No surprise that courses are empty

You tell me what's wrong with this picture. I flew into Miami International Airport (insert Henny Youngman saying, "And boy, are my arms tired!") and thought I'd stop in at the Melreese Golf Course, a municipal track operated by the city of Miami. It's basically just down the street from the rental car lots in an area that is not well-off -- most of the neighborhood's homes have bars over the windows.

It's noon. It's a Monday. It's beautiful -- 82 degrees, light wind. The course looks to be in outstanding condition, especially for a muni. When I ask if I can play a few holes, I'm told, sure, the course is wide open. In fact, it is all but deserted.

The girl working the register asks if I'm a Florida resident. Nope. She rings up my greens fee. That'll be $158. What, I say? State residents play for $78, non-residents are $158. Do you have a nine-hole rate, I ask? No. I totally understand trying to keep a public course available for use by local golfers. They should get a big discount. It's their course. But this isn't a local discount, it's statewide? What good does that do? You think anybody is going to fly down from Jacksonville to golf Melreese when there are 1,200 other courses in the state? City residents should get the golf discount.

So I settle on hitting a bag of 60 range balls (that's what the sign in the shop says) for $6. When I dump the bag out on the practice range, it doesn't look like 60 balls. I count them. There are 47. I'm 13 short. That's more than 20 percent I've been shortchanged. And while many of the balls looked white and shiny, too many of them just didn't get up in the air and go, no matter how well I hit them. Mushy range balls are a fact of life in golf. Getting 20 percent less product than I was promised, that's something else.

After I hit balls, I chipped and putted on the practice green (which was in very nice shape) for more than an hour. A couple of German guys who'd been hitting on the range did the same. They eventually left. So did I. I spent less than $10 at the course -- I bought range balls, plus a drink and crackers. I gladly would have paid $80 to play, but not $158. So due to excessive pricing, the course got zero.

Melreese used to be an example of how to run a muni. Improved conditions usually brings more play, more golfers. I was there for 90 minutes and saw no one tee off. I saw a couple of twosomes, a threesome and a single already on the course. The old parking lot was closed due to construction of a new clubhouse and, I presume, a new cart barn.

Somebody has to pay for that. But it's not going to be my $158.

What's wrong with golf? Gee, I can't imagine.

Eagle vs. Ace

Before boarding a plane to fly to the Birkdale linksland for the British Open, I got in a run-around afternoon game on my leafy home track, the A.W. Tillinghast course at the Philadelphia Cricket Club. I played with a fellow addict, Dick Flannery, and as we came off the 13th tee on a still and hot day we talked about the genius of the great man. It can't hurt, to praise the course architect, for reasons of golfing karma, right?

Dick hit a B- drive on the gentle par-4 a pop-up that went straight and maybe 210ish, coming to rest on a gorgeous piece of tightly mown fairway. Pretty much nobody praises the Cricket's 13th, a connector hole between two holes with far more drama, but Dick was pointing out its quiet excellence: trap here, trap there, green just right, the whole thing bending gently.

He choked up on a 3-wood, made a tight swing and caught the ball flush. We both watched intently as  the ball made a beeline for the flagstick, which was about 205 yards away. It pitched just short of the green, climbed a little hill and dropped in. Dick's not the hooting-and-hollering type and I gave him a little high-five and asked if he had ever holed out a longer one.  He hadn't. He had one career ace, on a short par-3, and as a kid holed out with a 3-wood from 170 yards, but now there would be a new entry in his record-book-of-the-mind.

"You make a hole-one-one, and you get your name on a plaque and you buy drinks for everyone and it's a big deal," Dick said, after spanking a tee shot on 14. (No post-eagle screw-up here.) But the eagle from the fairway, he noted, gets no such treatment. The double-eagle -- the albatross, for our British readers -- yes. But not the lowly eagle from the fairway. Doesn't seem right, or logical, for that matter.

Anyway, Dick shot 79, and he doesn't do that everyday. Karma-city.

No Love for New Green

SOUTHPORT, England – Not everyone is enthused about the new 17th green at Royal Birkdale. Set into the junction of two grassy dunes, the long, narrow green slopes upward from front to back and has a massive hump above its belt line. Anything rolling onto this hump -- golf balls come to mind -– is distributed to the right or left, seemingly at random. A putt will break toward the hole, or it will suddenly veer in the opposite direction and roll off the green. An approach shot will steam into the hump, flare off to the left, visit the back of the green, reverse course, wander back down to the lower tier, stop for a smoke, check its e-mail, and finally dribble into one of the guarding bunkers.

“I think they’ll dig it up,” Lee Westwood said this morning. “It’s out of character with the rest of the course. The other greens are brilliant.”

Westwood’s view is shared by many of the pros practicing for the Open Championship, which begins on Thursday. Stephen Ames dissed the 17th green yesterday, saying, “It goes with a Pete Dye course.”

Determined to see what the fuss was about, I plodded out to the 17th this morning, head lowered and shoulders hunched against a 30 mph headwind. I stood on one of the dunes overlooking the green and watched as several groups of players practiced bunker shots and rapped putts to various spots on the green. There was a lot of laughter and head shaking. Some putts boomeranged. Others broke two ways.

A few broke THREE ways.

Very cool.

That, of course, is a spectator’s appraisal. The dunes and a backing grandstand crowd the 17th green, turning it into an intimate amphitheater. If I had to spend an afternoon in one spot, that would be it. The dune tops afford a perfect view of the fairway, as well. If Westwood decides to go for the green in two (seventeen is a par 5), you’ll see his ball skip onto the green, falter at the hump, and then trundle off as if someone has given it a good kick ... and then, by simply raising your eyes, you’ll see Lee drop his club and wave his arms in disgust.

It should make for some great television.

As for the “out of character” argument, the players are both right and wrong. They’re right in that the 17th green is more extreme than the other greens at Birkdale. But they’re wrong, too, because it only takes one look at the surrounding dunescape to recognize that the 17th green is a perfect reflection of the natural terrain. It’s the other 17 greens that are out of character.

I’d dig ‘em up.

(Photo: Alex Telfer/Getty Images)

The 3-Shot Hole, RIP

Rees Jones, the golf course architect, was saying the other day that in flat, still conditions, a true par-5 for a Tour player must be at least 600-yards long, and even that might not be enough. The traditional post-War World II American golf course -- par 72, with four par-5s -- is now dead. The South Course at Oakland Hills, which Jones reworked for the PGA Championship next month, has no par-5s. Yes, it's a par-70 and No. 2, at 529 yards, and No. 12, at 593 yards, are listed as par-5s, but the fact is nearly every player in the field will be able to reach those two greens in two if they drive it long and in play, including Rocco Mediate.

"To have a true par-5 for the Tour player," Jones said, "you have to present them with something very penal in the landing area of the missed second shot, water or waste bunker or something else, at about the 575 mark." That, Jones explained, is how you get the hole in the head of the elite player. Otherwise, it's bombs away.

The three-shot par-5, after hitting a drive in the fairway, is dead, as dead as wooden heads and leather grips and Balata balls. Among Tour players, there's less of a gap between long-hitters and short-hitters than there has ever been. Correspondingly, there's less of a gap between younger players and older players. As the kids say, it's all good -- but the game Jack Nicklaus conquered is gone and it's not coming back. A par-70 course at 7,400 yards is way too short for the 330-yard driver who hits a nuked 5-iron 220, but nobody wants to see the 8,000 course. There's not enough daylight for that, on Thursday and Friday especially.

A New View of Golf in the Hamptons

A few days ago I slipped out to Sebonack Golf Club, the new-money newcomer in swanky East Hampton, N.Y. A Jack Nicklaus-Tom Doak production, Sebonack buffers the old-money National Golf Links of America, and just last week was awarded the 2013 U.S Women’s Open.

The course is spectacular and rugged, tough and fun. And while credit must go to its designers, the bay views are so abundant and the rolling topography so rousing that I’m pretty sure my mom could have built a good track there. Actually, it’s hard to believe that a developer didn’t pounce on the land sooner than Mike Pascucci, a former car-leasing magnate (who needs dot.comers?) who reportedly paid about $45 million for the site and another $75 million for parts and labor.

Memberships are no bargain — $650,000 will get you in the door — and my host for the day told me Pascucci isn’t inclined to accept just any old hedge fund manager or energy drink czar. “Serious golfers only,” he stressed. That’ll require patience from Pascucci, but given he sold his company for $700 million in stock in 1997, the man can afford to be picky. (Pascucci also owns WLNY, a local TV station on Long Island).

I’m no architecture buff, and other than the topsy-turvy greens — a Doak trademark — I couldn’t separate one designer’s fingerprints from the others. But the holes do offer tons of variety and intrigue and even a little forgiveness — after hooking my drive on the par-5 18th into the Great Peconic Bay, I re-loaded and, thanks to a 25-mph tailwind, got my short-knocking self home in two. I then promptly four-putted for an 8.

A clubhouse the size of a cruise ship just opened on the property’s high point, and what the behemoth steals from the site’s natural splendor, it returns in splendid views. Behind an unmarked door on the second floor, a spiral staircase leads to the roof, from which you can take in the deep blue bay, much of the course, the 18th green and comparative “cottage” of a clubhouse at neighboring National and due south the iconic shingled clubhouse at Shinnecock Hills.

It’s a striking confluence of new and old on some of the most sacred land in all of golf. But mostly the scenery just made me wish I had more money — new, old or anything in between.

Don't Run the Gantlet -- Spike It!

I have two reasons for not answering Gary Van Sickle’s call to come up with a name for the last three holes of the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass: 1) I hate contrived nicknames for course features. 2) I don’t need another reason.

Note that I said “contrived.” I’m fine with “Amen Corner” because that wasn’t coined by a p.r. firm. The great golf writer, Herbert Warren Wind, simply pulled it out of his Smith-Corona to describe the 11th, 12th and 13th holes at Augusta National -- no fuss, no pretense -- and people started using it.

I like “The Road Hole,” “The Churchpew Bunkers” and “The Postage Stamp” for the same reason. Those nicknames were coined by the golfers who played St. Andrews, Oakmont and Troon, and they have passed the test of time.

Compare that to “The Bear Trap,” the term used to describe the closing holes of PGA National. I was there the year they sprung the Trap on those of us covering the Senior PGA Championship. The new name came with a press kit -– “The Toughest Three-Hole Stretch on Tour” -- plus glossy photos and slides and a statistical analysis of how the holes had played in earlier tournaments.

There was even a press conference with course designer Jack Nicklaus. And just in case you missed the endless shilling for the nickname on the tournament telecasts, they installed a plaque on the 15th hole warning, “You are entering the Bear Trap!” (Did I say a three-hole stretch? Make that four!)

I expect marketing folks to create and promote their brands, but I’d like them to stop at the first tee. Otherwise, we’ll soon see “The Coca-Cola Bear Trap” or “The Burma Road, presented by Japan Airlines.”

Gary apparently feels the same way, because he spiked all the entries, including his own (“The Bermuda Triangle”) and NBC’s (“The Gantlet”).

Good call, Gary.

Hope for the Ravines

I was hanging out in the media center during the Players when former tour player Mark McCumber, a long-time Jacksonsville area resident and golf course designer, walked through. He's not playing much senior golf, he said, because he's had back issues and because it's more fun to enjoy the career of his son, Tyler, a star high school golfer.

I had to ask McCumber about what is probably his best-known design, The Ravines, located about 45 minutes from here in Middleburg, Fla. It opened in 1979 to rave reviews, in part because of the trademark ravines and the rolling terrain (that's unusual in Florida, which is largely Swamp Central and pretty flat). It regularly ranked among the top 20 courses in Florida. Managed poorly, the Ravines closed its doors for business two years ago. The course went into bankruptcy and recently went to auction, but it didn't attract any buyer. The course is still sitting there, overgrown with weeds.

That's frustrating for a designer, isn't it?

“You don’t have control over any of the courses you do," McCumber said philosophically. "I once said it’s like one of your kids going bad, but it’s nothing like that. If I designed a limited edition sports car for Ferrari and a guy buys one and wants to jazz it up, that’s his business. Because I live here, I’m a little more sensitive to it, but I haven’t owned the Ravines for 17 years. I don’t know the owner's name or anything about him. He made decisions that didn't work out. It's a shame because it's such a beautiful piece of land. To this day, I’ve never had a piece of real estate like it."

McCumber was bummed that two of his innovations at the course were changed. He built a nine-hole par-3 course and an undulating putting green, one-acre big, that he modeled after the famous Himalayas putting course at St. Andrews. "People loved the Himalayas and the owner just tore it up," he said.

Told that there is an interested buyer, McCumber said he was happy to hear that there's hope. "It's almost the same as building a new course, it'll cost about the same now," he said. "You've got to take all the grass off the course and re-grass the whole thing. You can't use the Bermuda that's already there, trust me. All the drainage, the bunkers, they've got to be redone. That'll be three or four million. I'm just glad someone is interested in it."

Paradise Found: The grillroom at Isleworth Country Club

When I die and go to heaven, the first thing I want to see beyond the pearly gates is a replica of the grillroom at Isleworth Country Club. Isleworth, just west of Orlando, is the playground of Tiger Woods, Mark O’Meara, Stuart Appleby and several other high-profile tour pros, but all of them, even Tiger, I discovered on a visit there yesterday, take a back seat to the glorious, unapologetic dudedom that is the 7,500-square-foot grillroom.

We begin just outside the doorway, where a glass display case holds, in homage to Masters champs Woods and O’Meara, a three-dimensional rendering of the green jacket, like one you might find at Madame Tussauds. Enter the grillroom (sorry, not you, dear—men only; oh, and you, too, squirt—no kids allowed either) and you are greeted by a long, handsome bar, a handful of card tables, and, clinging to the edge of a wraparound balcony above the bar, a row of golf bags embroidered with the names of Isleworth’s A-Listers.

The food is scrumptious, of course, and the burritos are the size of a can of tennis balls, but this experience is not about eating, it’s about gaming. Beyond the card tables the room opens up into a massive, cathedral-like space with a soaring ceiling and a collection of obnoxiously large plasma flat-screens—11 in all—that are splayed across the walls like canvases at the Met. In front of them sits a pew of cartoonishly puffy brown-leather electronic recliners that you could get lost in for a week. Behind them, the room’s centerpiece: a putting green that must be at least 400 square feet, a wonderful amenity should you not have settled all your business on the course.

Beyond the putting green, you'll find a daycare center for middle-agers, complete with a 50-course golf simulator and swing analyzer, pool and Ping-Pong tables, a handful of arcade games, two pop-a-shot machines and—should you feel the need to take Shaq to the hole (he’s a member, too)—half a basketball court with a regulation 10-foot hoop and 3-point line. A basketball court. In the grillroom.

Word is there’s a pretty decent golf course outside, but I can’t say. I played 18 on the simulator instead.

What's the Matter with Oklahoma?

BROKEN ARROW, OK. –- Talk about adding insult to injury. A vandal or vandals chemically defaced the seventh green at Cedar Ridge Country Club last night. In addition, a concession tent was torched. The damage, minor as it is, comes after the club lost 300 trees and had 2,000 more damaged by an ice storm that hit Tulsa last December. Cedar Ridge, site of the 1983 U.S. Women’s Open, looks uncharacteristically scruffy for this week’s SemGroup Championship.

Nature, in this case, deserves most of the blame. But what is it that drives Tulsans to burn graffiti into their turfgrass? Nine years ago, a disgruntled member of the greenkeeping staff chemically sprayed swastikas and profanities on the fairways and greens of Southern Hills Country Club. That assault, which cost $2.9 million to repair, has been described as the most expensive act of golf vandalism in history.

The attack on Cedar Ridge pales in comparison, but you have to wonder what point, if any, the vandals were trying to make. The scorched concession tent, near the eleventh green, was dealing chips and soft drinks, not drugs.

Maybe the answer is on the sign attached to the undamaged side of the tent: JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT – PREPARING STUDENTS FOR THE ECONOMICS OF LIFE.

Arboreal Top Ten

AVENTURA, Fla. -- I promised yesterday to come up with a Top Ten list of my favorite golf trees, so here goes:

10. Coconut palms. How can you not love a course lined with the snowbird's favorite tree? Even better: they're so skinny that they're hard to hit.

9. Redwoods. You don't want more than a few of these forest titans on your golf course, because turfgrass needs sunlight to grow. But if you want a Hansel-and-Gretel golfing experience, check out the Alister MacKenzie-designed 9-hole Northwood Golf Course in Monte Rio, Calif.

8.  Figs. The fruit cookies may be tiny, but these trees are immense with above-ground roots that resemble poured concrete. The figs I've seen on Australian courses are so big you could build fairway condos in their branches.

7.  Lombardy poplars. Well, it's a poplarity contest, isn't it? These tall, column-shaped trees are tres European, and they're typically planted in rows to separate fairways or decorate course boundaries. I like the lombardies at Saint-Nom-La-Breteche, outside Paris.

6.  Eucalypti. Tall, elegant, and they've got that cool, shaggy bark. Don't call them "junk trees" in my presence.

5.  Hospitality oaks. That's my name for those big-ass trees that people gather under at major championships. The best example is the giant oak behind the clubhouse at Augusta National -- known to Masters-goers as "The Tree" -- but I'm just as fond of the venerable oak behind the 18th green at Sunningdale, outside London.

4. Cottonwoods. These big shade trees grow along rivers and streams in Kansas. At Prairie Dunes, one of my favorite courses, sprawling cottonwoods provide stunning backdrops to the links-style holes.

3. Corks. I thought "put a cork in it" was just an expression until I walked the fairways of Valderrama in San Roque, Spain. The big, twisted trees and tumbling terrain made the 2002 Ryder Cup an aesthetic, if not an American, triumph.

2. Banyans. They're actually a variety of fig -- see No. 8 above and my previous posting. Banyans are safe climbing trees, which gives your kids something to do if you've dragged them to the Stanford International Pro-Am against their will.

1. Cypresses. If the most beautiful golf course in the world is called Cypress Point, doesn't that say it all? These trees are so dramatic that they look just as good DEAD.

If you want my pick for Lifetime Achievement Award, tree division, it's the giant mango tree on the Nadi Airport Golf Course in Nadi, Fiji. That's the tree that Vijay Singh practiced under as a boy.

Unfortunately, Vijay's mango couldn't be here today, but accepting the award on its behalf ….

No, I guess not.