Notwithstanding the cold, rainy weather, fellow addict Colin King and I squeezed in a quick 18 this morning, taking under 2 1/2 hours to do so. It wasn't pretty and we were generous with conceding putts (well, at least Colin was), but the important hing was to have played. We saw all of one other group out there,, and they quit after nine.
Colin Played Seminole and All I Got Was This Lousy Ball Marker - Colin played famed Seminole last week, and while I might have preferred an invite to tag along, he did bring me a lovely cap. I've always been anxious for an invite to that Donald Ross gem, because I'm dismissive of Florida golf in general and I'm curious to see that makes it of interest.
But the real reason I mention it is that over coffee he told me he shot 87 and was pestering me to guess how many fairways and greens he hit. No surprise that he hit all the fairways and many greens, but his 87 had an odd 40-47 split. Not front and back nines mind you, but 40 strokes tee-to-green and a hard-to-fathom 47 putts. Putts is exactly the right noun, just with an alternative spelling...
The other curious event was one you don't see these days. There were golf balls everywhere on the course, as the grounds crew would dump the ones found as they were blowing leaves for us to grab if we chose. One such ball was a ProV1 with a Lowenstein Sandler logo, LS being the largest law firm in New Jersey that I've done a few deals over the years with.
On the 7th hole, a Par-3, I hit a semi-almost shanked 6-iron that knuckled into the stream to the right of the green, but then curiously enough ended up on terra firma within the hazard. I knew how bad my contact had been, so didn't think much of it until my second into the 8th green. Again I hit a clanky shot, this time with a pitching wedge, that darted hard right but then inexplicably drew back some 25 yards and ended up 12 feet above the pin.
No way I can draw a ball like that with a wedge, and when I tossed it to John our caddie it was visibly knuckling...strange thing is that I didn't think the modern ball ever got out of round. I'm old enough to remember when we carried that round sphere to check our golf balls, but that was way long ago. All I can say is I hope Lowenstein isn't giving those balls to their clients, who have suffered enough through their bills.
Gourmet Golf - Former work mate, golf buddy and loyal Unplayable Lies reader Mark Williams writes yesterday to tell me he's gotten his grubby paws on a copy of the first volume of Tom Doak's reissue of The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, which covers the golf courses of Great Britain and Ireland.
I've covered this story previously, but the original was published in 1996 long before Tom became an A-list designer, and has become a cult classic due to his unstinting criticism of certain modern practitioners.
Mark sent this list of Doak's Gourmet Choices, his best of the best:
Askernish
Ballybunion
Brancaster (Royal West Nofolk)
Royal County Down
Dornoch
Hollinwell (Notts G.C.)
Lahinch
Royal Worlington
North Berwick
Painswick
Pennard
Prestwick
Pulborough (West Sussex G.C.)
Rye
Old Course
Sandwich
Swinley Forest
Walton Heath
I can't adequately convey how eccentric a list this appears to be. I'm of course gratified to see my current Great White Whale and 2015 destination head up the list, but there's a good three names that I don't even know. Painswick is apparently all of 4,800 yards, and I know nothing of Hollinwell or Pennard either.
I'm surprised to find Sandwich on the list, but starker yet is the laundry list of omissions, Muirfield, Carnoustie, Portrush, Birkdale, Sunningdale and Waterville spring immediately to mind. Give me ten minutes and I could double that list...
Can't wait to get my own grubby paws on my very own copy.
Because You're an Adult? - Stina Sternberg: Why Ted Bishop's gaffe doesn't offend me the way some people think it should. A week later and Suzy Whalley seems to be the only damsel on the fainting couch:
It's been almost a week since PGA of America president Ted Bishop posted the tweet and Facebook rant that would end up sinking his career, and I'm still grappling with the emotions that I, as a woman in the golf industry, am supposed to have about it. Sure, I was put off by what he wrote -- but not, at first, because of the sexist nature of the comment. I was stunned to see the president of one of golf's largest organizations resort to a juvenile taunt of a PGA Tour player on social media, completely unprovoked.
Now Stina has some gripes, but they're things that, you know, actually affect her:
He used a term that he'd become desensitized to -- just like I have -- and didn't think about what it meant. It was wrong and stupid. But as a woman who plays golf -- and watches golf, and reads about golf, and works in golf -- there are so many other things that I'm more offended by.
I'm offended that I can't play in most of my own club's tournaments because the women's events take place on Thursdays while the men's events are played on the weekends, as if women don't work just as hard as men do during the week.
She does go on at some length about the things that annoy her, and while I nodded off a couple of times, your mileage my vary. But the point is they are focused on things that affect her enjoyment of her own golf club, and we can agree, disagree or not care at our pleasure.
But the feigned outrage over an admittedly silly term is just the nonsense on stilts. This being the season, maybe it's just a product line extension of the Democratic Party's War on Women meme?
And just in case you're curous as to where Ted stands on the list of all-time greats, Golf.com gives us a gallery of golf's most controversial statements. The amusing thing to me is how many of them are about one player. There's a smidgen of overlap, but they also provide a similar gallery of great golf moments on Twitter. Not Zinger's, Westy's, Elk's or, to be fair, anyone's best moment. Of course my fave was Zinger tweaking POTUS, but that's how I roll.
Reader's Trip Report - David Owen, my silver medalist golf blogger behind you-know-who, is back with another great reader's trip report, this time to Bandon Dunes. Making it special was the rather severe storm through which they played. Here was their local forecast:
So a fine day with perhaps a wee breeze...Here's an excerpt from the report:
While the entire trip was a home run (mainly because my team won), the lasting memory will be our trudge through the hurricane on Saturday, on Bandon Dunes. What started as a light mist and a stiff breeze quickly regressed into a wind and rainstorm so dramatic that one member of our group said, on the second tee, “We've already passed the point of bringing all the animals inside and duct-taping the windows.”I'm not an agronomist, but my understanding is that gorse is a hearty plant and that it's unusual to see it rolling down fairways like tumbleweeds. At one point, on the sixth green, we suspended play and hunkered down in a catcher’s stance, and leaned into the wind to keep from blowing off the cliff. We were a little nervous, but, mainly, we were laughing hysterically at what we were going to have to do to complete the match.
Here's how he closes the piece:
During that trip, a starter told me that, several winters before, on a day when the wind blew hard and Bandon received almost seven inches of rain, all 85 golfers on the tee sheet played -- and so did two walk-ons, who were passing through and thought the day looked reasonable for golf. They were right!
Seven inches of rain? That's a wow, but it does drain remarkably well. Here's one last pic of Pacific Dunes to wet your whistle:
Speed Dating - Gary Player gave Yahoo an interview, and to me sounds like a bit of a yahoo himself. See if you agree:
Speaking with Yahoo's Graham Bensinger, Player explained that after spending a shortamount of time with Woods - who he described as "the most talented golfer that ever lived, without question" - the 38-year-old could turn things around in short order.
"I would love to sit down with him for one hour and give him a piece of my knowledge," Player said. "Then I think he could win majors."
Your thoughts? Hold that while Gary violates the first rule of holes:
Player didn't disclose specifics on how he would counsel Woods, but he did add that the two would spend time discussing swing mechanics following Woods' injury-plagued 2014 season that failed to yield a top-10 finish.
"I would talk to him quite a bit about the swing, because he's got flaws. There's a reason why he's not the same Tiger Woods anymore, and I reckon I could get those things across to him that would make a massive change because I've had so much experience, which would take him at least another 40-50 years to get."
He has flaws as they all do, but why should it would take so long?
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