Venues matter
Lydia Ko wins at The Old Course as Captain Keegan takes the BMW title in Denver
Well, that was a pretty fun Sunday of golf. You could’ve spent a full eight hours watching a pair of interesting tournaments between the Women’s British Open and men’s BMW Championship.
The former was won by Lydia Ko, a once-phenom who captured her third career major and first in eight years at the Old Course at St. Andrews. The latter was taken by Team USA Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley, who was the last man to qualify for the tournament at all.
Good stuff.
The leading edge
Takeaways from the week that was, by Myles
There are so many reasons the Women’s Open was compelling on Sunday.
It was the last major of the season, men’s or women’s. At one point, the top six (!) were all world No. 1s.
Nelly Korda, who won six times early in the season, including the Chevron, was trying to cap an underwhelming summer with an exclamation mark. Lydia Ko was hoping to back up her Olympic gold with a long-awaited major title. Lilia Vu was in the mix for her third major in two years.
Not only were those stars leading, but they were bunched tightly and traded places throughout the week.
And yet, the biggest single reason this tournament was so fascinating was the venue.
The Old Course at St. Andrews — “the home of golf.”
It’s a track we all know and can envision in our minds — especially the finishing stretch, with the road hole 17th and the vast, hilly 18th.
Yes, a major title was up for grabs. But it was a major title at the Old Course.
Even despite NBC’s best efforts to dampen your viewing experience, it was impossible to turn away.
One of the admittedly many things that can make pro golf monotonous at times is that we see the same people competing each and every week. When they return to the same courses, in the same order, every year, it only adds to the feeling of repetitiveness.
Meanwhile, in team sports, even as the regular season often feels like a slog, you always get new matchups.
Which is why majors are so great — Augusta being an obvious exception — because they provide new settings. Win at the Old Course? You’re joining legends like Jack, Seve, Tiger, Lorena Ochoa and Stacy Lewis.
We even saw why venues matter at the BMW, which was held at Denver’s Castle Pines.
Even though we defended the FedEx Cup playoffs last week, this event itself still seemed rather meaningless.
But it was enjoyable viewing because it’s a course we don’t often see — and one that had added challenges of adjusting for altitude and heavy wind.
Despite prognostications that the extra distance would lead to a birdie-fest, Bradley won at 12-under.
Outside of three majors and the Canadian Open, the BMW is the only tournament each year that switches up its location.
We need more of that in pro golf — to keep things fresh and to provide new challenges.
There’s no reason the men’s Tour Championship, which’ll be contested next weekend, needs to be at Atlanta’s East Lake every year. It’s a fine course, but as Castle Pines showed this week, there are tons of those around the U.S.
We’re not even sure the next time we’ll see the Old Course in action.
And if the original golf course isn’t worthy enough to host top-level pro golf every year, then neither is basically any other course.
Venues matter.
The false front
A take one of us needed to unload, by Nate
It’s rare that professional athletes realize the full potential of their careers and walk away from the game fully satiated.
If Rory retired tomorrow, he’d forever wonder why he couldn't snag another major. Same for Michelle Wie, one of the biggest prodigies in women's golf, who only won a single major. This list travels for miles with other world-class athletes like Roy Halladay, Allen Iverson and Dan Marino who never won a championship.
This will never be the narrative for Lydia Ko, whose career is every professional athlete’s and Hollywood writer’s dream. As fans, we’re lucky to watch Ko live up to the hype.
At 15 years old, the Kiwi phenom became the youngest player to win on the LPGA Tour. To follow that, she became the youngest major champion, and set the lowest Sunday winning score at a major at the Evian Championship only to break that record the following year at the ANA Inspiration.
By all accounts, Ko’s career was shaping up to be historic and transcendent in the women’s game. Just three weeks ago, there were 18 LPGA wins, two majors, and bronze and silver at the Olympics.
But whether right or wrong, we tend to always expect more from our athletes. There’s a sizeable difference between good and great, a palpable feeling for Ko’s career that was missing victories at any of the three marquee majors — the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA.
In the last three weeks, Ko took the leap we’ve been waiting for. She won gold at the Paris Olympics, earning a spot in the Women’s Golf Hall of Fame. On Sunday, she won the Women’s Open at the most historic venue in all of golf, the Old Course at St. Andrews.
At this point, we don’t know how many more times Ko will compete at the highest level. She’s only 27 and playing her best golf, but careers in the women’s game are often short and sweet.
If Ko hangs up her clubs tomorrow, nobody will be asking for more. We’ve already got an all-time sports story.
Links roundup
Golf content we consumed over the past week
Even if the the Fore Play Boys aren’t your cup of tea, they play a match at a sweet course in South Dakota worth checking out.
The BMW Championship marked the end of qualifying for the Presidents Cup this September and here are the auto-qualifiers.
Rory McIlroy showed signs of a long and tiring season in a weird sequence where he snaps his driver in half and hits a shot barefooted out of the water.
Swing thoughts
Something about playing golf, by Myles
It was a big week for slow-play discourse, as rounds at the Old Course took over six hours to complete while a loop at Bushwood Golf Club in Markham pushed five hours.
Actually, scratch that last part. We wouldn’t know how long that full Bushwood round would’ve taken — because we walked off after nine holes and two-and-a-half hours.
The golf was excruciating. Waiting on every single tee shot. And then waiting again for the green to clear.
It was a shame, too, because it could’ve been a really fun day. Last-minute round, wind gusts to make us think about club choice, nice temperature otherwise.
Instead, all we did was wait. You can’t find any sort of rhythm when that happens. And when you’re playing bad golf like I was, the frustration of lingering around every tee box only compounds the poor shot you’ve convinced yourself you’re about to hit.
I’m not even sure why it was so backed up. The group ahead of us was waiting, too. It’s not like the tee sheet was full though — we literally booked our tee time at the course.
The flip side: if there weren’t times available at this relatively cheap and cheerful course on a Wednesday around noon, we would’ve complained that it’s impossible to book golf.
How do you fix slow play then? More courses? Fewer tee times? Better players?