Arizona Golf Insider - December 2022

ARIZONAGOLF INSIDER

MIRANA

A CENTENARY CELEBRATION | By Joe Passov

Discover the people and places that laid the foundation for golf in Arizona, as the AGA marks 100 years of serving golfers and promoting the game.

A TRIP BACK IN TIME IN THE STATE OF GOLF

As the AGA celebrates its 100th anniversary, enjoy a peek at some of the most iconic photographs ever taken from the early days of golf in Arizona.

THE STADIUM STRETCH: PRESSURE PERSONIFIED

While the iconic 16th hole at the WM Phoenix Open garners the most fanfare of any hole on TOUR, it’s the holes before ‒ and after ‒ that players must overcome to win the tournament.

THE SUN RISES ON CABO’S SOLMAR GOLF LINKS | By Joe Passov

Looking for an international golf excursion in 2023? Look no further than the beautiful Grand Solmar at Rancho San Lucas in Cabo - the destination of the AGA’s Member Trip in May.

57. RULES

By Logan Rasmussen

As the Rules of Golf evolve every four years, we take a look back at some of the most notable Rules changes of the last century.

60. OUT OF BOUNDS

By Ed Gowan

With life-changing financial guarantees, golf the way it has always been is no longer as compelling a reason to remain with the TOURs.

ON THE COVER

Players gather in front of a majestic saguaro at the iconic Arizona Biltmore Golf Club in Phoenix, built in 1928 as one of the first grass golf courses in the state. Photo Courtesy: AHS/ Gusse Thomas Smith Collection

ARIZONAGOLF INSIDER

7600 E. Redfield Rd., Suite 130, Scottsdale, AZ 85260 (602) 944-3035 | www.azgolf.org

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OFFICERS

PRESIDENT

VICE PRESIDENT

VICE PRESIDENT

SECRETARY

From the Executive Director

BY JOE FOLEY

If you haven’t heard, next year is a big one for us. How about a little game of trivia to help ring in our 100th year? No Google searches allowed.

• In 1923, when the AGA was formed, what was the state of Arizona’s population?

• What was the cost of a box of raisins?

• What surface were courses primarily using for their putting greens?

• Who was “Corduroy Curry”?

• What did Bob Hope and Bing Crosby prevent the best amateur golfer in Arizona from achieving?

• Only one man has been around since it all began –and his name is?

OK – I didn’t go easy on you.

But guess what? You’re in luck.

A few pages forward, in an incredibly comprehensive piece on the early years of the AGA, esteemed writer Joe Passov answers all these questions and more. He weaves stories with stat lines, cultural “markers” with championship results, taking us on a journey from the earliest contemplations of a state golf association in the early 1920s to the 1980s – when the population across the state and popularity of the sport both began to boom. It’s a perfect way to capture the start of our story.

Get ready for the visual representations as well. Much like the cover, these images illustrate how di erent life was in the desert all those years ago. From the crowded gallery

at a 1922 exhibition match in Tucson featuring Arizona Golf legend Hi Corbett and two major winners; to an incredible image of some of the sixth annual Arizona State Women’s Championship competitors competing in Globe in 1929 – it’s incredible to think of the trailblazing sprit of players in that era. What a time!

Juxtapose this content with a feature on the biggest spectator event in golf – the WM Phoenix Open – which rolls into town alongside Super Bowl LVII in early February. Who could have imagined two events like these –taking place simultaneously in the Valley – 100 years ago?

In closing, we’re enormously grateful for the patronage of the golf community over the last 100 years – and we’re eager to celebrate this milestone together. Over the next 12 months, stay tuned for special events commemorating our history and be on the lookout for unique swag ashing our special edition 100th anniversary association logo.

To start, we’re proud to release a 2023 print calendar that features the many people, places and moments that have made the last 100 years so special.

It’s all right around the corner. Until then, we wish you and your loved ones a happy and healthy holiday season.

See you on the tee in ’23!

Bob McNichols

Tim Brown

Michelle Cross

John Souza

TREASURER Tim Hulscher

GENERAL COUNSEL

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Greg Mast

Jackie Bertsch, Vera Ciancola, Barbara Fitzgerald, Joe Foley, Bryan Hoops, Jerry Huff, Mark Jeffery, Leslie Kramer, Ann Martin, Scott McNevin, Victoria Totlis

AGA STAFF

Joe Foley, David Bataller, Anj Brown, Le Ann Finger, Amy Fruhwirth, Brandon Genson, Sharon Goldstone, Vivian Kelley, Kathy Laux, Mike Mason, Meagan McEnery, Derek McKenzie, Chris Montgomery, Robyn Noll, Logan Rasmussen, Daniel Shoup, Peg Tanner, Alex Tsakiris, Susan Woods

Partnership Contact ................................Chris Montgomery cmontgomery@azgolf.org - (602) 872-7011

National Advertising Contact ........................... Brian Foster bfoster@azgolf.org - (602) 909-7799

AZ GOLF INSIDER STAFF

EDITOR IN CHIEF David Bataller

AGA EDITOR ......................................... Meagan McEnery CONTRIBUTORS Joe Foley, David Bataller, Anj Brown, Ed Gowan, Jeff Locke, Robyn Noll, Cori Matheson, Joe Passov, Logan Rasmussen

PRESIDENT AND CEO Robyn Lambert

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES..... Lisa Grannis, Michelle Schneider

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES ............ Morgan McClellan, Maggie Norris

OFFICE & EVENTS MANAGER Gina Pinaire

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Arizona Golf Insider (ISSN 2765-9054) is published four times per year by the Arizona Golf Association. It is supported by members’ dues, utilizing $5 per member per year. We welcome all editorial submissions, including letters, but assume no responsibility for the loss or damage of unsolicited material. They will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Views expressed within these pages do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official policies of the Arizona Golf Association. No part of this magazine is intended as an endorsement of any equipment, publication, videotape, golf course, or other entity. No part of this magazine may be reproduced for use as an advertising, publicity or endorsement item without written approval of the AGA. Arizona Golf Insider is offered on a subscription basis for $12.95 annually. Individual copies may be obtained by forwarding $5 to the address above. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Arizona Golf Association, 7600 E. Redfield Road, Suite 130, Scottsdale, AZ 85260-1101

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The Wigwam’s Gold Course

Originally designed by noted golf course architect Robert Trent Jones, Sr., The Gold Course opened for play in 1965 and was quickly selected as a Top 100 course. The classic design was built by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (original owners of The Wigwam Resort) to rival another of Jones’ famed courses, the South Course at Firestone Country Club. A 2015 course renovation, led by PGA TOUR veteran Tom Lehman, modernized The Gold Course while still preserving Jones’ original strategic intent. Dubbed “Arizona’s Monster,” referring to Jones’ original concept that the course should play the toughest for the better players from the back tees, The Gold Course stretches nearly 7,400 yards and plays to a par of 72. The Gold annually hosts The Patriot All-America Invitational, one of the top amateur competitions in the world. Located in charming Litchfield Park, Ariz., The Wigwam is Arizona’s only 54-hole golf resort.

SIGNATURE HOLE

From the tee, the hole turns left in the driving zone, while a pesky canal bisects the fairway. That same waterway runs along the left side of the hole, eventually hugging the left side of the green. The strategy is all about angles ‒ the further right you go, the tougher the approach angle into the green. Drives placed closer to the canal provide easier second shots into the green.

PRACTICAL GOLF

Swing tips come and go, but foundational golf skills last forever. Whether you are new to the game as a beginner or a seasoned advanced player, The Four Foundations of Golf will give you the blueprint to build a stronger, longer-lasting game.

TROON EVENTS

Troon Events has announced its 2023/2024 Pro-Am Series — a collection of golf events that offer professional and amateur golfers premier competition with exceptional hospitality at iconic venues. The 4 Pro-Ams will take place at Pebble Beach, TPC Sawgrass, Whistling Straits and Pinehurst. Each event has amateur competitions in both gross and net divisions with top teams earning prizes, while top professional golfers will compete for shares of $10,000 purses. Prices range per event but start at $6,490++ (Pinehurst). The PGA Professional’s fee will be complimentary if they provide a completed team of three (3) amateurs and share a room with one (1) of the listed amateurs.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TROON EVENTS, OR TO REGISTER VISIT TROONEVENTS.COM.

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El Rio Golf & Country Club Hole 9 in the 1930s- the first all-grass golf course in Tucson.

Courtesy: AHS, Buehman Collection, TU, Places-Tucson-Country Clubs-El Rio Golf & Country Club, B34444

Celebration Centenary A

The Arizona Golf Association marks 100 years of serving golfers and promoting the game

BY JOE PASSOV ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY ROBYN NOLL

is having a birthday…and it’s a big one. The Arizona Golf Association turns 100 years old in 2023. Instead of splurging on buttercream frosted cake and French vanilla ice cream, however, perhaps we should toast with fine wine, because the AGA seems to get better with age. Of course, no matter how we choose to celebrate the AGA, it’s a worthy endeavor. For one hundred years, the Arizona Golf Association has served as the official governing body of amateur golf in Arizona. It started as a small group of golfers who got together to run the annual Amateur Championship. That group now measures 95,00 strong, from more than 600 men’s and women’s clubs. As a tip of the cap to ten decades of remarkable achievements, over the next several issues of AZ GOLF Insider we will reflect on the stories, accomplishments, milestones and people that define the 100-year history of the AGA.

The Early Years

Phoenix in the first week of April, 1923 was pleasantly warm. Daytime highs the entire week ranged from 78 to 83 degrees in the afternoon, three to five degrees above average. Not a drop of rain. In other words, conditions were ideal for the state’s prominent golfers to meet that week at Phoenix Country Club. Representatives from 15 clubs/courses around the state joined forces and formed the Arizona Golf Association. The founding fathers — a veritable who’s who of the businessmen, visionaries, entrepreneurs and civic leaders--included Dr. Kimball “Kim” Bannister, Hi Corbett, Tom Dunbar, Mason Kendall, Charles MacArthur and Francis Veale. The honor of being the first president of the Arizona Golf Association went to Dr. Kim Bannister.

The world of 1923 was far different from ours. Arizona was only 12 years into statehood. In those dozen years, its population had grown from 217,000 to 371,000. Today, 7.3 million people call Arizona home. In 1923, Phoenix grocery stores advertising in the Arizona Republican newspaper touted SunMaid Seedless Raisins for 15 cents. A regular size box of newly

introduced Quick Quaker Oats sold for 12 cents. Forty-eight pounds of Boss flour could be had for $2.10. A streetcar ride away from Phoenix Country Club brought one to Central and Adams, and the Maricopa Country Club, “A Real Place of Amusement” that promised patrons roulette wheel action on Saturday evening, April 7, for 10 cents. A few miles away, a big picnic was planned for Sunday, April 8 to celebrate the completion of the Cave Creek Dam, a multiple-arch concrete structure that served to prevent flooding in North Phoenix. It lasted until 1979.

Although the young city and state were brimming with optimism, it wasn’t all rosy in the Valley of the Sun. In 1920, a precipitous drop in the price of cotton from $1.35 to $0.35 per pound created a financial crisis in Phoenix, a depression from which the city wouldn’t emerge until 1924.

In spite of the downward financial spiral, the intrepid group of golfers that gathered at the three-year-old site for Phoenix Country Club at Seventh Street and Thomas were determined to organize. At an invitational that week, pioneers representing 15 country clubs from cities, mining towns and farming communities created the Arizona Golf Association.

So hardy was this band of early devotees that they created a State Amateur Golf Championship, slotted for December 1923, despite the fact that there wasn’t a single grass putting green that existed in the state. Concurrently, the Arizona Women’s Golf Association (AWGA) also formed that week, with its first official tournament slated for March 1924. For amateur golf in Arizona, the Roaring 20s were off and running.

great player, and Charlie McArthur had a beautiful swing. Milt Coggins, who started out as a tennis pro, was a good player, as was Hi Corbett from down in Tucson. The Madison family, Gray, Frank and Les, also were pretty good.”

John Riggle, Executive Director of the AGA from 1967 through 1985 agreed with Goldwater about the state’s high volume of terrific amateurs, citing Vic Armstrong, Harold Tovrea, Herbert Askins, Bill Boutell Sr., Louis Curry and Bob Warren as eminent individuals who earned their way into the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame.

Dr. Kimball “Kim” Bannister was a Phoenix Country Club member who captured the Arizona Amateur in 1925, 1927 and 1929. He also was a three-time Southwestern Golf Association champ. McArthur was the Amateur champ in 1924 and lost to Dr. Bannister in the 1925 final. Corbett lost the 1927 final to Bannister on the 37th hole; Tovrea reached the 1930 final, which wasn’t actually played until mid-January, 1931. Gray Madison picked up titles in 1947, 1949 and 1953.

Among the old-time greats mentioned, Milt Coggins had a long, remarkable run in Arizona sports. Coggins won the Amateur later in 1931 and again in 1933. Having played basketball, tennis, baseball and golf while in college at the University of Redlands in California, he hoped to spend his life in a sports-oriented profession. That he did. He opened a sporting goods store in the 1930s, played professional tennis for 11 years and in 1950, and became sports director at the Camelback Inn in Paradise Valley. He then served as golf professional at Encanto Municipal in Phoenix until 1961. From 1956 through 1976, Coggins designed or re-designed 26 golf courses, 21 of them in Arizona, including Pinetop Country Club in 1961 and Pinetop Lakes in 1973.

Hassayampa Inn

Though small in numbers, quality players managed to emerge in short order. “We had some very good amateurs in the early years,” said Bob Goldwater, perhaps the most important figure in the first three decades of the AGA. As Goldwater told writer Bill Huffman, “Dr. Kim Bannister was a

One of the most colorful early legends was Louis Curry, winner of the very first Amateur in 1923. As David Hubbard reported in the AGA’s magazine, Curry took up golf in 1908 at age 8, at the Warren District Country Club in Bisbee, a club

Phoenix Country Club circa 1922. The club was an integral part of golf in Arizona, playing host to half of the early Men’s and Women’s State Championships, and later becoming the birthplace of the Phoenix Open.

Courtesy: Phoenix Country Club

Hiram S. “Hi” Corbett on Hole 1 at Tucson Golf & Country Club. Corbett was one of Tucson’s early golf standouts and his impact on Tucson golf was profound. He had a hand in founding both the Tucson Golf & Country Club and El Rio Country Club, was AGA President twice (1924 & 1938), President of the Southwestern Golf Association, and his son Knox and nephew William Corbett “Billy” Bell also became AGA Presidents. Hi and Billy are both in the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame.

Courtesy: AHS, Corbett Family Photographs, TU PC 025, B3/F68, page 16, F

THE FOUNDING CLUBS WERE:

Phoenix Country Club

Tucson Golf and Country Club

San Marcos Golf Club (Chandler)

Cobre Valley Country Club (Globe/ Miami)

Douglas Country Club Florence Country Club Hassayampa Country Club (Prescott)

Hayden Country Club

Hollywood Golf Club (Phoenix)

Kingman Country Club

Ray Country Club

Superior Country Club

Tempe Country Club

Verde Valley Country Club (Clarkdale) Warren District Country Club (Bisbee)

co-founded that year by Curry’s father, Joe. Louis quickly became proficient, won several regional titles as a teenager, went to military school in Indiana, and eventually returned — to work in the Bisbee copper mines. When he finished his shift in the mines, he would walk four miles to the golf course for a nine-hole round before going home.

In 1923, as a sophomore at the University of Arizona, Curry made the semi-finals of the Southwestern Amateur Championship in El Paso, Texas. He blamed the 2 & 1 loss to Dr. James Vance on the fact that he was wearing knickers for the first time since childhood. When he arrived at Tucson Golf and Country Club, where he was a member, Curry was back in his favorite corduroys. Emerging from a field of 60 men, he progressed through the draw and trounced Ray Hayes in the 36-hole match-play final, 6 & 5. He became known as “Corduroy Curry.” The American Golfer dubbed him “A Golf Champion in Corduroys.” Sporting Life titled an article, “The Man Who Came Out of a Mine Shaft to Win a Golf Title.”

Curry soon turned professional, heading to Denver’s Cherry Hills and didn’t defend his title. He returned to Phoenix in 1926 and worked at the El Molino Golf Course, located near 17th Street and Van Buren. As the Depression dawned in 1929, Curry returned to the mines. He ultimately wound up in Phoenix, citrus farming with his father. He later regained his amateur status and played when he could. Yet, he will be forever remembered as “Corduroy Curry”, the first Arizona Amateur champion.

Tucson Golf and Country Club, incidentally, played host to the 1927 Amateur as well. That club began in 1909 and was located at Broadway and Country Club in Tucson. According to a 1974 report by John Gunby, soon after the 1927 Amateur, club founders that included Hi Corbett, William Julian, Nat Kendall and Harold Steinfeld sold their golf course and built another one because of more available water. Named El Rio Country Club, it was located on West Speedway in Tucson. It was the first all-grass golf course in Tucson, building on the success of Phoenix Country Club, which saw the germination of the state’s first grass greens in 1927. Spearheading the construction of Phoenix Country Club’s all-grass layout was its

greens committee chairman, Dr. Kim Bannister.

Phoenix Country Club, where the Arizona Golf Association came to be, was the state’s preeminent golf institution in the 20th century. Among its founders were Webster Street, Chief Justice of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court, Dwight B. Heard, president of the Arizona Cotton Association and publisher of the Arizona Republican newspaper (known as the Arizona Republic since 1930) and Baron Goldwater, father to Barry and Bob. The club began life on February 22, 1900 as a nine-hole course with dirt fairways and sand greens known as Phoenix Golf Club and was located on the corner of Central Avenue and Roosevelt Street. “This little links kept the golfers of Phoenix happy, but it was obvious that a new location was needed,” wrote Barry Goldwater, longtime senator from Arizona. Within a year, the club uprooted to Yuma Road, near the corner of 17th Avenue and Van Buren, about where the State Capitol now sits.

In 1910, Phoenix Golf Club moved again, this time to the intersection of the Arizona Canal and North Central Avenue. Its name changed to the Country Club of Phoenix. The golf course sat on the east side of the canal while the clubhouse was south of the canal. The first tee was also south of the canal and the tee shot had to carry it, a not-so-easy feat for some. “Mom [Josephine] was a golfer, but dad never did get into it,” recalled Bob Goldwater in 1998. “In the old club on Central, you had to hit over a canal on the first hole. In his first round, dad put two balls in the water and threw his golf bag after them. He never played again.”

In 1919, Phoenix Country Club took its present name, at its present location, on the northeast corner of Seventh Street and Thomas. Play began there the last week of October 1921. It boasted Bermuda grass fairways and sand greens. At that time, small, round, oiled sand greens were de rigueur in the state due to insufficient rainfall and the lack of a readily available sprinkler system. After players found such a green on their approach, they would utilize a roller-type device, or the smooth end of a rake and smooth a path between the ball and the cup. Once the entire group had holed out, one player would re-rake the green to provide the furrows for the next

group. At northern Arizona courses such as Hassayampa in Prescott and Verde Valley in Clarkdale, near Jerome, putting surfaces were composed of rolled cottonseed hulls.

“Sand greens were oiled black sand that were pretty easy to play, because they were small and smooth,” remembered Bob Goldwater. “You always got a good roll because you could sweep the path down from your ball to the cup. You might say that the USGA would frown on such a situation today. Cottonseed greens were made from the seed [pockets]. After the cotton was removed, a lint-like substance was left, and that’s what greens were made of. When you would hit a ball real high, it would bounce, and when you would hit it low, it would spin. The way you putted was by tapping down the lint-like material all the way from your ball to the cup.”

That Bob Goldwater knew so much about early playing conditions was hardly surprising. Without question, Goldwater was the most knowledgeable and influential amateur golfer in the first three decades of the AGA’s existence. Not only that, but he was warm, funny and could really play.

“Bob Goldwater should have been on the Walker Cup team,” said Ed Gowan, Executive Director of the AGA from 1985 through 2022. “Because he was running around with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby — he actually did vaudeville with them — the USGA hierarchy kind of snubbed the idea of a showman being on the Walker Cup team. So, he wasn’t there, although he was that good.”

Typically self-deprecating, Goldwater stated in 1960, “You have to do something in the National Amateur to make the Walker Cup. I just never played well in it.” Goldwater’s best result in that event was reaching the third round. Clearly, however, he accomplished everything else.

Indeed, the vibrant, affable Goldwater not only ran the renowned family department store business while his brother Barry negotiated the political world, but he was a talented entertainer, philanthropist and serious golfer, too. It was that way from the beginning.

“I learned from my mom (Josephine), who was the state Women’s Amateur champ at the time,” said Goldwater, who took up the game in 1920 at age 10. Taking lessons as a

youngster from a wise old instructor named Lewis Scott, Goldwater became a golf prodigy. He broke par at age 12 and that same year reached the championship ight of the Southwestern Amateur in El Paso. He played in the inaugural Arizona State Amateur at 13, while in 1924, at age 14 and competing under the precocious name of Bobbie Goldwater, he nished runner-up to Charles McArthur.

“I won a silver cocktail shaker,” recalled Goldwater in 1991. “I still have it. Fourteen years old and I got a cocktail shaker. I don’t know if it a ected my life or not,” he said with a grin.

Two years later, in 1926, “Bobbie” broke through at age 16, winning both the Southwestern Amateur and the Arizona State Amateur. In the latter event, played at his home course, Phoenix Country Club, he downed Fred Barrows, who would win the 1928 title, by a 3 and 2 margin. It was a wild ride to the nish. In the semi- nals, Goldwater needed 20 holes to subdue medalist omas Dunbar Jr., 1 up, while Barrows had edged defending champion Dr. Kim Bannister 1 up.

In 1963, a long-ago scribe depicted the nals action: “Rain made the championship round of the Arizona Men’s Amateur golf tournament di cult enough in 1926, but a 16-year-old lad also had to contend with smashed index nger on his right hand — the result of a high school football mishap — and an experienced golfer as his opponent, besides…He was a student at Phoenix Union High School and even if hadn’t had to put up with a painful nger injury, he wasn’t given much of a chance to win, despite the fact that he was considered one of the brightest young prospects in the state. However, before he reached the nal round, he ousted Charles McArthur, generally regarded as the best in the state at that time, 3 and 2, and omas Dunbar, Jr., the tournament medalist, 1 up on the 20th hole.

“Rain hit the tournament in its later stages, making the condition of the course anything but ideal. Bob nished the morning 18 holes of the nal round 2 down to Fred Barrows, and the ‘experts’ gured it was all over when a driving rain started up again as the players teed o for the nal 18 holes. But, as he was to prove so many times later, both on the course and at a conference table, wrestling with a golf problem, Goldwater seemed merely to drive himself harder with a determination that was not to be denied.

“He won the rst three holes and halved the next six, making the turn 1 up via a par 37 front nine. He also stayed even with Barrows on the 10th through the 13th holes, won the 14th and 15th, and closed the match by having the 16th.

good while, he played for many years at scratch. He once played 24 consecutive rounds under 70 at Phoenix Country Club. He was also three times the Southwestern Amateur champion, a title that in those days carried prestige equal to the State Amateur.

In fact, the Southwestern Golf Association, which puts on the Southwestern Amateur was once closely linked to the AGA. Started in 1915 as a regional tournament for private club members to compete against the top amateurs from other southwestern golf clubs, the Southwestern Golf Association was organized in Douglas, Arizona. Pre-dating the Arizona and Sun Country Golf Associations, the Southwestern Golf Association was the original organizing body for the clubs around the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas.

“Most of the early Arizona Hall of Famers were Phoenix Country Club people and Tucson Golf and Country Club people, and they were pretty well connected with the guys at the Southwestern Golf Association,” said Ed Gowan. “ ey were really the same group of people for the most part at both associations.”

Mr. Boice, age 70, and Bobbie Goldwater, age 13, were the oldest and youngest competitors at the 1923 Championship.

Courtesy: AHS, Corbett Family Photographs, TU PC 025, B3/F70, page 79

“ ose who saw his gritty exhibition termed it a typical ‘Hagen’ comeback — one of the greatest ever seen in the state. Bob was in the rough often, but took chances on his recoveries and made good on them. Six times during the afternoon round he was in bunkers, but came out close enough to the hole to meet Barrows’ challenge. Once he made a remarkable shot from ankle-deep mud.”

Goldwater played collegiately at Stanford University, but it was back home in the desert sun where he shined brightest. He would win the Arizona State Amateur on three occasions, with his other victories coming in 1935 at Phoenix Country Club and in 1950 at Tucson’s El Rio. A plus handicap for a

Among Goldwater’s proudest golf accomplishments were in winning the 1952 Broadmoor Invitational in Colorado Springs and in reaching the nal in 1951 of the prestigious Western Amateur. In the Broadmoor triumph, he vanquished Charlie Coe in a 36-hole, semi- nal match; at the time, Coe was considered the nest amateur in the world. In the 1951 Western event, he took down three Walker Cup players on the way to the nal. It’s small wonder that Gowan felt Goldwater was denied of a place on the Walker Cup team.

Yet, Goldwater’s lasting legacy to Arizona golf is less as a player and more as an advocate and benefactor. He served with distinction on USGA committees, starting in 1938, with long stints on the Sectional A airs Committee, where he supervised qualifying events for the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur. He joined the Advisory Committee of the PGA of America in 1947 and eventually served three terms as Chairman. He was considered the “Father of the Phoenix Open,” for founding and nurturing that popular PGA Tour event from 1932 forward. He also logged long terms on the boards of the Trans-Mis-

Left to Right: Hiram S. Corbett, Josephine Goldwater, Dr. Kimball Bannister and John Riggle

Courtesy: AHS, Corbett Family Photographs, TU PC 025, B5, 43784; Personal and Political Papers of Senator Barry M. Goldwater, Greater Arizona Collection, ASU Library

sissippi Golf Association (59 years!) and the Western Golf Association, and was Arizona’s first member of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. He will be well-remembered for leading the Arizona Golf Association for decades, formally as its president and informally as its guiding light.

“Bob Goldwater was one of those guys that made sure that everything that needed to happen, did happen,” said Fred Hickle. “When the Association needed an extra couple thousand bucks, he was there with the money. By the time I came along in the mid-1970s, he had backed out of the active work with the board. But you could tell by the way that folks talked about him with a certain degree of awe — in a way they didn’t bestow on other folks — that he was the guy. He was the guy during all those years.”

Even with his love and loyalty for the Arizona private clubs that he frequented — Phoenix Country Club, Moon Valley Country Club and White Mountain Country Club — Goldwater had a soft spot for the public golfer. Early in 1960, the Arizona Chairman of the USGA’s Public Links program, John Riggle, was concerned about getting a good representation to the national Public Links Championship, at Ala Wai Golf Course in Honolulu, Hawaii. It would be the first time a USGA event had gone beyond the Lower 48 states for a national championship.

As Bob Allison reported for PGA magazine in 1960, “Riggle was doing a tremendous job in reviving public links interest in Arizona following a somewhat moribund period. He felt failure to send a representative group to Hawaii would be a severe setback. The Thunderbirds of the Chambers of Commerce… have annually assisted the Arizona public links program…but this was an outsize expense item.

“Riggle called Goldwater and asked to meet with him and other public links enthusiasts to help find a way. Goldwater did a little better. He played host to a dinner meeting at one of Phoenix’s exclusive clubs — picking up the check, naturally, as casually as he does everything else. Out of this developed plans for a Valley of the Sun Golf Classic amateur tournament, played over four club courses. The clubs gave their facilities without charge to the public links players — on four of their busiest weekend days of the season. Eight Arizona players went to Hawaii, financed in great part through this tournament.”

Goldwater stated it well. “The game needs a lot more than just the country clubs,” he said.

Incidentally, among the players that ventured to Honolulu were Dick Hopwood and Frank Huff. Hopwood, who won the Arizona State Amateur in 1956 and 1959 was co-medalist in Hawaii and Huff reached the third round of match play.

Given Goldwater’s dual influences on both amateur and professional golf in Arizona, there’s no better lasting tribute to his contributions than the Goldwater Cup. The competition pitting Arizona’s top amateurs against the Southwest Section of the PGA’s best professionals began in 1961 at Moon Valley Country Club. The amateurs romped, 10 ½ to 4 ½, with Dr. Ed Updegraff winning the marquee matchup against the State Open champ, Bill Johnston of Arizona Country Club, 2 and 1.

Goldwater was also savvy enough to recognize greatness when he saw it. “The best player of all [in Arizona], at least from an amateur standpoint, was Dr. Ed Updegraff of Tucson, who won everything,” said Goldwater in 2000. He won a bunch of state amateurs [four], the U.S. Senior Amateur [1981] and played and captained Walker Cup teams. Dr. Ed was probably Arizona’s greatest amateur player ever.”

The Hawkeye State also has dibs on Dr. Edgar Updegraff. Born March 1, 1922 in Boone, Iowa, Updegraff competed in 35 USGA championships, including 18 U.S. Amateurs. He played in the Masters six times, with the tongue-in-cheek comment that it was his favorite 36-hole event. The AGA’s president in 1981 and 1982, Updegraff won the Tucson Country Club title 27 times, after which the club named the trophy, “The Updegraff Cup.” He also won 12 Tucson City

Amateur titles, and competed in the Walker Cup in 1963, 1965 and 1969. When he turned 100 in 2022, he again attracted notice as the USGA’s oldest living champion.

Assessing Updegraff’s game, Fred Hickle, who played thousands of rounds with Dr. Ed, still marvels at the great man’s talents. “Updy [as Hickle often calls him] was a natural fader off the tee. Augusta was the only place he would try to hook it. But he was a magnificent iron player. It didn’t matter whether he had 200 yards in, or 180 or 150. His next shot would be the same quality regardless of the yardage. And he was an extraordinarily good putter as well. He was very confident about his putting. But he regularly hit it close. He just wore you out hitting it onto the green.”

Equally impressive to Hickle was Updegraff’s bearing on the course. “Equanimity is a word that immediately comes to mind,” said Hickle. “He was a fierce competitor, but he was never obnoxious about it.”

Ed Gowan holds Updegraff in highest esteem for amateur golfers in Arizona. “He’s the Bobby Jones of Arizona,” said Gowan. “He won the USGA’s Bob Jones Award (in 1999), and if you look at all the things that Bob Jones had done in his life, Dr. Ed was very similar. He was a full-time, 50-hours a week doctor, yet he accomplished one of the greatest amateur records in history, while playing occasional golf. His 2,800+ times beating his age is unmatched, and we have the scoring records!”

A lasting legacy for the ageless Updegraff was the establishment of the Updegraff Award in 1990, the Arizona Golf Association’s highest honor. It is given in recognition of those who, by their actions, exemplify the Spirit of the Game.

The John Riggle Era

Not every key figure in the first six decades of the AGA was a tournament player. The Arizona Golf Association created the administrative (and salaried) post of Executive Director in 1967. Filling the role was the man who was also President of the AGA, a volunteer role--John Riggle. At 7,000 members strong, the AGA needed someone fulltime to handle its

affairs, which were growing slowly, but steadily.

Riggle became an active AGA volunteer in 1957, with emphasis on public golf. He first joined the AGA in 1952. “I knew all the golfers by name then,” said Riggle in 1976.

By America’s bicentennial year, the AGA had grown to more than 19,500 members. As of that year, Riggle was one of the two paid AGA staff. He would spend his time in the 1970s conducting and supervising amateur tournaments throughout the state, traveling to meetings and acting as the final word on rules and conduct. Riggle said in 1976 that he sometimes made up to 23 rule decisions a day and got calls at all hours of the day and night. Another AGA function under Riggle’s purview was the monthly computation of members’ handicaps. From the AGA’s Phoenix headquarters, Riggle and assistant Janie Schaettle determined official USGA handicaps, a service of the AGA since 1964, until Continental Bank took over in 1975.

A longtime USGA volunteer, Riggle worked on the Rules committees of countless USGA Championships, as many as seven a year when qualified officials were few and far between. He was instrumental as a partner in building the Pacific Coast Golf Association and its championship, the International Association of Golf Administrators (IAGA), the Southwestern Golf Association and served many other organizations including his beloved Encanto Men’s Club and at Orange Tree, where he played most of his golf in later years.

“John Riggle was one of those larger-than-life characters,” said Fred Hickle of Tucson, an AGA board member dating to the 1970s, a past president (1989) of the AGA and a former USGA Executive Committee member. “You didn’t ever get a small dose of John Riggle. You got a large kind of fire hose dose. When he entered the room, he just took it over. He knew everything and everybody.”

Riggle loved the public golfer, promoting golf for all in Arizona when much attention nationally was on private clubs. He lobbied the USGA incessantly to pay attention to the public player, and much of what Arizona Golf has become is in his debt. Hundreds of junior golfers benefitted

from Riggle’s efforts. His associations with Bob Goldwater and Johnny Bulla resulted in the establishment of the annual Goldwater Cup Matches between the AGA’s top amateurs and the Southwest PGA Section’s top professionals. Among the legacies tying together two of the AGA’s early giants was the inaugural Pacific Coast Amateur Association’s championship in 1967. The tournament arose in part because Arizona Golf Association players and other Western players were being overlooked by the East Coast establishment for Walker Cup consideration. Most of the important amateur tournaments that influenced Walker Cup selection decisions were contested east of the Mississippi.

“At that time, the very wealthy traveled to play some of the amateur events in the east, but those people were few and far between,” said Gowan.

A new Western showcase for the region’s top amateur stalwarts was created, and John Riggle, the AGA’s recently minted Executive Director, helped to lead the charge. No one could have scripted the results for the inaugural playing of the Pacific Coast Amateur. Seattle Golf Club played host to the event and it attracted a stellar field. University of Colorado All-American Hale Irwin finished second. The 1964 U.S. Junior champion and current BYU star Johnny Miller, who had finished tied for eighth at the 1966 U.S. Open, finished third. Both looked up in disbelief at the victory podium, where 45-year-old practicing urologist Dr. Ed Updegraff grasped the trophy.

“The expressions on the faces of Irwin and Miller were priceless,” said Hickle. “They couldn’t believe they had just lost to the old guy from Tucson that still practiced medicine every day of the week.”

The USGA finally recognized the efforts that Riggle, Bob Goldwater and others expended to raise the profile of Arizona’s public golfers by awarding the 1971 U.S. Public Links Championship to Phoenix. Held at Papago Park’s municipal layout in mid-July, it was blistering hot on and off the golf course. Two years after Tempe’s John Jackson won the Publinks title in Pennsylvania, the state fielded some of its

top amateurs in the hopes of seeing a repeat. Fred Haney of Oregon took honors, at two-over-par 290; Arizona’s top individual was Tom Olson of Phoenix, who tied for third. Olson and his Phoenix teammates, Spencer Sappington (runner-up in the 1969 State Amateur to Updegraff) and Bill Meyers (an ASU golfer in 1971-’72 who won the 1971, 1975 and 1976 Arizona State Amateurs) took second place in the Inter-city team event.

Riggle was also instrumental in conceiving and starting the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame, which inducted its first class in 1968. The freshman class featured sportswriters Bob Allison and Larry Grill; local pros Willie Low, Vernon “Red” Allen, Herbert Bowers and amateurs Bob Goldwater, Hi Corbett, Vic Armstrong, Harold Tovrea Sr., and Kim Bannister Sr., Riggle himself made the Hall of Fame in the second year, 1969. John Riggle passed away on Halloween, 2009 at age 99.

Women to the (Fore)front

So where are the historical exploits of Arizona’s greatest women golfers? Glad you asked. It’s tricky. Unlike many other states and golf-oriented nations, Arizona’s women golfers began with status nearly on par with men. They all gathered together that first week in April, 1923.

However, out of those meetings at an alcove at Phoenix Country Club emerged two different organizations, the Arizona Golf Association and the Arizona Women’s Golf Association. Each had separate officers and held separate tournaments. And make no mistake — the ladies had their share of heroic players and legendary tournaments over the years, starting with the very first AWGA Championship, at Phoenix Country Club in March 1924. In that event, Lorraine McArthur defeated fellow Phoenix Country Club member Josephine “Jo” Goldwater, mother to Barry and Bob. McArthur snagged three more titles over the next five years before moving to California.

New stars emerged in the Women’s game, from Barbara Williams, who won four straight titles in the 1930s, to Ruth Prather, who captured five straight in the 1950s. Clearly, serious talent abounded in the Grand Canyon State. Among the magical names that hoisted trophies in the 1970s and 1980s were Heather Farr and Geri Cavanagh, both members of the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame. We will tell their stories — and many more — in Arizona Golf Insider’s next installment of the Arizona Golf Association’s 100-year history.

While often action-packed, the first six decades of the Arizona Golf Association saw quiet lulls as well. That was understandable, according to Ed Gowan. “There wasn’t much to the AGA until John Riggle arrived, and even then, he was basically a one-person office with a secretary,” recalled Gowan. “Other than that, there wasn’t much he and the Association did — just course rating and handicap-

Josephine Goldwater

Courtesy: Personal and Political Papers of Senator Barry M. Goldwater, Greater Arizona Collection, ASU Library

The sixth annual Women’s Championship in 1929 drew approximately 50 women from around the state to the Cobre Valley Golf Course in Globe/Miami.

Courtesy: Nancy Gates/Louise Howard Collection

ping. In those days, not a lot went on here in the summer. Many courses closed. People went away. It was not like it is today.”

Nevertheless, there were dozens of noteworthy people and events that captured the attention of players, Association members and the media in the AGA’s first six decades.

It’s worth noting that in the early days, Phoenix wasn’t the only producer of the state’s top golf administrators. The second AGA President, Hi Corbett, hailed from Tucson; The 1927 president, Julius Kruttschnitt, Jr., was also from the Old Pueblo. Like Corbett, he represented Tucson Golf & Country Club but worked for ASARCO, a mining concern. Another leader from mining industry was Francis William Maclennan. He was Vice-President of the Miami Copper Company and played his golf at Cobre Valley Country Club. In 1933, Charles C. Kuzell assumed the AGA presidency. He worked for Phelps Dodge, a prosperous mining outfit and played out of Verde Valley Golf Club in Clarkdale, the same club as 1929 AGA president Robert E. Talley. Others who served as AGA President in the pre-War years were W.E. Mullen from Ray (1930), Joe Heap from Prescott’s Hassayampa Country Club (1935), Frank Bledsoe from Bisbee (1939) and Charles J. Alden from Globe (1942). What’s striking is how influential mining was in Arizona golf 90 to 100 years ago.

Out of this group, Hiram “Hi” Corbett leaves the largest footprints on the Arizona golf scene. Sports fans know Corbett’s name because it adorns the baseball stadium in Tucson’s Reid Park, where it was for many years the spring training home for the Cleveland Indians. Today, it serves as home field for the University of Arizona Wildcats. Born in 1886, the son of a lumber company owner became Tucson’s finest golfer in the 1930s. He came close to winning the 1927 State Amateur, losing 1 up in the final over 37 holes to Dr. Kim Bannister. Uniquely, Corbett took the AGA helm again, serving as president once more in 1938. His son, Knox Corbett, held the AGA Presidential reins in 1941. In the 1940s, Hi Corbett helped bring the PGA Tour to Tucson. He served as a state senator in Arizona from 1953 to 1964. Corbett passed away in 1967 — the year Arnold Palmer won the PGA Tour’s Tucson Open.

Gray Madison Sr. was a mid-century great. He won three State Amateur titles, in 1947, 1949 and 1953 and contended in many others, including 1952, when he lost to Ed Updegraff in the final. Madison later was renowned for his auto dealerships in Scottsdale. He was elected to the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame in 1969.

Another 1969 Arizona Golf Hall of Fame inductee — and he certainly got there on the first ballot--was Bob Warren. The AGA President from 1963 to 1967, Warren succeeded Bob Goldwater in that role. A life member of the AGA Board of Directors, the Prescott resident had a profound impact on the golf in the state, especially in the art and science of course ratings.

“Bob Warren was a brilliant man,” said Ed Gowan. “He basically ran the Association out of his back pocket. In 1964, Warren, who was basically keeping all the Association records, started doing course ratings. He’d go out and measure courses and start keeping the records that were important at that time for handicapping, which was basically just an accurate yardage. John Riggle worked with him on that.”

Handicapping consistency took a giant step forward in 1975. “Up until 1975, courses just kept their own handicaps,” explained Gowan. “In 1975, the AGA made an arrangement with Continental Bank that had a fledgling computer. They started compiling the handicaps through the Continental Bank and creating a central source. That was pretty much the case across the country.”

In 1967, the AGA announced plans to begin charging members a fee beyond the nominal amount it had collected up until that time to process handicap index cards. According to Phoenix Gazette sportswriter Bob Allison, “the AGA until now has performed all of its course rating duties, sanctioned and officiated at tournaments, sponsored trophies, entertained contestants, and provided correspondence and travel to get the job done simply as a labor of love. The 7,000-some members who are affiliated through their local country club or men’s club at public courses have paid only a small processing fee for handicapping services.

“The AGA currently has an arrangement with Continental

basis. The only charge to members is the nominal fee charged by the bank for computing services. This January (1967), the AGA has newly prepared rating reports on the state’s 62 member golf courses according to new regulations and procedures set forth by the United States Golf Association. This is only one of the tasks that will be financially aided by the $4 membership fee. The association plans to expand its tournament sanctioning and trophy fund and hopes to be able to pay a staff member a part-time wage for work that volunteers have done up until now.”

Bank for that financial institution’s computer department to produce every member’s handicap card on a monthly

A player hits is tee shot on the 184-yard 17th hole at Tucson Golf & Country Club in the 1920s.

Courtesy: AHS, Corbett Family Photographs, TU PC 025, B3/ F68, page 8, A

One of the greatest finals in State Amateur annals occurred in 1962, when husky George Boutell, an 18-year-old from Phoenix Country Club, defeated Wayne Breck, 1 up on 38 holes. Held at the rugged 6,834-yard Indian Bend layout (later known as Pima Golf Resort, then Pavilion Lakes and now gone), Boutell’s conservative tactics finally paid off. On the second extra hole, Breck pushed his tee shot to the right, and the ball wound up under a bushy palo verde tree. The 25-year-old former Arizona State ace managed to blade the ball out within 20 yards of the green. But his approach shot rolled 20 feet past the cup, and Boutell two-putted to win the tournament.

“George Boutell was probably the best amateur in the country at that time,” said Ed Gowan. “And he didn’t make a Walker Cup team.”

Indeed, Boutell was acknowledged by many as the best amateur in the U.S. after Jack Nicklaus turned professional in 1962. Known for his extraordinary short game, Boutell was a two-time All-American at ASU, and won the prestigious Trans-Mississippi in 1965. He later played the PGA Tour from 1968-1973, then coached the Sun Devils from 1975 to 1985 winning multiple titles. Jim Carter, who captured the 1984 State Amateur at Desert Forest, was playing for Coach Boutell at ASU when he captured the 1983 NCAA Individual title.

“George always believed in me,” said Carter. “He remained a mentor well into my professional career on the PGA Tour, where he became a fantastic Tour Rules Official.”

The son of 1969 Arizona Golf Hall of Fame inductee Bill Boutell Sr., George Boutell was elected in 2000 for those same honors. The younger Boutell passed away in 2018.

In 1964, two years after Boutell’s heroics, we witnessed one of the most dramatic struggles waged in recent years for the State Amateur crown. Payne Palmer III triumphed over Bill Farkas Jr. by sinking a four-foot pressure putt on the final green to keep the match from going into overtime. That putt gave Palmer a 5 to equal Farkas’ par on the 535-yard 18th hole and a 1-up decision over his rival, who had come back from a three-hole deficit down the stretch.

One of the greatest Cinderella stories that almost happened took place at the 1972 Men’s Amateur, played that year at Paradise Valley Country Club. Dick Hopwood gave it a big try, but young Tom Purtzer’s big game was just too much for him. The 20-year-old Purtzer, an Arizona State linksman who played out of Moon Valley Country Club, defeated the 50-year-old Hopwood by a 7 and 5 margin. Purtzer was a 2-up leader at the lunch break over Hopwood, who won his second of two state crowns at this same course back in 1959. And Dick could manage to win but one hole in the afternoon as he found himself bunkered on no fewer than nine occasions — probably a record for the cagey veteran.

Looking Ahead

At the dawn of 1923, there were 11 golf courses in Arizona, only three of them with 18 holes. In 1954, following the Depression, World War II and prior to widespread air-conditioning, that number of courses barely climbed--to 16.

By 1974, there were 135 member courses in the AGA, 19 in Phoenix and 69 in the Valley of the Sun. The 1980s would launch a seismic explosion when it came to new golf courses. Due to massive changes in the personnel, philosophy and the administration of the game, the Arizona Golf Association would be perfectly poised to help foster that growth as the 21st century approached.

A Trip Back in Time in The State of Golf

As the AGA celebrates its 100th anniversary, enjoy a peek at the early days of golf in Arizona.

An exhibition match featuring amateur Hiram “Hi” Corbett, Club Professional Jim Wilson, 1921 British Open Champion Jock Hutchison, and 1921 U.S. Open Champion Jim Barnes drew over 500 people to the Tucson Golf & Country Club in 1922. The following year the club would host the inaugural Arizona State Amateur Golf Championship.

Courtesy: Arizona Historical Society (AHS), Corbett Family Photographs, TU PC 025, B3/F69, page 36

wThe first State Championship drew golfers from the Arizona Golf Association’s member clubs in Tucson, Phoenix, Chandler, Hayden, Miami, Globe, Douglas and Bisbee. Among the players were (central grouping, L-R): E. P. Stratton (winner of the medal round), Ed Sporleder, Dr. Metzger, Tom Dunbar Sr., Tom Dunbar Jr., Louis Curry (the champion), Billy Bell, William M. Pryce, Ray Hayes (runner-up), Cave Couts, Hi Corbett (AGA President-elect for 1924), Harry Drachman, R. E. Butler, and George Amos.

Courtesy: San Marcos Golf Club/Chandler Museum

wA student at the University of Arizona and a fellow who worked hard in copper mines during vacations, Louis C. Curry represented Tucson Golf and Country club in the 1923 State Championship. Curry defeated Ray N. Hayes in the 36-Hole final, 6 and 5.

Courtesy: AHS, Corbett Family Photographs, TU PC 025, B3/ F71, page 91

v

In the semifinals, Louis C. Curry of Tucson Golf and Country Club and Tom Dunbar, Jr., of Phoenix Country Club were tied as they approached the 17th, a 174-yard par 3. Curry hit his tee shot to 18 inches of the hole, making birdie and going on to win the match, 1-up, to advance to the finals.

The Hassayampa Country Club formed in 1919. Its native land fairways, forest setting, elevation changes, gentle streams, and cooler temperatures distinguished it from most other Arizona clubs.

Sharlot

& Archives / 1085-0131-0009 (circa 1940s)

Courtesy:

Hall Museum Library

COVER STORY

El Rio Golf & Country Club was a grass course built on Tucson’s west side in 1929 offering Bermuda grass fairways and bentgrass greens. Hi Corbett, the AGA’s President in 1924, was one of the powerful men that brought the club to life and kept it going even during the Great Depression. In 1936, renowned golf course architect A. W. Tillinghast met with golf pro Austie Claeyssens during his PGA of America Consulting Tour of U.S. Courses, to help improve the course layout. El Rio went on to host the first eighteen Tucson Opens.

Courtesy: AHS, Buehman Collection, TU, Places-Tucson-Country Clubs-El Rio Golf & Country Club, B34445

wGeorge Lewis tees off at San Marcos Golf Club in 1913. In 1915, San Marcos became the first course in the state to install grass fairways.

Courtesy: San Marcos Golf Club/ Chandler Museum

Barbara Williams of the Phoenix Country Club was a dominant force on the Women’s Amateur scene in the early 1930s. She won the State Women’s title four times, in 1931, 1932, 1934, and 1935. She might have won in 1933 as well, but for the fact there was no tournament held that year.

Courtesy: Phoenix Country Club, circa 1934

vMany of the early golf clubs in Arizona had 9-hole courses funded by the nearby mines for the benefit of their employees and families. Such was the case with the Verde Valley Country Club located in Clarkdale, which was Arizona’s first master-planned community developed by the United Verde Copper Company in 1912. Among the events hosted at Verde Valley were the AGA Men’s Championships in 1925, 1929, and 1934.

Courtesy: Sharlot Hall Museum, SHM Call #1085-0131-0004

The Thunderbirds

The PGA TOUR has its share of tough three-to-four-hole stretches where even the best players in the world have to buckle down and calm their nerves. Some of the most famous including The Bear Trap at PGA National, Amen Corner at Augusta National, The Green Mile at Quail Hollow and The Snake Pit at Innisbrook all put a premium on shot making, challenging the PGA TOUR’s best to simply keep the ball in play. TPC Scottsdale, home of the Waste Management Phoenix Open, has its own set of pressure points. And while the course itself isn’t considered especially difficult for the best golfers on the planet, the added stress of the largest golf gallery in the world – and a four-story Roman-style coliseum at the famed 16th –make the “Stadium Stretch” at the WM Phoenix Open arguably one of the most difficult and nerve racking four holes on TOUR.

Starting on the par-5 15th at TPC Scottsdale, the “Stadium Stretch” begins with a tough tee shot into a narrowing fairway with water down the entire left side. The roars of the crowd at the 16th hole and the trials to come are close enough – and loud enough – to rattle the cages of any player eyeing eagle on the island green. The hole is certainly reachable in two for those eyeing eagle opportunities but come Sunday when the pressure is on and a PGA TOUR title is well within their sights, many players either elect to lay up short and play for birdie, or lose it left into the water along with their hopes at a title.

“It’s actually very nerve racking,” said three-time Major champion and 2022 Charles Schwab Cup Champion, Padraig Harrington. “It doesn’t start when you enter in to play 16, it actually starts at 15. you can hear the boos and the noise – it doesn’t matter how good you are as a golfer pressure wise. You’re just thrown slightly out of your comfort zone with everyone that’s going on.”

Putt out on 15 and move on to the iconic 16th hole – the only stadium golf hole in the world. Make no mistake, there is simply nothing like it in professional golf. Ever since Tiger Woods’ “raise the roof” ace in 1997, the 16th hole coliseum at TPC Scottsdale has become one of the most recognizable venues in professional sports. Upwards of 20,000 of the PGA TOUR’s most

enthusiastic fans surround the otherwise benign par-3, and players can figure out how well they struck their tee shot even if they were blindfolded based on the rousing cheers or deafening boos from the gallery.

Rickie Fowler – 2019 WM Phoenix Open champion – has some advice for players making their first trip through the tunnel on the famed 16th hole: make sure to use the bathroom beforehand and take one less club. Otherwise, you’re hitting pitching wedge over the green into the grandstands.

Next up in the “Stadium Stretch” is the drivable par-4 17th shadowed on both sides by the gigantic and imposing hospitality structures Bay Club and The Cove. If a player finds himself down two with two to play, here’s their chance to make up some ground and keep their title hopes alive. The reward is clear, the risk is everywhere, with water surrounding three sides of the large peninsular green. And in the traditional Sunday pin location, it’s not enough to simply be on the green off the tee and putting for eagle. You have it be in the right spot or face a dreaded downhill putt into the water. Make or break with the championship on the line. What more can you ask for?

The last leg of the “Stadium Stretch” is for all the marbles. No. 18 at TPC Scottsdale is a long par-4 with trouble everywhere you can imagine. A water-hazard straight on the left leads directly into gnarly church-pew bunkers so thick Phil Mickelson needed help from a fan to find his ball in 2019. The right side of the hole is guarded by bunkers and good (not great) approach shots into the asymmetrical green are quickly rejected by a false front. Think you’re done with the crowds? Nope. The three-story, arcum-style structure on both the golfer’s right and left, aptly named E18hteen and Scorekeepers, provide added pressure to birdie putts. And thousands of general-admission fans who couldn’t care less about the Super Bowl gather ‘round the green with bated breath to get a first-hand glimpse of the eventual winner of the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

Ask any PGA TOUR professional who took on the “Stadium Stretch” at TPC Scottsdale and they’ll all say the same thing – buckle up, maintain focus and, remember, above all else to have fun and enjoy the moment. There’s nothing quite like it in professional golf.

The Thunderbirds

The Sun Rises on Cabo’s Solmar Golf Links

WORDS BY JOE PASSOV

Since its March 2020 debut, oceanfront Rancho San Lucas Golf Club in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico has been one of Cabo’s most coveted tee times. It will remain so. Greg Norman and Senior Designer Jason McCoy crafted a rollicking, lay-of-the-land journey characterized by glorious Pacific Ocean vistas, desert accents and a plethora of ground game options. But change is in the air. No, the superb golf course isn’t going anywhere. It’s the name itself that is evolving: Rancho San Lucas Golf Club is now Solmar Golf Links. The new name aptly describes the layout and the splashy new logo is every bit equal to the golf course. Let’s raise the curtain… on Solmar Golf Links.

Andrew Gilchrist, newly minted last December as Solmar Golf Links’ director of golf, is a native Scotsman, who knows his way around seaside golf courses. “You’ve got the dunes here, the sandy soil and the ocean breeze,” says Gilchrist. “You’ve got fairways that blend into the natural vegetation. You’ve got flat-faced, revetted bunkers — the only ones in Mexico — and you’ve got SeaDwarf paspalum turf, which encourages run-up ground game shots. We call this a links-inspired golf course, but in truth, it plays a lot like an authentic links.”

Gilchrist cites the 444-yard, par-4 14th as a perfect illustration. “It’s a beautifully designed hole down in the dunes that plays right alongside the ocean,” he says. He’s also partial to the 460-yard, par4 12th. “The 12th is probably the best risk-reward hole on the course. Although you’re downhill, you really have to think about the approach. A bunker eats into the right-front of the green just enough to force a decision: Do I try to carry the bunker, or bump-and-run into a left-side kick slope? I love a course that makes you be creative with your shots. It’s not just grip it and rip it.”

Solmar Golf Links seamlessly harmonizes with nature. Deer, foxes, hawks, desert squirrels and even a lynx cat co-exist peacefully with the golfers. ”

TRAVEL

“ ”

The on-site hotel, Grand Solmar Rancho San Lucas, which offers oceanfront beauty, dazzling amenities and superior service is ideal for the classic resort experience.

Admittedly, there is plenty of modern-desert design in play as well, from the layout’s most photographed hole, the 191-yard, island-green, par-3 17th (the only island green in Cabo), to the stately Cardon cacti, its arms thrusting skyward, like its Arizona cousin, the Saguaro. However, the new logo at Solmar Golf Links instantly signifies that we aren’t in Scottsdale.

Depicted is a breaching whale, a common occurrence in these parts from December through April, set against the backdrop of a brilliant rising sun. “Sol,” which is Spanish for sun and “Mar,” Spanish for sea, forms Solmar, the famous hotel name that was the impetus for the project. Don Luis Bulnes Molleda, the mastermind behind the Solmar empire of resort hotels, restaurants and sport fishing fleet purchased the property with his wife Conchita in the 1950s. They intended it to be a working ranch, but in time, with son “Paco,” they devoted it to leisure and recreational use.

When Paco passed away unexpectedly in 2021, his sister Maria Bulnes Malo assumed control of the hotels and the golf club. She’s determined to stay the course.

“My father was a conservationist, the first to introduce the ‘catch-and-release’ concept in Los Cabos for preserving the great billfish,” says Bulnes. “It’s very important to respect the legacy of my father, to carry on in the correct manner, the way he would have wanted it.”

Solmar Golf Links seamlessly harmonizes with nature. Deer, foxes, hawks, desert squirrels and even a lynx cat co-exist peacefully with the golfers. Given the Bulnes family’s penchant for environmental stewardship, it’s hardly a surprise that the golf course achieved designation late in 2021 as a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary from Audubon International—the first club in Los Cabos to earn this certification.

The on-site hotel, Grand Solmar Rancho San Lucas, which

offers oceanfront beauty, dazzling amenities and superior service is ideal for the classic resort experience. Its in-town sibling, Grand Solmar Land’s End, is equally compelling. The restaurants at both hotels reflect the Bulnes family’s devotion to distinctive offerings and respect for the environment, with dining areas that practically melt into their surroundings and an emphasis on locally sourced seafood and regional cuisine. Both acclaimed resorts offer Stay and Play Packages that feature Solmar Golf Links, which provides value and convenience for buddy trips and families.

With a new name, a new logo, and a newly expanded clubhouse, Luis Bulnes and his son Paco would be very proud of what Maria has accomplished with the family legacy. With that commitment to quality and those unforgettable ocean panoramas, the rebranded Solmar Golf Links is a must-play in Mexico. Go see for yourself. Just look for the breaching whales.

Robert Kelsey

Winding through the beautiful canyons & foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains, The Preserve Golf Club an 18-hole Championship Course gives you the feeling & views that you're on top of the world. With elevated tees and holes amidst dramatic boulders, the MountainView Golf Course presents an enjoyable challenge to novices as well as avid golfers. Located at a higher elevation than most golf clubs in Tucson, both courses are a terrific choice for a great day on the links, all year round.

JUNIOR GOLF

Mahanth Chirravuri

Ashley Shaw

WORDS BY JEFF LOCKE

Arizona Stars Shine at Curry Cup and Mack Champ Invitational

Empowering local junior golfers to compete on a national stage represents just one of the many objectives of the Junior Golf Association of Arizona (JGAA), and it appears to be working like a charm! Litchfield Park’s Ashley Shaw, class of 2027 JGAA member, won the inaugural Curry Cup Championship, hosted August 28-30 by Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry. Shaw fired 4-under par at San Francisco’s TPC Harding Park, with rounds of 70-72-70 to win by two strokes. Coming in fifth place, Alexis Lamadrid of Phoenix fired 67-74-74 to finish four strokes off Shaw’s pace.

“It’s amazing to be the first winner of the Curry Cup, with the opportunity to play with all these amazing golfers from around the world,” said Shaw. “And for us to come together

Johnnie Clark

in San Francisco at a fabulous golf course to play in the golf tournament: it’s just great.”

The tournament serves as the finale of Curry’s newly launched Underrated Golf Tour, which aims to “increase the participation numbers amongst competitive golfers from diverse communities and have them play hand-in-hand with their peers who currently represent the vast majority in today’s golfers.”

MACK CHAMP INVITATIONAL

In March 2021, with the same goal in mind and the same JGAA players in contention, the PGA TOUR’s Cameron Champ hosted the inaugural Mack Champ Invitational at Memorial Park Golf Course, home of the Houston Open. Named in honor of Mack Champ, Cameron’s late grandfather, “the tournament focuses on identifying talented diverse players as a way to honor Mack’s legacy.”

This time, it was Lamadrid’s turn, winning the Girls 11-12 division at +7, while one stroke back, Shaw finished in second place. Shaw and Lamadrid returned to the field in March 2022, finishing 12 and T29, respectively.

DESERT MASHIE SPRING CHAMPIONSHIP

For Shaw, Lamadrid and many others, their

success on the road began at home. Desert Mashie Golf Club – oldest public golf club in Arizona – has been championing local diversity in the game for generations. In fact, Lamadrid and Shaw were two of six players representing the Desert Mashie at the 2022 Mack Champ Invitational.

Formed by a group of Phoenix-area golf enthusiasts in 1946, the first Desert Mashie Spring Championship teed off in 1981 at Encanto Golf Course and became a JGAA-sanctioned event in 1992.

“The history and growth of the Desert Mashie in terms of players and importance to the local junior golf community can’t be overstated,” said Scott McNevin, Executive Director of the JGAA. “These six players delivered a piece of that legacy to the Mack Champ Invitational. We look forward to many years of participation.”

Golf has never been as inclusive – for everyone – as it is today, thanks to likeminded organizations determined to break down barriers. The JGAA is proud to play a role in the diversification of the game by providing events for local junior golfers to sharpen their skills for national competition through a program designed to “educate, motivate, and inspire Arizona’s future leaders through golf.”

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Desert Mashie Golf Club – oldest public golf club in Arizona – has been championing local diversity in the game for generations.

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Alexis Lamadrid

JUNIOR GOLF

A P U R E G O L F C L U B

E X P E R I E N C E

The Allied Golf Associations of Arizona honored Geri Cavanagh as a 2022 inductee in the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame this past October. This prestigious honor was well received and has such a ripple effect on our Girls Golf Family.

Geri Cavanagh’s personal support and financial contributions (through the Alberta B. Farrington Foundation) to the game of golf, are unmeasurable. Cavanagh provides an unspoken support that runs deep in her passions and desires for local enrichment that continues to allow programs to start, succeed, and thrive. The LPGA*USGA Girls Golf of Phoenix, as it is known today, is made possible by the efforts of Cavanagh through foundation contributions, support, and her countless efforts.

A very special “Girls Golf Club” started in Phoenix in 1989 due to a vision by Sandy LaBauve (Phoenix area LPGA/PGA Professional) that was made a reality with financial support from Geri Cavanagh of the Alberta B. Farrington Foundation. Thirty-three years ago, the road paved for our local “Girls Golf Club” set a standard for what our industry needed for female golf development. The program now, known as the LPGA*USGA Girls Golf of Phoenix, plays a huge role in the growth/change of our industry and that was made possible by Cavanagh. She saw need and wanted to be a leader/resource for this special program to develop and thrive. She has continued that support for thirty-three years with contributions totaling over 1.6 million dollars through the Alberta B. Farrington Foundation. The local LPGA*USGA Girls Golf of Phoenix is the strongest, most innovative, and biggest Girls Golf Site. The local program has become a model to over 400 Girls Golf Sites in the world and the ripple effect from Cavanagh’s support has

The program now, known as the LPGA*USGA Girls Golf of Phoenix, plays a huge role in the growth/change of our industry and that was made possible by Cavanagh.

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GIRLS GOLF

been astronomical. The contributions from the fund that Cavanagh manages impacts the LPGA Foundation on a national level, provides scholarships for girls, supports collegiate golf, and many other golf groups/ projects in honor of Farrington.

In 2017, Girls Golf of Phoenix honored Cavanagh with our “Gratitude Award” at the annual red-carpet awards banquet, The Golden Tees. Sandy LaBauve helped present the award to Cavanagh and Sandy shared the impact that Cavanagh has had on her journey and on Girls Golf. Attendees felt moved, empowered, and grateful for the magnitude of Cavanagh’s contributions. Cavanagh has continued to build, provide, and maintain her support of the Girls Golf of Phoenix and her honor with the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame is so special to our Girls Golf Family. Thank you, Geri Cavanagh, and congratulations from all of your Girls Golf and LPGA Family.

AWGA Legacy Lives On

High School Build A Team Program Helping to Grow the Game in Arizona

WORDS BY ANJ BROWN

In the spring of 2022, the Arizona Women’s Golf Association announced its dissolution and donation of remaining assets to the Junior Golf Association of Arizona (JGAA)with the agreement that those funds would continue to be used to grow the game of golf for young and disadvantaged women through programs like the High School Build A Team Program.

Twenty-one schools were provided grants in 2022 ranging from $1,000 to $2,100. In total, $40,000 was granted to provide instruction, equipment, uniforms, and course fees.

Mahanth Chirravuri

Captions

Tucson High School

CHANGE OF COURSE

Golf in Tucson means a break from the average links. Challenge your game on daring desert layouts or hit it long on fairways that host the champions. Whatever your style, Tucson has it in the bag.

FIND YOUR COURSE AT VisitTucson.org/Golf

Home of the

Verrado Golf Club

In the shadows of the White Tank Mountains, just a short drive west of Phoenix, lies 36 holes of championship golf designed by PGA Tour star and Ryder Cup Captain, Tom Lehman. Verrado Golf Club includes two thrilling layouts, the Victory Course and Founders Course, and with their breath taking views and natural beauty they will leave you wishing for another chance to visit. Come visit us today!

Sewailo Golf Club at Casino Del Sol

VerradoGolfClub o

“These funds provide the support these schools need to be successful and competitive in their leagues,” said Anj Brown, Managing Director of Outreach for the Arizona Golf Association and the High School Build A Team Program’s manager. “The instruction that is provided by our partner Golf Professionals really makes a difference and provides a more enjoyable golf experience for these young women. The goal is then to lead to lifelong participation in the sport.”

For many of these teams, working with an LPGA or PGA Professional would be outside their budgeted resources and not possible if it were not for the High School Build A Team Program Grant.

As you think about your end-of-year giving, please consider a donation to the JGAA to support programs like the High School Build A Team Program. Doing so will ensure the AWGA’s Legacy may live on for years to come.

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Mesa High School

Nogales High School

JUNIOR GOLF

Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club Maricopa

RULES OF GOLF

The Evolution of the Rules of Golf

WORDS BY LOGAN RASMUSSEN

Prior

to 2019 players dropped a ball back into play from shoulder height

AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

RULES OF GOLF

The earliest known Rules of Golf were written in 1744! Even though these Rules (which at the time were known as the “Articles & Laws in Playing at Golf”) were drastically different, they still fundamentally describe the same sport that is played around the world today. As the Rules of Golf continue to evolve, with the USGA and R&A providing updates every four years, we will continue to see changes throughout the game that we know and love.

Typically, these updates will be minor after the complete overhaul to the Rules in 2019 to a more “player-friendly” version.

With the Arizona Golf Association closing in on 100 years, let’s take a journey and look at how the Rules have changed since the beginning of the AGA.

One of the more notable changes over the years is the procedure for putting a ball back into play. Whether you are taking an Unplayable Ball or taking relief from an Im-

movable Obstruction, exactly how to drop a ball back into play has changed.

This “original” process pre-dates the AGA, in the 1908 version of the Rules, to get a ball back into play golfers would drop the ball over their shoulder. The Rule stated, “The player shall face the hole, stand erect, and drop the ball behind him over his shoulder. If, in the act of dropping, the ball touch the player, he shall incur no penalty, and, if it roll into a hazard, the player may re-drop

the ball without penalty.” This dropping procedure placed a large emphasis on “randomization” as you weren’t able to precisely drop the ball on the exact condition you would like.

This procedure lasted for 76 years! Then in 1984 we moved into a place where we were at least able to see where we were dropping by putting a ball back in play with are arm extended straight out.

Beginning in 2019 we removed even more of the randomness and now drop our ball from knee height. This coincided with the requirement to keep the ball in the permitted dropping area and remove the necessity of many re-drops experienced in the past.

A player dropping their ball into play from knee height, the new dropping procedure since 2019.

As the Rules of Golf continue to evolve, with the USGA and R&A providing updates every four years, we will continue to see changes throughout the game that we know and love. ”

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Masterpress

RULES OF GOLF

Another long but not forgotten Rule is the art of the “Stymie”. When playing Match Play, a player was allowed to essentially block their opponents next putt with their own ball. Golfers would attempt to position their golf ball on the line of their opponent which was known as a stymie.

One caveat to a stymie was that there needed to be at least six inches of separation between the two balls on the putting green. If there was less than six inches, the blocking ball was lifted until the opponent made their next stroke.

Stymies were part of the strategy in Match Play because the opponent would then need to find a way around, or over,

the ball on their path. Notice how we didn’t say “through” the blocking ball.

If the stymied player hit the opponents blocking ball, the opponent would have the option of playing their next shot from where their blocking ball was deflected to OR the original spot it was at rest. Even further, if the stymied player knocked their opponents ball into the hole, the ball was considered holed without adding an additional stroke.

The stymie was eliminated from the Rules of Golf in 1952 for the more traditional route of a player marking and lifting their ball on the putting surface, whether it is obstructing their opponent or not.

A player “stymied” behind their opponent’s ball.

American Press Association

USGA

LIVing Their Best Lives

WORDS BY ED GOWAN

Alfred Lord Tennyson in “ e Voyage” expresses the feelings of all golfers: “…that which we are, we are; made weak by time and fate but strong in will, to strive, to see, to nd, and not to yield (to Old Man Par).” is past September I had the privilege of refereeing at the World Amateur Championships in Paris for two weeks watching the best of the world’s amateurs playing for country. ere were a few unique Rules situations, one I’d like to share since it parallels what I see happening with the LIV Tour. A young man from Zimbabwe had hooked a tee shot on a par 4 deep into trees. His only ‘out’ was to the adjacent hole. Instead of playing a pitch to the fairway to set up his third, he played onto the green of the adjacent hole. I was called over to assist his dropping o the green, which gave him a clear and easy pitch onto his green. After a four-foot putt for par a moment later, I relished this 16-yr old’s (yeah, “16”) imagination and Rules knowledge.

Now for the LIV parallel. Isn’t golf (and life) all dependent on taking advantage of the moment, trusting our choices and that the future will o er other choices? Sometimes the least likely direction proves most valuable. I’m thinking that LIV is giving golfers a life-ensuring opportunity. With few exceptions, LIV players will have guaranteed their families’ futures in return for short-term

doubt. Will there be an accommodation in the future for these players? Will the LIV players return to favor at some point? Does it matter to them? Most golfers think it should matter. Would it to you? Would a $50 million dollar check o set the opportunity to belong to a Tour? Stepping back and forgetting history, it’s hard to criticize life-changing nancial status, no matter the reason. Is playing a game more important? If one is nancially secure, then without the money issue, it’s a simple matter of choice. What stirs your heart?

e larger issue for me is the impact on the Game. Golf su ers when open competition is lacking. at happened many years ago when the PGA and European Tours had con icting eligibility rules. at resolved into each Tour requiring a minimum participation to retain access. ose rules today would generally permit LIV. e Tours’ opposition is more based on control over sponsors, sites, television rights and their respective areas of oversight that LIV threatens.

I believe there is greater good awaiting a few years in the future when peace reigns, though reaching that point will be tumultuous for many. As an interested observer, I anticipate signi cant changes coming on one of both sides of this conundrum. Consider putting in a solid reserve of your favorite beverages and plenty of popcorn. is movie has sequels.

C M Y CM MY CY CMY K

The Stockyards

Phoenix

The Stockyards Restaurant & 1889 Saloon, Arizona’s Original Steakhouse, celebrated its 75th anniversary this year. This “American Classic” has been independently owned and operated since 1947, and is still known for its outstanding food, professional service, and historical relevance. The menu features the finest Steaks, Chops, and Seafood available. Be sure to visit the 1889 Saloon with its spectacular hand carved mahogany bar, and enjoy an excellent selection of spirits and fine wines.

5009 E. Washington, Phoenix, AZ 85034 // stockyardssteakhouse.com