For the Record
Looking at the NCGA Magazine the other day I began noticing the course records at many of the venues listed there, especially those courses which I consider to be the real hard ones. It probably won’t come as a surprise that many course records at the great golf courses in the extended Bay Area are held by well known current or former tour professionals. Some examples:
- Harding Park: 64 Ken Venturi, Colin Montgomerie
- Pebble Beach: 62 Tom Kite, David Duval, David Frost
- Poppy Hills: 62 Matt Gogel
- Bayonet: 65 Notah Begay
- Silverado South: 62 J.C. Snead
- Silverado North: 63 Johnny Miller
- Spyglass Hill: 62 Phil Michelson, Luke Donald
- Olympic Club Lake*: 63 Jim Gallagher Jr
There are also some course records held by more “human beings”, some professional, and some not. For example:
- Stanford: 62 Mark Warman
- Whitney Oaks: 65 Ben Furguson
- Green Hills: 63 John Joseph
- San Jose CC: 59 Dick Lotz
- Pasatiempo: 62 Shaun McEntee
- Presidio: 63 Allwyn Pirtle
I don’t know about you, but the record that stands out for me are the 62’s at Spyglass Hill. Ten under par around that golf torture chamber for we mere mortals, is just amazing to me.
As you can see, there’s an asterisk after the Olympic Club that I want to explain. The course record in a professional event for which Olympic uses its Black Tees, is 63. This was accomplished by Jim Gallagher Jr. at the 1993 Players Championship at the Olympic Club’s Lake Course. As I recall, the course played as a par 71, its “true’ par, for that event (in a U.S. Open configuration the Par 5 17th hole is shortened slightly, and played as a par 4). No matter how you slice it or dice it, Gallagher’s 8 under par score on the formidable Lake course is a superior accomplishment.
Now back to that asterisk. There’s a better score than Gallagher’s 63 on Olympic’s Lake Course, and that number is 62! Are you kidding me! Who did this, you might wonder? Some of you may already know. It’s none other than Hooked on Golf’s own John Abendroth. John’s round was from the Blue, Championship tees, at just under 6700 yards. I couldn’t shoot a 62 at the Lake Course if I played it from 4700 yards! John’s round is truly an amazing one and one that he is very humble about. Maybe one day he’ll tell the story of this round of a lifetime on the Hooked on Golf radio show? We’ll ask Mitch Juricich to give him a little nudge to do that. It’s a fun story to hear and absorb. Talk about being “in the zone!”
Hopefully many of you will get the opportunity to get out to the Olympic Club for this week’s United States Amateur Championship. As you walk around the Lake Course just look carefully at the holes, the trees, the overall challenge. Then think how incredible it was for Mr. Abendroth to shoot 9 under par there.
