Golf Doesn't Care
I’ve been traveling for the last couple of weeks and this newsletter has been sitting in my drafts for a while. A lot’s changed. Scottie missed a cut. Tom Kim won the Scottish Open. ‘May you live in interesting times.’
Don’t mind the time gap. Pretend the US Open ended yesterday.
I went to the 7 pm evening mass service last night. Afterwards, I was approached by someone as people filed through the double doors.
“What’d you think of the US Open?”
I wonder if he was replaying his last round during the homily too. I bit my tongue as I assessed his question. You’re not supposed to have the thoughts I had in that kind of place.
What did I think…
Wyndham Clark won the US Open. I want to say fair and square, but there’s that petty part of me that can’t forget how the wind died on Thursday and they watered the greens. If we’re being totally honest, I still can’t forget the drive he hit on 18 at the 2023 US Open. The one that should have been off the planet but found the fairway.
But that’s me being petty. What did I think of the US Open?
I think it was the perfect reminder of why golf is the best sport in the world. Because golf does not care.
Golf does not care that Wyndham got the good side of the draw. Golf does not care that Wyndham smashed historic lockers at this exact tournament last year. Golf does not care that he tomahawked his driver at the PGA and almost hit a volunteer. Golf does not care that he was booed for five straight hours by his own countrymen while trying to win his national Open. Golf does not care.
It is the perfect meritocracy. The perfect game of lucky bounces and bad breaks. Roll ‘em out for seventy-two holes and see who’s left standing. Last week, it was Wyndham Clark. Good for him.
Speaking of historic golf, the McGuire clan had some adventures of their own on Father’s Day.
For those that don’t know, the game of golf wasn’t born in Chicago, but it is where it started. At least, on this side of the Atlantic. At sixteen years-old, one, Charles Blair Macdonald, wanted to have himself a Euro summer. He packed his bags in Chicago, boarded a boat, and set sail for St. Andrews, Scotland.
And if I said previously that golf doesn’t care, then I’m not quite sure how to explain the rest of the story. Because none of it is normal. And this world is far too small for coincidences.
Where to begin… Let’s see. CB went to St. Andrews for the university. He stayed with his grandfather. This was in the 1870s. In those days you took a couple classes, invented the cotton gin, and built a family estate on which ten future generations lived comfortably without lifting a finger. An easy three-step program.
But that wasn’t in CB’s cards. On his second day in Scotland, feeling… boat lagged? CB Macdonald’s grandfather introduced him to Old Tom Morris. Yes, that one. Of course, that didn’t mean anything to young Macdonald. He’d never heard of golf. No one had in the states. For context, this meeting would be like taking a kid from rural Vietnam, bringing him to America, and introducing him to Joey Chestnut on his second day. Or Tom Brady, if he’d somehow never heard of American football. Except now this Vietnamese kid’s only friends in this brand new country are Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski.
Old Tom Morris gave Macdonald a set of clubs. I don’t know how much studying he did that summer. By all accounts, he spent his days playing matches with Young Tom Morris (the greatest golfer alive at the time). He caught the fever. But then it was time to go home. Back to Chicago. Back to what Macdonald referred to as “The Dark Ages.” Dark, because there was no golf in America. It was like taking someone who was in a tragic accident, and they spent ten minutes in heaven before the EMTs revived them and they wake up weeping because they don’t want to come back to earth.
This went on for decades. All the while, the man told everyone he knew about this game he played on the beaches of Scotland. Fate would step in again. More proof that Golf may have a say in things. The World’s Fair was set to be hosted in Chicago in 1893. Twenty years after Macdonald’s return. Wealthy families were coming in from all over Europe and the committee needed a way to entertain them. Someone mentioned golf and anyone who knew anything about the game, knew there was a psycho in Chicago (edit: good band name) who wouldn’t shut up about the game. If there was anyone that could build a golf course, it was CB Macdonald.
Thus, Chicago Golf Club was born. And I got to play it on Father’s Day.
Well. Not exactly. At least not the Chicago Golf Club you’re thinking of.
The original nine holes were built in Downers Grove, IL in 1893. Founding members’ dues were $10. Two years later, in 1895, members purchased a new property in Wheaton, Illinois. The site of the existing Chicago Golf Club, also built by CB Macdonald. But those original nine holes still exist. Well, six of them to be exact. The fairways are still trimmed. The greens are rolled and the pins cut.
The man in the pro shop warned us. “Stay below the pin.” That’s after you walk past a glass-cased wall with artifacts from the 1800s: pictures of the founding members, old hickory clubs, an oil painting of CB because why not? Maybe it was the idea of it only being nine holes. Maybe I was feeling confident from the round the day before. All I know is I didn’t take the course seriously on the first tee. I’d bomb and gouge my 2026-oversized-driver’s heart out. I found myself above the hole on the first. Double bogey. Then did it again on the second into a waste bunker. Triple bogey.
Let me tell ya, CB had some thoughts when it came to golf course architecture. You could say he was a “purist.” That’s putting it lightly. More like a sadist. Someone who believed that golf should be hard. Like, really hard. And any poor shot was a direct reflection, not on your golf game, but on your character. On the meat inside. On one of the tee boxes, CB’s philosophy is summed up on a plaque etched into a rock. It reads:
Charles Blair Macdonald (aka “CB”) is considered to be the Father of American golf course architecture. He was tutored by Old Tom Morris at St. Andrews, Scotland and designed the first 18 hole course in America on this site.
In the role of a golf course architect, Charles Blair Macdonald came on as an Old Testament prophet, heaping fire and brimstone upon those who strayed:
“The object of a bunker or trap is not only to punish a physical mistake, to punish lack of control, but also to punish pride and egotism” … “If i had my way, I’d have a herd of elephants through them every morning.” — Circa 1890’s
Man. We used to build stuff in this country. We used to have opinions. Looking back on those first two holes, I couldn’t have played them with more pride or egotism. And my scorecard looked like a herd of elephants took a shite right on it.
The third hole is a par five that goes straight up a hill. Especially for Illinois standards. The pin looked a mile away up a forty-five degree climb (see below—the entire 500 yard hole was sloped accordingly). OB left. Wind hard off the right. Quickly realized this was a legit golf course. Not a museum piece. Not some nostalgic piece of land. It was very much alive and ready to test anyone that played.
I found the fairway at the 3rd. Got on in two. Made the birdie putt. Cut the corner on the 4th hole. Made birdie there. Spun a wedge on the 6th to ten feet and the ball never left the hole. After a double-triple start, I played holes 3 through 9 in three under par.
I’m making it official: we are soooo back. It started Memorial Day. For the last six months, my putting has been ugly. One of those things you try to ignore. Don’t make it a “thing.” Especially when it’s traditionally the best part of your game. Until it definitely is a thing. But on the putting green on Memorial Day, I made a slight adjustment to my grip and it felt like coming home. And ever since, I’ve been putting my face off. It’s crazy how everything falls into place. How quickly your brain goes into attack mode. Most importantly, how much damn fun it is to play golf again.
The Par-3, 8th
200 yard par three playing straight down a cliff. Highest point of the golf course. Standing on the tee with all my cousins and uncles. If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.
Runoff area back of 8’s green
The Open Championship Preview
Back to present day.
This week we head to Royal Birkdale for The Open Championship. This feels like the tenth time in the last six years Tommy Fleetwood gets to claim a Rota course as his “home course.”
I’ve been playing links golf across the pond myself (plenty of stories to come). I flew out of Dublin yesterday and can confirm the Europe heat wave is real. It was an eighty-degree day that made you think these climate scientists should have put their money where their mouths were twenty years ago. All to say that we can expect the course to be B-R-N-T, BRNT in the best way possible.
Thanks for reading 1664 words on something that happened a month ago. Please share any updates since we last spoke.
Matt Fitz wins
Great article about a small unknown course.