The Final Word: Pat Wheeler

Southern Hills was worth the wait

As a native Texan, it pains me greatly to say this, but I must. Our great state has many fine golf courses but nothing that compares to Southern Hills Country Club. That admission is mitigated by the thought that very few states do.

A week after seeing Southern Hills for the first time at the 2022 PGA Championship, I am still a little gaga about the course. But let me explain.

For more than 50 years, I have wanted to play or see Southern Hills. I first became aware of the course in 1970 while playing in the Texas-Oklahoma Junior tournament in Wichita Falls and Arnold Palmer flew in from Tulsa to conduct a clinic attended by some 5,000. It was on the eve of the PGA Championship.

Palmer was at the height of his popularity and desperately wanted to win the only major to have eluded him. He fell just short to winner Dave Stockton and now, 52 years later, I was on my way to see the 2022 tournament.

The trip to Tulsa and the PGA was a gift from a former winner, 92-year-old Don January of Dallas. His oldest son Tim, a good friend, invited me to join his son Sean and friend John Murray for late Saturday and all day Sunday. We quickly learned we were in for a treat.

It was about 3 in the afternoon Saturday when we arrived. There was absolutely no traffic to get to our parking place, a mere 50 yards from the clubhouse.

The tickets and the parking were courtesy of the PGA of America because we were guests of a former champion. The PGA knows how to honor its winners.

After parking, we were soon out onto the course in some overcast and blustery cool weather that had just blown in the previous night. We descended the giant grandstand behind the 18th green and scurried down to the 13th tee and 12th green. It was too crowded so I split from the others and found an unobstructed view of the 18th green and clubhouse from the low point of the 18th fairway.

I was mesmerized as I stared at the green atop the giant hill fronting the clubhouse. I felt as if I were in heaven or in a dream. Who, pray tell, could possibly hit a shot long enough and high enough to reach the green hovering in the distant leaden sky?

Southern Hills – I had to pinch myself. Designed by Oklahoma’s Perry Maxwell, the course is much like Augusta National in that TV does not do justice to the severity of the slopes. But the hills of Augusta National are more gradual than the big one at Southern Hills that is akin to Mount Kilimanjaro. That opinion did not change after two days and five trips up the precipice.

Soon, Bubba Watson and Justin Thomas came past me with Bubba in the fairway but some 30 yards short of Thomas in the left rough. Watson hit a long iron into the stratosphere that shook me from my reverie and though I could not see the ball on the green, the huge gallery assured me that it indeed had found the putting surface. Thomas did not fare so well with his hybrid shot from the gnarly rough, finding one of the giant bunkers left and short of the green. He bogeyed 18 on Saturday but he showed bravado on Sunday with his clutch win in a threehole playoff over Dallas’ Will Zalatoris.

Saturday evening we enjoyed our drive through beautiful Tulsa with its hills, trees and a meandering Arkansas River. We got

situated near Cedar Ridge Country Club at the house of Tim January’s sister-in-law and had dinner at a nearby trendy grill. The food was delicious and there was a Brandel Chamblee sighting. On Sunday, we were at the course early for a full day of immersing ourselves in Southern Hills and a riveting tournament, Pat Wheeler aided greatly by breakfast, lunch and snacks in the clubhouse. Did I mention these were very good tickets? So good were these tickets that twice I found myself in places perhaps where I should not have been. On Saturday, I inadvertently went into the player’s locker room, not knowing my location until I bumped into Keegan Bradley. Then Sunday, after breakfast, in an attempt to get to the front nine, I walked past the first tee announcer and the Wanamaker Trophy sitting My first trip to legendary Southern Hills was one I will always appreciate. prominently on a pedestal. Ultimately I saw every hole on the course and as I have pondered why Southern Hills is so challenging, I have concluded a big part of its difficulty is there are no letup or pushover holes. We lingered at the confluence of the 5th green and 6th tee and then the 6th green and the 7th tee, both fun and interesting junctions. On the back nine, we spent a lot of time near the 13th green and 17th tee. The 17th was pivotal in the playoff because it was driveable and Thomas found the green while Zalatoris did not. There was one final climb at 18 and then the drive back to Dallas. The reviews of Southern Hills have been universally good and the PGA is sure to continue having its championship here in the future. Gil Hanse has received deserved praise with one brilliant feature - the lack of defined tee boxes so that the markers can be placed according to purpose. With that in mind, it would be a dream come true for me to play this masterpiece one day - hopefully at about 5,500 yards. Pat Wheeler is a long-time golf writer in Texas.