With all the big Cups now slated for 2021 (Ryder, Solheim, Walker and Curtis), the calendar was cleared for a new cup to emerge. This one won’t be televised, but there will be team uniforms. Team towels. Even pencils have been made. On Wednesday night, hype videos from Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker and Solheim Cup captain Pat Hurst were shown at the team reveal.
On Friday afternoon, players from Team Burke and Team Demaret picked up their packets for this weekend’s inaugural Grace Cup.
“It has grown legs that I couldn’t have imagined,” said Barry Metcalf, organizer and commissioner of “The One,” a weekend game for members at Shady Oaks Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.
It was on a giant text thread that someone first tossed out the idea of putting together a Ryder Cup/Solheim Cup format. It just so happens that two Solheim Cup players were on that thread – Angela Stanford and Gerina Piller – along with fellow LPGA players Cheyenne Knight and Kim Kaufman.
“The ball started rolling so fast it was like an avalanche,” said Stanford, who became a member at Shady Oaks in 2000.
There was a time when Stanford was the only woman who played in The One, which got its name because tee times usually started at 1 p.m. It’s so hot these days, though, that they moved it to the morning. It’s now more like “The Ten.”
With COVID-19 putting a halt to the LPGA’s schedule, the four tour players who are members at Shady Oaks now play regularly in the weekend game. Metcalf said they average around 20 players each week and the group’s average handicap index is 3.6. If they have an odd number of players, the group that’s short gets Ben Hogan, who plays to a +3. Hogan, of course, was a member at Shady Oaks and played more than a few rounds with the Cup’s namesake John Grace, who at 72 years old also plays to a +3.
Grace is a member of both the Texas and Michigan golf halls of fame. He has competed in 44 USGA championships, finishing runner-up at the 1974 U.S. Amateur and 2009 U.S. Senior Amateur. A two-time competitor at the Masters, Grace competed in two USGA championships at Eugene Country Club – the 1964 U.S. Junior and the 2018 U.S. Senior Am.
With Shady Oaks in the midst of an extensive renovation, The One has moved to nearby Hawks Creek Golf Club and Squaw Creek most weekends. Grace recently fired a tidy 63 at Squaw Creek.
It’s no wonder the group named the cup after him.
“He actually got a little choked up,” said Stanford of Grace’s reaction to the name reveal.
Knight describes the Shady Oaks members as a second family. They were thrilled, of course, to see Knight claim her first LPGA title in Texas last fall at the Volunteers of America Classic.
When Stanford was coming down the stretch a couple of years ago at Evian, Metcalf said they pushed back tee times for their Sunday game to watch her finish.
“There was not a dry eye in the pro shop when she won,” he said.
Stanford, 42, was recently named assistant Solheim Cup captain for 2021 and said the weekly games at Shady have helped keep her in competition shape.
“It really makes me show up and play well,” she said, “because I don’t want to let these guys down.”
Knight and Piller are captaining Team Burke together while Stanford and Kaufman are in charge of Team Demaret. They are fitting names given that this year’s U.S. Women’s Open will be held at Champions Golf Club in Houston, which Burke and Demaret built.
“Everyone is flabbergasted that they actually keep playing with us,” said Metcalf of his LPGA pals.
Metcalf started working in the bag room at Shady Oaks while studying at TCU and later joined. He loved the history of the club. No tee times. Players can hop in a cart and play 18 holes in the evening in around two hours.
It’s a low-key place, where golf IQs run high and respect for the game runs deep. And this summer, a global pandemic just happened to bring them all a little closer.
