By Art Spander
Global Golf Post
PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA — This is Hogan's place, actually "Hogan's Alley," a label that stands as surely as does the statue of Ben adjacent to the practice green at Riviera Country Club.
History counts here. History and reputations. Justin Thomas seems destined to create both. "Justin Thomas," said Graham DeLaet, "is part of the future of golf."
Copyright 2015 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
Global Golf Post
PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA — The sixth hole is a par-3 with a pot bunker. In the middle of the green. The 10th hole is a par-4 that's drivable. And perplexing.
Riviera Country Club, where the tournament is now called the Northern Trust Open but began existence in the late 1920s as the Los Angeles Open, is yet another example there's more to a golf course than length.
Copyright 2015 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Bubba Watson has always been impressed with the history of Riviera Country Club, where Ben Hogan won a U.S. Open, celebrities from Humphrey Bogart to Dean Martin were members and Howard Hughes once took lessons.
It is a tournament once known as the Los Angeles Open that began in 1937 and through the years had winners such as Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Charlie Sifford and Tom Watson.
Copyright © 2014 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — William McGirt is one of those golfers who kept thinking of quitting the game but didn't. Three rounds into the Northern Trust Open, that decision looks like the proper one.
The 34-year-old McGirt, a nonwinner in 10 years as a pro, is at 12-under-par 201 and two shots in front going into Sunday's final round at historic Riviera Country Club.
Copyright © 2014 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — So far from Sochi, but not from reality. This is the other side of the sporting world, the place of eternal spring.
This is the other side of Los Angeles, where, contrary to traffic jams and constant change, one finds a comforting stability.
Up there on the hill, the stucco clubhouse, in the hallways, photos remind what used to be, Ben Hogan, Katherine Hepburn and a Hollywood of evening clothes and Champagne.
Out there on the course are representatives of what is, the Dustin Johnsons and Jason Dufners, the present and future — yet linked inextricably to the past.
Riviera Country Club, off the circuitous wandering of Sunset Boulevard just before the road arrives at the Pacific, is where history resides.
Where there’s a statue of Hogan on the edge of the practice green. Where Howard Hughes once took lessons. Where Humphrey Bogart sipped whiskey from a Thermos while watching Sam Snead and Byron Nelson hit shots.
Where Tiger Woods never has won.
And where Fred Couples plays on and on.
So little is permanent in southern California. Always another freeway, another subdivision.
Riviera is of an earlier time, the 1920s. Bobby Jones played at Riviera. “Very nice,” he said, “but tell me — where do the members play?”
Riviera is of the current time. “I love this course,” said Justin Rose, who last summer won the U.S. Open. “It’s got a very unique look to it.”
Fred Couples has a unique look, a unique game. He is a senior, a player on the Champions Tour. But he isn’t too old to play at Riviera in the Northern Trust Open.
“I’m lucky,” said Couples, who received an invitation. “This is my favorite tournament.”
This is the 32nd time he’s been in the tournament that in typical L.A. fashion has gone through several names, from the Los Angeles Open to the Nissan Open to the Northern Trust Open.
Couples is 54. One of his playing partners in the first two rounds is Jordan Spieth, 20, who wasn’t close to being born when Couples first came to Riviera in 1981. In Thursday’s first round, each shot a one-over-par 72.
“My goal,” said Couples, who now lives about a mile from the course, “is to hang with these (younger) guys.”
Someday Couples’ photo may hang near those of Hogan and the entertainment personalities who through the decades were as much a part of Riviera as the par-3 sixth hole, the one with the bunker in the middle of the green.
That headline from the Jan. 7, 1947, Los Angeles Times calling Hogan a “Tiny Texan” is a classic. So is the picture of Hepburn and the great Babe Zaharias, a consultant for the film “Pat and Mike,” which naturally was shot at Riviera.
“Riviera member” Gregory Peck is shown swinging a club in another photo. And a picture from 1953, taken during the production of the movie “The Caddy,” matches Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
How wild it must have been at Riviera 70, 80 years ago. Errol Flynn was arrested during one dinner party for attempting to steal a badge from an off-duty policeman. The comedian W.C. Fields, a member, said the only easy shot was the first at the 19th hole.
“There are great courses that people like,” said Couples, who surely likes Riviera, where he’s won twice, “and there are some that don’t, but I don’t know anyone who would not like this course. It’s very fair, and it’s going to be, what, 80 degrees this week?”
Not quite that warm, but it was in the 70s Thursday, and the scores were mostly in the 60s, with Dustin Johnson in front at five-under 66. Johnson was second to Jimmy Walker by a shot Sunday at Pebble Beach, in the drizzle. Now he’s first in the sunshine.
“Ever since the first time I came here,” said Johnson, offering another endorsement of Riviera, “I’ve liked this golf course. It’s a great, great golf course.”
A course that, when constructed in 1926, was the second most expensive course on the planet, behind the course at Yale University. In the days when you could probably buy all of Los Angeles for the price of a Duesenberg, that is saying a great deal.
The big game then was polo, played on fields where a junior high school now sits near the course.
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were among Riviera's first members. Clark Gable and Katherine Hepburn rode horses and took late-afternoon walks on trails that meandered through the coastal canyons.
It’s so very Hollywood. And so very remarkable.
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolf Post.com
PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA -- Jack Nicklaus said he "loved option holes," and the beguiling 10th at Riviera Country Club, only 315 yards long, with a rolling green surrounded by bunkers, was one of his favorites. Bill Haas would like to second the motion.
Haas knocked in a 45-foot birdie putt Sunday at the 10th, the second hole of a three-way sudden-death playoff, to beat Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley and win the Northern Trust Open.
Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
LOS ANGELES — He made a bogey. After 49 holes. And who knows how many air miles? Phil Mickelson, jet-setter, pacesetter, has brought his game down the California coast in a big way.
Pebble Beach? Riviera? He just keeps flying along, literally and figuratively.
The first round of the Northern Trust Open on Thursday ended...
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
LOS ANGELES — And now this week’s distillation of the PGA Tour: Phil is here, and Tiger isn’t.
Here being the Northern Trust Open, which used to be called the Los Angeles Open. Here being Riviera Country Club.
A lot of Hollywood in the history of Riviera. A lot of Hollywood is in pro golf, in every sport.
© RealClearSports 2012