Your Bracket On Golf: Reseeding Based on Best Golf Near Your Favorite NCAA Team’s Hometown

We’re not going to spend too much time on the intro this week. Here’s the gist: Before the fortunate Tiger-Rory matchup at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event, you were going to watch the NCAA Tournament. The tournament at which your bracket has already fizzled out spectacularly. Texas, host of the Dell, is one of FOUR states featuring multiple teams in the Sweet 16. This suggests A) your state probably needs to figure out basketball and B) the NCAA Tournament is similar to The Masters in that people with absolutely no reason to watch it still will because “America” and “sports.”

So we’re desperately aiming to grab your attention by taking those 16 remaining teams and basing the bracket on the golf “available” to hometown fans (private clubs included for consideration). Seeding remains the same. The only catch is this: You can’t rely on the same course twice. So, for example, Augusta University wouldn’t win out based strictly on Augusta National. It could probably get a few rounds in, thanks to the under-appreciated Augusta Country Club, but depth is key here.

Also, we realize that by the time we publish this, 12 of these teams will be eliminated. We’re sorry. We hope your team does better here?

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Riviera Country Club’s No. 10 is The Worst Short Par 4 on PGA Tour. For Television.

If you do any research into the Genesis Open, you will meet more articles on honest architecture than perhaps any other tournament. It’s deserved. Pine Valley, Augusta National and Cypress Point tend to be the go-to answers when ranking American golf courses…but those layouts are fortunate to have the “ambience”—as Golf Digest labels it—that comes from unsullied treelines and Pacific Coasts. Riviera suffers in rankings as a result of the surrounding Los Angeles real estate…but it may be the best course in the country based on design alone.

That is an argument for another day. But, if you were going to make it, No. 10 would be at the top of the evidence list. Many cite it as one of, if not the single best short Par 4 in the world. At 315 yards, the competition can absolutely reach the green. But will they try?

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Scraping Details on Alice Dye’s 6 Biggest Wins: Curtis Cups, Senior Amateurs…and Pinehurst No. 2(?)

Alice Dye passed away last week, at the age of 91. Although long appreciated by golf course enthusiasts for her long career and role alongside husband Pete, the wave of coverage was nice to see. If you read any, you’ve at least learned that she was the mind behind “Pete’s” most famous hole: the island green at TPC Sawgrass—which claims some 100,000 lives a year, on average. This might have one believe that Alice put the “kill” in “Dye,” but the exact opposite was true, as Pete noted during this PBS segment some years ago:

“She’s always on me ‘how is Mary Smith going to play this golf course?’ I have more respect for Mrs. Alice than anybody because she doesn’t worry about moving the dirt or the swamp or the drains, she worries about Mary Smith.”

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Golf Digest’s Top 100…And What YOU Hate About It. A Statistical Analysis of The “Best” Courses

So Golf Digest released its list of the Top 100 golf courses in the United States and, as can be expected, nobody liked it. Or at least those who did like it didn’t talk about it on social media. That’s how lists work. Long before we took any interest in golf, we worked for a music publication. We saw firsthand how the year-end lists were only good for generating hatred and loathing, even among the staffs compiling them (especially among the staffs compiling them). Our advice to you: Don’t take lists too seriously.

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The PGA Is About to Make Dallas a Top-10 Public Golf Destination. Here Are The Other ND Gems.

A new year and a new dawn for the PGA. Alright, well, technically that new dawn won’t rise until 2021. By this point you’re aware that the PGA will be moving its headquarters to Frisco, TX, about 40 minutes or so north of Dallas. We’re sure there are procedural elements for someone to get excited about, but us course aficionados are naturally thrilled to hear of two new courses, totaling 45 holes: a championship-ready layout designed by Gil Hanse, a more tourist-friendly course (also potentially designed by Hanse), as well as a short course. Dallas is on the verge of becoming a Top 10 U.S. golf destination, and the north side of town will be carrying the weight.

But it really should have been on our radar before.

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We Need to Talk About The Problem with Tiger-Phil Host Shadow Creek……….’s Website [UPDATED]

UPDATE: After this post was published, Shadow Creek launched the new, not-crappy version of its website, in preparation of the Tiger-Phil bonanza on Black Friday, no doubt. We have noted where changes apply. Although the site is greatly improved, we still need to LOLz at the celebrity titles provided for each hole along the course tour. Julius Erving is now “NBA Icon Whose Slam Dunks  are The Stuff of Legends” (caps sic), Wayne Gretzky is a “20-year NHL Player Known as ‘The Great One'” and Jerry Weintraub is a “Well-Respected Hollywood Executive and Philanthropist.” Descriptions of the holes themselves…non-existent. 

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The Loop of Doom: Le Golf National’s Final Stretch and 4 Doom Metal Tracks to Soundtrack This Ryder Cup

Man, the Ryder Cup crew really teed it up for us this year. A Robert von Hagge design that ends with a four-hole stretch called—get ready for it—“The Loop of Doom.”

Are you serious? All we have to do is take four holes and find a doom metal song to match them with? Let’s do it! Er…letsssssss……………do……………iiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttt. Doom is not for the excitable.
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