Tiger cards first-round 2-under 70 at Memorial

They could only share a laugh while looking over their creation and realizing how far it had come. Hosting one of the PGA TOUR’s top events was not the goal when they started the renovation of Long Island’s Glen Oaks Club. But there they were, standing on the scaffolding behind the 17th green, mere weeks before the club would host THE NORTHERN TRUST — the first event of the 2017 FedExCup Playoffs. “Craig turned to me and said, ‘Never in my wildest imagination would I ever think we’d be getting ready for a TOUR event,’â€� said course designer Joel Weiman. Craig Currier is Glen Oaks’ superintendent. He has some experience preparing courses for prestigious events. He was hired at Bethpage Black for the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens. Currier came to Glen Oaks a year after the second Open, lured to the private club to lead a dramatic renovation of a tired, tree-lined course. Some golf enthusiasts refer to Glen Oaks as “the Augusta National of the northâ€� because its wide fairways flow into each other, the deep hues of green dotted by bright white bunkers. Of course, the Alister Mackenzie design down in Georgia holds an incomparable place in the sport. Weiman insists that they weren’t trying to copy one of golf’s most famous courses, but Glen Oaks’ crisp, clean look is the inspiration for the comparisons. Stewart Hagestad has played both Glen Oaks and Augusta National. He was the low amateur at this year’s Masters (T36) and played Glen Oaks in the 2016 Metropolitan Open, finishing 11th with a 54-hole score of 7-over 217. He called Glen Oaks’ conditioning “pretty elite.â€� “They really nailed the aesthetics,â€� said Hagestad, winner of the 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur. BK Sweeney’s Parkside Tavern is a watering hole just outside the grounds of Bethpage State Park that advertises “family-friendly dining and delicious, hearty foodsâ€� on its website. It’s where Howard Smith went to meet the man he wanted to lead Glen Oaks’ transformation. Smith, a longtime Glen Oaks member, was the club’s president. Currier’s reputation, as the man who prepared a municipal course for two U.S. Opens, preceded him. They had never met, but Smith was able to procure his phone number and arrange a meeting. “I had heard, ‘If you want to hire the best, hire Craig,’â€� Smith said. “Based on that, I told myself that I had to give it a try. It was a process. I was doing a lot of selling on Glen Oaks and trying to convince him that going from a public course to a private course … would be a great next step. I guess I was appealing.â€� Currier grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York, which gave him an appreciation for hard labor and long hours. A small private club, The Cedar Lake Club, was adjacent to the family farm. He started working on the course as a teenager. “I think my dad almost pushed me away from farming, told me I should do something else,â€� Currier said. “After growing up on a dairy farm, almost any job you do seems easy.â€� He worked at several clubs, including two winters at Augusta National, before becoming the superintendent at Bethpage in June 1997, months after the U.S. Golf Association announced it was taking its biggest tournament to the course. The $2 million Rees Jones renovation to toughen up the Black Course started two months later. It was a dramatic renovation that transformed a run-down municipal course into a worthy host of a major championship. “Craig had a reputation as being one of the best, certainly in the Met Section, but also the nation, based on what he had done with Bethpage,â€� Smith said. “I just saw the passion. I saw how dedicated he was. I saw his love for what he does.â€� Smith saw that dedication first-hand while he was playing Glen Oaks on a dreary Sunday. He spotted Currier, who had yet to accept the job, scouting the property. “He came somewhat unannounced, but he walked all 27 holes by himself, envisioning what he could do on each hole,â€� Smith said. What did Currier see during that visit? “It was like walking through a forest,â€� said Currier, who became Glen Oaks’ superintendent in 2010. “I’m not going to tell you I loved it. I liked the greens. Every hole looked the same to me. It was really tight. Literally, if you hit it off the fairway, you were punching out sideways. “They were looking to turn over a new leaf so to speak and re-do the whole place. It looked like a great challenge.â€� Long Island is home to some of the best courses in the United States, including Shinnecock Hills, the site of next year’s U.S. Open and the National Golf Links of America. Even the local courses that aren’t built on links land use fescue to create a rugged look. Glen Oaks wanted to do something to differentiate itself. “A lot of the courses in the area have a lot of native fescue, like Bethpage Black, a big, rugged golf course,â€� Currier said. “We were certainly trying to separate ourselves a little bit with a real clean, elegant, sharp, manicured look.â€� Said Weiman, “We couldn’t do Shinnecock better than Shinnecock, or National Golf Links better than NGLA, so we went 180 degrees in the opposite direction.â€� Weiman called the course’s metamorphosis a “bold transition.â€� Mother Nature helped the process. Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Superstorm Sandy a year later removed approximately 1,000 trees from the property. “The golf course was very tight, narrow and nondescript,â€� Weiman said. “It didn’t have a lot of memorable holes. It wasn’t very strategic by any stretch. We opened it up, created angles and options and gave each hole its own identity.â€� Weiman estimates that 30 percent of the property’s bunkers were removed, but the ones that remain were strategically placed to make players take risks to open up the best angles for playing the hole. The wide fairways encourage players to be aggressive and hit driver. Weiman uses the fifth hole, a dogleg-left par-4, as an example. Before the renovation, players had to nearly snap-hook their tee shot to keep it in the fairway. With the trees gone, fairway bunkers were built on the inside corner of the dogleg. Now players can take a risk by trying to carry those traps, or they can play safely to the right of them, leaving a longer approach. There is no rough between the fairway and bunkers. Short grass leads directly into the sand traps, and connects green complexes to the next hole. It’s a look that is reminiscent of that famous course down in Georgia, and shows how dramatically Glen Oaks has changed. Although Currier provided input with the strategic design elements, his main contribution, according to Weiman, was “to always push the envelope. In each instance, his first thought was grounded in the impact to the overall golf experience – not the impact to the future maintenance program.â€� Currier was dedicated to creating a truly unique facility in Long Island. Now Glen Oaks gets its opportunity this week to shine. “We were running with a bold vision,â€� Weiman said. “He never said, ‘That’s too much, that’s over the top.’ He was always willing to take the challenge, and that’s why it’s so spectacular now. That was the attitude, that the sky’s the limit.â€�

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As a boy, Peter Thomson learned to play golf at the nine-hole Royal Park in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. For his 12th birthday, he received a 2-iron and began practicing constantly. A year later, he received another gift, this time a full set of clubs and a membership to Royal Park. His initial handicap was 20. Two years later, he won the club championship. From those early years, golf was at the center of Thomson’s life, and his club championship win was a harbinger of things to come, as Thomson did plenty of winning after that. Thomson, a prolific tournament champion who is best remembered for his five Open Championship victories and his work as a three-time International Team Presidents Cup captain, died June 20. He was 88. Born August 23, 1929 in Brunswick, Australia, Thomson became one of Australia’s first internationally-renowned golfers. However, he was much more than just a golfer. Thomson studied and earned a chemistry degree but elected to pursue a professional golf career instead of becoming a chemist. But Thomson was always a man with numerous interests. He developed an awareness in rehabilitating those suffering from drug addiction and was instrumental in opening the Melbourne Odyssey House. During his early days as a professional, he also wrote newspaper columns and articles for the Melbourne Age. In 1970, he joined John Harris and Michael Wolveridge to form South Pacific Golf, now known as Thomson Perrett. As an architect, Thomson and his team has worked on golf course design projects around the world, with most of the company’s focus on Australia and New Zealand, as well as all of Asia and, more recently, Europe. Yet it is Thomson’s success in The Open Championship that cemented his place in golf history. Thomson won the tournament in 1954 (at Royal Birkdale), 1955 (at St. Andrews), 1956 (at Royal Liverpool), 1958 (at Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s) and 1965 (again at Royal Birkdale). He is the only player post-19th century to win the Open three consecutive times. “Peter was a champion in every sense of the word, both on the course and in life. Many know him as a five-time Champion Golfer of the Year or as a three-time Captain of the Presidents Cup International Team,� said former PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem. “But he was also a great friend, father, grandfather and husband. He was golfing royalty, and our sport is a better one because of his presence. Our hearts are with his wife, Mary, and the entire Thomson family at this time as we remember the significant impact Peter made on us all.� Thomson won the national championships of 10 countries, including the New Zealand Open nine times. He captured 34 Australasian and 26 European Tour victories and competed on the PGA TOUR in 1953, 1954 and 1956. His first of 26 European Tour titles came at the 1954 News of the World Match Play Championship at St. Andrews. That same year, he teamed with Kel Nagle and won for Australia the World Cup played at Laval-Sur-Le Lac in Montreal, Canada. The duo won the World Cup again in 1959, a sweet victory for the team with it coming at Royal Melbourne Golf Club. In 1956, playing in just eight PGA TOUR tournaments, he won his lone TOUR title on U.S. soil, the Texas International, a tournament now known as the AT&T Byron Nelson. He also tied for fourth at the U.S. Open. Thomson enjoyed a successful playing career after turning 50, winning 11 tournaments. His finest season—and one of the best in PGA TOUR Champions history—came in 1985, when he won nine times, including half of the circuit’s first 10 events. He finished atop the money list that year. Thomson’s last tournament victory came at the 1988 British PGA Seniors Championship. Thomson was also instrumental in the growth of the Presidents Cup as an important, international, biennial event. He captained the International team in 1996, 1998 and 2000. It was the 1998 tournament where the International team broke through and defeated its United States counterpart for the first and only time, winning 20 ½ to 11 ½ at his beloved Royal Melbourne Golf Club, where Thomson had served as the club professional. In 1962, Thomson began a 32-year run as president of the Australian. In 1979 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his service to golf, and in 2001 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service to golf as a player and administrator, and to the community. In 1988, he received golf’s highest honor as he entered the World Golf Hall of Fame, inducted with Tom Watson and Bob Harlow. Thomson is survived by his wife, Mary, his son Andrew, and daughters Deirdre Baker, Pan Prendergast and Fiona Stanway, their spouses, 11 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Funeral services pending.

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