being second to last on the first day and the impossible dream was still alive.

I was beginning to think it could happen and it would happen.  I started to imagine the phone calls I would make and the story I would tell my wife and friends, what an improbable comeback!!!! Then I looked at myself in the mirror and said,  Shut the bleep up, you haven’t done anything yet.  You’re not even close to where you want to be, get some control over yourself buddy.

In the sports psychology business this is called “story telling”.  It usually occurs on the course but it can happen anywhere.  As your round is falling apart you begin to spin the tale in your head detailing the terrible shots you hit and the bad breaks you got as if you were talking to a friend on the putting green.  In most cases you repeat that tale hours later to people who have no desire to hear about the perceived injustices you were dealt on the course.  But we do it anyway, almost all of us. Somehow it makes us feel a little better to get it out.  In this case, though, I was getting way ahead of myself.  It could only do harm. The trick is to catch it early and get focused on something that is happening at that exact moment.  So I picked up the book I was reading and got lost in it until I fell asleep.

I knew I needed to shoot something in the 60’s to have a chance at qualifying.  There were 14 spots and ties available.  The ties aspect makes the target number very difficult to judge.  Sometimes 14 people on the button make it through, sometimes one player makes a late bogey and ties 10 other players for that 14^th spot getting them all in.

I just knew I needed something low.  I started well but couldn’t make a putt.  I had one birdie on the front 9, a kick in from a foot after my only really good wedge shot of the week.  After a ten foot downhill putt for par on 9 and my first and only fist pump of the week, I made the turn at one under for the day and one over for the week.  Even though I missed some birdie opportunities on that side I was feeling quite confident.  I had shot 33 on the back each of the previous 2 days and felt decidedly more comfortable on those 9 holes.  Still the pressure of needing to make birdies began to build, and it was hard not to press.  I left a 30 foot birdie putt about ten feet short on 11, a  three putt bogey would have knocked me into orbit.  I holed the ten footer, internal fist pump.

I made a par on 12 followed by a good approach on 13 to about 20 feet directly above the hole.  It was a straight down hill putt with a foot of break from left to right.  I hit it purely, best putt of the day no doubt.  I had time to think about it because it was moving so slowly.  When it was 3 feet away, it was in the center, and then it started wobbling a touch to the right.  Hold your line hold your line, please go in you mother 3$#$%#$#$!!!!!……..

In the last 5 inches it drifted another degree, and even though it was barely moving, going perfect cup speed, the ball rolled over the right edge took a slight peek in the hole and ever so slowly hooked left around the back of the cup and out. Stomach punch.

No worries.   The reachable par five 14^th was next and I smoked a drive right down the center.  192 to the hole with water short and wind blowing hard from right to left.  I waffled on the club selection, I if I hit a draw with a 7 iron it was enough but if I missed it at all it was wet.  The 6 was the club unless I hit a draw in which case it would sail well over the green.  That was not a good spot with a green sloping severely from back to front.  Of course the water short of the green was no good either.

I hit the 6 and cut it a little bit too much.  The ball was up in the air but because it was cutting it was fighting the wind and losing energy.  Anyone who plays a lot of golf knows the feeling, staring at the pellet hoping against hope that somehow it will clear the hazard, all the while knowing with 100% certainty that it will not.  The golfer knows how the shot was struck, can feel every little nuance of the club to ball relationship, and knows the balls fate well before splashdown.  Its rather amazing actually considering we are hitting a tiny ball with a club to a target hundreds of yards away.

On that shot I knew.  I was not surprised to see the splash, and I immediately weighed the consequences. Was it over? Did I still have a chance? Of course I did.  I dropped, wedged onto the green, and had an experience identical to the one on the 13^th- downhill putt, perfect speed, in the hole until the last second.  It curled out resulting in the familiar punch to the gut.

It was the first bogey of the day.  I recorded good pars on 15,16,17.  The wind was blowing hard and these typically easy holes were not playing that way.  18 is another par 5 with a very narrow green, reachable in 2 but playing dead into the wind.  I thought maybe an eagle and an even par finish for four rounds would give me a chance to move on.

After a good drive I was left with 225 dead into the wind.  I hit a perfect shot, a missile hybrid that fought through the breeze and came to rest 15 feet below the hole.  I told myself that I deserved to make the putt and went through my routine.  It was a decent putt that missed on the low side.

When the score were posted it didn’t matter.  Even an eagle would not have mattered.  I missed qualifying by 3 shots.  Exactly 14 players had made it, shooting 2 under par or better.  Even after I signed my card and realized that I was going to miss, I felt a sense of pride that wouldn’t allow me to go to a bad place.  I wasn’t able to come all the way back but for the last 3 days I hade ridden a wave of euphoria.  Playing in the moment and playing well can make you feel on top of the world, this game can do that to you.  I had done something that I hadn’t thought was possible.  I’d seen other payers pull off comebacks from deep in the pack but I wasn’t convinced that I could until that moment.

The feeling didn’t last long. Reality slapped me like a brick in the face as I drove to my hotel.  I had fallen short.  I was going home to my family with no status, no money, and no plan for what was next.  Back to square one.  I had felt ready to do anything, I would work anywhere and quit playing golf- but how could I do that now? How could I throw away years and years of hard work now?  Since turning pro my life had been an up at dawn, grind it out, pride-swallowing affair, but I was finally getting somewhere.  The 81 aside I had played great golf from May through September.  I had finally been playing the kind of golf that could win tournaments.  The last 3 days just highlighted it for me, I love playing golf and I did not want to quit when I was playing my best.  It sounds stupid just writing it.

Just then my father called. He had been following on line and saw that I had missed.  We talk frequently, especially during a tournament and always if I am playing well.  Because I was in Canada I hadn’t talked to him or anybody. The text messages came flooding in when I mounted the comeback, but my dad isn’t much of a texter so we hadn’t communicated since I crossed the border.  My father isn’t an overbearing sports dad, but he is fanatical and he lives and dies with every shot and every round.  I can only imagine his pain and suffering following an 81 and the roller coaster I put him on that week.  He told me how incredibly proud he was of me for battling the way I did.  I began to tear up.  I fought back the man cry for a moment and then I just gave in.  All the emotions from the week and all the feelings about the future came pouring out of me.  There I was, a 35 year old man sobbing on the phone in a rental car thousands of miles from home.  This game can do that to you.

“You’re feeling it today,” says Carmen Giannini, the superintendent of the course.  “You got a little swag going.  Last week you were stuck.”

“That’s because I can see it now,” Mandell says.  “Qui has finally given me some room to work in.”  Qui is Qui Fabian, the project manager of the Wadsworth Construction crew that is doing the work on the course.  He takes the comment as intended, a piece of good-natured kidding.

Richard Mandell

There’s obviously mutual rapport on this project, and a good vibe.   All three men — Mandell, Giannini, and Qui — have been been working hard to keep the project on schedule and on budget, and they all have reasons to want it to be a success, but Mandell might want it the most.   Week after week, he has been making the 6-hour drive from his home in Pinehurst, NC, to put in time on the site, giving his full attention to each and every detail.  At the age of 42, he’s had other projects, but the renovation of the ANCC is the largest design commission of his career.  With 54 holes of golf, two sites, and over 2220 resident members, the ANCC is the biggest, busiest private golf operation in the National Capital area, and Mandell has gone the extra mile — the extra thousands of miles — to make this renovation a break-through project.

He almost didn’t get the job.  In fact, he almost missed the opportunity to put in a bid for it.   If ANCC Director of Golf Greg Scott hadn’t given him a last-minute interview, he wouldn’t even have been in the running.   As it turned out, Mandell prepared a renovation master plan for the two courses and won over the selection committee with a presentation that he calls “the performance of my life.”   Even so, the committee reluctantly decided to go with a “name” architect — then found that his completed master plan was unacceptable.   They brought in Mandell to undertake the multi-million dollar renovation that is now in its fifth year.    Even though the project is not yet completed, it has already been awarded First Place in the 2011 Renovation Of The Year category in the Golf Course Industry magazine’s 7th annual Builder Excellence Awards.

When he describes the interview process, Mandell doesn’t show any resentment or frustration at having been passed over for a better-known designer.  In fact, he notes that one of the reservations the selection committee had about him was that his fees were too low — and he laughs when says, “That was easy to fix.”   After almost 20 years in the business, most of it spent chasing commissions to little avail, Mandell is accustomed to setbacks.  He just doesn’t let them faze him.

This last year has been the most productive of his career.  He now has a business development manager, Gary Strohl, and  he has become more selective about sending out proposals, partly because he’s so busy that he just doesn’t have time to write them with care.  This year he has sent out 14 proposals, 11 of which were in response to potential clients who contacted him.  That’s a far cry from the days when he made as many 50 calls a day without getting a single call in return.

In addition to the ongoing work at the ANCC,  he is building a course in China, and he’s made nine trips to the site since construction began.  This afternoon, he says, he has to go out to Dulles to get a new passport that will enable him to get through international security without a hassle.  The conversation bounces around , touching briefly on Hugh Wilson’s use of sheets to shape the “white faces” of Merion to his own thoughts about the proper visibility for bunkers:  “I compare it to pasta — you should see something more than angel hair when you look at a bunker, more than a thin strip of white.”

When Mandell thinks about the people who are going to play the course, he doesn’t think first of Tour players.  He’s more concerned with making a course that works for everyone, an approach that is in character for a man who has made it part of his mission  to make the game more accessible; he hosts a regular radio show on AM radio and he started an annual Symposium on Affordable Golf.   Mandell grew up in Westchester County, just around the corner from Winged Foot, though he is quick to add that his father wasn’t a member.   He played a lot of his golf as a caddie, winning the Caddie Championship twice at the Bedford Golf and Tennis Club.  This is an old Devereux Emmet design, and Mandell didn’t even get to bid on the project when the club decided to renovate.  He doesn’t let himself sound disappointed, though it’s clear that he loved the classic layout and would have welcomed the chance to work on it.

After attending the University of Georgia, where he studied landscape design, Mandell spent a few years working for Dan Maples and Denis Griffiths, doing the usual entry-level grunt work for aspiring your architects.  He struck out on his own when he founded Whole In One Design Group, partnering with three engineers.  The idea was that Mandell would do golf design while the engineers would bring their expertise to other aspects of the projects.  It never worked as envisioned, and he ended up buying out his three partners.  All the while, though, he kept hammering away, taking any and all commissions he was able to get, no matter how small.   His exposure to the classic courses in New York had made him familiar with traditional, lay-of-the-land design, and he knew that, given the chance, that was the style of design he’d like to do.  He never got the chance.  He found work doing the small-scale projects that other architects might have disdained, such as building small practice ranges or performing triage on courses that were in dire straits.

There wasn’t much room to express any kind of style, but Mandell thought of his work as following the practice of the old-timers whom he admires.  “They were all practical,” he says.  “They didn’t have the money or equipment to do whatever they wanted.  They had to go with what the land offered, and the work had to be inherently sustainable — there weren’t big budgets for irrigation and maintenance in those days.  It all had to work.”  As he was trying to get a foothold in the business, he kept studying classic courses and classic designers, and in 2007, he published a meticulously researched book called Pinehurst — Home of American Golf (The Evolution of a Legend).

This ANCC project has given him a chance to flex his design muscles; the Arlington course dates back to the Golden Age, and Mandell was able to put in place the ragged-edge bunkering and strategic challenges that were consistent with traditional design.  Here in Fairfax, however, he is facing a different kind of design challenge, one that requires him to  subordinate his own sensibility to the requirements of the job.  This course was originally laid out by Robert Trent Jones, and the bunkers Mandell is marking are all curves and arcs — the RTJ style.  One clear desire of the ANCC membership was to keep the two courses distinct from each other and true to their original character.

If he has any reservations about the kind of bunkers he is laying out, it doesn’t show as he marks them.    There’s a flow to his work, an ease and confidence as he traces the serpentine outlines of he bunkers.  They will be flashed bunkers, with the sand rising up the face, and he keeps checking with Giannini to make sure that the slopes aren’t too steep to maintain.   With Qui, he is constantly pointing out small areas between the bunkers and greens, places that he wants shaved down a hair or built up just a smidge.   “Tying the bunkers into the greens is key to creating interest,” he says.  “I don’t want these surrounds to be smooth.  There should be all kinds of humps and undulations that ripple out from the green.  We’ve got to finish out these areas anyway, so it doesn’t cost any more money.”

There will be plenty of handwork by Qui and his crew to get these small details right.   Mandell says, “At this point, I think of it as a kind of dance.  I come in here and mark things and talk to Qui, then he and the crew do their thing, then I come back next week and mark it again, and they work it again, and we just keep going like that, back and forth, till we get it the way we all want it.”

At a bunker that has has already been “shelled out,” Mandell pauses to point out how the edges have been cut so that they aren’t perfectly vertical; they actually overhang the bunker.   This is his preferred technique for bunker construction since it enables the maintenance crews to push the sand a little higher, making everything a little more stable.  Gianinni, too, has a way of laying sod at the top of the bunkers that adds to the stabilization.  He “bullnoses” the sod, letting it curl over the cut edge and down into the sand.

In the course of the afternoon, moving from hole to hole, the three men banter back and forth, touching on all manner of design details:  the visibility of the bunkers on approach shots, the placement of irrigation heads, the contours in bunker floors needed to insure good drainage, the artificiality of some of the berms that were originally built as hazards on the course, the need for safety and easy circulation on the course, the slopes of the greens and the availability of hole locations.  On this last subject, Mandell is especially thorough; he has the crew mark exact elevations on a 10 foot grid, and he walks it slowly, calculating the slopes as goes, looking for places where they have gotten too steep or too flat, marking them for correction.

After each hole, Mandell goes back his golf cart and enters field notes on his laptop computer.  Hes not going to let any detail slip through the cracks, not at this point in the project, this point in his career.   He’s followed a different path from most architects, and he has stuck to it even when it wasn’t always clear that he was headed in the right direction.

As it turns out, the experience of working within constraints and developing an economical, minimalist approach to golf design has prepared Mandell for the lean times that now beset the design business.  Many architects who lived high on the hog are doing what Mandell used to, chasing any work they can, while Mandell he keeps getting approached by prospective clients.  It’s taken twenty years, but Richard Mandell now has a reputation as an architect who goes all-in on every job.  He respects his clients and he gives good value.

In a profession that has many stars and is often perceived as glamorous, Mandell spent a lot of time as an extra, just a face in the crowd, well out of the limelight.   He did the humble jobs without complaining, and it seems that he has finally made it to the dance.  He intends to enjoy it for as long as he can.

You can read about the renovations at ANCC in the forthcoming issue of Virginia Golfer.   Click here to visit Richard Mandell’s website.

A scene from "Golf in the Kingdom," a movie based on the classic golf novel by Michael Murphy

Instead of the usual crowd of golfers, savoring their drinks and examining scorecards in a glow of post-round contentment, the bar of the Lodge at Bandon Dunes was filled with people who didn’t look much like golfers.  Most of them were young, sporting beards or stubble, wearing scruffy jeans and talking fast.  Ions of crazy energy were popping all over the place.  Holding court at the bar, a good-looking guy with a gravelly voice was knocking back the Guinness and building brilliant word castles in an Irish – or was it Scottish? — accent.  A fellow in a white turban drifted through the room wearing a sphinx-like smile.  Every now and then, a tall, elegant woman appeared and surveyed the room, wary as a heron.   The dude in the red plaid blazer had a rabbit’s foot in his lapel, a big, furry rabbit’s foot that looked as if it had belonged to a the rabbit until just a few moments ago.  A short, intense woman wearing a wool cap and carrying a clipboard darted in and out; the words MIDGET SMOOT were written on the front of her hoodie.  Surveying it all from his table in the corner, obviously relishing the whole scene, an older man with his eyes full of happy mischief made occasional remarks.  He said, “Another day, another dharma.”

The older man, of course, was Michael Murphy, author of Golf in the Kingdom, and he had come to Bandon to see how his classic book would be made into a movie.

This bar scene, admittedly, is a composite, but in late April 2009, the cast and crew of the film had pretty much taken over the resort, filling it with their own high-octane buzz.  The guy knocking back the Guinness was Irish-born actor David O’Hara, who played the wild Irishman in Braveheart and a thug in The Departed.  He was cast as Shivas Irons, the charismatic hero of the novel.  And one of the young chaps, the one in the patchwork golf cap, was Mason Gamble, the actor who played Dennis the Menace; in Golf in the Kingdom, he would play the role of the young Michael Murphy.   The tall, wary woman was director Susan Streitfeld, who collaborated with Murphy on the screenplay; the man in the turban was cinematographer Arturo Smith; and the Chief Smurf , the dynamo with the clipboard, was producer Mindy Affrime.

Among golf books, Golf in the Kingdom is surely the most revered.  It has sunk its hooks into the golfing souls of its readers, and they tend to be people who read the book not once but over and over again, seeking to plumb its mystical, metaphysical depths.  The novel is a celebration of golf – its joys and frustrations, its addictive appeal, its mysteries, its sharp glints of insight and fascination.   Since its publication in 1973, Golf in the Kingdom has been translated into 19 languages and sold over a million copies.  It is the cosmic opposite of those best-selling golf books that deal with mechanics of the swing, promising to improve one’s game.   “Gowf is a way o’ makin’ a man naked,” says Shivas Irons.  That’s not your usual swing thought.

Clint Eastwood held the film rights for years, and Sean Connery was reportedly eager to play Shivas Irons.  Their project never came to fruition, and when the rights reverted to Murphy, he teamed up with Streitfeld and Affrime to make a movie that would have the rich, haunting flavor of the book.

The setting would be crucial.  The place had to have the right look and feel, the right karma.  They weren’t interested in filming great golf shots but in capturing,  as the book does, the timeless magic of the game and the way it can transform an understanding of life.  The images in the movie would have to evoke the awe and transcendence that golf can inspire.

As early as 2005, they began making trips to Bandon.  They had a key ally, Howard McKee, whose relationship with Murphy dated back more than two decades.  Howard [a partner of Mike Keiser, the owner of Bandon Dunes] wanted the movie to be shot at Bandon, and the filmmakers were more and more convinced that Oregon was the right place.   Not only did the golf courses have the appearance of classic links, but the surrounding landscape, with the rolling surf of the Pacific, the high bluffs, and the fantastic shapes of the sea stacks, provided locations for non-golf scenes.  The script called for a tavern scene, and that setting – since dharma was now in play – was ready and waiting.  The scene could only be shot in McKee’s Pub, the resort’s cozy watering hole that was named after Howard.

Mike Keiser, however, didn’t take immediately to the idea of the movie.   Though he had always loved the book (his first golf investments were drawn on an account he named “Chivas Irons”), he feared that the filming could disrupt operations at the resort.  In 2005 and 2006, the place was bursting at the seams.  Where would the cast and crew stay?  It wasn’t until 2008, after Howard’s death, that Mike gave his thumbs-up.   With the economic slowdown, the resort could accommodate the movie crew in the new staff housing.  Which, as it happened, was another of Howard’s legacies.

These many ties and connections would have tickled Howard, who once gave a talk on serendipity to the Bandon Dunes staff.   And, really, as filming started, the number of coincidences got to be ridiculous.  It was almost a standing joke that “true gravity” had taken over.  Even the notoriously changeable April weather in Oregon seemed to cooperate, and the most hard-core rationalist would have been shaken by the confluence of events.

For instance, Grant Rogers – the Bandon Dunes golf instructor who is often compared to Shivas Irons – used to play golf with Michael Murphy in California.  When Murphy came to Bandon to scout locations, Grant was his guide.  And when David O’Hara needed to get his swing ready for the camera, he went to Grant for lessons.  Shivas Irons, meet Shivas Irons.

But the most powerful evidence of “true gravity” was captured on film.  In one of the movie’s pivotal moments,  Mason Gamble and David O’Hara — Michael Murphy and Shivas Irons — are standing near a cliff’s edge.  Michael has been playing poorly and he is sulky and frustrated.   Shivas says to him, “Ye think too much, Michael.  Ye must let the nothingness into your shots.”

At that precise moment, a flock of gulls rises from beneath the cliff and wings its way into the sky.  A viewer can’t help but the electricity running along his spine; it seems as though Michael’s thoughts have suddenly taken flight.  “That was an amazing moment,” Mason said, “and it just happened.  We could have paid a bird wrangler thousands of dollars, and it wouldn’t have come off like that.  That moment was perfect.”  Reflecting for a moment, he added, “I don’t know who’s making this movie, but we’re not.  Something else is making this movie.”

Shivas, Michael, and the birds

The excitement of the cast and crew, of course, was not an assurance that the movie would have the same magic as the book.   Yet it seemed inevitable – yes, predestined – that this movie should be filmed at Bandon Dunes, and that the karma of the place influenced the shooting of the movie, and vice versa.  The two would be linked forever on the silver screen, and the symbolism was hard to miss.   The Kingdom had come to Bandon!  The place was already known for its power to inspire, and now golfers everywhere, when they get DVD, will be able to see the Bandon for themselves.  They might well be lifted to a “higher manifesting plane” when they see the shots of Shivas and Michael walking along over the crest of a fairway, their figures silhouetted against the horizon, looking as though they are leaving this earth and taking their golf game to heaven.

Why was the fine so onerous?  The Act of 1745 assessed a fine of only one shilling upon a soldier or seaman who cursed; two shillings upon any other person under the degree of gentleman; but five shillings upon a person of or above the degree of gentlemen.  Moreover, the penalty was not to be assessed for a single outburst, but each individual oath was to be fined separately.  Haddock had been heard by his caddie and bystanders to have uttered more that 400 imprecations while playing the 12th hole at the Mullion golf course, a hole known as the Chasm and requiring a shot over an arm of the sea.  At five shillings per oath, the offense would prove costly indeed. . .

Enough!  These two paragraphs, I hope, give you the wonderfully daft flavor of the case.  A friend sent it to me as a PDF attachment to an email, and the pages, obviously photocopied from an old book, looked authentic.  I didn’t doubt that British Law might include the Profane Oaths Act of 1745, a law that levied fines of varying amounts on commoners and gentlemen.  I read the ruling, laughing at the cockamamie logic; Haddock based his case on the argument that a “gentleman” cannot be held accountable for what he says while playing the infernal game of golf.  At some point, I began to suspect that it was all a satire, but I’d originally taken the bait along with the hook, line, and sinker.

Sir Alan Patrick Herbert

I’m not the only one to have been so thoroughly deceived by A. P. Herbert. Never heard of him?  Neither had I, but after a little poking around on the the Internet, I realized that I had come across  one of those classic Brits, droll and debonair, never at a loss for a witty remark, whose descendants are James Bond and Peter Alliss.   They are sophisticated and unflappable, these chaps, but in Herbert’s case, there was one thing that had the power  to loosen the stiffest of stiff upper lips — golf.

Herbert was a man of many parts and accomplishment.  Educated at Oxford and trained as a lawyer, he became a prolific writer of novels, plays, light verse, and sketches for Punch, the humor magazine.  His best-known work was “Misleading Cases in the Common Law,” satires that often featured the same Alfred Haddock who argued so persuasively against his fine for cursing.   Herbert fought in two wars, surviving the battle of Gallipoli, and he was a Member of Parliament, a position that did not prevent him from bringing a charge against the House of Commons for selling alcohol without a license.

Herbert was also a golfer, one of several literary luminaries (others included A. A. Milne, Sir James Barrie, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) who played their golf at Mullion.   How good a golfer he was I cannot determine, but he certainly understood the frustrations of the game, and the furies that it can inspire.  Here is how the magistrate reasoned toward a decision about Haddock’s swearing and his status as gentlemen:

Evidence has been called to show the subversive effects of this exercise upon the ethical and moral systems of the mildest of mankind.  Elderly gentlemen, gentle in all respects, kind to animals, beloved by children, and fond of music, are found in lonely corners of the downs, hacking at sand-pits or tussocks of grass, and muttering in a blind, ungovernable fury elaborate maledictions which could not be extracted from them by robbery or murder.  Men who would face torture without a word become blasphemous at the short fourteenth.  And it is clear that the game of golf may well be included in that category of intolerable provocations which may legally excuse or mitigate behavior which is not otherwise excusable, and that under provocation the reasonable or gentle man may reasonably act like a lunatic or lout respectively, and should legally be judged as such.

The magistrate reaches the conclusion that golf deserves a special section under the Profane Oaths Act, and that Haddock is not be judged adversely for his behavior; he is sent from the court without a fine and “without a stain on his character.”

To read “Rex v. Haddock” is a bit like hefting an old cleek with a hickory shaft and hand-forged blade; it’s a golf club, but the feel of it transports you to a different era.  Herbert was a contemporary of Bernard Darwin and a friend of P. G. Wodehouse, and his prose has many of the same virtues as theirs — clarity, economy, a seemingly offhand ease and elegance.  They took golf very seriously, even passionately, but never forgot that the game is sublimely, maddeningly absurd.   To play the game and appreciate it, to relish its paradoxes and its power to reduce a “gentleman” to a cursing brute, one needed not just skills but a robust sense of humor.

British golf has a tradition of writers who celebrated the game as a worthy branch of the great human comedy.   When they poked fun,  their digs were a way of exacting a small tribute, a tiny measure of self-respect, from a game that otherwise had the power to humiliate its adherents.

I hope you’ll enjoy the full story of Alfred Haddock’s day in court.  And I am sorry to report that the 12th at Mullion no longer exists.   Erosion took away the tee site, and the Chasm is no more.

Cornwall, the westernmost county in England, isn’t a golf destination for many, but it has its share of fine courses, both links courses and parkland courses.  For golfers who like to venture off the beaten path, a trip to Cornwall has much to recommend it — and a place to start planning a trip is by reading this excellent article by Charles Seibert.

Corbin Mills, winner of the 2011 Publinx

In the men’s final, Corbin Mills, of Easley, SC, beat Derek Ernst with a par on the 37th hole after the 36th hole match ended all square.  The topsy-turvy match had more than its share of birdies and bogeys;  only 10 of the 37 holes were halved.  After 26 holes, Mills had built a 4-up lead, then saw it erased when Ernst won the next four holes (including the infernal 12th hole, the 30th of the match, with a pluperfect 5-iron from 240 yards that he nearly aced).   Mills hung on, though, and hit ballsy, crafty shots down the stretch — the kind of shots that made you stand up and cheer — and when Ernst three-putted on the 37th green, Mills closed out the match with a short putt for his par 4.

Brianna Do won the women’s title in a match against Marissa Dodd that was every bit as hard-fought.  Five times Do managed to claw her way back after Dodd had taken a lead; Dodd’s largest lead, after 22 holes, was 3-up.  In fact, Do led the match for only three holes, but one of those three was the one that counted most — the 36th and final hole.   After watching Dodd’s approach run to the back of the green, Do played a lovely wedge shot, precisely judged and precisely struck, that landed short of the green, threaded its way between two mounds, and finished about 12 feet from the hole.  She didn’t birdie, but she didn’t have to.  Dodd ran her long approach putt well past the hole, missed the par effort, and that was that.

It’s hard to do justice to the kind of grit that all four of the finalists displayed.  The 36 holes finals matches were their 8th and 9th rounds of the week, and they were all playing a style of golf that was mostly unfamiliar.   Corbin Mills was taking an antibiotic all week because of an eye infection, and he summed up the week this way:  “It’s not like okay, let’s go out and play golf.  It’s like okay, let’s battle against the wind and stuff . . .I’m exhausted.  I was waiting to collapse with four holes to play:  My legs are killing me, my feet are killing me.  I mean, it feels like I’ve had such a tough match with everybody, so I’m just mentally drained, physically drained.”

Mills worked out a strategy for playing links golf, but like all the other competitors he found himself having to create shots throughout the week.  During the first qualifying round, the players went out in rainy conditions and a south wind;  on the last two days, with a 20 mph wind out of the north raking Old Macdonald and the turf running firm and fast, conditions were ideal for links golf.  Indeed, the fairways were rolling at 10 on the Stimpmeter, and the greens were only a fraction faster.

Brianna Do, winner of the 2011 Women's Publinx

Under these conditions, on a course like Old Macdonald — with its rumpled fairways and massive, undulating greens — there is no such thing as a standard shot, or a “comfort zone.”  Every time the player stands over the ball, including on the tees and greens, he or she has to conjure up a shot to fit the situation.   During his run on the final holes, Ernst came through with several superb punched irons that bored low through the wind.  It isn’t a shot he’s used to, and even when it seemed to come off exactly as planned, he didn’t always get the result he wanted; on the 28th hole, for example, he ripped an iron shot that almost held the narrow green before trickling off the back and rolling down, down, down.  He was 50 feet off the green, but he had to suck it up and get the ball back up on the putting surface — which he did, using his putter to roll it back up the slope and win the hole.

All four finalists showed that kind of touch, andperseverance, throughout the final days.   They displayed a resilience that seemed beyond their years.   Dodd, who enters Wake Forest this fall, described the early reversals in her round without complaining, “It was a couple of unlucky kicks,” she said.  “But that’s the way the course works and you’ve got to come back from them.”  With her father caddying for her, Dodd didnt let anything rattle her until the last couple of holes, when a couple of lag putts got away from her.

Ah, the lag putt!   The TV announcers did a first-rate job throughout the broadcast, trying to convey the challenges and the allure of links golf, and they had a lot say about lag putting, an essential skill on a links course like Old Macdonald, where the greens average over 13,000 square feet.  Collectively, the greens cover 6.3 acres, more than any other set of greens in the world, including those at St. Andrews, which cover 6.1 acres.  Moreover, the greens at Old Macdonald have mind-blowing contours, and a long putt can easily have 3 or 4 breaks.   At one point on Saturday, when Dodd’s approach ran through the 1oth green and onto the adjoining 5th green (not a true double green since the two are connected by a narrow isthmus),  she found herself facing a putt estimated at 225 feet — and with something like 6 breaks in it.   During the Sunday round, Mills found himself in a similar position, but was permitted to drop off the edge of the 5th green; he then played a fearless wedge back into the wind, and dropped it gently over a gaping, bearded bunker to give himself a chance to save par.  That was one of the shots that made me leap from the chair and let out a whoop.

Derek Ernst plays from the rough at Old Macdonald

Another was Ernst’ tee shot at the Redan hole, the 12th at Old Macdonald and the 30th in his final match.  Here I have to say that I’ve played the hole several times with the  north wind at my back, and I know that this green can be damn near unhittable.   In the semis, in fact, the TV commentators more or less agreed that it was too risky to try to hit and hold the green, given the likelihood of running right through the green.  From behind the green, salvaging par was next to impossible.  On this hole, I had to agree with the TV folks — the smart play was short and left, leaving an uphill chip.

But Ernst proved that even in the most daunting wind conditions, the hole could be played as designed.  His tee shot came in on the high right side of the green, made a big fishhook turn and curled down to the hole.   I could hardly believe my eyes.

That’s the way the Publinx went.  Over the course of the tournament, I saw more shots that made me want to cheer — and to get out and play some links golf — than I saw during a week of watching the U. S. Open.   If that sounds like hyperbole, it’s not.   Rory McIlory et. al. are the best golfers in the world, but at most tournaments, including the U. S. Open, they don’t have to produce anything like the array of shots that the young competitors at the Publinx had to produce.  Nor do they have to show the same stamina as the Publinx finalists who played close to 150 holes of golf over 5 days.

An idle daydream:  the Open Championship is being played at Carnoustie, 36 holes a day instead of 18, with some wet weather and gusting winds . . .  can you hear the pros howling?

I know, I know.  Not everyone is crazy about links golf.  Some find it arbitrary and “goofy.”  The pros dislike it because they want predictable outcomes, not crazy bounces.  But during the telecast yesterday,when Golf Channel went to one of the many commercial, the scene changed from Old Macdonald with its rugged windswept terrain, with its tawny fescue and prickly gorse and gnarly bunkers and fairways that were

On the 7th green at Old Macdonald

every shade from green to tan to ivory to ochre, a place without carts or roads or buildings, a place where the backdrop was the surf and the horizon of the gleaming Pacific Ocean . . . in a heartbeat the viewer was transported from from this wild and magnificent setting and plunked down in a scene  where a guy was sitting in a golf cart with a woman at a golf course where the grass was a bright, uniform, manicured, overwatered and overfertilized shade of green, and the whole commerical turned on the guy spilling a drink on his shirt . . .

This viewer didn’t get the point of the commercial because the sudden change of scene was too jolting.  I’d gone from watching golf, an outdoor game that required pluck and heart and imagination, to a whiny guy in a cart in a landscape that looked unnatural.    The kind of golf represented is that commercial was as different from links golf as Ronald McDonald is from Old Macdonald.

Here’s to the USGA for conducting a pair of eye-opening championships on an eye-opening golf course.  And to Corbin Mills and Brianna Do, for the gritty, gamy performances that left do doubt that they were worthy champions.

The McIlroy story, obviously, isn’t just another breakthrough by a talented young international player.   In recent majors, other golfers who fit this description (talented young international player) won their first major championships, and there was nothing like the same swooning over them.  At the 2010 Open Championship at St. Andrews, for example, South African Louis Oosthuizen was unshakeable, but his win was treated as an aberration, and Charl Schartzel’s win at Augusta had people asking what happened to the last letters of his name.

But McIlroy has been embraced.   To be sure, he was no stranger; at St. Andrews, and again at Augusta, where he led the first three rounds, he’d shown himself capable of stretches of brilliant golf.   By the time he shot to the front in the Open, golf fans were ready to believe, as Johnny Miller said, that he had “greatness written all over him.”

To describe the finish of McIlroy’s “gorgeous swing,” Miller went to Greek mythology, calling it an “Apollo follow-through.”   That analogy isn’t just heroic — Apollo was a god!  David Feherty was waxing on about Irish kings to provide Rory with a pedigree.  Point is:  this story has gone well beyond reporting, well beyond admiration.   It’s turning into myth, with McIlroy as a larger than life figure who is the standard bearer for an “era” that is presumably about to unfold before our eyes.

While McIlroy is still at the threshold of his career, and the story only has one chapter, let’s take a closer look.

The Kid. McIlroy is 22 years old and looks even younger as he bounces along, the curls escaping from beneath his cap.   Many writers (including me) have called him “fresh-faced,” and referred to him as “the lad” or, more often, “The Kid,” an old-fashioned moniker that used to be hung on young boxers and baseball players.   The apparent of the innocence of The Kid stands in contrast to his mighty deeds, and serves to magnify them.

What else is in a name? Well, in this name there’s an impulse to make McIlory seem likeable — which he is. Even that old curmudgeon Dan Jenkins took a shine to him, saying he had the likeability of Arnold Palmer.  Other veteran journalists abandoned all pretensions to neutrality and were openly rooting for him.  And some writers, after saying how engaging he was, made a pointed contrast to the man he seemed to be replacing, Tiger Woods.

McIlroy obviously has the ability to make those around him feel that they have a personal connection.  Just as obviously, the media was perceiving and presenting him as the anti-Tiger.   If Woods was isolated and aloof, McIlory was accessible and engaging, and so on.  Even when Woods wasn’t mentioned by name, he seemed to be lurking in the shadows of some reports, heightening the appreciation of McIlroy’s virtues.

This is not suggest that McIlroy is not accessible and engaging — from everything I have seen, he certainly is.  But there’s certainly a rebound effect at work, and a tendency to make too much of some of McIlroy’s traits.  In emphasizing his youthful appearance and likeability, for instance, some writers made him come across as harmless, almost puppyish, which he clearly isn’t.   How many times did you read that Rory “blushed”?  Or that he seemed too young to shave?  Or read lines like the one that described his delivery of a remark as “singing it softly”?  Or that he was “adorable”?

Descriptors like these have hovered like clouds over McIlory, who is clearly aware that he is not an intimidating presence.   He mentioned at several pressers his determination get a bit “more cocky.” Not to get cocky, note, but more cocky.   He didn’t want his competitors to think they were dealing with a cupcake.

In his Media Center interviews, McIlroy came across as  sharp, focussed, in full command of his thoughts and emotions.  Even when writers lobbed up the usual ghastly, giddy, leading questions (“What would it mean to you to win tomorrow?”), he looked them in the eye and replied crisply.  Efforts to get a boast from him never succeeded, either. Pressed to talk about the records he was setting, he kept replying patiently, “They don’t matter until I win.”

Once I’d seen how poised and centered he was in front of the press and the cameras, I started to see him differently on the golf course, trying to look past the fresh face, the curls, the bouncy step.  When I did, I saw a golfer who played quickly and decisively.  He knew exactly what he wanted to do out there — what shot to  play, what risks he was prepared to take.  I’m among those who’ve written that McIlory seems to be “having fun” on a golf course, and I imagine he had fun during the Open — but it was the serious fun of a patient, prepared, and determined athlete whose eyes never wavered from the prize.

McIlroy might look like a kid, but don’t be fooled.  There’s an old head under those curls.  The seemingly instinctive style of play is based on a solid foundation of mental discipline.    I think that we’ll come to see that one of his great strengths, like Nicklaus’s, is that when a tournament comes down to the wire and everyone else gets rattled, McIlory won’t.

We’ll have to stop calling him The Kid.

The era. Do a a Google search for “new era in golf” and you’ll be directed to a Belfast paper and “12,747 related articles.”  I haven’t read all of them, but I have read enough to to know that this new era has three recurring themes:  the void left by  Tiger Woods, the emergence of young golfers, and the emergence of international golfers.

I have doubts about all of the above.  To take them one by one:

First, it’s impossible to believe that Woods won’t return.  This is man whose raison d’etre is golf.  He’s spent his whole life playing competitive golf, and he’s announced his goal to beat Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors more often than politicians repeat their promises.  Does anyone really think that he will throw in the towel?  That he won’t do everything in his power to recover from his injuries and start winning again?  That someone with his talent and drive and proven ability to win– even hobbling on one leg, as he did at Torry Pines — won’t be able to compete against younger players?   If Tiger doesn’t make a comeback, smite me.

Second, young golfers have been on a roll in the major championships, but does that make this an “era”?  Maybe there’s a greater depth of young talent on the scene than before, but why don’t they show up in regular events?  Older players like Steve Stricker, David Toms, and K. J. Choi keep kicking their young tails.  While the 20-somethings hit the ball a mile and seem to welcome risks, they also do plenty of dumb things, hit shockingly bad shots, and have trouble closing the deal.   I’m ready to believe that there’s a generation of great potential, young guys who have a ton of game, but until they win more often and show some staying power, I’m not convinced.

Third, from where I sit, the “international” theme of this era looks like a reprise, or maybe just a reminder that international players have been prominent for the last four decades.  If they are now in the ascendancy, it’s just a new chapter in a narrative that has been developing over time.  It started with Ballesteros and the resurgence of the European golf, and there was a long line of internationals in the No. 1 spot –  Ballesteros was followed by  Norman, an Aussie, and Faldo, an Englishman, and Price, a Zimbabwean.  Just behind them in the top echelon were plenty of players who picked off a major or two –  Lyle, Langer, Woosnam, Olazabal.

Even during the years when Woods and Mickelson were at the top of the world rankings, superb players from all over the globe kept showing up and finding ways to win.   Between them, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen won four U. S. Opens, Vijay Singh got his name on the trophies at the Masters and the PGA.   Remember Trevor Immelman?  Or Angel Cabrera?

In hindsight, the Woods “era” looks like an interlude in the steady globalization of golf.  It wasn’t a period of across-the-board American domination (we kept losing the Ryder Cup) but a time when the two best players in the world happened to be American.   Now that Woods is sidelined and Mickelson keeps hitting his driver into the wrong fairways, it’s like we suddenly looked around . . .  Whoa!  Where did all these other guys come from?  But they’ve been there all along.

McIlroy is the latest, the one who deserves the spotlight after that show he put on at Congressional.   Reports are that he’s been celebrating his win by partying with friends at home in Northern Ireland, and with rock stars and other sports celebrities.  He’s pals with Rafa Nadal, the tennis star whose nationality hasn’t seemed to put limits on his popularity.

The Euros have never had a problem accepting athletes from other countries.  They’ve been way ahead of us; in golf, we have always expected our guys to be at the top of the heap, but lately we’ve been reduced to cheering for the “low American” in the big events.

So we had better stop seeing the game through the prism of nationality.  But it would be easier just to adopt Rory McIlory.

Too good even to talk about — the same applies to McIlory’s performance in winning the U. S. Open.  The superlatives started flowing on Thursday, after his opening round 65, and by now they’ve all been used.  He led the tournament wire-to-wire, winning by 8 shots and breaking a slew of records, including the lowest winning total — 268 — ever shot in an Open (4 shots better than the old record).  At the age of 22, he wasn’t the youngest winner (Bobby Jones was back in 1923), but he was younger than Jack Nicklaus was when he won his first Major.   He finished at 16 under, breaking another record; no one had previously gone lower than 12 under in an Open.

The most impressive number, though, might have been his margin of victory — 8 shots.   Scoring records are always suspect in golf, since conditions vary so widely from one championship to another, and this was the lowest scoring U. S. Open in memory.   The margin of victory, however, indicates how completely McIlroy outclassed the rest of the field.  He did hit a couple of iffy shots, but not many.  He three-putted once.  In four rounds, he made three bogeys and one double bogey.   He made 19 birdies and one eagle.   He damn near aced one of the hardest holes, No. 10, when his tee shot sailed straight over the flagstick and trickled down toward he hole . . . . what else is there to say?  Too good even to talk about.

On this site, I have already written at length about Rory as the New Guy,  but now that the deed is done and I’m looking at some of the numbers, I have to shake my head.  I’m awed.   It was evident that McIlory had talent after his near misses in other tournaments, but he’d only won two professional tournaments, and I don’t think anyone was prepared for the sheer dominance he displayed — over the golf course, over his game, over his emotions.   On Saturday and again today, he looked like collected, composed, and comfortable.   Miller also said that if McIlory wins this one, it could open the magic bottle.

That bottle is open, and like golf fans everywhere, I’m looking forward to the magic.

Some other parting thoughts:

Open Over-correction? After his opening round of 65, McIlroy was asked to predict a winning score and, specifically, if he’d like to be 6 under at the end of play on Sunday.  He said he would, adding that the USGA knew how to make a golf course tough and he expected them to tighten the screws at Congressional.   Never happened.   With drenching rains moving through the area, the greens never got as firm and fast as the USGA wanted.   They remained soft and receptive, and when that happens, the top players shoot low scores.

The scoring had lots of folks muttering that this didn’t seem like at all like an Open, where the golfers are trying to eke out pars.  The USGA has blamed the daily rains for the softening of the greens, but there are some darker explanation that will no doubt be explored more fully.   Already some writers and bloggers are asking why the greens were rebuilt so recently, and the USGA has admitted that they babied the greens during the heat wave before the Open, unwilling to let them get too dry.  They deny, however, that mature greens could have been dried out any more quickly.

Maybe not, but the soft greens stemmed from the same attitude that produced the scorched greens at Shinnecock Hills in 2004 — namely, a confidence that natural conditions can be micromanaged to produce exact, predictable results.   The USGA might have a team of agronomic geniuses, but it just doesn’t make sense to be planting new greens when the Open is right around the corner.  It’s tempting fate, and we all know what happened to old king Canute when he tried to stop the tides.

For Mike Davis, who was so widely praised as the Setup Wizard before the Open (including on this site), there will surely be plenty of explaining to do.   I hope people cut him a lot of slack, since he’s brought so many new ideas to his job, and this course setup, in terms of tee positions and hole locations, added intrigue to the play.   It would be a shame to see him back away from his innovations and revert to the old prevailing principle that Par Must Be Protected.

But it’s going to be hard to stick to his guns after the low scoring at CCC, and I’d be willing to bet right now that the winning score at the 2012 Open is about, oh, 16 shots higher than it was this year.

The International Brigade. They came, they saw, they conquered.  The last four majors have now been won by international players in their 20′s — Louis Oosthuizen, of South Africa; Martin Kaymer, of Germany; Charl Schwartzel, of South Africa; and now Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland. Only two Americans finished in the Top 10.  The defending Open Champion, Graeme McDowell, also comes from Northern Ireland.

Why are these young players from all over the globe so much in the ascendant?   I can only speculate, but I think it must have something to do with the fact that they start traveling so often, so early, and so far.   They are golfing itinerants by the time they are teenagers, and by the time they are 22 or 23 — like McIlory, or Australian Jason Day, who has now finished second in consecutive majors — they have learned to take care of themselves.  They’ve also learned to play on all different kinds of courses, in front of crowds who probably don’t know them and don’t pull for them.   If they are not yet seasoned veterans, they have of necessity had to adjust to a demanding lifestyle and to keep themselves in competitive form.  In their schedules, there’s no room for homesickness.  They have no choice but to toughen up.

Talented young Americans follow a different path.  They compete in organized competitions from an early age right on through college, and they are coached and conditioned at every stage.  Not much is left to chance — which is another way of saying that they don’t have to figure out their own ways of developing their talent and staying at the top of their game.   As they advance through the stages of competition, their goals are determined for them — but when they’re 21, thinking of an NCAA event, a lot of the international kids are already competing in professional events all over the world.

And it can’t hurt that the young international players really do seem almost like a brigade, or at least some sort of international traveling team.  After the Masters, for instance, McIlroy boarded a private plane to travel with Charl Schwartzel and others to the next destination.  We’ve seen what happens in competitions like the Ryder Cup when players spend time together; the solidarity gives them a boost.   This week at the Open, it was evident that McIlroy’s fellow international players were pulling for him.  He’s part of a band of brothers, and there were even jokes about their agent, Chubby Chandler, and how they might pull of a “Chubby Slam,” with one or another of them winning all four majors.  Don’t laugh.  They’re halfway there.

Tiger Who? The writers who covered the U. S. Open pulled all the stops.  Writing about Rory McIlory was both a joy and a challenge, and many filed stories that fell in the category of “A Star is Born.”  As readers of this blog know, I have been openly rooting for “the Kid,” as have many other members of the media.   Since I’m not pretending to be objective in this space, but providing personal commentary, I felt free to gush a little.   But I was surprised at the number of supposedly objective journalists who were shamelessly fawning.

It’s understandable.  McIlory is one of the most immediately likeable athletes to come along in a while.   In front of the press corps, he is just as poised and confident as he is on the golf course.  He looks his questioners in the eye and provides articulate answers.  He comes across as completely genuine and down-to-earth, comfortable with who and where he is.  He’s thoughtful, but he shows a playful, puppyish quality, too.

Anwyay, the press has been rhapsodizing, and a writer on the Golf Digest blog, describing his reaction to Paddy Harrington’s prediction that he’d win as many majors as Nicklaus, came up with this: “McIlroy, 22 years old, said of Harrington, who has dental fillings older than that, “Oh, Paddy, Paddy, Paddy,” singing it softly, blushing all the while.” I was in the interview room, and McIlroy did look embarrassed, but “singing it softly”?   Sounds like a Valentine to me.

Some excess is to be expected, but there was a lot of it — a natural reaction and a collective sigh of relief that someone had come along to replace Tiger.   For those who write about golf regularly, Tiger has been an embarrassment.  Only a few writers dared to speak ill of him, though many privately had things to say about His Surliness; and just about everybody bought into his carefully constructed, air-brushed image as a devoted family man who spent all his free time on the range or at the gym.

When it turned out that he was spending time elsewhere, a lot of pent-up anger was spilled in the press.  At the Open, it kept leaking out.  The kindest way of saying was that Rory looked like the next Tiger, but without the . . . . you can fill in the blank.   Some writers, like veteran Dave Kindred, went farther, finishing off a column with this flourish:

“Tiger, Tiger, out of sight. The greater point is, if anyone missed Tiger, if maybe millions missed Tiger, if all of freakin’ Thailand missed him, I daresay this U.S. Open hasn’t missed him a whit, iota, or even a tad.

This Open has what it never had in Tiger’s time, now past. This one has a kid to root for.”

Emphatic stuff. Here’s a veteran journalist who prides himself on objectivity going overboard.  He’s on the Rory bandwagon, and ready to exile Tiger to “freakin’ Thailand.”

I’m not so sure that Tiger’s time is past.  But after reading a lot of articles about Tiger during this week of the Open, I am sure that if he does make a comeback, the easy part will be winning golf tournaments.  The hard part will be winning back even a fraction of the good will that is now flowing to Rory McIlroy.

Tiger-esque!  Tiger-esque!  That’s the word that’s been floating around Congressional for the last few days, along with every imaginable superlative.  On the telecast, Johnny Miller, not know as a gusher, said that McIlory looked as though he had “greatness written all over him.”  Padraig Harrington declared that McIlroy, not Tiger, would be the one who broke Nicklaus’s records (on hearing this, Mcilroy shook his head and said, “Paddy, Paddy, Paddy . . . I’m just trying to win my first one”).  To provide David Feherty with a choice Irish comparison, some NBC gofer had dug up info on the originis of the name; Rory means red, and there was evidently an Irish king named Ruaidri Us Conchobair, who died in Galway in 1198 — but Feherty didn’t even attempt the Gaelic pronunciation.  He said the king’s name was Rory O’Connor, and that was enough to prompt other remarks about the present Rory as King of the Open and the coronation that everyone expects to take place tomorrow.

If any performance deserves superlatives, it’s the one that McIlroy is putting on, but I think I’ll stick to my more modest phrase.  McIlroy is the New Guy.  It’s not an official term but it’s useful.  And it might also be useful to think about some other golfers — besides Tiger — who have burst onto the scene as McIlroy is doing at this Open, and remember how they fared.

The New Guy brings a new force into the game.  He gets people excited.  He makes a sensational first impression, establishing an ability to play at a level higher than anyone else.  Not all the time — this is still golf! — but often.  If he doesn’t dominate outright, he proves that he can stand up to intense pressure and win against formidable opponents.  He is enormously gifted, of course, but there usually seems to be something more to it.  The New Guy has the magic.

Here’s a capsule look at some of golf’s New Guys.

Jack Nicklaus was made claimed his first professional victory in the 1962 U. S. Open, beating Arnold Palmer on what amounted to Palmer’s home turf.  It was a shopper of statement, and established the Nicklaus reputation — methodical,  unshakeable, and overpowering.  Once he started winning, he didn’t slow down, rumbling to his victories like an express train going rolling down the tracks; nothing was going to stop him.   Nickalus didn’t seem to need any magic until the end of his playing career, but he closed out his major victories with the most epic and emotional — and magical — of them all, the 1986 Masters.   From there he moved seamlessly into a career as a golf architect, and he’s settled into a role as the game’s elder statesman, the embodiment of standards of sportsmanship.

Johnny Miller was the New Guy in 1973 after riding a final round 63 to victory in the U. S. Open at Oakmont.  After that wild ride, he kept blazing ahead,  reeling off 8 Tour wins in 1974 and a second major, the Open Championship, in 1976.    Tall and thin as a whip, with a mane of blond hair and a wardrobe consisting of tight pants and white belts, Miller was one of the first to be called the Next Nicklaus, and he never got completely out of the shadow of the Bear.  He didn’t last as long, either.   After 1976, he lost the magic (the yips?), and he never really got it back.  So this New Guy turned out to be a comet whose bright passage lasted for three years . . . and now, in a much longer career, he’s become the TV announcer who tells the rest of us how the top players operate.

Seve Ballesteros became the New Guy in 1979 when he won the Open Championship at Royal Lytham with the instantly legendary car park shot.  Actually, as far as Europeans were concerned, he’d become the New Guy before then, but Americans weren’t ready to acknowledge his ascendancy until he beat Tom Watson at St. Andrews in 1984.  At that exultant moment, Ballesteros, winner of four majors, seemed to have the whole world before him, but his weaknesses had been accurately foreshadowed at Royal Lytham; he couldn’t keep the ball in the fairway.   His genius was as escape artist.   No need to ask about his magic — that’s what his game was built on. After 1986, it ebbed away, reappearing only in flashes, especially at the Ryder Cup.   There was to be only one more major championship, but this New Guy built a legacy as the inspirational player and leader of European Ryder Cup teams.

Greg Norman had been closing in on the title of New Guy before he finally earned it in 1986, the year that he led all four majors after three rounds.   He won only one, the Open Championship, but he could be counted on to provide high drama.  He cut a dashing figure on the course, and he had the nickname to go with it — he was the Great White Shark.   All he lacked, it seemed, was the ability to finish out a tournament.  Or maybe he just had the worst luck in the history of the game.  He was nosed out in the 1986 PGA when Bob Tway holed out a bunker shot, and again in a playoff for the 1987 Masters when Larry Mize chpped in.   Norman stood atop the World Rankings for many years, but he won only two majors — his magic came with a curse on it.   From time to time Norman has resurfaced, but since his competitive days ended he has mostly retired to the board room and set about building a business empire.  He is a course designer, but of all the New Guys of the last few decades, he has the least prominent role in the game.

Tiger Woods was the New Guy that people had seen coming for years, as he won those three successive Junior Amateurs followed by three successive Amateur Championships.  If anyway had a can’t-miss label on him, it was Woods, and he didn’t disappoint.  His first major win was at the 1997 Masters, a complete blow-out, and then he pulled off the Tiger Slam, winning four majors in succession by margins that were just plain ridiculous.   As for magic, he had it by the boatload, hitting more impossible shots and sinking more crucial putts than anyone ever had.  There was little doubt that he’d break Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championships until .  . . well, you know.

Which brings us to McIlroy, the new New Guy.  He doesn’t have to dethrone anyone, since Tiger has already left the building.   He just has to play one more round like the three rounds he has already played, and the job is absolutely his.  It’s probably his no matter what happens tomorrow.  The lad has the magic, and there is a clamor to see him take his place in this line of golfers who arrived as the New Guy.

Which of the patterns will he follow?  Sorry, Paddy, but it’s absurd to think that he will challenge Nicklaus’s record.  Will he be like Miller, lighting it up for only three years?   Will he follow the Ballesteros model and show us a new way to think about international golf?  Will he get the Norman curse — not an idle question, since he’s already had a couple of meltdowns after being in the lead at majors?

The point here is that we don’t have to compare McIlory to Tiger.  There have been plenty of other New Guys, and they don’t have to flame out.  Nor do they have to win 18 majors to have significant, lasting careers.

The game needs a hero, and McIlory looks like one who’s been heaven-sent.   I’m rooting for him, like everyone else.   I’ve listed those New Guys above because I think — I hope — he is going to win tomorrow and keep on winning for a while.  McIlroy seems to have such a good head on his shoulders that it’s easy to imagine that he’ll know what to do after this thunderclap of a start.  The New Guys shake things up when they come on the scene, but the excitement often leads to a lifetime job.

All that’s a long way off for Rory McIlroy.  But winning tomorrow would be a good first step.  And if you hear somebody say that his performance is Tiger-esque, just remember that there were other New Guys, and they turned out pretty damn well.

He could do no wrong.  He was playing a brand of golf that occurs only in dreams.  He wasn’t just hitting the ball a long way down the fairway; he was hitting the dead center of the fairway.  He wasn’t just hitting good iron shots; he was hitting pluperfect shots.  If a playing partner hit an A+ shot, as Phil Mickelson did at No. 16, McIlroy followed with an A++ shot.   On the 8th hole, he hit a 114 yard wedge (“I had to take about 20 yards off it,” he said matter-of-factly)  that spun back into the hole for an eagle 2.  “You have to be a little lucky on a shot like that,” he said.  Of course.  A +++.

This is the U. S. Open, the sternest “examination” in golf, but a letter grade is beside the point.  The records are beside the point (“They’ll seem nice on Sunday, if I win,” McIlroy said.).   What mattered was that McIlroy had the game — the moj0, the horsepower, the magic — to post a second round 66 on top of his first round 65.  He didn’t make a bogey until his final hole, when he made a double.

His 36 hole score, 131, is the lowest in Open history.  He was the first player ever to reach 13 under par (the double at the last hole took him back to -11).  He reached 10 under, double digits, in just 26 holes.  He ties another record by taking a 6 stroke lead into the third round.

Y. E. Yang of South Korea, who beat Tiger Woods down the stretch to win the 2oo9 PGA Championship, is at 5 under par after a fine round of 69.  At 2 under par, nine strokes behind, five players are tied.

Right now, Rory McIlory is not only THE story of this U. S. Open.  He’s the story in golf, the new guy, whether he wins or loses.   At the last British Open, and at this year’s Masters, his performance foreshadowed the brilliant performance that he is putting on at the U. S. Open.  He could still lose this, of course (“Nobody knows what can happen better than I do,” he said, referring to the collapse at Augusta), but no one who watched him play the first two rounds believes that he will.

And no one wants him to lose.  He’s the new guy, the one who by popular acclaim will step into the role vacated by Tiger Woods.  McIlroy, 22, is arriving at exactly the right moment.  The kingdom of golf has been dominated for years by Woods who is off nursing an injured left leg, not mention an injured reputation.

I should capitalize that — the New Guy.   I am not speaking just of fresh face, though McIlroy has one, nor of a likeable lad who happens to win a major tournament, maybe the only major of his career.   The New Guy has to have the wherewithal to do what Tiger did at the start of his career — to play on a level that no one else can reach, to blow the rest of the field away.  McIlroy is doing that right now.

The New Guy has to be young, and he has to be different.  Think of DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, or Palmer and Nicklaus — and think of the resistance to Nicklaus when he was the New Guy.   It took Palmer fans years to forgive Nicklaus for dethroning the King.   McIlory won’t have that problem.  Woods has already dethroned himself.

As for the differences between McIlroy and Woods, they are impossible to miss.   No need to spell them out.  It is enough to say that McIlory, taking a little time away from golf, went to Haiti as an ambassador for UNICEF.  According to reports, he changed his Twitter photo to one showing him with a smiling Haitian boy.   The less said about Tiger’s texting adventures, the better.

Golf needs a New Guy, and it’s hard to imagine one better suited that Rory McIlory.   Here are a few reasons why we should all hope that he continues to pour it on, wins this Open by margin that shatter all the records, and keeps right on sailing.

1. He’s from Ulster.   Golf is a global game, as we keep hearing, but it hasn’t really sunk in.  It should.  Just take a look at the Open leaderboard, or the list of recent Open winners.   The next New Guy has to a foreign player, and McIlroy is someone that Americans will embrace and root for.  He could help ease us in to a more encompassing view of the game.

2.  He plays quickly.   He’s ready when it’s his turn.  He doesn’t go through the painful contortions to which we’ve become accustomed (the “routine”) as he prepares to putt.  He looks at the putt, then stands up to it and hits it.   No practice stroke.   If golfers started imitating him, rounds would be half an hour shorter.

3.  He doesn’t talk about his swing coach.  If he has one, he hasn’t mentioned it so far during this Open run.  He says that he does his own preparation, talks things over with his caddy, and goes from there.   After years of hearing in excruciating detail about the swing changes of He Whose Reign Is Over, and being invited to agonize over his selection of coach, etc etc, it will be refreshing to hear the New Guy say, often, that his game feels “simple.”  It might even clear a lot of junk out of our minds.

4.  He doesn’t fist pump.  Haven’t seen one, anyway.  (Addendum:  I just saw one — third round, 11th hole — when the birdie putt went down.   But, as with all things Rory, it seemed well withing the bounds — not a gloating, in-your-face gesture, but a way of patting himself on the back after following up a bogey with such a good birdie.)

5.  He makes it look like fun to play golf.   This is the best reason of all to welcome him.  McIlroy has a spring in his step, and when he strides down the fairway in his loose, bouncing gait, he looks like a guy who can’t wait to hit his next shot.

The New Guy.  I really, really hope I’m right about this.