By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Bill Veeck was a promoter. He also owned different baseball teams, the St. Louis Browns (who were to become the Baltimore Orioles), the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox. He understood sports and the public’s acceptance or rejection.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — He was 2-under-par after one hole. An eagle 3 to open, an auspicious beginning. But you on know the sporting cliché. It’s not so much how you start, it’s how you finish.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — What’s not to like? Rory McIlroy asked the question, and indirectly he provided the answer. Which, of course, is “Nothing.”
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — It used to be Bing Crosby. Then Bob Hope. But is there a singular figure from the dozens of 21st-century entertainers and sporting heroes both famous enough and connected to the game to host his own golf tournament?
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — For a moment there, when he was 3-under-par on the first six holes, it seemed Phil Mickelson, back on the course he loves, was going to show us again it didn’t matter how old he was or how few fairways he hit — that it was magic time once more.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif.--You know the line, that in golf it ain’t how, it’s how many, that what matters is the score not how you got it. Except the way Phil Mickelson plays golf.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — It was Jason Day’s darkest hour. He was in pain. He was in doubt. Nothing is more important to any athlete in any sport than his body.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — He finished strong, a birdie on 17. Sure, Jordan Spieth after a 2-under 70 is a mile out of the lead. But he played a much tougher course, Spyglass Hill, than the guy, Nick Taylor, who shot a 63 at Monterey Peninsula.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — For years, golf was not a game for left-handers. In part because left-handed clubs were as rare as snow on the Monterey Peninsula.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
NAPA, Calif — No, Tony Romo didn’t make the cut. He didn’t even come close. No, Adam Scott didn’t retain the lead he had the first round of the Safeway Open. He didn’t come close.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
NAPA, Calif. — So there’s a Masters champ tied for first place after a round of the Safeway Open, and a British Open winner a shot behind? Those guys, in order, Adam Scott and Francesco Molinari, are pros.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Tony Finau is the baggage handler’s son from Salt Lake City who turned down a college basketball scholarship — he was a great rebounder in high school — to become a golf pro and play on the mini-tours. He got his education on the greens instead of the classrooms.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — It was a triumph for a man, and no less for a land. Irishman Shane Lowry on Sunday won the first British Open played in Ireland in 68 years, clutching the famed claret jug for himself while sharing joy with his elated countrymen.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The chants rolled across the fairways and down to the sea. “Ole, ole, ole, oh-lay.” An Irishman was leading the British Open, the first one held on Irish soil in 68 years. Shane Lowry’s countrymen were shouting their glee.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — This is what the Open Championship, the British Open, is supposed to be: Birdies and bogeys, big names and no-names, and halfway through practically everybody in contention.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — One last putt. That’s all Rory McIlroy needed to make the cut, to make his countrymen ecstatic, to make himself proud.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The anticipation was great for Rory McIlroy. The British Open was being held at a course, Royal Portrush, he has played since he was 10 years old, an hour’s drive from his home.
Copyright © 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The opening round of an historic British Open began in the early morning Thursday with an emotional tee shot by Darren Clarke and finished in the early evening with J.B. Holmes in the lead by a stroke.
Copyright © 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — So little has changed, on the course at least where, despite a remodeling and some new bunkers, it all seemed familiar to Rory McIlroy. Then again, so much has changed.
McIlroy is a star now, a home country hero, a major golf champion. Then again, he still he remains the kid from next door — or, more literally, 60 miles away — returning to his roots and his records.
A British Open in Northern Ireland, which once seemed unlikely. A British Open, the 148th Open Championship, at Royal Portrush, which you might say like the nation itself, ripped apart by sectarian fighting known as the Troubles, has undergone restoration.
Three golfing greats emerged from the region, three major champs who directly or indirectly helped bring back the Open, Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell and McIlroy.
There will be pressure for each, when play begins Thursday, so many expectations. So much attention. Friends and family almost everywhere. There will be pleasure for each. If it’s not once in a lifetime, and who knows when the Open will return to Portrush, it’s distinctive.
“Portrush has been a very big — at least the golf club has been — a very big part of my upbringing,” said McIlroy. “It’s sort of surreal.”
He was born and raised in Holywood (pronounced Hollywood, like the movie city), a suburb of Belfast about an hour’s drive south of Portrush.
“I think my history maybe isn’t quite as long here at Portrush than, say Darren or G-Mac (McDowell), but my first memories are coming up here to watch my dad play in the North of Ireland (golf championship).
“I remember chipping and putting, being 7 or 8, my dad playing. My summer, and I got to the stage where I was playing North of Ireland ... My dad brought me to Portrush for my 10th birthday to play, which was my birthday present. I actually met Darren Clarke for the first time, which was really cool.”
McIlroy is 30 now, Clarke 50.
“It shows you what we’ve done in terms of players,” said McIlroy of the Northern Irish. “G-Mac winning the U.S. Open, Darren the Open and some of the success I’ve had.” Some!? McIlroy has won the U.S. Open, the British Open and (twice) the PGA Championship.
“And how Northern Ireland has come on as a country and that we’re able to host such a big event again.”
The only other time was 1951. Plans for a subsequent Open were shelved because of the violence among the Catholic minority and Protestant, government-supported majority that wanted to keep Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom, as opposed to uniting it with the Republic of Ireland.
The fighting, responsible for the deaths of 3,500, lased from the 1960s until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. McIlroy was born in 1989.
“Sport has an unbelievable ability to bring people together,” said McIlroy. “We all know that this country sometimes needs that. This has the ability to do that. Talking of legacy, that could be the biggest impact this tournament has outside of sport.
“Outside of everything else is the fact that people are coming here to enjoy it and have a good time and sort of forget everything else that goes on.”
Including the tragedy of the Troubles.
“I just think it just means people have moved on,” said McIlroy. ”It’s a different time. It’s a prosperous time. I was very fortunate. I grew up outside Belfast and never saw anything. I was oblivious to it.
“I watched a movie a couple of years ago called ’71, about a British soldier stationed at the Palace Barracks in Holywood, which is literally 500 yards from where I grew up. I remember asking my mom and dad, ‘Is this actually what happened?’ It’s amazing 40 years on it’s such a great place. No one cares who they are, where they’re from, their background. You can have a great time, and it doesn’t matter what side of the street you come from.”
The next few days, all that will matter is that the Open is back at Portrush.