Golf writing

When Tiger Woods won his fifth Masters Tournament in April, he instantly and easily became golf’s number one story again. Everyone was asking the same questions: Could Tiger become the world’s number one golfer again? Was Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major titles now perhaps within reach? Would Bethpage Black and Pebble Beach prove happy hunting grounds for him once more?

But following the recent PGA Championship and US Open, here’s what everyone should now be asking: is Brooks Koepka the best major championship specialist of all time?

And so on the 14th of April, in the year of our Lord 2019, the golf world once again centers entirely around Tiger Woods.

But then, when in the past two decades has it not?

The Big Cat has dominated 21st Century professional golf in every sense. From his triumphal US Open coronation at Pebble Beach in 2000 to his gimpy, gutsy playoff win at Torrey Pines eight years later, Tiger won 12 of the 33 majors on offer; Phil Mickelson (3) and Retief Goosen (2) were the only other men in that span to win more than one. Then came the literal and figurative car crash, and his personal wilderness, and parity reigned on the PGA Tour while television ratings fell and the golf-watching public waited for Tiger to be Tiger again. Sure, we still had Phil, and along came Rory and Bubba and Dustin and Jordan, and Brooks Koepka somehow won three majors in 14 months…but none of these guys were Tiger, and everyone knew it.

Shinnecock Hills is one of my favorite places in the world, and unquestionably my favorite golf course I’ve played more than once. One of my college golf teammates was a member there, and if I could relive one 48-hour period of my life, I would choose the weekend I spent playing 72 holes at Shinnecock. Fully 25 years later, I can still transport myself to specific locations on and within many of its fairways, bunkers and greens and precisely recall what I saw and felt there, and my untrammeled delight at being there. Proximity to true greatness, in any form, amplifies your senses and expands your consciousness.

Overexposure to greatness, however, can chill this effect. We see this in critics who can denigrate acknowledged masterpieces of art, theater and music, and in foodies who learn to find fault in Michelin star-worthy cooking. And at Shinnecock during the 118th US Open, several villains who ought to know better nearly managed to befoul the course and the championship before the greatness of both reasserted itself on a compelling Sunday.

Strangely, it felt appropriate that the final round of the 82nd Masters Tournament took place on the same day as Wrestlemania 34. Patrick Reed is the closest thing golf has to a wrestling “heel”, and on an electric Sunday afternoon in Augusta, Reed did just enough to kick the plug out of the socket and disappoint the many patrons who seemed to want anyone but Reed to win one of the maddest rushes to the finish line the Masters has seen in many years.

Reed is the younger generation’s FIGJAM. That acronym – “F--- I’m Good, Just Ask Me” – was once applied disparagingly by fellow pros to Phil Mickelson behind his back; Mickelson always ingratiated himself with his adoring crowds, but his public façade was then at odds with his professional demeanor. Reed, though, doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him, as long as they know he’s one of the best there is.

A tale of two of the worst drives in major championship history:

1) In the final round of the 2011 Masters Tournament, Rory McIlroy led by one shot when he pulled his drive on the 10th hole to a strange spot between two guest cabins, 60 yards left of the fairway. Flustered, he pitched out sideways, pulled his third shot well left of the green, hit a tree with his pitch, and eventually made triple bogey. McIlroy then bogeyed the 11th and double-bogeyed the 12th en route to a back-nine 43 and finished ten shots behind Charl Schwartzel.

2) In the final round of the 2017 Open Championship, Jordan Spieth was tied for the lead when he pushed his drive on the 13th hole onto a massive dune, 60 yards right of the fairway. Unflustered, he carefully assessed his options, declared his ball unplayable, retreated to the driving range to take a penalty drop, and then – 20 minutes later – blasted a 260-yard iron shot adjacent to the green. He recovered to save bogey, then played the next four holes in birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie and won by three shots over Matt Kuchar.

On the last Friday in May, my in-laws spent the day in St. Andrews. Their daughter graduated from the University of St. Andrews and got married in St. Andrews, so the Auld Grey Toon has a special place in their hearts – not that they needed a special reason to return there. St. Andrews is a lovely place for anyone to spend any day.

Shortly after completing the fantastic Himalayas Putting Course, for my money the best golfing experience for non-golfers in the world, they were returning toward the Royal & Ancient clubhouse and were surprised to find a large crowd gathering behind the 18th green of the Old Course. They soon discovered why: the 44th president of the United States was coming up the final fairway, finishing his first-ever round at the Home of Golf.

Sergio García stood on the 73rd green of his 74th major championship needing only to hole out in two putts from 12 feet to win the 2017 Masters Tournament, to follow in Seve Ballesteros’ and Jose-Maria Olazabal’s Spanish footsteps, and to throttle the major albatross hanging around his neck for nearly two decades. And all I could think to myself was that if anyone could possibly screw this up from here, it would be Sergio García.

But no: this time, on what would have been Seve’s 60th birthday, Sergio holed his birdie putt. And so an uneven Masters week – which began with the freak injury and withdrawal of world number one Dustin Johnson, swirled through two days of high winds and low temperatures, and seemingly fizzled as the multiplayer shootout suggested by the Saturday night leaderboard failed to materialize – ended dramatically, and satisfactorily, with the best Masters finish since Adam Scott’s playoff win in 2013.

Nostalgia seems to be violently in or out of fashion, depending on which side of the American political chasm you currently stand. Many Trump supporters harken back to what they remember as a more straightforward time where jobs were steady, Walter Cronkite had never heard of “fake news”, and all of the caddies at The Masters were black. Many opponents of Trump and his supporters ridicule such views as anachronistic and out of touch with modern reality; for them, the past was never as good as we remember, modern life is better and indeed safer, and such nostalgia can be both delusional and dangerous.

I do not support Donald Trump. But I do often feel nostalgic for simpler, happier golfing times. Like, I dunno, December 2016.

Let’s give a big shout out to our boys in red, white and blue at Hazeltine. They brought the Ryder Cup home. They made American golf great again!

It all started in the Thursday practice round. David Johnson – he’s from Mayville, North Dakota. A true Red State patriot. We have the best hecklers, we really do. Rory McIlroy and Henrik Stenson couldn’t make a 12-foot-putt. Six times they tried and missed. Johnson yelled out that even he could make that putt. The dumb Europeans – so dumb, so SAD! – gave him a chance. Justin Rose even offered him $100 if he could make it on his first try. I know a thing or two about gambling, and you never, EVER let other people gamble with your money. You gamble with OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. Of course Johnson made the putt, and he danced around the green like Patrick Reed. We celebrate better than anyone. The best celebrations.

At the end of six hectic weeks in the most compressed summer of major championship golf ever, who are the biggest losers?

The USGA. Nobody does video replay worse – not even the NFL or Major League Baseball. Dustin Johnson looked truly snakebitten when informed, against his protestations, he was probably at fault when his ball rotated a dimple-width on the 5th green in the final round. At least he overcame his penalty to win, very much against type; Anna Nordqvist lost her US Women’s Open playoff to Brittany Lang because an HD camera spotted a grain of sand shifted by a grounded club. Players both guilty and bystanding were notified long after the fact in both cases, Johnson himself already having been cleared of wrongdoing by the rules official following him. Is golf now the only sport where the players can’t be sure of the score?

I made my daily fantasy sports debut a few months ago. Some friends in an online discussion forum had created a weekly DraftKings golf competition, and it sounded like good and mostly harmless fun, so I asked if I could join in.

Now, I’m through the looking glass. The way I watch the PGA Tour has changed – massively, and possibly irrevocably.

DraftKings is by far the most popular website for daily fantasy golf competitions. Before each tour event, DraftKings assigns every golfer in the field a dollar value between roughly $5,000 and $13,000, and you get a budget of $50,000 with which to pick a lineup of six golfers. Each golfer scores points for you on every hole they play: 0.5 points for a par, minus-0.5 points for a bogey, minus-1 point for a double bogey or worse, 3 points for a birdie, and 8 points for an eagle. They also earn points based upon their final standing in the tournament – 30 points for a win, 20 for second, 18 for third, etc., down to 1 point for finishing between 41st and 50th – and bonuses for stuff like making three birdies in a row, shooting a bogey-free round, and posting four rounds in the 60s.

A new tradition unlike any other: writing about Jordan Spieth after the final round of the Masters Tournament.

Spieth dominated the 2016 Masters from start to finish, in triumph for three-and-a-half days and in disaster amidst the late-Sunday shadows of Amen Corner. Overcoming a balky swing and strong, swirling winds, Spieth birdied 20 of his first 63 holes to take a five-shot lead. Bernhard Langer in 1986 was the last defending champion to have one of the final two Sunday tee-times and fail to win the Masters, and on the 30th anniversary of that greatest of tournaments – and with Langer amazingly again in the penultimate group – Spieth seemed one-sixth of his way toward Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championship victories.

As Scottish winters go, the winter of 2015-2016 has been particularly wintry. The sun must be hibernating, and whenever I’ve been even remotely tempted to play golf, frost or flood or gale or deluge has quickly sapped my ardor. Under the circumstances, watching golf on television appeals to me much more than playing golf outside. And a number of recent changes to the American golf announcing landscape should make a hotly anticipated PGA Tour season that much more intriguing to watch.

Golf is alone among mainstream sports in that there is no consensus way to televise it. When you watch American football on television, you know you’re getting a play-by-play commentator, an analyst, a sideline reporter and a pretty standard set of camera positions. But with golf, you might have commentators assigned to different holes (CBS), a dominant pairing supported by several fringe voices (NBC), rotating pairs of commentators in a central location (BBC, and Sky at major championships), even a single central pairing backed only by on-course reporters (Sky at most European Tour events, and The Golf Channel). You might or might not also get the Konica Minolta BizHub SwingVision camera thrown in.

Without question, the most important golf book of my adult life (excluding my own!) has been Tom Doak’s The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses. I recently learned that Doak’s groundbreaking one-volume work – long out of print and now a valuable collector’s item – is now being updated, expanded and republished as a five-volume series, a revelation which makes me at once giddy, scared and wistful.

The concept behind Doak’s Guide, first published to a general audience in 1996, is as simple as it was revolutionary: take one of the world’s best golf course architects and let him talk freely and pointedly about the best – and worst – designs in the world. Doak is ridiculously well-travelled, and the original Guide rates more than 1,000 courses on five continents on a 1-10 scale with two quirks: the average golf course in the world merits a “3” instead of a “5”, giving him more scope to differentiate between superlative courses; and a special rating of “0” is reserved for courses “so contrived and unnatural, wasting ridiculous sums of money in their construction, that they may poison your mind and probably shouldn’t have been built in the first place.”

Let’s play a quick game: I’ll write a factually accurate sentence, and your job is to determine how many things ought to be wrong with it. Got that? Right – I’ll be back after you take 60 seconds to pore over this:

“The 2014-2015 PGA Tour season ended on Sunday, September 27 when Jordan Spieth surely clinched Player of the Year honors by winning the FedEx Cup – and its $10 million bonus prize – with a four-shot victory in the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.”

[FX: “Jeopardy!” and/or “Countdown” themes]

OK, time’s up. Here are five flaws I’ve identified myself:

Some great golfers are born knowing how to win majors. Some acquire the ability to win them. Some have majors thrust upon them. And some never catch the break their talent seems to warrant and remain majorless.

Classifying golfers thusly can be tricky. For example, does Nick Faldo go into Category 2 (“Acquire”) or Category 3 (“Thrust”)? Paul Azinger, Scott Hoch, Ray Floyd, John Cook and Greg Norman might suggest the latter – Faldo had an uncanny knack of benefitting from the aberrations of his closest competitors. But some classifications are more obvious: Tiger Woods is, or at least was, a Category 1. Phil Mickelson is definitely a Category 2. And Colin Montgomerie is the clearest Category 4 there’s ever been.

I watched the final round of the 2015 Open Championship – large chunks of it, anyway – on my mobile phone while queuing for various rides at the Legoland Windsor theme park. (Alas, family holidays don’t stop for Monday finishes.)

You might think I’d struggle to find a less apposite location from which to watch an Old Course Open. But consider this: Legoland has been around a long time and constantly struggles to keep its attractions fresh and modern. And while its rides are generally wonderful for younger children, few of them are capable of truly entertaining and/or scaring more experienced attendees.

For what will the 2015 US Open be remembered most? There’s no shortage of candidates: Jordan Spieth’s ascension to superstardom at age 21, Dustin Johnson’s epic meltdown on the 72nd green, Jason Day’s stirring fight against vertigo, and the confirmation of Tiger Woods’ descent into sad irrelevance are all strong contenders. However, I fear the tournament’s most lasting impact will silently reverberate around American golf courses for years and keep the game more expensive and less accessible to the golfing public than it ought to be – a legacy for which the United States Golf Association only has itself to blame.

A central tenet of Christian doctrine is the understanding that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Only Jesus – God incarnate – was capable of living a perfect life on earth, and his sacrificial death was necessary to redeem the rest of us from our imperfections. We may think we’re leading relatively good lives, but we all think so many bad things and perpetrate so many bad acts that our lives fall far short of absolute purity; the best we can do is fleetingly glimpse perfection, and hope those glimpses inspire us to rise closer to the standard against which we’re measured.

If that doctrine is difficult to fathom, let me explain it in golfing terms. On the average par 72 golf course with four reachable par 5s, a truly perfect round of golf would take 32 shots to complete: aces on every par 3, eagles on every par 4, and albatrosses on every par 5. One can achieve perfect games in other sports by bowling 12 strikes or retiring 27 batters in a row, but sports psychologist Bob Rotella famously titled his book Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, and we shouldn’t let television commentators deceive us into believing a well-struck shot finishing 10 feet from the hole is without blemish. We choose to measure ourselves against “par” precisely because we cannot aspire to true faultlessness; Rory McIlroy’s recent course-record 61 at Quail Hollow in the Wells Fargo Championship was both 11-under-par and 29-over-perfect.

“Match play is the truest form of golf.” Why do you agree or disagree with this statement?

That question ought to be part of the final exam at PGA Tour Qualifying School. In the wake of the new-look WGC Cadillac Match Play event, won brilliantly if not always convincingly by Rory McIlroy at Harding Park in early May, I’d like to extol the virtues of match play and also bemoan the reality that many Americans have never considered the above statement, let alone rejected it.

Americans are conditioned to believe stroke play is real golf and match play is a betting game involving separate front- and back-nine wagers and double-or-nothing presses. More than 95 percent of all televised golf is conducted at stroke play. The USGA handicapping system creates a scorecard-and-pencil mentality in which your performance on every hole must be quantified, even if you only play nine holes on a lazy summer evening. Back in the States, “What did you shoot?” is an acceptable question in every clubhouse bar.

Tiger Woods may still be the golfing hero America wants, but Jordan Spieth is the golfing hero America needs.

These are Spieth’s tournament results going back to the Australian Open last November: 1st (by 6 shots), 1st (by 10 shots), tied for 7th, missed cut, tied for 7th, tied for 4th, tied for 17th, 1st (won in a playoff), 2nd, tied for 2nd (lost in a playoff), 1st (by 4 shots). Those are Tiger numbers, and following Spieth’s wire-to-wire triumph in Augusta this April, Spieth and Woods are of course now the only golfers to win the Masters at age 21 and the only golfers to finish the Masters at 18 under par.

I recently bought an IKEA loft bed for my son. The morning after I purchased it, I disassembled his old bed, tidied away the old toys and rubbish formerly under it, vacuumed the floor, painstakingly hauled the first two boxes of chipboard slabs upstairs, took a deep breath, and finally started building the new bed.

After maybe 30 minutes of assembly, I realized I’d done everything backwards: the shelving unit I’d been working on was facing the wrong way, and I needed to start over. So I reluctantly started unscrewing everything…and in doing so, I carelessly allowed one upright plank to topple over, ripping two screws out of their sockets in a way which looked unrepairable. As a Tourette’s-like torrent of profanity escaped my lips, I thought I’d ruined everything.

What a perfect metaphor for Tiger Woods’ golf game right now.

The other week I was invited by an acquaintance to play golf at Whitekirk, a relatively new and hilly course several miles from the East Lothian coastline. Unfortunately I’d misheard his invitation and instead waited more than half an hour for him at Winterfield, an older and much shorter course by the sea in my own town of Dunbar. By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late to meet up, although in truth I didn’t mind: the air was cold and the wind was howling, and the older I get, the less inclined I am toward golfing masochism.

I’ve been to Whitekirk many times. I won an open competition there several years ago, and I like taking my kids for hits and giggles at its practice range. Its restaurant does a good carvery lunch on Sundays, and its large clubhouse also contains a swimming pool and a state-of-the-art gym. But I rarely see many people there: let’s just say memberships and tee times at Whitekirk are both freely available. And whenever I hear stories that golf is becoming less popular and the golf industry is in trouble, Whitekirk is one of the first places I think about.

Was 2014 this century’s least inspiring year in professional golf? I say yes.

Honestly? As I think back on the golfing calendar year that was, I struggle to recall many tournaments I remember fondly – and the one I liked the most, the Accenture Match Play Championship, nearly ceased to exist shortly after Jason Day defeated Victor Dubuisson in their crazy 23-hole final. The event only returns in 2015 after changing title sponsors, venues and dates; I strongly believe the PGA Tour should be looking to increase the amount and visibility of match play golf, but burying this event on the West Coast (at Harding Park in San Francisco) the week before the Players Championship in Florida suggests Tim Finchem disagrees with me.

Meditations from a man who no longer knows what to make of the Ryder Cup:

> Team USA has won the Ryder Cup exactly four times since 1983 – and three of those wins involved behavior and attitudes which don’t belong on a golf course

In 1991, USA players wore Desert Storm-themed camouflage apparel as part of “The War by the Shore”. In 1999, after whooping the Brookline crowd into a Revolutionary frenzy, American golfers joined their caddies and wives in trampling over Jose-Maria Olazabal’s line after Justin Leonard’s miracle putt on the 17th green. And in 2008, Kentucky patriotism encompassed hearty applause for Boo Weekley’s impersonation of Happy Gilmore. In other words, I’ve spent most of my life rooting for Ryder Cup teams which have embarrassed me with bad behavior and/or bad golf.

In early September 2006, I attended a corporate golf outing at the Duke's Course in St. Andrews hosted by Colin Montgomerie. (No, I wasn't being punished.) The Ryder Cup was being held at the K Club in a few weeks, and I was the only person in attendance who would be rooting against Team Europe; thankfully I've repressed much of what happened that day, but I do remember that my foursome played a par 3 with Monty, and as we walked from tee to green I asked him what he thought of the four rookies in the American squad.

"To be honest, I've not really heard of them before," he smirked.

Early in the fourth round of the third dull major championship of the year, Peter Alliss said something to Frank Nobilo in the BBC commentary box at the Open Championship which irked me greatly. Sergio Garcia had just holed a long birdie putt at the third hole to pull within six shots of runaway leader Rory McIlroy, and Alliss suggested the monstrous roar which greeted the birdie showed the crowd had turned against McIlroy, which to Alliss seemed a bit unfair.

“They just want a contest, Peter,” replied Nobilo.

“Oh shut up, Frank!” barked Alliss. “The people here don’t want a contest – they want to see Rory winning by 82 shots! Pull yourself together!”

My son played in his first golf tournament a few weeks ago. He’s six years old.

Let’s be clear about one thing: Scottish golf is awesome in more ways than I’d ever thought possible. My own introduction to golf in America – at the ripe old age of three – involved loitering on a driving range and the floor of my father’s golf cart. My kids have done both of those things as well, but we also have two children’s golf courses on our doorstep which forbid adults from playing unless accompanied by a minor. The children’s course in North Berwick has nine holes, while its neighbour in Gullane has only six; their holes are all between 50 and 130 yards in length, each features properly linksy turf and rolling terrain, and both make me wish I could be 10 again, playing three-handed matches between my own ball and those of “Nicklaus” and “Watson” until sunset.

The North Berwick course hosts regular competitions throughout the summer, but the event my son entered was part of a UK-wide scheme called “Wee Wonders”. Founded by the head professional at Gullane, Wee Wonders is for kids aged 5-12 and encompasses 15 nine-hole regional qualifiers in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales and a Grand Final in St. Andrews in late August. Tournament rules include a 10-shot limit per hole, a three-shot limit per bunker (after which you can throw your ball out with no penalty), and a prohibition on parental advice: “Competitors must make their own decisions on issues that affect the way in which the shot is played.”

Of the many memorable things I’ve seen in professional golf so far this year, the images which have stayed with me the longest come from the recent BMW European PGA Championship. I’m not talking about Thomas Bjorn’s sixth birdie in a row on Saturday, or Luke Donald’s amazing chip-in at the 16th on Sunday, or Rory McIlroy’s double triumph over a world-class field and pre-marital heartbreak. No, I’m talking about the fairway mowing patterns at Wentworth, which (as shown in the image at right) looked like webs spun by a spider high on Benzedrine. My eyes, my eyes!

I used to rather like Wentworth. Easily the most recognizable golf course on the normal European Tour rota – particularly when it hosted the World Match Play event every autumn as well as the PGA in May – it had a refined parkland elegance and a memorably unusual finish of back-to-back par 5s with oddly angled tee shots rewarding direction far more than distance. But then Ernie Els was brought in to “modernize” the course, his most notable addition being the artificial-looking pond now guarding the 18th green. And then, well, some idiot greenskeeper decided to cut the short grass nine different ways and draw as much attention away from the natural splendor of the property as possible. What’s left is the lingering impression of a former beauty queen now botoxed and liposuctioned to within an inch of her life, the scars more obvious than the fixes.

An average of 7.9 million viewers watched the final two rounds of the 2014 Masters Tournament on television in America – the lowest viewing figure for a Masters weekend since 1993. That was the year Bernhard Langer and Chip Beck first taught me that a Sunday afternoon at Augusta could actually kinda suck. Mind you, this year’s Masters didn’t suck, unless of course your only reason for tuning in was to watch Tiger Woods.

Personally, I’m enjoying Tim Finchem’s personal post-apocalyptic wasteland, aka the Tiger-free 2014 PGA Tour season. Each week throws up new storylines and a fresh cast of characters, including Matt Kuchar’s redemption at Harbour Town, J.B. Holmes averaging 333.9 yards off the tee in winning at Quail Hollow (where Phil Mickelson posted weekend scores of 63-76), and Martin Kaymer’s near-collapse but ultimate salvation at the 71st hole of The Players Championship. Each tournament is mostly covered by CBS, NBC and Sky on its merits, not its personalities. And when I watch the back nine on Sunday, I generally have no idea who is going to win. This is why I like professional sports.

Jordan Spieth didn’t win the 2014 Masters Tournament. He didn’t win because no debutant has won the Masters since the greens at Augusta National were made of Bermuda grass. He didn’t win because he’s only 20 years old, and because 20-year-olds don’t have the temperament to win major championships. He didn’t win because his swing literally and quite visibly fell apart over the weekend; it’s tough to hit the ball straight and hard with a one-handed follow-through. Most of all, he didn’t win because Bubba Watson is a force of nature whose talents couldn’t be more suited to Augusta National if Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie had hired him as a consulting architect.

But Jordan Spieth could, and arguably should, have won the Masters. Watson may possess a wickedly sweet combination of John Daly’s power and Lee Trevino’s shot-making skills, but Spieth’s youth, consistency and relentlessness mark him out as a logical American successor to Tiger Woods. Not bad for a kid ranked no. 809 in the world as recently as the start of 2013.

“That’s it, I’ve seen it all. I mean, if Arnold Palmer drove by on a scooter….” His incredulous voice trailed away: for once, David Feherty had no words to describe what he’d just seen. I immediately thought of Lee Trevino, mentally gone and certain of defeat, chopping at his ball with barely a practice swing yet chipping in for par at the 71st hole of the 1972 Open Championship at Muirfield. When the short par putt found the hole, Nick Faldo simply and gracefully remarked, “One of the greatest up-and-downs.”

And then, one hole later, the same thing happened again. I’ve now watched Victor Dubuisson’s par saves at the 19th and 20th holes of this year’s WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship final at least 30 times on YouTube, and I doubt I’ll ever see two shots by the same player in the same sudden-death playoff to rival Dubuisson’s two whacks at the Arizona desert. One part skill, seven parts luck and two parts Gallic insouciance cooked up a combined memory which will stay with me as long as matchplay golf exists – it’s as though God was trying to pay back the French with interest for what He did to Jean van de Velde at Carnoustie.

I’m standing in the middle of the 18th fairway at Oak Hill, 231 yards from the hole. I check the leaderboard and confirm that Patrick Cantlay, in the penultimate group just ahead of me, has parred the 18th to finish at eight under par. I’m on 10 under myself, so I only need a bogey to win the tournament, but even with a slight tailing wind I’m right on the limit: I need to nut a three-wood to reach the famously elevated green. Do I risk plunging into the spongy rough on the near-vertical bank short of the green? Or if I lay up, do I trust myself to find the fairway and then wedge to within easy two-putt distance?

A few weeks ago I bought a used Xbox 360 and a copy of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 on eBay, and frankly, I don’t want to be writing this column, or even watching the live final-round coverage from Scottsdale as I type – I want to resume my own pursuit of a make-believe PGA Tour card. This realization embarrasses me. But then, it’s dark and cold outside, my two real rounds of golf in January were too wet and windy to be enjoyable, and my lovingly tolerant wife doesn’t grimace when I punch the air in my living room.

So I’m settling down to watch the final round of the first PGA Tour event of 2014, the Tournament of Champions at Kapalua. It has everything a golf fan should want: a world-class leaderboard, gorgeous scenery, perfect weather, and what is normally one of the three best golf courses on the regular Tour rotation. And yet, all I can think about is what’s missing.

Everyone will have noticed that Tiger, Phil and Rory didn’t make it to Maui. None of them ever do, but Mr. McIlroy’s absence was particularly noteworthy because a) he and Caroline Wozniacki became engaged the week before, and b) he wasn’t actually eligible to play in the Tournament of Champions, as he won precisely zero PGA Tour events last year. These two points may well be related.

I’m looking out of my living room window on a morning in late November, and the sky is a uniform, dull gray. The Met Office website tells me today’s temperature along the East Lothian coastline will not exceed eight degrees Celsius, with winds gusting up to 30 miles per hour and rain predicted for the afternoon. I keep my slippers on and wrap myself in an extra sweater. Today, just like every day for the past two months, I’ve decided against playing golf.

When I was young, I played golf in the cold of winter almost as naturally as in the heat of summer. In fact, I vividly remember that the first full shot I ever holed – a 110-yard four-iron, for birdie – came in a Thanksgiving tournament on a bitterly chilly day in Georgia. As a student in St. Andrews I played frequently through the winter, the novelty of links golf being too exciting to pass up. As a newlywed living in London, my golfing opportunities were limited, and I would never refuse a tee time at any half-decent course even in the icy depths of January. And now that I again live in coastal Scotland, for the past few years I’ve represented my club in the East Lothian Winter League, enjoying competitive matchplay in the format – foursomes – most able to neuter the worst effects of bad weather.

Ten years ago this month, my wife and I spent three-and-a-half weeks in Australia. It was the rare holiday whose itinerary I would enthusiastically repeat without alteration: Sydney and the Blue Mountains; the Great Barrier Reef; Uluru and Alice Springs; Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula and the Great Ocean Road. And of course Royal Melbourne, New South Wales, Kingston Heath, Commonwealth, Victoria, Portsea and the Moonah Course at The National, among others – all in pleasant heat, and most in bright sunshine.

The arrival of autumn makes me remember my favorite tree in the world. Yes, I have a favorite tree – a tall and round oak which stands 30 yards short and to the right of the second green at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. It isn’t a strategic obstacle to be carefully circumnavigated; rather, it stands proudly alone and aloof to the side, like a guardsman’s bearskin at Buckingham Palace. But in the autumn, it bursts into the most intoxicating blend of yellows, oranges and reds…the trees in my native Georgia changed colors in the fall, but not like this. As a freshman on the Harvard golf team, playing golf at Brookline taught me what autumn in New England can look like, and that golfing scenery can be just as beautiful in the quiet repose of autumn as it can in the spectacular brilliance of Pebble Beach or Cypress Point.

I’ve always preferred watching golf tournaments on television to attending them in person. Like the Tour de France or a Formula 1 race, the narrative arc of a strokeplay golf competition can only be perceived with the wide-angle lens that television gives you. From vantage points close to the action, individual vignettes can be savored, but their meaning often dissipates in the absence of narrative clarity, and being in the right place at the right time to see the key moments is more a matter of luck than judgment.

For the 2013 Open Championship, I discovered a new – and hopefully better – way to watch golf: I worked at Muirfield as a spotter for ESPN. Armed with two-way radios and all-access armbands, spotters patrol the front lines of the battle to create narrative order from the chaos of tournament golf. Every day I followed a different group from inside the ropes and acted as the eyes and ears of the production team: when one of my guys was doing well, I made sure Jim Zirolli – my ESPN production contact, a Connecticut native with a Hartford Whalers cap and a permanent grin – knew my group’s hitting order at every tee, fairway and green and how many shots each golfer had taken. If anyone made several birdies in a row, or received a notable slice of good or bad luck, or faced a pleasingly televisual predicament (e.g., an awkward stance in a bunker or against a stone wall), or was on the clock because of slow play, I reported that as well. In turn, “Jimmy Z” filtered the spotters’ reports to his fellow producers who chose which shots to show and which graphics to display to the viewers back home.

One down, two to play. I’m short and to the right of the bowl-shaped 17th green on the West Links at North Berwick, needing a miracle shot to extend my match. Facing an uphill lie in light rough, I choose my putter, and I clip the ball carefully from the turf: it bounces up and across a narrow causeway, barely stumbles over the edge, trickles slowly down a steep slope and curls to a halt three feet from the hole. The 25 or so spectators now following along applaud enthusiastically, and I instinctively wave a hand in acknowledgment like a seasoned tour pro.

And I’m thinking to myself: How cool is this?

Five talking points from the 113th National Open:

The Winner. In its own way, Justin Rose’s Sunday at Merion was every bit as special as Adam Scott’s at Augusta. Rose hit only two bad lag putts and one truly poor shot (from the bunker at #14) all day. His ball-striking was pure enough to make Ben Hogan smile – OK, maybe just nod once in approval – from the grave; in particular, his approach at #18 was a worthy successor to Hogan’s famous 1-iron in 1950. He bounced back from his first three bogeys with immediate birdies, two of which he followed with additional birdies as well. His win felt…just right. He was due, and he delivered, and I’m really happy for him. Now, will a single major quench his thirst, or can Rose rise again and kick on from here?

It’s weird: I’m actually feeling sad for Adam Scott right now. Is that wrong? I mean, I know he just won his first major championship, but his amazing duel with Angel Cabrera – one of the best shot-for-shot finishes in Masters history – was overshadowed by the rules controversy surrounding Tiger Woods. And more importantly, if the history of other recent first-time major winners is at all relevant, Scott’s greatness may well prove fleeting.

Since Tiger won the 1997 Masters, 34 other golfers have won their first major titles. Of those 34, only seven have gone on to win another major, three of whom – Padraig Harrington, Angel Cabrera and Mark O’Meara – won additional majors but no other regular tournaments on the US or European PGA tours. Eleven of the 34 of haven’t won any tournaments in the US or Europe since their major successes. Collectively, the 34 averaged 5.6 tour wins before their major wins, and only 4.1 tour wins since; if you exclude Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen, the latter figure drops to only 2.3.

When you play golf, do you play by the rules?

Exhibit A: Several years ago, while addressing my ball in the first fairway of a medal competition, I accidentally nudged it very slightly – no more than an inch, and not into a better lie. My playing partner could not have seen what I’d done; nevertheless, I immediately notified him that I’d moved my ball and called a one-shot penalty on myself (under Rule 18-2b).

Exhibit B: Several weeks ago, during the second hole of another competition, I discovered that my five-year-old son’s 9-iron and putter were in my golf bag. As I possessed 16 clubs, I should have incurred a four-shot penalty (under Rule 4-4a). However, insofar as I would never use such tiny clubs, this time I decided not to ruin my round over a technicality; I kept my mistake to myself.

On my ninth birthday – Saturday, April 9, 1983 – I attended The Masters Tournament. I remember the two-hour drive from Atlanta and the insalubrious field in which we parked, across the road from a Waffle House. I remember following John Mahaffey, first out for the third round and playing on his own, around all 18 holes before decamping behind the 15th green. I remember spying my first pimento cheese sandwich and wondering who would eat such a thing. I also remember the crowd at the 15th singing “Happy Birthday” to Seve Ballesteros and childishly thinking they should also be singing to me.

Thus began a lifelong obsession which continues unabated, 30 years on: items #1, #2 and #3 on my personal Bucket List involve playing Augusta National before I die. While I love The Masters for many personal, historical and horticultural reasons, architectural reasons compel me the most. The variety of different golf courses and their changeability in different seasons and weather patterns is at the heart of golf’s allure; Augusta National is far more different from, say, Muirfield than Yankee Stadium is from Fenway Park or than Wimbledon is from Roland Garros. And because Augusta National is both the best course and the most-watched course on which the world’s best golfers play every year, April is the perfect time to ponder the essential elements of great golf course architecture:

Here are the winners of the first three full-field events on the 2013 PGA Tour – see if you can tell which one of them is not like the others:

> Russell Henley, making his Tour debut after finishing third on the Web.com money list in 2012

> Brian Gay, defeating Charles Howell III and David Lingmerth in a playoff for his first win in four years

> Tiger Woods, winning his eighth title at Torrey Pines and his 75th Tour event overall

Now, most of my Sunday nights between February and October are spent watching golf on television, but a few weeks ago I’d never heard of Henley or Lingmerth, and I’d still struggle to pick Gay out of a lineup. Tiger is a different animal, of course, but the disparity between Tiger and the likes of Henley and Gay only continues a trend which augurs ill for the Tour’s future.

On New Year’s Eve, my family and I visited St. Andrews. My mother and brother had been there for my wedding, but their indoctrination was far from complete. So I drove them across Grannie Clark’s Wynd (twice), scaled the vacant Himalayas Putting Course with them, and pointed out Old Tom Morris’s grave for them. Then, at dusk I snuck my brother and five-year-old son across the Swilcan Bridge for a photo op and a circular tour of the Road Hole green. The air was cool but clear, the breeze soft, and the sky streaked with pink and orange. Hogmanay in Edinburgh had nothing on this.

Four days later, the 2013 PGA Tour season began in Maui with the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. Or rather, it began seven days later, because the Tour’s attempts to get started on January 4th, 5th and 6th were scuppered by gale-force winds. Two rounds were started, then abandoned and discarded. Flagsticks tilted 45 degrees. A television tower toppled into a lake. St. Andrews was calm and peaceful, and Hawaii was bent sideways? The Mayan apocalypse may yet happen.

Last Sunday, Martin Kaymer won something called the “Nedbank Golf Challenge” in Sun City, South Africa – “his first title of 2012”, according to www.nedbankgolfchallenge.com. Graeme McDowell also won the “World Challenge presented by Northwestern Mutual” that day in southern California, by three strokes over Keegan Bradley. As these glorified exhibitions were drawing to a close, Whitekirk Golf Club hosted Dunbar Golf Club in the East Lothian Winter League. In contrast to those other two events, Whitekirk vs. Dunbar was a true challenge which actually meant something to its participants above and beyond a juicy end-of-year paycheck.

Golf in December is an unusual animal. In the US, several loosely affiliated, limited-field events like the Tiger Woods-sponsored “World Challenge” are held before the PGA Tour goes entirely on Christmas vacation. (Simultaneously, the final stage of Qualifying School last week saw Oliver Fisher, Robert Karlsson and 24 other golfers who have never been in your kitchen win US Tour cards for 2013.) The European Tour migrates to South Africa. The only semi-prestigious golf gets played in Australia; this week’s Australian Open could claim to be the real Fifth Major if only the best non-Antipodean golfers in the world could be bothered or trained to fly south for the winter like their predecessors once did – Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player won the Australian Open 13 times between them – and their tennis equivalents still do. Should we begrudge them a brief holiday at the end of a busy year? Perhaps not, but let’s not pretend that Kaymer or McDowell accomplished anything more than adding a few zeroes to their bank balances.