ARMCHAIR GOLF BLOG

A Personal Glimpse at Kyle Stanley

2012-01-29T20:24:00.005-05:00

Stanley as a junior golfer.

IT’S HARD TO WIN ON THE PGA TOUR, especially that maiden victory. Kyle Stanley saw a seven-shot lead fritter way on Sunday afternoon at the Farmers Insurance Open. But three shots is a comfortable cushion with one hole to go, the relatively short but tricky par-5 18th on the South Course at Torrey Pines. All Kyle had to do was put his ball in position and keep his wits and he would walk off with his first of hopefully multiple PGA Tour titles. He is just 24.

Then splash. Or, to be more accurate, ripples. Inexplicably, the golf ball went into the water.

Stanley’s three-quarters wedge shot flew beyond the hole but spun too hard, eventually trickling into the pond that fronts the 18th green. He ended up with a triple-bogey 8. Playoff. Brandt Snedeker bested Stanley on the second hole of sudden death when the PGA Tour sophomore caught the edge of the cup with his par try. It was over.

I couldn’t help but think of Kyle’s parents (Matt and Michelle) as I watched the playoff, how nervous they must be, the agony they must have felt as they watched Kyle stumble at the finish and head back out onto the course for the playoff.

I knew Matt and Michelle from periodic social events at Glendale Country Club in Bellevue, Washington, where my father-in-law, Ed, was a member. Matt and Ed were golf pals and friends. This was perhaps 15 years ago. Kyle was a kid, about 9 or 10. We used to watch him run around on the clubhouse lawn with his sister. There was a group of us that would gather for Memorial Day and Labor Day barbecues at Glendale. I wasn’t a member. I was a guest, a guy in the buffet line and an occasional “son” of Mel in the father-son tournament. It was an opportunity to eat too much and make small talk with people I saw twice a year.

There was Kyle throwing a baseball or football out on the grass with his older sister. Every once in a while he’d make a breathless pit stop at our table to check in with his mom and dad. That kid out on the lawn turned out to be a phenomenal golfer. He was an All-American at Clemson and won the 2009 Ben Hogan Award, the most prestigious award in men’s college golf. He then played on the Nationwide Tour before advancing through Q-School and joining the PGA Tour last season.

I remember seeing Kyle at the 2009 Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina, pounding balls on a sweltering August afternoon. I had a fleeting thought of saying something to him but quickly reconsidered. He wouldn’t know me. What would I say? I used to eat ribs and corn on the cob with your dad on Memorial Day weekend.

I still get occasional calls from my brother-in-law, John, who was also a part of that Glendale gathering. “Hey, did you hear about Kyle Stanley?” He made the cut at the U.S. Open. Or he’s near the lead in Boise (when he was playing the Nationwide Tour).

I got one of those “Kyle” messages a little more than a year ago from Karen, who along with her husband, Lance, also sat with us and the Stanleys in the Glendale dining room.

“Ever thought about looking into Kyle Stanley?” she wrote in an email. “He is not winning but I see on Sunday reports that he hangs around the 10-30 spot. Big Ed loved Kyle.”

Kyle Stanley will learn from his tragic finish at Torrey. He will win. I’m a believer. He has the talent, work ethic, character and determination. I hope it’s soon, this season. When that first win comes, it will be that much sweeter.

−The Armchair Golfer

Thomas Bjorn Eager to Defend in Qatar

2012-01-27T14:08:00.000-05:00

By Alan Ewens

Bjorn cherishes Qatar trophy.

AFTER ENJOYING ONE OF THE MOST successful years in his European Tour career, Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn is fired up to defend his title at the 2012 Commercialbank Qatar Masters presented by Dolphin Energy, being staged from February 2-5.

For the World Number 35 it will be a welcome return to the Doha Golf Club, a venue where his stellar 2011 season took off with a four shot victory over a world-class field. It was a victory that set up the Dane for a year that would see him win twice more and finish the season ranked ninth on Tour.

“Qatar was a turning point for me as it showed that I could get back into the winning frame of mind and close out tournaments,” said Bjorn who has spent the winter months holidaying with his family and working on his game in Dubai.

“I was delighted with the week. I played solid golf—I think I made one bogey in the last 54 holes. On that golf course and in those conditions, that’s good going.”

After notching up his eleventh European Tour title in Qatar, titles twelve and thirteen quickly followed when Bjorn won back-to-back events in stunning fashion in the late summer, first capturing the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles, where he won via a five-man play-off, then triumphing at the Omega European Masters by an impressive four shots.

“Winning the third title of the year was probably the most satisfying as the most talked about players on Tour—people like Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer—were all in the field and I still finished above them all,” he said.

Described by respected coach Peter Cowen as one the finest ball strikers in the world, Bjorn is now clearly back to his best and ready for another successful season in 2012—a year when the Ryder Cup will again feature heavily on the sporting calendar. Having tasted victory as both a player and a vice captain, the Dane is looking forward to the challenge in September.

“It’s an event that is all about the players,” added the first Danish golfer ever to play in the Ryder Cup. “When you are working behind the scenes, you do what you can to prepare them and make the event as stress-free as possible. But once they take to the course it is all about the twelve men in each team.”

Organised by the Qatar Golf Association (QGA), the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) and title sponsor The Commercial Bank of Qatar, the $2.5 million Commercialbank Qatar Masters presented by Dolphin Energy will be the second event in the three-leg ‘Desert Swing’ in between tournaments in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

(Photo: Courtesy of Alan Ewens, Qatar Masters)

2012 Farmers Insurance Open TV Schedule and Tournament Notes

2012-01-26T14:14:00.003-05:00

THE 2012 FARMERS INSURANCE OPEN is underway at Torrey Pines (North and South courses) in La Jolla, California. Four players on the North Course, including Bill Haas, currently lead at 5 under. It’s still way early in the first round, though.

UPDATE: Spencer Levin and Kyle Stanley are in with 62s, 10 under par. Both played the North Course in round one.

Purse: $6 million
Winner’s share: $1.044 million
Defending champion: Bubba Watson

Inside the field
Tee times
Inside the courses
Player interviews
Tournament overview
Tour report
Tournament news
Farmers Insurance Open website

2012 Farmers Insurance Open Leaderboard

TV SCHEDULE

TV coverage of the 2012 Farmers Insurance Open is on Golf Channel and CBS.

Thu, 1/26:
GOLF 3p - 6p ET

Fri, 1/27:
GOLF 3p - 6p ET

Sat, 1/28:
CBS 3p - 6p ET

Sun, 1/29:
CBS 3p - 6:30p E

SIRIUS-XM broadcast times

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Courtesy of PGATour.com)

Is Tiger Ready to Roar Again?

2012-01-25T14:12:00.000-05:00

By Brian Keogh
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Brian Keogh is a golf correspondent for The Irish Sun and a contributor to The Irish Times, Golf Digest Ireland and other golf publications. The following excerpt from Brian’s Irish Golf Desk is used with permission.

Tiger Woods is fit and determined.

TIGER WOODS IS BACK ON THE PROWL again—fitter, stronger and more determined than ever.

At least, that’s the message he sent to his potential rivals when he gave a trademark, combative press conference before his well-rewarded appearance in this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship.

Whether he is secretly in agony or on top of the world, Woods will always try and project an aura of confidence and invincibility. But it remains to be seen if the current crop of young guns ahead of him in the world ranking these days will be as overawed by his presence as they once were.

Has he regained his aura? As Graeme McDowell said last year: “Until he starts winning again, he’s not going to get that back.”

Roll on 2012.

The 14-time major winner has been drawn in Abu Dhabi with world No 1 Luke Donald—a player he once dismissed as a “plodder”—and world No 3 Rory McIlroy, the US Open champion, for the first two rounds in the desert. Free from injury and determined to add to his haul of major wins, Woods suggested that he’s back to where he was between 1999 and 2002 when he captured seven of 11 majors he played.

“It’s been quite a few years since I’ve been physically fit,” Woods said.

“So I’m looking forward to getting out there and then playing and give it a full season, which I haven’t done in a while, so I’m really looking forward to it. I don’t know, probably eight, 10, 12 years ago was the last time I felt fully fit.

“I played really well my last three events, so I’m really looking forward to this year, and continuing and building on what we have done towards the end of last year for sure.”

Having ended a two-year victory drought in his Chevron World Challenge shortly before Christmas, Woods is bullish about the year ahead. He’s also aware that he faces a different challenge this time against young generation of players who do not bear Tiger scars on their backs—McIlroy, Martin Kaymer, Jason Day et al.

“The young guys are practising harder, training harder than ever,” he conceded last week, admitting that regaining his world No 1 ranking from his current position of 25th in the world might not be so easy.

“The level of consistency I had a few years ago would see me climb back up the rankings quickly, but there are some pretty phenomenal golfers out there whom I really respect.”

Woods respects McIlroy and made positives noises yesterday about Donald’s feat of winning both the European and US money lists last season. But before heading out for a quick nine holes with McIlroy, he gave the distinct impression that he was laying down a marker yesterday, as if to say: Watch out. I’m back boys and I’m fully fit this time.

The question remains: Is Tiger ready to roar again? Abu Dhabi could provide some clues.

Brian Keogh covers golf for The Irish Sun and contributes to a variety of golf publications. Pay him a visit at Irish Golf Desk.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Torrey Pines Is Bubba Long

2012-01-24T16:29:00.004-05:00

The long par-4 12th hole on the South Course at Torrey Pines. (Courtesy of D.Hilgart)

THERE ARE HORSES FOR COURSES, as the saying goes, so it makes a lot of sense that long-hitting Bubba Watson won last year’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

Of course, Torrey Pines is two 18-hole tracks, the short North Course and the long South Course. How long? At 7,698 yards, the South Course was the longest course on the PGA Tour in 2011. Next was Cog Hill, site of the BMW Championship, at 7,616 yards followed by Congressional Country Club, site of Rory McIlroy’s record-breaking U.S. Open win, at 7,574 yards.

In 2011, Bubba won at Torrey Pines with a combination of distance and accuracy, putting together a near-perfect ball-striking week. He averaged 316 yards off the tee and hit 82 percent of the greens in regulation, leading in both categories. He also led in proximity to the hole (just under 26 feet).

“Bubba Watson was the only 2011 player to lead the field in both driving distance and greens in regulation and win in the same week,” reported PGATour.com.

Bubba did it twice—at the Farmers Insurance Open and the Zurich Classic, which he also won.

At just 6,874 yards, the North Course is as short as the South Course is long. But it has the toughest fairways to hit on tour. Last year driving-accuracy percentage on Torrey North was a shade below 40 percent. The bunkers are no push over either. Sand-save percentage was 37.71, second only to Royal St. George’s (The Open Championship) in difficulty.

The 2012 Farmers Insurance Open tees off on Thursday.

−The Armchair Golfer

Els and Goosen Overcome by Grace

2012-01-23T16:55:00.003-05:00

Branden Grace

A MONTH AGO SOUTH AFRICAN BRANDEN GRACE was in European Tour Qualifying School. Less than two weeks ago Grace was ranked 258th in the world. Now the 23-year-old sits atop the European Tour money list and is ranked No. 92 in the Official World Golf Ranking after beating boyhood idols Ernie Els and Retief Goosen in a sudden-death playoff at the Volvo Golf Champions, a winners-only event in George, South Africa.

Grace got into the 35-man field by winning the Joburg Open the preceding week in Johannesburg. That makes it two wins in a row for young Grace, who now moves on to the United Arab Emirates for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship where the really big guns come out. The top four players in the world—Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy and Martin Kaymer—will make their 2012 European Tour debut this week. Also in the field is a guy from America named Woods.

Grace closed with a 71 to tie Big Ernie and Retief at 12 under. Els fired a 67; Goosen carded a 70. Grace could have put the tournament away in regulation, but misfired from less than five feet on the final green. But he redeemed himself with a birdie on the first playoff hole, the same par-5 18th, while Els and Goosen could do no better than par.

“It’s a dream come true to win such a big event,” Grace said, “pretty much the best tournament I’ve played in so far.”

Grace is the first European Tour Q-school grad to record back-to-back wins in the year after graduation. He has earned a spot in two WGC events—the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and the WGC-HSBC Champions—and is now exempt on the European Tour through the end of 2014.

−The Armchair Golfer

VIDEO: Two Freds (Couples and Funk) Outside of Comfort Zone

2012-01-21T11:37:00.003-05:00

FRED COUPLES AND FRED FUNK have spent many years together on the golf course. Now, as shown in this humorous spot, the two competitors are honing their pitches for Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating.

Couples has signed a three-year sponsorship deal with the company, while Funk has received an extension. Commercials with the two Champions Tour players will air on Golf Channel and other cable and network stations.

Couples is a winner of 15 PGA Tour events and six Champions Tour events, including the 1992 Masters Tournament, the 1984 and 1996 Players Championship and the 2011 Senior Players Championship. As captain of the U.S. Presidents Cup team, he led America to victory in 2009 and 2011. Couples was named the PGA Player of the Year in 1992 and was twice named PGA Tour Player of the Year.

Funk is a winner of eight PGA Tour events, including the 2005 Players Championship. He has won six Champion Tour events—half of them majors.

−The Armchair Golfer

Ryan Moore: Par, Bogey, Bogey, 61

2012-01-20T20:33:00.003-05:00

Ryan Moore

THREE PLAYERS SHARE THE 36-HOLE LEAD at 16 under at the 2012 Humana Challenge in Partnership with the Clinton Foundation. These guys (all of them, not just the leaders) go especially low in Palm Desert. Ben Crane (63), David Toms (65) and Mark Wilson (62) are at 128, three ahead of a four-player group at 13 under.

But none of the leaders had the low round of the day. That goes to Ryan Moore with a 61. After a mediocre 72 in the opening round, Moore teed off at 9:40 a.m. on Friday with Paul Goydos and amateurs Randy Niederbrach and Pete Knoll. Niederbrach carries a 12 handicap; Noll is a 16.

Moore started out like he was going to put up another 72. He parred the 1st and then made consecutive bogeys. Then he kind of got it going. The Tacoma, Washington, native and former UNLV star played the next 14 holes in 13 under par. That torrid stretch included an eagle at the 4th, six straight birdies on holes 6 through 11, and five consecutive birdies on 13 through 17.

Wouldn’t you love to be at the 19th hole and have someone ask, “How’d you do out there today?”

“I had a 61.”

“Dude! Really?”

Then your buddy chimes in, “And he had two bogeys.”

Actually, a conversation like that probably took place this afternoon at La Quinta. Not only did Moore have two bogeys, he had two amateurs. Boy, their eyes must have been popping out of their sockets.

−The Armchair Golfer

2012 Humana Challenge TV Schedule and Tournament Notes

2012-01-19T17:04:00.002-05:00

THE 2012 HUMANA CHALLENGE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CLINTON FOUNDATION is underway at PGA West (Palmer and Nicklaus courses) in La Quinta, California. It’s early in the first round with most of the field still out on the courses, but Camilo Villegas is the leader in the clubhouse with a 9-under 63. That might just hold up as the first-round lead.

Purse: $5.6 million
Winner’s share: $1.008 million
Defending champion: Jhonattan Vegas

Inside the field
Tee times
Inside the courses
Player interviews
Tournament overview
Tour report
Tournament news
Humana Challenge website

2012 Humana Challenge Leaderboard

TV SCHEDULE

TV coverage of the 2012 Humana Challenge is on Golf Channel.

Thu, 1/19:
GOLF 3p - 6p ET

Fri, 1/20:
GOLF 3p - 6p ET

Sat, 1/21:
GOLF 4p - 7p ET

Sun, 1/22:
GOLF 4p - 7p ET

SIRIUS-XM broadcast times

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Courtesy of PGATour.com)

Diaz to Receive PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism

2012-01-18T15:51:00.001-05:00

By PGA of America

Diaz on Charlie Rose

GOLF DIGEST SENIOR WRITER JAIME DIAZ has been named the recipient of the 2012 PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. Diaz will be honored April 4 at the 40th Golf Writers Association of America Annual Spring Dinner and Awards ceremony in Augusta, Georgia.

“Jaime Diaz has a gift in providing us with many of the finest, thought-provoking profiles of our industry,” said PGA of America President Allen Wronowski. “We may think that we know all that there is to know about golf’s top performers, until Jaime opens another door that causes us to pause and reflect upon the demands of this wonderful game.”

Diaz is the 23rd recipient of the journalism award. Beginning with the 1985 U.S. Open, he has covered more than 100 major championships. He has been awarded first place six times in the Golf Writers Association of America’s Annual Writing Contest.

“I am extremely honored and very humbled, because I’ve had a lot of help,” said Diaz. “I’ve probably been the luckiest golf writer in terms of where I’ve had the opportunity to work and who I’ve worked with. I’ve been especially fortunate at Golf Digest, where Jerry Tarde and his fellow editors are so supportive in allowing me to write in-depth articles about the important figures and issues in the game.”

Diaz began his professional career in 1975 at the Oakland Tribune as a “copy boy,” an entry position that offered a gritty, ground-level view of journalism. From 1978 to 1983, Diaz was a city-side reporter for the Sacramento Bee. He was then hired at Sports Illustrated, where he covered many sports including boxing, tennis and golf.

In 1989, Diaz moved to Golf Digest and soon after to the magazine’s owner at the time, the New York Times, where he was the golf writer until 1993. He then returned to Sports Illustrated to help launch the magazine’s Golf Plus section. He returned to Golf Digest in 2001, where he has remained a senior writer for the world’s largest golf publication, as well as its sister publication, Golf World.

Diaz’s books include teaming with Raymond Floyd in 1998 on The Elements of Scoring, and with Jack Nicklaus and artist Linda Hartough for Hallowed Ground: Golf’s Greatest Places in 1999. Diaz also wrote An Enduring Passion: The Legends and Lore of Golf in 2002. He recently assisted 1993 PGA Teacher of the Year Hank Haney with The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods, scheduled for release in March.

The Rules Geek: 20 Seconds Is Too Late for Rory Sabbatini

2012-01-17T17:10:00.001-05:00

Editor’s note: The Rules Geek is an occasional and potentially annoying feature at ARMCHAIR GOLF.

IMAGINE ARRIVING 20 SECONDS LATE for a tee time. No big deal, right? Wrong, as Rory Sabbatini found out at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions a couple of weeks ago. Sabo showed up 20 ticks late for his second round tee time and got slapped with a two-stroke penalty.

Nothing against the prickly South African, but The Rules Geek loves it. The rules are the rules. Twenty seconds late is late. So is one second. Zero tolerance.

Here’s the penalty for breach of Rule 6-3a:

“If the player arrives at his starting point, ready to play, withing five minutes after his starting time, the penalty for failure to start on time is loss of the first hole in match play or two strokes at the first hole of stroke play. Otherwise, the penalty for breach of this Rule is disqualification.”

How did it happen?

Rory’s caddie (a cat named Mick) had a watch strapped to his wrist that was running four minutes slow. Player and caddie had the wrong time and apparently gauged their arrival on the first tee based on the group ahead of them.

The late-start penalty was an unwelcome surprise, a first on the PGA Tour for both Rory and his bag man.

Sabbatini took it in stride, chalking up the penalty to “one of those goofy moments.” He made bogey on the first hole, added the two, and marked down a triple. From there, he played 6-under to shoot a 3-under 70.

The Rules Geek sez rules were made to be followed. Got a rules-related tip or story? Send it to The Rules Geek at armchairgolfer@gmail.com.

More Rules Geek:
Decision 33-7/4.5 Overhauled for Video Age
Camilo Villegas and the Divot DQ
Bad Behavior Down Under?
Juli Inkster and the Donut DQ
Phil Mickelson and the Proper Drop
Abnormal Ground Conditions Aid Amateur
Hunter Mahan’s Driver Replacement

Hairy Win Spurs Johnson Wagner

2012-01-16T17:56:00.002-05:00

Wagner, pre-facial hair.

JOHNSON WAGNER, WINNER OF THE Sony Open in Hawaii, is a big dude. He stands 6’ 3” and goes 230 (according to his PGA Tour profile, although he might be lighter now). His given name is Montford and he is now wearing a moustache that everyone seems to be talking about.

“I was with my wife’s family in Richmond for Thanksgiving and I just didn’t shave the entire week,” Johnson said. “When I got home, I thought I had never had facial hair. So I thought it was too much growth to just let it go to waste.”

Indeed, a moustache is a terrible thing to waste. Or maybe a mind. Something like that.

Wagner closed with a 3-under 67 at Waialae Country Club to claim his third PGA Tour victory. After two bogeys in the first six holes, he played 4-under the rest of the way on a stingy golf course to beat a quartet of players by two shots—Carl Pettersson, Sean O’Hair, Harrison Frazar and Charles Howell III. The win moved him up 100 spots to No. 92 in the Official World Golf Ranking. The 31-year-old who has been back to Q-school too many times is just getting started, motivated by some new goals.

Johnson wants to return to Augusta, climb into the top 50, play in majors and have a shot at the Ryder Cup team. To that end, he hit the practice tee and gym hard in the offseason, returning to the tour 15 pounds lighter. Nothing like an early “W” to make you feel good about the work.

Where does Wagner go from here? And should he keep the ‘stache?

I don’t know, but I think he should stick with the moustache and also grow sideburns. The facial hair might just be the key.

−The Armchair Golfer

Webb Simpson Floats Back Down to Earth

2012-01-14T15:17:00.001-05:00

IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, Webb Simpson, the young gun who won twice on the PGA Tour late in the 2011 season, has been making a lot of birdies. Until Friday’s second round at the 2012 Sony Open in Hawaii, Simpson had posted 13 straight rounds in the 60s. (In Thursday’s opening round he put together a 66 and was among the leaders.)

Then on Friday the 13th, the streak ended at 13. Now I’m not superstitious, but that is a little weird.

Simpson slumped to a 2-over 72 at Waialae Country Club to make the cut by two shots. He recorded three birdies, including one at the 12th (see above video), but also carded three bogeys and a double bogey. Starting out his third round, he has two bogeys in four holes.

Matt Every is the current leader at 10 under.

−The Armchair Golfer

What Golf Says About Us

2012-01-13T13:39:00.001-05:00

By Charles Prokop
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © Charles Prokop. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Courtesy of Sidereal

THERE’S A TYPE OF PYSCHOLOGICAL DIAGNOSTIC PROCEDURE called a projective test. The idea is that what someone makes of an ambiguous stimulus says more about the person than it says about the stimulus. In the Rorschach Inkblot Technique, probably the best-known projective test, the inkblots aren’t really pictures of anything, so what they look like to me is different from what they look like to you. Our differing perceptions presumably say a lot about the differences in you and me.

I’ve always thought golf was a pretty good projective test. Different folks see golf in different ways, from “How can you waste your time hitting that stupid little ball around a pasture?” to “Golf is the new yoga of the supermind.” I’ll say no more about the golf haters and disparagers in our midst. They deserve only our pity and are beyond our help. With my deepest respect and sympathy, I say to them, “Go with God, but go away.” But for us golfers, golf is many things.

For some of us, golf is an addictive spectator sport. We’ll watch a tape delayed broadcast of players we’ve never heard of battling it out for second place in the Upper Volta Invitational while we wonder how many balls John Daly can hit in the water and still collect his appearance money. And how about that bunker shot that What’s His Name holed to nail down second place? And do you have any idea what kind of trees those were lining the 18th fairway? They don’t have those at my local muni, that’s for sure. (I confess I’m guilty of this. When I want to veg out I’ll watch any golf, anytime, anywhere. Give me a crossword puzzle and a boring golf tournament and I’m happy as a clam.)

Golf is a great soap opera for some folks. Did you hear what Stevie said about Tiger, and what Adam said about Stevie saying what he said? And what’s Tiger going to say about what Adam didn’t say about what Stevie said? Inquiring minds want to know. Discussions like this can go on forever on some golf sites, and often degenerate into wonderfully creative suggestions about what other commenters might consider doing with their anatomies to improve their analytic and playing abilities. If I moderated one of those sites I’m afraid my list of banned commenters would be longer than my list of active commenters. The banned list would likely include myself.

Of course, we don’t just watch golf and talk about golf, we play golf. For some of us golf is a skills challenge, a never-ending quest to get better. We work at it whenever we can, bang those range balls, take those lessons, buy that belly putter. A round below our expectations sends us into fits of despair, rage, or existential ennui. We vow to work harder. Or quit. That works, too.

For others, golf is just a way to relax and have fun with friends. We say we don’t care how we play, it’s only a game, we’re not trying to make the tour anyway. I expect that’s a healthy way to be, but I can’t personally vouch for it. I know one (count ‘em, one) person that I actually believe when he says this. If he thought playing well mattered he wouldn’t be the happy-go-lucky guy he is. I try to avoid him—his happiness might be contagious.

I’m sure there are more ways we look at golf, and each way will say something a little bit different about the personality of that golfer.

In the interest of science, I’m selflessly offering myself as a consultant and diagnostician to dedicated golfers. I’ll be happy to study your golf game in it’s natural habitat and spend time in exhaustive interviews with you as we visit the 19th hole after our rounds. I’ll charge nothing for my professional time. You’ll pay only my travel, my greens fees for our evaluation rounds, and you’ll cover the food and drink during our interviews.

I guarantee my satisfaction. Your satisfaction, not so much. But the experience? Priceless, I say. Priceless.

Charles Prokop is a clinical psychologist who writes about golf at fairwaywords.

2012 Sony Open TV Schedule and Tournament Notes

2012-01-12T18:53:00.005-05:00

THE 2012 SONY OPEN IN HAWAII is underway at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, Hawaii. Graham DeLaet of Canada is the early leader with a 7-under 63. K.J. Choi, Carl Petterson and Kyle Riefers are in the clubhouse with 65s. The first round is still in progress.

Purse: $5.5 million
Winner’s share: $990,000
Defending champion: Mark Wilson

Inside the field
Tee times
Inside the course
Player interviews
Tournament overview
Tour report
Tournament news

2012 Sony Open Leaderboard

TV SCHEDULE

TV coverage of the 2012 Sony Open is on Golf Channel.

Thu, 1/12:
GOLF 7p - 10:30p ET

Fri, 1/13:
GOLF 7p - 10:30p ET

Sat, 1/14:
GOLF 7p - 10:30p ET

Sun, 1/15:
GOLF 7p - 10p ET

SIRIUS-XM broadcast times

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Courtesy of PGATour.com)

LPGA Adds Five Events to 2012 Schedule

2012-01-11T16:49:00.000-05:00

THE LPGA RELEASED ITS 2012 SCHEDULE and, it seems, all meaningful numbers are up. The 27-event schedule features five new tournaments with 100-plus player fields. Four are in North America (three in the United States, one in Canada). The other new event is at Royal Melbourne (site of the Presidents Cup) in Australia, the season-opening ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open.

Total purse money has risen from last year’s $40 million to $47 million for the 2012 season. It includes a $1.5 million purse for the RR Donnelley Founders Cup, which generated controversy last year in its inaugural run because players were required to donate all winnings to charity.

“The commitment and support of our existing tournament sponsors, the dramatic improvement in our television production and viewership, and the significant growth in marketing partners is really the foundation for our schedule growth,” said LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan at LPGA.com.

Whan said the tour’s message is “See Why It’s Different Out Here.” “We’re hopeful that more people than ever before will take notice and become a part of our growth.”

The tour also reported that TV viewership increased by 38 percent in 2011 and its social media reach more than doubled.

2012 LPGA Schedule

Feb. 9-12, ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open, Royal Melbourne (Australia) GC
Feb. 16-19, Honday LPGA Thailand, Siam CC, Thailand
Feb. 23-26, HSBC Women’s Champions, Tanah Merah CC, Singapore
March 15-18, RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup, Wildfire GC, Phoenix, Arizona
March 22-25, Kia Classic, LaCosta R&S, Carlsbad, California
March 29-April 1, Kraft Nabisco Championship, Mission Hills CC, Rancho Mirage, California
April 18-21, LPGA Lotte Championship, TBD, Oahu, Hawaii
April 26-29, Mobile Bay LPGA Classic, RTJ GT, Mobile, Alabama
May 5-6, HSBC Brasil Cup, TBD, Brazil (unofficial)
May 17-20, Sybase Match Play, Hamilton Farm GC, Gladstone, New Jersey
June 1-3, ShopRite LPGA Classic, Seaview GC, Galloway, New Jersey
June 7-10, Wegmans LPGA Championship, Locust Hill CC, Pittsford, New York
June 21-24, Manulife Financial LPGA Classic, Grey Silo GC, Ontario, Canada
June 29-July 1, Walmart MW Arkansas Champ., Pinnacle CC, Rogers, Arkansas
July 5-8, U.S. Women’s Open, Blackwolf Run, Kohler, Wisconsin
July 26-29, Evian Masters, Evian (France) GC
Aug. 9-12, Jamie Farr Toledo Classic, Highland Meadows GC, Sylvania, Ohio
Aug. 17-19, Safeway Classic, Pumpkin Ridge GC, North Plains, Oregon
Aug. 23-26, CN Canadian Women’s Open, Vancouver GC, British Columbia, Canada
Sept. 6-9, Kingsmill Championship, Kingsmill Resort, Williamsburg, Virginia
Sept. 13-16, Ricoh Women’s British Open, Royal Liverpool GC, Hoylake, England
Sept. 20-23, Navistar LPGA Classic, RTJ GT, Prattville, Alabama
Oct. 12-14, Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) G&CC
Oct. 19-21, LPGA HanaBank Championship, Sky72 GC, Korea
Oct. 25-28, Sunrise LPGA Taiwan Championship, Sunrise G&CC, Taiwan
Nov. 2-4, Mizuno Classic, Kintetsu Kashikojima CC, Japan
Nov. 8-11, Lorena Ochoa Invitational, Guadalajara (Mexico) CC
Nov. 15-18, CME Group Titleholders, TwinEagles GC, Naples, Florida
Dec. 9, Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge, Rio Secco GC, Henderson, Nevada (unofficial)

−The Armchair Golfer

Steve Stricker Hangs 12 in Maui

2012-01-10T20:41:00.005-05:00

Steve Stricker is a master at wedge play.

THE MAN WITH THE VELVET PUTTING stroke captured the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course in Maui on Monday. That would be 44-year-old Steve Stricker, who cruised to a three-shot win over Martin Laird by closing with a 69 for a 23-under total of 269.

It was Stricker’s 12th PGA Tour title and his first island victory. A second-round 63 gave the veteran a lead that he was able to protect the rest of the way, although it was cut to a single shot on the back nine of the final round. Then he birdied two of the last three holes and that was that.

As PGATour.com’s Brian Wacker mentioned, Stricker is looking a bit like that poster child for post-40 success, Vijay Singh. Singh has collected 22 tour wins since turning 40, which helped put him into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Stricker, who turns 45 next month, has notched nine wins in his 40s, eight of them since May 2009.

“I just try to do my own thing,” said Stricker, who knows his game and personality are far from flashy. He tries not to compare his game to the other guys, which he said got him into a funk back in the mid 1990s.

So what does he do?

“I chip and putt well,” Stricks said. “I’m driving the ball well.”

That pretty much sums up how to score in golf. Is it any wonder that this aging Wisconsinite can still fill a trophy case?

“Everybody has got a little bit different game, and that’s the way I just kind of look at mine,” he added.

It looks good to me, Steve. Nine-wins-in-the-40s good.

Last night I got so bored watching LSU try to move the football on Alabama in the BCS title game that I switched to the Golf Channel replay of Stricker’s stroll to victory. I guess some of the putts break toward Molokai. I’ll have to remember that for the next time I’m in Kapalua.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

BCS Fever: David Toms Records 2½ Hour Round

2012-01-09T18:05:00.002-05:00

DAVID TOMS WENT OUT FIRST and will finish close to last at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, but he’ll be ready to watch his LSU Tigers take on the Alabama Crimson Tide for the college football national championship on Monday night. Playing alone, Toms raced around the Plantation Course at Kapalua in a mere two-and-a-half hours.

The LSU alum wore school colors (purple shirt, yellow slacks) during his final 18 in Maui, a respectable 2-under 71, his best round en route to a 4-over total of 296. (He shot 76, 74 and 75 on the first three days.) It should be good enough to keep him ahead of Jhonattan Vegas and tie him with Brendan Steele.

Not that Toms is thinking about that. While relatives, including his parents and sister, and close friends will be attending the BCS title game at the Louisiana Superdome, Toms and his wife and kids will be glued to a television screen in Maui.

The PGA Tour veteran said he wouldn’t make a prediction about the outcome of the big game, but was “hoping we’ll have a little bit of the home advantage. Of course, their 40 percent can sound awfully loud.”

And if his No. 1 Tigers lose to the Crimson Tide?

“We’ll sit around and sulk the rest of the day.”

Third-round leader Steve Stricker is currently hanging on to a slim one-shot lead over Webb Simpson and Jonathan Byrd with the final round in progress.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Visor tip: The Tour Report)

Can 2 Men Shave 10 Strokes in 4 Days?

2012-01-08T15:32:00.001-05:00

Pinehurst No. 2 is the site of a unique golf challenge.

TWO MEN. TEN STROKES. FOUR DAYS. With famed Pinehurst No. 2 as the backdrop.

That is the scenario facing Bill Friese and Mike McClanahan in Pinehurst Golf Academy’s “Take 10 Challenge,” a weekly six-part web series that launched last Wednesday with the first episode at www.pinehurst.com/take10.

The two mid 40-year-old, high-handicap golfers (Friese 20, McClanahan 18), who have had limited lessons and have never attended a golf school, are challenged to shave 10 strokes off their first-round scores following four days of instruction at the Pinehurst Golf Academy.

“I always felt like I could be that really good golfer,” said McClanahan. “But I realized that I needed help. It was a real thrill attacking the challenge, and I hope people enjoy watching our journey.”

The 44-year-old McClanahan is a real estate agent from nearby Greensboro, North Carolina. Friese is a hospitality executive from Montana. The series follows the exhilaration and frustration of the two average golfers working to improve their games.

An opening-day round on Pinehurst No. 2 sets the stage for four days of intense instruction at the Academy, which is run by Eric Alpenfels, one of Golf Magazine’s top 100 instructors. The series concludes on February 8 with a pressure-packed final episode, during which the two golfers again tackle No. 2, the home to the 2014 U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open Championships.

“It was a challenge for us, as much as for Bill and Mike,” Alpenfels said. “We wanted so much to help them shave 10 strokes.”

Alpenfels and the Pinehurst Golf Academy team will participate in a weekly Q&A session on Pinehurst’s Facebook page. Followers can ask questions of Alpenfels, who will respond with tips and information related to the previous episode.

(Source: Pinehurst Resort)

(Photo credit: scbluedevil, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

2012 Hyundai Tournament of Champions TV Schedule and Notes

2012-01-06T16:50:00.006-05:00

THE 2012 HYUNDAI TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS is underway at the Plantation Course at Kapalua in Maui, Hawaii. Jonathan Byrd is the defending champion in the 28-player field.

The 11th hole at the Plantation Course.

Purse: $5.6 million
Winner’s share: $1.12 million
Defending champion: Jonathan Byrd

Field
Tee times
Course
Tournament overview
Tournament news

2012 Hyundai Tournament of Champions Leaderboard

TV SCHEDULE

TV coverage of the 2012 Hyundai Tournament of Champions
is on Golf Channel.

Fri, 1/6:
GOLF 5:30p - 10p ET

Sat, 1/7:
GOLF 5:30p - 10p ET

Sun, 1/8:
GOLF 5:30p - 10p ET

Mon, 1/9:
GOLF 4p - 8p ET

PGA Tour radio coverage

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: tobze, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

2012 Masters Field Is Shaping Up

2012-01-05T18:15:00.006-05:00

Courtesy of Shannon Hurst Lane

MASTERS TOURNAMENT CHAIRMAN BILLY PAYNE announced on Tuesday that 104 players have been invited to the 2012 Masters scheduled for April 2-8. Of those invited, 92 are expected to compete, including six amateurs and 14 first-time participants.

Two opportunities still remain to qualify for an invitation to the 2012 Masters: 1) win a PGA Tour event that awards a full-point allocation for the season-ending Tour Championship prior to the 2012 tournament; 2) finish in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking published during the week prior to the Masters.

The 2011 Masters had a field of 99 players. South African Charl Schwartzel captured his first Green Jacket by birdieing the final four holes to win by two over Jason Day and Adam Scott.

The 2012 tournament will be the 76th playing of the Masters.

2012 Masters Invitees

The number(s) after each name indicates the basis of qualification. The Masters Committee, at its discretion, also invites international players not otherwise qualified. (See qualifications criteria below.)

Aaron Baddeley (Australia) (15,17,18) # Sang-moon Bae (Korea) (18) Thomas Bjorn (Denmark) (13,18) # Keegan Bradley (4,15,16,17,18) Jonathan Byrd (15,17) Angel Cabrera (Argentina) (1,2,11) #* Patrick Cantlay (6-B) Paul Casey (England) (18) # Kevin Chappell (12) K. J. Choi (Korea) (5,11,15,17,18) Stewart Cink (3) Tim Clark (South Africa) (5) Darren Clarke (N. Ireland) (3,18) Fred Couples (1,11) Ben Crenshaw (1) Jason Day (Australia) (11,12,15,17,18) Luke Donald (England) (11,15,17,18) Jason Dufner (14,15,17,18) Simon Dyson (England) (18) # Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano (Spain) (18) Ross Fisher (England) (11) Rickie Fowler (18) # Harrison Frazar (16) Jim Furyk (18) Sergio Garcia (Spain) (12,18) # Robert Garrigus (12) Lucas Glover (2,16) Bill Haas (15,16,17,18) Anders Hansen (Denmark) (14,18) Peter Hanson (Sweden) (12,18) Padraig Harrington (Ireland) (3,4) Charles Howell III (15,17) Trevor Immelman (South Africa) (1,11) Fredrik Jacobson (Sweden) (15,16,17,18) Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spain) (18) Dustin Johnson (13,15,16,17,18) Zach Johnson (1,18) Robert Karlsson (Sweden) (14,18) Martin Kaymer (Germany) (4,18) Kyung-Tae Kim (Korea) (18) #* Kelly Kraft (6-A) Matt Kuchar (15,17,18) Martin Laird (Scotland) (15,18) Bernhard Langer (Germany) (1) #* Randal Lewis (10) Sandy Lyle (Scotland) (1) #* Bryden Macpherson (Australia) (7) Hunter Mahan (15,17,18) * Hideki Matsuyama (Japan) (8) Graeme McDowell (N. Ireland) (2,18) Rory McIlroy (N. Ireland) (2,11,18) Phil Mickelson (1,13,15,17,18) #* Corbin Mills (9) Larry Mize (1) Edoardo Molinari (Italy) (11) Francesco Molinari (Italy) (18) Kevin Na (15) Geoff Ogilvy (Australia) (11,17,18) Sean O'Hair (16) Jose Maria Olazabal (Spain) (1) Mark O'Meara (1) Louis Oosthuizen (S. Africa) (3,18) Ryan Palmer (11) Ian Poulter (England) (18) Alvaro Quiros (Spain) (18) Chez Reavie (17) Justin Rose (England) (11,15,16,17,18) Rory Sabbatini (South Africa) (15) Charl Schwartzel (South Africa) (1,15,18) Adam Scott (Australia) (11,15,16,17,18) John Senden (Australia) (17,18) # Webb Simpson (15,16,17,18) Vijay Singh (Fiji) (1,15,17) Brandt Snedeker (11,15,16,17,18) Craig Stadler (1) # Scott Stallings (16) # Brendan Steele (16) Henrik Stenson (Sweden) (5) Steve Stricker (11,15,16,17,18) David Toms (14,15,16,17,18) Bo Van Pelt (11,15,17,18) Scott Verplank (14) Nick Watney (15,16,17,18) Bubba Watson (15,16,17,18) Tom Watson (1) Mike Weir (Canada) (1) Lee Westwood (England) (11,12,18) Mark Wilson (15,17) Gary Woodland (15,17) Tiger Woods (1,2,4,11,18) Ian Woosnam (Wales) (1) Y. E. Yang (Korea) (4,12,17,18).

# Denotes first Masters
* Denotes Amateur

Past champions not expected to participate:

Tommy Aaron, Jack Burke Jr., Billy Casper, Charles Coody, Nick Faldo, Raymond Floyd, Doug Ford, Bob Goalby, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Fuzzy Zoeller.

2012 Masters Qualifications

1. Masters Tournament Champions (Lifetime)
2. US Open Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)
3. British Open Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)
4. PGA Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)
5. Winners of The Players Championship (Three years)
6. Current US Amateur Champion (6-A) (Honorary, non-competing after 1 year) and the runner-up (6-B) to the current US Amateur Champion
7. Current British Amateur Champion (Honorary, non-competing after 1 year)
8. Current Asian Amateur Champion
9. Current US Amateur Public Links Champion
10. Current US Mid-Amateur Champion
11. The first 16 players, including ties, in the previous year's Masters Tournament
12. The first 8 players, including ties, in the previous year's US Open Championship
13. The first 4 players, including ties, in the previous year's British Open Championship
14. The first 4 players, including ties, in the previous year's PGA Championship
15. The 30 leaders on the Final Official PGA Tour Money List for the previous calendar year
16. Winners of PGA Tour events that award a full-point allocation for the season-ending Tour Championship, from
previous Masters to current Masters
17. Those qualifying for the previous year's season-ending Tour Championship
18. The 50 leaders on the Final Official World Golf Ranking for the previous calendar year
19. The 50 leaders on the Official World Golf Ranking published during the week prior to the current Masters Tournament

(Source: Masters.com)

Bill Clinton’s Dream Sixsome

2012-01-04T13:47:00.001-05:00

Former president Bill Clinton in 2009.

WHEN ASKED ABOUT HIS DREAM FOURSOME by a San Bernardino, California, newspaper, former president Bill Clinton named six individuals, making it a sixsome (seven, I guess, if you count Clinton). They included six-time British Open winner Harry Vardon, two Roosevelts (Teddy and Franklin), Abraham Lincoln, Bobby Jones and Sam Snead.

The former president called Vardon a “smart rascal,” noting that he owns two first-edition books by Vardon and has read all the others.

It surprised me a bit that Clinton never played with Snead, who died in 2002 at the age of 89. Apparently there was an offer, though.

“When he was 82, he said he’d play me and take no more than $1,000 from me,” Clinton said. That would have been a rather expensive round, but maybe not by their standards.

I think the ex-president has chosen well in terms of old-time golfers. I would love to tee it up with Vardon, Jones and Snead. Can you imagine the shots you would witness? The things you could learn. Oh my.

Lincoln is an interesting choice for Mr. Clinton. Do you suppose he’d let “Honest Abe” keep the scorecard?

−The Armchair Golfer

(Visor tip: Press Tent blog)

(Photo credit: Golf Channel)

The Sudden Departure of Jim Huber

2012-01-03T18:15:00.004-05:00

Jim Huber

JIM HUBER WAS A MEDIA MEMBER I wanted to meet when I knew I would be attending the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional. It was my first U.S. Open inside the media center. It turned out that Jim was seated in the row directly behind me, just a few feet away. We met, talked and shared a lunch table one day. He was as gracious in person as he came across on the TV screen in his role as an award-winning sports broadcaster and essayist.

Jim died on Monday just days after being diagnosed with acute leukemia. He was 67. He had been caring for his wife, Carol, who was released from the hospital on December 20, when his own health was suddenly in jeopardy. His family, friends and colleagues are shocked and extremely saddened by the sudden loss.

Back to my encounters with Jim at the Open and in the latter half of 2011. I had brought along his book about Tom Watson’s near history-making win at the 2009 British Open, FOUR DAYS IN JULY, which Jim autographed for me at Congressional. I learned we had something in common. Jim and I were with the same publisher (St. Martin’s Press-Thomas Dunne Books), including the same editor, for our golf books.

I stayed in touch with Jim after the Open. I wanted to do something on his book in this space, so in early July I sent him some questions. Less than an hour later the answers arrived in my inbox.

“You’re amazing, Jim,” I replied. “Fastest turnaround ever.”

“It’s the old paperboy in me, Neil,” Jim quipped.

You can read our Q&A here.

Later on, in late summer or early fall, I mailed a copy of FOUR DAYS IN JULY to Atlanta, where Jim lived. He autographed it for my brother and mailed it back, the $10 for return postage still clipped to the dust jacket.

While I only knew of Jim and his broadcast work until this past summer, there are many journalists, players and fans who knew him well through his long career covering golf and other sports. I’ll close with Jim’s main subject in FOUR DAYS IN JULY. Tom Watson said this in a statement at PGA.com:

“We will sorely miss Jim and his Huberization of the events, people, and places in our wonderful world of golf. His grand storytelling and the way he treated his fellow human beings are what I will remember most about this fine gentleman.”

−The Armchair Golfer

Read more:
Huber’s sudden passing is a sad blow (Augusta Chronicle)
Jim Huber remembered (PGA.com)

Best of 2011: Be Mine, Pebble Beach Golf Links

2011-12-31T11:26:00.001-05:00

Editor’s note: As the year comes to a close, I offer one last post from the 2011 season. This one ran on Valentine’s Day. Happy New Year to you and yours.

D.A. POINTS AND BILL MURRAY won the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Yeah, whatever.

The real question on this Valentine’s Day—and as I stared longingly at Pebble on my TV screen on Sunday—is this: When am I going to play America’s majestic golf sweetheart? When will Pebble Beach Golf Links be mine, if only for a day?

I had a goal. The goal was to play Pebble by my 40th birthday. I talked to my pop about it. He would be 70. I lived in Seattle. He lived in Southern California. We could meet in between on the Monterey Peninsula. It didn’t happen. Several birthdays have since passed. Now I live on the East Coast.

At the time, I could get my head around $250 green fees. Now Pebble is up to $495 for 18 holes, among the highest green fees in the galaxy. A caddie runs $75. The suggested gratuity is $50. On the other hand, you can ride a cart for only $35.

I realize my chances of playing Pebble are not improving. Distance and dough are coming between us. Maybe I need to rethink this item on my bucket list. (This is starting to get a bit maudlin. Sorry.)

In an article at PGA.com, PGA professional Danny Elkins wrote, “Pebble Beach is the type of course that every golfer should aspire to visit. It’s not about your score when you play there, it’s more about the experience of playing there. The scenery and setting, the history and the challenge will last you a lifetime.”

I’m a sometimes golfer. So yes, Danny. I still aspire to get there. I haven’t lost hope.

And if I do make it to Pebble, I promise, promise, promise I won’t spit on the greens—or anywhere else, for that matter. I’ll drool uncontrollably. And there’s a very good chance I’ll pee my pants. But I would never spit. ABSOLUTELY NOT.

−The Armchair Golfer

Related:
Best of 2011: The High School Golf Swing of Bubba Watson
Best of 2011: Seve’s Brother: ‘What These Hands Have Done in the World’

Best of 2011: The High School Golf Swing of Bubba Watson

2011-12-30T11:43:00.001-05:00

Editor’s note: As the year comes to a close, I offer another favorite post from the 2011 season. This one, from late January, addresses the unorthodox golf action of Bubba Watson.

Bubba Watson launches one.

CBS’S PETER KOSTIS DOES A GOOD JOB on swing analyses. While other golf talking heads sound like they’re blowing smoke, Kostis, as I’ve written, hypnotizes me. He just sounds believable.

However, as I learned yesterday watching the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open, even Kostis struggles to put Bubba Watson’s swing into words. I sympathize. Bubba’s action defies explanation. It just works. Watson had all the shots in his bag this past weekend as he cruised to his second career victory at Torrey Pines.

Not long before Kostis and crew took a slo-mo look at Bubba, Kostis analyzed the swing of Bob Hope Classic winner Jhonattan Vegas. Vegas contended to the very end on Sunday before dumping his second shot into the pond that fronts the 18th green. Vegas’s swing looks like it’s out of a golf instruction book. Kostis drew two lines and a triangle, explaining how Vegas was on plane and returned the club to the same position and angle as at address. Kostis was like a college anatomy professor explaining how and why it works.

Hitting It Bubba Long

After Bubba launched a 363-yard drive on the par-5 13th, Kostis took a swing-vision gander at the lefty from Bagdad, Florida. I can’t remember much of what he said. I just remember thinking he was at a loss for words.

Bubba is unconventional, to say the least. It’s fairly easy to see at full speed. He has an open stance and a big loopy swing with a follow through that always has me wondering where the ball is going. In slow motion, it’s crazy. On the backswing—dare I say the longest backswing on tour?—the clubhead is pointing at the ground. And on the downswing, just before impact, Bubba is up on the toes of both feet!

I think I figured out why Bubba can’t be explained with lines and triangles. He has a high school golf swing. It’s not a knock. It means he’s untouched, intuitive and creative. He has never had a lesson or a swing coach. He says he never will.

A high school golf swing is long, natural, athletic. I saw lots of them when I played high school golf in California. They’re raw, loopy, wristy and powerful. High school golfers who advance in the game usually shorten and refine their swings as they grow and mature. They adopt “positions” and shed the untamed golf swings of their youth. (I used to have a backswing as long as John Daly—when I was 14. Now I can’t turn past parallel.)

Bubba is self taught, unchanged. He has refined a one-of-a-kind swing that busts 350-yard drives and curves shots 30 yards to the left or right.

“I’ll never change from that,” he told SI’s Farrell Evans last year. “I’ll keep playing golf the way I know how to play it and hopefully that will keep me on tour.”

I think Bubba is going to be around for awhile.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: jpellgen, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Best of 2011: Seve’s Brother: ‘What These Hands Have Done in the World’

2011-12-29T16:26:00.000-05:00

Editor’s note: As the year comes to a close, I’d like to offer a few of my favorite stories that appeared here. The following piece about the death of Seve Ballesteros is from early May. Many thanks to Brian Keogh for allowing me to share his words in this space.

By Brian Keogh
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

IT WAS AN ALMOST SACRED RITUAL. Wiping away the tears that streamed down his cheeks, Baldomero Ballesteros undressed his brother Severiano’s body with an almost maternal gentleness and dressed him in his Sunday uniform—the white shirt, the same navy blue sweater and navy blue slacks that he had habitually worn on the final day of his greatest triumphs.

The family had gathered around Seve’s bedside on Friday and cried silent, bitter tears.

“I held his hands and stroked them and thought: what these hands have done in the world,” the eldest of the Ballesteros brothers told the Spanish sports daily Marca.

“He knew he was dying and he did so with total integrity. More than a brother or a son or a father, a glory has left us.

“He said goodbye to everyone one by one. He clutched our hands, he whispered in our ears. I moved in very close and said: ‘I love you’. And Seve replied: ‘I love you too.’”

Baldomero believed that it was “best” to dress his beloved brother in the Sunday uniform that defined him as one of golf’s greats, one of the sport’s true legends.

“I thought it was best and everyone nodded in agreement,” he said.

Baldomero was asked by national and international sporting and political bodies how best to honour Seve after his death and the manner in which they could say their last goodbyes. But Seve himself had already told him how he wanted it to be: his wake, cremation and burial in the lands surrounding his home were to be conducted in absolute intimacy.

“He told us everything. There was to be just a funeral in the town church and nothing more. Everything else was to remain within the intimacy of the family. Seve is a village boy and we thought it was best. His funeral rites will be as simple as for any other neighbour. He will be sent on his way like anyone else. He was born here and he will remain here.”

Seve will be cremated in a secret location, as was his express wish and his ashes will remain on the lands of his Pedreña home.

The funeral will take place on Wednesday at one o’clock at the parish church of San Pedro de Pedreña and the family will then receive his mortal remains and respect his final wishes by burying his ashes under the cool green grass that gave him so much happiness, so much humanity and so much glory.

Brian Keogh covers golf for The Irish Sun and contributes to a variety of golf publications. Pay him a visit at Irish Golf Desk.

Add ‘TEE IT FORWARD’ to New Year’s Resolutions

2011-12-28T14:17:00.001-05:00

By PGA of America

Courtesy of Lounge!

FOLLOWING THE SUCCESSFUL PILOT LAUNCH of TEE IT FORWARD in July 2011, the PGA and USGA are encouraging golfers to continue to tee it forward and play from distances that match their playing skills in 2012.

More than 1,900 facilities registered in 2011 with an average of 123 golfers per facility (nearly 237,000 nationwide) hitting their golf balls from forward tees during the promotional period. In addition, a survey of more than 3,000 consumers who experienced the program showed that 70 percent found their round of golf more enjoyable. More than 90 percent said they would recommend TEE IT FORWARD to a friend. The survey also found nearly 50 percent of respondents saying the program helped them play faster.

“These golfers told us that they found golf more enjoyable by playing courses at shorter lengths than usual,” said PGA of America President Allen Wronowski. “This initiative also generated incredible buzz through traditional and social media, as well as at golf facilities across the country.”

“We are encouraged by the results of our pilot,” said USGA President Jim Hyler, “and believe this new approach to the game is really beginning to catch on with golfers of all skill levels.”

TEE IT FORWARD was the brainchild of industry veteran Barney Adams, retired founder of Adams Golf. Adams was an ambassador for TEE IT FORWARD in 2011 and will continue in that role.

“I’ve been around the game for more than 30 years and continue to be amazed as golfers make it much harder than it should be by playing golf courses at distances that don’t come close to matching their abilities,” said Adams.

“By playing from forward tees, amateur golfers have the chance to play the course at the same relative distance as a touring professional would over 18 holes. We need golfers to be hitting 8-irons and wedges into par 4s like the pros, not fairway woods.”

Originally highlighted during a specific time period in 2011, TEE IT FORWARD will now be promoted as a year-round initiative. Courses can set up additional tees to provide golfers with more options or simply encourage golfers to use existing forward tees. The PGA and USGA will be developing educational and promotional materials to be distributed to golf facilities across the country.

(Brought to you by Direct Golf U.K.)

Caddie-less Laura Davies Pulls Trolley at Indian Open

2011-12-27T14:08:00.001-05:00

Laura Davies

WITH 81 WINS, INCLUDING 20 on the LPGA Tour and four major titles, Laura Davies is one of the greatest female tour pros to play the game. Yet earlier this month at the Indian Open, an event on the Ladies European Tour (LET), Ms. Davies toted her own golf clubs like a rank amateur.

Her caddie was delayed due to visa problems. When her bag man didn’t arrive in New Delhi, Davies took matters into her own hands, refusing to hire a club caddie, a new twist in a long globetrotting career.

“Ended up having to pull my own trolley around, which is the first time I’ve done that in 26 years on tour,” Davies told the Associated Press. “I shot 3 over the first day. He made it for the second round, but it didn’t work out. I missed the cut.

“The officials were like, ‘You should take a local,’” added Davies. “But I was just irritated. So I just wanted to get out there, try and shoot something that wasn’t going to ruin the week, and I ended up shooting 3 over and the week was over before it got started.”

Davies, who was winless in 2011 after a five-win 2010 season, finished 48th on the LET money list. Whether or not she wins again, she should be enshrined in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Did I mention Davies was the defending champion at the Indian Open?

“These things happen,” she said about the caddie-less first round, “but it was a shame.”

−The Armchair Golfer

‘Good One’

2011-12-24T11:49:00.003-05:00

(From the ARMCHAIR GOLF archives.)

KIRK TRIPLETT IS WORKING ON SOMETHING. Only he and his caddie know for sure. Actually, I’m going to say that his caddie doesn’t know. He’s working the towel. That’s what he does.

If you’ve ever watched Tour pros beat balls, you know that after the initial excitement wears off it’s pretty boring. Pick any guy out there and watch them hit for a while. You’ll see what I mean.

PGA Tour journeyman Kirk Triplett and his caddie.

Here’s what’s going through my mind as I watch them go through the bag—the wedges, the irons, the metals—and slowly dismantle that perfectly stacked pyramid of shiny white golf balls on the practice tee:

“Good one. Good one. Good one. Good one. Good one.” (Player pauses to stare at something or chuckle with caddie.) “Good one. Good one. Good one.”

They might be working on something. They might just be warming up. They might be showing off. I have no idea. All I’ve got is “Good one. Good one. Good one.”

I have a suspicion that I’m not the only one who is unable to detect the subtleties of range work. A couple of Tour pros, Charles Howell III and J.B. Holmes, recently spotted Tiger on the Isleworth practice tee. Holmes said, “It looks like he’s hitting it pretty good.” Howell said, “Seriously, he seemed like he was hitting it the same as he ever did.”

I totally understand that because, one, he’s Tiger Woods, but also because I come to the same conclusion every time I watch players swing the clubs on the range. Maybe I’ll switch things up and use J.B.’s line.

“It looks like he’s hitting it pretty good.” (Next guy.) “It looks like he’s hitting it pretty good.” (Next guy.) “It looks like he’s hitting it pretty good.” (Next guy …

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: RGlasson, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Rules Geek: ‘New Year, New Rules’ to Air on Golf Channel

2011-12-23T15:21:00.003-05:00

Editor’s note: The Rules Geek is an occasional and potentially annoying feature at ARMCHAIR GOLF.

“NEW YEAR, NEW RULES” IS A 30-minute special that will preview rules changes that go in effect on January 1 and are covered in the 2012 Rules of Golf. The program airs on Golf Channel on December 31 (New Year’s Eve) at 11:30 p.m. ET.

The Rules Geek realizes that you’ll probably be busy ringing in the new year. Not to worry. The rules show will run every half hour from 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. ET on January 1 (New Year’s Day). It will also be shown that night at 8 p.m.

(Don’t tell me you can’t take a 30-minute break from bowl games and yucking it up with friends and relatives. This is important, golfers.)

The program goes over the new rules you’ll need to know, with video examples and situational analysis from experts such as USGA Executive Director Mike Davis and Thomas Pagel, the USGA’s senior director of Rules and Amateur Status. The Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner and Frank Nobilo will provide commentary.

Preview rules changes for the 2012-2015 cycle.

The Rules Geek sez rules were made to be followed. Got a rules-related tip or story? Send it to The Rules Geek at armchairgolfer@gmail.com.

More Rules Geek:
Decision 33-7/4.5 Overhauled for Video Age
Camilo Villegas and the Divot DQ
Bad Behavior Down Under?
Juli Inkster and the Donut DQ
Phil Mickelson and the Proper Drop
Abnormal Ground Conditions Aid Amateur
Hunter Mahan’s Driver Replacement

Rory McIlroy Holes Out on Burj Al Arab Helipad

2011-12-22T17:42:00.004-05:00

THIS MAKES ME DIZZY JUST WATCHING it. That’s world No. 3 Rory McIlroy atop the Burj Al Arab Hotel, 700 feet above Dubai’s Jumeirah Beach. McIlroy blasted bunker shots from the helipad with his caddie J.P. Fitzgerald by his side. And, yes, he holed one, just like he did a few weeks ago on the final hole to win the UBS Hong Kong Open.

The Mail Online has an assortment of stunning images of the promotional stunt.

Brian Keogh filed an insightful report at Irish Golf Desk on McIlroy, including how the 2011 Masters was a turning point in his career.

McIlroy tells Keogh:

“It was definitely the point where I reached the crossroads in my career where I could keep going the wrong way or really take responsibility for myself and say, ‘right, this is what I’ve got to do to get better and win, and improve as a player’.

“The Masters was huge for me. It was a huge disappointment at the time but reflecting on it, looking back on it, it was probably the most important day of my career so far.”

−The Armchair Golfer

(Visor tip: Geoff Shackelford)

Lee Westwood, Golf and Dance Man

2011-12-21T16:06:00.004-05:00

LEE WESTWOOD BLISTERED THE GOLF COURSE in winning the Thailand Open last week by seven shots. The Englishman opened with 60 and 64 and cruised home with a 22-under total of 266. It came on the heels of his win at the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa and was his third victory of the 2011 season.

Westwood has risen to No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking and intends to spend more time on the PGA Tour during the coming season as preparation for winning that elusive first major championship.

But, as I learned from John Huggan’s reporting in The Scotsman, the man from Worksop has a fallback plan of sorts. Whenever it’s time to hang up the sticks, Westwood may just strap on the dance shoes.

Huggan wrote that golf’s world No. 2 “is favourably inclined to give Strictly Come Dancing a try.” (Strictly Come Dancing inspired America’s Dancing with the Stars and several other international dance shows.)

“In retirement I’d love to have a go,” Westwood told Huggan. “My Nan and Grandad used to run an old-time dance school, so I did do a bit when I was a little boy. I was even ‘highly commended’ in a couple of dances: the Lilac Waltz and the Boston Two-Step. And I’ve still got the medals to prove it.

“We’re talking 30 years ago mind. So it’s been a while since I slipped on my patent dancing shoes. I’m a bit out of practice. But I’d have a fair idea going in. Although I’m not too sure how I’d look in those tight sequined outfits. I think I’d have to lose some weight. And the fake tan? I’d have to get the hair-removing cream out first!”

Added Huggan: “Quite apart from any insider knowledge gained in childhood, Westwood would make the ideal Strictly competitor. Given the dedication and discipline he routinely brings to his day job, no one in the starting line-up would take it more seriously and try harder to improve.”

It can’t be any harder than putting those mammoth, undulating greens at Augusta National, right?

−The Armchair Golfer

Miller and Faldo at ARMCHAIR GOLF Roundtable

2011-12-20T17:23:00.003-05:00

WITH THE GOLF CHANNEL’S ANNOUNCEMENT that Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo will share the broadcast booth at the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions, it seemed like an opportune time to take another look at the two men—their thoughts on the game and their legacies.

Please note that the following are real quotes and comments. The questions are made up. Welcome to the ARMCHAIR GOLF roundtable.

Sir Nick Faldo at the 2010 Masters.

At the roundtable:
Johnny Miller – Two-time major winner and NBC lead golf analyst
Nick Faldo – Six-time major winner and CBS lead golf analyst

Q: Gentlemen, welcome to the roundtable. Johnny, let’s start with you. You’re known for speaking your mind, even saying the world’s best golfers choke.

JOHNNY MILLER: Everyone has his own choking level, a level at which he fails to play his normal golf. As you get more experienced, your choking level rises.

Q: Nick, what’s your take on dealing with the pressure?

NICK FALDO: It’s all about the bottle, the British term meaning the ability to be in a situation and feel comfortable, be in control and have the mental toughness to get the job done.

Q: So when you were playing …

NICK FALDO: The word is control. That’s my ultimate, to have control.

Q: Johnny, what about on the greens? You struggled late in your career. How would you describe the yips?

JOHNNY MILLER: Basically, it’s the inability to make your hands obey the commands your mind gives them.

Q: Any other problem areas you see in other players?

JOHNNY MILLER: Too many people carry the last shot with them. It is a heavy and useless burden.

Q: What advice would you give, Nick?

NICK FALDO: Listen to your heart and gut. That small voice inside you. How often have you left the house knowing you’ve forgotten something, and it turns out you have? Intuition is very powerful, and certainly it’s true in golf.

Q: You’ve called the U.S. Open an exam. What did you mean by that?

NICK FALDO: You’ve got a fairly good idea as to what the questions are going to be. But how to record the best answer is another matter.

Q: Johnny, your thoughts on the U.S. Open?

JOHNNY MILLER: I think Darth Vader is actually a USGA official.

Q: Still, it’s a …

NICK FALDO: The majors are what golf’s all about. The other ones you play for the prize money. These you play to get your name on a piece of silver.

Q: Actually, that’s a good segue. Talk a bit about your place in golf.

JOHNNY MILLER: I try to be semi-humble. If I started going around saying how good I was, everything would go wrong.

Q: Who was the most talented player you ever saw?

JOHNNY MILLER: I’m not sure the most talented player I ever saw wasn’t myself.

Q: Nick?

NICK FALDO: Years from now I want people to be able to say, “I saw Faldo play.”

Q: Anything else, fellas?

GARY MCCORD: There are two things that guys on Tour do not like: playing in the wind and me dating their sister.

Q: Oh, hey Gary. Thanks for your time, Johnny, Nick and, um, Gary.

–The Armchair Golfer

(Source: The Gigantic Book of Golf Quotations, published by Skyhorse Publishing.)

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

LPGA Commish Politely Scolds Golf Magazine

2011-12-19T15:25:00.004-05:00

Mike Whan

LPGA COMMISSIONER MIKE WHAN LET GOLF MAGAZINE know what he thought of the publication’s decision to name Rory McIlroy 2011 Player of the Year and put the young Northern Irishman on the cover. The magazine recently published the commissioner’s missive as the lead-off letter in its January 2012 issue.

“I am surprised and disappointed that the editors of Golf Magazine overlooked the 11 worldwide victories and two major championships that Rolex Rankings No. 1 Yani Tseng has compiled as of November 1 when choosing Golf Magazine’s Player of the Year.”

(As of November 1, Rory McIlroy had one win during the 2011 season, the U.S. Open. Rory has since won the Hong Kong Open.)

Whan continued.

“This season, she [Tseng] became the youngest player in history—male or female—to win five major championships at the age of 22.

“It’s unfortunate I have to write this letter,” the LPGA commissioner said a few lines later, adding, “total wins, total majors, records that transcend sport, and leadership in nearly every statistical category should have been more than enough for Golf Magazine to reach a very obvious conclusion.”

Maybe the editors of Golf Magazine were swayed by their poll on Facebook. On October 25, the magazine asked: “Who should be Golf Magazine’s Player of the Year in 2011?”

Here’s the vote count:

Yani Tseng - 5,300 votes (96%)
Luke Donald - 159 votes (3%)
Rory McIlroy - 56 votes (1%)
Keegan Bradley - 28 votes (--)

Gee, that couldn’t have gone into their thinking. Poor Rory only received 1% of the vote. It must have been something else.

“No question Donald and Tseng had more impressive bottom lines in ‘11,” said senior editor Alan Bastable in an early November chat session about the POY choice, “but neither player generated the rock-star hysteria Rory whipped up this season.”

Ah, rock-star hysteria. Mr. Whan?

“There is absolutely no doubt … that his [McIlroy’s] win at the U.S. Open created positive waves throughout the game. You have to ask yourself one question, though. If Yani’s 2011 season had been achieved by a man, would you have come to the same conclusion on the 2011 Golf Magazine Player of the Year? I think we all know the answer.”

Hmmm.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Visor tip: Waggle Room)

Best of the Best—PGA Tour Q-School of 1971 (Conclusion)

2011-12-17T18:31:00.002-05:00

(Editor’s note: This is the final installment of of a six-part series. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.)

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © John Coyne. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

EARLY ON THE LAST DAY of play, David Glenz from Coquille, Oregon, a June graduate of the University of Oregon with a degree in marketing, came from nowhere with a closing 69 to qualify with 442. David Graham slipped to 78 on his final round, but he was in at 440, good enough to qualify and that was all that mattered.

“It doesn’t matter where you finish,” he told me. “Just as long as you qualify.”

By three o’clock on Saturday, October 16, 1971, with most of the field in, it appeared to Joe Dey that 444 was the magic number, and he drove a cart to the eighteenth tee to tell the finishers.

The tournament was over except for watching the final threesome of Bob Zender, Tom Watson and Sam Adams on 18. They gave the spectators something to applaud.

Zender, putting first, left a 60-foot putt hanging on the lip. He settled for a 69 and finished with 425, three shots ahead of everyone else. He picked up the thousand dollars that a shirt manufacturer had donated for first prize. Then Adams, with a putt nearly as long, dropped his for a 69. It was left to Watson to top that, and he almost did, lipping the cup for his birdie. Smiling under a bushy red moustache, he tapped in for a final par and a 75, and was on his way to a great professional career.

Spike Kelley could not put it together on the last day and faded with 79, a total of 450, six shots too many. His cheerfulness, which had made him a favorite of the few spectators who came every day to camp on the ninth and eighteenth greens or walk a few holes in the sun, didn’t leave him. It hadn’t been a wasted week he told everyone.

“After all,” he said, “I got to play on a great golf course.” And he had plans to return to Q-School the next year when the tournament moved west. “I hope we play in California. I’ve never been to Disneyland.”

I don’t know if Spike ever made it to Disneyland, but I do know, and I regret to say, he never made a splash on the PGA Tour.

John Coyne is a bestselling author whose latest book is The Caddie Who Won the Masters. Learn more at John Coyne Books.

Best of the Best—PGA Tour Q-School of 1971 (Part 5)

2011-12-16T11:03:00.003-05:00

(Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.)

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © John Coyne. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

BACK AT PGA NATIONAL FOR THE fourth round of the 1971 Q-School the pairings changed, but the leaders were still dispersed throughout the groups. There were no galleries to worry about, and the few members around had volunteered to keep the players’ cards and serve as caddies.

Before teeing off on Thursday, a hot, humid day, players began to pause in front of the leader board and silently count off the spots to see where they stood. No one choked Thursday. A few even gained positions under the pressure of the cut-off.

David Graham had his lowest round, a 70. Graham told me late in the evening when he was still on the range, “Here there is no tomorrow. It’s one tournament that means everything for the year.”

Meanwhile Leonard Thompson, who had played poorly the first and third rounds, began to put his game together. On Thursday he shot 73. And John Mahaffey of Houston, a protégé of Ben Hogan’s (whom he telephoned after every round), had another of his consistent par rounds to challenge for the lead.

On Friday, with the pros grouped according to scores for the first time, Bruce Fleisher lost his game and shot his worst round, a 79. Lanny Wadkins lost the tournament lead to Bob Zender when he finished with a 75. Failing to putt well the fifth day, he switched putters in the middle of the round. And Rogelio Gonzales of Colombia, a member of that country’s World Cup team, who had brought along a translator for the two days of classroom instruction, fired a 71, his best round of the tournament.

Spike Kelley, who had scores of 80,74,72,74, finally got one under on the fifth day, a 71, and was tied for the twenty-third spot. He needed a 72 or 73 on the last day to qualify, to gain his card and perhaps a few more plane rides.

“Me, on the tour! I’ll have to buy a golf bag.” The one he was using at Palm Beach was borrowed. “A member at my club gave it to me when I qualified so I’d look like a golfer.”

(To be continued.)

John Coyne is a bestselling author whose latest book is The Caddie Who Won the Masters. Learn more at John Coyne Books.

LPGA Player Morgan Pressel Tours Israel

2011-12-15T14:26:00.002-05:00

Morgan Pressel rides a camel on goodwill trip to Israel.

LAST WEEK I MENTIONED COLIN MONTGOMERIE and his trip to Afghanistan. This week, it’s Morgan Pressel and her tour of Israel. Golfers as ambassadors, part two.

The LPGA player and major winner is in the midst of an eight-day trip to see Israel’s many historical and cultural sights, meet dignitaries and host golf clinics for local children. She led a roundtable discussion with Israeli and Palestinian youth in the hopes that golf could teach some important life lessons.

Stops along the way have included (or will include) a tour of the Western Wall, a visit to Yad Vashem (Israel’s national Holocaust Memorial Museum) and the Dead Sea. Pressel also planned to meet with various Israeli signatories and leaders, including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

In an undated report at LPGA.com, Pressel wrote that her most moving experience thus far was her breakfast with Seeds for Peace, an organization that encourages dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian youth.

“The purpose of the organization is not to tell the kids whether they are right or wrong,” explained Pressel, “but is to teach them how to discuss the conflict and create more of an understanding of all sides of the issues.

“[A] young Palestinian woman said the experience had encouraged her to study politics in college, so she could gain an even deeper understanding of the situation, and hopefully one day help to resolve it. They both expressed they learned the other cultures consisted of people with feelings and heart, just as they have, and said they returned home with friends they never imagined they would have.”

With the addition of golf at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Pressel plans to lead more trips to Israel to create additional awareness and support for the game, especially among young children and adults.

Read Morgan Pressel’s Israel trip diary

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Morgan Pressel Foundation)

Nike Tour Players Talk About Putting

2011-12-14T15:21:00.000-05:00

CONSIDER THIS YOUR WEDNESDAY GOLF LESSON. Nike tour players Paul Casey, Stewart Cink, Anthony Kim, Suzann Pettersen, Charl Schwartzel, Jhonattan Vegas and Tiger Woods offer a few thoughts on putting.

Confidence is important. Pettersen: No doubts. Don’t question yourself. Cink: Don’t dwell on results. Focus on the physical aspects and block out the mental side of putting. Kim: Believe in yourself and what you’re doing.

“There’s only two things,” Tiger sums up. “There’s just the ball and the hole.”

Yeah, exactly. That’s the problem.

−The Armchair Golfer

The Danger of Fore More Years

2011-12-13T16:38:00.002-05:00

THANK YOU, MITT ROMNEY. YOU HAVE warned me that President Obama is playing too much golf on the job. Yes, 1,584 holes since 2009 is a whole lot of small ball. Heck, I’m pretty sure that’s more golf than Tiger Woods played over the same period of time. (To be fair, Tiger had a few distractions.)

You say, “It’s time to have a president whose idea of being hands on doesn’t mean getting a better grip on the golf club.”

Good one!

But you’re not the first to sound the warning about 44’s golf habit and the trouble it creates for America. Michelle Cottle opined about Obama’s golf game nearly a year ago and I completely failed to grasp the seriousness of the problem. Following is my dispatch in early January.

***

Michelle Cottle’s commentary about President Obama’s “dangerous obsession with golf” has alerted me that I may be a hopeless golf addict who exhibits many undesirable attributes. And you might be in the same foursome with me, my friend.

Cottle is a senior editor for The New Republic. She has a problem—several, really—with 44’s affection for the small dimpled ball.

“Why would a leader vowing to shake up Washington—to alter the very nature of politics—sell his soul to a leisure activity that screams stodgy, hyperconventional Old Guard?” she asks.

By carefully reading her article, I learned several things about my favorite pastime and what it might say about you, me and the president of these United States. For instance, she outlines telltale signs of a “creeping golf addiction,” such as:

Playing for more than a decade
Playing for cash
Fretting about form
Goading others to leave work early for a round of golf
Constantly looking to squeeze in a few holes

Where might it all lead? To dark, risky places, according to Cottle.

“In the popular imagination, golf is the stuff of corporate deal-cutting, congressional junkets, and country club exclusivity,” she writes.

(Clearly, my golf addiction has been short-changing me.)

There’s more.

“And, unless a president is very careful, a golf habit can easily be spun as evidence of unseemly character traits ranging from laziness to callousness to out-of-touch elitism.”

(I definitely think I have the laziness down. But my out-of-touch elitism needs work.)

For the president to revamp his image in the new year, Cottle says “he could start by ditching golf.” If she knew I liked golf as much as the president, she might say the same thing to me.

They say the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem. I have a problem. I miss too many four-footers. Now excuse me while I groove my putting stroke in the den.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Roberto De Vido/Flickr)

Bad Pairing: Rory McIlroy and Dengue Fever

2011-12-12T13:29:00.000-05:00

GOLF PHENOM RORY MCILROY HAS BEEN suffering with the lingering effects of Dengue Fever, according to the Associated Press. Consequently, McIlroy has pulled out of this week’s Thailand Golf Championship and said he would not return to tournament golf until late January when he tees it up along with Tiger Woods at Abu Dhabi.

I admit I’m not familiar with Dengue Fever, so I consulted Wikipedia. It’s an infectious tropical disease that’s transmitted by mosquitoes. In all likelihood, Rory picked it up on his recent swing through Asia. Symptoms can include fever, headache, muscle and joint pains and a skin rash that’s similar to measles.

Apparently, Luke Donald has nothing to do with it, but if you’re playing with Dengue Fever, the top-ten, money-hoarding consistency of The Donald can only make you feel worse.

Doctors have ordered the World No. 2 golfer to put away his sticks and get some rest. McIlroy finished 11th at the Dubai World Championship, which was won by Spaniard Alvaro Quiros. World No. 1 Donald finished solo third to capture the European Tour money title, becoming the first player to win both the PGA and European Tour money titles in the same season.

“Luke deserves it,” McIlroy said. “Basically every time he’s teed it up he’s had a chance or he’s finished in the top five or top 10. Mentally you have to be so good just to keep grinding out the scores when you need to.

“But I’ve made great progress this year—with my game, with my results, with everything. I feel like I’m swinging the club as good as I ever have and I feel like my body is as strong as it’s ever been.”

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Titleist.com)

Best of the Best—PGA Tour Q-School of 1971 (Part 4)

2011-12-10T16:13:00.000-05:00

(Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.)

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © John Coyne. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

ON ONE OF THOSE RAINY afternoons at PGA National Golf Club, I let the players alone on the course and stopped by the pro shop to chat with head professional Lou Strong who had seen more players come through PGA National than most. I asked him what he thought was key to winning a tour card, or for that matter, what makes a good golfer.

“What makes a professional golfer, whoever they are, or wherever they are, is the ability to score,” he said.

“The pros call this ‘getting up and down.’ And to be able to score, the players must first be able to manage their game. They must know how to play a variety of shots from the same locations as circumstances dictate. They must also know the course they’re playing—know its putting grain, its wind and soil conditions, its distances yard by yard. And they must be able to come back from poor shots and bad rounds. Golf is,” Lou summed up, “a game of misses, not of hits.”

Lou went on to say that very few shots are executed perfectly. Everyone misses shots, but to par or even birdie a hole after an adverse shot is what makes a touring professional. It is, Lou says again, “the ability to ‘get it up and down.’” When Lou judges a new player he looks for the same thing. “A sound golf swing, a repeating swing, a control swing, and the ability to play varied shots.”

Still, not everyone can make it to the tour.

“I have seen players in my time,” Lou continued, “who have had all the shots, all the talent to be great winners, but still couldn’t make it. They lacked the strength of mind to come back from a bad shot or a bad round, to recover the mental quietude needed to execute the next shot, to play the next day. Professionals need to be able to pull themselves together, to eliminate tension, worry and the fear of failure, and perform the shot as if nothing else in the world mattered. And nothing else does matter until the shot is hit.”

To get ready to play, Lou had the same advice for pros as well as club members.

“Don’t go out to the practice area and bang away at balls. Hit twenty or thirty balls before a round, concentrating on the driver and the short iron. All you want to do is loosen up. Save the shots for the course.

“Most professionals spend the majority of their time on the putting green. That’s the right thing to do. If a young pro wants to make it on the tour, he’s going to have to make it on the green. Putting is a game of confidence. If you know you are going to make a putt when you step up to it, chances are you’ll make it.”

(To be continued.)

John Coyne is a bestselling author whose latest book is The Caddie Who Won the Masters. Learn more at John Coyne Books.

(Photo credit: Dave Fayram, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Best of the Best—PGA Tour Q-School of 1971 (Part 3)

2011-12-09T17:36:00.002-05:00

(Editor’s note: This is the third in a series. Read Part 1 and Part 2.)

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © John Coyne. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

36-hole leader Lanny Wadkins.

IN THE ALL-DAY RAIN of the first round, Ken Harrelson, teeing off first, looking more hawkish than when he was playing baseball, his long blond hair dripping wet, went out in 34, birdieing the fourth and sixth holes. He instituted, for a handful of spectators, the Hawk Walk—strutting forward, arms stretched down, jaw jutting. The two birdie putts he holed were over 40 feet. He had a lot to strut about.

However, he triple-bogeyed number ten, hitting into the trees and the sand, then settled down to birdie the par-3 sixteenth, and finished with 38 and a par round of 72, the early leader in the clubhouse.

Everyone, most of all Ken, was overjoyed with his first round. He hung around the clubhouse telling baseball stories to Lou Strong, the club pro; Toney Penna, golf manufacturer, and others, but kept coming back to stand in the misty rain and read the leader board. His 72 didn’t hold up long. Sam Adams, a left-hander from Boone, North Carolina, was in with 69 and, later in the day, tall and thin and good looking Chuck Thorpe, an African-American from Detroit, Michigan, finished with a low for the day of 68. PGA Tour officials were also pulling for Thorpe and the other two African-American golfers who had made the school. The tournament circuit had only two black golfers playing regularly.

Meanwhile Spike Kelley of Shawnee, Oklahoma, who hadn’t been able to putt all summer because the greens had burned out on his home course, was one of the many shooting in the 80s in the first round. The only thing he had done right, he said, “was buy a Coke on the tenth hole.”

Tuesday morning the sun came out. Harrelson bogeyed his way around the front side—out in 43. He came back in 39 for a thirty-six hole total of 154. There was no Hawk Walk.

Harrelson was to have two more bad rounds—a 75 and an 82—before withdrawing, saying as he left, “I gotta get more experience before trying the school again.”

Other first-round leaders also faded. Left-handed Sam Adams went to 74. Chuck Thorpe to 76. Bruce Fleisher had a 77. But Bob Zender, 6 feet 2 inches and 210 pounds from Skokie, Illinois, a steady, unheralded golfer of twenty-eight, hitting every green, finished one under.

Lanny Wadkins, finished three under and was the second-round leader. Tom Watson, playing carefully, shot another 71.

Even Spike Kelley rallied, finished with a 74 and was philosophical about his chances. “If I don’t quality, at least by coming to Palm Beach I got to ride in a jet and see the ocean.”

(To be continued.)

John Coyne is a bestselling author whose latest book is The Caddie Who Won the Masters. Learn more at John Coyne Books.

2011 Dubai World Championship TV Schedule and Tournament Notes

2011-12-08T12:36:00.001-05:00

THE 2011 DUBAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP is underway at the Earth Course in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Peter Hanson is the first-round leader after an 8-under 64. Paul Lawrie, the 1999 British Open champion, trails by one. Rory McIlroy birdied five of the last six holes to post a 66. World No. 1 and Race to Dubai leader Luke Donald is at level par after a 72.

Swede Peter Hanson leads after a first-round 64 in Dubai.

Purse: $7.5 million
Winner’s share: $1.2 million
Defending champion: Robert Karlsson

2011 Dubai World Championship Leaderboard

Field in focus
Tee times
Venue and course info
Tournament news
Tournament statistics
Tournament history
Dubai World Championship website
Race to Dubai rankings

TV SCHEDULE

TV coverage of the 2011 Dubai World Championship is
on Golf Channel.

Friday, Dec 9
3-8 a.m. (Live) / 10 a.m.-3 p.m. (Replay)

Saturday, Dec 10
3-8 a.m. (Live) / 10 a.m.-3 p.m. (Replay)

Sunday, Dec 11
3-8 a.m. (Live) / 10 a.m.-3 p.m. (Replay)

Golf Channel Broadcast Team
Steve Burkowski (Studio Host)
Renton Laidlaw (Play by Play)
Warren Humphreys (Analyst)
Dougie Donnelly (Tower)
Ken Brown (On Course)
Julian Tutt (On Course)

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo: Alan Ewens, Dubai World Championship)

Colin Montgomerie Promotes Golf in Afghanistan

2011-12-07T16:25:00.001-05:00

CLAD IN BLUE JEANS AND a navy blue sweater, former European Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie struck iron shots from scruffy turf as British troops and Afghan children looked on. Montgomerie had helped convert a firing range into a driving range at Camp Bastion, a British military base in Helmand. Then he showed his hosts how it was done.

“It was quite good to get the lads out and have a go,” Monty said of the impromptu exhibition and golf clinic.

The Scottish golf star spent three November days in Afghanistan, a roving golf ambassador of sorts. The trip was arranged by the PGA of Britain and Ireland. Montgomerie donated golf equipment and gave lessons to troops and youngsters. While acknowledging that Afghan youth were growing up in a war-torn land, he hoped golf could be a positive vehicle for the next generation.

“It is great to promote the game here to encourage the Afghans to have a [Olympic] team in 2016,” he said.

Monty offered swing tips to soldiers and about two dozen Afghan kids who had never gripped a golf club. After taking a turn, Masoma Alyari, a 15-year-old girl, said she hoped to play again.

“It’s the first time that I’ve played golf, and it’s really interesting,” Alyari said.

She might just be hooked.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Visor tip: BBC SPORT)

Can McIlroy Spurt Past Donald in Race to Dubai Finale?

2011-12-06T15:13:00.000-05:00

Editor’s note: Complimentary tickets to the 2011 Dubai World Championship are available at www.DubaiWorldChampionship.com.

By Alan Ewens

Luke and Rory covet Dubai trophy.

AFTER THE MOST SUCCESSFUL YEAR in his short but spectacular career, World Number Two Rory McIlroy will go all out for one final push to become European Number One when the Dubai World Championship presented by DP World gets underway at Jumeirah Golf Estates on Thursday. But the 22 year-old star knows he faces a tough battle as Luke Donald, the man at the top of the order in both world and European rankings, is also coming off his most productive twelve months in the sport.

“Winning The Race to Dubai would obviously rank second after winning my first major,” said McIlroy, the reigning US Open Champion.

“I’ve got to win and Luke has to finish outside the top nine or ten—but I’m not really counting on him doing that because he’s only finished outside the top ten about twice this year!

“I need to play very well to beat a top class field—the top four players in the world and the top 60 in Europe are here, so it’s going to be a very tough ask.”

Held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Sports Council, the Dubai World Championship sees many of the greatest players on earth do battle for a share of $7.5 million in prize-money and a large slice of the additional $7.5 million Bonus Pool.

Awaiting the results of a blood test as a result of a virus, McIlroy arrived in Dubai fresh from victory at the UBS Hong Kong Open and is upbeat about being back in the UAE.

“I love it here, I really do,” said the popular Northern Irishman, seen by many as the natural heir to Tiger Wood’s crown. “This is a part of the world where I've done well before and it's obviously somewhere I’ve grown to know and love over the past few years.”

Despite all eyes being on the battle between the World Number One and Two, the field is packed with talent, including 2010 Dubai World Champion and Race to Dubai winner Lee Westwood.

“I think anybody who enjoys golf likes to see the season-ending event go down to the wire,” said Westwood. “You don’t want a foregone conclusion.

“It’s nice to see two people battling it out where somebody could have a putt to win both the Money List and the tournament. Rory’s obviously more experienced now and he did well to win last week and give himself a chance going into this event. But I think the ball is still in Luke’s court.”

(Photo: Alan Ewens, Dubai World Championship)

‘Champagne’ Tiger Woods

2011-12-05T15:24:00.001-05:00

THAT NEXT WIN BY TIGER WOODS was bound to mean a lot to the maligned former world No. 1 golfer. Even if it did come in an 18-player event in early December. But could anyone imagine the steely Woods having champagne delivered to the media center?

In the words of legendary baseball play-by-play man Harry Caray, “Holy cow!”

Tony Lema, a talented tour pro who died at the age of 32 in a 1966 plane crash, became known as “Champagne Tony” after winning the 1964 British Open at St. Andrews. Lema’s surprising five-stroke win over runner-up Jack Nicklaus prompted a victory celebration that included sending champagne to the press. It was Lema’s first British Open appearance. With just nine holes of practice, Lema barely knew his way around the Old Course.

For at least one Sunday in Southern California, we witnessed Champagne Tiger. Unlike Lema, he knew his way around the course, Sherwood Country Club, where he had won a bunch of these Chevron (and other named) things. His dramatic birdie-birdie finish to disappoint Zach Johnson was certainly the Tiger-esque way to end the most talked about winless streak in the history of the world.

“It feels great,” Tiger said. “I know it’s been a while, but for some reason, it feels like it hasn’t, because coming down the stretch, I felt so comfortable.”

Those putts went in. And the champagne flowed.

−The Armchair Golfer

Best of the Best—PGA Tour Q-School of 1971 (Part 2)

2011-12-03T13:43:00.001-05:00

(Editor’s note: This is the second in a series. Read Part 1.)

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © John Coyne. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

THE PGA TOUR Q-SCHOOL IN THE FALL of 1971 was six rounds of stroke play, but it was also two days of afternoon classes. Joe Dey, commissioner of the Tournament Players Division, gave the young pros (and as soon as a player enters the qualifying school he is considered a professional) classroom instruction by tournament players and the tour staff on players’ ethics and conduct, relations with the public, tournament sponsors and the news media, plus a written examination on the PGA Constitution, Tournament Players Division Regularities and the rules of golf.

Tour pros then talked to the students about life on the circuit and the game of golf.

Gardner Dickinson

Gardner Dickinson, a journeyman on the tour who had won over $450,000 in his career playing steady, unemotional golf, told them, “Sensationalism doesn’t get you anywhere. Good golf,” he said, “comes from hours on the practice tee. Learn to score from around the green.”

Bert Yancey, another tour winner, gave the young hopefuls a few basic principles for the circuit:

• Stay with one teacher
• Get a golf tempo
• Learn to putt all kinds of putts
• Practice difficult shots

He also told the kids to get plenty of rest every night, keep themselves in good physical condition, do exercise and eat the right food.

Throughout the lectures the young professionals were quiet and attentive, dressed neatly in slacks and sports jackets (required). Some jotted down notes, but all of them, I’m sure, were thinking ahead to the six rounds of golf that was where the real tests would be held.

The number of players who would pass onto the tour itself would be the top twenty-three, plus ties. That number was determined by Dey, and was based on the total number of golfers at the school and Dey’s estimation of how many new golfers the tour could support.

The tournament began on Monday in the rain, the first day of rain in months for Florida. It was a rain the pros were not disappointed to see, as it would help to slow the hard, fast greens of the championship East Course at PGA National.

In the long week of golf there was drama and excitement as many of the also rans, local pros such as Spike Kelley from Shawnee, Oklahoma, an assistant at a nine-hole course, tried to make the cut. Many private dreams of glory faded in the sun. It was all over for the majority until the next school in the next year, and another 108 holes of golf.

The first to fall was baseball’s great Ken Harrelson, the Hawk.

(To be continued.)

John Coyne is a bestselling author whose latest book is The Caddie Who Won the Masters. Learn more at John Coyne Books.

Best of the Best—PGA Tour Q-School of 1971

2011-12-02T16:54:00.001-05:00

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © John Coyne. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

READING ABOUT THE PGA TOUR Q-School played this week at PGA West in La Quinta, California—that six-day, 108-holes annual rite-of-passage where pros qualify for next year’s tour—got me thinking about my one time I was up close and personal with some of the greats of the game. It was back in 1971 when the Q-school was staged for the last time at the PGA National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Ken Harrelson traded his baseball bat for a golf club.

I wasn’t a player. There were no six days of qualifying for me. I had gone to Florida to interview the young players and then write a golf instructional book featuring these future professionals. My narrative was: what would these young guys have to say about the golf swing to improve one’s game? The book, Better Golf, was published that spring by Follett of Chicago. It also included dozens of photographs of the pros demonstrating techniques taken by the well respected sports photographer, Richard Raphael. Dick, who did 41 Super Bowls and shot nine Sports Illustrated magazine covers, has only this book to his golf credit.

In the fall of 1971 when I flew to Florida, everyone thought it was the 1967 Q-School that had featured the best young golfers. The Q-School was relatively new. It has started in 1965 as a way to systematically bringing new blood and talent into the game.

Lou Strong, who had head professional and managing director of the PGA National Golf Club for seven years, agreed that the ’67 class was the greatest. They were: Tony Jacklin, Bob Murphy, Orville Moody, Deane Beman, Gibby Gilbert, Lee Elder, Bobby Cole and Peter Townsend.

And they were the best for good reason. Graduate Bob Murphy would win two tournaments and earn $105,595 that next year. Orville Moody, two years later, won the U.S. Open Championship. And in the same year, 1969, Tony Jacklin won the British Open. The following year, he won the U.S. Open!

New Crop

But over time, it was proven that the ‘71 class was indeed the best of the Q-Schools. They were a new crop of young kids. And kids with a lot of talent.

Of the 357 players who started in regional tournaments across the country, only 75 made it to PGA National. That class included three former U.S. Amateur champions, the last two U.S. Public Links titleholders, two former NCAA champions, a co-holder of the World Cup team title and the current British Amateur champ.

Trying to qualify for the professional golf tour that fall was Lanny Wadkins, who was the 1970 U.S. Amateur champion and a member of the 1969 and 1971 U.S. Walker Cup teams. Steve Melnyk, then the British Amateur titleholder; John Mahaffey of Texas, the 1970 NCAA champion; Allen Miller and Bruce Fleisher, both Walker Cup players; and Tom Watson of Kansas City who had just graduated from Stanford University with a degree in psychology. The most experienced player at PGA National was David Graham, already an international star, having won the 1971 World Cup.

But what did made that year so special?

For one thing, that year’s crop was mostly composed of all young, bright and well-educated players. The average age was twenty-four. Sixty-six had attended college and had played on college golf teams. Thirty-five had already graduated.

That year was special, too, because it was the first time six rounds of golf were played in the final event. Two extra rounds had been added to make it a greater test of golf.

The Hawk

The Q-School also had a “class stand-out.” Trying to qualify that week was the famous baseball star Ken Harrelson, the Hawk, who had quit baseball in midseason because, as he said, “nothing could be worse than playing for the Cleveland Indians.” The Hawk had qualified regionally at Tanglewood Golf Club in Winston-Salem, shooting 288 and making the cut by two shots.

Ken was well liked by the other young pros, many of whom were eight years younger than he. The Hawk had time for everyone, was outgoing and friendly. Everyone was pulling for him, most of all the PGA tournament officials. An attractive, volatile personality, Harrelson, at the Massachusetts and Philadelphia classics, had already proved he could draw crowds. He could even out-gallery Arnold Palmer.

Well, six days in the rain and sun of Palm Beach would show the golfing world why The Hawk and the Class of 1971 were so special.

(To be continued.)

John Coyne is a bestselling author whose latest book is The Caddie Who Won the Masters. Learn more at John Coyne Books.

2011 Chevron World Challenge TV Schedule and Tournament Notes

2011-12-01T16:34:00.002-05:00

THE 2011 CHEVRON WORLD CHALLENGE is underway at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California. K.J. Choi is the early leader at 5 under with the first round in progress. Tournament host Tiger Woods is one back.

Tiger Woods and his former caddie Steve Williams.

Purse: $5 million
Winner’s share: $1.2 million
Defending champion: Graeme McDowell

2011 Chevron World Challenge Leaderboard

Field
Course
Tee times
Interviews
Tournament overview
Chevron World Challenge website

TV SCHEDULE

TV coverage of the 2011 Chevron World Challenge is
on Golf Channel and NBC.

Thu, 12/1:
GOLF 3p - 6p ET

Fri, 12/2:
GOLF 3p - 6p ET

Sat, 12/3:
NBC 3p - 6p ET

Sun, 12/4:
NBC 3p - 6p ET

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

‘THE MATCH’ eBook and Other Golf Titles

2011-11-30T12:04:00.007-05:00

GOLF BOOKS HAVE BEEN COLLECTING in my email inbox and elsewhere. Here’s a rundown.

THE MATCH: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever
By Mark Frost
Hyperion was recently celebrating its 20th anniversary by promoting titles in ebook form, including this golf classic. More

Inside, Outside, and On the Ropes: Life Lessons from Q-School and The Majors
By Keith Gockenbach
The author grew up playing golf in Illinois and caddying for Bob Goalby and other pros in the PGA Tour’s Robinson Open. After a successful career in the chemical industry, he “retired” in 2004 to chase his dream of playing on the Champions Tour. More

The Golfer’s Diet: A Daily Plan for Par Performance
By Scott Kramer
A how-to nutrition guide that helps players learn in general terms what kinds of foods to eat before, during and after a round of golf to help achieve their peak performance. More

Golf - A Good Walk & Then Some: A Quintessential History of the Game
By John R. Jenchura
A narrative of 90-plus photographs and 64 chapters that covers the history of the game back to the Romans in 300 AD, tracing golf across the European continent to Scotland and the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. More

Everyday Golfer’s Guide to Shooting Lower Scores
By Mick Gyure
A book aimed at the novice golfer and written by a non-professional who can relate to the many challenges encountered by the beginner. More

The Bag Room
By Adam Fonseca
A brief memoir of the author’s experiences working over 10 years at a local country club. Written in the style of “Caddyshack,” The Bag Room is an insider’s account of country club life that many people don’t see. Fonseca blogs at ChicagoDuffer.com and Waggle Room. More

Broken Tees and Mended Hearts
By Judy Alvarez
A collection of stories that highlights how the game of golf can help those with disabilities and illnesses overcome adversity and gain a new lease on life. Alvarez is a PGA/LPGA professional and a member of Golf for Women magazine’s Top 50 Teachers.
More

Buddha Plays 18
By Edward Sarkis Balian
An informative and entertaining book that combines the art and science of good golf with the principles of Buddhist philosophy. More

−The Armchair Golfer

Padraig Harrington Hopes for Hong Kong Surprise

2011-11-29T13:32:00.000-05:00

Padraig Harrington needs a high finish.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON WILL BE KUNG-FU fighting for his short-term future in Hong Kong this week. The world No 81 knows he must finish in the top 6 if he’s to make the top-60 money winners who qualify for next week’s Dubai World Championship finale—a battle that will put 60th ranked Peter Lawrie in his crosshairs.

It’s an interesting challenge but his biggest worry is getting back into the world’s top 50 as soon as possible so he can contest all the World Golf Championships next season and give himself the best possible chance of earning his seventh Ryder Cup cap.

Gunning for his first win for 13 months, Harrington said: “It’s quite important to be in the top 50 in the world, certainly for the two World Golf Championships in February and March. Yes, I probably need a top six in Hong Kong to qualify for Dubai but I’m only thinking of winning because if you win, everything else takes care of itself.”

Harrington has every reason to be optimistic about his chances in Hong Kong. He’s only played there twice but won the event in 2003 and finished second to Miguel Angel Jimenez the following year.

He said: “It’s going to be my last event of the year unless I win €50,000 plus to get to Dubai. I’m very keen to stay out there playing but my whole season hardly comes down to this.

“If I win in Hong Kong or win the Dubai World Championship then you could say that both weeks had a bearing on my season. But other than that, no, my season is what it is.”

Harrington could be forced to change his early 2012 schedule if he fails to make the top 64 in the world before the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona from February 22-25 or the top 50 before the WGC-Cadillac Championship in March.

“At this moment I would be very positive,” Harrington said. “I am playing well so hopefully I won’t need to change anything.”

Brian Keogh covers golf for The Irish Sun and contributes to a variety of golf publications. Pay him a visit at Irish Golf Desk.

(Photo credit: James Marvin Phelps, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Origin of the Teeing Ground

2011-11-25T08:48:00.000-05:00

By Barry Ward
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © Barry Ward. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

THERE WAS NO SUCH THING as “a teeing ground” until about 1875. Before then our golfing forebears teed up on the putting green, using a pinch of sand.

The first Rules of Golf, devised in 1744 by the Gentlemen Golfers of Leith (later to become The Honourable Company of Muirfield) stipulated that after holing out the ball should be teed up “within one club length of the hole.”

By 1828 this had become “no less than two club lengths and no more then four.” An appreciation of putting surfaces was evidently emerging—the first mechanical grass cutter was invented about this time—because this was later extended to “no less than four club lengths or more than six” and by about 1870 the distance stipulated was “no less than eight and no more than 12 club lengths.”

The formal teeing ground was first mentioned in 1875 and in 1882 the amended Rules of Golf referred to “the tee” rather than the distance from the hole.

In 1893 the teeing ground was accurately defined for the first time as “two marks in line at right angles to the course (the fairway) and two club lengths in depth.”

There was no mention of the proximity to the hole: the tee was placed a short distance from it and conveniently positioned for the next hole. Thus were the first steps taken towards golf course architecture, where the tee and its green became an entity.

It was a development that was to change the very nature of the game and have lasting implications.

Barry Ward is a veteran golf writer and the publisher/editor of www.posh-golf-travel.com, a guide to luxurious, family friendly golf resorts and destinations. He lives in golf-gorgeous Rutland, England.

(Photo credit: Giyu, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

How the Golf Ball Affects Foursomes Play

2011-11-22T12:31:00.002-05:00

THE GOLF BALL CAN BE the most crucial piece of equipment at the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup. As Jennifer Gardner of Tour Van reported, “Some players struggle to use a ball other than their own.” For others, it’s no big deal.

At the recent Presidents Cup in Melbourne, partners on both the U.S. and International teams had to decide which ball to play in foursomes matches. In foursomes, of course, partners play alternate shots, hitting and putting the same golf ball until it’s holed.

Of the 22 foursome partnerships at the Presidents Cup, only five pair played the same golf ball. Those 10 players who already played the same ball fared well in foursomes competition, earning 3½ points.

Tiger Woods was among the group seemingly unaffected by the golf ball choice. “Now all of the golf balls are all hard and all going a long way,” Woods said. He noted that there wasn’t much difference between balls. With Steve Stricker and Dustin Johnson as partners, Tiger posted a 1-1 record in foursomes.

Charl Schwartzel, Geoff Ogilvy’s partner, said he didn’t notice much difference between his Nike ball and Ogilvy’s Titleist. The two International team players experimented with both golf balls, and since Ogilvy struggled somewhat with his irons, Schwartzel said they would use Ogilvy’s ball. The pair halved their Thursday foursomes match against Americans Bill Haas and Nick Watney.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: turbotoddi, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Missed Opportunity for Internationals

2011-11-21T18:46:00.003-05:00

THERE WERE MANY GOOD THINGS about the Presidents Cup. No, it’s not the Ryder Cup, but the event is growing in stature and importance. At least that’s my sense as a golf fan.

It’s competitive, too. The 19-15 result in favor of the Americans at Royal Melbourne could have been closer. Despite a four-point deficit, the International team kept it interesting for a long while on the final day. Their first four men out won their singles matches against the Americans. The singles session ended in a tie, 6-6, a good sign for the Internationals. The U.S. boys have a history of dominant singles play.

The foursomes were the downfall of the International team, as captain Greg Norman lamented. They got blitzed, and I’m not sure why. I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Apparently, Norman had some choice words for his team. He tried to light a fire, but they still had to hit the shots and roll in the putts, and they couldn’t quite get it done this time.

That has to be a disappointment, especially for an International team stacked with Australians playing a home game at Royal Melbourne Golf Club. All of the Aussies except Geoff Ogilvy posted losing records for the week. Norman surely expected a much better performance from the mates.

Meanwhile, the Americans played well overall. Some were downright inspired. Tiger Woods finally looks like he is on the way back. His ball striking was impressive and, as the week wore on, the putts started falling. It was sort of like old times. Tiger might have smiled more on the golf course in the last few days than in the last five years.

Freddie’s ultra-early captain’s pick came through. It’s now more obvious that Tiger has been putting a lot of work into his game. That slump-breaking win must be somewhere on the 2012 tournament calendar. Any predictions?

−The Armchair Golfer

VIDEO: Ben Hogan Gets Untimely Caddie Advice

2011-11-19T18:11:00.002-05:00

CADDIES HAVE BEEN IN THE NEWS a lot lately. Well, one in particular. Some caddies say the wrong thing. Some speak up at the wrong time. As I discovered, even the great Ben Hogan dealt with unsolicited and untimely caddie advice.

This caddie (for another player) dropped out of a tree to help Hogan with a pitch shot.

“This is a very fast green, Mr. Hogan. And you’re going to need a lot of backspin, so I suggest you use your wedge.”

“Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll use the 9-iron,” said Hogan.

“I just thought I’d mention it.”

Then, of course, Hogan flubs the pitch. Stupid caddie.

−The Armchair Golfer

Royal Melbourne Stars in Presidents Cup

2011-11-18T13:26:00.002-05:00

Bubba Watson during practice at the Presidents Cup.

THE SCORE SHOWS THE AMERICANS are ahead of the Internationals 7-5 after two days of the Presidents Cup, but the real winner so far is Royal Melbourne Golf Club, as ESPN.com’s Bob Harig reported.

Designed by Alister MacKenzie, the man who teamed with Bobby Jones to create Augusta National and who also designed Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne has stood the test of time since it opened in 1931. On Friday the famed layout was even more treacherous due to winds that gusted up to 40 m.p.h.

“It’s carnage on a golf course like this today,” said Adam Scott of the International team. “Thank goodness it’s match play and we weren’t actually counting our strokes. It’s a great golf course when it can play fairly in conditions like this.”

I watched a portion of the Golf Channel telecast on Thursday night. Those Royal Melbourne greens looked impossible to me. I find it hard to believe that Matt Kuchar was able to make five birdies on his own ball. Kuchar teamed with Steve Stricker to beat Robert Allenby and Y.E. Yang 4 and 3.

Tiger Woods, this time partnering with Dustin Johnson, was on the losing end for the second straight day. Jason Day and Aaron Baddeley beat the Americans 1 up.

Play on Saturday will include five foursomes matches in the morning and five fourball matches in the afternoon. Sitting out the morning matches are Stricker and Nick Watney of the U.S. team and Yang and K.T. Kim of the International team. All four are required to play during the afternoon session.

Saturday Morning Foursomes

Match 1: Robert Allenby/Geoff Ogilvy (I) vs. Bubba Watson/Webb Simpson (US)
Match 2: Ernie Els/Ryo Ishikawa (I) vs. Bill Haas/Matt Kuchar (US)
Match 3: Retief Goosen/Charl Schwartzel (I) vs. Hunter Mahan/David Toms (US)
Match 4: Adam Scott/K.J. Choi (I) vs. Tiger Woods/Dustin Johnson (US)
Match 5: Aaron Baddeley/Jason Day (I) vs. Jim Furyk/Phil Mickelson (US)

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Hone Morihana, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

2011 CME Group Titleholders TV Schedule and Tournament Notes

2011-11-17T12:39:00.000-05:00

The LPGA’S 2011 SEASON CLOSES THIS WEEK with the inaugural CME Group Titleholders at Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando, Florida. The new season-ending tournament has a field of 66 players who qualified as top-three performers in 22 LPGA events this season.

Seven-time winner and Rolex Rankings No. 1 Yani Tseng headlines the field. Others teeing it up beginning Thursday include Hee Kyung Seo, the 2011 Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year, Michelle Wie, LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer Karrie Webb, 2011 Kraft Nabisco Championship winner and Rolex Rankings No. 8 Stacy Lewis, teen phenom and Navistar LPGA Classic winner Lexi Thompson, Rolex Rankings No. 3 Cristie Kerr, Brittany Lincicome, Juli Inkster, Natalie Gulbis and Beatriz Recari.

Purse: $1.5 million
Winner’s share: $500,000
Defending champion: (inaugural event)
Course: Grand Cypress Resort-North/South Course, Par 72, 6,518 yards

2011 CME Group Titleholders Leaderboard

Tournament preview
Pre-tournament notes and interviews
Final field
Pairings
CME Group Titleholders website

TV SCHEDULE

TV coverage of the 2011 CME Group Titleholders is on Golf Channel.

Thurs, Nov 17
1:30-4:00 PM ET

Fri, Nov 18
12:30-3:00 PM ET

Sat, Nov 19
1:30-4:00 PM ET

Sun, Nov 20
1:30-4:00 PM ET

−The Armchair Golfer

Presidents Cup Flashback: Tiger Woods and Ernie Els

2011-11-16T22:07:00.000-05:00

TIGER WOODS AND ERNIE ELS BATTLED in a three-hole playoff to decide the 2003 Presidents Cup, which had ended with the score knotted at 17-17. But the fierce competitors were unable to break the deadlock. So U.S. and International captains Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player agreed to share the Cup as darkness fell in South Africa. It is still the only tie in the relatively short history of the Presidents Cup.

Now grizzled veterans, Woods and Els are back for more, teeing it up at Royal Melbourne in Thursday’s opening foursomes matches. Teamed with Ryo Ishikawa, Els faces new American guns Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson. Woods is alongside the reliable Steve Stricker in a match against Adam Scott and K.J. Choi. It should be fun.

−The Armchair Golfer

David Graham Puts Off Heart Surgery to Attend Presidents Cup

2011-11-15T21:25:00.001-05:00

David Graham has returned to Australia.

DAVID GRAHAM, THE 1981 U.S. OPEN CHAMPION and an eight-time winner on the PGA Tour, hasn’t been in his native Australia since 1994 when he won the Australian Skins Game. That was also the same year that Graham captained the International team in the first Presidents Cup. Now a bad heart can’t keep the Montana resident away from his homeland.

“They’re going to have to take a tomahawk to my chest,” Graham said on Tuesday at Royal Melbourne Golf Club. The retired tour player who hadn’t been Down Under in 17 years reached for tissue after tissue as tears leaked from his puffy eyes.

“This is an emotional thing for me,” he explained.

As Dave Shedloski reported at Local Knowledge, Graham, 65, is lucky to be alive. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2004. He has survived thanks to experimental drugs. He was scheduled to undergo open-heart surgery on November 4 but decided to make his return to Australia—perhaps for the last time—to watch the ninth Presidents Cup.

The heart problem ended Graham’s competitive golf career. Cross-continental travel was not an option until recently. The Aussie set aside his golf clubs for five years. Now he occasionally plays nine holes with Arnold Palmer when both are in the Palm Springs area.

“It’s really cool,” Graham said. “We don't compete. We verbally compete. He hits it everywhere and I hit it everywhere, and we laugh at each other and give each other 10-foot putts. Then we go sit and have a glass of wine.”

There will be no 10-foot putts given this week at Royal Melbourne. Graham is glad that he’ll be there to see it.

−The Armchair Golfer

2011 Presidents Cup TV Schedule and Event Notes

2011-11-14T16:33:00.001-05:00

THE 2011 PRESIDENTS CUP GETS UNDERWAY on Thursday at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia. It’s a match-play competition that pits the International team captained by Greg Norman against the U.S. team captained by Fred Couples.

The Americans have won six of eight meetings. There has been one tie. But it should be noted that the U.S. team has never won outside of North America. The last time the Presidents Cup was played at Royal Melbourne in 1998 the Americans were routed 20½ to 11½.

Jason Day is making first appearance.

International team
U.S. team
Norman’s comments on International players
Couples’s comments on U.S. players
Power rankings
Tee times
Royal Melbourne Golf Club, hole by hole
Presidents Cup history
Past results
Presidents Cup glossary

2011 Presidents Cup Scoring

TV SCHEDULE

U.S. TV coverage of the 2011 Presidents Cup is
on Golf Channel and NBC.

Wednesday, November 16
Opening Ceremony
9 p.m.-2 a.m. (GOLF, live coverage)

Thursday, November 17
9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. (GOLF, tape-delayed)
7:30 p.m.-2 a.m. (GOLF, live coverage

Friday, November 18
8 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (GOLF, tape-delayed)
3 p.m.-2 a.m. (GOLF, live coverage)

Saturday, November 19
8 a.m.-4 p.m. (NBC, tape-delayed)
6:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. (GOLF, live coverage)

Sunday, November 20
12-6 p.m. (NBC, tape-delayed)

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Hunter Mahan to Serve Steak in Beverly Hills

2011-11-13T20:17:00.003-05:00

HUNTER MAHAN & FRIENDS: MORTON’S CELEBRITY SERVER NIGHT will take place at Morton’s The Steakhouse in Beverly Hills on Monday, December 5, 2011, beginning at 7 p.m.

The evening will be hosted by Mahan, who along with other PGA Tour players and their celebrity friends will trade in their clubs for aprons and serve a lavish four-course dinner to guests. The event will include a live and silent auction, all to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association®.

“I have zero experience as a waiter so I know I have my work cut out for me,” said Mahan, “but I cannot wait to be a part of what I promise will be a memorable evening for everyone.”

Having lost his grandmother to the devastating disease in 2007, Mahan has been an Alzheimer’s Association Champion for several years. He regularly participates in activities that raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s disease and has donated a portion of his winnings to the association to support critical care, support and research programs.

Tickets are $250 and can be purchased by contacting Joanna Sanchez at 310-246-1501 or joanna_sanchez@mortons.com. Morton’s The Steakhouse is located at 435 S. La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

Pro Golfers Who Served in World War II

2011-11-11T20:51:00.000-05:00

From the first days of World War II, players put away their sticks
and picked up rifles to defend America.

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © John Coyne. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Lloyd Mangrum won the 1946 U.S. Open.

WORLD WAR II WAS CALLED the last “good” war and Tom Brokaw wrote of the men and women who fought in it as, “America’s greatest generation.” They came of age during the Great Depression and served their country in World War II.

Many of this greatest generation were golf professionals. Herb Graffis, founder of Golfing magazine, in his history of the Professional Golf Association (PGA) writes how golf professionals served in combat during WW II, and did a hundred other volunteer jobs relating to golf to help the war effort. From the first days of World War II, players put away their sticks and picked up rifles to defend America.

They would not be the first players to fight in a war. At the outbreak of World War II, it is estimated 900 members of the PGA were veterans of World War I. By the end of WW II, 20 percent of the members of the PGA had served in the armed forces, another 15 percent in war production jobs. Eleven pros were killed in action, three more died while in the service.

PGA pros, throughout the war years, were involved in construction, equipping and operating practice putting greens, practice tees, courses and indoor nets at more than 62 armed services hospitals. Professionals and superintendents often got together and built small golf installations at hospitals, and the pros kept going back to instruct patients and maintain the golf playgrounds.

In addition to that work, tournament circuit prize money during the war was in government bonds. In 1945, prize money was approximately $500,000 in war bonds. That year exhibitions by PGA members raised over $100,000 for hospitals, the USO and the Red Cross. According to Graffis, “Those wartime tournaments and exhibitions had a great deal to do with establishing the pattern of today’s tournament circuits, since most of the events have hospitals, boys’ clubs, and other welfare operations as promoters and beneficiaries.”

Not to be overlooked was the celebrity drawing power of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby at golf events. In 1943, Hope and Crosby took to the road for six weeks of exhibition matches with pros and amateurs. Joining them on tour were Sam Byrd, Byron Nelson, Joe Kirkwood, Gene Sarazen, Harry Cooper, as well as early LPGA stars Louise Suggs, Patty Berg and Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Hope and Crosby started at the Dallas Country Club with a gallery of about 5,000 who bought $4.5 million in war bonds and an ambulance for the Red Cross. They finished at the Edgewater Golf Club in Chicago. Bob and Bing paid their own expenses through out the tour, and the PGA gave them money clips as tokens of appreciation.

War Toll

The war took a toll on the PGA. By the end of 1945, dues-paying membership was down to 1,565. That was 570 fewer members than when hostilities began. When the war was over, there were 4,817 courses in the U.S. and roughly 2,250,000 golfers, but few of these players had ever been to a golf tournament.

But all of that was about to change. Lloyd Mangrum, while training for the D-Day landings, was offered the professional job at the army’s Fort Meade golf course, which would have kept him out of combat, but he declined and went to the front lines in Europe. He would receive from his combat tours two Purple Hearts, and was wounded a final time at the Battle of the Bulge. However, when he was discharged from the army, he immediately won the 1946 U.S. Open, the first Open held after the war.

Other name professionals who served in the army and were back on tour within days of being discharged from service were Tommy Bolt; Jack Fleck who was in the Navy and also part of the D-Day invasion; Herman Keiser; Ted Kroll, who earned three Purple Hearts, and was wounded four times; Ed “Porky” Oliver; and the great amateur Smiley Quick, who won the ’46 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship and then turned pro.

The golf professionals of the greatest generation were home from the war and back on the links. It was the start of the modern PGA Tour that we know today.

John Coyne is a bestselling author whose latest book is The Caddie Who Won the Masters. Learn more at John Coyne Books.

Study: Putting Better With Ben Curtis’s Putter

2011-11-10T15:00:00.000-05:00

By Tom Jacobs
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

This article originally appeared at Miller-McCune and is used with permission.

GOLFERS: WANT TO PUTT LIKE a champion? It’ll help if you use a champion’s putter. That’s the key finding of a study published in the online journal PLoS One, which finds the “positive contagion” of a piece of sports equipment can substantially improve a player’s performance.

Forty-one undergraduates—all experienced golfers—took part in an experiment conducted by a research team led by University of Virginia psychologist Charles Lee. They were taken to an artificial putting mat, which was designed to mimic the speed of greens professional golfers play on.

Ben Curtis prepares to putt.

Half the golfers were told they’d be using a putter formerly used by professional golfer Ben Curtis, a veteran player on the PGA Tour. The researchers discussed this fact with each player for about 15 seconds, noting Curtis’s recent successes and asking, “Isn’t that cool?”

The other players were told nothing of the putter’s history.

Each participant viewed the hole from a distance of 2.13 meters. They then estimated the size of the hole by drawing a circle on a computer screen. “To promote accuracy, participants were encouraged to redraw the circle until they believed it matched the size of the golf hole,” the researchers write.

Each golfer then putted the ball 10 times, starting out from a place on the mat that increased the difficulty of sinking the ball.

Results and Explanations

The results: The players told they were using Curtis’s putter “perceived the golf hole to be bigger, and sank more puts” than the others. This occurred in spite of the fact there was no difference between the two groups in terms of golf experience or self-reported level of confidence.

Lee and his colleagues offer several possible explanations for their results.

“Previous research has shown that engaging in positive imagery before a sports competition is positively correlated with performance,” they note.

“Such imagery involves imagining oneself as having control over one’s situation, and engaging in a state of focus and mental toughness.”

Perhaps, they speculate, the mental image of Ben Curtis helped facilitate that enormously helpful mindset. Or perhaps a “placebo effect” could be in play. The researchers note that past research has found “positive contagion” can “lead one to impute more value to an object.” (A guitar played by Paul McCartney is worth more than one strummed by your brother-in-law.) Those who believed they were using Curtis’s putter may have “amended their perceived putting abilities” since they had such a valuable club in their hands.

The researchers can’t be certain that the perceived size of the hole played a role in the golfers’ better scores, although that seems intuitively correct.

“It is possible that a third variable could independently influence both perception and performance,” they write.

In any event, this research provides more evidence that golf is as much a mental game as a physical one, and that certain superstitious beliefs can become self-fulfilling prophecies—in a good way, in this case.

Tom Jacobs is a veteran journalist with more than 20 years of experience at daily newspapers. He has served as a staff writer for The Los Angeles Daily News and the Santa Barbara News-Press. His work has also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Ventura County Star.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Y.E. Yang Uses YouTube as Swing Coach

2011-11-09T16:08:00.000-05:00

Y.E. Yang

HERE’S SOMETHING I DON’T EXPECT to read in this modern age of golf swing gurus. 2009 PGA champion Y.E. Yang got rid of his swing coach last season and now peruses YouTube for swing tips and insights. That’s what Yang, the man who beat Tiger Woods head to head to win his first major, told reporters on Wednesday in advance of the Singapore Open.

“I’ve researched quite a few players, tried to emulate some of the good things that I see on YouTube,” said the South Korean. “The swing plane, how I grab my club ... those are probably the biggest changes.

“I’ve put more focus on the technical aspects of my game whereas previously I’ve been more of a feel player.”

That’s fine, if it works for Yang. There’s no law about having a swing coach, or a golf shrink, for that matter, even though specialized golf instruction is now a fixture of tour culture. Old-time pros grunt or laugh when you mention swing coaches. Lee Trevino once said he wouldn’t take swing advice from anyone who couldn’t beat him.

There could be a problem, though. Yang is winless since the 2010 Korean Open and admits that his results have dropped off this season. But, for now, he’ll continue on without a coach because he is satisfied with his approach and progress.

I just hope I don’t see “YouTube” emblazoned on Yang’s golf bag, you know?

−The Armchair Golfer

Visor tip: Press Tent Blog

(Photo credit: kompuder_dude, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

These Are Good Golf Times for Australia

2011-11-08T20:53:00.000-05:00

In search of game in Australia.

THE EYES OF THE GOLF WORLD are turning to Sydney for the Emirates Australian Open and, next week, Melbourne for the Presidents Cup. As Mark Hayes wrote at Golf.com, this is a boon for Australia, a country with a rich golf history that has had few occasions in recent times to enjoy the world golf spotlight.

It used to be big guns Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player arrived Down Under every year for the Australian Open. Nicklaus called it the fifth major. That was long ago.

But the buzz is definitely back—at least for the next two weeks.

The country’s open championship tees off on Thursday with a marquee field of homegrown, American and international players, including: Geoff Ogilvy, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Aaron Baddeley, Stuart Appleby, Robert Allenby, John Senden, Greg Chalmers, Greg Norman, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, Fred Couples and David Toms.

Of course, the event is headlined by the struggling former world No. 1 player, Tiger Woods. Woods is fresh off his latest public apology. This time he is on the receiving end. Steve Williams, Tiger’s former caddie, continued to clean up his mess on Tuesday in the aftermath of his boneheaded racial slur at Woods’s expense that was heard around the world and perhaps neighboring solar systems. Williams and Woods spoke face to face at a hotel gym and parted with a handshake.

“He did apologize,” Tiger said. “It was hurtful, certainly, but life goes forward.”

This is the first time Woods has turned up for the Australian Open since 1996. That November, Tiger was a skinny 20-year-old rookie on the PGA Tour. He finished fifth in Sydney. Six months later he won his first Green Jacket.

Now Woods is trying to repair his golf game and public image and prove he was a worthy captain’s pick for the U.S. Presidents Cup team. It starts at 12:10 p.m. on Thursday in a grouping with Day and Allenby.

Fans and media will be watching. The golf circus has come to Australia.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Martin Kaymer, Man for Fall Seasons

2011-11-07T19:41:00.006-05:00

Birdie man of Shanghai.

MARTIN KAYMER HADN’T WON A golf tournament since January. The German golf star who won four times in 2010 and ascended to the top of the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) has been choking on the dust of Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald much of the season.

In Shanghai at the WGC-HSBC Champions, Kaymer played the first 60 holes 11 under par. Then bam—nine birdies on the final 12 holes. He closed out the back nine with a stunning 29 for a final-round 63. Kaymer’s 20-under total was good for a three-shot victory over Fredrik Jacobson.

“It was the first time I have had a run of birdies like that since I shot a 59 on the EPD Tour in Germany in my first year as a professional,” Kaymer told reporters.

Win early, win late. Maybe it’s the Kaymer way. He won in September and October last year. Now he has bagged a huge one in November, his first WGC title and the first ever by a German. He also moved up two spots in the OWGR to No. 4.

Kaymer Notes

• 10th European Tour victory.

• Money total of €2,830,264 in The Race to Dubai.

• More than €2 million in earnings for third consecutive European Tour season.

• Multiple wins on European Tour for fourth consecutive season.

• Final round of 63 (-9) is the lowest final round for a winner in any WGC stroke-play event.

−The Armchair Golfer

Golf Voices from the Past: Frank Beard

2011-11-05T13:25:00.004-04:00

I’M READING PRO: FRANK BEARD ON THE GOLF TOUR, Beard’s PGA Tour diary from the 1969 season that was edited by Dick Schaap. Beard was the leading money winner in 1969 ($175,223.93) and finished second to Dave Hill in the Vardon Trophy Standings with a 70.527 stroke average.

Here’s what Beard said about what it takes to be one of the world’s greatest golfers (he names Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Billy Casper) and making money on tour:

Frank Beard in 1967.
The number-one guys have to be almost totally self-centered. They have to possess an incredible burning for success. They’ve got to be willing to do anything within morally, civically, and socially acceptable bounds to win. I don’t mean they have to cheat, and I don’t mean they have to go out of their way to stomp on people. Not at all. But they do have to stomp on people who get in their way. They have to ignore their friends and their enemies and sometimes their families, and they have to concentrate entirely upon winning, upon being number one. There’s no other way to get to the top.

I’m sure I sound harsh, but I’m not really condemning them. They’ve got what we all want. They’ve got financial independence. They’ve got prestige. They’ve got power. I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t like to have his own airplane and his own secretaries and his own companies. There are many days I wish I had their drive, their singleness of purpose, their complete devotion to victory. I’m often tempted to try it, to push everything and everybody else out of the way and pursue nothing but success. But I just can’t do it. I don’t mean I’m too nice a guy. I mean it’s not my way. If I tried it, I’d fail. I couldn’t survive the constant intensity, the constant burning.

My approach, the one that works for me, is less grueling. Basically, I’m content just to make a good living playing golf. If I make $100,000 a year, I’m very happy. If I slump to sixty or fifty or forty thousand dollars, I’ll still be happy. I’ll be able to pay my expenses, pay my taxes, and put a little bit away.

It’s interesting how much Beard’s 40-year-old comments reminded me of today’s lucrative tour, where many if not most players are just satisfied to make a very good living. Tiger Woods aside, it seems there are fewer players than in Beard’s day with the burning desire to reach the top.

Beard won 11 times on the PGA Tour but no majors and played on the 1969 and 1971 U.S. Ryder Cup teams.

−The Armchair Golfer

Don’t Laugh—Pro Golfers of a Different Kind

2011-11-04T17:24:00.004-04:00

THEY’RE POSTAL WORKERS, DENTISTS, criminal justice personnel and more, a cross section of America and beyond (like the Czech Republic). They’re also professional mini golfers.

Please don’t laugh.

“I think putt-putt is a sport,” says one.

“It’s highly skillful,” says another. “It’s a really technical sport.”

“We take it very seriously,” says Randy Reeves, a postal distribution clerk in Montgomery, Alabama. “I talk about how much fun I’m having. Sometimes if you see me on the course, you might not think I’m having so much fun because I made a bad putt.”

Dr. Brad Lebo: “When they give me a little bit of grief about being a professional miniature golfer, if it’s someone I know well, I say, ‘What have you been the national champion at?’

“My passion is playing professional putting tournaments,” Lebo adds. “If we played for larger purses, I may just go ahead and hang up my [dentist] drill.”

Reeves has won six figures in his career on the circuit, which includes as many as 50 events a year. Lebo has won about 80 titles, including three majors. Yes, there’s a U.S. Open and a Masters in professional mini golf.

It’s more than a summer outing or a hobby. The guys—and gals, too—love the game and competition. In fact, the 2011 U.S. Open champion is a 16-year-old girl from the Czech Republic.

Please don’t laugh.

The full story from The Daily.

−The Armchair Golfer

My Brushes With Golf Pioneer Charlie Sifford

2011-11-03T12:53:00.001-04:00

I was made for a tough life, because I’m a tough man. And in the end I won; I got a lot of black people playing golf. That’s good enough. If I had to do it over again, exactly the same way, I would.
−Charlie Sifford, Golf Digest, December 2006

CHARLIE SIFFORD WAS INDUCTED into the Southern California Golf Association Hall of Fame last week, generating many news reports and stories about the first African American to break the color barrier on the PGA Tour.

“I just wanted to play, and they couldn’t stop me, that’s all,” Sifford told one news outlet.

He won twice—at Hartford in 1967 and the L.A. Open in 1969 in a sudden-death playoff with Harold Henning—but never received an invitation to the Masters.

Because I have become acquainted with several golf legends in recent years and met up with them on the Great Grand Champions circuit, I have had several encounters with Sifford in Baltimore, Savannah and North Carolina.

In Hickory, for example, Charlie strolled into a hotel dining room and joined Jack Fleck and me for dinner. That was an interesting conversation. As self-advertised, Sifford is a tough man who sometimes uses tough language. He does not mince words.

Following is a Sifford anecdote from 2009.

***

We’re at the Holiday Inn Express yesterday outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, and Charlie Sifford can’t get into his room. There’s a problem with the key card. He heads down the hall toward the front desk.

I know how guarded these pros feel about their tools, even though Charlie didn’t play this day. He recently had open heart surgery.

“Thanks,” he said, knowing I’d keep an eye on his clubs until he returned.

Earlier Charlie and a dozen or so other legends had participated in a special pro-am prior to the Rex Hospital Open, this week’s Nationwide Tour event. I attended, spending time with the old pros. Afterward I headed back to the hotel with many of the legends. I was waiting for them when they gingerly stepped out of the van, a who’s who of 1950s and 1960s tour golf: Doug Ford, Billy Casper, Miller Barber, Sifford, Dow Finsterwald, Bob Goalby, Howie Johnson and Jack Fleck.

I had told Charlie how much I enjoyed Uneven Fairways, the Golf Channel documentary that featured him and other black players who faced the color barrier in golf. Charlie broke through when he became the first African American member of the PGA Tour in 1961. Now he’s in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Charlie returned with a new key and opened the door to Room 122. “I’ll get your clubs, Charlie.” I didn’t want this 86-year-old man who had just had major surgery to lift his clubs off the cart and place them in his room. I grabbed them and his shoes and set them down inside the door.

It was a small gesture—but also a privilege—to help this small, tough man who had endured so many threats and indignities throughout his career. I was grateful to have a few moments with the Jackie Robinson of golf.

−The Armchair Golfer

New Assistant Captain John Cook Believes in Tiger

2011-11-02T23:14:00.000-04:00

John Cook at the Senior Players Championship.

MICHAEL JORDAN IS OUT. John Cook is in. Jordan stepped down as assistant captain of the U.S. Presidents Cup team due to his front-office duties with the Charlotte Bobcats during the NBA lockout. Fred Couples replaced His Airness with Cook, longtime pal of Tiger Woods. Captain Couples said it was an easy call.

“I’m honored, I really am,” Cook said at PGATour.com. “I think I can help.”

“Certainly my relationship with Tiger probably was an issue that helped Fred make his decision, that we’re very close.”

Despite Tiger’s struggles to regain the form that led to 14 major wins in a little more than a decade, Cook remains a bullish supporter.

“I believe in what he’s doing … there’s not many people that believe in what he’s doing right now,” Cook said. “Maybe he’ll relax a little bit knowing he’s got a compadre there that really cares about him, genuinely, as a friend.”

The Presidents Cup begins in two weeks at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Sergio Garcia Makes Big Move in Race to Dubai

2011-11-01T12:22:00.000-04:00

Editor’s note: Complimentary tickets to the 2011 Dubai World Championship are available at www.DubaiWorldChampionship.com.

By Alan Ewens

Sergio Garcia swats one on the 18th at the Earth Course.

REJUVENATED SERGIO GARCIA IS HOPING to keep his impressive run of form going to the end of the 2011 campaign as he targets a place in the top 15 in The Race to Dubai at the season ending Dubai World Championship presented by DP World. The Spaniard completed back-to-back successes for the first time on the European Tour with victory in last week’s Andalucía Masters, a week after also winning on home soil in the Castelló Masters, to move from 11th place to seventh in The Race to Dubai.

Now the 31 year-old is eyeing more success when he concludes his 2011 season at the third edition of the Dubai World Championship presented by DP World over the Earth course, Jumeirah Golf Estates from December 8-11.

Garcia, who currently leads the European Ryder Cup points list, has been in fine form in the latter part of the 2011, finishing in the top ten in both the US Open Championship and Open Championship and losing a play-off to Pablo Larrazabal in the BMW International Open, in addition to his two victories. Those performances have propelled him up The Race to Dubai standings—as well as up to 18th on the Official World Golf Ranking—and he is firmly on course to finish in the top 15 which earn a share of the US$ 7.5 million Bonus Pool at the conclusion of the Dubai World Championship.

Garcia said: “It’s great to have made such a big move in The Race to Dubai over the last two weeks. It’s amazing what two victories can do for you and to move from 23rd into the top ten in the space of seven days is very satisfying.

“I am playing well at the moment and it feels great to be back winning at the top level again. Hopefully I can keep this form going until the Dubai World Championship because that is a very important week for every European Tour player and it would be great to go there and try to win again.”

Donald Withdraws

Luke Donald’s withdrawal from this week’s WGC-HSBC Champions to be at the birth of his second child means his rivals have the chance to close the gap at the top of The Race to Dubai.

Englishman Donald has a €1,312,823 advantage over second placed Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, with Masters champion Charl Schwartzel of South Africa, Germany’s Martin Kaymer and England’s Lee Westwood making up the top five. Denmark’s Anders Hansen is sixth with Garcia seventh and three-time winner in 2011 Thomas Björn in eighth.

(Photo: Alan Ewens, Dubai World Championship)

Halloween Costumes of LPGA Tour Players

2011-10-31T13:19:00.000-04:00

ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER WIN for Yani Tseng, her 11th worldwide title of the season. Tseng’s latest victory came at the Suzhou Taihu Ladies Open in China. Tseng closed with a 66 to win by seven shots. Sergio Garcia also won his second straight thanks to his one-stroke triumph over Miguel Angel Jimenez at the Andulacia Masters. And Rory McIlroy beat Anthony Kim in a sudden-death playoff to collect $2 million in first-prize money at the Shanghai Masters.

Now that we’ve covered all of that, let’s get to what’s really important today—Halloween costumes. Here’s what some lady professionals said they once wore (or didn’t wear) to go trick or treating.

Lincicome loves pumpkins.

Paula Creamer: California Raisin.

Natalie Gulbis: Genie. “My mom made the costume by hand. She hand stitched the puffy pants and tube top.”

Tiffany Joh: Village People. “In college, our team dressed up as the Village People. I was the Indian.”

Cindy LaCrosse: Dalmatian (inspired by 101 Dalmatians). “It was awesome.”

Brittany Lincicome: Big Pumpkin. (Because she loved pumpkins, of course. Who doesn’t?)

Paige Mackenzie: Football Player. She and her friend ran a play at every house.

Gerina Pillar: Puff the Magic Dragon. “I have a few first place ribbons underneath my belt in that costume.”

Beatriz Recari: None. “We don’t celebrate Halloween in Spain.” (But she did like to watch American Halloween movies.)

Karen Stupples: None, but her son is a Transformer this year.

Me? At a Halloween party on Friday night, I was the Green Hornet. My daughter was Kato. Others said we looked great.

−The Armchair Golfer

Related:
Halloween Edition: Golf’s Spookiest Shots

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Great Bobby Locke Putting

2011-10-29T18:54:00.006-04:00

I FOUND THIS SHORT VIDEO of South African Bobby Locke putting. A three-time winner of the British Open, Locke is considered by many to be one of the greatest ever with the flatstick. Although he missed the medium-range putt shown in the above clip, you can observe the technique that holed so many putts: feet close together and a wristy pop stroke with no follow-through. Gary Player describes and demonstrates Locke’s method here.

I was reminded of Locke the other day when I received an email from a reader named Mike in response to my post titled 20 Greatest Putters of All Time. I ranked Locke No. 4. Mike mentioned Locke in reference to Ben Hogan.

Mike took exception to Hogan not making my top-20 list. (I did include Hogan as an honorable mention pick.) He said in his email that Locke called Hogan the greatest putter he ever saw. I can’t verify that, but I do agree with Mike that many people don’t give Hogan the credit he deserves because of his struggles on the greens late in his career.

In his prime, Hogan was a terrific putter who rarely three-putted and was adept at putting fast greens. As Mike asked, how do you win four U.S. Opens without being a great putter?

−The Armchair Golfer

Concerto for Pitching Wedge and Bassoon

2011-10-28T11:03:00.001-04:00

By Charles Prokop
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © Charles Prokop. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

MY MAJOR EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES in high school and college were band and orchestra. I was a fast, but gangly, receiver and would have been seriously broken when hit by the football players at my large Texas high school. (Think Friday Night Lights.) I had good friends on the golf team at that same school, but regular drubbings from them made it clear the golf team was not in the cards.

My family had a strong musical heritage. That’s my grandfather in the picture, decked out for his violin performances in the early 1900’s. My father played oboe, my mother played alto clarinet, and it was assumed that I would play something, too. I ended up playing bassoon.

I never became as good as I should have (golf, sandlot football, and daydreaming about girls demanded a lot of time that might have otherwise gone to practice), but I got to where I didn’t have to think much about what my body was doing as I played. I read the music or imagined the melody and translated it into sounds without thinking. It became automatic, like any well-learned physical skill should. In fact, too much thinking would ruin the music, as it got too mechanical and lost the flow. It would sound and feel clunky, even if the notes were right.

When it all felt right the sounds came out of the bassoon without any sense of the instrument being in between me and the music. It was like I thought the sounds, they somehow appeared, and I got lost in them.

The Music of the Game

It’s occurred to me that my golf swing is a lot like my bassoon playing used to be. With a lot of play and practice my swing becomes an overlearned physical skill. Too much thinking about my swing can wreck it. Too many swing thoughts, too much monitoring of muscle movements, and my swing becomes stiff and clunky. I may hit the right positions, but there’s no flow. The club feels unwieldy, and when I hit the ball I feel a noticeable bump.

But when I’m playing well I don’t think about how to execute; I just execute. I’ll plan the shot, just like I’d plan how to play, but when I swing it’s thoughtless. I don’t feel the club between my intentions and the ball. I just move my body and the ball goes. There’s no bump as I contact the ball. I’m immersed in the round, the feel of the course, the music of the game.

Jack Nicklaus said that he’s played a lot of good rounds to “Jamaica Farewell,” and that it’s hard to play poorly to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.” I generally play well when the right song is stuck in my mind, but I’ve never been very good at sticking the right song in there.

Maybe I’ve been approaching it from the wrong direction. Maybe it’s not just hearing the music. Making the music may be more important.

Charles Prokop is a clinical psychologist who writes about golf at fairwaywords.

Luke Donald Named Player of ... Month

2011-10-27T15:42:00.001-04:00

Short-game practice.

LUKE DONALD GOT SOME RECOGNITION for his stellar play—in October. This from PGA Tour headquarters:

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Luke Donald has been named the PGA TOUR Player of the Month for October.

Donald received the honor after turning in a clutch performance at the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic to clinch the TOUR’s money title and the Arnold Palmer Trophy that goes with it.

The Englishman, who started the final round essentially knowing he needed to win to earn the money crown, made up a five-stroke deficit over the final 10 holes ...

It’s a start.

What Donald is more focused on and desirous of is player-of-the-year honors. He has a strong case. I can understand his disappointment about recent developments surrounding the vote. The World No. 1 golfer called the PGA Tour’s decision to delay 2011 Player of the Year ballots until after the WGC-HSBC Champions “sketchy at best.”

I said here my POY pick would be Keegan Bradley, but that was nearly two weeks before The Donald won the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic and PGA Tour money title.

Things look different now.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: jpellgen, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

A Look Back at Annika Sorenstam, 2012 Bob Jones Award Winner

2011-10-26T16:19:00.003-04:00

ANNIKA SORENSTAM HAS BEEN SELECTED as the recipient of the 2012 Bob Jones Award, the USGA announced on Tuesday. The USGA’s highest honor, the award has been presented annually since 1955. Sorenstam, of course, is one of the all-time greats, a member of both the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame and World Golf Hall of Fame. She has served as an ambassador for various golf associations and bodies, including the USGA.

Following is a piece I published here not long after Annika retired from golf. The site was the 2009 PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.

***

We all know about the 72 wins, the 10 majors and the $23 million in career earnings, a Hall of Fame career that may or may not be over. It all went exactly as planned by Annika Sorenstam, the undisputed queen of golf. Well, no, actually it didn’t.

Presented by equipment sponsor Callaway and looking relaxed in a pink pullover and black slacks, Annika sat on stage today at the PGA Merchandise Show and recounted a career that was filled with surprises and accomplishments beyond her wildest dreams. I had a front-row seat.

Golf was her parents’ game, Sorenstam said, so she followed them to the golf course, even though she would rather play soccer or tennis at a young age. But golf got under her skin (in a good way) because it was “so tough.” “That was the beauty of it,” she said. Plus she could practice without needing a partner.

Leaving Sweden to attend the University of Arizona in Tucson was a major adjustment, but Annika adapted and excelled at the college level. Maybe she could succeed at the pro game, although she didn’t know if she could win.

The first win “caught me by surprise,” Sorenstam said. That initial title was the U.S. Women’s Open, a major victory that literally made her ill. Annika told how she had to retreat from the world for a few weeks until she could get a better handle on her success and the public adulation. In a later anecdote, Sorenstam shared how her shyness caused her to intentionally three-putt to avoid winning tournaments. Why? She didn’t want to give a speech. One of her coaches noticed the trend, so the coach had first, second and third give speeches. That solved the problem.

When asked about her friendship with Tiger Woods, Annika said, “I’m not sure how the texting got started.” The two have practiced together and got in the habit of texting each other when they won a major. “I think he’s kind of competitive,” she said, sparking audience laughter.

As for her current status, Sorenstam said she is not using the “R” word, instead calling her break from the game “stepping away.”

Notes
• “My drive is stronger than ever,” Annika said. She is channeling it into her academy, golf course design and other projects.
• When asked for her dream foursome, she didn’t specifically name anyone, saying it could be people from all walks of life who she would enjoy and learn from.
• She was once caught at an exhibition with dirty laundry in her golf bag.
• A 54 is definitely possible, according to Sorenstam. She took the audience through her round of 59 on March 16, 2001. She was 12 under after 13 holes and rimmed out her putt for 58 on the final hole.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Illustration: Gary Hisanaga, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

A New Era Begins for Rory McIlroy

2011-10-25T15:40:00.000-04:00

Editor’s note: Brian Keogh is a golf correspondent for The Irish Sun and a contributor to The Irish Times, Golf Digest Ireland and other golf publications. The following excerpt from Brian’s Irish Golf Desk is used with permission.

By Brian Keogh
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

RORY MCILROY’S NEW MANAGEMENT TEAM has starting transforming his world. And Dublin based Horizon Sports is making sure it doesn’t make the same mistake as Chubby Chandler by hogging the limelight and becoming “celebrity” managers. Silence is now the new rule when it comes to handling the world No 3 and allowing him to let his clubs do the talking.

Breaking a three-day news blackout since landing the hottest property in the game, McIlroy’s new manager Conor Ridge apologised for his recent silence, explaining: “We have no comment to make on anything. Hope you understand.”

Ridge jetted off to China yesterday for the Lake Malaren Shanghai Masters where McIlroy will be the centre of attention after announcing his shock sacking of the ISM organisation last Friday. The Holywood star, 22, stunned Chandler by walking out after four years together. According to Bolton man Chandler, the Irish star was unhappy with his brand, his website, his public image and his sponsorship portfolio. And he also believes that McIlroy was irritated by talk of the Chubby Slam at the US PGA last August. McIlroy described his larger-than-life, former agent as a “celebrity manager.”

But Horizon has been low profile in their handling of McIlroy’s pal Graeme McDowell since 2007. They have already made changes to McIlroy’s image by launching a slick preview of his new website featuring a portrait by top photographer Kevin Abosch, best known here for his Faces of Ireland campaign.

Organising a coherent 2012 schedule and steering the sometimes impetuous US Open champion away from controversy wiil be top of Horizon’s list of objectives. This reporter does not expect to be asked to “play the game” ever again when it comes to questions.

The US Open champion has tweeted just twice since he announced his split with ISM. Apart from congratulating Luke Donald on winning the US money list, he posted a pic of an early morning tennis session for new love Caroline Wozniacki in Istanbul. Before jetting out to Shanghai, McIlroy politely refused to talk about his split with Chandler and prepared to move on with his career.

It appears that a new era has begun.

Brian Keogh covers golf for The Irish Sun and contributes to a variety of golf publications. Pay him a visit at Irish Golf Desk.

(Photo credit: Titleist.com)

Who Are Those Guys? Bill Lunde Edition

2011-10-24T16:46:00.002-04:00

Editor’s note: In “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) kept saying, “Who are those guys?” That line reminds me of the PGA Tour some weeks, including this last one.

LUKE DONALD WON IN DRAMATIC fashion in Florida. Yani Tseng collected her seventh LPGA title of the season in her native Taiwan. And Sergio Garcia torched the European Tour field in Spain for his first win in three years. Not a bad week in golf for so late in the season.

But I’m left wondering this: Who is Bill Lunde?

Lunde is the cat who took home the $1 million for winning the Kodak Challenge. The Las Vegas Review-Journal explained the season-long sideshow. “The competition consists of 30 PGA Tour holes—one at each of 30 tournaments throughout the season. The player with the lowest score on his best 18 Kodak Challenge holes wins the $1 million.”

Lunde collected the trophy and check yesterday at the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic, even though he missed the cut. As you might imagine, Lunde was pretty tickled about the whole thing. “I’m just very relieved it’s over and I don’t have to worry about it anymore,” he said. “We’ve been looking at new houses, and this will make an easier decision.”

If you’re in the dark about Lunde like I am, here’s the sheet on him.

Lunde won the 2010 Turning Stone Resort Championship. (I obviously wasn’t paying very close attention.) So even though Lunde finished 130th on this year’s money list, he is exempt for the 2012 season. Lunde’s best finish in 28 events this season was a T12 at the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Championship.

A San Diego native who now lives in Las Vegas, Lunde helped UNLV win an NCAA Championship in 1998. He said it was his biggest thrill in golf. (But maybe that changed yesterday.) He played the Nationwide Tour in 2008 before moving up to the PGA Tour on a full-time basis the last three seasons.

By the way, the two guys Lunde beat to win the Kodak Challenge are Fabian Gomez and Cameron Tringale. We’ll have to fill in their bios another time.

−The Armchair Golfer

More ‘Who Are Those Guys?’:
Scott Stallings
Gary Woodland
Keegan Bradley

3 Hole Outs Propel Justin Leonard at CMNH Classic

2011-10-22T22:20:00.001-04:00

MISS GREEENS? NO BIG DEAL—if you’re Justin Leonard. On Saturday at the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic Leonard had three hole outs in five holes en route to a 34. He went on to shoot a 2-under 70 and holds a share of the 54-hole lead with Kevin Chappell.

The first two chip-ins looked rather routine from the edge of the green. The second was a bladed wedge that rolled in like a putt. The last one was the masterpiece of the trio, a lofted wedge from well off the green that found the cup.

“The strength of my round was definitely from off the green,” Leonard said. “There are days when those things don’t go our way, and the round can get away from me.”

Leonard, whose last win came at the 2008 Stanford St. Jude Classic, could use a victory. But he is exempt for the 2012 season on the PGA Tour. After some confusion, that apparently got sorted out on Friday.

−The Armchair Golfer

Get Complimentary Tickets to the Dubai World Championship

2011-10-21T21:57:00.002-04:00

Editor’s note: Complimentary tickets to the 2011 Dubai World Championship are available at www.DubaiWorldChampionship.com.

By Alan Ewens

World No. 1 Luke Donald.

THE DUBAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP presented by DP World is set for yet another star-studded occasion featuring many of the biggest names in world golf. While there are still chances for some players to cement a playing place in the final top 60 line-up at the Earth course, Jumeirah Golf Estates from December 8-11, a quick glance at the current Race to Dubai standings shows that many of the game’s biggest names are already Dubai-bound for the $15 million showdown.

Among them, the world’s top three ranked players—World Number One Luke Donald, inaugural Dubai World Championship winner Lee Westwood and 2011 US Open Champion Rory McIlroy—as well as three other European big guns currently residing in the top twenty of the Official World Golf Ranking.

Germany’s World Number Six Martin Kaymer, winner of The Race to Dubai less than twelve months ago, is another player ready to tackle the Greg Norman-designed Earth course, while current Masters Champion Charl Schwartzel (World Number 13) and 2011 US Open Champion Graeme McDowell (World Number 15) will tee it up at the eagerly awaited finale to the season. And with no halfway cut in the tournament, an estimated 60,000 spectators are expected to take advantage of the complimentary tickets to see four days of guaranteed action from their favourite stars.

Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood.

One player who is relishing playing in the lucrative Dubai World Championship after his impressive victory in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is Michael Hoey of Northern Ireland. His win by two shots at St Andrews—and the €588,148 first prize—launched him from 83rd to 15th in The Race to Dubai, not only guaranteeing exemption to the Dubai World Championship but also giving him a good chance of earning a share of the US $7.5 million end of season Bonus Pool.

“It’s just amazing what winning a big tournament can do for you,” said Hoey. “Winning the Dunhill Links will open a lot of doors for me and getting into huge tournaments like the Dubai World Championship is one of the biggest benefits. I’m ecstatic.

“Trying to get into the Dubai World Championship was one of my goals before winning in St Andrews but I don’t have to worry about any of that now. I can’t wait to get to Dubai—it will be a great way to end the season.”

For complimentary tickets to the 2011 Dubai World Championship, visit www.DubaiWorldChampionship.com.

(Photos: Alan Ewens, Dubai World Championship)

J.B. Holmes Adds Titanium—to His Skull

2011-10-20T22:17:00.002-04:00

J.B. Holmes at the Verizon Heritage in Hilton Head in April.

J.B. HOLMES IS RECOVERING FROM brain surgery performed on September 1. The 2008 U.S. Ryder Cup star had a quarter-sized piece of his rear skull removed to alleviate pressure on his brain. Holmes is on schedule for a full recovery and told Jeff Rude of Golfweek that he kept the piece of bone to remind himself “how lucky I am to be where I am and have a second chance.”

Rude reported that the Campbellsville, Kentucky, native also got outfitted with something else as a result of the surgery:

As part of the procedure, a piece of titanium was inserted into his skull. That means he not only has that light but strong metal in his driver, but also his head.

“It should give me 5 extra yards,” cracked Holmes, who doesn’t need the yardage, considering he has ranked in the top 7 in driving distance in each of his six PGA Tour seasons, including first this year at 318.4 yards.

Holmes started experiencing vertigo in May and had headaches and balance problems throughout the summer. He eventually withdrew from the PGA Championship and opted for the low-risk surgery after being diagnosed with structural defects in the cerebellum.

A two-time PGA Tour winner, Holmes has been doing physical rehabilitation to strengthen his neck muscles. This month he has been chipping and putting, and will soon be hitting iron shots. Holmes hopes to be back in action in December at the Franklin Templeton Shootout, if he’s invited.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Fred Couples Looks Cool Sitting in a Bunker

2011-10-19T20:25:00.003-04:00

Fred Couples bunkered.

IF ARNOLD PALMER IS GOLF’S king, then Fred Couples is golf’s king of cool. I mean, seriously, does Freddie look like anything would ever bother him? (Including Greg Norman’s jabs about Freddie’s Tiger Woods pick for the U.S. Presidents Cup team.)

What other 50-something could pull off the black ECCOs with melon-colored shoelaces and sitting cross-legged in an Adirondack chair in the middle of a sand bunker?

Couples has been busy. He shot 65, 62 and 66 for a 23-under total and a seven-shot win at the AT&T Championship.

Then, as others have reported, Couples fired back at Norman, who had taken aim at the U.S. Presidents Cup captain, saying, “I can understand the name of a Tiger Woods and his history of what he’s done on the golf course. But I pick the guys who I think are ready to get in there and play and have performed to the highest levels leading up to it.”

Couples was asked about Norman’s comments and took the bait, saying, “Robert Allenby [one of Norman’s captain’s picks] hasn’t won a tournament in 10 years.” Actually, Allenby has won as recently as 2009, just not on the PGA Tour. Whether intentional or not, Norman and Couples are drumming up some interest for the event, although maybe not much. The Presidents Cup only matters to the most diehard golf fans.

Let’s face it, Keegan Bradley deserves a spot on the team. He’s the only American who is a major champion at the moment. He has won twice this season and just bagged the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda. But it’s not really about who is playing the best right now, is it?

There are reasons for picking Tiger Woods that have nothing to do with his golf game. The kind that make Tim Finchem smile.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: ECCO)