Michael Bamberger

3 days ago | golf.com | Alan Bastable |Michael Bamberger

OAKMONT, Pa. — When I first met Rory McIlroy, he was 19 and had not yet played his first tournament as a pro in the United States. Over a brown-bag lunch in Southern California, he talked about traveling the world as an amateur golfer from suburban Belfast. The things he saw! Grand (the Opera House in Sydney), fun (Disney World in Orlando) and wrenching (the slums of Mumbai). He was a prodigy with a broad view of the world. He was unexpected.

4 days ago | golf.com | Alan Bastable |Michael Bamberger

OAKMONT, Pa. — On the top-100 list of Great Pretentious Terms in Ye Olde Game, bifurcation had got to be in the top five, if not higher. Some notable golf people — Tiger Woods, for instance — have stated their objection to “bifurcation” in golf. In this ridiculous use of the word, it means one set of rules for elite pros, and another for the rest of us.

1 week ago | golf.com | Alan Bastable |Michael Bamberger

OAKMONT, Pa. — Rory McIlroy’s press conference was scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Tuesday, but it started five minutes early. The tent was packed, and Rory was in his swivel seat, on a riser, behind a catering table, about three feet above sea level — above the writers and bloggers and shooters and the others. Why postpone joy? With Tiger in semi-retirement, the best pre-tournament show in town — name your town — is the Rory McIlroy press conference.

2 weeks ago | golf.com | Alan Bastable |Michael Bamberger

In America, as Rory McIlroy used to call the United States, alternate-shot golf shows up in our golf-on-a-screen life a couple of times each year. We see it, as a form of match play, at the Solheim Cup, at the Presidents Cup and at the Ryder Cup — and that’s about it. But who among us actually has played alternate shot, aka foursomes? The American golf impulse is for an 18-hole individual score on a scorecard at the end of the round, despite the fictions it may contain.

2 weeks ago | golf.com | Michael Bamberger

As a person on this earth, as a golfer, and as a writer, I really don’t know what I’m doing, one day to the next, one swing to the next, one paragraph to the next. I’m not saying that as a literal truth. It’s more like an internal pep talk. I have a new book called The Playing Lesson: A Duffer’s Year Among the Pros. It’s my attempt to unlock golf’s secrets, surely not successfully, though it was fun trying. It’s my attempt to show, through various golf kooks, why the game has such a hold on us.