Valhalla Facing Major Scrutiny

The 82nd PGA Championship begins Thursday on a golf course that is younger than Tiger Woods.

Woods is 24 and Valhalla Golf Club is still a teenager at 14, which means it has sort of reached that awkward stage. Out here in the heat and humidity and bluegrass, Valhalla is gangly, hard to love and still trying to grow up and find personal acceptance.

Could that happen this week? Well, it’s going to be a struggle. Let’s just say that the chances of Valhalla earning respect this week are about as good as the Kentucky Derby switching from horses to lawn mowers.

The good news about Valhalla is that Jack Nicklaus designed it. The bad news about Valhalla is that nobody cares except for Nicklaus.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. The PGA of America is pretty high on Valhalla, which is the way it should be since the organization already owns 50% of the place and will own all of it at the end of the event.

So you can understand the PGA of America’s point of view: It wants to give its course the instant prestige of staging a major and at the same time avoid having to pay some other course a multimillion-dollar rights fee.

If it’s a win-win situation for the PGA of America, it’s not even close to that in the public relations arena. Valhalla simply doesn’t rank very high on the list of the other three major sites in 2000, arguably the three most famous and revered courses in the world--Augusta National, Pebble Beach Golf Links and the Old Course at St. Andrews.

Valhalla kind of stands out, doesn’t it?

“You’re not supposed to be talking about those courses in the same sentence,” Hal Sutton said. “It doesn’t measure up to the others.”

Sutton, the 1983 PGA champion, was speaking for the masses . . . of players. But it seems obvious that no matter how uninspiring Valhalla might be, it’s only a victory by Woods away from looking a whole lot better.

Woods will be out there on the multitiered, undulating greens trying to become the second player in the history of golf to win three majors in one year. Ben Hogan did it in 1953 when he won the first three, but because of his aching knees didn’t play the PGA, which was then a match-play event that required a 36-hole final day.

Woods got a sneak peak at Valhalla last Tuesday when he played a quick practice round before jetting to the Buick Open in Michigan. He hadn’t seen it in person before because Woods didn’t turn pro until 18 days after the 1996 PGA Championship at Valhalla, when Mark Brooks defeated Kenny Perry in a playoff.

That championship was well-known for weather conditions that were perfectly acceptable as long as you were a fern. Also for Perry’s curious decision to forget about staying loose on the driving range and instead watching from the CBS tower as Brooks caught him on the 72nd hole.

As for Valhalla’s major championship history, that was it. Meanwhile, Brooks hasn’t won a tournament since and Valhalla has been sniffed at by most everyone.

There was more pain to come. Valhalla found itself getting dumped by its best friend, losing its date for a third PGA Championship before it could even get the second one off the ground.

Valhalla was announced as the site for the 2004 PGA Championship, but the organization decided that Whistling Straights in Kohler, Wis., would be a better choice. Nobody was debating the logic, just the timing, since the PGA of America announced the new site before telling the Valhalla/Louisville people first.

Don’t feel sorry for the place, though. The Ryder Cup, which the PGA of America also runs, is supposed to be held at Valhalla in 2007 and that might be long enough for the course to build a better reputation. Either that, or it could happen Sunday, if the Tiger Factor kicks in.

Nicklaus has been quoted as saying he designed Valhalla when he was in his “Humpty Dumpty” phase. We’ll check on all those pieces a little later.

Notes

Steve Elkington, who aggravated a hip injury during the pro-am at the Buick Open last week and had to have surgery, withdrew from the PGA Championship. Elkington, 37, will be out five to six weeks. Elkington withdrew from this year’s U.S. Open because of a sinus condition and missed last year’s PGA Championship because caddie Joe Grillo had an asthma attack. Elkington won the 1995 PGA Championship at Riviera. He has struggled this year.

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PGA Championship

Tee times for the first two rounds of the 82nd PGA Championship, which starts

Thursday at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. (all times EDT):

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Thursday Friday Grouping 7:25 a.m. 11:37 a.m. Eddie Terasa, Steve Brady, James Blair III 7:34 a.m. 11:46 a.m. Mark Brown, Robert Damron, Jean Van de Velde 7:43 a.m. 11:55 a.m. Steve Lowery, Phillip Price, Steve Flesch 7:52 a.m. 12:04 p.m. Wayne Grady, Bobby Nichols, John Daly 8:01 a.m. 12:13 p.m. Hal Sutton, Bob Tway, Edward Fryatt 8:10 a.m. 12:22 p.m. Curtis Strange, Craig Parry, Jay Don Blake 8:19 a.m. 12:31 p.m. Angel Cabrera, Corey Pavin, Scott Dunlap 8:28 a.m. 12:40 p.m. Frank Dobbs, David Toms, Joe Ozaki 8:37 a.m. 12:49 p.m. Fred Funk, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Brian Henninger 8:55 a.m. 1:07 p.m. Sergio Garcia, Lee Janzen, Darren Clarke 9:04 a.m. 1:16 p.m. Tim Thelen, Rocco Mediate, Gary Orr 9:13 a.m. 1:25 p.m. Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus 9:22 a.m. 1:34 p.m. Greg Turner, Bob Boyd, Rory Sabbatini 9:31 a.m. 1:43 p.m. Lee Westwood, Tom Lehman, Mark O’Meara 9:40 a.m. 1:52 p.m. Kenny Perry, Steve Stricker, Greg Chalmers 9:49 a.m. 2:01 p.m. Greg Norman, Paul Lawrie, Phil Mickelson 9:58 a.m. 2:10 p.m. Dennis Paulson, Billy Mayfair, Robert Allenby 10:16 a.m. 2:28 p.m. Dudley Hart, Michael Campbell, Tom Pernice Jr. 10:25 a.m. 2:37 p.m. Paul Azinger, Nick Price, Davis Love III 10:34 a.m. 2:46 p.m. Sam Torrance, Scott Verplank, Paul Stankowski 10:43 a.m. 2:55 p.m. Paul McGinley, Franklin Langham, Andrew Magee 10:52 a.m. 3:04 p.m. Jim Carter, Notah Begay, Jumbo Ozaki 11:01 a.m. 3:13 p.m. Bill Glasson, Mike Weir, Tom Scherrer 11:10 a.m. 3:22 p.m. Mathias Gronberg, Shawn Kelly, Stephen Ames 11:19 a.m. 3:31 p.m. Karl Kimball, Robert Gaus, Rick Morton 11:37 a.m. 7:25 a.m. Brad Sherfy, Robert Wilkin, Jamie Elliott 11:46 a.m. 7:34 a.m. Mike Gill, Skip Kendall, Toshimitou Izawa 11:55 a.m. 7:43 a.m. Stewart Cink, Steve Pate, Padraig Harrington 12:04 p.m. 7:52 a.m. Jim Woodward, Carlos Franco, J.P. Hayes 12:13 p.m. 8:01 a.m. Thomas Bjorn, Scott Hoch, Jeff Maggert 12:22 p.m. 8:10 a.m. Kevin Burton, Shingo Katayama, Duffy Waldorf 12:31 p.m. 8:19 a.m. Brian Watts, Jarmo Sandelin, Blaine McCallister 12:40 p.m. 8:28 a.m. Nick Faldo, Michael Clark, Kirk Triplett 12:49 p.m. 8:37 a.m. Eduardo Romero, Jay Haas, Harrison Frazar 1:07 p.m. 8:55 a.m. David Duval, Fred Couples, Jose Maria Olazabal 1:16 p.m. 9:04 a.m. Lanny Wadkins, Jeff Sluman, Mark Brooks 1:25 p.m. 9:13 a.m. Hidemichi Tanaka, Peter O’Malley, Tim Dunlavey 1:34 p.m. 9:22 a.m. Steve Jones, Tom Watson, Ernie Els 1:43 p.m. 9:31 a.m. Colin Montgomerie, Justin Leonard, Loren Roberts 1:52 p.m. 9:40 a.m. Ian Woosnam, Brad Faxon, Ben Crenshaw 2:01 p.m. 9:49 a.m. Joe Ogilvie, Shigeki Maruyama, Brent Geiberger 2:10 p.m. 9:58 a.m. Retief Goosen, Jesper Parnevik, Tim Herron 2:28 p.m. 10:16 a.m. Chris DiMarco, Glen Day, Jose Coceres 2:37 p.m. 10:25 a.m. Bob Estes, Jeff Freeman, Jerry Kelly 2:46 p.m. 10:34 a.m. John Huston, Bernhard Langer, Russ Cochran 2:55 p.m. 10:43 a.m. Tom Kite, Jim Furyk, Stuart Appleby 3:04 p.m. 10:52 a.m. Bob May, Chris Perry, Mark Calcavecchia 3:13 p.m. 11:01 a.m. Kevin Sutherland, Andrew Coltart, Brian Gaffney 3:22 p.m. 11:10 a.m. Jonathan Kaye, Ted Tryba, Ronald Stelten 3:31 p.m. 11:19 a.m. Todd Smith, Ed Sabo, Tony Kelley

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PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

WHEN

Thursday-Sunday

WHERE

Valhalla Golf Club, Louisville, Ky.

TV

TNT, Channel 2

COMING THURSDAY

A 12-page special section featuring an exclusive hole-by-hole analysis from course designer Jack Nicklaus.