By the Time I Get to the Phoenix Open

BY THE TIME I GET to Phoenix and the Phoenix Open I’ll be, um, retiring? As I mentioned to a fellow golf blogger, I’ve never been to the tournament.

The event has been around forever and through several name changes, most recently called the FBR Open and now the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Before that it was simply the Phoenix Open and Phoenix Open Invitational, except for in 1950 when they called it the Ben Hogan Open. I’m guessing that was because of Hogan’s near-fatal car accident that occurred shortly after he departed the 1949 Phoenix Open.

In 1967, Glen Campbell sang “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” a Jimmy Webb song that reached number three on the pop charts. In the opening, Glen sang, “By the time I get to Phoenix, she’ll be rising. She’ll find the note I left hanging on her door.” When I go to Phoenix, I won’t sing about it. (People will be glad about that.) And I seriously doubt that I’ll leave a note, although that would be kind of cool. “Hey, y’all. Gone out for a while. Went to Phoenix Open. Turn off the burner if I forgot to.” Maybe, instead, I’ll just tweet and update my Facebook status.

Oh, and by the way, Glen is a golf nut. In fact, he hosted his own PGA Tour event, the Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open from 1971 to 1983. Absolutely true. And Glen never lost a guitar because he always put his name on it. OK, I’m not as certain about that, but it could be true. Check out the neck on his guitar.

−The Armchair Golfer