It’s always fun to get away for a couple of days, and over the weekend I headed over to St. Louis for the 100th annual PGA Golf Championship.
The PGA Championship is one of the four major tournaments on the tour, with the others being the Masters Golf Tournament, the U.S. Open and the British Open. (The Brits call theirs simply The Open, implying it’s the one, true open.)
The Masters, of course, is always played at Augusta National Golf Course in Augusta, GA. The British Open moves from course to course in the U.K., and the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship move around from place to place in the states.
Having one of the latter two tournaments come to a golf course in the Midwest is unusual.
The tournament was played at Bellerive Country Club, which was carved out of prime farm land in the late 1950s and opened in 1960. This was the third major championship the club has hosted. Previously, it hosted the 1965 U.S. Open and the 1992 PGA Championship.
Even though I had been thinking about going to the PGA tournament for two or three months, I didn’t take any action toward getting tickets until last week. Then, when I went to the tournament website, I discovered it was sold out.
That sent me to Craigslist, where I connected with a young man from Liberty whose plans to attend the tournament had been disrupted by his sister’s decision — after he had purchased several tickets — to get married on Saturday, the third day of the tournament. (The Liberty guy told me he was still planning to fly over to St. Louis for Sunday’s finale.) I paid him $125 each for a Saturday and Sunday ticket — slightly above the face price of $100 each plus tax.
It was a good thing I got those tickets in advance, because if I had gambled on getting tickets outside the gates, like I often do at the Kentucky Derby and other sporting events, I probably wouldn’t have gotten in. In two days, I never saw a ticket being offered for sale.
The event was an economic bonanza for St. Louis. Out-of-town visitors and local residents alike went crazy over the tournament, with tens of thousands of people attending each of the four rounds. Among the biggest beneficiaries of the economic windfall were Uber and Lyft drivers, some of whom made dozens of runs a day to and from a special rideshare lot about three miles from the golf course. (I was skeptical about how that was going to work, but good planning and preparation made it go very smoothly, for the most part.)
Here’s a picture (not mine) of part of one day’s crowd…
A major reason for the throngs of people was the fact that Tiger Woods, the best golfer of his generation, had been playing well leading up to the tournament. Although I have not been a hard-core Tiger Woods fan, it was impossible not to get drawn into the drama and excitement on Sunday, when he moved to within a shot of leader and eventual winner Brooks Koepka with just a few holes to play.
When Woods made his big move, I was sitting on my wobbly, three-legged golf chair, just outside the rope line on the 15th hole. It was a good vantage point because it offered not only a good view of the competitors but also of a large, manually operated leader board on the other side of the fairway. As play progressed, scoreboard attendants would climb a stepladder and change the names and numbers associated with the leaders.
Brooks Koepka, waiting to hit a drive. (JimmyCSays photo.)
When I first got to that location, Woods was 11 under par, three shots behind Koepka, who was at 14 under. A few minutes later, the “11” came down and a red “12” went up (red indicates strokes under par), triggering a huge cheer. That was followed several minutes later by a wild eruption when the “12” came down and the number 13 went up…The “14” beside Koepka’s name, meanwhile, had not changed.
When Woods got to the 15th hole, we who were lining the ropes watched him hit a breathtaking iron shot that soared over two sand bunkers guarding the elevated green, landed softly and rolled to within a few inches of the cup. Another wild eruption — and yet a third when he tapped in the putt.
But Brooks Koepka, a firm-jawed, straight-faced sort who had already won the U.S. Open this year, apparently wasn’t intimidated.
When he got to No. 15 a few minutes later, he got a nice round of applause when he put his approach shot 10 feet from the cup. He got a bigger cheer — but nothing like what Woods had received — when he holed that putt to take a two-shot lead.
He also birdied the next hole, No. 16, effectively sealing the victory, which became official after he parred No. 18.
**
Now, here’s a sidelight to the main action…
Earlier in the day, I was sitting under a line of trees bordering a fairway when I noticed a man and a woman come up behind me. As I turned, I noticed that the woman was exceptionally attractive and was wearing a short orange-print dress. A few minutes later, I turned around again, hoping to catch another look at her, but she was gone.
About two hours later, after Koepka holed out on No. 18, I saw from about 100 yards away the woman in the orange dress come running out of the crowd and into Koepka’s arms. Lifting her slightly, he kissed her, and she proceeded to greet members of Koepka’s family and others who were celebrating on the green. Later, as I was leaving the course, I saw her and Koepka on an overhead walkway as they went from the scorer’s area back to the 18th green for the trophy presentation.
The lady in the orange dress was Jena Sims. She’s 29 and is an actress, model and former beauty pageant winner. She and Koepka have been dating more than a year.
…Here’s the prelude to that kiss. (Again, not my photo.)
Holy smoke, what a crush of humanity!
I’m not a golfer or a fan, but it’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement. Btw, how do you notice someone who comes up behind you?? Just teasing…:-)
My head’s on a swivel. I use it.
Jim,
You blog about the PGA prompted me to recall my two trips to the Bellerive Country Club for major golf tournaments; the 1992 PGA won by Nick Price and the 2008 BMW Championship won by Camilo Villegas.
Bellerive has an interesting history which is partially told by the Post Distpatch in this 2013 article https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/from-country-club-to-university-umsl-marks-a-milestone/article_0efd7ef2-28a8-502a-b7ce-0d52cf61b0a7.html in a story a few years back and Wikipedia’s account of the history of Bellerive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellerive_Country_Club. The original club was located in the east-to-west flight path of Lambert Airport and now the location of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. That is what jogged my memory.
In 1992 a friend had an extra ticket for the PGA tournament and I went. We, like you, planted ourselves at a certain hole and watch the various groups go through. I was rooting for Tom Watson and Hale Irwin; Tom, of course, from Kansas City and Irwin from St. Louis. It was fun and just like this past weekend packed.
To remember the event, I purchased a program and later when I got home I read the history of Bellerive. This is from memory, but it went something like this:
“In the 1950s with the increased in air traffic, Bellerive members became concerned about their safety on the golf course and began exploring options for moving the club. The membership was able to strike a deal with the Normandy School District and sold it to them so a college campus could be established which in 1963 became the University of Missouri-St. Louis.”
I laughed out loud – not safe for wealthy white golfers, but ok for college students?
What is not mentioned in the brief internet review I did of Bellerive is the demographics of that part of North St. Louis County was rapidly changing. UMSL is located about 2 miles south of Ferguson to give you an idea.
As Paul Harvey said; “Now you know the rest of the story.”
Good stuff, Tom…I should have known you, as a former longtime St. Louis resident, would have something to add about Bellerive.
…I only saw a couple of homes in the area — the developers did a good job of making sure homes didn’t back up to the course — but, man, they are big.
Great report JC! St. Louis is one of the great golf towns in the U.S., as evidenced by the 30 St. Louis Evans Scholars, caddie scholarship winners, currently at Mizzou!
Great golf courses, and great support of the “walking game”!
Thanks, Jack. I figured with your association with the Western Golf Association, which awards the Evans scholarships, this would draw a comment from you. (Careful now, you’re starting to get an awfully high profile commenting on this world-wide read blog!)
I like random associations: I knew Alan Purdy and was a classmate of his oldest son George. If I remember correctly, Alan was a founder of the Evans Scholars.
We had a great time. Brooks Koepka is a stud!
It’s cool to see Tiger Woods remain healthy and get much closer to championship form.
Mr. Purdy was, actually, the first Faculty Advisor at the Missouri Chapter of the Evans Scholars in 1968. Chick Evans was the founder of the Caddie Scholarship program in 1932. I was in that first Freshman class and knew Mr. Purdy well.
JimmyC…thanks for a very informative and interesting account of your two days in “golfland.” I felt a bit intimidated reading the reactions to your blog. I never heard of Bellerive…nor the Evans Scholarship Fund…nor even Brooks Koepka!!!! But, it is nice to remember that we do have something in common…if memory serves me correctly, we have both pared hole #3 at Bellarmine Golf Course.
I remember every hole on that course, John. (Took me a while to recall No. 7.) No. 3 was a very short and easy hole on flat ground. No. 2 was the longest and hardest, crossing the gulch at the bottom of the hill (where we used to sled in winter) and ascending to an elevated green.
Great that you got to attend. I’ll never forget the two days I attended the 1965 US Open at Bellerive as a teenager. Player won it, but we got to see all of the old greats — Palmer, Nicklaus, Snead. I vividly remember Tony Lema cussing a blue streak in a sand trap, way out of contention and well away from the cameras. They sold cardboard periscopes in order to see over the heads of the people in front. Don’t think that’s allowed anymore.
Fantastic story about Lema, Leigh. Do you remember they used to call him “Champagne Tony” because after victories he would buy champagne for the media members?
He was a very charismatic guy. Checking Wiki, he won the 1964 British Open at the Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland. Two years later, he and his wife Betty died in the crash of a small airplane. The pilot and another woman also died in the crash. Lema was 32.
I went also Friday and Saturday. Like you said a sea of humanity. Crazy but interesting once you settled in. We didn’t eat at all on Saturday because the food lines were over an hour long and no one wanted to give up that much time for a hot dog! Also on Saturday we settled into the wooded area between 17 and 18. All the major players passed and shot right in front of us! We also had 3 shots into this wooded area. The players had to come into the wooded area and you could tell they would rather stay on the course than be in there with us. Fun though!
The roar of the crowd from the guy who hit the hole in one from clear on the other side of the course was amazing! So interesting. Don’t know if I will do it again, but it was fun!
For the record, the hole-in-one was made by Matt Wallace Saturday on No. 16, a 232-yard Par 3. Two hundred thirty-two yards! For me that would be a driver and wedge…if the drive was good! (That’s the same hole Koepka birdied on Sunday to move ahead of Woods by three strokes and seal the victory.)
…I drove over from KC on Saturday and didn’t get to the course until 4:15. When I was arriving, much of the crowd was leaving, and I felt like a minnow swimming upstream. But I still got to see two and a half hours of golf, including several of the leaders.
I had a hot dog on Saturday (no wait by the time I went to the concession stand). It cost $4, I believe, and was very good. (Sunday I had a $10 turkey wrap, which was terrible; I had to choke it down.)
For some reason, Sunday went much more smoothly from the logistical standpoint, possibly because most of the kinks had been worked out of the arrival and departure system. You are absolutely right, though, Bill, the fans were engaged in just as much of a battle as the players.