Augusta National Golf Club, set up for members

[smithsb]

The underground system is called SubAir. It provides aeration and temperature control besides the moisture removal. Takes big bucks to air-condition your greens and flower beds. Gotta have the blooms just right for the TV cameras.

[Spoons]

@RickJay

I’ve played Glen Abbey in Oakville. It was VERY hard, but technically. It’s not a very long course, which is one of the reasons they might not play the Canadian there much anymore.

I also played Pebble Beach, and it was astoundingly challenging in a totally different way. It’s the opposite of Glen Abbey, which feels constricted, with narrow fairways and trees everywhere that seem magnetic to your ball. It’s a links course so you aren’t hitting trees, but it’s SO LONG. It was par 4’s approaching 500 yards. After the front nine I just accepted that I was there for a nice walk and scenery.

I was in the gallery for the final day of the 1978 Canadian Open at Glen Abbey. Back then, tournaments weren’t quite as well set up for spectators as they are now—no grandstands, reserved seating, etc.—so you were pretty much free to go anywhere you liked. Some people followed their favourite golfer, others just wandered, but the point is, you walked. My buddy and I walked all over the course that day, but no place was very far from any other place. Like you, we both remarked on how short the course was.

As for your remarks about Pebble Beach, you reminded me of a rather interesting course in Vulcan, Alberta. The front nine is much like Glen Abbey, with mature trees and natural water hazards. But the back nine is more of a links course—no trees; the only vegetation is the grass. A couple of very long holes too.

[John_DiFool]

@smithsb

The underground system is called SubAir. It provides aeration and temperature control besides the moisture removal. Takes big bucks to air-condition your greens and flower beds. Gotta have the blooms just right for the TV cameras.

I wonder if they have deliberately dried them out after Dustin Johnson’s runaway victory 4 years ago. Since then only the winners have gotten to -10 by the final putt of the weekend. They are probably well aware of just how vulnerable the course would be if the greens got soggy.

[hajario]

Since we are telling anecdotes.

I went to UC San Diego which is very close to the famous Torrey PInes golf course and has an annual PGA event. Google tells me that it’s now the Farmers Insurance open but in 1985 it was the Isuzu-Andy Williams San Diego Open.

I and a few of my friends worked at the campus radio station so on a whim we showed up on Sunday and went to the press entrance with our ID cards and they let us in! I didn’t play golf and didn’t even follow the sport. We got to eat at the catering tent, wander all over during the tournament and sit in on the press conference. I could have asked a question but I was beyond clueless.

It’s a day that I and Woody Blackburn will never forget. It was one of his two PGA wins.

[Stratocaster]

@hajario

Since we are telling anecdotes.

Please, do!