It’s the final weekend of 2018. We’re just mere days away from the start of the 2019 calendar year. There are a lot of changes in store for the world of golf in the up and coming year. We’ll take the next few moments to explore all the new possibilities for 2019.
Northern California historically hosts four professional tournaments every year. The AT&T is contested at Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, and Monterey Peninsula every February. The LPGA Tour visits Lake Merced in April. The Web.com Tour returns to Stonebrae in the Hayward hills for another tourney in August. Silverado hosts the Safeway Open in early October.
This June, the 119th edition of the United States Open will return to Pebble Beach for the sixth time. A Pebble Beach U.S. Open has always been a decade proposition with the last two National Opens held there in 2000 and 2010. The 2019 Open is at Pebble this summer in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the opening of Pebble Beach way back in 1919. While a Pebble Beach U.S. Open has historically been drama filled with past champs including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tom Kite, Tiger Woods, and Graeme McDowell, the concern about this time around isn’t going to be about the lack of drama. Instead, the real concern is how will the USGA mess up the Open this time around? Only time will tell.
The British Open is being held in Northern Ireland for the first time since 1951. The Open Championship returns to Royal Portrush alongside the Atlantic Ocean. In some ways, the Open in Ireland is a tip of the golfing cap to McDowell, Rory McIlory, Padraig Harrington, and the rest of the Irish contingent that is active on the world golf stage.
In other major championship news, the PGA Championship is moving from its historic August date to mid-May in an attempt to accommodate the Fed Ex Cup playoffs and Olympic golf. The PGA will be at Bethpage on Long Island with the 2020 PGA heading to San Francisco’s Harding Park. The move of the PGA to May means that the Players Championship will move back to its former March date several weeks before the Masters. The PGA Tour is also adding two more events to their calendar in Detroit and Minneapolis. The Fed Ex Cup playoffs will begin in August and will be just three weeks long with the Boston tournament heading to the sidelines.
The Presidents Cup will be held at Royal Melbourne in Australia this autumn. Ernie Els will be the captain of the Internationals while Tiger Woods will lead Team USA. Sometime within the next few weeks, Padraig Harrington and Steve Stricker will be named the captains of the 2020 Ryder Cup Matches which will be contested next year at Whistling Straits.
Aside from moving their major championship to May, the PGA of America will also make news in 2019 on a couple of other fronts. Their new president for 2019 is Suzy Whaley of Connecticut, the PGA’s first female president. They are also going to move from their longtime Florida headquarters to the Dallas area. The new PGA of America complex in Frisco, Texas will include a convention center, a 500 room hotel, and two golf courses designed by Gil Hanse and by Tiger Woods. In theory, the Gil Hanse course will host future PGA Championships in 2027 and 2034. Certainly make things convenient for the PGA of America.
The LPGA Tour is a resurgent success story and 2019 will show even more growth for the women’s tour. There will be 33 tourneys in 2019, up from 24 events in 2010. The total purse for this coming year will be $70.55 million, an increase of $5.2 million from 2018. All five of their majors have increased purses running from $200,000 to $300,000 from last year. The CME Group Tournament of Champions has doubled its purse to $5 million with a $1.5 million winner’s check. The three new events on the 2019 calendar include a Pro-Am format tournament, a men-women’s better ball tourney in Australia with European Tour pros, and a better ball event in July. Commissioner Mike Whan has overseen a positive growth cycle for the members of the LPGA Tour.
The Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit will begin its 26th season of operation this February. Once upon a time, the Lake County Circuit had extensive fields. Events like the Lake County Open and the Tournament of Champions featured 72 golfers with close to one third of the field owning single digit handicaps. The Lake County Amateur had fields of 120 linksters with the field split between the two Cobb Mountain Courses. Nowadays, a field of 36 golfers is considered an accomplishment on the Lake County Circuit. The scratch flight is the most impacted with the size of its division normally featuring four to eight golfers. While the seniors and the net golfers still buy into the fun of competitive golf, participation in the LCAGC continues to diminish.
Lake County is home to four golf courses, namely Hidden Valley Lake, Buckingham, Black Rock, and Adams Springs. All four courses struggled financially in 2018. As long as Lake County continues to have summers of wild fire chaos, tourists will continue to stay away from our golf courses, fishing tournaments, rodeos, and the like. Yet in the midst of four consecutive summers of major fires, there is some growth coming our way. Out on Butts Canyon Road, plans are afoot for two new golf courses while an English style links course is in the process of being framed at the glider port north of Middletown.
Personally I am involved in the world of golf from three different viewpoints. I am the writer of this column, the golf coach at Kelseyville High School, and as the general manager of Adams Springs Golf Course. Perhaps I’m too close to the situation as I sometimes wonder about Lake County’s future when it comes to not only golf, but also to the caliber of our lifestyle. Our residents have suffered enormously over the past four years. That is why I want to end this year of columns with a recent quote from Steve Molinelli, a four time Olympic Club champ as well as the caddie for Colt Knost when he won the U.S. Amateur in 2007. While walking The Brambles site with Steve several weeks ago, he mentioned to me that “as a lover of all things Lake County, I’m hopeful that this (The Brambles) along with other new projects in the area will continue the restoration of a great place we all love.” I hope Steve is right. No, to be more direct, I pray that Steve is right. And on that note, best wishes for a very Happy New Year.
