PORTRUSH, NORTHERN IRELAND | Last week, Jon Rahm told us something which sounded a million miles removed from an LIV Golf scene which talks about “modernising and supercharging” our royal and ancient game.
He is a golf historian.
Early in his Tuesday press conference at the Open Championship, this winner of both a U.S. Open and the Masters was asked if he would consider playing Seve Ballesteros-type golf – i.e. bashing the ball off the tee and finding a way to get down from the craziest of places. When his reply was that of someone who had studied his fellow Spaniard’s ways inside out, he was promptly asked if he discussed the golfers of bygone years with his on-tour colleagues.
“It’s not something I talk about with other players, really,” he said. Next, when quizzed as to whether his background knowledge had helped him with his own game, he replied in the affirmative. “I think it gives me a different understanding when it comes to courses like this.”
Straightaway, it put one in mind of Pia Nilsson, who has been going about her highly successful Vision54 performance business for years. When the 1998 European Solheim Cup captain took Swedish teams to Scotland, she would give each player a topic to research about the land where the game started. “It could be Tom Morris, the gutta percha ball, the Open Championship, Mary Queen of Scots, or even why we play 18 holes,” she explained. “For players to get a bigger context of the game is powerful and it gives them a bigger perspective as well as some pride in the traditions we carry forward.”
Because of the above, Nilsson sometimes wonders if coaches need to do more in sharing their knowledge of the game’s history.
Pete Cowen, whose list of championship-winning students has included Rory McIlroy and Paul McGinley, suspects that that probably works more easily with girls than those teenage boys and twentysomethings who don’t want to know the first thing about what has happened in the past. “I might try telling them about how Nicklaus played this shot or that, but they’re not interested. Americans will ask me about Seve but that’s about it.
“Golf today,” Cowen continued, “has become a sport of two parts. There are the younger players who fall for the LIV game and its loot, and then you have the older ones who want to stick with the golf with which they’ve grown up. And that’s going to be how things are forever more – younger players and older ones.”
Tiger Woods, meantime, has been one of the most important historians of his era. When we wanted to know if he had taught his son, Charlie, the history of the game, he did not hesitate.
Following on from Rahm’s revelation, fans were trying to come up with the names of other history buffs in the golfing world.
For another LIV man who hasn’t forgotten the days when he played Open Championships every year, how about Lee Westwood, the 52-year-old Englishman who qualified for this year’s Open and started with a 2-under 69 last week. A few days earlier, a video appeared of him testing his memory skills by going through the list of past Open winners, starting with last year’s. He only came to a full stop when he named Gary Player as the 1976 champion instead of Johnny Miller.
While there are plenty more historians than listed here, Jack Nicklaus got the most mentions. This 18-major winner has always told fascinating tales about his predecessors while showing a genuine interest in those who have followed him.
When, as a young teenager, Mike Weir wrote to Nicklaus saying he had been advised to turn from a left-hander to right, Nicklaus wrote back to say that he should stick with what he was doing. Weir followed Nicklaus’ bidding and, when he won the 2003 Masters, he framed the Nicklaus letter.
Ben Crenshaw and Tom Watson were in the same mould as Nicklaus, as was Nick Faldo, who had based his game on Ben Hogan’s. He went to great lengths to meet Hogan towards the end of his life and would have been as bemused as he was piqued when, on asking for advice on how to win the U.S. Open, Hogan suggested that he shoot the lowest score.
Tiger Woods, meantime, has been one of the most important historians of his era. When we wanted to know if he had taught his son, Charlie, the history of the game, he did not hesitate. He said he wanted him to know exactly what he had gone through to reach the level he had – and what Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder had had to endure before him.
England’s Harry Hall is also worth a mention. He is a 27-year-old member of the present generation who has been drawn to the past via the story wrapped in his flat cap. This winner of the PGA Tour’s ISCO Championship last year started wearing it by way of copying his grandfather, who was once Cornwall’s champion golfer of the year. And when people kept asking about it, he decided to include “Long Jim” Barnes in the story by way of adding a bit of interest to his own profile.
Not only did Barnes wear the same hat and play at the same West Cornwall Golf Club as Harry and his grandfather, but his achievements in winning all the majors other than the Masters in the early 20th century had been Harry’s source of inspiration.
Hailing from Sweden, Pia Nilsson knows how tough it can be for players from the newer golfing lands to understand that golf has a history.
The 26-year-old Finn, Oliver Lindell, who was in last week’s field at Royal Portrush, said he was given the choice of learning golf or ice hockey at school. He chose golf as the safer option.
“History?” he queried, by way of asking what it had to do with golf. He got the message and said a cheerful: “I can go back as far as Henrik Stenson. I remember him beating Phil Mickelson to win the 2016 Open at Troon.”
Sahith Theegala said he only learned about golf from watching DP World Tour events over breakfast. As a result, he was in awe of Rory McIlroy. “I could probably reel off every event that Rory won during his days on the DP World Tour but that’s as far as it goes.”
Meanwhile, virtually the entire history of Korean men’s golf, from the 1980s till today, was at Portrush in person. Namely, 55-year-old K.J. Choi, who qualified for what is his 499th start in a PGA Tour event by winning the 2024 Senior Open Championship. Would you believe that when, in 1986, he made the first of his 12 attempts to win a tour card, he had never seen a proper green or bunker. (His nearest course had been two hours away from the driving range where he practised.)
Since he had learned golf by reading Nicklaus’ “Golf My Way,” Choi handed out copies to his friends at the range and, today, he is proud to say that there are four Koreans in the top 100 of the world ranking.
To go back to what Pete Cowen said about golf having turned into a game of two parts, to which side of the great divide do you belong?
You could, of course, join Jon Rahm (not that he would necessarily accept as much) in being somewhere in the middle. Otherwise, it’s a choice between the original version of the game as it has developed in its own time, or the “supercharged” and maybe more volatile option.
E-MAIL LEWINE
Top: Two players from years gone by, Byron Nelson (left) and Ben Hogan, circa 1939
BETTMAN VIA GETTY IMAGES