Pebble Beach is beautiful for Oosthuizen

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Their working areas are among the most spectacular in the world. And yet golf pros sometimes concentrate so much on what goes on the scorecard, in effect they can’t see the forest for the tees.

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Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Bleacher Report: Who Will Tame the Beast of Chambers Bay and Claim US Open Glory?

By Art Spander
Featured Columnist

UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. — Henrik Stenson compared the greens to broccoli, except broccoli is green and the greens are brown. Ian Poulter said Chambers Bay would turn the U.S. Open into “a complete farce,” but he conceded his comments were constructed from hearsay.

But Jim Furyk, who 12 years ago won a U.S. Open on a course very different from this year’s — old-fashioned Olympia Fields south of Chicago — described Chambers in less emotional terms.

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Copyright © 2015 Bleacher Report, Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

SF Examiner: Bubba Watson walks away from Masters in tear-jerking triumph

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

And now we wait and hope, hope the next major golf championship of 2012, the U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club in June, can be as full of tension and greatness — and, of course, drama — as the Masters.

What an ending Sunday, in the shadows after the setting sun dipped below the Georgia pines, a day of history, only the fourth double-eagle in 77 Masters and, because the winner couldn’t be determined until a sudden-death playoff, mystery.

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Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Open Champ Is Going Hollywood

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

LOS ANGELES -- He's here, Shrek, or as it says on the birth certificate, Lodewicus Theodorus Oosthuizen. Last weekend the Grammy Awards. This weekend, the NBA All-Star Game. And smack in the middle, the guy with the gap in his teeth but no holes in his golf game, Louis Oosthuizen, British Open Champion.

"I'm still looking around for the Hollywood sign,'' Oosthuizen insisted on Tuesday. "Once I see that I'll know in L.A. Yeah, I've never been here. Whenever you're here, you want to see that sign.''

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© RealClearSports 2011

Global Golf Post: And The Winner Is...

By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND -- Aye, laddie, Augusta National is beautiful, and Pebble Beach is spectacular. But there's nothing like the Old Course when the wind is blowing, the crowds are hanging out the windows along the final hole and the man about to be declared "champion golfer of the year" is striding up the 18th to the joyful accompaniment of appreciative cheers.

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Copyright 2010 Global Golf Post