Three best days of Match Play in Tucson
1. Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008: Tiger Woods dropped a 35-foot eagle putt at the 17th hole, making possible an unlikely comeback to beat J.B. Holmes in a first-round match, 1 up. Woods trailed by three holes after No. 13, but played 5-under the rest of the way, fist-pumping his way to the lead story on ESPN’s SportsCenter.
2. Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009: Jack Nicklaus walked into the media center, crossing paths with Tiger Woods, at the debut of the then-Ritz Carlton Golf Club as host site. Nicklaus and Woods on the same stage had a Masters-type atmosphere to it.
3. Sunday, Feb. 26, 2006: PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem holds a press conference at La Costa (Calif.) Resort and Spa announcing that the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship will move to Tucson a year later. On that afternoon, as Geoff Ogilvy defeated Davis Love III for the title, tournament officials estimated the on-course attendance at 3,000. At Tucson National Golf Club on the same afternoon, at the Chrysler Classic of Tucson, the leaderboard included winner Kirk Triplett and top-10 finishers Gabriel Hjertstedt, Heath Slocum, Doug Barron and David Branshaw.
Five reasons 2013
Masters champ Adam Scott
is skipping Match Play
1. Lost to Tim Clark, first round, 2013.
2. Lost to Robert Rock, first round, 2012.
3. Lost to Ben Crane, first round, 2011.
4. Lost to Sean O’Hair, first round, 2009.
5. Lost to Shaun Micheel, first round, 2007.
Where are they now?:
The five men who beat
Tiger Woods in Tucson
1. Nick O’Hern. No. 409 in world rankings and on web.com tour.
2. Tim Clark. No. 90 in world rankings.
3. Thomas Bjorn. No. 25 in world rankings.
4. Nick Watney. No. 36 in world rankings.
5. Charles Howell III. No. 73 in world rankings.
Three things we
thought we’d never see
at Dove Mountain
1. The tournament would last longer here (eight years) than it did at La Costa Resort and Spa (seven years) in San Diego.
2. Snow. Twice.
3. Phil Mickelson not coming close to winning. After becoming champion of the Tucson Open in 1991, 1995 and 1996, Mickelson didn’t warm up to Match Play. He only played here four times — overall record: 5-4 — and never got to the weekend.
The three worst days of Match Play in Tucson
1. Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013: In the space of four hours, the wind chill dipped into the 30s, and Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson, Ernie Els, Keegan Bradley, Lee Westwood, Adam Scott and Jason Dufner were eliminated.
2. Sunday, Feb. 24, 2008: Tiger Woods played with such efficiency that he eliminated Stewart Cink, 8 and 7, in the championship match. More than 5,000 people waiting at the Gallery Golf Club, South Course’s high-end party tents at holes Nos. 12-14, did not get to see anyone play that afternoon.
3. Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010: A combination of rain and sleet made playing conditions awful, but PGA Tour officials insisted that Ian Poulter, Paul Casey, Camilo Villegas and Sergio Garcia play on. The sight of Casey huddled behind an umbrella, freezing, didn’t do much for tourism in Southern Arizona.
Four ways Match Play has changed since its 1984-86 Seiko Tucson Match Play days
1. Scott Hoch had to play eight rounds, Monday through Sunday, in the inaugural 1984 event. Now the maximum number of rounds is six, Wednesday through Sunday.
2. Prize money, divided among 128 PGA Tour regulars and Senior Tour players, was $1,014,000. Now it’s $9 million for 64 players, second only on the PGA Tour to the $9.5 million at The Players Championship.
3. 1984 champion Tom Watson, and the other top eight money-winners, were seeded into Saturday’s quarterfinals. Nobody gets a bye any longer.
4. After two years at La Costa Resort and Spa, the World Golf Federation announced a plan to rotate the event globally. It was moved to Australia on Jan. 7, 2001, and 35 of the top 64 money-winners chose not to play. The semifinals included Pierre Fulke and Toru Taniguchi.
Three best stories from
the Conquistadores’ 2013 book (144 pages) celebrating 50 years of operating
pro golf tournaments in Tucson
1. Relative unknown Lee Trevino showed up for the 1968 Tucson Open at Tucson National driving a new Buick, overcrowded with nine people. The Conquistadores, acting as parking sentries, told Trevino he couldn’t park in the players’ lot.
“Whoever heard of Lee Trevino?” Conquistador George Bland said. Trevino would win the U.S. Open four months later, and the 1969 and 1970 Tucson Opens.
2. NBC installed Dean Martin as the host and title celebrity for the 1975 Dean Martin Tucson Open. Given such star power, the Conquistadores were successful in getting Mickey Mantle, Bob Hope, O.J. Simpson, Dick Butkus, Evel Knievel and Glen Campbell to play in the Pro-Am. NBC declared Sunday’s final round the third-highest-rated TV golf telecast in history as Johnny Miller shot a 61 to win the second of three straight Tucson Opens.
3. The 1980 Joe Garagiola Tucson Open was renamed “The Umbrella Open” after rain forced the final round to be played on a Tuesday. The winner, Jim Colbert, superstitious, wore the same outfit every day. Fortunately, there was no telecast of the Tuesday finish.
Two reasons U.S. Open champ
Justin Rose of England considered not playing at Dove Mountain this year
1. Way too busy. (Translation: doesn’t need the money). After the official 2013 golf season concluded, he played November-December events in Turkey, China, Dubai and South Africa, and has now earned more than $40 million in his career.
2. Way too wealthy. (Translation: doesn’t need the money). After winning the 2013 U.S. Open, his sponsorship list grew to include Ashworth, TaylorMade, British Airways, Jumeirah, EA Sports, Zurich Insurance and Adidas.
The four best players who have never won
a Tucson pro golf tournament
1. Ben Hogan was second in 1947, losing by three strokes to Jimmy Demaret, when the Tucson Open was played at El Rio Golf Course.
2. Sam Snead was second in 1950.
3. Jack Nicklaus missed the cut in the 1963 Tucson Open, played at Forty-Niner Country Club. It was Nicklaus’ only appearance at a Tucson Open.
4. Ben Crenshaw won the 1971 NCAA championship, playing for Texas, at Tucson National at 15 under. But the best he could do in eight PGA Tour appearances was a second-place finish behind Johnny Miller in 1975.
Three reasons why Phoenix golf isn’t Tucson golf
1. More beer is consumed in one day at the Waste Management Phoenix Open than in three years at Match Play.
2. Pro golf in Phoenix is a fraternity party. Pro golf in Tucson is a quiet walk in the foothills.
3. Vijay Singh earned $11,532 for finishing 77th in Phoenix this month. In 2010, Singh was paid $40,000 for losing one match to Tim Clark after complaining that the drive to Dove Mountain was too far from his La Paloma hotel.
Three Southern Arizona places you should play golf
if you’re here for just this week
1. Dell Urich/Randolph North: The 36-hole municipal gem in midtown doesn’t have snakes or cacti. You won’t lose a sleeve of golf balls. You can walk 18 and burn 1,500 calories and everybody from A to Z, Annika Sorenstam to Fuzzy Zoeller, has played there.
2. Ventana Canyon. It’s not cheap, but the views are priceless. Tom Watson four-putted the much-photographed No. 3 green in the old made-for-TV, one-guy-out-per-hole competition of the late 1980s.
3. Tubac Golf Resort. Make sure you specify that you want to play the Rancho and Anza nines, deep in mesquite and cottonwood territory. Even Phil Mickelson played there once – during the filming of “Tin Cup.”
The two best times
to play golf in Tucson
1. April mornings. It almost never rains in April so you can book a tee time and stick to it. Maybe you’ll need a light pull-over if you start before 8, but for 18 holes you’ll catch yourself thinking, “It’s just beautiful out here.”
2. The week before Christmas. Everyone else is thinking about the mall traffic, and, in fact, everyone else is at the mall. You’ll have the course to yourself and can play in about 3½ hours. The long shadows of December are magnificent in what qualifies as Tucson’s autumn-leaves season.
The two worst times
to play golf in Tucson
1. July, Any time. Any day. Even at 6 a.m. Once monsoon humidity arrives, it takes almost a month to accept it and get on with summer golf.
2. Mid-day, February. Snowbirds aren’t in a hurry, and the course you had all to yourself in November is now swarming with people from Minnesota and Illinois. They are not in a hurry. They do not rake the bunkers and they drive their carts to the edge of the greens, mushing up prime chipping areas.
Three best Tucson golf places to take a picture for friends back home
1. The Views Golf Club. It can be a haul to Oro Valley, but the aptly named “Views” is all it’s cracked up to be. Pusch Ridge at its best. Good course, too.
2. La Paloma Country Club. Some of your snapshots of the fabulous Catalinas may include a stray bobcat.
3. Desert Hills Golf Club, Green Valley. It doesn’t get a lot of ink, compared to some of golf facilities on the Interstate 19 corridor, but Desert Hills is a paradise of greenery with a matchless view of Mount Wrightson.
Tucson’s four round-wrecking, nightmare golf holes (muni division)
1. No. 5, Fred Enke Golf Course. Fairway bunkers threaten tee shots. A blind second shot, down a toboggan-slick hill, framed by desert vegetation, is double-bogey potential. An approach shot must carry a rock wall. It’s a par 5½.
2. No. 16, Silverbell Golf Course. When Ken Kavanaugh redesigned the muni course a few years ago, he must’ve been in a bad mood when he got to No. 16. It’s a 215-yard par 3 with water on the left. Everything slopes to the water. There is no true entry point to the green, because a large bunker guards the right side.
3. No. 14, El Rio Golf Course: The scratch players say it’s a simple 420-yard par 4: Just pop your drive over a thicket of old pine trees and a menacing pond, leaving yourself an 8-iron to the green. But the non-scratch players must navigate around the trees, leaving at least a 200-yard second shot to a green guarded by a gaping bunker. The green-in-regulation numbers are infinitesimal.
4. No. 16, Quarry Pines Golf Club. It’s like driving up to Mount Lemmon and playing golf as you go. It’s a 565-yard par-5 built in a quarry with nothing on the left but lost golf balls. If you hit two perfect shots, you can reach the “neck,” a tiny safe haven about 130 yards to a green the size of Maine. If you don’t reach the neck, you’ll feel like you’re being strangled.
Two reasons why golf on Dove Mountain is world class
1. The Gallery Golf Club’s North Course is a jewel, one of Arizona’s most distinguished golf facilities. The South Course was for two years home to the Match Play championships, but it’s the North Course, built into the Tortolitas, that is the prettiest of the two sisters. It’s really not desert golf as much as it is mountain golf.
2. The Highlands at Dove Mountain is surrounded by a 1,128-home development on Dove Mountain Boulevard, and the majority of its 55,000 rounds per year comes from the neighborhood. It is a course with high standards, a strong reputation and perhaps the best patio and sunset views of any Pima County golf course.
