The Curmudgeon tackles Asia, GPS, Celts v. Picts

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

Great to be with Peter Kessler, again, on his radio show, “Making the Turn,” a staple of the PGA Tour Network. It’s on XM, and this aired a week back but I reckoned I’d share it with you here, under Curmudgeon guise, as a podcast. Ireland vs. Scotland is the burning question. We answer that and touch on course development in Asia, GPS in rental cars, what makes a course worth playing over and over, and more Eire antics. Got to know Peter better during our recent Irish golf trip. The guy is a serious Beatles fan, which explains his show’s segue music. Enjoy.

Ordering Martinis, Maintaining Decorum: A Guide

Ordering Martinis, Maintaining Decorum: A Guide

by Hal Phillips 5 Comments

I’m something of an asshole, but I reckon it’s much like dealing with substance abuse — acknowledgement of the core issue is the first step toward recovery. Accordingly, I do spend considerable time and effort trying not to be an asshole, or less of one. I just find this task to be particularly onerous when ordering a martini.

I have not allowed this challenge to affect consumption. I developed a taste for gin long before I developed a taste for any other alcohol. We go back a long ways. I don’t claim any broad expertise on the martini subject, notwithstanding where I stand on it. In other words, I know what I like:

• I prefer Bombay, or Beefeater: I’ll accept some lesser quality gin if it’s all that’s available. I’m honestly not too snobby about it, but Bombay and Beefeater are my ideals — and there are horses for courses. Tanqueray is fine with tonic, for example. Better than fine actually. But it’s got a very different sort of taste that, to me, doesn’t work in the martini context. Also, as I explain a bit further down, specifying Bombay tends to lessen my opportunities to come off sounding like an asshole.

• I don’t like olives: Yeah, I know. This is absurd. Everyone loves olives, Dan Bern especially. They are the things that make the martini for many people, but not me. I don’t like them on their own and I surely don’t want the oil, or the essence of anything — lemon peel, onion, or what have you — getting between me and the sublime chemistry of gin + vermouth.

• I want it shaken: Martinis should be served colder than cold, and shaking the ice, gin and vermouth together imbues the mixture with thousands of tiny ice shards that, when the drink is poured from shaker to glass, form a thin, crystalline film on the drink surface. It’s a beautiful composite thing, like a snowflake. Each design is utterly distinct. What’s more, it tells me the drink is cold enough and will remain so for as long as the immediate climate allows. There are establishments that will serve you a small portion in the martini glass, while the remainder is provided separately in a caddie, a small beaker that in turn sits in a glass globe that effectively packs ice around said beaker. This is solid presentation and extremely practical: The martini stays cold. But I still want it shaken on the front end.

• I want it very, very, very dry: This does not mean I want no vermouth at all. As you may have noticed, the dryness of martinis is the subject of much hackneyed, drink-related humor. People will muse, upon my ordering a very, very, very, “Oh, so dry that you just wave the vermouth bottle over the glass?”, or “So dry that all you need to do is whisper the word vermouth over the rim?” No, that’s not the point (and while you’re at it, stop with the Hawkeye Pierce impressions). I don’t want straight gin. Vermouth does something specific and integral to the martini process, even in extremely small doses: It cuts the astringent edge of straight gin like nothing on God’s Green Earth. Some people enjoy the taste of vermouth, which is an aperitif after all, and some enjoy that of vermouth mixed with gin. That’s all well and good. But people like me who want their martinis very, very, very dry do not like either of those things. They’re seeking the taste of gin minus its astringency, which is exactly what just the right amount of vermouth — literally a droplet per martini — provides.

Let me share with you one of the world’s great, fool-proof drink tips. If you want a very-very-very dry martini and you’re mixing for a single, here’s what you do: Pour what is surely too much vermouth into an ice-laden shaker; gently stir it around a bit; then pour out all the vermouth, every drop. The vermouth that remains coated on the ice is the exact right amount for a bone-dry martini. Just add a single serving of gin, shake with vigor, let sit 30 seconds, shake again and serve.

•••

Back to the asshole theme. It is fairly well impossible to order a martini, while conveying all this vital information, without sounding like a pedant. If one were to provide even a quarter of the detail above, anyone within earshot would rightly assume that, “Jeezum crow, that guy there ordering the martini is a Grade A/No. 1 Asshole.”

The martini-ordering process is indeed rife with opportunities to sound like a self-important prick. Here’s another example: If you want your martini shaken, how does one make this clear without invoking a sort of fatuous, wannabe-James-Bond swagger? It’s difficult, let me tell you.

I’ve been drinking martinis for more than 30 years, and trying not to be an asshole for nearly as long. Here’s how I tiptoe through these potential minefields:

First, I have, over time, developed a concise, matter-of-fact, not-at-all swaggering script for my preferred martini order that, I daresay, has proved perfectly effective. Here’s what I say, every time, without fail: “I’d like a very, very, very dry Bombay martini. Straight up. No fruit. Shaken, please.”

I intone “very” three times because I’ve noticed, over the course of decades, that if I say it four times, I’m an asshole — and the bar man is likely to use no vermouth at all, to punish me. If I say it just twice, odds are 50-50 the waiter or waitress will not effectively emphasize this dryness to the bartender and my martini will come back tasting like a vermouth slushee. When it comes to “very”, the number of the counting shall be three. Four thou shalt not count. Five is right out.

Second, note the brand specification inherent to my stock martini order. This component I’ve developed in the last 15-20 years in response to what is frankly a worrying but nevertheless obvious trend. I’ll try not to sound like an asshole while describing it.

It’s ironic that as the martini has grown in popularity — and I think we’ve all noticed this trend — two things have become clear: 1) Much of this uptick is due to the influx of specialty martinis; and 2) the vodka martini has similarly grown in popularity.

These developments are co-dependent. Gin does not mix particularly effectively with, well… anything but tonic or vermouth. Vodka on the other hand is virtually tasteless and mixes well with all manner of mixers and fruit juices. Accordingly, when one is concocting some confection/abomination like an appletini or cranberrytini, vodka is the clear choice when it comes to one’s liquor base.

I shouldn’t say “abomination”. That is too strong a word. What these specialty vodka martinis truly are is “risky”. The martini is no joke, people. I’m a 205-pound man, and I only have a second martini when I’m at home, or not driving home. There is a built-in safety mechanism inherent to this particular drink: When consuming a proper martini, one is damned cognizant of the fact that one is drinking something entirely alcoholic and wicked potent. By contrast, when you’re drinking an appletini, it’s a lot like throwing back a glass of Hi-C  — in a fancy vessel, laced with barbiturates. In other words, it’s all too easy to have 3 or 4, and that is a recipe for disaster.

There’s something else, something a bit cynical and sinister, at play with specialty martinis. Let’s call it the Bartles & Jaymes Syndrome, because the same demographic who drink appletinis today drank wine coolers in the 1980s. In short, alcohol purveyors — in addition to boyfriends and would-be male suitors the world over — are continuously looking for new ways to get young women as drunk as possible, as quickly as possible. Most young women will not stomach proper martinis. Cranberrytinis? This selection I’m afraid they will stomach. Until they don’t. 

But here’s the third and final reason I’ve been obliged to add the “Bombay” to my standard order: If I don’t make this clear, the person taking my order will inevitably ask me, on account of vodka’s surging popularity in this milieu, “gin or vodka?”

I understand why they ask. Honestly, I do. Half the people ordering a martini have never done so before — or they are accustomed to ordering off specialty martini menus that bring high levels of variability to the process. However, as I hope we’ve made clear here today, a martini is a martini. It’s gin, full-stop.

Years ago, when I was younger and less concerned with being an asshole, I would respond to this perfectly innocent question thusly: If I wanted a “vodka martini,” I’d have asked for one. But that was the old Hal — the one who, all too frequently, came off sounding like, well… you know. By strategically inserting Bombay into my order, I make things plain, I get what I want, and all questions are answered ahead of time.

Of course, some 10 percent of the time, I am served a martini that has way too much vermouth, or olives, or vodka — regardless of all the care and forethought I devote to the ordering process. In these cases, I feel perfectly within my rights to send that drink back. But here again, I have gamed out a strategy that mitigates my own assholery.  I don’t reorder the martini. A barman will invariably react poorly to this — by removing vermouth altogether or (my personal favorite) making the exact same wrong martini again. 

I refuse to take that bait and chose instead to defuse the situation, thusly: Hey, sorry to be a bother but this is not what I ordered. I’ll have a Bud. 

Sports Couture Karma: Transgressions will cost you
The inimitable Maurice Lucas in the uniform his Blazers adopted immediately after winning their first NBA Championship, in 1977. They've not won another.

Sports Couture Karma: Transgressions will cost you

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

 

The inimitable Maurice Lucas in the uniform his Blazers adopted immediately after winning their first NBA Championship, in 1977. They’ve not won another.

So, I was watching some random highlight of a Patriots-Rams exhibition game about a year ago when it suddenly crystallized for me. It takes two points to make a line, and finally I had identified a second, solid example of Sports Marketing Greed/Hubris, Couture Division.

Bill Walton models the jersey that won Portland a title. A year later, in new togs, he broke his foot, demanded a trade and was never the same again.

Exhibit A) The Portland Trailblazers win the NBA title in 1976-77, wearing the same plain-Jane uniforms (white at home, red on the road; the “Blazers” lettering reading vertically down the jersey) they had sported since their joining the League in 1970. The very next season, they go to the arguably more attractive and apropos design — dual swaths, or blazes, of red, black and white that run diagonally across the breast and down the shorts. The result: They haven’t won a title since. Haven’t really come close, to be honest, despite a couple trips back to the Finals.

You think it’s an accident that one of the finest, most cohesive teams in NBA history literally disintegrated the moment they damned the championship karma and changed uniforms? Don’t be naïve… I had always wondered why the Blazers tempted fate in this fashion, but I couldn’t prove that some sort of karmic law had been transgressed, until now.

Exhibit B) The St. Louis Rams win the 2000 Super Bowl in their old yellow-and-blue uniforms. The next year, attempting to cash in at the merchandize window, they switch to GOLD and blue. Again, arguably an upgrade in style and originality, but a bald-faced affront to a clearly winning formula. They return to the Super Bowl in 2001, lose to an inferior Patriots team, and have since descended into chaos. Koros, Hubris, Ate, Nemesis — the classic Greek cycle of decline…

Purists will note that the Rams’ yellow-and-blue togs were not their originals. The dark blue-and-whites I associate with Roman Gabriel, Merlin Olson and the 1960s; the Rams actually go back to Cleveland in the late 1940s, and I have no idea what colors they wore then. My point: The yellow-and-blue had been worn a good long time prior to 2001, since the early 1970s. They were established.

A one-off merchandizing cash-in you MIGHT get away with. But you can’t  win a franchise’s first-ever championship and change things up so radically. You just can’t.

These have not.

These colors delivered to the Rams Super Bowl glory.

The 1931 U.S. Open: Golf’s Bataan Death March
George von Elm (left) and Billy Burke, combatants in the longest U.S. Open every contested..

The 1931 U.S. Open: Golf’s Bataan Death March

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

 

George von Elm (left) and Billy Burke, combatants in the longest U.S. Open every contested..

The next time you play a round of golf in some modicum of heat and humidity, the next time you walk 18 and feel the lactic acid building up in your thighs and calves, spare a thought for Billy Burke and George Von Elm. These were the stalwart principals in golf’s most extraordinary physical test: the 1931 U.S. Open, held way back when at The Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.  As the central characters in what Grantland Rice called “the most sensational open ever played in the 500-year history of golf,” Burke and Von Elm required 144 holes of medal play to produce a winner: Burke, by a single stroke.

Take a moment to think about the parameters here: 72 holes contested over the first three days, followed by 36 playoff holes on Monday and 36 more on Tuesday. It was and remains, needless to say, the longest playoff in U.S Open history. Supreme Court cases have taken less time to adjudicate.

Waged in the midst of a stifling, July heat wave — in an era devoid of fitness trailers, cushioned in-soles, and air-conditioned clubhouses — this match was golf’s precursor to the Bataan Death March.

Or so it appeared during the morning round on Tuesday, July 6, 1931, as Burke and Von Elm — with 126 holes behind them and 18 still to negotiate — staggered off the 18th green toward the clubhouse for lunch. Even the most callow observer could see the quality of play eroding, quite understandably, under the enormous dual burdens of fatigue and Open-playoff pressure.

Yet Burke rallied to play his finest golf of the tournament over the final 18 holes. Von Elm, too, rose to the occasion and finished a single shot in arrears.

“I looked for a rather ghastly finish to a grand struggle,” wrote O.B. Keeler in The American Golfer. “Instead it was, and ever shall remain in my mind, the most remarkable exhibition of recovered stamina and poise and of sheer staying power and determination I have ever witnessed.”

Legend says that Von Elm, a lithe figure with little to lose, shed nine pounds during the championship, while the stocky Burke managed to gain two. “A circumstance,” Keeler mused, “which, if accurate, gives rise to wonder as to his diet.”

Read on to sort through, with me, the fascinating details of this extraordinary championship, staged 80-plus years ago this summer by two fascinating figures whose stories have been obscured by time, during a period when golf was wildly popular but still adjusting to the loss of its dominating figure.

•••

The U.S. Open of 1931 was the first “Jonesless” Open since 1920. The Emperor had retired from competitive golf following his epic Grand Slam the year before, and while he was on hand at Inverness, the golfing public was anxious to see just who would fill the considerable void. Golf’s professional class was especially keen; Bobby Cruickshank admitted he and colleagues were delighted to see Jones in the gallery, as opposed to the field.

Nineteen thirty-one was also the year the so-called “balloon ball” was required for Open play. This larger and lighter spheroid didn’t prove popular at Inverness, as competitors complained loudly that mis-hits were exacerbated by the new-fangled ball, which neither carried nor rolled as far. After just one year, the USGA would junk it — returning to the previous, heavier guideline of at least 1.62 ounces, but keeping the balloon’s larger size (1.68 inches in diameter).

Yet all the talk of balls and would-be kings was quickly subsumed by the event’s overarching conversation piece: the weather. The heat was oppressive by any discernible measure. Contemporary accounts of the championship are littered with modifiers like “blistering “, “blazing” and “sweltering”. Golf Illustrated‘s “special correspondent” noted that “The field was all on hand early for practice several days ahead of time, but so intense was the heat that on these practice days no one with any chances to jeopardize played more than nine holes of golf.”

It was 105 degrees on Friday, July 2, the first day of competition. It was no cooler on Saturday, when Von Elm served notice to the field with a 69, the tournament’s low round. His 36-hole total of 144 led 63 players who made the cut; Burke stood one stroke back.

It would be another 34 years before the USGA extended the Open format to 18-holes on four consecutive days, so Von Elm’s 73 on Sunday morning left him two shots clear of Burke with the afternoon round still to play.

By lunch time, the mercury was hovering between 97 and 99 degrees, with humidity levels only a tad lower. Igniting one of his trademark cigars (he would go through 32 during the championship), Burke went off in the penultimate group with Johnny Farrell, while Von Elm and Al Espinosa formed the final pairing.

Espinosa and Farrell had fallen from contention with substandard third rounds; by Sunday’s final nine, it was essentially a two-man race, with Von Elm in the driver’s seat. Standing on the 12th tee, he led Burke by two strokes but Von Elm would stumble over the next six holes, playing them in four-over. Burke parred the 18th to post a 292, meaning Von Elm needed a birdie 3 to force a playoff. He did just that, calmly draining a 12-footer before the breathless, sweat-soaked multitudes gathered a green’s edge.

With its extraordinary fugue of physical demand and competitive drama, Sunday’s play (the presumptive 36-hole finale) might have gone down as one of the most thrilling days in Open history.

As it turned out, the tournament was only half over.

Irish Golf Tidbits: Stouts, Control, Separated at Birth

Irish Golf Tidbits: Stouts, Control, Separated at Birth

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

Still emptying the suitcase of the golfing mind, fresh off the Golf Road Warriors’ late-July tour of Ireland. Several matters remain unaddressed, and so they are tackled here. I reserve the right to keep this tab running indefinitely. Even so…

• Guinness Lite. Honestly — We had wonderful couple of days (less than 24 hours, actually, now that I think about it) in the very north of Ireland at Ballyliffin Golf Club. General Manager John Farren was our host, and he could not have been a better one. He looked the other way when we arrived looking like death warmed over (straight from a transatlantic flight and 4-hour drive from Dublin). He personally delivered Peter Kessler’s set of Adams clubs on the 8th hole of our round on the Glashedy Links. He even joined us in the bar for a podcast when all 36 holes had been completed. Somewhere in this blitz of activity, he made what I thought was a joke about offering us a Guinness Lite. I assumed he was joking; I mean, really… But lo and behold he mentioned it again during the pod, and upon drawing him out, it became clear he was perfectly serious. Guinness Mid-Strength is in fact the centerpiece of a “responsible drinking” campaign being waged by Diageo Ireland, Guinness’ current owner. Unlike American light beers that are marketed as being “less filling,” Guinness Mid-Strength was created to offer an unchanged taste experience without getting people so loaded. It weighs in at 2.8% alcohol, compared with the 4.2% we expect from the world’s most recognizable stout. I expressed mild shock and dismay at this development, but John urged me to try one. He even ordered me one from the bar, after the pod, but it was ultimately delivered to someone else — at which point I accused him of taking the joke a bit far. Still, I promised him I’d try one and report back. I did just that during our stay in Killarney and let me say I was impressed. Depending on how cold it’s served, a reasonable person might have trouble telling a Mid-Strength from the original. Indeed, because I’ve gone dozens of Irish posts and thousands of words without saying it, I’m obliged share the sentiment here: Guinness Mid-Strength. It’s magically delicious.

• Beamish, where art thou? — I love my Guinness. I’m no fool. But I do enjoy a wide variety of stouts. Why limit one’s self? The American craft brew renaissance, which pretty much coincided with my coming of age, has exposed me to just how many ways one can creatively brew a stout, the thickest and “stoutest” porter-style beer a brewery might produce. Gritty McDuff’s Black Fly Stout is one I enjoy regularly, as it’s brewed just down the road from my home in Maine. I like a Murphy’s every once in a while, and one thing I was dearly hoping to do in Ireland during this GRW trip was down a few Beamish, a lovely stout that I’d quaffed on previous trips to the U.K. Well, I wasn’t really expecting to find it up north in Ireland; Beamish was originally brewed in the south, in Cork, and folks up north don’t demand it. But I was dismayed to see it nowhere on tap in Killarney or any of the clubs we frequented in the southwest. Apparently Heineken International owns it now. There was a brief dalliance with international distribution, in 2009, but that’s been halted and it’s nowhere to be found on the streets of Killarney. What a shame.

• Eat, Pray, Love = Control, Feel, Trust? — So, each of the Golf Road Warriors was provided two golf gloves for our trip, courtesy of our friends at Hirzl. We received the Trust Control model, and the Trust Feel model. I can honestly speak only to the Control, which I donned at Ballyliffin’s Old Links and used throughout the trip. Great glove. No stretching, easy on and off, and the palm material (kangaroo leather apparently) was super grippy, without being tacky. I went for the Control because I reckoned we’d be playing multiple rounds in the rain (at which time, I would break out the Trust Feel model). But, as luck would have it, we played only one real wet round (at Carne GC), the Control provided just that, and it dried out in plenty of time for the next day’s round. I’ll report on the Trust Feel when the Control wears out, but don’t hold your breath. I’m thinking this could take some time.

• Time-Honored Tracks Enter Digital Age — Failte Ireland, the very capable promoters of Irish tourism (Failte, roughly translated from the Gaelic, means Welcome to), launched during the Irish Open an online search capability that allows visiting golfers to book tee times, in real time. Go to the Search and Plan section at www.discoverireland.ie/golf and you’ll see how it works. Many of the fine old links are represented among participating clubs, in addition to a bunch of top parkland tracks, including Open host Killarney Golf & Fishing Club. 

“If you want to play a number of courses over a few days, you can now make the most of your holiday by checking tee time availability at golf courses online in advance,” explained Keith McCormack, Failte Ireland’s Head of Golf. 

“Our tee time availability search facility will tell you exactly what slots are free. You can then book the tee time that fits your itinerary with your chosen golf course. All you have to do is decide where you want to go and what type of golf course you’d like to play on.”

English pro Chris Wood

• Chris Wood, Separated at Birth — As you may recall, I played in the pro-am on Wednesday of last week’s Irish Open at Killarney Golf & Fishing Club. Thankfully, no one was hurt. My pro was Englishman Chris Wood and the whole time around I’m thinking to myself, “This guy reminds me of someone. Not someone I know, but a public figure…” Couldn’t nail it down during the 18, but I did upon returning home. Indeed, I realized it was two guys who both reminded me the 6’6” Bristol native: NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Robin Lopez, center for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. See the evidence below. Actually, Robin has a twin in the NBA, Brook, of the New Jersey Nets. But I’m going with Robin because 1) he dated fellow Stanford product Michelle Wie for a time, 2) he was on my fantasy team a couple years back, and 3) his flyaway, corkscrew hair is more reminiscent of Wood’s trademark, wind-blown, nest-like coiffure.

Robin Lopez

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

A True Golf Road Warrior Does It Behind the Wheel

A True Golf Road Warrior Does It Behind the Wheel

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

You can’t call yourself a proper Golf Road Warrior, no matter how far you travel from home, if you merely settle in one place and encounter only the courses in that vicinity. You’ve got to cover some ground, laddie, behind the wheel — and that we did over the course of our nine days in Ireland, courtesy of our not-quite-British-racing-green VW Transporter. Reputable tour companies, like our friends at Perry Golf, will hook you up with both car and driver, but you can dispense with the latter. Call me a control freak, but I’d rather our party controlled its own destiny. Highlights and observations from our Irish driving experience include:

• In total, I reckon we spent a full 23 hours driving to, from and between various golf courses. That’s nearly 1/9th of our entire sojourn, or 11 percent of our time here. Too much? Perhaps. I’ll drive an hour to play golf at home, each way. That’s 40 percent of the golf experience, not the day itself… I will say that if you’re playing 36 on a road trip like ours, you can’t afford to be driving any more than 2 hours between them. Even if they are right next to each other, at the same resort, that sort of regimen leaves little time for anything else (like blogging).

• On Day I, we landed in Dublin, secured our van and headed dead north to Ballyliffin, 4 hours away at the very northern tip of the island. That’s serious and immediate motoring immersion, but driving on the other side really isn’t that big a deal. Honestly. It’s disorienting for 10 minutes, and then everything locks in, mirror imaged, and you don’t think about it again — until you pay a toll. The urge to hand money to the person on the left is quite overwhelming…

• The big issue is leftward drift, or the tendency to not hug the centerline on Ireland’s famously ribbon-like roads. I don’t really have that center-line-hugging sensation when I drive at home, on the right side. I must do it instinctually. When that instinct isn’t contrived, in Ireland, you tend to hear it before you see it — either the brush of a hedgerow on your left sideview mirror, or maybe something like, “Curb, CURB, CURB!!” from your co-pilot.

• Our gas station/convenience mart of choice on this trip was the Topaz. We stopped at our first one in Northern Ireland, about 2.5 hours north of Dublin. I’m not sure we realized we had passed over this once dangerous, now fairly workaday border. Later we realized that signs in Northern Ireland no longer featured both English and Gaelic language words, but it certainly became clear exactly where we were when the woman behind the counter explained that we could pay in Euros, but she was obliged to give us change in pounds sterling. Hello, plastic…

• This signage dynamic stood in contrast to that which we discovered in the far west of Ireland, where, in Bellmullet, home to the superb Carne Golf Club, we discovered the signs to be written only in Gaelic.

• My mother’s been complaining for all my years about the poor signage adorning New England roadways. She’s probably right, and the signage in Ireland (like that in her native California, in the 1950s) is extremely detailed, copious and accurate. One can simply follow the various road names (N25, R344), or one can keep onesself headed toward the various cities that form the links in a chosen route’s chain, or one can do both. All in all, it’s difficult to get truly lost. That is, if one can read a map.

• I can read a map, and so can Tom Harack, my co-pilot for the great majority of our odyssey. We split the driving and orienteering. We screwed up only a couple times — mainly missed turns at roundabouts (nothing a quick U-turn won’t solve) or not properly divining the most efficient way around substantial towns, as opposed to through crowded city centres.

• We were provided a Garmin GPS plug-in unit along with the van, courtesy of the rental company. It was never once employed during this trip. It was eschewed in favor of a gigantic fold-out map of Ireland where one side featured the northern half of the island, the other the south. There are, as you know, hazards to map usage. Can’t see the left side-view mirror when someone has it fully unfolded in the passenger seat, for example. But there are comic advantages, such as the times I glanced over to see Tom reading the unfolded map but appearing to be hiding under it, as one might hide under a bedsheet.

• There are three major designations of roadway in Ireland: The M’s, like the M1, denote a motorway, or what we’d call an interstate highway in the U.S.; the N’s designate a “national” roadway, one that is pretty substantial, will provide passing lanes on uphill portions, and will more than likely connect major towns (it seems there are also N roads, like the N59, which seem to imply some kind of scenic byway designation). Then there are the R’s which are basically rural routes. They can range from roads of N-like quality to the most rudimentary country lanes. There are some L-designated roads, usually followed by 4 digits, as in the L2364. From a distance, these looked like deer paths and we never did venture down one, by choice or necessity, thank goodness.

• You really want to minimize your time on the rural routes. They’re often beautiful, no question, but they’re a freakin’ hazard and you generally make poor time. We picked up the R253, for example, on the way to Narin & Portnoo Golf Club on Day III. It was no wider than my driveway at home, questionably asphalted, and we were on that sucker for 38 kilometres! Luckily, it was early on a Saturday morning and we only encountered a handful of cars coming the other way. Each time, however, it was the same drill: See oncoming car, come to a full stop, inch by said car (checking both side mirrors all the while), continue on our way.

• Another disadvantage to the rural routes, and narrow Irish roads in general? Passing. Or, as they say over here, “overtaking” (undertaking on motorways, or passing on the left, is seriously frowned upon in the U.K., I’ve found). As indicated, on N and R routes, there is barely room for two cars to pass each other going in opposite directions. When you finally get some visibility and pull out into the oncoming lane to pass, occupying nearly all of that narrow passage, it’s a leap of faith.

• The one place we avoided a rural route where perhaps we shouldn’t have was some 30 km outside Carne, after our game there. We were headed dead east to Ballina and then took a right turn south to Castlebar, where we planned to pick up good road to Galway, then Limerick, around the River Shannon to Killarney. We had a chance to turn right and angle our way down to Castlebar on the R312 — it was clearly more direct, but we’d have traded an N for an R. So I opted against it. We may never know if this saved or cost us time. It’s a decision that may well haunt me for the rest of my days.

Tralee: Canny Punctuation to an Irish Golf Smorgasbord
The crazy-good par-3 3rd at Tralee, from the lesser of two killer nines.

Tralee: Canny Punctuation to an Irish Golf Smorgasbord

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

 

The crazy good par-3 third at Tralee Golf Links. [photo courtesy of John & Jeannine Henebry]

 

The odyssey is complete, our nine-courses-in-nine-days schedule has been dispatched, and it’s all over but the ibuprofen withdrawals. Eight links, one parkland track. Three venues in the very north, four in the west of Ireland, and three more in the southwest. I arrived with a bag full of balls and 24 new ones in a box. I’m happy to report there are at least 18 left and, God be praised, I’m actually swinging the club better now than I was at the start. That’s not typical. I’ve been on plenty of long golf trips were things get bad, before they get worse, and there they stay, excruciatingly. But I tallied an 85 at Tralee today and it could have been 81 or 82. For me that’s something to blog about.

But I won’t. Tralee Golf Links, not my 85, is the story today, and what a grand golf course it is. The back nine is among the best loops of links golf you’ll find anywhere, and after the brutally long, quite tight 10th, 11th and 12th holes, this Tiger does something unique: It retracts his claws and treats the sojourner to six exquisite holes of only moderate length, as they snake up, over and around some massive dune formations.

Tralee is a bit different than many of the links courses I’ve played, on this trip and previously. As indicated, it finishes very reasonably with two short par-4s, a par-3 and a short par-5 (no. 18). It’s nowhere near Tralee town; just a few houses are scattered about the hillside nearby. It sits way out on a point, surrounded by huge tidal lagoons and an estuary or two. The feeling of isolation would be total, if you weren’t looking down off tees over long beaches dotted with families, dogs, etc. When we walked back to the 14th tee, serving a magnificent 300-yard uphill par-4, we noticed a jet ski peeling its way out of a lagoon to our right, headed for more open water. Would’ve made a fine video… sorry we didn’t act quickly enough.

One of our colleagues at Failte Ireland, the estimable Michelle McGreevy, says that the back nine at Tralee is her favorite loop in the country. As a senior tourism official, that means something. As a former Irish Girls Champion who plays off 1, that means a little more. She’ll get no argument from this quarter. Tralee’s front nine is perhaps as beautiful — it skirts massive cliffs before looping back beside another lagoon, across which sit the ruins of some ancient castle — but the back nine is worth the trip on its own.

It was a helluva way to punctuate ours.

 

 

Of Blackthorns and Pro-Ams: Three Days in Killarney
The 18th at Killarney Golf & Fishing Club, site of the 2011 Irish Open

Of Blackthorns and Pro-Ams: Three Days in Killarney

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

The 18th at Killarney Golf & Fishing Club, site of the 2011 Irish Open

After five manic days on the road, wielding golf clubs in Ireland’s furthest northern and western reaches, we have come to rest in the Killarney, Cill Airne, meaning “church of sloes”. (What’s a sloe, you might well ask? It’s a blackthorn). This is County Kerry, in the southwest, and here we’ve continued our Golf Road Warrior mission whilst de-emphasizing the road part. We’re based here for the next few days, in this charming town 20,000, to complement the media corps covering the Irish Open and play the region’s top tracks.

Day 1 was Ballybunion. Day II, Wednesday 27 July, was the pro-am here at the sterling, Killarney Golf & Fishing Club. Tomorrow, Day III, my penultimate day in Eire, we head back to the links, at Tralee.

It was a brutal 5-hour drive to Killarney from Carne, but if you’re going to put down temporary roots somewhere, you could do a lot worse than Killarney. Like Tralee, the home base for my father, brother and I when we last visited SW Ireland, in 2008, Killarney is a lovely, walkable, vibrant town full of restaurants, pubs and high streets awash in colorfully painted signs and facades. Killarney comes off as even more alive, this week, as it’s fairly well bursting at the seams with Irish Open enthusiasts. The pride of Irish golf fans is bursting, too. They have come from all points to see their four major heroes — Paddy Harrington, Darren Clarke, Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell — in action.

Pro-Am day was also free admission day, so the crowds were quite substantial. I’m not used to playing in front of a gallery, but I can report that no one was hurt. Indeed, I treated them to my typically dazzling shot-making, when I wasn’t mixing in self-loathing mutters, three-jacks, and high, peeling slices into the pro-style rough. I was essentially useless to my team, but no one seemed particularly pleased with the way they played, either, and fun was had by all. Chris Wood was our pro. You might remember him for having finished 3rd, as an amateur, at the 2009 Open at Turnberry. I can tell you, having viewed him up close over the course of 5-plus hours, that he’s quite tall, resembles an oversized Dale Earnhardt Jr., hits the ball a bleedin’ mile, and comes off as a genuinely nice lad. I’m rooting for him this week, though as I sit here in the media centre, I see on the big board that he’s 3-over through his first 11 holes. He’ll need to pick things up to make the cut.

Robin Lopez

At first blush, it might seem odd that an Irish Open would be played over a parkland track like Killarney. This is Ireland, after all, home to so many stunning links. But, as we’ve learned, many of those links are stupendously remote, while others don’t have the facilities to handle the huge crowds. With the exception of Dublin, there are more hotel beds in Killarney than in any other Irish city. That would include, I presume, the 14 rooms at Killeen House, a B&B where we dined in admirable style and substance our second night here.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

English pro Chris Wood

Our group is about 11 media strong, and the Killeen had us at a long table occupying half of a private room. After our appetizers arrived, the other party arrived: 12 dudes on golfing holiday from St. Louis. We recognized them immediately from Ballybunion earlier that day — these were the guys whooping it up on the clubhouse balcony when were putting out on 18. We had seen them at Carne, as well. They were soused at Ballybunion 2 hours prior, so they were predictably boisterous and even more lit by the time they sat down for dinner. Ah, the joys of being an American abroad…

Thankfully, we took our desert in the bar, where the spirits flowed with more decorum and the walls are bedecked in golf balls (the barman here will readily trade you a logoed ball for a pint). The sun was all the way down when we stepped outside. It was quiet and still, and the gloaming made our deep green surroundings that much deeper. A thunder clap of laughter, surely emanating from our original dining room, breaks the silence and continues — ebbing and flowing but remaining constant — for a minute or more until, again, it’s quiet and all we can hear as we approach our bus is the muted crunch of gravel beneath our feet.

The gloaming descends on Killeen House, home to the superb Rozzers’ Restaurant.

 

 

How the Irish and Ireland inform their golf
A quiet Sunday morning on the Diamond in Donegal Town. That's the road south, to Sligo.

How the Irish and Ireland inform their golf

by Hal Phillips 1 Comment

A quiet Sunday morning on the Diamond in Donegal Town. That’s the road south, to Sligo.

Sitting on a park bench this Sunday morning in the Diamond, the central square area of Donegal Town. The Road Warriors straggled back here, battered and bruised, late last night between rounds at Donegal Golf Club and Enniscrone. What we found upon checking into the splendid Abbey Hotel was a major league party underway, in our hotel bar/disco, and in every hotel and bar surrounding the Diamond. Saturday night in Donegal is no joke, and it wasn’t just the gaggle of young things strutting about. This was clearly a cross-generational night out. When I checked into my room, I shared an elevator with a 50something couple and another woman who had broken the heel off one of her 60s-era, black, Nancy Sinatra-style, go-go boots. The three of them were literally falling all over themselves in hysterical laughter at what had happened, and they wanted me to join in. When I crashed last night, sometime around 3 a.m., there was still plenty of laughter emanating from the Diamond.

It’s morning now, close to noon actually, and it’s quieter here in the square. A motorcycle club has gathered here on the stone plaza, but their comings and goings are the only break in the quiet remove of a Sunday morning after. You may think I’m crazy, but I believe I hear some Irish pan flute in the distance. Honestly. Some business establishment must be piping it in. I listen to the familiar chug of diesel engines (they predominate here) as lines of slow traffic putter by me. The three main roads all meet on this one spot, heading off south to Sligo, north Letterkenny and west to Killybegs. Nothing here in the square is made of wood. It’s all stone masonry, businesses on the first floor, resident apartments on top. People are out and about and the pubs are open for business.

I’m from Boston, so I’m used to the way Irish towns are laid out (i.e. around a square or town green — these forms of public architecture were imported directly to New England from the old country), and I’m used to the Irish. Growing up, I just assumed (up to a point) that everyone in America but me was Irish and Catholic. Everyone had relatives back in Ireland, just as everyone here has kin in the states.

The difference is (aside from the presence of a proper castle, Donegal Castle, just off the square), the Irish in Ireland are all too happy to chat you up about their relatives, where they live, where you live, what sort of trip you’re doing, have we played Sligo, there’s a pub round the corner you must try, and let me buy you a pint. The American Irish are nice enough; no more or less congenial than me, or any other immigrant population in the U.S., which is to say all of us. But the indigenous Irish are off-the-charts friendly.

Oftentimes the Scots and Irish people are compared, as the links courses in Scotland and Ireland are often compared. There is, I think, an austerity to life in Scotland, to the golf they play, to the courses they play, to their outlook on life. It’s nothing cold or perverse, but there is a reserve, a near asceticism to the people, culture and the courses. I love it there, but when you think of the Scottish links you’ve played, do you think green?

Well, this ain’t the Emerald Isle for nothing, people. It’s green and lush. The outlook is sunny, even if the weather isn’t always. Ireland and the Irish don’t do asceticism. They are, in contrast, generally garrulous and outgoing. Their golf courses run the gamut, naturally, but they generally reflect their keepers: they are greener, the dunes are bigger and more dramatic, the welcome in the clubhouse more genuine than those you find across the Irish Sea. Handsome is as handsome does.

Donegal Castle is just a stone’s throw from the town center, better known as The Diamond.

 

 

 

 

Ballybunion, Enniscrone and Carne: Discuss
The 16th at Carne GC, in the remote west Ireland town of Bellmullet

Ballybunion, Enniscrone and Carne: Discuss

by Hal Phillips 1 Comment

 

The 16th at Carne GC, in the remote west Ireland town of Bellmullet. [photo courtesy of John and Jeannine Henebry]

 

About 50 minutes outside of Bellmullet, bearing down on Ballina, headed east so that we might eventually tack south to Castlebar, Galway, Limerick and Killarney, it registered with me that we were playing Ballybunion the next day. So I was thinking, “How many links golf courses are rated higher than Ballybunion, I mean, in the whole freakin’ world?” Now, ratings are nothing if not subjective, and, as a member of the GOLF Magazine panel since 1997, I am party to that subjectivity. Nevertheless, if you refer to the GOLF list, only the Old Course at St. Andrews, Muirfield, and Royal County Down, Royal Dornoch, Royal Portrush, Turnberry, and Pacific Dunes are more highly rated. Sand Hills? I just don’t think of that as a links.

This would normally be the fodder for yet another pedantic ratings discussion, and I have played Ballybunion before. But as we made our my way down the N56, it occurred to me that I’d be playing it this time having played 7 stellar links courses in the space of 5 days, including one that I’d have a hard time placing behind any links course we’ve mentioned here, so far.

Much as I enjoyed the two courses at Ballyliffin, the Sandy Hills course at Rosapenna, Narin & Portnoo and Donegal, they are simply not in Ballybunion’s class. But Enniscrone is, and it’s interesting to compare the two, having played them both in the space of 48 hours. Both routings spend considerable time NOT weaving their ways through the deep hollows of giant dunes corridors. This is to their credit. Links that spend all their time in there are too intense, too difficult, too funky. You need a break, and there’s nothing wrong with wrapping holes around the perimeter of a dunes complex, or routing an open fairway to a green that sits in a dunesy amphitheater. Both Enniscrone and Ballybunion serve up this sort of thing, in spades.

So, what does Ballybunion have that Enniscrone doesn’t? Or what is it about Enniscrone that keeps it from these lofty heights? Is it, as my colleague put it, simple inertia on the part of the scum-sucking media? It could be that. But here are some alternate theories.

1)    Ballybunion is older and more accessible, meaning that more people have played it over the course of more years. Enniscrone is way out there in County Sligo, hours from Galway and even further from Dublin, Limerick, Belfast or any sort of hub. It’s remote, and unless you’re course was designed by Ben Crenshaw, or developed by Mike Keiser, these types of remote courses don’t get the same sort of attention.

2)    Ballybunion is, I would say, 2.5 shots easier per side than Enniscrone. Now, this can depend a lot on conditions the day you play. But we played the two on very similar sun-splashed days in similar 15 mph winds, maximum. Enniscrone kicked my ass and kicked the ass of everyone in our group. Today, at Ballybunion, I shot 85, best score of the trip. Ditto for the others. Bottom line, it’s a feel good course. I don’t want to call it a “resort” course, where the design is intended to please first-time/only time players. It’s far more quirky and too flat out awesome for that. But the landings areas are more broad, the rough not so thick, the twists and turns not so confounding for visitors.

You know, I was going to just list these reasons one after another, as to why Ballybunion is ranked higher than Enniscrone, but I’ve run out of ammo at two. Beyond that, it’s sorta hard to make the argument. So I’ll stop.

Now, Carne is another matter. There are some who feel this is among the world’s great links, and I’ve decided they’ve got a point. It’s more raw than Enniscrone, not in the same sort of condition, and we played it in a dank mist. My feet were soaked by the third hole (too much walking around searching for balls in the heavy, wet rough) and I lost several golf balls. It’s hard to separate these factors from one’s perception, especially re. a one-time golf experience. Carne goes out into the dunes and never really ducks out for a breather, but I’ve just gone through the course again in my mind, on the card, in the par-saver book, in the pictures and videos we’ve gathered. It’s extremely tough, crazy penal in spots, but it’s the equal of Ballybunion, as well.

So there. I’ve said it.