New Monuments TV welcomes you to today’s coverage of match play between Kykuit and Sunnylands. I am your host, the Golf Widow, joined by my old pal and yours.

The Old Man.

He will cover the action at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, New York.

Figuratively speaking, I am in a Hudson River School painting.

Copy that from where I have the mic at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California, where owner Walter Annenberg composed the view behind me of the San Jacinto Mountains, as also seen on local easels and in the photography of Stephen Willard.

Walter Annenberg, 1908-2002, American businessman, philanthropist, and diplomat.

A plug for Fritz Woruba’s 1960 «Reclining Figure» after we thank our sponsor. New Monuments Golf Club: «Not Your Grandfather’s Golf Club!»

«Nor Your Grandmother’s!»

Nelson Rockfeller placed «Reclining Figure» on Kykuit’s west terrace as a foreground, or simulcrum, for the world’s largest lateral magma flow in the background, popularly known as the Palisades.

Nelson Rockefeller, 1908-1979, politician, philanthropist and grandson of John D. Rockefeller, 1839-1937, businessman, philanthropist and one of the richest people in modern history.

Can we get a camera on «Reclining Figure»? Thank you.

Without further ado, let’s begin our walks, evaluating as we go the art found in our respective «galleries», if you will. In match play, the winner is the team ahead by more holes than remain to be played.

If I were a betting man, I could characterize Team Kykuit as the prohibitive favorite. Will either side exercise its right to a score adjusted by a handicap? The Rockefellers were in the art game longer than Annenberg. We don’t want the broadcast to finish early.

According to reports from both locker rooms, the curators decline to factor in handicaps; and as both teams are at home, we will flip a coin to decide who goes first and who gets the last word.

Will the curators be joining us, my dear?

No, Old Man. In their eyes, we are interlopers without proper curricula vitae. I don’t blame them.

We will show them!

Calm yourself. Flip a coin.

I don’t have a coin.

Hole 1
Sunnylands: «Birds of Welcome» (1971, Art Price, Canadian), «Cranes» (Meiji era, unknown artist/s, Japanese), «Mausoleum» (2001, Alfred H. Cook, American).

Kykuit: «Gazebo» (1968, Wendy Taylor, English), «Knife Edge Two Piece» (1966, Henry Moore, English), «Vertical Blue Hieroglyph» (1969, Jean Dubuffet, French).

Hole 2
Sunnylands: «Palms» (1966, Dwight D. Eisenhower, American), «Chinese Pavilion» (1976, Harry Saunders, American).

Kykuit: «Large Spiny» (1966, Alexander Calder, American), «Lippincott II» (1966, James Rosati, American), «Barbara» (1972, Benni Efrat, Israeli), «Akapotic Rose» (1965, Eduardo Paolozzi, British).

Hole 3
Sunnylands: «Delos Bench» (1979, unknown artist)

Kykuit: «Night» (1944, Aristede Maillol, French), «Horse» (1951, Marino Marini, Italian), «Wandering Rocks» (1967, Tony Smith, American).

image credit
The Old Man, Kykuit: August 2024, Sunnylands: May 2017.