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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
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SEPTEMBER
2012
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ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER OUMANSKI
23
“HITTING A STRAIGHT DRIVE
300 yards and landing it softly isn’t
easy.” Michael Belot says this while
squinting down the 15th-hole fair-
way at Chicago’s Medinah Country
Club, the venue for this month’s
Ryder Cup. Belot, the tournament
director, is predicting big things for
the 15th. “This hole could swing a
match that was going the whole
opposite direction,” he says. “That
was the intent.”
Competitors in the upcoming
Ryder Cup—the biannual team
event pitting the best American
golfers against their European
rivals—will probably not be as
nonchalant about the golf ball
behaving in this manner. For them,
Scully has some advice. “
I’m going
for it.
That would be my mentality,”
he says, folding his hulking frame
back into his cart. “I don’t ever play
for second. Never have.”
Scully, a former player with
the Washington Redskins, is a
monster of a man, with wrap-
around shades, slick gray-blond
hair and a steel-grip handshake. He
launches five consecutive bombs
into the bright blue sky—none of
which seem to have any interest
in the green. “Right now,” he says,
watching as another shot soars
pondward, “the golf ball is not
doing what I want it to do.”
CHICAGO
THE HOLE STORY
New hazards help ratchet up the fear factor
for the Super Bowl of golf
BY ROD O’CONNOR
The recent redesign of this par-4
by famed course architect Rees Jones
shortened its length by 100 yards,
but also added a couple of merciless
hazards: a bunker to the left of the
fairway and, more ominous, a 2-acre
pond on the right. To demonstrate
just how tricky the new hole can
be, Belot summons Mike Scully, the
course’s top pro.
GLOBETROTTING