Just a quick post to let everyone know that we've arrived safely in Benbecula. The travel arrangements went off without a hitch, and we are thankfully in possession of all our bags.
We are awaiting the arrival of dear friends Elsie and John Coupland who, in a moment of weakness and/or lunacy, signed up for this journey to the ends of the Earth with us. In so doing they made our lives so much easier, allowing us to fly out here and avoid the arduous drive and multiple ferries. Benbecula is a spit of an island, connected by a causeway to South Uist.
Assuming their travels have gone according to schedule, we should be pegging it on Askernish Old by mid-afternoon. Weather for the moment is, in the wording of our pilot, reasonable, though the BBC seems to think northwestern Scotland could be wet this afternoon. In Glasgow there's a chance of thunderstorms, a rarity in these parts.
I'll post at my earliest opportunity, but the first few days will be hectic.
As noted above, the bride left yesterday and has arrived without incident in London. I'll be leaving Sunday night and will meet her at Glasgow Airport Monday morning, the good Lord willing and the creek don't rise...
Between now and departure you should expect blogging to be light. Maybe I'll surprise you, but I wouldn't get your hopes too high. But once we're on the ground it's my intention, as per last year's Ireland trip, to blog our golf and other travel experiences. That intention of course is subject to travel arrangements and internet access all being as planned, and time being available. In particular, the first day can be quite hectic, but I'll try to at least post a note that we've arrived safely.
I do hope you've kept up with the required reading. Elsie has confessed that she's already fallen behind, but she's the world renown Scottish Housewife, you folks can't hold yourselves to those standards. Plus, they're are picking us up at Benbecula, so the reading list was more a suggestion for them.
One last item is posted below, and I hope you're able to read it. It's the review of Askernish from Tom Doak's updated The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses. The original version was published in samizdat form some twenty-five years ago, and the later published version is out of print and selling for a pretty penny when it can be found. Doak is in the process of rolling out and updated version in five volumes, the first fortunately covering Great Britain and Ireland.
Here's Travellin' Joe's take on the original:
What made the original Guide so special? Two things. First, it was splendidly written. His critiques were concise, intelligent and at times highly controversial. Doak took shots not only at courses but also at their designers. Humor washed over many of his critiques. So did candor. Never had anyone in the design business so harshly criticized his peers and predecessors, certainly not publicly. Second, Doak had visited so many courses worldwide that it was hard to question his credibility, even if you took exception to his conclusions.
Translation: Tom said amusingly mean things about icons of the design world, and no one had ever had the cujones to do that before, at least in writing.
Now I've previously linked you to pieces covering the history of Askernish, the discovery of Askernish Old by John Garrity and the process of rebuilding it, including the litigation with the crofters.
But this short piece speaks highly of the experience of playing Askernish, and that is the point after all. Doak and his collaborators (Ran Morrissett, the founder and proprietor of Golf Club Atlas, actual wrote this review) have included Askernish as one of their eighteen "Gourmet Choice" courses in GB&I, along side icons such as Royal Dornoch, Royal County Down and Lahinch. Heady company, indeed... I don't think for a minute it would be there if not for the back story, but it sounds like we might manage to enjoy it...
Dear Reader, forgive me this moment of personal privilege... Most of you know Employee No. 2 for her tireless efforts to promote this silly blog, which likely wouldn't exist absent her encouragement.
Theresa and I met in 1999, when she was very much a newbie golfer. In fact, had I not invited her to play golf on our second date, it most likely would have been one and done. I first took Theresa to Scotland in 2001, and damn near lost her in the dunes lining the endless second hole at Royal Aberdeen. The next day we played Cruden Bay in a driving, horizontal rain, got into the car dripping wet, drove four hours to Dornoch and she answered the bell for a 7:00 a.m. tee time. It was at that moment I knew I would marry this woman...
Since the beginning of our golf travels, we have played highly competitive matches against each other. For that background I'll refer you to this precis written in conjunction with our 2012 Fortnight in Ballyliffin. It may be my favorite post of my blogging career, so indulge a proud hubby and give it a read.
So, why the wistful trip down memory lane? Because yesterday my girl won her first Willow Ridge Club Championship. This year's format was 54 holes of stroke play, and Theresa grabbed a three-stroke lead in the first round, and went wire-to-wire to a four-shot win.
I snuck out there to see the gals finish, hiding in a grove of trees so as not to intrude on the proceedings (though she later told me that she noticed). I had received word that she had a good-sized lead on No. 17, but was way nervous when she put her approach to the final green in the back bunker. Given the day's back pin, that's one nasty spot and much can go wrong, but our resolute hero popped one safely out and onto the fringe, and confidently two-putted to close it out.
We then had to scramble and get her packed and on her way to London...but I just wanted to let you all know that our Tessie done good!
The bride will be headed to London later today, and in honor thereof we have an internationally-centric post for you.
Is There A Vaccine For That? - Olympic fever is everywhere, so to ensure that I can see you through this spectacle that is to save our game, it's only prudent to seek inoculation. Shack links us to this Guardian story of the status one year out. Forgive this long excerpt, but is any of this a surprise?
The IOC has previously called Rio preparations the worst ever; many projects are running late and, with constructors working overtime, costs are soaring. Many contracts are not government-funded, which have heightened concerns that venues, land and infrastructure will be used for private profit rather than for public use after the Games. Overall the progress report stands at around 60%. At this point before London 2012, 80% of venues and infrastructure had been completed. Despite this, officials are confident all venues will be ready for the test events later this year, which was not the case for the World Cup.
Pollution is also a serious issue. Earlier this year, 32 tonnes of dead fish were removed from the lagoon where the Olympic rowing and canoeing events will take place and Guanabara Bay has been called an “open sewer” by Olympic sailors. Events could yet be moved to entirely new locations, according to officials.
Extra police will be drafted in during the Olympics to combat the high levels of crime. Mass robberies, known as arrastões are common, particularly on beaches such as Copacabana. Armed military police are widely used – 582 people in Rio died at the hands of the police in 2014. South‑east Brazil is experiencing its worst drought in 50 years and with 70% of the country’s electricity coming from hydroelectric power, there is both a water and energy crisis threatening Rio next year. To compensate, the continued expansion of hydropower in Amazonia is creating further problems, with deforestation and the displacement of indigenous people. As residents in Rio face water rationing, 5m litres of water are pumped over the Olympics golf course every day to keep it green.
Dog, fleas. And Lord knows that the IOC is pretty much an open sewer itself, but I am looking forward to those swimming and sailing events.
But how great is it going to be seeing the best players in the world competing for Olympic Gold? Well, not all of the best players. as Kevin Maguire elucidates:
That's because the system used to set the Olympic field -- in which everyone inside the
top 15 in the Official World Golf Rankings gets in -- has a maximum of four golfers per country. And once you get outside the top 15, no nation can have more than two players.
And therein lies the controversy. Americans could be Nos. 1-5 in the world, but only the first four get spots on the Olympic team. As of now, seven Americans are inside the top 15. That leaves Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson and Jimmy Walker watching the Games from home.
Good thing they set it up so that Tiger would want to play... But the important thing is that Thomas Pieters will have a tee time.
Bob Harig catches Rickie channeling his inner Yogi:
"It's a new thing for golf obviously being the first time in there,'' said Rickie Fowler, ranked fifth in the world. "For me, it would be a dream come true I haven't ever dreamt of. You always watch the Olympics, and you look at the opening ceremonies and closing ceremonies and being around the best athletes in the world in their respective sports.
Yes, you read that correctly...The International Golf Federation has posted a number of photos of the golf course, which appears to be effectively using that 5m litres of water and growing in nicely:
Golf has emerged in the most recent World Anti Doping Agency (Wada) figures as having a significantly higher percentage of Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) than athletics, cycling, rugby or soccer.
An AAF identifies the presence of a prohibited substance or its metabolites or markers in any given sample.
The 2015 figures, which collates all of the samples analysed and reported by accredited Wada laboratories throughout the world in 2014, shows that golf scored a 1.6 per cent rate of positive drugs tests compared to 1.0 per cent for both athletics and cycling and 0.8 per cent for rugby.
As we know, cycling is the gold standard of doping, so well done, lads. Now we interrupt your regularly-scheduled schadenfreude to bring you this nuanced explanation from Commissioner Ratched's loyal manservant Ty Votaw:
“I think in a vacuum, these are just lab-level analysis. It doesn’t give you the
circumstances,” Votaw told GolfChannel.com. “If most of the drugs are cortico-steroids or diuretics, there is a very real possibility that those have TUEs associated with them. We don’t consider them to be performance-enhancing in the first place. Now diuretics, I suppose, can be used as a masking agent of some sort to someone else, but we aren’t seeing a lot of diuretics in our testing.”
Votaw added that WADA does not have access to the test results or samples from the lab through which the Tour conducts its regular testing, meaning the 507 samples in question came from other corners of the game.
Well, duh, Ty, of course they didn't come from your testing, as you guys don't take blood samples. And since blood samples are necessary to test for HGH and the other nasties, we take your point that there's nothing to see here and will move on to our nest story.
Prez Cup Doings - Earlier this week I saw this item:
Years of lobbying for changes to the Presidents Cup format by International team captain Nick Price may finally make an impact, pending a meeting this week at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational between Price and PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem.
A Reuters report indicates that Price and Finchem are set to meet Wednesday in Akron to discuss Price’s ideas for change, rooted in lowering the amount of points up for grabs in the team portion of the competition.
Where are you going with this, Nick?
“Those 22 points in the team matches make it very easy for one team to get so far ahead that it takes all the excitement out of the Sunday singles,” Price told Reuters. “With the structure of the Presidents Cup as it is right now, you have a chance where it could be 16 points to 6 going into the last-day singles, or 17-5 or 15-7.
“If you want the strongest team to win every time, then make as many points as you want, play everyone every day and then the Americans are probably going to win 90 percent of the time.”
So we want the strongest team to lose? That's gonna be an interesting discussion, no? But he seems to be admitting that his squad isn't up to the American standards, whereas I'm not as convinced of that. But Joel Beall adds his own list of suggested changes, and they're downright curious, such as this:
Replace alternate shot with a scramble
Can you imagine the drives Dustin Johnson would unleash knowing he had a safe ball in the fairway, or the type of pin-seeking we'd see from Spieth or Rickie Fowler? It would be like watching a Golden Tee round come to life.
Alternate shot is the best part of these team competitions, because it takes the players out of their comfort zones. DJ will be bombing and the others will be pin-hunting enough in the fourballs, and we want our guys experiencing foursomes in this event, so the Ryder Cup won't be a complete unknown when they're sent out in foursomes.
Joel also takes them to task on their venues and offers some good suggestions that will be dutifully ignored. But the Prez Cup venues have been far better than the Ryder Cup venues, no?
The name Nick Rangos likely won’t resonate with many, but he was to a sandwich as Gene Sarazen was to a sand wedge.
Rangos was the man responsible for the renowned pimento cheese recipe used in sandwiches at Augusta National Golf Club during the Masters. Rangos, 86, died on Aug. 1, the Aiken (S.C.) Standard has reported.
The devil is in the details, as this bit makes clear:
“At the outset, he was just doing it to provide a living for his family,” his son Billy once told ESPN. “But at some point, the pimento cheese did become somewhat famous. He took a great deal of pride in knowing that.There were several articles written over the years about my dad’s pimento cheese, and he really enjoyed reading those. He had a smile on his face when he saw those articles.”
Aiken Standard writer Dede Biles wrote that “Billy believes Augusta National’s policy of making the pimento cheese sandwiches fresh every day helped enhance the filling’s flavor.”
I'm thinking that you don't need to be Bobby Flay to know that day-old pimento cheese sitting in the Georgia sun isn't going to end well...
Trip Preview - Our previous required reading was mercifully brief, but this morning we're going to challenge your attention span by linking to this wonderful David Owen article in the New Yorker describing how the reclamation all came about. Here's your tease:
At lunch, one of the members surprised Irvine by saying that Askernish was more than a century old and had been designed by Old Tom Morris, a towering figure in the history and folklore of the game. Morris, who was born in 1821 and looked a little like Charles Darwin in an ivy cap, was the founding father of modern golf. In the eighteen-sixties, he won four of the first eight British Opens and became the head professional of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, serving there for four decades as the chief greenkeeper of the Old Course, golf’s holiest ground. He also designed or redesigned several of the world’s greatest courses, among them Muirfield, Prestwick, and Carnoustie, in Scotland, and Royal County Down, in Northern Ireland.
Irvine was polite but dismissive: the course he’d walked that morning was a cow pasture with flagsticks stuck in the ground, and he doubted that Morris, whose courses he knew well, had ever come near it. But another club member said that this was not the original Askernish, and that Old Tom’s layout had had eighteen holes and was situated closer to the sea. Most of the original holes, apparently, had been abandoned, probably beginning around the time of the Second World War. Ralph Thompson said that the club possessed a news clipping from 1891 which described Morris’s creation of the course that year, and which quoted Morris calling the layout “second to none.” Irvine was curious enough to take another look, and after lunch Thompson drove him back.
Second to none? We'll see about that now, won't we?
My unplanned Summer of Tillie continues this morning, as Maggot, The Great Walloon and I will be headed to Fenway Golf Club to peg it. But we'll get a few of those random musings you so crave up before departure...
You Say Burrata... - Forget the golf stuff for which he doesn't seem to show much aptitude, for August 10th is the first day of Tiger's career as a restaurateur. It being 2015, the kids announce these sorts of things on Twitter:
It still being 2015, The Woods seems like an apt moniker, being the natural habitat for the proprietor's tee shots. I'm reliably informed that the image is of a burrata with heirloom tomatoes, quite a change of flight from the burgers and dogs he's specified for the Masters Champions' Dinner.
In matters more golf-related, Tiger stays right on script in this Jim McCabe item:
Quicken Loans National, Woods was in good spirits, even when he was asked to address the fact that he’s not currently in the picture to tee it up at the DBC. It will be for the top 100 in the FedEx Cup standings and Woods is presently 185th.
His plan to be eligible for the DBC, which benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation? “Winning my fifth PGA would be nice,” Woods said.
Tiger is way too modest....it wasn't just his second best finish of the year, it was actually his second finish. Yanno, on a Sunday...
But he did get a vote of confidence from this noted expert on our game:
Wondering if Tiger Woods will win again? His ex-girlfriend has a prediction.
In a Twitter Q&A on Monday, Lindsey Vonn was asked if Woods would ever win another tournament. Vonn responded with an enthusiastic, "He will!"
And since tee times are at a premium for the guy, this came as quite the relief:
Tiger Woods will receive a sponsor exemption to the Hero World Challenge, a tournament he hosts that benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation, after the PGA Tour approved his request. The exemption allows the Hero World Challenge to award world ranking points to its 18 competitors, even though small-field events typically require each player to be within the OWGR's top 50.
Woods has won the events five times since its inception in 1999. The tournament will be held at Albany in the Bahamas Dec. 3-6.
Gee, I wonder how he was able to arrange that.... This is small beer in the cosmic arc of history, but awarding world ranking points for an 18-person event at the feverish peak of the Silly Season is just nuts. Even more so is the fact that he was awarded world ranking points for last year's T-17 finish, which is the same thing as T-Last. Well earned, no?
Lastly on this thread I'll link you to this curmudgeonly offering from the reliably-curmudgeon James Corrigan:
I was one of those who would roll my eyes and shake my head when anyone questioned
his commitment. But recently that faith has wavered. Watching him at St Andrews was disturbing, not so much for the hackerisms, the shots from a 10‑handicapper’s worst nightmare. But for the absence of grind, for the acceptance of mediocrity, for his inability to launch anything resembling a fightback, Instead he laughed and joked his way up the fairways with Jason Day’s caddie, a scenario which Day, himself, found resonant.
“He used to have that killer instinct,” Day said, reflecting on the hero of his youth. Didn’t he just, Woods was never a robot who only worked when all the cogs were whirring. He could and would turn it around by the strength of his competitive psyche alone, overcoming the wildest driving, glaring technical deficiencies, broken legs even, to get himself into position. Not any more.
The times, they have changed...
Whan, Ban, Thank You Mike - Shack has a follow-up post on the issue of the women's career Grand Slam, including LPGA Commish Mike Whan trying to make sense if the senseless. Good luck with that, Mike.
We'll divert to this Randall Mell item title, "Does Evian Deserve Major Status? No, next question....
But if we’re really intent on debating the sacrosanct principles of major championship golf, we probably ought to back up and take a harder look at Evian. That’s where this Grand Slam question should begin again.
Is winning Evian a measure of greatness worthy of keeping Inbee Park from being declared a Grand Slam champion?
The questions answer themselves, the shame being that the ladies, after joining forces with the PGA of America, would have had their majors in good order and, as a bonus, they'd have conformed pretty closely to the men's game.
I'm usually pretty forgiving of the accommodations the LPGA makes to sponsors in light of the difficulty in marketing their brand of the game. But in this case it just makes a hash of things...
Here's the killer debating point from the Morning Drive discussion:
Which brings up the second question, addressed ably by the Morning Drive team and defended by Whan with not much to hang your hat on: you can win a career Slam without winning the U.S. Women's Open, arguably the most historic and certainly the oldest major?
I'd challenge Shack's use of the word "arguably", as the U.S. Women's Open is THE event in their game.
On Meltdowns - Joel Beall dovotes a post at The Loop to on-course meltdowns, including this bit ripped from the script of Happy Gilmore:
My competitor proceeded to top his shot off the tee box and into the heather. Unfazed, he grabbed a provisional. His reload took a similar flight.
He managed to put his third try into the bunker. After executing a hell of a sand shot, he had 10 inches or so to make his 7.
His tap-in went 270 degrees around the hole, but not in the cup. Snowman.
Following the miss, his putter went helicoptering towards his bag. Dramatic, yes, but I'd seen similar throws. What I hadn't seen, however, is what he did next. And I swear on my mother's life, the following is true.
When the last man in our group finished out, our beleaguered compadre took the flag and, in a scene straight out of Happy Gilmore, chucked the stick in javelin fashion towards the high stuff.
You'll have to click through for the conclusion, but the purpose of the piece is to solicit readers' stories of epic meltdowns, and they promise to publish the best of the lot. Tommy Bolt could not be reached for comment....
Punked Again - Remember that note about Rory's scheduled practice round at Whistling Straits? Not so fast, it seems:
On Tuesday, the Irish Golf Desk published a report debunking the rumor and citing McIlroy’s publicist Terry Prone.
According to the golf site, Prone, when asked about the Reuters report on Sunday night, wrote: “Not booked for such a round. Still going through the ankle rehab process.”
See ya at The Masters, Rors.
On Posting - Is an interesting story on posting scores in GHIN an oxymoron? I'm not sure, so you make the call:
It’s hard to know definitively, but Champions Tour player Paul Goydos might be unique in that he maintains a handicap index and actually posts his scores from tour events.
For instance, Goydos had scores of 72, 65 and 68 at the 3M Championship over the weekend (he tied for seventh). A check of his handicap index at GHIN.comshows he posted scores of 71, 65 and 68 (we can’t explain the discrepancy between his first-round score and his posted score) on a course with a rating of 73.3 and a slope of 146. From the blue tees at the TPC Twin Cities at which the 3M Championship was played, the course has a 73.3 rating and a 146 slope.
And here's the visual:
We've run items previously about touring pros' handicaps, for instance the gaggle that belong to Scottsdale's Whisper Rock all maintain official handicaps used for money games with other club members. But the issue to me seems to be whether the tournament set-up of a venue would change the course rating and/or slope?
But shouldn't those be designated as tournament scores?
Time remains a bit scarce as we're in the glide path to our Scotland adventure.... but we have a few items for you today.
Great Minds... - During my delightful outing to Wykagyl (which I've been meaning to blog) last week, the subject of Trump's involvement with golf came up in conversation with our host. He and my friend Sid felt that The Donald is good for golf, investing where others fear to tread.
My take was more equivocal, not critical of his involvement but considering it largely irrelevant to the direction and future of our game. I made the point that his high-end properties in Scotland and Ireland are almost completely irrelevant to golf in those wonderful countries, as precious few Scots will ever tread his links... Now if you want a developer that's in fact good for our game, I suggested that Mike Keiser would be your man.
I was therefore pleased to see this item in the Oregonian on this very thread, as it seems The Combover can't resist taking potshots at his competitors:
"We're the obvious target," Keiser says with a chuckle, explaining that he and the
Republican presidential candidate are among a small group of developers of high-end golf courses. And Trump, as everyone now knows, is quick to attack competitors whether in politics or business.
The four major courses at Bandon Dunes are more highly rated than Trump's golf empire -- and Keiser has done it with a very different philosophy. The grounds at Bandon Dunes are more naturalistic and not as perfectly manicuredas the typical Trump course. You won't find gold fixtures in the bathrooms or fancy chandeliers in the clubhouse.
"We're more in the Oregon mode that more is less," says Keiser in a phone interview. "You won't find a fountain at Bandon Dunes."
I'm thinking he meant that less is more, but we take his point.
Nope, nothing to see here per The Donald.
As the Bandon Dunes courses have grown in stature over the last decade, Trump has kept up a steady stream of ridicule.
"You know, everyone crows about Bandon Dunes," Trump told Links magazine in 2010 as he was starting to build a links course north of Aberdeen, Scotland. "Well, I've been to Bandon Dunes. The views there are no better than what we have, and the dunes themselves are like little toys compared to our dunes."
He hit the same theme in 2012 when he talked to Golf Digest's David Owen: "The biggest dune there is like one tenth the size of our smallest dune. It's a toy. And they get such great reviews. Every one of my courses is, like, amazing."
Keiser makes the obvious point here:
"If you asked my architects, they'd say that you want dunes, but not ones that are too big," he says, because the fairways wind up being in narrow valleys.
The ratings bear Keiser out.
And here:
"He's bombastic, that's his style," says Keiser, who firmly adds: "He's not my candidate."
UPDATE: A new disclosure report for a super-PAC connected to Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was released Friday, and it shows a $100,000 contribution from Keiser.
"Hopefully I would one day be a captain, it would be fun," Daly said. "I don't know if I fit the mold. I don't know if I fit what the PGA of America would want. All I know is my team, if I was a captain, we'd have a blast. I'd make sure they had a blast. You don't want to wear a tie, don't wear a tie. Have fun. It's supposed to be fun."
Daly 2018, I can see the bumper stickers now. Joel Beall posits five positives to be found in a Daly Captaincy (Spoiler Alert: Team Outfits is the best of it), including this odd note:
It Would Inject Desperately-Needed Pizzazz
The 2014 Ryder Cup was slaughtered in TV ratings. Part of this stemmed from its time slot, yet there's no doubting the American sporting public's attention is divided during the fall between college and pro football and baseball's playoff race.
While golf zealots tune in no matter the ancillary factors, the event needs to draw in the general crowd. Adding Daly to the mix would help garner such eyes.
Ummmm, does anyone think that the Ryder Cup is under-promoted? And let's just remind ourselves that the man is a disgrace, having been fined by the Tour an incredible number of times for failing to, you know, try...here's just a taste:
Eventually, his personnel file at the PGA Tour swelled to 456 pages, with incidents covering 18 years, through the fall of 2008. Daly was fined nearly $100,000 during that span, suspended from the Tour five times, placed on probation six times, cited 11 times for “conduct unbecoming a professional” and 21 times for “failure to give best efforts.”
Those 456 pages just scream "Captain", don't they?
Remembering Rory - Still no word on whether Rory will defend at Whistling Straits, but this video of the lad with trick-shot maestros The Bryan brothers was filmed before his infamous kick-round:
Rory acquits himself reasonably well, and word has come that he's scheduled a practice round on Saturday. Hard to imagine he could be sharp, and it's an awfully difficult walking course.
Trip Preview - We're in the glide path to our Scotland trip, and the blog will turn into a travelogue during that period. As many of you are aware, the trip highlight will be our excursion to Askernish on the island of South Uist (pronounced YEW-ist) in the Outer Hebrides.
We are delighted to be joined on this excursion by Elsie and John Coupland, who hail from the Highlands town of Strathpeffer. We met Elsie (the famed Scottish Housewife) and John years ago at Lake Isle in Eastchester, and with our friend Jewelle and Glenn have become quite good friends. Jewelle and Glenn have just returned from Scotland (you'll no doubt recall the picture of Glenn from the Road Hole grandstands) and Elsie and John are enjoying a short respite before the arrival of the next colonists.
Jewelle shared this wonderful picture of John, Elsie and Glenn (from l-to-r) hanging with Old Tom at Tain Golf Club:
We'll be there as well, and you'll likely see a similar photo in about ten days.
But for now, this short piece is your required reading, detailing the discovery of "Askernish Old" by John Garrity. Here's a tease:
Golf writers love the thrill of discovering a new destination for their readers, a heretofore hidden gem. Back in 1990, John Garrity experienced that thrill of discovery in a very profound way, uncovering an 1891 Old Tom Morris design on the isolated Scottish island of South Uist. The course -Askernish – had not simply eluded American visitors. It had literally been lost to the ages.
Thanks to those of you that expressed concern about my laptop's meltdown. The good news is that the crisis has been dealt with and the device is back in business.... the bad news is that to do so involved restoring it to the original factory settings, scrubbing it clean of all documents and applications. But we're thankful to have our multi-hour tech. service calls behind us...
To Ayr is Human - Though Inbee at her best seems not to be... The ladies' British was good fun, a mix of new names and show ponies, a wide range of conditions for the gals to play in and of course those stunning images of the Ayrshire coast and Ailsa Craig. Since I was one of six people watching, we'll start with the game story:
TURNBERRY, Scotland -- Top-ranked Inbee Park won the Women's British Open after
coming from three shots behind fellow South Korean Jin-Young Ko in the final round Sunday, becoming the seventh female player to win four different majors.
Park picked up seven shots in her last 12 holes for a 7-under 65 to reel in Ko, who lost the lead at Turnberry when her second shot at No. 16 rolled into the burn. Park finished on 12-under 276.
Inbee played a flawless round, and it's a well-deserved victory. JY Ko is a new name to us all, and she looked in total control for most of the day. Then something happened, perhaps a peak at a leader board or hearing the roars from Inbee's eagle on No. 14. Here's a little background on yet another South Korean player that will be coming to leaderboards near you:
Ko, a precocious 20-year-old playing outside Asia for the first time and in her first links tournament, finished runner-up on 9 under after a 71.
It's even more remarkable than that, as she arrived Monday night from Korea. Jet-lagged as you'd expect, the Tuesday Pro-Am prevented her from getting on the golf course, though she played her one practice round Wednesday with her mentor....you guessed it, Inbee Park.
Now to the controversy....:
The LPGA Tour is calling Park's achievement a career Grand Slam, although Park hasn't won the Evian Championship since it was given the status of a fifth major in 2013. She did win Evian in 2012.
Ugh! Dontcha just love this kind of nonsense, caused by having five majors. Here's how the LPGA rationalizes it:
The LPGA endeavors to maintain fair comparisons - as they relate to major championships and grand slams – from generation to generation. Despite the dictionary definition of grand slam, when translated to golf it has been widely understood that accomplishing the grand slam has been to win all four major championships.
The term grand slam was translated to golf 20 years before the LPGA was founded and the LPGA has not always had four majors. We began our major history with three. In some years we competed for two, in some years three, in some years four and now five.
OK, that's underwhelming logic at nest, as explained by Randall Mell:
GOLF CHANNEL
The phrase “Grand Slam” originated in card games in the early 1800s as a way to describe the winning of all possible tricks in a single game. The phrase is most closely connected to the game of Bridge, in which a standard deck of 52 playing cards is divided evenly among four players. There are 13 matches, or tricks, played in which each player uses one card with the goal of winning that particular trick. If a player wins all 13 tricks, he or she is considered to have won a Grand Slam. Park has not won all possible LPGA majors, since the Evian was not considered a major when she won it.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Same reasoning as Golf Channel – Park needs to win an Evian Championship to complete a career Grand Slam. The AP's position is significant because its copy is carried by thousands of news outlets around the world, including newspapers, websites and TV and radio stations.
Now, lest you think this is a problem only for the ladies, let's remember that the modern Grand Slam didn't exist until Arnie dreamed it up in 1960. And a small little invitational in Augusta, GA was retroactively declared a major and The Western Open, which was considered pretty "major" by the standards on the 1930's and 40's, didn't earn its appropriate status through the gauzy lens of history.
And this mess is further complicated by the fact that Inbee has won Evian, just prior to it becoming major...she's the best woman player on the planet, that'll just have to be enough for her and the scribes.
I'll tale credit for my early week call that Lydia could be competitive on this track, as we was in the mix until a double bogey at No. 12 caused by a rare fried egg lie in a bunker. But that she would fail to be low Ko, I didn't see that coming...
Here's a bit more on the unknown Ko and her caddie for the week:
For her caddie, 27-year-old Jeff Brighton from nearby Girvan, it has been a week like no other. He contacted her manager on Tuesday, shortly after her arrival from Korea the previous evening, and the new partnership only hit the course for the first time on Wednesday.
A first-round 68 hinted that his player had skills, but the 1-under 71 played in the cold wind and rain late on Friday was proof that something a little bit special was happening. Coming off the green in near dark, Brighton was in awe of Ko's efforts and also a little excited despite being soaked to the skin. "I've been caddying at Turnberry for 15 years, so I've walked this course thousands of times,'' he said. "I started playing here as a junior member, and that was as good a round as I have ever seen."
I wonder if this partnership will become permanent, as they seemed to be enjoying each other's company and, at least for 69 holes, worked quite well together.
Merritt Pay - One of the truisms of life on Tour is that it's difficult to back up a great round, so expectations were low for Troy Merritt on Sunday:
Golf sure is funny.
Troy Merritt missed five consecutive PGA Tour cuts and seven in his last nine starts heading into the Quicken Loans National. Of course, he won.
So it goes in golf, where Merritt followed up his brilliant 61 on Saturday with a solid 4-under-par 67 Sunday at sizzling Robert Trent Jones Golf Club to finish at 18 under and three shots clear of runner-up Rickie Fowler (69). Once he got to a weekend, Merritt, 29, made the most of it and shot 128 in his last two rounds to gain his first maiden Tour victory in his 96th start.
I watched none of it, but isn't Rickie having quite the strange season? Last year he was top-5 in all four majors, but didn't win a thing. This year he's won twice in impressive fashion and seems to be routinely contending, but has played rather poorly in the majors.
This is Tiger's event and the host actually played reasonably well, as per Steve DiMeglio:
He caught a bad break on the first hole when his approach caromed off the flagstick and wound up 50 feet from the hole.
Instead of a kick-in birdie, he settled for a two-putt par. Undeterred, he started putting up red numbers two holes later. Hitting fairways and greens, Woods made five birdies in an eight-hole stretch to reach 10 under.
Then things started to fall apart. There was a missed 3-footer for par on the 11th, a drive into the hazard on 12, an approach spun off the green on 14. But there were far more ups the last four days than downs.
Well, that's been the pattern recently, a good score or stretch of holes, followed by a regression. But in this case the step back was smaller, his worst round was Saturday's 74, and the good play was better. Although this from Golf Channel's Ryan Reiterman seems to raise some recurring themes:
But perhaps more importantly, Woods said after four rounds at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club he feels like he's turned a corner with his new swing under instructor Chris Como.
"I'm getting some speed back, which is nice," he said. "I'm starting to pump the ball out there again, and I know the lofts on my irons are very weak compared to today's standards. I'm hitting the ball up there with some of the bigger guys again ... I was able to make some putts, and the short game's becoming good again like it used to be."
Since his troubles began, Tiger has seemed overly focused on distance. While Tiger was the longest guy out there when he came up, that hasn't been the case for many years though to this observer he seems to be long enough. Yet all he talks about is speed.... and the bit about iron lofts reminds of Phil's mocking of Tiger's equipment a few years back.
But the challenge now becomes tee times, as we might only see him once more this year at the PGA. And given his continued estrangement from his driver, it's really hard to see him playing particularly well there. But unless he were to win the PGA, there will be no FedEx Playoffs nor a Presidents Cup, so see ya at Torrey in February, Tiger.
But Shack notes an encouraging sign, the return of amazing rescue shots, such as this little gem:
Hurley Burly - News broke over the weekend that Tour player Bill Hurley's father had gone missing, and going public resulted in him being found far from home:
GAINESVILLE, Va. (AP) -- The father of PGA Tour player Billy Hurley III was found
safe in Texas after he went missing for nearly two weeks, police said Friday.
Willard Hurley Jr., 61, was unharmed and told police in Leesburg, Virginia, he had simply been traveling. Police had traced him to Texarkana, Texas, before a citizen who'd seen his picture spotted him on Friday and called local police.
The elder Hurley spoke briefly by phone to Leesburg police, but didn't provide many details, said Lt. Jeff Dube, a police spokesman.
My assumption with stories like this is encroaching dementia, though it appears to not be the case here. Whatever the background. at least his family knows that he's safe.
A Wie Bit Fragile - Michelle Wie's annus horribilis continues unabated with this:
Michelle Wie withdrew from the Women's British Open after 13 holes of her second round on Friday, soon after aggravating her left ankle injury by slipping as she walked off a tee box.
"Could be a week or two months," Wie told reporters after receiving medical attention in the physio room at Turnberry.
Wie was 10 over par for the round, which was played in wet and windy conditions, and 14 over for the tournament.
I'm not sure which is worse, that she hurt one of her few unimpaired body parts or that she was +14 for 31 holes.... We all thought that last year's U.S. Open win was going to be the start of a great stretch for her, but she simply has proven to be far too fragile. Oh well, we'll always have Pinehurst.
