CASTLE ROCK, Colo. (AP) — Start with those hand-spun milkshakes, that crazy scoring system and the seal of approval from Jack Nicklaus himself. Throw in some great mountain views and a chance to escape the same ol’-same ol’, and Castle Pines had the makings of one of those can't-miss stops on pro golf's unrelenting calendar.
But too many players did, in fact, skip the tournament called the International. Most notable was Tiger Woods, who only showed up twice over 21 years and, thus, played a role in sealing its fate.
This week, for the first time since the International’s final round in 2006, the PGA Tour is back at the course — situated 6,300 feet above sea level and 25 miles south of downtown Denver — that oil magnate Jack Vickers built with a big assist from his buddy, Nicklaus.
The BMW Championship, which opens Thursday at Castle Pines, is the second of the tour's three playoff events. In one way, the week is a typical high-stakes PGA Tour pressure cooker. In another, it's a trip down memory lane.
“Jack Vickers was an oil man — wildcatting, and he was used to high risk, high reward,” said Buddy Martin, the onetime Denver Post sports columnist who took a break from writing a few years after Vickers approached him under the big oak tree at the Masters in the 1980s and asked him to help put on the International.
“When he put this together, he did everything he could to be unique,” Martin said.
Part of Vickers' mission to stand apart involved using the modified Stableford scoring system. Instead of measuring scores in relation to par, players got five points for eagles, two for birdies, nothing for pars and lost a point for bogey.
It was designed to entice players to take risks. It mostly caused confusion.
Among the few times it worked was in 2002.
Rich Beem was done with his round after building a nine-point lead over Steve Lowery. But Lowery's second shot on the uphill, 530-yard, par-5 17th — a hole Nicklaus and Vickers designed with the intent of providing drama — went in.
That double eagle was worth eight points, which trimmed Beem's lead to 1 point and made Lowery's ensuing birdie putt on 18 something you wouldn't see in a “normal” golf tournament.
“If he makes the putt he wins, if he doesn't he loses, and there was not going to be a playoff,” Beem said. “I was standing there on top of the 18th green, and I'm just sweating bullets."
Lowery missed. Beem won his second PGA Tour event, and with the confidence from that, went on to beat Woods by one shot two weeks later in the PGA Championship.
Beem's wins undercut one of the biggest complaints about the International: When it was held just before the PGA Championship, players groused that a long, difficult walk at altitude was no way to prepare for what was then the year's final major.
“All you had to do was figure 10 percent in Denver, and not 10 percent everywhere else,” Beem said in referring to the generally accepted notion that the ball flies that much farther at altitude. “It never crossed my mind that you would struggle at a tournament after leaving here.”
Win or not, those who came to Castle Pines got the star treatment.
The staff knew every player's favorite drink.
“The players would get out of their cars in their parking lot with their bags and they'd almost be tackled by one of the helpers," Martin said. “It was ‘Give me your bag. You don’t carry your bag around here.'”
Legend has it that one year, the tournament's Haagen Dazs bill reached $17,000, as players and their guests took down Castle Pines' famed chocolate milkshakes faster than they could make them.
Castle Pines members wear green jackets. That's no accident.
Born in Colorado Springs, Vickers took up golf long before getting into the oil and gas business. He dreamed of one day creating a western version of the Masters.
That never materialized, though Castle Pines certainly drew its fair share of big names. Winners here included Phil Mickelson, Davis Love III and Ernie Els, who liked the place so much, he briefly thought about buying a house near the 10th fairway.
Castle Pines is consistently rated as a top-100 course in the U.S., along with Cherry Hills, the course 20 miles due north that Arnold Palmer made famous by driving the first green to spark his storied comeback at the 1960 U.S. Open.
All the history and scenery, however, did not make Vickers' course a draw for the man who overtook the sport in the late ’90s.
Since Woods arrived with his win at the Masters in 1997, there have been two kinds of tournaments in pro golf: those he plays in, and those he does not.
After a couple trips to Castle Pines in the late 1990s, Woods never came back, no matter how much Vickers and his friends asked.
That, as much as the frequent late-afternoon thunderstorms, the tough walk and the altitude placed the International squarely among the second tier of tournaments.
After 2006, the PGA Tour approached Vickers about moving to the first week in September and becoming part of its playoffs. Vickers wanted nothing to do with challenging the first week of Broncos season and the NFL.
Another option was moving the tournament to early July, between the U.S. and British Opens.
Meanwhile, to draw more players, Vickers floated the idea of a $10 million prize pool that, at the time, would have been more than the tour was offering for its signature event, The Players Championship.
Nobody could agree to any of this, and Vickers decided to be done with it.
“There’s not another tournament but maybe one or two, that’s on our level,” he told Denver's CBS-4 in 2007. “I am not going to be the proud proprietor of the second-best golf tournament.”
Some saw it as more than a coincidence that the July date once offered to Vickers was where Woods' own tournament, the National, became a fixture from 2007-18 in the Washington, D.C. area.
Vickers died in 2018. When adjusted for inflation, the $10 million prize purse he was floating in 2007 is only about $5 million less than what's at stake at Castle Pines this week.
Some find irony in the friendship Vickers struck with Greg Norman, the 1989 International champion who had dreamed of different pathways for pro golf long before he became the front man for LIV Golf.
As a member of Augusta National and a good friend of Nicklaus, who is on hand this week, it's hard to know what Vickers would have thought of all the tumult — and money — Saudi-funded LIV Golf injected into the sport he loved.
What the International proved from 1986-2006 was that Vickers did not get into this game to pay homage to the status quo.
“It was a shot they took and missed, at least partially,” Martin said. “It was a fun, fabulous piece of land, a gorgeous place. There were some great ideas whose times never came, in some ways, and were maybe too far ahead of their time in others."
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
FILE - Greg Norman watches his tee shot on the first hole during the third round of the International Golf Tournament at Castle Rock, Colo., Saturday, Aug. 19, 1995. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)
FILE - Davis Love III holds the trophy after winning the International at Castle Pines, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2003, in Castle Rock, Colo. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey, File)
FILE - Rich Beem, from Las Cruces, N.M., kisses the trophy after winning The International at Castle Pines Country Club in Castle Rock, Colo., Sunday, Aug. 4, 2002. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey, File)
FILE - Jack Vickers, left, and other committee members look on as Australia's Rob Pampling holds the trophy after winning the International at Castle Pines in Castle Rock, Colo., Sunday, Aug. 8, 2004. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey, File)
Azerbaijan on Thursday observed a nationwide day of mourning for the victims of the plane crash that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured as speculation mounted about a possible cause of the disaster, with some experts saying that the airliner was damaged by Russian air defense fire.
Azerbaijan Airlines' Embraer 190 was en route from Azerbaijan's capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons yet unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east across the Caspian Sea.
The plane went down about 3 kilometers (around 2 miles) from Aktau. Cellphone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before smashing into the ground in a fireball. Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft lying upside down in the grass.
As the official crash investigation started, theories abounded about a possible cause, with some experts alleging that holes seen in the plane’s tail section possibly indicate that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems fending off a Ukrainian drone attack.
Ukrainian drones had previously attacked Grozny, the provincial capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and other regions in the country’s North Caucasus. An official in Chechnya said another drone attack on the region was fended off on Wednesday, although federal authorities didn't report it.
On Thursday, national flags were lowered across Azerbaijan, traffic across the country stopped at noon, and signals sounded from ships and trains as the country observed a nationwide moment of silence.
Speaking at a news conference Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash, but said that the weather had forced the plane to change from its planned course.
“The information provided to me is that the plane changed its course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions and headed to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing,” he said.
Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information indicated that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.
According to Kazakh officials, those aboard the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyzstan nationals. Russia's Emergencies Ministry on Thursday flew nine Russian survivors to Moscow for treatment.
Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors the world’s airspace and airports for risks, said that the analysis of the images of fragments of the crashed plane indicate that it was almost certainly hit by a surface-to-air missile, or SAM.
“Much more to investigate, but at high level we'd put the probability of it being a SAM attack on the aircraft at being well into the 90-99% bracket,” he said.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm based in the United Kingdom, warned its clients that the “Azerbaijan Airlines flight was likely shot down by a Russian military air-defense system.” Osprey provides analysis for carriers still flying into Russia after Western airlines halted their flights during the war.
Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson said that the company had issued more than 200 alerts regarding drone attacks and air defense systems in Russia during the war.
“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson wrote online. “It is painful to know that despite our efforts, lives were lost in a way that could have been avoided.”
Caliber, an Azerbaijani news website, claimed that the airliner was fired upon by a Russian Pantsyr-S air defense system as it was approaching Grozny. It questioned why Russian authorities failed to close the airport despite the apparent drone raid in the area. Khamzat Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's Security Council, said that air defenses downed drones attacking the region on Wednesday.
Caliber also asked why Russian authorities didn't allow the plane to make an emergency landing in Grozny or other Russian airports nearby after it was hit.
Asked about the claims that the plane had been fired upon by air defense assets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it would be wrong to make hypotheses before investigators make their verdict.”
Kazakhstan’s parliamentary Speaker Maulen Ashimbayev also warned against rushing to conclusions based on pictures of the plane’s fragments, describing the allegations of air defense fire as unfounded and “unethical.”
Other officials in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have similarly avoided comment on a possible cause of the crash, saying it will be up to investigators to determine it.
Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Aida Sultanova in London, contributed to this report.
In this photo provided by Azerbaijan's Presidential Press Office, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev holds a meeting in Baku, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024 following an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 plane crash. (Azerbaijani Presidential Press Office via AP)
St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov lays a bunch of flowers at the Consulate of Azerbaijan in the memory of victims of the Azerbaijan Airlines' Embraer 190 that crashed near the Kazakhstan's airport of Aktau, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Flowers and portraits are placed at the Consulate of Azerbaijan in the memory of victims of the Azerbaijan Airlines' Embraer 190 that crashed near the Kazakhstan's airport of Aktau, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
In this photo taken from a video released by the administration of Mangystau region, a part of Azerbaijan Airlines' Embraer 190 lies on the ground near the airport of Aktau, Kazakhstan, on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (The Administration of Mangystau Region via AP)
Azerbaijan's national flag at half-mast in the memory of victims of the Azerbaijan Airlines' Embraer 190 that crashed near the Kazakhstan's airport of Aktau, is seen in the center of Baku, Azerbaijan, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)
In this image taken from video released by the Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service, rescuers transport wounded passengers from a medical plane after the Azerbaijani Airline crashed, near the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, upon their arrival at the Zhukovsky airport outside Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP)
In this photo taken from a video released by the administration of Mangystau region, rescuers prepare to carry a wounded passenger near the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, Thursday, Dec. 26 , 2024, after a plane of Azerbaijani Airline crashed. (The Administration of Mangystau Region via AP)
In this photo provided by Azerbaijan's Presidential Press Office, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, center, holds a meeting following an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 plane crash, in Baku, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (Azerbaijani Presidential Press Office via AP)
In this image released by the Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service, rescuers carry a wounded passenger near the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, Thursday, Dec. 26 , 2024, after a plane of Azerbaijani Airline crashed. (Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP)
In this image released by the Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service, rescuers prepare to carry a wounded passenger near the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, Thursday, Dec. 26 , 2024, after a plane of Azerbaijani Airline crashed. (Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP)
In this photo released by Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry Press Service, rescuers work at the wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 lays on the ground near the airport of Aktau, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP)
In this photo released by Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry Press Service, rescuers work at the wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 lies on the ground near the airport of Aktau, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP)
The wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 lays on the ground near the airport of Aktau, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Azamat Sarsenbayev)
In this photo taken from a video released by the administration of Mangystau region, the wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 lies on the ground near the airport of Aktau, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (The Administration of Mangystau Region via AP)
In this photo taken from a video released by the administration of Mangystau region, the wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 lies on the ground near the airport of Aktau, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (The Administration of Mangystau Region via AP)
