Will Bardwell

September 4, 2019

Wanderlust

Pinehurst No. 2

Will Bardwell

September 4, 2019

Wanderlust

Pinehurst No. 2 is golf’s equivalent of Level 20 on “Dr. Mario” — it moves quickly, and it brings certain doom, but in the end you limp away convinced that all you need is one more chance.

Will Bardwell

August 29, 2019

Places

Black Bear

Will Bardwell

August 29, 2019

Places

In Louisiana, where austerity trumped public investment for more than a decade, a small town and a renowned golf course are withering together.

Will Bardwell

August 23, 2019

Conversations

Brendan Porath

Will Bardwell

August 23, 2019

Conversations

“I think it’s a necessary evil now. There are some events where the money is kind of secondary — like, whatever purse Riviera was at, they’d still get a great field. But there aren’t many Rivieras out there, right?”

Will Bardwell

August 21, 2019

Conversations

Stanley Reedy

Will Bardwell

August 21, 2019

Conversations

“At first, we felt like the higher the score, the better. But if you watch golf on TV, you want to see people make birdies or you want them to make double bogeys. Anything in between is kind of dull.”

Will Bardwell

August 19, 2019

Stories

Sanderson Sheds Old Questions for New

Will Bardwell

August 19, 2019

Stories

The Sanderson Farms Championship slogged through decades of small purses, weak fields, and year-to-year insecurity. Those days are gone — for better or worse.

Will Bardwell

August 2, 2019

Conversations

Kevin Robinson

Will Bardwell

August 2, 2019

Conversations

As the Golf Course Maintenance Manager at Pinehurst Resort, Kevin Robinson oversees 10 golf courses (10!), the two most prestigious of which — No. 2 and No. 4 — are soon to host the U.S. Amateur.

Will Bardwell

July 29, 2019

Stories

Rob Collins and the Long Road Out of Hell

Will Bardwell

July 29, 2019

Stories

Rob Collins and the Long Road Out of Hell

Rob Collins had one shot. At Sweetens Cove, he took it — and he bet on himself over and over again. Somehow, impossibly, it worked.

Will Bardwell

July 25, 2019

Conversations

Gabriela Ruffels

Will Bardwell

July 25, 2019

Conversations

“When I first saw Pinehurst, I remember telling my caddie, ‘This is very similar to what I’m used to back home at my home course.’ Pinehurst is not your typical U.S. course — no thick rough, not tree-lined. You have to be patient out there.“

Will Bardwell

July 22, 2019

Stories

Death of a Golf Course

Will Bardwell

July 22, 2019

Stories

The 45-year-old golf course at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, Ala., was called the Refuge. Coincidentally, that’s what it’s become: an empty, open wilderness, devoid of golf and almost anything else — left, at the moment, largely to the whims of nature.

Will Bardwell

July 18, 2019

Pros

Coffee, a Dark House, and the Open

Will Bardwell

July 18, 2019

Pros

Waking up at 1:30 a.m. to watch golf isn’t conducive to work, or anything else really. But it’s become my favorite TV viewing experience of the year.

Will Bardwell

July 16, 2019

Pros

History will Judge the PGA

Will Bardwell

July 16, 2019

Pros

Through its silence in the face of Donald Trump’s racism, the PGA of America is not merely acquiescent in his behavior — it is complicit.

Will Bardwell

July 15, 2019

Conversations

Lauren Greenlief

Will Bardwell

July 15, 2019

Conversations

“In college, one thing I struggled with was going to tournaments and playing with the extra pressure of, ‘I need to play well so I can make it in the lineup for the next week,’ rather than going out for me and trying to win the tournament. Now, the alternative to playing in a golf tournament is being at work. So I enjoy being on the golf course a lot more.”

Will Bardwell

July 12, 2019

Places

Quail Creek

Will Bardwell

July 12, 2019

Places

Fairhope, Ala., was founded in 1894 as a socialist utopia. It’s since moved away from that ideology, which is unfortunate for its municipal golf course, which needs a redistribution of width.

Will Bardwell

July 10, 2019

Places

Timber Creek

Will Bardwell

July 10, 2019

Places

Alabama’s Gulf Coast is full of monolithic, unremarkable courses that do not stand out from one another. Timber Creek does nothing to disturb that monotony.

Will Bardwell

June 28, 2019

Conversations

Ben Carr

Will Bardwell

June 28, 2019

Conversations

“The first person I saw off the green was my mom, and we hugged. She was crying, I was crying, my little brother was crying. But they were happy tears.”

Will Bardwell

June 25, 2019

Places

Highland Park

Will Bardwell

June 25, 2019

Places

Highland Park is, finally, a golf course that everyone in Birmingham can be proud of.

Will Bardwell

June 20, 2019

Conversations

Wilson Furr

Will Bardwell

June 20, 2019

Conversations

“My dad always wanted me to play against people who were better than me. So when I was 12, I played in the 15- to 16-year-old group. When I was 13, I played in the high school group. … So I guess playing with the older people wasn’t that weird. It kind of feels weird now, not feeling young.”

Will Bardwell

June 18, 2019

Conversations

Mike Young

Will Bardwell

June 18, 2019

Conversations

“I kept seeing all these architects, and I kept calling bullshit. I’d go in their offices, and I’d watch this stuff — and here I am, just a smartass kid selling equipment, but I kept saying to myself, ‘There’s something that doesn’t make sense here.’”

Will Bardwell

June 11, 2019

Pros

In Defense of Pebble Beach

Will Bardwell

June 11, 2019

Pros

Even in the age of contrarianism, it’s OK to accept that the consensus choice as America’s greatest publicly accessible golf course might actually be that good.

Will Bardwell

June 10, 2019

Places

The Fields

Will Bardwell

June 10, 2019

Places

Somehow, in an era when the Internet has uncovered all of golf’s secrets, the Fields GC in La Grange, Ga., remains a true hidden gem. That seems destined to change.