Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy are both entered for this week’s Northern Trust Open on the PGA Tour, but this is one of those rare tournaments where the golf course is as much a star as any top golfer.
There are very few golf courses that can make hardened pros like Adam Scott go weak in the knees, and Riviera is one of them. It invokes the same awe as Augusta National, Royal Melbourne or Muirfield.
I was witness to a very interesting conversation between Jeev Milkha Singh and Scott several years ago involving Riviera. Singh was inside the top-50 of the world ranking that year and was seeking to gain sponsors’ exemption into a few PGA Tour events.
Scott is a very good friend of Singh and when the Indian asked him for advice regarding which events he should play, the Aussie had no hesitation in naming the Northern Trust Open as his first choice and solely because of the quality of the golf course.
“If you want to play the best golf course on the Tour, play Riviera,” he said.
Riviera has a fascinating history and is considered one of the greatest golf courses of all time.
This was the course where Ben Hogan made his comeback from his nearfatal car accident in 1950, Jack Nicklaus made his professional debut in 1962 and in 1992 it was the first PGA Tour event Tiger Woods played in his career.
Just stopping by: Vaughn Taylor.
Another first in Riviera’s chequered history is ‘Babe’ Didrikson Zaharias playing the 1938 Los Angeles Open here, which made her the first woman to play against men in a professional tournament.
When built in 1927, it was reportedly the second-costliest golf course of its time – which was easy to understand because designer George Thomas is reported to have made 15 different layouts before finalising the present track.
Charlie Chaplin was a regular player at Riviera, but the golf course itself is no laughing matter. The par-71 course is not exceptionally long, but has some amazing holes that challenges every skill of a golfer.
The greens are smallish and it requires players to bring out every club in their golf bag. There are some quirky holes – the par-3 sixth has a bunker in the middle of the green – but overall, it is the third toughest golf course on the PGA Tour and requires shotmakers of the highest calibre to do well here.
No wonder, the peerless Hogan won three times at Riviera – in a period of 18 months he won two Los Angeles Open and the 1948 US Open – which led to Riviera’s nickname ‘Hogan’s Alley’.
Hogan was not the type of person easily impressed, but this is what he once said about Riviera: “Some of my most pleasant memories and thoughts are of this wonderful club and magnificent golf course.” Coming from Hogan, that’s like the God of Golf giving the verdict.
Taylor made for success
There seemed to be an outpouring of grief on the social media when Phil Mickelson failed to make his birdie putt on the 72nd hole, thus finishing second last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
But do spare a thought for Vaughn Taylor. It was the American’s third PGA Tour win, coming after a gap of 11 years.
He won it ranked 447th in the world, having lost his PGA Tour playing privilege and just a week after being stricken by an aggressive stomach bug while playing the Web.com Tour event in Bogota, which forced him to go on drips and pull out.
Apparently, Taylor took a flight to California rather than return home to Georgia because the ticket was cheaper and he thought he will give it a shot at Pebble Beach, where he was the first alternate. He got in when Carl Pettersen withdrew, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Kind act of the week
Class act: Ko.
Lydia Ko is an amazing role model. The 18-year-old Kiwi endeared herself to her countrymen and millions of fans round the world when she donated her entire winning cheque from the New Zealand Women’s Open to earthquake relief.
A 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit parts of New Zealand mid-way during the final round of the tournament on Valentine’s Day. Ko did not even wait for the damages to be known (which thankfully, were not much) when she announced her €33,000 cheque was going straight into the relief fund.
New Zealand has a painful past with earthquakes, experiencing one as recently as 2011 which decimated the city of Christchurch and killed 185 people.
Quote of the week
“I thought I was handcuffed, to tell you the truth. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to say, but the final comment they told me was that I was too unpredictable. I thought that’s what they want you to do in that role.” – Greg Norman tells Golf.com he was fired by FOX because he likes to call a spade a spade.
