Lee Ellis's work has appeared in The Believer, Lucky Peach and newyorker.com.
The rough is always the longest, the greens the toughest, whether by severe undulation or speed, or both, and the scoring the highest. The USGA labels such conditions challenging, and they are, I suppose, but when is golf not challenging?
On Seventeen, the Stadium Course has fully achieved its name; sometimes it’s hard to see the golf through all the people. And should we ever doubt the significance of THE PLAYERS, the new Tuscan-inspired megalith of a clubhouse assures us that, while we might not be watching a major, we are watching something big, something important enough to require a castle.
His Sunday waterball (the first one) wasn’t a shank—the shot flew forward-ish for a bit—but it never threatened the green. Here was the same attenuated, unsure, swing we’d seen for more than two rounds, only this time the leaner didn’t find a bunker or false front. It found Rae’s Creek.