Varied and Sundry

Lots of silly golf stuff for today, and perhaps even through April.

Chicks Dig The Long Ball - I've nothing to day about the ReMax Long-Drive event broadcast last night, as it was aired far too late for this early riser and, for one night at least, politics trumped golf.  But it's on my Tivo and the plan is top watch it tonight and report back.

But this guy, breaking the record for length of shaft (golf division, get your mind out of the gutter), I don't believe participated:

For those keeping score at home, that's a 20'6" shaft... as they say, Tempo! Tempo! Tempo!.

As a nice touch, they had a Trackman set up, and posted the following on Instagram:

Chicks Dig Speed - We need a few of these at Willow Ridge so we can cover more ground during our evening golf:

A team from Plum Quick Motors claims to have reset their own Guinness World Record mark for "Fastest Golf Cart" at the Darlington Dragway in South Carolina on Friday. 

The Plum Quick-designed cart reached a speed of 118.76 mph, annihilating their previous record of 103.65 mph.

Here's the video:

We only need a few of these.  For instance, I wouldn't be comfortable with Employee No. 2 driving this down the hill on No. 9 at the start of a shotgun, as a for instance.

Chicks Dig This Client - It's not clear if any of the fair sex have applied, but there's little doubt as to the best job opening in the golf world right now:

As far as caddies are concerned, this might as well be the Adam Scott sweepstakes.

Scott is in the market for a new caddie after Steve Williams headed off into semi-

retirement. There figured to be a long line of candidates to work for the former Masters champion, who is No. 2 in the world and regarded as one of the most congenial players in golf. 

He just never expected so many - and from so many walks of life. 

"There were some shockers, like random ones - some guy in Florida who lives at home and looks after his mom," Scott said Tuesday in downtown Shanghai after taking part in a promotion to celebrate the 10th edition of the HSBC Champions. "I guess he figured it would be a good job."

Hmmmm...where do I submit my C.V.?  After all, I'm an experienced looper and I'm sure that Kunta Kente would give me a good reference.  After all, we've put the lost 8-iron behind us....

Chicks Dig Freddie - It's been at least an hour-and-a-half since we've discussed the Ryder Cup, so here's our Fred last weekend talking to my old pal Tim Rosaforte.  It's one of those blasted digital mag formats, so I can't excerpt it for you, but Fred says that Watson "Didn't cradle the guys enough."  I'd like to see the English translation before commenting, but perhaps coddle was what he was going for.

Perhaps more substantively, Fred says he'd love to be a Ryder Cup Captain, but that:

“You know, I’m not a PGA of America guy.”

For those interested, here's Shackelford's Monday Morning Drive appearance in which he discusses this, throws out Steve Stricker as a possible captain, and shows some viral videos that you've no doubt already seen.

Chicks Dig a Good Logo - I'd estimate that I agree with Shackelford on 84.8% of the issues we both address, though this morning will be an exception.  He's happy to report that the R&A has 

...on the R&A's unveiling of a new "brand identity" and I'd go a step further and say the move goes form a genuinely hellaciously awful logo to something that, with a simple font change, finally captures the aura of The Open (and that you wouldn't be embarrassed to wear on a cap).

OK troops, here's the new one:

I love the graphic of the golfer's shadow on the 18th tee at The Old Course, but the logo itself?  Meh.

And here was the old one, which I thought was just fine:

But everyone is free to come to their own judgment and I'll still probably watch the event.

Chicks Dig Bloggers - I know, if only.... but at least one does, and that's quite sufficient for my needs.  But I'm proud to welcome a new golf blogger and happy to throw him some traffic:

Former PGA of America president Ted Bishop has re-emerged from his brief exile with a blog post he entitled “The First Day of the Rest of My Life,” in which he said he no longer loves the PGA as much as he once did.

Bishop last month was unceremoniously removed from his post by the PGA of America board over remarks he made via Twitter and Facebook about Ian Poulter, “for comparing Poulter, European Ryder Cup nemesis, to a little girl. It was a poor choice of words on my part. Some thought the remarks were sexist.

Perhaps blogging will suit him better than social media, though it's not encouraging that he credits former adversary Glen Nager with "helping him turn the corner.  He and Nager butted heads over the anchoring ban before Nager was himself unceremoniously booted from the USGA.  In any event, Ted's first post can be found here, though I'll note that his blogspot url is as bad or worse than mine.

Chicks Dig Real Estate - he had threatened this some time ago, but there's news on Planet Phil:

Phil and Amy Mickelson are selling their Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., mansion, which could 

be yours for a listing-low price of $5.99 million.
 

The 9,176 square-foot, five bedroom, six-and-a-half bath property is back on the market after previous sale attempts in 2008 ($12.2 million) and 2013 ($6.5 million). It appears that even professional golfers are not immune to a sliding housing market as a result of the recession. 

The 4.55-acre estate, which boasts a pool, olive trees, exercise room, a chef’s kitchen, open-beam truss ceiling living rooms, a juice bar and, of course, a putting green, has been home to Lefty and his wife since 2001. And today, you can own it for just about $50,000 more than what they paid for it 13 years ago.

With Jerry Brown in the saddle for another four years, I'll give it a miss.

Chicks Dig Holes in One - And the plural is warranted:

If you're a car dealer thinking about sponsoring a hole-in-one contest, you might want to check if Danielle Kang is playing in the event first. The 22-year-old LPGA Tour player made an ace in the second round of the Taiwan Championship on Friday to win a car with a hole-in-one for the second consecutive week. No, really.

It's just a whacky game that we play... 

Chicks Dig Slideshows - Golf.com has rolled out some cute ones recently, including this one titled Golf's Most Awkward Photo Shoots.  A couple of examples, including this hard-to-beat example from the 2013 WGC-HSBC Championship.

It's really hard to make Ian Poulter look uncomfortable, so well-done guys.

And from the BMW Championship, we'll just have to ponder what Henrik was thinking:

Hard to guess what is going on here, but The Most Interesting Man in Golf seems clearly to get the better of it.