Jay's Golf Awards for 2014 - The Jazzys

By: Jay Flemma

It's that time of year again when everyone leads off their holiday articles with "It's that time of year again when…" It's also that time of year when Cybergolf gives out its annual year-end awards, celebrating the great, the good, the not so good, and the downright appalling of the 2014 sports year. So pass the peppermint cappuccino, the fra diavolo and the rum cake, put up the artificial laser-light Christmas tree that you can clean with Formula 409, and burn grandma's bad Christmas sweater, as we take a look back on the year that was.

Player of the Year - Rory McIlroy

It was a runaway year for Rory . . . he ran away from his bride and his wedding . . . then he ran away from the fields of two major championships (and a fistful of other events). He's been on a flat-out, Godzilla-like rampage the last half of the year. It's Rory's second Jazzy Award for Player of the Year in the last three years.

The only other players who merit even being in the discussion are Martin Kaymer for his virtuoso performance at the U.S. Open. That was a statistical outlier the way the German turned stately but difficult Pinehurst into his own personal racetrack on the way to a major championship record of great importance: lowest opening 36-hole aggregate ever.

Billy Horschel also had a coming-out party as well during the FedEx Cup "Playoffs," but it's still a silly format that rewards the guy who happens to get hot those two weeks of the year. Horschel sort of slouched through the rest of the season, landed his way into the field, then won at the right time against a diminishing number of opponents as the four-week event dragged on. He was definitely a surprise winner.

Now please someone teach him how to not dress like a silly peacock. Octopi and frogs are stupid. I have three words for you, Billy: Seize Sur Vingt.

The Dry Stringy Turkey Award

Yes, around here we also lambaste the Turkey of the Year, the year's biggest chump, lunkhead or dingbat in golf.

As a matter of interest, your author despises turkey . . . I can't stand the @#$% . . . they're just dry, stringy, stinky, feathery, leathery birds. Shoot them and leave them where they fall and pass me the steak (or this year we had venison too, three different recipes!).

We hate metaphysical turkeys, too, so the winner for out metaphoric Chump of the Year honors gets the Dry Stringy Turkey Award, and all the gristle, fat, bone shards and feathers he can gag on.

This year's award gets split between Hack Golf and Foot Golf, the two avant garde, new-wave "movements" that were supposed to "save" golf . . .

. . . well we were lied to. They were meant to raise a few equipment manufacturers' bottom lines and feed another man's vanity.

Tony Korologos of the Hooked on Golf blog and the Golf Space did a phenomenal expose on Hack Golf, revealing that it's nothing more than a ploy by the equipment manufacturers to sell more gear.

With all the "equipment advances" - every new club giving you 10 more yards, it's a wonder we're all not hitting 450-yard drives.

Hmmm . . . I better not give them any ideas.

Anyway, you can read Tony's searing dismemberment of Hack Golf and its ulterior motives over at Hooked on Golf. (You can also read his yearly list of turkeys as well.)

Foot Golf is a joke. Ted Bishop, the now-disgraced former head of the PGA of America dreamt up this travishamockery. It's basically live-action foosball - kick a soccer ball into a 15-inch hole, but you can also score points by playing in the least possible time.

Translation: stupid.

The idea is to grow golf . . . seriously. So let me say this out loud, so I have it straight in my head: the growth of the game relies on convincing the members of another small niche demographic (soccer players, some of whom may already play the game anyway) to perhaps try to swing a club instead of a leg? I have that right, that's your story, Ted.

I haven't seen so many hair-brained, half-baked contraptions since that bunch of bat-shit-crazy spa writers made me eat molecular gastronomy in Cabo. That is pure, weapons-grade BOLONIUM.

And do you think we are buying that excuse? No.

"Oh, but at least some courses that are dying can get some revenue," is the retort. Wrong again; horribly, horribly wrong. Twelve guys, maybe 18 a day, won't pay for staff, maintenance, operations or anything else. But Bishop forced it down resorts' throats by what some sources infer were ruthless, heavy-handed methods.

Frankly, I'm appalled. How could a man bearing such a trust, being invested in a position of stewardship, be so self-absorbed as to bastardize the game itself?

They look like idiots out there, and I'm a soccer player telling you that. It's completely incongruous.

Golf simply needs every golfer to just grab every friend and bring them to the course. That's how you grow the game - one player at a time. So grab your wife, grab your friend, grab your kid and go play. In fact, call me before you leave and I'll meet you out there.

Golf Architect of the Year - Keith Foster

It's been a banner year for Keith Foster. He's riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave of adulation for his brilliant restoration/renovation of Philly Cricket's fabled Wissahickon course, an indisputable Tillinghast masterpiece now better than even Tillie himself was able to make it while he was alive and calling it his home course.

Wissahickon is now downright joyful. Hell's Half Acres, Hell's Quarter-Acre, diagonal angles off the tee, marvelous green contours, a wondrous routing, Philly Cricket Club is back in the U.S. Open discussion after over a century when it was held at its old St. Martins course.

Foster had a murderously tough job: reading Tillinghasts's mind. He not only had to put back what had vanished over time through shrinking greens and bunkers and the like, but he also had to introduce arrows in Tillinghast's architectural quiver that A.W. never got the chance to design at Wisaahickon.

"I said that to myself going in - 'Don't mess this up!' Foster explained. "But there wasn't much to go on, just an old aerial," he confided. "So to figure out what Tillie might have put where was like solving a puzzle. I looked closely at the ground and the terrain, they were the keys. Of Tillie's original work, we still had the routing and most of the greens. Number 3 green was a complete redo, and another six were either extended or reshaped into a style that wasn't Tillie. We simply extracted what was added, and added what was meant to be there all along, like the Great Hazard at seven and Hell's Quarter-Acre a 14."

Then there's River Bend in Maryland. Foster redesigned his own work over the original routing of a '60s-era Ed Ault and Al Jamison course. Always difficult, River Bend is now a regional power, likely to host some important regional tournaments as well as smaller USGA or PGA of America events.

"The redesign makes the entire course much more cohesive. Finally, all the holes match in terms of concept and presentation," agreed sports broadcaster Steve Czaban, who played River Bend ever since he was a high school golfer. "Some holes that were among the worst on the course are now among the best. As a golf course, it's now every bit as good as any layout in the greater D.C. area."

Indeed, Foster maybe even more accomplished than Coore and Crenshaw - or anyone else for that matter - when it comes to the sheer magnitude of his restoration practice. Just look at this list of venerable clubs where he's worked: Baltimore Country Club, Southern Hills, Colonial, Wissahickon, Sands Point, River Bend, Eastward Ho!, Country Club of Detroit and Pittsburgh Field Club, to name a few.

Foster has become one of the few short-listed go-to guys in the restoration industry: On time and under budget protecting, preserving and promoting both the unique portions of the property - these are his hallmarks and stock in trade. And that long list of blue-chip clients seem deliriously happy, as are the myriad golfers who call his courses home.

[Author's Note: Philly Cricket Club (Wissahickon) was eligible for our award last year and won. Most magazines, however, will have Wissahickon in the running for this year's award, so watch for some splits of opinion from other outlets.]

Best Restoration - Old Town Club

While everyone else was bowing and genuflecting to Coore and Crenshaw for their "restoration" of Pinehurst, all they did was change it superficially. It's not like they brought back lost playing angles. It's not like they rebuilt greens to add more interesting contour. And it's not like they rescued a course teetering on the edge of extinction.

No, their real miracle was just down the road at Old Town Club in Winston-Salem, where Coore and Crenshaw not only polished a diamond in the rough to a high shine but reintroduced a unique architectural feature - attached fairways devoid of rough. No less than six different holes intermingle amid an expansive windswept plain, which stretches across some of the most wildly undulating terrain on the Eastern Seaboard.

They also triggered a trend now being emulated around the country. Clubs across the nation are discovering less rough means more fun and faster rounds.

"Four connects with seven, which connects with 17, which connects with eight, which joins nine, which criss-crosses with 18," explained club chairman and USGA committeeman Dunlop White in an interview earlier this year. It's the source of the course's inimitable character, one much more fascinating and indelible than its counterpart at Pinehurst, or any other course in the U.S. other than perhaps fabled Garden City.

"The routing is the strongest attribute - of many - of the golf course," White opines, and he's right. The course makes a strong argument for being heralded as perhaps Perry Maxwell's best.

"Every serious student of golf course architecture must study Old Town for its routing, angles of play and greens," adds Coore, a Wake Forest alum.

As a side note, give a tip of the cap to historian Ran Morrissett, also of North Carolina, who found a great quote by another famous Demon Deacon, Lanny Wadkins. When asked if he used the library much while an undergrad he said sure he did . . . he aimed his tee shot at eight off it, and then tried to draw it into the fairway.

Writing Award - Author Neil Sagabiel

The only thing that surpasses Neil Sagabiel's talent as a writer is his homespun grace, class and friendliness. Sagabiel has been on a one-man world domination tour promoting his new book "Draw in the Dunes," the story of the 1969 Ryder Cup at Royal Birkdae where Jack Nicklaus famously gave Tony Jacklin a two-foot putt on the final hole to tie the score at 16-16, but still retain the cup for the USA.

Sagabiel's brilliance comes in his ability to put us right there next to the players, so close you can hear the club strike the ball, see the divot fly through the air, smell the freshly cut grass, and feel the anguish of the players. The depth of his research is tremendous, his prose sparkles, and his storytelling keeps you spellbound.

All this is on the heels of his marvelous book "The Longest Shot" - the story of Jack Fleck's miraculous comeback win over Ben Hogan in the 1955 U.S. Open at Olympic Club. Now if we can just get him to write one about Phil Mickelson.

Neil joins an illustrious gold standard-list of winners of the AWITP/Cybergolf Writing award including SI's Kevin Cook, the inimitable Dan Jenkins, Mark Fainaru-Wada/Lance Williams, and Mike Vaccaro.

For all of you wondering, we have to give runner-up mention to a man who may take the honors next year - Brian Keogh, already doing masterful work on the McIlroy vs. Horizon lawsuit burning through the Irish court system right now, but that's a story for another day.

Highlight of the Year - Bubba's Tee Shot on 13 at the Masters

"Call the cops, Bubba just murdered his drive on 13," quipped the great Dan Jenkins, and he was right. With the green jacket in the balance, Bubba decided the heck with playing the hole like a mere mortal, I'm just going to hit a tee shot over the corner of the woods to a fairway angled perpendicular to him. Crazier things have been reported, but not by reliable sources. He hit that drive a gargantuan 366 yards, lasering it through the trees (nearly clipping some in the process), leaving him a flip wedge into the green.

That carronade thundered not only through the valley, but through the record books like a Jack Aubrey broadside against a French frigate, cinching Watson an easy birdie and cakewalk the rest of the way as he coasted to victory. Here's what some writers, players and broadcasters had to say:

Fellow Tour player Graeme McDowell: "I'm gonna have to work on my 350-yard, left-handed slice for next year. Wish me luck."

ESPBN's Bob Harig: "They're going to havet o Bubba-proof 13."

Tour expert Bruce Moulton: "Why didn't he just pull a gun out and shoot it in the head. It would have been cleaner."

European Tour pundit John Huggan: "Boy it's a good thing the USGA and R&A have done such a great job controlling technology . . . Otherwise he might have driven the green."

And Dan Jenkins again: "Bubba sees throats, Bubba steps on throats."

Since launching his first golf writing website in 2004, http://jayflemma.thegolfspace.com, Jay Flemma 's comparative analysis of golf designs and knowledge of golf course architecture and golf travel have garnered wide industry respect. In researching his book on America's great public golf courses (and whether they're worth the money), Jay has played over 420 nationally ranked public golf courses in 40 different states, and covered seven U.S. Opens and six PGA Championships, along with one trip to the Masters. A four-time award-winning sportswriter, Jay was called the best sports poet alive by both Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports writers and broadcasters. Jay has played about 3 million yards of golf - or close to 2,000 miles. In addition to Cybergolf, his pieces on travel and architecture appear in Golf Observer (www.golfobserver.com), PGA.com, Golf Magazine and other print magazines. When not researching golf courses for design, value and excitement, Jay is an entertainment, copyright, Internet and trademark lawyer and an Entertainment and Internet Law professor in Manhattan. His clients have been nominated for Grammy and Emmy awards, won a Sundance Film Festival Best Director award, performed on stage and screen, and designed pop art for museums and collectors. Jay lives in Forest Hills, N.Y., and is fiercely loyal to his alma maters, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and Trinity College in Connecticut.

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