Linville: A beautiful place to play golf

There are more famous neighborhoods in American golf -- the sweet spots surrounding Shinnecock Hills on Long Island come to mind, as do the classics in and around 17-Mile Drive at Pebble Beach -- but there aren't many better than the collection of golf clubs in and around Linville.

With the exception of the forever charming Linville Golf Club which allows some public play through the adjacent and equally charming Eseeola Lodge, they're all private clubs, which means most of us only hear about them. But if you've ever had the good fortune to play Grandfather Golf and Country Club (in photo above), Linville, the Elk River Club, Linville Ridge or Diamond Creek, you know you've had a good day regardless of how many golf balls you may have lost among the rhododendrum.

There's an old-world mystique to the North Carolina mountains around Linville. They've been rounded by time and when the clouds cling to them on gray days, it's like pieces of the sky are dragging on the hills.

The essence of golf isn't so much the shots you hit but the experience you have and at Grandfather or Linville or Elk River, it's a good walk that even a couple of double bogeys can't spoil. They're the kind of places where you find yourself looking up at the mountains around you, suddenly staring at a hawk gliding in the distance. It's where you stop the cart and before you hit a shot, you hear a brook gurling down the slope beside you. Glance over and you might see trout in the stream.

Standing on the eighth tee at Grandfather, you may not want to leave. It's among the prettiest par-4s in golf, playing up the hill with the top of the famous mountain rising in the distance is as dramatic as the 18th tee at Pebble Beach, maybe moreso on a perfect October afternoon.

At Linville Ridge, you can play along the mountaintop and look across at Grandfather, a view that never gets old. Just a few miles apart, Linville was designed by Donald Ross and Elk River was crafted by Jack Nicklaus, both giants of the game. Ross may have spent only a day or two walking the property at Linville but he designed a work of art that has aged beautifully. Nicklaus spent plenty of time at Elk River creating his own bit of art.

At the clubs around Linville, golf is a six-month sport. The game is just coming out of a long winter thaw and it will go back into hibernation by Thanksgiving. For this part of the year, though, it's golf in full bloom. It looks different and feels different.

The fairways are soft, surrendering divots the size of footprints, and the greens are subtly sloped and dangerous. Tee shots hang in the air, framed against a mountainside, and thunder rumbles over a hill many afternoons. There's a richness to golf around Linville, both in the literal and the physical sense.

In a quiet corner of the world, just two hours from Charlotte, the game has reemerged from another winter, as beautiful as ever.

Tiger Woods is no longer a major sure thing

Sunday's column:

For all these years, the question wasn't if Tiger Woods would break Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 professional major championship victories but when. ... I still think Woods will break the Nicklaus record and will finish with 20 or so major victories, but it doesn't seem as certain as it once did.

Read the full column

If Phil Wants To Talk Burgers, I'll Listen

As a man who loves cheeseburgers, I'm not taking sides on Phil Mickelson's recent assertion that Five Guys burgers are "hands down the best burger" he's ever had. I'm a fan of all burgers as long as they don't have mayonnaise on them.

What's interesting is that Mickelson's apparently off the cuff endorsement of the burger chain last week at The Players Championship wasn't entirely random. Mickelson, it turns out, is part of a group that owns the franchise rights to Five Guys in Orange County, Cal.

Stewart Cink passed that information along to Associated Press golf writer Doug Ferguson recently and, according to various reports, it's true. Good for Mickelson. He's reportedly looked into getting In-N-Out franchises and Waffle House franchises in the past. Now he's into Five Guys which will apparently soon challenge In-N-Out in SoCal.

I admire Mickelson for admitting his fondness for burgers. Makes him more of a regular guy.

He's spoken in the past about his fondness for In-N-Out burgers, a California classic and, having had a few of their burgers, I get where he's coming from. Now it's Five Guys. I get where he's coming from there, too.

If Phil wants to throw in a little burger endorsement, I don't have a problem with it. Tiger used to always put a bottle of his Tiger Gatorade on the table during his interviews. No problem with that, either. Having been around NASCAR long enough, golf's sponsor recognition is downright subtle.

And, if Phil wants to talk about burgers, I'll listen. It's a lot more interesting than talking about the new grooves.

Nagy Philosophical About Near Miss

Corey Nagy won't be playing in the U.S. Open next month.

The Charlotte 49ers senior failed to make it through the local qualifying tournament Tuesday at Treyburn Golf Club in Durham, missing by one stroke when he bogeyed the 18th hole. It was a significant disappointment to the perpetually upbeat Nagy, who immediately redirected his attention to preparing for the NCAA regionals he and his Charlotte teammates will play next week at Yale Golf Club in New Haven, Ct.

Nagy said the competitve side of him wanted to slam his fist on the steering wheel driving home when he thought about how close he came to getting into the sectional qualifier but he didn't.

"I'm still going to play the regionals and I'll be a succesful professional," Nagy said. "That one bogey at the last hole won't affect me. There is a point when that competitive spirit comes in and you want to get mad but it's more important to swallow that."

Nagy is ranked 18th in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin ratings for college golfers.

Tiger-Haney Parting Not A Huge Surprise

When news broke late Monday night that Hank Haney had decided to end his tenure as Tiger Woods' swing coach, it wasn't entirely surprising.

There has been talk for a while now that Haney's time as Tiger's extra set of eyes might be running out. It doesn't mean Haney didn't know how to fix what's not working in Woods' game right now. Their record together demonstrates how effectively they worked as player and coach.

Sometimes, though, it's time for a change. Haney said in his statement that it was his decision to leave, not Tiger's. So far, we haven't heard from Tiger about Haney's departure. You wonder, though, how hard Woods fought to keep Haney on his team. Maybe he begged him to stay. Maybe he understood it was time to do something different for both of them.

The question now is where does Woods go for a coach?

As good as he is, Woods needs a coach. He has a few familiar swing issues -- getting the club 'stuck' behind him and dropping his head on his downswing are the ones most commonly picked out by television analysts -- and it helps to have someone like Haney there to coach.

Woods had great success with Butch Harmon before working with Haney but it seems unlikely he'll reunite with Harmon, who now coaches Phil Mickelson among others. Harmon has been outspoken about Woods' game in recent years and, given his alliance with Mickelson, it seems a long shot that he'll go back to Harmon.

Last week, Sean Foley -- who coaches Sean O'Hair -- was the name being thrown around as Tiger's next coach. Foley denied having even spoken to Woods about it but the rumor mill was already churning before Haney issued his statement Monday night.

Right now, Woods' game is in a strange place. He's not playing well, his neck is bothering him and now he doesn't have a coach. It doesn't sound like a recipe for a quick fix.

Tiger Woods' newest pain in the neck

For years, Tiger Woods made us ask what’s next. Now we’re asking the same question, but for a very different reason.

Read the full column.

Tiger's Pain In The Neck, Clark's Win and Phil The Thrill

A few thoughts now that former N.C. State golfer Tim Clark has finally hoisted a trophy -- and a very nice one -- on the PGA Tour:

-- For Clark, it was a victory that redefines his career. He joked that now he'll be just another guy on tour who's won a golf tournament, given his long history of near misses. He's right in a way. Clark owned the title of best player never to have won a tournament on the PGA Tour.

But the victory brought into sharper focus what a good player Clark has been for many years. He doesn't wow you with distance and he's an understated personality but his game speaks for itself. At The Players, Clark won on a course that turned brutally difficult on Sunday, proving he can handle the stress of winning and the demands of an unforgiving course.

Clark has finished second in the Masters and third in the U.S. Open and PGA. He's played on the International team in three Presidents Cup. Despite all of that, he was known for what he hadn't done. Not anymore.

-- Remember when Tiger Woods was the surest thing in golf?

Seems like a long time ago. Woods' withdrawal during the final round of The Players raises more questions at a time when there are already plenty of questions.

Woods looked like he was hurting Sunday when he left the course and the fitness trailer at The Players, suggesting he may have a bulging disc. If so, what does that mean? How long will he be out? Has it been part of the problem with his game? Will he go on another sabbatical from golf?

Tiger's re-entry into the PGA Tour hasn't been easy. He worked magic in finishing fourth at the Masters, essentially surrendered late in the second round at Quail Hollow when nothing was working and now his withdrawal at Ponte Vedra. There continue to be rumors about what's happening with him away from the golf course and it's made for an extremely difficult time.

Watching Woods play golf the past two weeks is like watching someone else. And, it raises the question of when we'll see the Tiger we're used to seeing again. No one's quite sure.

-- Phil Mickelson missed his chance to officially take over the No. 1 spot in the world golf rankings for the first time -- but it's only a matter of time.

The way Mickelson has played recently, coupled with Woods' struggles, leaves little doubt that Mickelson is the best player in the game right now. You can put Lee Westwood right there, too, but he's been unable to finish tournaments. While Clark was brilliant shooting 66-67 on the weekend, Westwood must be kicking himself for another missed opportunity.

Mickelson has never been No. 1 in the rankings. While no one puts much stock in the rankings, the chance to take over the No. 1 spot is something that be nice to claim, especially in the Woods era.

With The Players now past, the focus turns next to the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in less than six weeks. Mickelson will go in as the favorite there. He has five seconds in the Open. Maybe this is the year he finally gets the trophy.

-- The greens at the Stadium Course didn't look very good on television, due in part to a very tough winter and in part to cutting down for the championship. When the weather doesn't cooperate, there's only so much superintendents can do and the players were understanding of the conditions at Sawgrass.

It looked, however, like the greens were stressed to the max on Sunday. There's a new emphasis in American golf on understanding that everything doesn't have to look like Augusta National in April. Leaders are saying brown is the new green and they're right in promoting the idea that it's not so much how a course looks but how it plays.

I'm not sure that was the idea at the Stadium Course over the weekend, though.