Ever since he grounded his club in the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and sent the sport whistling straight through the graveyard of its conscience, Dustin Johnson has been the favorite athlete of the Jacobs family.
This has haunted me since covering an LPGA event at Crestview Country Club in 1998.
The tee box at the 171-yard 14th hole is in Suffield, Conn. The green on the par-3 hole is in Agawam, Mass. What if some guy in your foursome is caught cheating? What if he, wink, wink, magically finds his ball? What if he is caught counting creatively?
Should they, say, call in the FBI?
Dude crossed state lines during the commission of a crime against the rules of golf.
A tad punitive? Maybe. But ever since he grounded his club in the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and sent the sport whistling straight through the graveyard of its conscience, Dustin Johnson has been the favorite athlete of the Jacobs family.
The guy’s playing in the Ryder Cup this weekend and, as far as we’re concerned, he’s Jim Craig, Audie Murphy and John Wayne all wrapped up in that unfortunate prison uniform masquerading as Team USA rain gear. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say Johnson is the reason why my 12-year-old son has taken up the game, he and an addiction to Wii golf. I never played, but my son is eagerly taking lessons and I eagerly pay for them for one overwhelming reason.
Golf makes you be a better person. How can it not? It teaches you patience, strict attention to detail and to respect the rules, OK, sometimes to obsess about stupid rules.
What happened to Johnson was maddening. He or his caddie absolutely should have read the rules posted in the clubhouse. Yet just as surely, there is no way that little patch of trampled sand should have been considered a legitimate bunker. Yet as I saw my kid drawn in, mesmerized by Johnson’s quiet acceptance of a code of honor that marches lock step with golf’s sometimes whacky rules, I was never more convinced of the game’s power to teach.
On Friday, I talked to Nick Pahoulis, a Connecticut State Golf Association vice president and rules aficionado. I had asked him for help about the unique aspects of the state’s golf courses. And while he provided me with some fun stories about Brownson CC in Shelton, Woodway CC in Darien, Rockrimmon CC in Stamford and Morefar Back O’Beyond on the state border in Brewster, N.Y., his most compelling story was about a good state golfer – one he asked not to identify publicly.
“Three years ago at Oronoque Country Club [in Stratford] we had a competitor qualify for the State Amateur,” Pahoulis said. “On the 18th hole, he hit his tee ball and lost it. So he played a provisional. When he went to the provisional, he played a red Titleist 3 with a red dot on it, finds it in the rough. He hits it on the green, makes double bogey, shot 76, he qualified.
“On his way home, he stopped at his home course to practice. He pulled out his glove, inside was his ball, the red Titleist 3. He saw a logo on it. He realized it wasn’t his ball. He couldn’t sleep that night. He called our office the next morning and disqualified himself for playing a wrong ball. That takes some integrity.”
There are a number of unusual aspects to our state courses. Pahoulis talked about crossing a highway to get from the seventh to eighth holes at Brownson CC.
“Through a strip mall and past a package store,” he said. “Guys are known to stop at the package store.”
Pahoulis said there’s one 18-hole course in Connecticut that has 19 holes. It’s true. Woodway has two greens at No. 1. When they redesigned the course, they built a longer first hole, with a new tee and green, but kept the old green that formerly was No. 8.
“They alternate on several days,” Pahoulis said.
How about Rockrimmon? Pahoulis talked about how a railroad official/member grew tired of the steep walk from No. 9 to No. 10. He had a railway installed. Really?
Really, head pro Jerry Yochum said.
“He put a tram in, with heavy cable to pull the car up the incline,” Yochum said. “They change the book all the time, but I’m told it was once listed by Guinness as the shortest interstate railway.”
No. 9 is in Connecticut. The rest of the holes are in New York.
“On Labor Day five years ago, some kids were messing around, the cable got jammed,” Yochum said. “Otis Elevator came out to fix it. The car wasn’t secured well enough. I was on the range giving lessons at the time. It went down the tracks, turned over, broke into pieces.”
The club decided not to replace it, covered over the tracks, too. Yet even more covered from public view is Morefar. Adjacent to Richter Park, a public course in Danbury, Morefar couldn’t be more private. Built by AIG founder Cornelius Vander Starr, it’s now run, not by the bailed out insurance giant, but by a subsidiary called Starr International.
“They say it was built by Chinese immigrants,” Pahoulis said. “When asked for directions, one of them said, ‘More far.’ That’s how it got its name. It has bronzed statuary all over the course. Only eight foursomes are allowed to play there each day.”
According to a 2005 Wall Street Journal piece, the 25 bronzed sculptures – some of them of nudes – are considered immovable obstructions and you’re allowed a club’s length drop.
We’d say that rule should ring your bell, except there are three holes in Connecticut where you do have to ring a bell: Nos. 3 and 12 at Yale Golf Course and No. 3 at Twin Hills in Coventry. The bell alerts those blinded by the topography it’s OK to play.
“I’ve actually seen guys hit Twin Hills bell with their tee shot,” Pahoulis said.
But in golf, it always gets back to ringing out the news that rules must be followed. Pahoulis said the wildest application might have been at the New Jersey women’s amateur a few years ago.
“The first two women of a threesome teed off and their balls landed near the rules official,” he said. “All three walked down. The third asked, ‘Did you see my ball?’ He said no. She goes, ‘Oh, I forgot to tee off.’ She had been talking and forgot.”
She was disqualified.
“Missed her starting time,” Pahoulis said.
Yep, that why parents pay for golf lessons.
