{"id":10016,"date":"2026-05-26T16:59:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T22:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=10016"},"modified":"2026-05-26T17:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:01:16","slug":"lotsand-lotsof-golf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/personalities\/10016\/lotsand-lotsof-golf","title":{"rendered":"Lots\u2014and lots\u2014of golf"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019ve never been much for college sports, but I know the passion runs deep for many. I also don\u2019t know how Oklahomans will feel reading about the exploits of the University of Houston in The Houston Dynasty: Tales From College Golf\u2019s Greatest Team<\/em>\u00a0by Jim McLean (Radius Book Group, $23.99).<\/p>\n

From a dispassionate viewpoint, I can say this is a brisk and enjoyable 185-page volume of frequently humorous anecdotes from McLean, better known as one of the game\u2019s great instructors (as in the Jim McLean Golf School and numerous instructional books).<\/p>\n

McLean played for UH from 1968 to 1973 under coach Dave Williams, who in 1951 took over a team that was mired in a 25-match losing streak. There was one more match that year, which the team won, so at the school\u2019s spring sports banquet Williams was asked to give some remarks. He blurted out: \u201cThe University of Houston golf team is going to win the national championship!\u201d This brought the house down, since the team wasn\u2019t even in the NCAA.<\/p>\n

In 1956, it was, and it won the national championship. As it did in 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, and many years thereafter, 16 titles in under 30 years.<\/p>\n

Jim Nantz contributes a forward to the book, and he was one of many eventually noted golf personalities to pass through the UH program, along with Bruce Lietzke, John Mahaffey, Bill Rogers, Blaine McCallister, Billy Ray Brown, Fred Couples, Fuzzy Zoeller, Steve Elkington and others.<\/p>\n

Nick Faldo stopped by for a semester, but as McLean notes, Faldo\u2019s game wasn\u2019t legendary at that point, and the competition at UH was fierce. There were 40 spirited college men so intent on trying to break into the top five spots they would have to dodge all the practice missiles being fired down the dormitory hallway.<\/p>\n

Williams was not forgiving over poor play, but McLean paints him as a quirky but beloved figure, and the program as a whole obviously critical to his future path. If some of the competition was harrowing, this look back is all good fun.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Though it gets less attention than his professional record, Tiger Woods had an amazing amateur and college career, too. In Project Tiger: The Birth of Genius and the Price of Greatness<\/em>\u00a0(Diversion Books, $29.99), author Gavin Newsham (not Newsom) doesn\u2019t make it sound like much fun for the youngster.<\/p>\n

I shuddered at the thought of reading another Woods biography, but Newsham does us all a favor and largely bypasses all of Tiger\u2019s later rise and fall and rise to concentrate on what got him there, and it\u2019s a consistently well-written and engaging account.<\/p>\n

(Well, it could have used some better proofreading and editing; there were a bunch of missing words, at least one dangling participle and some indistinct pronouns. Probably only a nerd like me would notice, but still.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that there are any blinding new insights to anyone who has read any of the many books about Tiger, it\u2019s just that Newsham has done yeomen research by interviewing primary sources like Rudy Duran, who began coaching a four-and-a-half year old Woods, and other early mentors like Joe Grohman and Tom Sargent, Western High School and Stanford University teammates like Casey Martin, and Hughes Norton\u2014Tiger\u2019s first agent, who began scouting Woods long before the \u201cHello, world\u201d moment.<\/p>\n

Newsham did not interview Woods or his now deceased parents, but the portraits of Earl and Kultida are mixed affairs at best. That Earl Woods was a bullshitting egotist is hardly news, either. He seemed to at least have had the virtue of being entertaining, but here his antics manage to seem somehow more crass, and his lordly pronouncements about Tiger\u2019s worldly mission ones even his son largely ignored.<\/p>\n

Kultida comes off as pretty hard-edged herself, and who knows what vibe was emanating as the marriage began falling apart. But as I\u2019ve noted before, they managed to nurture a young man who emerged superior in ability and single-mindedness, yet deficient in empathy, albeit he was subjected to the intense pressures of his outsized celebrity. (Parenthood may have softened Woods in this regard.)<\/p>\n

The Tiger Woods story is still developing in our lifetime, but this is a good look at the beginning.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Some of Tiger\u2019s greatest professional accomplishments naturally show up in The Story of Golf in 50 Tournaments<\/em> (Back Nine Press, $34.99). Much as he did in The Story of Golf in Fifty Holes<\/em> (reviewed here<\/a>) author Tony Dear attempts to encapsulate some of golf\u2019s essential history by spotlighting half a hundred tournaments, with a smattering of honorable mentions toward the end.<\/p>\n

They range from 1744\u2014presumably the first organized golf tournament, the Silver Club competition in Edinburgh\u2014to 2025, Rory McIlroy\u2019s Grand Slam achievement at the Masters.<\/p>\n

As with the previous book, the research here is mind-boggling, and the presentation lively and studded with all sorts of interesting sidebars and photos along with the particulars of each tournament.<\/p>\n

While the prime focus here is on the professional game, there are ample nods to amateur championships as well and plenty of firsts\u2014the first Open Championship, U.S. Amateur, U.S. Open, Olympics (1904), Masters, PGA Championship, LIV tournament and the Ryder, Walker and Curtis Cups.<\/p>\n

Then there are tournaments we can\u2019t get enough of\u2014Ouimet\u2019s 1913 Open triumph, Bobby Jones\u2019 Impregnable Quadrilateral at the 1930 U.S. Amateur, Hogan\u2019s comeback at the 1950 U.S. Open, Watson and Nicklaus at their 1977 Duel in the Sun at Turnberry, Nicklaus at the 1986 Masters, Tiger\u2019s first major win at the 1997 Masters or his last (presumably) at the 2019 Masters.<\/p>\n

If some choices are obvious, others are pleasant surprises, and all are necessarily subjective. Full disclosure here that Dear is a friend and too seldom a playing partner, but all I can really take him to task for is that he has (admittedly), a Seve Ballesterous bias playing against my Arnold Palmer bias.<\/p>\n

So no Palmer victories get the nod here, though a few of his losses do, such as the 1962 Open to Nicklaus. His loss in the 1960 Open Championship gets an honorable mention nod simply because he showed up, as few Americans did back then, and that along with his wins in 1961 and 1962, \u201c…helped make the event what it is today.\u201d All is forgiven.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As for playing partners, I was one on August 7, 2023, for round 348 of Patrick Koenig\u2019s RGV Tour 2.0 at my home course, the Brattleboro Country Club<\/a> in Vermont. We played through off and on rain and were joined for a few holes by the BCC director of golf Mike Zaranek.<\/p>\n

Then Koenig jumped in his recreational golf vehicle (RGV) and drove off for his next few rounds. Few? By the time the RGV Tour 2.0 was finished at the Chambers Bay Golf Course in Washington, Koenig had played 580 different 18-hole golf courses in a single year, easily surpassing the old record of 449.<\/p>\n

The Tour took him to courses in 41 states and a few rounds in Finland and Sweden. His average score was 77, he drove 41,597 miles and, well, all the statistics are in his book: The United States of Golf: A Journey of Love and Loss, Finding Purpose, and Setting a World Record<\/em> (Back Nine Press, $34.99).<\/p>\n

Perhaps more amazing, this was the second such effort by Koenig. In 2018 he\u2019d gone off in another RV and played at 405 courses!<\/p>\n

An addictive personality? Koenig wouldn\u2019t argue. He details his seven year downward spiral into alcoholism beginning when he was about 17, and in retrospect says he\u2019s just glad he reached his bottom as quickly as he did. He also overcame early anger issues on the course.<\/p>\n

The trips weren\u2019t pure ego fulfillment\u2014both had fund-raising components; the RGV 2.0 Tour raised $40,000 for various charities, notably the First Tee of Seattle. And they weren\u2019t all fun and games, either. Koenig\u2019s first wife left him during the course of RGV 1.0, which he didn\u2019t see coming at all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Koenig is now in his mid-forties, remarried with a child and two stepchildren, a lean, chatty and ebullient character, a talented golfer, a skilled course photographer and a guy who has played more courses in two years than most of us will play in a lifetime.<\/p>\n

As is now obvious, he\u2019s an engaging writer as well. The book covers both RGV Tours, is stuffed with ample course descriptions and replete with Koenig\u2019s photography, but the real pleasure is the anecdotal interplay with some of the over 1,000 playing partners he encountered along the way. All of whom, I can attest, who felt they were part of something extraordinary.<\/p>\n

This piece originally appeared in the April-May 2026 issue of <\/a><\/em>Golf Oklahoma<\/a>, in somewhat different form.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve never been much for college sports, but I know the passion runs deep for many. I also don\u2019t know… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":10025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17,7],"tags":[1046029,53,633,1119,328,1541,1006480,1035518,1035519,1046022,1046023,1046024,1046025,1046026,1046027,1046028],"class_list":["post-10016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-courses-and-travel","category-personalities","tag-jim-nantz","tag-tiger-woods","tag-vermont","tag-texas","tag-brattleboro-country-club","tag-jim-mclean","tag-tony-dear","tag-patrick-koenig","tag-rgv-20-tour","tag-the-united-states-of-golf","tag-the-story-of-golf-in-50-tournaments","tag-project-tiger","tag-gavin-newsham","tag-the-houston-dynasty","tag-university-of-houston","tag-dave-williams"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/05\/unnamed-file-4.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10016"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10024,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10016\/revisions\/10024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}