Other Stuff

OK, we sorted most of the Tiger stuff into one post, so let's throw the rest of it at the wall and see what sticks...

Membership Has Rewards - As we informed previously, The Royal & Ancient has finally completed the installation of adequate plumbing facilities and has announced the admission of its first group of women members:

Lady Bonallack was a bonallock, and Shack helpfully notes that she finally gets to see where her husband's office used to be.  

What does come as something of a surprise is the announcement of a wide list of new honorary members, all equipped to the best of this writer's knowledge with two X chromosomes.  From the press release:

For Immediate Publication 

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club announces new honorary members 

10 February 2015, St Andrews, Scotland: The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St

Andrews is delighted to announce that Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, Dame Laura Davies, Renée Powell, Belle Robertson MBE, Lally Segard, Annika Sorenstam and Louise Suggs have accepted invitations to become honorary members of the Club.

George Macgregor OBE, the Captain of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, said, “It is an honour and a privilege for The Royal and Ancient Golf Club to welcome these remarkable women as honorary members. The Princess Royal enjoys a strong bond with Scotland and has shown great energy and commitment to developing sport through her work in the Olympic movement.

Now a few chuckles are to be found, which will no doubt come as a relief to the reader.  First, our favorite curmudgeon, James Corrigan, informs us that notwithstanding the Princess Royal's strong bond with Scotland, her bond with the ancient game is somewhat more tenuous:

The Princess Royal's name will raise a few eyebrows, considering her derogatory comments about the sport in the past. "Golf seems to me to be an arduous way to go for a walk - I'd prefer to take the dogs out," she said.

Dawson smirked when reminded of that statement, before detailing how there is a tradition in the R&A to bestow honorary status on members of the Royal family. The 1971 European equestrian gold medallist joins the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of York and the Duke of Kent in becoming an honorary member of the St Andrews club.

Yes, I'm guessing that he did, in fact, smirk... we all do what we have to do.  I'll remind you that in a long-ago post one women was considered by members to be unsuitable because she might actually use the club.  Sounds like the Princess Royal poses no such risk...

There was also this from Corrigan's piece:

Those with good memories may also see the irony in Dame Laura's inclusion. In the run-up to the 2007 Women's British Open at the Old Course, women were given use of the cooker rooms in the famous R&A clubhouse behind the 18th green. But Davies declared that she would rather "change my shoes in the car park". A lot has happened since - including the four-time major-winner being made a Dame last September - and Dawson said "all of them were thrilled to be asked".

Let's give the old boys props for letting bygones be bygones...  and as we all know, There Is Nothing Like a Dame.  Lastly, who's not on the list, I hear you inquiring.... that would be St. Andrews University Principal Louise Richardson, last seen accusing R&A members taunting her with their ties....background can be found here.

All prior similarly-situated Principals had been admitted to the R&A, so she had a legitimate issue to air.  But she went public at the time the motion to admit women was pending and in a disparaging fashion to those doing the voting, so these bygones may linger.

60 Is The New 40 - Happy 60th birthday to His Sharkness, the irrepressible Aussie... Don't ask me how he can possibly be 60, but there you have it.  Via Instagram Norman shared some life lessons:

I do think he lived up to No. 7 quite well, which makes me almost willing to forgive him for the public humiliation of Chris Evert.  But what name do we think he was mumbling through clenched teeth as he wrote No.11:

1. Larry Mize;
2. Bob Tway;
3. Robert Gamez; or,
4. All of the Above.

I hope he's right about sixty being only the start of the back nine, because I know someone else who turns sixty soon...

Casper Redux - Since the announcement of his passing, we've been treated to many wonderful reflections on a great player and even better man.  Alex Myers focuses exclusively on the golf with Seven Numbers That Tell Just How Great Billy Casper Was:

5: Casper won the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour five

times. Only Tiger Woods (nine times) has won the award more. 

16: Casper won at least one PGA Tour event in 16 consecutive years. Only Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer (both 17 years) have longer streaks. 

9.2: Casper's career winning percentage on the PGA Tour. Only two golfers who started their careers after 1950 (Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus) have won at a higher rate.

Billy has always been way underrated because of the low number of majors.  But the reality is that our focus on majors is a very recent construct, mostly a function of Nicklaus pursuing Bobby Jones' record.

Michael Bamberger's tribute had many great details, including this bit of "Praise from Caesar":

Casper grew up in a working-class family in San Diego and played with Gene Littler and Mickey Wright, future Hall of Famers, as a kid in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Wright once said that Casper's short game was so good it would “make Phil Mickelson's short game look like a child’s.”

I told this story a couple of days ago, comparing him to Bobby Locke at the '51 Open hampionship:

In his ’59 U.S. Open victory at Winged Foot, competing against Palmer, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and a roster of superstars, Casper had 31 one-putt greens. On the par-3 third hole, fearful of the bad lies he might get if he missed the green, he laid up in all four rounds and got up-and-down for par each time. He was a golfer who thought for himself, who credits his superior putting to long childhood practice-green putting sessions in which he would putt in the dark. His victory in ’59 earned him $12,000.

So color me unsurprised by his inspiration:

He also said, “I was 16 when I watched Ben Hogan play an exhibition in San Diego. He became my hero, and I built my career around his course-management principles. Between that and my own ability, I won 51 tournaments on the PGA Tour. I won two U.S. Opens and a Masters, played on eight Ryder Cup teams and captained another. I won the Vardon Trophy five times. If I had never seen Hogan play that exhibition, I might never have amounted to much in golf.”

So, let's sum up... Hogan's course management skills + a short game better than Mickelson + Thebest putter of his generation = 51 wins.  Any questions?

Weekend Wrap - You know the high points by now, Jason Day living up to expectations, Paul Goydos winning in Boca and a South Korean to be named later winning the LPGA event.

Gonna go out on a limb and suggest that what happened in South America may be the most significant of the weekend's events:

Patrick Rodgers triumphed over Steve Marino in a sudden-death playoff at the Web.com

Tour's Colombia Championship, earning his first professional victory. 

The 2014 Haskins Award winner birdied the second playoff hole – the par-4 ninth at Bogota Country Club – to take the win. Rodgers, 22, jumped 20 spots on the leaderboard after carding a final-round of 6-under 65 that included seven birdies.

Rodgers was a complete stud at Stanford and it's hard to imagine he won't be on the big tour next season.  Remember the name...

Torrey, Torrey, Torrey -  Matt Calkins takes on the biggest bully in his neighborhood... the 'hood being tony La Jolla and the bully being the South Course at Torrey Pines:

Someone needs to have a serious talk with the Torrey Pines South Course. 

Someone needs to let it know that we're 15 years into the 21st century, and that this type of behavior won't be tolerated. 

Bullying is a despicable practice, and yet this golf track did it for four straight days at the Farmers Insurance Open. It was brutal. It was ruthless. It was...oh, who are we kidding? 

It was great.

Great?  Not really....No doubt having a sterner test was a nice change of pace, after the birdie-fests the prior two weeks.  But the golf was extremely one-dimensional, and watching the best players in the world hacking out from knee-deep spinach gets old...

From the things that make me laugh file, comes this from this weeks golf.com Tour Confidential, where the writers and one Anonymous Pro are asked their thoughts on Torrey.  The guy I usually pick fights with had this sensible answer:

PASSOV: I always found Torrey Pines (South) to be a dull, repetitive slog that happened to have some awesome Pacific Ocean vistas and some testing holes in the wind. Credit Rees Jones for bringing in a bit more drama in his 2001 redesign, but his marching orders were to fix the course so that it could draw a U.S. Open. Rees succeeded. It proved itself at the 2008 U.S. Open (Tiger over Rocco) but between the length, design and setup, it's just hard, rather than great.

If you're wondering why I mentioned the AP, it's because of this howler:

ANONYMOUS PRO: Torrey Pines doesn't get its due as a good course because Rees Jones did the redesign and Phil Mickelson famously, perhaps with an agenda, criticized his work. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more beautiful and strategically interesting design on Tour.

OK, I don't know who the AP is, but I'll give you 100-1 that it's NOT Geoff Ogilvy.  Or Phil for that matter... But someone needs to put a gun to the lad's head and dare him to name a strategically interesting shot on the whole damn course...

This Week In Silliness - There must have been something in the water this week, as our cup runneth over.  In no particular order, Rémi Gaillard is famous for his "dangerously funny videos", though I find this far more curious than threatening:

I find this makes more sense when I remember that the French still worship Jerry Lewis.  If I have a choice, though, I'll go with the devil...

I'm not having any luck uploading Instagram videos today, but go here to see the latest viral video on how to deal with a stymie.  Actually it's even better than that, 'cause it's a moving stymie...

Baseball players make pretty good golfers no doubt, but this is off the charts.  Washington Nationals' outfielder Bryce Harper channels Happy Gilmore some 340 yards if he's to be believed...

And when it comes to being silly, David Owen is the clubhouse leader....apparently he originally posted this silliness in 2003 (though isn't there a mandatory deduction for recycling content?).  Anyway, here's the get:

That's David himself hitting a wedge teed up in Jimmy Kimmel's teeth.

The original 2003 Golf Digest article with the full back-story is here.  I can only hope he played it like a short bunker shot, hitting 2 inches behind the ball.

You'll agree that the man below has his priorities well in order, as he had seconds to remove his valaubles before his car exploded:

The Courier @ballaratcourier

Follow

Man saves golf clubs as car bursts into flames: http://bit.ly/1vB4Erl  #Ballarat @GolfAust @Hayesy24

9:08 PM - 9 Feb 2015

Lastly, stories of stupid criminals are comedy gold, and we've got such a golf-related item today courtesy of Alex Myers:

According to a story in the Ocala Star Banner, a man wound up getting arrested for filing a false report that his clubs (that he valued at $2,030) had been stolen out of his car in a golf course parking lot. Apparently, Joseph Louie Ioime was hoping that if he said his clubs had been taken, his wife would buy him a new set. Brilliant! 

Not a great plan to begin with, Ioime butchered its execution by leaving the clubs he said were stolen in the trunk. Yes, really. When police called to the scene of the "crime" found the clubs (Ioime had told authorities the trunk was broken, but an officer opened it up), the jig was up.

Really, you can't make this stuff up....