'Dis And 'Dat

Too much to discuss and far too little time for the task....

He's Baaack....Maybe - Old budy Tim Rosaforte filed this Golf World video in which he confirms speculates that World No. 104 will, in fact, play the Masters.  Give it a listen, but the gist of it is that Tiger has made great progress, is shooting lights out scores at The Medalist and that he has his "Edge" back, whatever that might mean.

He even goes so far as to opine that Tiger will make a recon mission to ANGC this week where he can practice in peace and quiet...  but the key word in that first graph is "Speculation", and Tim confirmed that he was riffing on Notah Begay's 50-50 odds.

Most of the speculation has centered around the issue of his deadline for committing, and the simple answer is that there is none. Unlike a Tour event, where that player must commit by 5:00 to Friday before, he's in (assuming he's met the RSVP obligations) until he notifies the Committee to the contrary, though there are no doubt issues of courtesy. Here are Geoff's comments on that subject:

As explained in discussing Rosaforte's report with Damon Hack on Morning Drive, Tiger

is not required to give the committee any indication of his intentions unless he is officially withdrawing. There is no entry deadline as there is with a PGA Tour event, merely an accepting of the invitation to play the Masters. And since the tournament does not have alternates, no one is waiting at the first tee to take his place. 

This sets up a spectacle scenario where every practice round shot will be scrutinized and every touching of his back will be noted. That’s all fine. But if he starts but doesn’t complete a round at the Masters due to acute release pattern misfiring, the Golf Gods will come down hard on that breach of etiquette.

 Bob Harig is very much on the same page:

Would he wait until the last minute to show up and play? 

That is unlikely. Courtesy suggests he will give tournament officials some indication so they can prepare tee times with or without him. And Woods is not likely to want to become the story early in the week, especially if he is not playing. It is only a guess, but the expectation is Woods will announce a decision at some point this week.

There's been lots of discussion that the Masters will be diminished without Tiger, which is nonsense on steroids.  But there's little doubt that the early part of Masters week will have an added buzz if he shows, and the first bladed chip will have the media on Defcon-5.

Two minor bits as we await definitive word.  First, as a public service to Tiger, I present this map of the Augusta National routing:

If, as Shack notes, the glutes don't fire and you need to walk off the course holding your back, your only viable opportunity is at the turn.  It's a long, uphill walk from anywhere else on the property...just sayin'.

Lastly, Luke Kerr-Dineen has helpfully updated his graph of Tiger's world ranking:

What's your point, Luke?

The ANA, A History - Just yesterday I was bemoaning the new moniker of the ladies' first major championship of the year, and now we have Bill Fields offering up the definitive history of the event, well definitive except for one significant omission.  We'll get to that in a sec, but he does answer many FAQ's:

"You drive in and you get goose bumps and the heart starts beating a little faster," saysPatty Sheehan, the 58-year-old Hall of Famer who won the tournament in 1996, "similar to what the guys get when they drive down Magnolia Lane."

"Jumping into Poppie's Pond is something all the golfers look forward to doing," says Michelle Wie, only 25 but a veteran of 10 events there, including a runner-up finish last year. "You grow up wanting to do it. It's just the history. You walk that bridge to the 18th green every day during the tournament and you see all the names, all the Hall of Famers, so many legends who are on it. All you want to do is be able to join that wall."

The parallels are quite amazing, given the random way golf calendars have evolved.  But it's the first major for both tours, it's the one (I'm ignoring the contrived Evian) played at the same venue each year, and they each have their notable customs.  Now have you ever wondered about the hygenic issues of that leap?  Me too...

It's much different from what greeted many former winners, including 1999 champ Dottie Pepper, who got a bacterial infection after her celebration.

 That's been dealt with, fortunately:

Poppie's Pond came to be in 2006 on the event's 35th anniversary, as a tribute to Wilcox -- his grandchildren call him Poppie. That area was separated from Champions Lake and turned into a de facto swimming pool with a concrete bottom and a sloping ramp to make it easier to exit the water.

"It's fresh well water that comes up there," Codding says of the jump zone, 6 feet deep in the middle. "It's the cleanest water in the valley."

There's lots more good stuff in there, as the event dates back to 1972 and has been a major since 1983.  Dinah's name was controversially removed in 2000,  and if you Google that you get a virtual earful, including links to websites you might want to delete from your browser history.  Facts are stubborn things, but you can't do a definitive history of this tournament and avoid the "L" word.  I'll give just this one link to that part of the history, and perhaps we've sufficiently evolved that the LPGA can embrace, or at the very least acknowledge it...

Dinah is a tremendously important part of the history of women's golf, and it's a damn shame that her name doesn't still grace the tournament.  To many, your humble blogger included, it will and should always be the Dinah...

The Blogger at Sixty - Memory loss is an increasing feature of my life, and in golf that can actually be helpful.  But in blogging it's more bug than feature...

In yesterday's post we discussed the success of left-handers at Augusta, specifically winning six of the last twelve titles.  Phil accounts for three of those and Bubba two, so I challenged the reader to name the remaining southpaw.  That's not particularly difficult, so I added the bonus question of naming the player he beat in a playoff.  I promised to place the answer at the end of the post, but you were aware of the fact that I often lie, correct?

It was 2003 and Mike Weir defeated Len Mattice in an ugly playoff, winning the Masters with a bogey on No.10.

A Place To Play - The Post's Mark Cannizzaro played Ferry Point with us in October, and files this report on its status:

On April 1 — no fooling — that precious and controversial piece of property in The

Bronx will come to life in the form of Trump Golf Links of Ferry Point, which will make its anticipated opening to the public after at least two decades of political tug of war. 

“There’s never been anything like this ever built in the history of golf,’’ Trump told The Post. “You have a world championship course that fronts the East River that has among the most magnificent views of the city. The skyline of New York is the backdrop for many of the holes.

Was there golf before Trump?  I can't seem to remember...

I gave you my thoughts on the course here, qualified praise.   I'm interested in how it grows in, but after Sunday's Willow Ridge Greens Committee meeting it's obvious that our Super is in no hurry to open the greens.  So, any of my WRCC readers up for an early road trip?

And in other Donald news, Martin Dempster recently reported that Turnberry will be fully Trumped:

TURNBERRY is getting the full “Trump treatment” as its billionaire owner bids to turn the Ayrshire resort into the jewel in his golfing crown. 

Details of what Donald Trump has in mind for the Open Championship venue have now been revealed as the tycoon touched down in Scotland and last night was the after dinner speaker at the Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce annual event. 

A raft of “exciting” changes are to be made, both to the Ailsa Course and the hotel. Trump is even going to turn the iconic lighthouse into a Halfway House that will also incorporate a luxurious two-bedroomed suite for guests.

There better be room service, because it's a long ways from the hotel....but wait, there's more:

As well as the hotel, it will look towards a new 18-hole pitch and putt course currently being created by Martin Ebert, the renowned golf architect who has also been commissioned to carry out the changes on the Ailsa Course. They will be centred on the picturesque stretch of holes close to the lighthouse, with Trump having revealed that he was planning “tweaks” to the tenth and 11th holes. However, the full details of his plans for a course that has hosted four Claret Jug jousts have still to be revealed.

The bigger problems with the course as an Open venue are the 17th and 18th...

Short Bits - Rory has won plaudits for hsi support of Irish golf, but Brian Keough channels the old Jewish joke and reminds us that business is business:

Call it PR or spin but while on Friday the Irish public was being told that Rory McIlroy was doing his bit for the Irish economy by paying corporate tax on royalties here, The Sunday Times reports today that the world No 1 is now a registered tax exile in Dubai when it comes to the lion's share of his fortune.

 What, you thought the kid was stupid?

China, still schizo:

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have closed 66 golf courses in a renewed

crackdown on courses built in contravention of rules designed to protect arable land and save water, China's top economic planning body said on Monday. 

The central government last year ordered the demolition of courses built by five mainly little-known developers, the first real sign of enforcement of a 2004 ban. 

The ban was imposed to protect China's shrinking land and water resources in a country home to a fifth of the world's population but which has just 7 percent of its water.

And corrupt... Hopefully that golf course pictured is one that's been shut down, yanno, just becasue of the architectural malpractice.

This video of an 84-year old contestant has been making the rounds:

I'm quite certain that each and every reader immediately identified the violation of Rule 16-1 e:

e. Standing Astride or on Line of Putt

The player must not make a stroke on the putting green from a stance astride, or with either foot touching, the line of putt or an extension of that line behind the ball. 

Exception: There is no penalty if the stance is inadvertently taken on or astride the line of putt (or an extension of that line behind the ball) or is taken to avoid standing on another player’s line of putt or prospective line of putt.

Of course it does bring back memories of why the rule was enacted in the first place:

I'm sorry, why are we making fun of Michelle Wie?

Something to wash that down?  Alex Myers posts photos of a gator having lunch:

That's a helpless turtle in his jaw, so it's good to see the gator (nicknamed Goliath at the Florida club) has enough fiber in his diet.

The lonely lives of legislators - You can't make this stuff up:

A ban on feminine-hygiene ads at city-run golf courses in Lincoln, Neb., has been overturned thanks to the work of a city councilwoman, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.

The report says Councilwoman Leirion Gaylor Baird stumbled on the ban when reading the agreement with the company, Bench Craft Co., that supplies Lincoln's golf courses with scorecards, course guides, benches, ball washers and display boards. In the agreement, Bench Craft can sell advertising, but Lincoln has a long list of banned substances.

On that list are things you'd expect like tobacco or alcohol, as well as nothing graphic and nothing political. But what jumped out to Baird was the prohibition of advertising feminine hygiene products or contraceptives. Baird then convinced the council to remove the ban.

Her logic is that girls shouldn't be embarrassed by feminine hygiene issues, though aren't contraceptives a different issue entirely?  I'm sure that Dad that takes his 14-year old girl out to play will be glad to have her educated about the morning-after pill, but I digress...  It's just amusing what people think is important...

The St. Andrews Links Trust has a fun story on their website per John Strege:

On Throwback Thursday, the blog at the St. Andrews Links website recalls how a trio of golfers from Sweden with a tee time on the Old Course at St. Andrews had their flight canceled as ash from a volcano that erupted in Iceland disrupted air traffic throughout Scotland and across Northern Europe in the spring of 2010. They were not deterred. 

“Their journey included a drive from Sweden to Denmark and ferry ride from Denmark to Germany,” the blog post said. “They then drove through Europe to Calais [France] where they boarded a second ferry to Dover [England] and finally a ten hour drive from Dover to St Andrews.” 

It was a 42-hour trip that encompassed eight countries (Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, England and Scotland) for a four-hour round of golf.

Neither rain nor sleet nor volcanic ash shall keep them from their appointed rounds...

We'll close with this poignant video of Glen Garden post-closing:

Golf courses come and go, but you'll recall that Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan met there in the caddy yard, and played each other in the finals of the club's caddie championship.