Ians and Tigers and....

You know the drill....I scour the universe for interesting golf items, give you an excerpt, then add my distinctively pithy and insightful analysis.  You?  What exactly is it that you're adding to this process?

El Cardonal - A First Look - Yes, I know they lost in the NLCS, but this is a different Cardinal.  Golf.com is up with a gallery of photos of Tiger's first to the finish line design project.  I'll defer comment to Shackelford, who writes books on this subject:

As a connoisseur of architecture I was thrilled to pore through golf.com's gallery and I see saw all sorts of neat stuff in the design details, including a few really exciting surprises (the wacky 17th green embedded at right for starters).

Here's that 17th of which he speaks:

Hard to discern the line of the fairway from this, but it looks like a great angle of attack, Shack also offers this Surgeon General's warning:

However, like a bandaged patient pushed out of the hospital in a wheelchair after plastic surgery--or the radically altered Renee Zellwager--a golf course during grow-in should absolutely not be photographed and then shared with the world. (I realize typing this is a bit like when the local news warns you that graphic images are coming. Most make sure not to miss the carnage.) 

Unfortunately, these first legitimate images of El Cardonal are not going to leave a great impression unless you can look past the typical construction scars, rough maintenance and overall raw nature of the decidely midday images, I suggest you wait until mid-December when Tiger's first 18-hole design opens and the course can be captured in proper circumstances and light.

I think it looks awfully good and that folks will understand the need for it to grow in.  Trump will of course hate it, but that's a feature as opposed to a bug.  The 2nd hole might be my personal favorite, utilizing the Macdonald punchbowl template for a long Par-3:

Your mileage may vary, as I'm a registered Macdonald groupie.  It seems to have that minimalist, Bill Coore or Tom Doak look, and it's always been known to be a great piece of land.  Though I did get a chuckle out of the third hole, a driveable Par-4 where he's trying to incorporate the shot values of Riviera's 10th.  Amusing, no, since he won't actually play Riviera these days...

The Poultergeist Is Upon Us - It was just last week when Ian Poulter took to Twitter to announce he was leaving Cobra/Puma, and promised a quick announcement of his new equipment sponsor (he of

course has his own clothing line, IJP Designs).  I thought that a shame, because he was an unusually good fit, along with Rickie Fowler, for the brash upstarts of the industry.

But as he promised, he has now announced that he's a Titleist player, though as E. Michael Johnson notes we'll see if that extends to switching to a Scotty putter.  Titleist, perhaps the most corporate of the golf companies, seems an odd fit for IJP, but any port in a storm.  It's always a bit strange when you see the logos change, like seeing Ernie back at Oakmont in TaylorMade swag.

In other Ian-related news, Derek Lawrenson is the first to get his hands on the autobiography that I noted a few days ago, and did the strangest thing possible, he actually read it.   He gives it good press, with one important caveat:

Even though I know the story backwards by now, I still enjoyed reading Ian Poulter’s autobiography No Limits (Quercus, £20), published this week.

Yes, there’s a certain irony in the fact that a man who has only read one book in his life should have the cheek to come out with one of his own, but Poulter’s story is so inspirational it certainly deserves to be preserved in hardcover.

Here's that qualification:

My main quibble is I wish he’d waited until the end of his career. Yes, there’s all the detail about his extraordinary rise from selling Mars bars to owning Ferraris, from helping out on a market stall at 15 to becoming one of the world’s top golfers. 

But I’ve had plenty of enjoyable off-the-record chats with Poulter over the years and know how strongly he feels on all sorts of issues and how eloquently he expresses them.

However, precious few of them are in these pages, presumably because he can’t afford to fall out with people when he’s in the prime of his career, and a stint as Ryder Cup captain lies on the distant horizon.

That makes perfect sense, though based upon his recent play, especially in the Ryder Cup, I'm guessing that the end of his career is quite a bit closer than the author or reviewer recognize.  In fact, except for the Ryder Cup it really hasn't been a terribly noteworthy career, perhaps excepting his embrace of social media.

Whither Rory - When last we checked in with the freckled one, he was unable to participate in the earl events in the Autumn money grab Race to Dubai due to being in the witness protection program.  Brian Keough updates us at The Irish Golf Desk:

On Monday he was making headlines again, issuing a statement to say he's skipping his next two scheduled events in China — the BMW Masters, which starts at Lake Malaren on Thursday week and the following week's WGC-HSBC Champions — to prepare himself for his March court date after mediation in his legal dispute with Horizon Sports Management failed to resolve that thorny problem.

So he's skipping events in October to prepare for a March court date?  Nothing to see here, folks, kindly move along... So might this cost him the Dubai thingee?

McIlroy has such a massive lead — he's €3.1m clear of second placed Sergio Garcia — that if it weren't for the small print,. he could probably afford to miss Dubai too and win his second European money title. 

Even if he has to take that week off to better prepare himself for the trial, O'Grady has the power to grant him a waiiver for a "Mitigating Circumstance” (injury, serious disability or acceptable personal emergency). 

Whether a March court battle could be considered an acceptable personal emergency is a matter of opinion. But it's certainly not good news.

So it sounds like the Race to Dubai is as effed-up as the FedEx Cup, but it's late enough on the calendar that, unlike Commissioner Ratched's brainchild, it doesn't screw up the rest of the schedule.

 Ewan Murray seems terribly worried about the lad:

Nobody at Horizon will be upset by Mcllroy’s shock withdrawal from the BMW Masters and WGC HSBC Champions events. In fact, those at the 25-year-old’s former management firm will probably take some satisfaction from the Northern Irishman’s core business being affected by a case which has now been rumbling on for a year. The very fact that McIlroy will take an enforced break from golf illustrates the seriousness of this scenario.

Does skipping two inconsequential events constitute an "Enforced Absence?"  I hadn't picked up on the court date being in March, and that I'll agree could be an issue leading to you-know-what:

Now there is uncertainty over what the upcoming months will entail. McIlroy would routinely play in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to start the new year before crossing the Atlantic

to appear at the Honda Classic. With a trial looming in February, or at the latest early March, his schedule cannot be mapped out with any great certainty. This would not be welcome in any year but with the opportunity to secure a grand slam of major titles at Augusta National in April at the summit of his priority list, there is added cause for anxiety.

Kevin Garside is also crying crocodile tears for the lad, assuring us that this couldn't possibly be a cynical ploy to avoid two meaningless events on the other side of the planet:

Cynics might argue that McIlroy is grateful for an excuse not to cross 10 time zones to Shanghai to contest the BMW Masters and the WGC-HSBC Championship, but in this increasingly commercial era golfers do not readily snub the attentions of blue-chip sponsors.

Aren't you grateful that I maintain a cynicism-free zone here at Unplayable Lies?  Because if we give in to cynicism, then the terrorists have won....or something like that.  Then this:

It is hard to imagine how anyone is well served by this, least of all a man who could, in abstract terms, settle the commissions owed without batting an eyelid. McIlroy obviously has his reasons, the validity of which will be decided by a judge who has already warned of the toxic nature of the revelations he knows are coming.

Toxic revelations?  I'm all ears...Meanwhile, James Corrigan has taken time out to offer his services as a character witness for the Ulsterman:

What a sad sight it will be to see the world's best player being questioned by lawyers and judges in a trial which could end up costing him millions. And what will make the scene all the more deplorable is the character of McIlroy.

He is a decent bloke who, as far as I can tell, does not have a bad bone in his body. The setting will not only be alien to the man, but alien to his reputation. McIlroy should be bouncing down a fairway, not humbly mounting the steps to swear his testimony.

We can only pray that a late deal is struck and McIlroy, and, indeed, golf, does not have to go through this humiliating experience. Details will emerge, his riches will be raked over and the full scale of what many will consider to be the obscene economy of professional golf will become apparent.

Just a thought for you, James.  I think most of us believe that Rory is a decent lad, and I've opined to that effect in these pages.  But there is evidence to the contrary, including his treatment of one Wozniacki, Caroline, as well as the fact that he reportedly timed the filing of the lawsuit to spoil BFF Graeme's wedding.  So perhaps we should await said toxic revelations before digging the hole any deeper?

Piling On - If it seems like everyone was for the Ryder Cup Task Force before they were against it, your humble blogger is a notable exception.  The latest to jump on the "Overkill" bandwagon is Mike Bamberger:

Task force. It's another military phrase redeployed for civilian service. Some of your

fellow task forcers have admirable ties to the military, including Phil Mickelson, with his Birdies for the Brave charity, and Tiger Woods, with his special interest in special ops. 

But the fundamental problem with the Ryder Cup is that on our side of the ocean, we are not treating it like golf. We are treating it like an expertly marketed war. And the Ryder Cup is not war. It just pretends to be one on TV. Your task force is bringing in more troops and at the wrong time. That's why the word Nicklaus used is so telling.

Mike's got lots of good sound bites in his piece, such as this:

In 20 years of not knowing Tiger Woods he has asked me one question: "Do you know Jack Nicklaus' Ryder Cup record?" I had no idea. Woods had made his point. The Ryder Cup is just not as important as the PGA of America thinks it is.

How good is that "20 years of not knowing" phraseology?  And this:

Here's what Mickelson was really saying at Gleneagles: Give us a captain we want to hang with. Will that make a difference between winning and losing? Probably not. The problem this year is that the Europeans had Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Graeme McDowell and Henrik Stenson, and the U.S. did not have Tiger, Dustin Johnson, Jason Dufner and Billy Horschel.

Yeah, the Duf woulda put us over the top.  But I'm glad to have him remind people that at least this was a Ryder Cup we were supposed to lose.  Do read the piece, because there's lots of great bits but also some actual suggestions, not all of which I buy but are worth hearing.