Tournament Time - Philadelphia Country Club Flynn

As a COF (Certified Old Fart in the golf world that's over 55), one gets to play Senior Amateur events. Occasionally you get a dog but you sometimes get real nuggets. Best of the year will be Philadelphia CC and CC of Scranton with not-so-bad at all Galloway National and a notch below to Huntsville.


Philadelphia CC is a Flynn course, one of many in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania. Many of the greens were modified (for the better) by Perry Maxwell, a good example being the current first in which several pimples are added to a Flynn potato chip green. Flynn's original routing was such that the current third, a really wonderful mid-length to long par 5 was the famous 18th that Sam Snead chopped up to lose his first USGA Open and perhaps set the tone for the future Opens that he outright lost or gave away. The remains of the old clubhouse are still there and the current 18th hole was greatly altered to allow construction of a functional but unattractive new clubhouse. The Gordons, who never learned a single thing from Flynn, were responsible for the anticlimactic sore thumb that is now there.

I think Philadelphia CC stands out as the best design or at least my choice as best design of Flynn in the area. Along with my home course Lehigh CC, and not being a homer I promise, there are notable problems with all the other Flynn designs well-known to top 100 seekers. Philadelphia has a wonderful set of threes including the severely uphill 15th which requires a wooden type club from most players, two redan variants and a lovely dropshot hole over and around a creek.

The par 5 third is where Sam met his Waterloo, trying to make a birdie when a six would do, he wound up with the proverbial snowman. The par 5 sixth played as a par 4 of basically 500 yards for the Penna Golf Association Amateur two years ago, we'll see what happens as a par 5 of 492. Byron Nelson's famous holed 1-iron for eagle to win that 1938 Open that Mr. Snead lost was on the hole that is now 17. Biggest problem there is that you have to cut your high-tech tee shot to keep in the fairway.


Lots of interesting architecture and history are at the Philadelphia CC and it is always a joy to play. There are uphill, sidehill, downhill and perfectly flat holes of character, and yes even the 18th isn't a bad hole, it just a Gordon, not a Flynn. It shows by just not being as remarkable.

You can find it all in the link below

Live Scoring


Well, Philadelphia is in the books and I actually had a chance to win with five to go. Never won a real important tournament and I'm trying before I fall apart completely. I tried not to think of it, but I did and loosely putted my way to equal ninth. First top 10 anyway, believe me with all that talk you hear o you have to get there to try and fail before you can do it, it's true. I really cruised, calm and cool, no muss no fuss, just golf shots and fun. After a birdie on 13 and going to level par, I knew no one had torn it up. I made a conscious attempt to not look at the scoreboard on the teeminders cart. Seeing the cart I thought about it and instinctively knew one birdie might do it and two would. I did make a near birdie on the very difficult par three 15th, nearly holing a very makeable bunker shot. 1-under was indeed the winner, our local BMW dealer Gary Daniels, of SVCC. He has qualified for the USGA Senior Open in 2000 when it was at his home course, so not getting to Gary was not in itself a disappointment and I beat about 10 guys I really wanted to. I'm still very happy with what happened and especially because it was fun. Anyone can zip around in a cart and shoot 72 at their club and say "I left 8 shots out there" but there's something to be said for really getting it done. I'm maybe bragging, yeah, but I'm overcoming a couple of things that could have ended my golf and I am limited to how I can do it, but mostly I enjoyed it and that's the most satisfying.

Big thanks to Susan, my teacher.

A link for a friend who missed this

North Shore

I'll have more, I'm never finished .... I promise I'll have more. Remember, I do this because I love to, not because I get paid.

Tom Watson Gentleman and Golfer

He needed a Watson Par on the last on Sunday but came up short. We started calling any non-routine par, but especially one out of the khack or off a tree or out of a bunker a Watson Par. We marked the card with a capital W, the guys in Chicago I played with and I - in honor of our Tom. That's how we played! Oh how we wished that he had one more on Sunday 19 July, 2009. So many hearts were broken. We would all have given him one.

Reports say that maybe he had only one hour's sleep on Sunday night, but Monday he showed in London and played a practice round at Old Sunningdale. Today he played one of the top rounds after giving himself Wednesday off before the Senior Open.

There is true love for the game and more importantly respect. He shows us with actions not hystrionics what he feels and what he stands for without an entourage of media hacks, publicists, trainers, a chef and bottle washer. Certainly without a tossed club like a petulant boy. A true gentleman with respect for all human beings - showing us that he is not in any way bigger than the game.

Perhaps forgotten in the past 30 years of sports superstardom was a stand that Tom Watson took at his beloved Kansas City CC. Arthur Block of H & R Block, a Jew was denied admission into the club. Tom Watson on humanitarian grounds resigned his membership over this discriminatory act. A humanitarian stand. Eventually Mr. Block became a member and Mr. Watson was reinstated into the club, but his position was taken immediately and on gentlemanly grounds.

In many ways Tom Watson is a very admirable man. Only he can know what he feels about all of the events of the past week, but one thing he has done is to talk to us every single day and answer every question. In America today on TNT's pathetically abbreviated coverage of the MasterCard Senior British Open, Mr. Watson's interview with the elegant and stylish Jim Hueber was unedited. Mr. Watson never hesitated nor calculated an answer and as always, Jim (a most under-rated announcer) asked some rather pointed questions rather than lobbing puff-balls.

My hat's off to you, Mr. Watson.

Next Men's Major 2009 US PGA at The Cow Pasture

I don't have any photos of this one and I also don't give a Craig Ferguson's "Rat's Ass". I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. Hazeltine? OFFICIAL WEBSITE HERE I have long wanted to see the US PGA dumped for the Australian Open Championship as the fourth Men's Professional Golf Major. Such a group of courses to choose from and another set of fast and firm venues.

I mean now seriously, who here really likes to play golf in the USA in August?
80% of the time no one remembers who won the damned thing because, I don't know - we're all off at the beach to finish the summer? And lastly why should three majors be played in the USA? If not the OZ Open, a good rotating Euro Event? A Seve Invitational? I say: Let's drop the US PGA and add OZ.


My takes
Masters -sure, nice that it's spring, but it's bad for Supers everywhere due to members expectations. One day I fully expect that I will put a gun in my mouth listening to Jim Nantz, I swear. He is so awful and a local News scribe picked Jimbo as the best Golf Announcer this week in his column! All the sucking up around ANGC makes me want to well, make like Linda Blair to be polite. Honestly, I get really really tired of seeing the same golf course year in and year out. However, it's most folks' favorite so Worth Keeping

USGA Open - used to be a great tournament now it's a joke with Tiger or a one-off alternating winning, it seems. Worth Keeping, but needs serious work as it has become a chore to watch.

THE Open Championship - Worth Keeping, nothing to say about why. If you need help and you are on this blog, you really need help.

US PGA - Somebody defend it, I got nothin'. Lose It ASAP

Anyway, as to the 2009 US PGA Championship at the Farm - who cares? We know Tom Watson doesn't care.

A Whimper

The Open Championship that gave us all such joy failed us at the last hole, the penultimate shot actually. Tom Watson played nearly every shot, certainly every full shot with a preternatural calm that was present even on the approach onto the 72nd green. He would make up his mind, swing the club sans any hystrionics modern fans have become accustomed to; there, just leaning the shaft of the club on his chest watching the shot to its conclusion, he was fully expecting and anticipating the result.

When it was all over Stewart Cink sheepishly seemed apologetic for having won and we'll likely look back at 2009 Turnberry and remember that Tom Watson let the Open run away just as his approach to the 72nd did rather than Cink in any way won it.

Worrisome to me was Watson putting the ball from the fringe like most old farts do, not even using a 5-wood or rescue. He got away with it on the 71st with a far more appropriate shot than the one he tried on the final hole. That is where he doomed the Open as I see it. He got away with a birdie on the 71st - a much longer shot with the putter than at the last and from a much better lie. Watson, the Jack the Giant-slayer back in his prime would never have considered the putter from that last lie, he was always a masterful chipper of the ball. I feel that the success on the 17th led to the choice on the 18th. The putt was worthy of a 25-handicapper and the play-off was even less worthy or interesting. He had a plan, but it clearly never included a playoff.

So it ended with a whimper; but for golf lovers, not the sports fans that Tiger has dragged over from the steroid-fueled world of ball and team sports and their ESPN SportsCenter World will have a wonderful set of memories with what properly ought to be considered an epilogue of disappointment.

It was a whimper, indeed.

a p.s.

From the USGA July, 2009 calendar ...