Thanks for the Memories, Cybergolf

By: Jay Flemma

If these be our last moments men,
Let us live them with honor.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Somewhere on the road between Spokane and Seattle, I could hear the pain in Jeff Shelley's voice through the Bluetooth speaker, though four hours of driving distance still separated us. My spider-sense was tingling. Stammering…hurt…disappointment…I had never heard Jeff like that before. There was bad news coming.

"Don't sugarcoat it, Jeff," I told the man who has been my editor-in-chief at Cybergolf for the last decade. "What's wrong?"

Damn my spider-sense - it was right again! Jeff was gone, and the rest of us writers were going: out the door, down the road and out into the future. After 20 years, Cybergolf, like Golf Observer before it, is closing its editorial operations. "The super-smart site for golf," as so many people have put it, will feature no new content after August 1. So long, and farewell; the last one to leave turns out the lights.

It's a punch in the gut, to be sure, more to Jeff than anyone else. The only thing that surpasses how strong and sterling Jeff is as an editor is how much of an open-hearted, generous, sincere person he is. Both he and Cybergolf deserve a better fate.

Happily, many of the site's excellent corps of writers is landing on their feet. Marino Parascenzo, Tony Dear, Dave Droschak and I will be reporting from new sidelines come August. We'll still be a heartbeat from the action, still be our same underpaid and over-privileged selves, and we'll all still certainly be reporting with the same honesty, cynicism and color you've loved since we all had dial-up modems. We just won't be doing it with each other at Cybergolf anymore.

So when Jeff asked me to write a goodbye article reliving my favorite 10 moments of the website I was grateful and moved. Cybergolf couldn't have been a better home for the last decade. So once more, with feeling, pride and gratitude, let's take a walk down memory lane of the best from the last decade of my most poignant adventures.

10. 2014 Pinehurst U.S. Open. Covering the U.S. Open with fellow Cybergolf contributor Droschak (and spending time with his lovely, charming wife Lisa), bumping into eventual winner Martin Kaymer at Starbucks for breakfast ("You're the only person who knew who I was. It's great!"), and playing Tobacco Road on an off-day were all bonuses to seeing history made that week when Kaymer broke the all-time scoring record for an opening 36 holes at any major championship.

9. 2008 Torrey Pines U.S. Open. One of the few times at a major where the Cybergolf contingent was out in full force. Jeff, CEO Dan Murnan and Travis Cox met in La Jolla for the first SoCal Open in a generation. Tiger vs. Rocco was great, but I still haven't forgiven Woods for the unpardonable sin of making that putt at the 72nd and robbing me of the chance to play the course the next day. (Kidding! Kidding!)

8. Bermuda for the 2013 Grand Slam of Golf. Talk about opulent! Bermuda was a British protectorate and the U.K. influence is still there, especially in the impeccable service and stately grace of the island's hotels. Finding two missing/lost holes at Tucker's Point (including its gorgeous Lion's Mouth) and playing through a storm out of the pages of the Last Judgment at Mid-Ocean while sipping Dark and Stormies with Malcolm Gosling were highlights, along with the glittering scene of the PGA of America party hosted by Bermudan government officials. (Una Jones totally stole the show with a gorgeous, yet tasteful and elegant dress dazzling enough for any red carpet.) Coffee breaks with Win McMurray and Ian Baker-Finch on the terrace overlooking the veranda as the sun rose were a chance to chill out with colleagues in a charmingly unbuttoned atmosphere. Nobody in golf throws a better party than the PGA of America.

7. Lunch with Dan Jenkins at the majors. Golf, God and Country all served up with a delicious side of Chicken Fried Tiger, how can you not love the Voice of the Great American Golfer - for that is what Jenkins truly is. I'll tell the grandkids about the time I made him laugh with puckish headlines like "Soak Hill" and "Oakmonster," the times he offered me a Capri Ultra Slim with a brusque "The smoking lamp is lit," (what do I look like, Jan Stephenson?), and especially the time I stumped him!

We were talking about Kaymer winning the U.S. Open wire-to-wire, no ties, when he insisted that Tommy Bolt also did that in 1958…but I had just looked up that Bolt was actually tied with Julius Boros and Dick Metz after the first round after each had 71s.

"Don't mess with me, Jay! Don't mess with me!" Jenkins laughed, still thinking he had me. But then I showed it to him. His eyes flew open in appreciation. Then he shook his head, smirking with frustration.

"Dick Metz…" he snarled acidly in the same voice he uses when discussing Jack Fleck.

6. In the same vein, watching my dear friend and mentor Marino Parascenzo win his PGA of America Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2008 GWAA Awards Dinner was a joy I'll remember my entire career. He's a lifer who brought great honor to the craft of sports writing. The same is true of Art Spander and John Hopkins. Every golf writer should try to be like them - intelligent, inclusive, diligent and, most importantly, sincere. They show every day that grace and class are still the hallmarks of truly great golf writing.

5. 2010 Whistling Straits PGA Championship A leggy brunette, a kids' lemonade stand and the hospitality of my pal Dick Daley were among the highlights of this trip. But it was my "Johnny on the Spot" moment at the 72nd hole that was the biggest story. I had Pete Dye on my right and Herb Kohler on my left as Dustin Johnson grounded his club in the bunker.

"It's a bunker. I know it's a bunker because I built it," said Dye. "I put it there specifically to be a bunker. And what's he [Johnson] doing going 70 yards wide on the 72nd fairway anyway?"

4. Oh us crazy, wacky, zany Cybergolf guys! One time Jeff - a distant relative of Mary Shelley and Percy Byssche Shelley - accidentally ran the headline "Els Blows Alfred Dunhill" on the front page of the site after Ernie choked a big lead. We were applying for Masters' credentials that same day.

3. 2006 Winged Foot U.S. Open. My second U.S. Open was actually my first for Cybergolf. While my first Open at Pinehurst was a "pinch me" moment - I was green as peas and learning the ropes, so to speak - the second Open was where I had to make the quantum leap as a writer, develop both my voice and imprimatur as a writer.

And of all the places to get the chance to write about! No golf course has as much devastating synergy of history and misery as Winged Foot, the Graveyard of Champions. No water hazards, no out-of-bounds, no penal hazards, yet the green contours and rolling terrain apply relentless, suffocating pressure. In 2006 alone, Padraig Harrington, Colin Montgomerie, Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson all suffered ignominious defeat. In particular, Mickelson's falling out of the sky like Icarus just 40 minutes after taking a three-shot lead with three holes to play was horrifying and mesmerizing. He came into the week looking for a third consecutive major. He left on the wrong side of golf history.

And if that wasn't enough, sending Jaime Diaz and Tim Rosaforte into peals of laughter as I tried to get Fred Couples to speak intelligently about Winged Foot in an interview was pretty fun, too. Do you know that even as late as 2006 Couples listened to his Roy Orbison recordings on an eight-track player? Way to rock that '50s technology, Freddie.

2. 2010 Pebble Beach U.S. Open. It's not every day you get to drink Irish whiskey out of the U.S. Open trophy, but thanks to my sharp-eyed friends Brian Keogh, Dermot Gilleece and Karl MacGinty - the incomparable trio of Irish golf writers - I got to be in the right place at the right time for Graeme McDowell's victory celebration. The place was so dark though, we couldn't get a good picture - the Old Hubble Telescope took better pictures than my crappy Droid Razr.

1. 2015 Chambers Bay U.S. Open,. Seattle-based Cybergolf went out with a bang as our last hurrah was on its home turf. All the Cybergolf stars aligned as Parascenzo, Tony Dear, Blaine Newnham, Jeff and I watched Jordan Spieth win it, then almost lose it, then win it again when DJ flamed out on the 72nd hole.

Then there was my stay for that week on Das Boat - the 70-foot yacht that dwarfed every other sloop in a Seattle marina on Lake Union and which came with its own concierge and a posse to rage with. Good times.

As for the last 10 years? I am grateful - Grateful! Grateful! Grateful! I'll miss all my Cybergolf pals, and although it's goodbye, it's not farewell. As for the future, I'm reminded of another old rock song:

Change like an autumn mountain,
Change like a grand escape,
Change like the stars a-falling,
Change like the light on your face,
You can change. You can change.

So Cybergolf, vaya con dios, you were a blessing I'll cherish forever.

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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