Late-Week Laments

Just a smattering of items to cover today, though we start with quite the strange one.

Foster Care - Do you know of golf architect Keith Foster?  He's a young gun that's developed quite the reputation in recent years for his faithful restoration of several prominent courses.  Here's a brief CV from Golf Digest:

Foster, who was recently chosen to renovate Olympia Fields and is currently working on Congressional C.C., told the Fauquier Times this past October that the demands of

Congressional forced him to close the Outpost. Some of Foster's recent renovations include Apawamis Club, Philadelphia Cricket Club, Moraine C.C., Old White at The Greenbrier, Eastward Ho! and Orchard Lake.

I'm most familiar with his work on The Cricket Club, a Tillinghast that had been neglected for decades, though I also see his work at Apawamis each time I make the left onto Locust to head into Rye.

The Outpost was an antique and specialty shop run by Foster and his wife, though it seems that those specialties were of the rather illegal ilk:

Golf architect Keith Foster plead guilty on Wednesday in a Virginia courtroom to illegally transporting between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of items made from endangered species, migratory birds and other wildlife. Foster now faces a five-year prison sentence. 

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Foster and his wife violated portions of the Lacey Act—which is a conservation law in the United States that prohibits trade in wildlife, fish, and plants that have been illegally taken, possessed, transported, or sold—when they owned a store called The Output in Middleburg, Va. The store specialized in selling foreign-sourced merchandise, a portion of which included wildlife products made from endangered species such as crocodiles, sea turtles and sawfish.

Egads, what was he thinking?   And to make matters worse, he couldn't help bragging about it, to the worst audience imaginable:

"To evade enforcement by Fish and Wildlife, Foster relied on a shipping company to falsify import records in order to hide wildlife items and avoid inspection by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other law enforcement officials.

Those documents indicated that starting in December 2016, on numerous occasions Foster discussed with a customer, later revealed to be an undercover agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the unlawful nature of his conduct. He also told the undercover agent that it was illegal to import sawfish blades but that he intended to smuggle them.

Foster told the agent, “Rest assured, I’m gonna bring more in ‘cause I’m the only fool in the States that probably wants to risk it."

Oddly enough, there is a precedent for this kind of behavior....  And while it ultimately has a happy ending, the interim results were tragic:

When Lord George Bennett founded the little town of Bandon on the very western rim of

Oregon in 1873, he must have been pining for his native Ireland. It was from Ireland that Bennett imported both the name of his new home town — and an ornamental shrub that would one day destroy it. 

The shrub is called gorse. If you’ve driven much along the Oregon Coast you’ll have noticed it; it’s increasingly dominant as you approach Bandon from the north or south, displacing the native salal plants with their waxy dark-green leaves and bland-tasting purple berries. It’s usually in the form of a chest-high gray-green mass, sometimes speckled with little yellow flowers like those of Scotch Broom. Its leaves are protected by a tangle of low-grade prickles, like those on a thistle. 

But it’s not for its prickles that the stuff is feared in Oregon. It’s for its love of fire.

Anyone that's ever touched a gorse bush will laugh at the thought of someone being nostalgic for it, as it's really quite vile.  The danger of the gorse was the only reason that Mike Keiser got permission to build his first golf course, and the rest is history....

Stick With Your K-Sigs - Do you feel that you underpay for your Pro-V1's?  Looking to show off to your Saturday foursome?  We've got you covered:

Chances are you’ve never heard of ClearSports. The under-the-radar sports-equipment manufacturer sells tennis rackets for $240 and high-end golf shafts for $450. But it’s the golf balls that caught my eye. 

One dozen Clear balls will run you a minimum of $90, or $7.50 per ball. To put that number into perspective, most other premium balls cap out at about $45-$48 per dozen — or $4 per ball.

But wait, it's even worse than that:

The company makes the balls even more exclusive by setting a limit of one introductory box “per prospective member.” That’s right; should you want to become a regular consumer of Clear balls, there’s an application process. Those who get approved earn the

privilege of paying a one-time membership fee of $1,200 to receive 12 dozen balls and some apparel bearing the Clear logo. 

The balls — and the business model — are the brainchild of ClearSports co-founder Garry Singer. Golf balls weren’t even on Singer’s radar until five years ago when he sold his legal staffing company and started looking for a new venture. The 54-year-old initially thought about buying a professional tennis tournament in Connecticut, but was eventually persuaded by friends in the golf industry to consider the idea of making a high-tech ball. 

“The challenge was an intriguing one,” Singer said.

Glad it's working out for him, though not clear (see what I did there) why the rest of us should pay the price.  Unless, you know, there's something special about them:

With the help of veteran golf-ball chemists and other industry sharpies, Singer and friend Mitchell Slater went to work building Clear. The result was two models: a softer three-piece Red and firmer four-piece Black that caters to different feel, launch and spin preferences. If you’re looking for an in-depth story on the technology inside each Clear ball, Singer’s not your guy — he’s unwilling to divulge what separates his product from others. 

“It’s the secret sauce,” he said. “We don’t like to share that information with everyone. It’s sort of like a secret society for diehard golfers.”

Do they include the instructions for the secret handshake in each sleeve?  As for your humble blogger, I'm already a member of this secret society and they'll allow me to buy two dozen at a time.

Golf, Still Hard - Luke Kerr-Dineen fires up the Wabac Machine to remind us of these old Tiger commercials for Nike.  Not only do I not remember them, but I gotta admit that this one at the least is quite hilarious:

Interesting in that they don't actually try to sell you anything....  Just Tiger with a big swoosh on his hat, you'll figure the rest out.

Love On The Links - That's where it happened for Employee No. 2 and I, so you'll understand why I had to click through to this one.  No surprise that they lead with this happy couple:

They've got all the usual suspects, Tiger and Erica, Rickie and Allison, and the rest....  Though I don't why Allison didn't trot out this swimsuit at the Ryder Cup:

Hey, it's a slow news week.... They also have ny favorite DJ-Paulina photo of all time, and you know that this is an especially competitive category:

Paulina as milkmaid?  Hey, a fellow can dream....

Not to worry, they include everyone's favorite couple:

Better yet, they're running a poll here, though you might notice an omission from the list of nominees:

Allison Stokke and Rickie Fowler.

Jena Sims and Brooks Koepka.

Erica Herman and Tiger Woods.

Annie Verret and Jordan Spieth.

Paulina Gretzky and Dustin Johnson.

Jillian Wisniewski and Justin Thomas.

Why the hate?  I suspect you're gonna be hearing from Justine on Twitter.....

There's More Than Eight -  Desperate for content, the folks at Golf Magazine share their favorite courses of 2018 with us, the so-called Great Eight.  The thing is, of course, that reading about a writer's first look at Pacific Dunes or Teeth of the Dog leaves one underwhelmed....  If you've been there, you know all about.... and if you haven't?  Well, you probably still know about it....

As for Dylan Dethier continuing to milk his Monday round at Augusta via the lottery, there's a separate ring of hell reserved for him.

But there are some entries worth acknowledging, such as this one:

Golf de Morfontaine 

Mortefontaine, France 

This game is all about the Total Experience™, right? Well nothing was better for me than

Golf de Morfontaine (north of Paris) during Ryder Cup week. I had never understood what “hushed tones” really meant until Morfontaine, aptly dubbed the Augusta of France. It was the quietest round of golf I’ve ever played. There were maybe 30 other players there, and the gracious member who joined us coerced us into playing holes 19-27 (the original nine). I made an eagle, Dylan Dethier came one inch from an ace and we capped off the round with a pint on the back porch. As the sun faded over the tall pines, it was one of those rare moments where, despite having already spent eight hours there, I truly did not want to be anywhere else. —Sean Zak

 Hey, he got to play Augusta with the Sunday pins....  He doesn't get an ace as well.

Dethier is actually quite a good stick, and I'll leave you with this video, narrated by caddie Sean Zak, of his play in the Goslings Invitational:

For some reason blogger won't allow me to center the embedded videos, for which I blame the Russians.  I expect I'll take the weekend off from blogging, so see you Monday?