Just Golf

[BullNBear52]

Jack Nicklaus Reacts to Matt Fitzpatrick’s Win at the U.S. Open
ZACH KOONSJUN 20, 2022


...“Couldn’t be happier for a really nice young man—a terrific young man!” Nicklaus tweeted on Sunday. “One of the greatest rounds of golf I have ever seen on a final day of the US Open. Matt had the pressure on him, having never won in the United States, and came through in flying colors!”


.....With his one-shot victory over world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and American Will Zalatoris at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., Fitzpatrick became the only player besides Nicklaus to win the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur at the same course.


https://www.si.com/golf-archives/2022/06/20/jack-nicklaus-congratulates-matt-fitzpatrick-us-open-victory

[BullNBear52]

25 dead in Tennessee as tornadoes wreak havoc on towns including Nashville
Good Morning America

https://news.yahoo.com/tornado-directly-hits-nashville-extensive-damage-reported-082805483--abc-news-topstories.html

[BullNBear52]

For Those Who Curse Their Play at U.S. Open, There’s Holy Hill
On Golf
By BILL PENNINGTON JUNE 11, 2017


Holy Hill, a Catholic basilica, overlooks Erin Hills, the golf course that will host the United States Open starting Thursday. Credit John Mummert/United States Golf Association

Every golfer who stands on the 18th tee at Erin Hills during this year’s United States Open will need faith and hope. Perhaps even spiritual inspiration and divine intervention.

All eyes will turn toward Holy Hill, a castle-like Catholic basilica and shrine looming on the horizon of the event’s final hole as if floating in the clouds. Built on the highest point in southeastern Wisconsin, the nearly century-old Holy Hill church in Hubertus has twin spires that are an aiming point for golfers, beckoning well-struck drives to safe passage on the home hole.

But then, this is golf, where broken commandments — cursing, lying on a scorecard, failing to honor the Sabbath — are as common as bogeys. Indeed, there is probably a deep connection between bogeys and broken commandments.

Still, the presence of Holy Hill, where nearly 250,000 visitors arrive annually from around the world, offers unusual possibilities for competitors at the United States Open, which begins Thursday in Erin. The shrine, three miles from the golf course, is visible from 13 holes.

The 15 priests of Holy Hill, who are called friars, have already invited every contestant to attend one of several extra Masses scheduled to take place in their Neo-Romanesque church during the event. The players can also roam the idyllic property, set on a 1,340-foot hill that was first considered a sacred site in the mid-1800s.

Asked in a recent phone interview if there was a particularly appropriate blessing for a player about to face golf’s greatest crucible, one of the friars, Father Don Brick, replied, “Probably the serenity prayer.”

Father Michael Berry, Holy Hill’s head friar, added that he would be happy to bless golf clubs for anyone in the field.

Which led Father Don, to suggest that Phil Mickelson, who has been runner-up in the event a record six times, “might want to lay his putter on the altar.” This was before Mickelson announced that he planned to put all his clubs aside during the Open, so he could attend his daughter’s high school graduation.

There is some precedent for turning to Holy Hill for help with championship golf, or at least a calming influence. By the end of the 2011 United States Men’s Amateur Championship on the daunting Erin Hills layout, the friars at Holy Hill were no longer surprised to look down from the pulpit and see several players sitting quietly in the pews.

“There are parallels between the experience on the golf course and what brings people to the shrine,” Father Michael said. “There is the whole struggle with pride and having to be humbled time and time again, and yet believing that you have the means to keep going.”

The friars noticed that the players at the 2011 Amateur tended to come to Mass before they played.

And they went to confession after their rounds.

What did they confess to?

It’s golf. You can imagine.

The friars said their confidentiality vows forbade them to disclose what they had heard. But Father Don, one of five Holy Hill friars who are golfers, said with a laugh, “We can speak to what we have to confess to after we play golf.”

The 435-acre Holy Hill site — which includes a grotto, a monastery, a cafe, a gift store and an observation tower with 30-mile views of the rolling countryside — was first graced with a log chapel in 1863.

The surrounding area, known as the Kettle Moraine, is a mass of rocks, sediment and debris deposited by glaciers, which is why Erin Hills, which opened in 2006, has such dramatic topography.

On weekends in the spring and summer, Holy Hill can be mobbed by thousands of visitors, including people who come regularly from as far as Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and South America. For some, it is part of a yearly religious pilgrimage. Others see it as a tranquil spot for a picnic.

Beginning in the 19th century, some visitors believed the Holy Hill site had curative powers. It was declared a shrine by Pope Leo XIII in 1903, and elevated to the status of basilica in 2006.

As many of the world’s best golfers began playing practice rounds at Erin Hills this month, the friars were asked if a trip to Holy Hill could cure golf afflictions, like nasty slices or the dreaded yips. They snickered.

At best, they said, a visit to the peaceful grounds might inspire a golfer to find a good instructor. And the friars proposed that throughout the tournament, Holy Hill would benevolently watch over all the golfers. Especially on the 18th hole, a punishing par 5 that can play as long as 630 yards.

There, every participant will surely need all the help he can get.

The tournament’s general chairman, Jim Reinhart, called the 18th one of the most difficult finishing holes he had ever seen, an expanse “dotted with a lot of cruel, deep bunkers” and a tiny, crowned green surrounded by hazards.

“There is, however, a beautiful vista of Holy Hill,” Reinhart added, “which provides a kernel of hope for the faithful as they attempt to navigate the troubles waiting ahead.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/sports/for-those-who-curse-their-play-at-us-open-theres-holy-hill.html?

[BullNBear52]

Willett Says American Fans Proved His Brother Right
By REUTERSOCT. 3, 2016, 5:27 A.M. E.D.T.

LONDON — Danny Willett signed off Europe's Ryder Cup defeat with a swipe at Americans fans on Monday, saying their behavior over the weekend had justified comments made by his brother.

Englishman Willett, the Masters champion, had distanced himself from brother Peter's blog in the run-up to the match at Minnesota's Hazeltine National which labeled some American fans "a baying mob of imbeciles".

But after a weekend of raucous support for the home side who reclaimed the trophy 17-11, rookie Willett changed his tune.

"Unfortunately some American fans showed that @P_J_Willett was in fact correct," he said on Twitter.

"Still shows that sometimes fans don't know when to call it a day...Shame really."

Willett had a forgettable Ryder Cup debut, failing to win a point and in Sunday's singles was thrashed 5&4 by Brooks Koepka.

While the majority of American fans stayed within the bounds of fairness, despite being extremely loud, some of the heckling edged over the line.

Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy was targeted on Saturday and asked for one fan to be removed.

"At times it went a little bit too far," he said. "But that's to be expected when you are teeing off at 7:45 in the morning, you're seeing people on the first tee with a beer and matches aren't finishing until 4:30, 5:00.

"A couple of people crossed the line but we'll take it on the chin."

(Reporting by Martyn Herman in London; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/10/03/sports/golf/03reuters-golf-ryder-willett.html?ref=golf

[BullNBear52]

U.S. Captures Ryder Cup, Ending Europe’s Streak

By KAREN CROUSE 8:19 AM ET



Patrick Reed, second from right, after winning his match against Rory McIlroy, second from left, by 1-up on Sunday.

John David Mercer/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

Patrick Reed, second from right, after winning his match against Rory McIlroy, second from left, by 1-up on Sunday.

The Americans clinched their first victory in the biennial event since 2008 when Ryan Moore, the last man named to the team, won his singles match.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/sports/golf/ryder-cup-united-states-beats-europe-hazeltine.html?ref=golf

[BullNBear52]

Arnold Palmer, the Magnetic Face of Golf in the ’60s, Dies at 87
By DAVE ANDERSONSEPT. 25, 2016

Arnold Palmer, the champion golfer whose full-bore style of play, thrilling tournament victories and magnetic personality inspired an American golf boom, attracted a following known as Arnie’s Army and made him one of the most popular athletes in the world, died on Sunday, according to a spokesman for his business enterprises. Palmer was 87.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/sports/golf/arnold-palmer-dies-at-87.html?

[BullNBear52]

On Golf: Oakmont Country Club Sets Standard for U.S. Open Play

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/sports/golf/oakmont-country-club-sets-standard-for-us-open-play.html?ref=golf

[BullNBear52]

Unfairly Left in the Dark at the U.S. Open While Officials Consider a Rule

By BILL PENNINGTON

The game’s necessary devotion to the exactness of its rules failed to include a dollop of common sense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/sports/golf/at-us-open-dustin-johnson-is-left-in-the-dark-while-officials-dispute-a-rule.html?ref=golf

[BullNBear52]

British Open: Jordan Spieth Tips His Cap and Will Rue His Three-Putts

By KAREN CROUSE

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland

The walk from the 18th green, past the first tee, across a public walkway, into the recorders’ office and up to an interview stand took roughly 10 minutes, time enough for Jordan Spieth to swallow his disappointment and digest the lessons from his heartbreaking defeat at the British Open.

Spieth, who was trying to become the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win the Masters, the United States Open and the British Open in the same year, finished one stroke out of a three-man playoff, won by Zach Johnson. After playing his way into contention with a 66 in Sunday’s third round, Spieth had said, “I don’t want to place third.”

He didn’t. He closed with a three-under 69 to tie for fourth, at 14 under, with his playing partner, Jason Day. The finish had to gall the competitor in Spieth. But when it came time to dissect his round with reporters, the side of Spieth that is a sportsman prevailed.

“Although we came in wanting to be two shots better than what we finished, with everything that went on this week and the momentum we came in with, I’m very pleased with the way we battled,” said Spieth, who collected his ninth top-four finish in his last 13 starts.

He was beaten, he said, “by some special golf” from Johnson, who closed with a 66; Marc Leishman, who played the last 36 holes of regulation in 14 under; and Louis Oosthuizen, who was two strokes better than Spieth during a chaotic second round that took their wave more than a day and a half to complete.

“That was some unbelievable golf that was played by those guys to get to 15 under in these conditions,” he said.

Spieth goes into every round with a target number, and the number he thought he needed Monday to have a chance to win was 68. So his accuracy did not fail him there.

When he returns to Dallas and reflects on the week’s events, Spieth will rue the five three-putts he made during the second round, his double bogey on the short par-3 eighth on Monday and his cumulative effort on the par-4 17th Road Hole, which became his personal Sink Hole, as it has for so many others before him. He played it in three over for the week.

Spieth’s strength is his putting, so he did not even bother trying to sanitize the mess he made on the 174-yard eighth hole. Playing his tee shot into a stiff wind and stinging rain, Spieth hit it roughly 120 feet right of the pin. His first putt rolled past the cup and off the other side of the green. He putted up to 4 feet, then missed his bogey attempt to drop three shots behind the leaders.

Of the 80 players who teed it up Monday, 78 walked off the eighth green with no worse than bogey.

“If you make bogey, you’re still in,” Spieth said. “If you make double bogey, it’s a very difficult climb, and there’s absolutely no reason to hit that putt off the green.”

Spieth posted nine scores of bogey or worse during the tournament, and six times he rebounded with a birdie on the next hole, including back-to-back birdies on Nos. 9 and 10 Monday. He moved into a tie for the lead at 15 under when he drained a 30-foot curling birdie putt on the par-4 16th.

But then the Road Hole swallowed him whole. The rain and wind, which had abated, kicked up as if Spieth had agitated the ghost of Bobby Jones with his pursuit of a calendar-year Grand Slam. The hole was playing 495 yards into a howling wind and heavy rain. After his drive, Spieth said he had 240 yards to the hole. He took his 3-iron, backed off in midswing once because of the wind, and then hit a low shot that landed 15 yards short of the green. He chipped to 6 feet and missed the putt.

“That was as hard a par 4 as I think we’ve played all year,” Spieth said, “and just unfortunately didn’t hit a very solid putt.”

With Johnson and Leishman in the clubhouse at 15 under, Spieth knew he needed a birdie on the par-4 18th. He drove the ball almost to the right edge of the first fairway and hit a shot with his lob wedge that reached the green but rolled off into the Valley of Sin. Using his putter, Spieth missed what would have been his biggest rebound birdie yet by inches.

In the crucible of competition, Spieth closes the aperture in his mind so that everything goes black but the dot that is his target.

“The smaller of a target that you can pick, your misses are going to be smaller,” said Spieth, who aims for branches instead of trees and a colorful sweater instead of the whole crowd.

“When I get in those positions, that’s what comes to mind, is how can I zero in even more and more and more,” he added.

He was talking about inside the ropes. As soon as he leaves the course, Spieth is able to widen his scope. All week he had been aiming for the smallest number — 1. Ten minutes after coming up short, he was focused on the big picture.

“I struck the ball phenomenally well, I drove the ball as good as I’ve driven it this entire year, including the other majors,” he said.

The P.G.A. Championship begins Aug. 13 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. Hogan in 1953 and Tiger Woods in 2000 are the only men to have won three majors in a season.

“So that would be the next goal as far as the history goes,” Spieth said.

The week before the British Open, Spieth and Johnson played in the John Deere Classic, won by Spieth in a playoff, so they were among the last to arrive here. Before the tournament began, Johnson said he found it “impossible to comprehend” what it must be like to stand, as Spieth did, on history’s doorstep.

“He’s such a normal kid,” Johnson said. “That’s the beauty of it.”

He added: “I say normal — he’s got some intangibles and some qualities that I can’t quite pinpoint, that you can’t quite see. Tiger had them, specifically. We saw those back in the day. It’s just a rare thing. But it’s awesome as a fan.”

After his interview session was over, Spieth stuck around and waited for Johnson to finish the four-hole playoff. When Johnson came off the course, Spieth was one of the first to congratulate him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/sports/golf/british-open-jordan-spieth-tips-his-cap-and-will-rue-his-three-putts.html?ref=sports

[BullNBear52]

Sundays on the Old Course at St. Andrews: No Golfers Allowed
By SAM BORDENJUNE 12, 2015

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — For those who arrive at the birthplace of golf on a sunny Sunday morning, the rules of play are simple. You can pretty much do anything you want on the historic grounds of the Old Course, as long as it does not involve actually hitting a drive or rapping a putt.

Frisbees are fine. Picnics, too. Locals might tell you that pushing a baby stroller (or pram, in the vernacular) can get a little challenging on some of the more uneven parts of the course, but if your little one will be soothed by the strong winds whipping in off the North Sea then, well, so be it.

Wedding photos on the famed Swilcan Bridge are no problem, either, though guests in formal attire should be advised that they may not fit in with the more casual university students who like to loll about on the 18th fairway.

Put another way: All are welcome at the home of golf on Sundays. Except golfers.

“Why is it this way?” Alastair Matheson, 86, said as he led a small group of visitors on the daily guided tour of the Old Course in the spring. “Because that’s the way it has always been.”

As with many regulations from a different era, the Sunday slumber for the Old Course is a rule that is simultaneously charming and maddening. For most purists — a group that seems to include a majority of the residents of this town on Scotland’s east coast — the centuries-old edict to refrain from golf on Sundays is a sacred part of the Old Course’s venerable traditions. For many golfing tourists — a group that has only been more feverish this year ahead of next month’s British Open on the Old Course — it is downright cruel.

In a city where good weather means it rained for only half the day, and at a course that most every golfer in the world would dearly love to play, why would anyone ever think it’s a good idea to close on a weekend?

Jonathan Kwiatkoski, who traveled here from Chicago on a golf vacation, paused near the renowned Road Hole bunker alongside the 17th green on a recent Sunday morning. He was on his way to play one of the other courses at St. Andrews, and he grinned when asked about the Old Course’s weekly hiatus.

“This is all a little strange, for sure,” Kwiatkoski said, motioning around at the area’s general stillness while watching another man, presumably also a visitor, squat down and appear to closely examine the famous bunker’s grains of sand.

“It’s hard to imagine a public course in America closing on a Sunday,” Kwiatkoski added. “Usually, that’s when everyone plays, not when nobody plays.”

Historians trace the Old Course’s Sunday closure to religious laws dating at least to the 16th century, when some residents of St. Andrews were cited in town criminal logs for playing on the Sabbath. According to Gordon Moir, the director of greens keeping at St. Andrews, it was not until 1941 that the other courses at the complex were opened for play on Sundays.

The Old Course, though, has always stayed shuttered, essentially morphing into a bumpy, sand-dotted parkland that attracts an inordinate number of joggers, dogs and, sometimes, joggers with dogs. (Several signs warn visitors against “dog fouling” and threaten to assess a fine of roughly $60 against any offender who might, say, think about leaving a companion’s bowel movement in a bunker.)

Sunday activities on the Old Course over the years have run the gamut. A local woman named Marie-Noel, who declined to give her surname, said she recalled members of her family laying out their laundry on the course some weeks and added, with a mixture of sheepishness and pride, that she and her friends used to participate in an on-course drinking game known as Port Golf when she was attending a university nearby.

Matheson, one of four guides handling the daily tours, recalled seeing fishermen spread their nets on the fairways so they could mend them. He shook his head when relating a story about a woman in high heels trying to walk across one of the greens.

“That happens more than you would think,” he said. “Then you sometimes see some of the boys out with a football trying to have a proper game before they get chased away.”

Matheson said he had never heard of any serious discussion about changing the Sunday rule. He noted that Old Tom Morris, the legendary player and greenskeeper who revitalized the Old Course in the mid-1800s, was said to have preached, “Even if the golfers don’t need a rest, the course does.”

Moir, who is charged with keeping the course in top shape, heartily endorsed that line of thinking, particularly in a year when the British Open will be played on the Old Course. Each Sunday is a full workday for Moir and his crew, with about 20 workers dispatched over the course to handle tasks from spreading sand to filling divots.

Sundays are the chance to tackle more labor-intensive repairs and get a full reading on what the course needs. (The course will be closed to the public — golfers and picnickers alike — beginning June 19 to prepare for the British Open.)

If members of Moir’s staff see any particularly unruly behavior on Sundays — he chuckled as he detailed the time he witnessed several students engaged in a snowball fight on one of the fairways — they will not hesitate to admonish the offenders, though most visitors are respectful.

For a long time, Moir said, the biggest problem was the number of people who wanted to take pictures next to the flagstick on the 18th green. With the well-known clubhouse standing majestically in the background, the tiny ropes that staff members put up to deter people did little to slow traffic across the putting surface.

These days, however, Sunday visitors will find an authentic St. Andrews flagstick stuck in the ground to the side of the green about halfway toward the adjacent first tee. This way, Moir said, both the ground and everyone’s selfies are preserved.

There are, of course, some exceptions to the Sunday rest. Practice rounds for the British Open, for example, are scheduled to begin on July 12 — a Sunday — and play will, naturally, be allowed on the next weekend, when the final round is played on July 19. There are also a few other tournaments throughout the year when Sunday play is permitted.

On a vast majority of weekends, however, this gem of a course separates itself from most of its brethren. Indeed, while the rest of the golf world is on the first tee at dawn or traipsing through a six-hour round at a packed municipal course or trying to squeeze in a quick nine before sunset, the birthplace of it all stays quiet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/sports/sundays-on-the-old-course-at-st-andrews-no-golfers-allowed.html?ref=sports

[BullNBear52]

Amen,

A Golf Writer’s Term, Forever: Amen


By KAREN CROUSEAPRIL 8, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/sports/golf/golf-writer-who-coined-amen-corner-was-a-master-in-his-own-field.html?ref=sports

[BullNBear52]

Tom Watson: Mistakes were mine
Updated: October 6, 2014, 3:06 PM ET
By Bob Harig | ESPN.com

Tom Watson acknowledged missteps as U.S. Ryder Cup team captain Saturday, saying he takes responsibility for mistakes he made while expressing regret that some of his comments to the team may have sent the wrong message.

Watson's six-paragraph statement released through the PGA of America came after four unnamed sources revealed details, for a story published by ESPN.com on Friday, of a team bonding session at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland last weekend that went bad.

"First, I take complete and full responsibility for my communication, and I regret that my words may have made the players feel that I didn't appreciate their commitment and dedication to winning the Ryder Cup,'' Watson said in the open letter. "My intentions throughout my term as captain were both to inspire and to be honest.

"Secondly, the guys gave everything. They played their hearts out. I was proud to get to know each and every one of them. I know they are all going to win tournaments, be on future Ryder Cup teams and have wonderful careers.''

Watson, 65, was the oldest captain in Ryder Cup history when the event was played last weekend at Gleneagles, where the U.S. suffered a 16½ to 11½ defeat, its eighth in the last 10 Ryder Cups.

Watson is the last captain to win a Ryder Cup on the road, doing so in 1993. He was brought back to try and regain a Cup that has been elusive to the American side, but his weekend was marked by second-guessing and what turned out to be some bruised feelings among American players -- especially from Phil Mickelson, who wasted no time in voicing his concerns about the entire Ryder Cup process following the closing ceremony Sunday.

Mickelson's blunt assessment turned out to be fueled, in part, by a Saturday night session in the U.S. team room that was attended by more than 40 people, including players, caddies, spouses, girlfriends, workers and PGA of America officials.

The bottom line is this: I was their captain. In hindsight whatever mistakes that were made were mine. And I take complete and full responsibility for them.
”
- Tom Watson

According to the sources, Mickelson was one of several players who took issue with the way Watson handled his remarks to the team, as well as his response to a well-intended session in which he was presented a gift by team members.

Mickelson, who earlier that day sat out an entire session for the first time in 10 Ryder Cup appearances, also felt the need to address the team to change the tone.

"As for Phil's comments, I completely understand his reaction in the moment,'' Watson said in the statement. "Earlier this week I had an open and candid conversation with him and it ended with a better understanding of each other's perspectives. Phil's heart and intentions for our team's success have always been in the right place. Phil is a great player, has great passion and I admire what he's done for golf.''

Watson is one of the game's greats, an eight-time major champion who won five Open Championships, including four in Scotland. At age 59, he nearly won a record-tying sixth Open, losing in a playoff to Stewart Cink at Turnberry in 2009.

He also won 39 times on the PGA Tour and played on four U.S. Ryder Cup teams.

The PGA of America, which chooses the U.S. captain, made him the first to repeat in that role since Jack Nicklaus in 1987, but his tenure was marked by a lack of communication and second-guessing of his pairings during the U.S. defeat.

"The bottom line is this: I was their captain,'' Watson said in the statement. "In hindsight whatever mistakes that were made were mine. And I take complete and full responsibility for them.

"I want to say again to the players, their families, the PGA and our country how proud and honored I was to captain this talented group of golfers, and how privileged I was to spend the past two years working this labor of my love for the Ryder Cup.''

http://espn.go.com/golf/rydercup14/story/_/id/11641578/2014-ryder-cup-tom-watson-says-takes-full-responsibility-mistakes

[BullNBear52]

Mickelson is such a scrub.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mickelson-calls-watsons-style-captain-183715929--golf.html

Note to Phil what is said in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse.

[BullNBear52]

A Touch of Class Lightens the Darkness
P.G.A. Championship 2014: Foursome Helps Finish Round in Time
By BILL FIELDSAUG. 10, 2014

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — All the scene lacked were a few cars pulled up to the edge of the 18th green, their high beams on to illuminate the gloaming that had enveloped Valhalla Golf Club.

Then it would have seemed like two high school golf teams trying to complete a match on a spring afternoon before daylight saving time had kicked in.

But this was the P.G.A. Championship, and even without any automobile lights pointed at the putting surface Sunday evening, it was a surreal atmosphere that had been preceded by an unusual decision to allow the last two pairings to essentially play the last hole together.

It is not rare for a golf tournament, even a major championship, to be in a race to beat darkness in the final round. This has been especially true in the last couple of decades as the majors, eager to extend the broadcasts of their events into prime time to try to attract maximum ratings, have routinely had the last pairing tee off at about 3 p.m.

Sunday’s final pairing, Rory McIlroy and Bernd Wiesberger, was scheduled to tee off at 2:55 despite a dodgy forecast that panned out when heavy rain caused play to be suspended at 12:53.

“There was no real consideration to move the tee times forward,” said Kerry Haigh, the P.G.A. of America’s chief championships officer, noting that the forecast had been for isolated storms. “Yes, there was a reasonable chance of showers, but they were going to be sporadic, and it was either going to hit us or miss us. Unfortunately, the one that hit us was literally only three miles wide but was moving very slowly.”

Play resumed at 2:44 and was not interrupted again, but the McIlroy-Wiesberger pairing did not begin the final round until 4:26.

At that point, everyone knew it was going to be nip-and-tuck as to whether play could be completed, even without further delays, before sunset.

And it was.

Television camera technology distorted how dim a view the players had for the latter stages of the round.

“It was a little different playing the last few holes in the dark,” said Rickie Fowler, who was in the penultimate pairing with Phil Mickelson.

McIlroy and Wiesberger arrived at the tee of the par-5 18th hole as Mickelson and Fowler were hitting their tee shots. At that point, Mickelson and Fowler allowed McIlroy — who had a two-stroke lead over Mickelson, Fowler and Henrik Stenson — and Wiesberger to tee off so that the championship would have a better chance of finishing.

Mickelson and Fowler stood to the side of the 18th fairway, short of the landing area, while the final pairing teed off.

“We were cool with them hitting the tee shot,” Fowler said of McIlroy and Wiesberger. “We weren’t expecting the approach shots. Typically if it’s getting dark and they are going to blow the horn, you at least get the guys off the tee, and it gives them the opportunity to play.”

McIlroy said the timesaving idea was his. “I suggested that we play up as a foursome,” he said. “Then I was told we could hit right after them. They didn’t need to do that. They showed a lot of class and sportsmanship. If they hadn’t done that, we might not have gotten it in. It was getting really dark out there.”

According to Haigh, who was not at the 18th tee but communicated with walking officials who were, it was Wiesberger who suggested playing up. Haigh said he was told by the officials that Fowler and McIlroy had discussed having the last twosome hit approach shots before Mickelson and Fowler completed the 18th.

Mickelson hit the 18th fairway, then came up just short of the green on his second shot. His chip threatened the hole, and he had a tap-in to finish at 15 under and force McIlroy to make a par to win. After driving near a water hazard on the right, McIlroy hit his second shot into a greenside bunker. His sand shot came up 34 feet short. With little light left, he lagged the putt close to ensure victory. He tapped in at 8:43 p.m.

“It didn’t affect the outcome of the championship at all, I don’t think,” said Mickelson, who birdied the hole after chipping close on his third shot. “Not what we normally do, but it’s not a big deal either way.”

McIlroy, who started the round with a one-shot lead over Wiesberger but had fallen two shots back after nine holes, appreciated not having to linger on the 18th tee.

“They could have had us standing and wait on the 18th tee while it was getting dark,” he said. It was great sportsmanship and shows the great character of those two guys, and I’m glad they did it.”

Having won four majors and playing the kind of golf that is drawing comparisons to Tiger Woods at his zenith, McIlroy has something else in common with Woods. A 14-time major champion, Woods putted out at Bethpage State Park in the 2002 United States Open as dozens of camera flashes went off.

Now there are similar images of McIlroy, standing out in the dark, as his game allows him to stand out from the crowd.

[KINGMADE]

How Kings Are Made: The Next Big Little Thing On Tour

http://www.golfwrx.com/137689/how-kings-are-made-the-next-big-little-thing-on-tour/

[KINGMADE]

out on the course today shook hands with the greatest as we exchanged #kingmadejerky!

[KINGMADE]

There's the beef: Tour caddie hits it big with homemade jerky for golfers
http://www.worldgolf.com/blogs/mike-bailey/2013/09/15/tour-caddie-hits-it-big-with-homemade-jerky-for-golfers

[KINGMADE]

Hutton: ‘Kingmade Jerky’ turns Hammond native into celebrity

When Jeff King talks about dehydrators, jerky flavors, Davis Love III, the region and the wacky life of caddying all in one breath, I wonder: Is there a chance I could quit my job, hitch-hike to where ever his next tournament is and just hang out with him for a year and see what happens next?

King has made regular appearances in this space over the last decade for his caddying, most of it with LPGA players like Candy Kung and Christie Kerr before hitching a ride with Luke List, a powerful but inconsistent player who is struggling to keep his card on the PGA Tour.
King was thrust into the news last week when word of his newest venture got out via Sports Illustrated: “Kingmade Jerky.”

“I think I’m a guy with too much time on my hands,” he laughed from North Carolina, where he was in a laundry mat, washing his clothes before List played in a Web.com event.

King, from Hammond, makes beef jerky. He is the proud, sometimes overwhelmed founder of the new company (www.kingmadejerky.com).

King’s jerky story is, like King himself, one-of-a-kind.
He came home from looping one day a couple of years ago and decided to make jerky. (We’ve all thought that before, right?) He had no inclination to make jerky, aside from the fact that he liked jerky as a snack when caddying.

The PGA, apart from a few lumpy players, like Angel Cabrerra and Tim Herron, is a health conscious place. Television often shows players munching on snacks in between shots. King dove into jerky making because he could rarely find the jerky he liked when he was on the road.

He did what any normal person who wanted to make jerky would do: He bought a dehydrator, a contraption that dries out meat and he went to work.

His first few batches were awful.

After a few tries, the jerky got better and word got out, first on the LPGA Tour, where King was caddying. Pretty soon, King was a certified jerky snob.

His jerky is made from flank steak, the other stuff is usually “round steak.”

He had three flavors: Sweet Chili Pepper, Classic and Buffalo Style. His jerky is all natural and hand crafted and it has about a third as much sodium in it as most of the jerky on the market.

More importantly, it’s hugely popular with the jerky crowd on tour. Tiger Woods eats King’s jerky. Thirty players follow King Jerky on twitter.

Love told SI that he wanted to get the recipe for it so he could make it at home. King’s little hobby turned into another full-time job for him — with a list of 70 players regularly requesting the jerky.

He had so many requests for the jerky from PGA players that when he went back home to Texas he rarely slept.

Making jerky is a 24-hour cycle of drying and marinating the meat. He charged $40 per pound, but he made about three bucks an hour.

“You have to baby-sit this stuff non-stop,” he said.

King’s entered rarified jerky status when a former pro golfer turned food and beverage marketing executive heard his story, tried his product and asked him if wanted to turn it into a business.

That was almost like a joke to King, a humble, rooted Northwest Indiana kid who basically lived on a golf course as a kid.

Except it wasn’t. It was real stuff.

That was at the beginning of the year.

Adam Papazian, his partner, helped him raise around $175,000 to get the product to the public.

They found a plant in Nebraska that would make the jerky and they officially launched the business a couple of months ago.

The product — 2.25 ounces — sells for $8.99 in about a dozen places in the United States.

J&M Golf in St. John is the only place in Northwest Indiana that has it right now.

Or, it can be ordered off his website.

King has plans to unveil a few more flavors in the next six months or so.

For now, King is both grateful beyond words and still a caddie at heart.

He has no plans to give up his day job. He wants to help List make the Ryder Cup someday.

He is worried that the business might become a distraction for List so he plans on hiring someone next year to help take care of all the requests he gets for jerky.

And whatever happens with the business, whether it takes off and soars or fades into jerky purgatory, King figures he has won.

“Everything that has happened already is priceless,” King said.

Everybody — tour players, caddies, friends from Northwest Indiana — is pulling for him big time. They really do want King to be the “King Jerky.”

http://posttrib.suntimes.com/sports/22466340-556/hutton-kingmade-jerky-turns-hammond-native-into-celebrity.html

[KINGMADE]

KINGMADE BEEF JERKY MAKES HEADLINES IN ""THE REGIONS"" NEWSPAPER!!! Lake County News: Former Region resident hits hole in one with beef jerky business
SMOKIN HOT JEFF KING!!!
http://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/former-region-resident-hits-hole-in-one-with-beef-jerky/article_d49a69a3-cf6e-5bf0-9411-cc0c759f9012.html

[KINGMADE]

TIGER WOODS EATS KINGMADE BEEF JERKY>> ~HEAR THE STORY ON SOUNDCLOUD

https://soundcloud.com/dctucker-1/kingmade-jerky-jeff-king-on?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=twitter

[KINGMADE]

KINGMADE BEEF JERKY MAKES HEADLINES ON SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/tour-caddie-jeff-king-turns-pro-beef-jerky-business

[BullNBear52]

Back Where Golf Found a U.S. Foothold

By PETER MAY


Francis Ouimet, 20, stunned the British professionals Harry Vardon and Ted Ray to win the 1913 U.S. Open at the Country Club.

BROOKLINE, Mass. — There had been so many chances before, including a near miss at his home course outside Philadelphia five years earlier. So by the time 38-year-old Jay Sigel pummeled David Tolley, 8 and 7, in the final round of the 1982 United States Amateur, his relief was palpable.

He was, finally, the Amateur champion, the title the capstone to a career that would span more than three decades. Making it even better to Sigel, a serious student of golf, was the place where he won: the Country Club, a course steeped in history.

It was at the Country Club, in 1913, when an amateur caddie named Francis Ouimet stunned the golfing world by winning the United States Open in a playoff against the top professionals of the time, the Englishmen Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. It was at the Country Club in 1999 where the United States Ryder Cup team staged a memorable Sunday comeback, stirred by a speech from its captain, Ben Crenshaw.

Lawson Little won the first of his two consecutive Amateurs there in 1934. Curtis Strange won the first of his two straight Opens there in 1988. Julius Boros survived a three-way playoff to triumph at the 1963 Open, a tournament in which the winning score was nine-over par and for which the defending champion, Jack Nicklaus, missed the cut.

It is named simply the Country Club. There is no hint to its location. One of the five founding clubs of the United States Golf Association, its logo is a squirrel munching on an acorn.

Winning the first of his two Amateurs on the course — the other came the next year at North Shore Country Club outside Chicago — was that much sweeter for Sigel. He competed in 26 Amateurs in his career. From 1973 to 1993, he qualified every year for match play, winning twice, finishing third once and posting seven other top-10 finishes, according to the U.S.G.A.

“It’s very powerful stuff, to win it on that course,” Sigel said. “There are so many memories there. It’s a special place and it means a lot to me.”

The U.S.G.A. has returned to this venerable club outside Boston for this week’s 113th United States Amateur. It is the 16th time the U.S.G.A. has held one of its signature events at the club; only Merion, which hosted its fifth United States Open in June, has been the setting for more. This is the sixth men’s Amateur contested at the Country Club, but the first since Sigel won 31 years ago.

It is rare that a course overshadows the actual event, but the Country Club could be an exception. Mike Trostel, the senior curator and historian for the U.S.G.A., said the course’s fame dates to that September day in 1913 when Ouimet won the 18-hole playoff over the two British champions.

“It changed the whole complexion of American golf,” Trostel said. “Golf at that time was viewed as an exclusively British game. His win put golf on the front page of every American newspaper.”

An esteemed English golf writer, Henry Beech, wrote at the time that Americans “play a rather plainer game than we do.”

He continued, “The country may and probably will produce an occasional golfing phenomenon, and it may win our Championship again, but it will never be really superior to us at golf.”

A decade after Ouimet’s win, Trostel said that the number of American golfers had risen to nearly three million, from 350,000. Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen and Walter Hagen benefited from this surge. Hagen tied for fourth at the 1913 Open, earning $78.

“It is such an important course in the history of American golf,” Trostel said. “The fact that the U.S.G.A. keeps coming back to hold its marquee events says a lot about it. The two have a great history together.”

Vardon received $300 for his efforts at the 1913 Open; Ray, who finished third, pocketed $150. The Open had been moved from its customary June date to September that year to accommodate the two men, who were on barnstorming tour of the United States. Vardon was a five-time British Open champion — he added a sixth title in 1914 — and Ray was the defending British Open champion.

Ouimet never turned pro. He won Amateurs in 1914 and 1931, the longest stretch between victories in the event’s history. He always considered those wins more important than his Open triumph because the Amateur was then a more glamorous and competitive event, Trostel said.

“You can use the analogy of the N.I.T. and the N.C.A.A.,” he said, referring to the two basketball tournaments. “At one time, the N.I.T. was the more important tournament, but you would never guess that today. The same was true back then for the U.S. Amateur. Not anymore.”

Sigel may beg to differ. An accident in college denied him the opportunity to turn pro coming out of Wake Forest, but he went on to become the country’s foremost amateur. In addition to his two United States Amateurs, he won the 1979 British Amateur and three United States Mid-Amateur championships, and he was a member of nine straight Walker Cup teams, serving as the captain on two of them.

So it was fitting, he said, when one day he received a package in the mail from Massachusetts. The Country Club was replacing its original welcoming sign, which had hung on wooden hooks at the club’s entrance off Clyde Street. The club members decided to send the original to Sigel, hooks and all.

He now showcases it proudly in his basement, a lasting memento of a time — and a place — he will never forget.

[KINGMADE]

KINGMADE JERKY FEEDING PGA PROZZ

John Peterson
http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/pga/players/11785



https://twitter.com/KingmadeJerky

[KINGMADE]

THIS would be the definition of looking good!!! EXTRA SPECIAL Thanks to all the people at TRAVIS MATHEW for their support of KMJ. Keeping us looking AWESOME on the PGA Tour!!

[BullNBear52]

Justin Rose Invokes Ben Hogan, Wins US Open

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


ARDMORE, Pa. — Justin Rose walked the 18th fairway and thought of Ben Hogan, and a chance to emulate one of the most famous shots in golf.

That very moment Sunday made the U.S. Open's return to Merion Golf Club worth all the bother.

It was about history, about putting up with extra shuttle rides and wicker baskets on top of hole pins to enjoy the charm and legacy of this compact course tucked away in a Philadelphia suburb.

About 15 feet short of the famous plaque that commemorates Hogan's 1-iron approach in 1950, Rose went about finishing off a new chapter in Merion's place in the sport.

He went with a 4-iron — technology's come a long way in 63 years — and parred the hole to become the first Englishman in 43 years to win America's national championship.

"It's hard not to play Merion and envision yourself hitting the shot that Hogan did," Rose said. "And even in the moment today, that was not lost on me.

"When I walked over the hill and saw my drive sitting perfectly in the middle of the fairway, with the sun coming out, it was kind of almost fitting. And I just felt like at that point it was a good iron shot on to the green, two putts, like Hogan did, and possibly win this championship."

Rose shot an even-par 70 for a 1-over 281 total for his first major title, two strokes better than Jason Day and Phil Mickelson. Mickelson extended a record that gets more frustrating as the years go by: He's finished second six times at the U.S. Open without a win.

"Heartbreak," said Mickelson, who had a solo lead after 54 holes for the first time at the Open and was playing on his 43rd birthday.

"This is tough to swallow after coming so close. This was my best chance of all of them. I had a golf course I really liked. I felt this was as good an opportunity as you could ask for. It really hurts."

Hogan won in a playoff after his 1-iron approach, immortalized in one of the sport's most famous photos, led to par and forced a playoff.

The Open came back in 1971 and 1981 and wasn't expected to return again because its yardage was thought to be too short for the modern game and its tiny footprint thought to be too small to contain all the amenities of a modern-day major.

Somehow, they worked it out, even if it meant putting tents in people's yards, shuttling the players a mile to and from the practice area and drastically cutting back on ticket sales.

USGA executive director Mike Davis said the typical U.S. Open scores showed that "time hasn't passed Merion by" and that officials would "absolutely" consider coming back.

Rose would, in a heartbeat.

"What I first love about Merion is how one of the local caddies described it: The first six holes are drama, the second six holes are comedy, and the last six holes are tragedy," Rose said. "Like a good play, like a good theatrical play."

Rose's winning round more or less reflected that very script. Five birdies. Five bogeys. He took the lead for good because of others' mistakes. He was in a three-way tie with Mickelson and Hunter Mahan before Mickelson bogeyed No. 15 and Mahan double-bogeyed the same hole.

But Rose needed 18 to seal the deal. No one birdied the hole in the final two rounds. The tee shot had to be in the fairway.

It was.

The 4-iron approach rolled near the pin and settled precariously against the collar of the green, but he used a 3-wood to bunt the ball to an inch of the cup for par.

He then looked through the patchy clouds and point to the sky, a nod to his late father, Ken, who died of leukemia in September 2002.

"Father's Day was not lost on me today," Rose said. "You don't have (many) opportunities to really dedicate a win to someone you love, and today was about him."

England has waited since Tony Jacklin at Hazeltine in 1970 for a U.S. Open winner, although Rose adds to a run of recent dominance from the British Isles. Graeme McDowell (2010) and Rory McIlroy (2011), both from Northern Ireland, won back-to-back titles.

Rose first made his mark on the major scene as a 17-year-old amateur who chipped in on the final hole at Royal Birkdale in the 1998 British Open and tied for fourth. He turned pro the next week and missed the cut in his first 21 tournaments.

But he stuck to it and slowly picked off big tournaments — including the AT&T National in 2010 just down the road at Aronimink.

"Probably, at times, it feels 25 years since Birkdale, and other times it feels like it was just yesterday," Rose said. "There's a lot of water under the bridge. My learning curve has been steep from that point. Sort of announced myself on the golfing scene probably before I was ready to handle it. And golf can be a cruel game."

Certainly, it can.

On Sunday, it was cruel for Mickelson.

And for Steve Stricker, who is still without a win in the majors after hitting the ball out of bounds twice at the second hole to card an 8. He was one shot off the lead when the round began, but finished five back after his round of 76.

And it was cruel for Tiger Woods, who also hit out of bounds at No. 2 and closed with a 74. That gave him his worst 72-hole score (13-over 293) as a pro in the U.S. Open, and it tied for his high score in any major.

"I did a lot of things right," Woods said. "Unfortunately, I did a few things wrong, as well."

Still, Woods appreciates history, and he joined those who could see the Open coming back to Merion — logistics permitting.

"I'm sure it will come back," he said. "Obviously there are some vendors that are going to make more money with hospitality and that nature (at other venues). But I think that overall as a golf course, yes, it can be played."

___

[BullNBear52]

Polishing Antique Idea, Club Recruits Caddies

By BILL MORRIS


When Joan Small and Carolyn Argento met at the Lawrence Yacht and Country Club on Long Island for a round of golf on a recent Saturday morning, they shared a bad feeling. It was not about the gloomy weather forecast.

The women wanted to walk the golf course, but all the club’s caddies were usually snatched up by the men who tee off early on weekends. That meant Small and Argento, under club rules, would have to ride a cart or wait until 3 p.m. to walk the course carrying their own bags. Neither prospect held much appeal.

Then they got a pleasant surprise. Thanks to the club’s recent push to attract and train new caddies, there were plenty on hand that morning, green but eager, like colts aching to gambol across an open pasture.

Small and Argento were paired with Kyle Singh and Zachary Pratt, two juniors at nearby Lawrence High School who had never swung a golf club or set foot on a course. The women smacked their tee shots, and the four marched down the first fairway, beginning a four-hour session of hands-on schooling for the two novice caddies.

“It’s a different game when you walk,” said Argento, who started playing four years ago. “You’re not discombobulated worrying about the cart. You focus on the game, not on where to park.”

Small, who has been playing for 15 years, added: “When you walk, your whole body is involved in the game. You have a sense of perspective. When you ride, you’ve got the food and the drinks in the cart. It’s almost like a picnic.”

By the end of the round, Singh and Pratt were each $30 richer — and much wiser after receiving an abundance of pointers from their employers.

“It’s a nice game,” said Singh, who is on his school’s basketball, football and track teams and is considering taking up golf. “There’s a lot of strategy.”

Such words are music to the ears of Peter Procops, the club’s teaching pro, who grew up nearby in Nassau County and started caddying at neighboring Rockaway Hunting Club when he was 11.

“Caddying is very much like a mirror of life,” he said. “It teaches kids how to be around adults. It gets them out of their shells, and they learn a trade. We’re taking kids and turning them into young adults.”

The American sporting scene is littered with innovations of dubious merit like the TV timeout, metal bats in baseball and oxymoronic “metal woods” in golf. But few innovations have done more damage to a game than the motorized cart has done to golf, and particularly to the art of caddying.

When men were clubbing little balls on the eastern coast of Scotland some six centuries ago, they chased their shots through the seaside sand and gorse on foot, followed by young men carrying clusters of clubs. By the 18th century, those ambulatory valets had come to be known as caddies.

They remained a vital and inviolable part of the game until 1930, when Curtis Willock, chairman of the greens committee at Annandale Golf Club in Pasadena, Calif., got a friend to build him a three-wheeled cart powered by a 12-volt battery. The cart reached a top speed of 11 miles per hour and cost a whopping $4,500. But Willock had a hard time walking 18 holes because he had a wooden leg.

Most of the American golfers who embraced carts in the years after World War II did not have such physical handicaps. Many golf courses were happy to cater to them because they brought in hefty revenue, while the money paid to caddies walked off the course at sundown.

But there were trade-offs. Carts punish grass, which led to the laying of unsightly ribbons of blacktop to accommodate them. In addition to being a packhorse, a companion, a course expert and a psychologist, a good caddie is a tireless maintenance machine, replacing divots, raking sand traps, repairing ball marks on greens — chores many cart-riding golfers often forgo.

“Some of the damage done by carts was more subtle but perhaps more important,” Richard J. Moss writes in his new book, “The Kingdom of Golf in America.” “The job of caddie had introduced thousands of young boys (and a few girls) to the game of golf. The cart slowly squeezed shut this pipeline into the game.”

The dwindling number of young players is just one of the problems for the game today. The number of regular players of all ages in the United States peaked at more than 30 million in 2003 and has been declining since. Perhaps the most accurate barometer of the game’s health — the number of rounds played — has been declining for years. According to the National Golf Foundation, Americans played 518 million rounds in 2001 and 489 million last year.

The recession did not help. Nor do the complaints that golf takes too much time and costs too much money, killer considerations in a country with a shrinking attention span and a mushrooming array of diversions.

When Vinny Biondo, the caddie master at the Lawrence Yacht and Country Club, first began working there in 1976, the club had three dozen caddies and a fleet of 40 motorized carts. Today there are one-third as many caddies and twice as many carts — a ratio the new caddie recruitment campaign is hoping to reverse.

Biondo, Procops, his assistant James King and a club member, Rob Raider, spoke with guidance counselors at local schools, distributed fliers and wound up attracting nearly 60 teenagers to a weekend clinic in May. The recruits were shown a video, given some instruction, then taken out on the course to watch a golfer and a caddie interact. The education process is still in its infancy, but signs are promising.

Other efforts are under way to increase caddying and foster the culture of walking. As it does every spring, the Metropolitan Golf Association, which has 420 member courses within a 100-mile radius of Manhattan, recently put on nine one-day academies to teach the rudiments of the craft. Some 700 aspirants turned out across the tristate area.

“Golf needs to do a better job of promoting the fact that the game is a healthy activity,” said Jay Mottola, executive director of the M.G.A. “Walking 18 holes is tremendous exercise — you burn 10,000 calories. That’s appealing to young people, just like basketball, football and baseball.”

In addition to introducing young people to the game and putting money in their pockets, caddying can lead to scholarships, even job contacts. The golf associations of New Jersey, Westchester County and Long Island, with fund-raising help from the M.G.A., give $1.5 million in scholarships each year, benefiting more than 200 caddies. A handful of local caddies have recently received full college scholarships from the Western Golf Association’s Evans Scholars Foundation.

“I have a little melting pot out here,” said Rich Uva, the caddie master at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., and president of the Metropolitan Caddie Masters Association. “I’ve got kids from the inner city, from the Bronx and Westchester, teenagers and older guys. It goes to show that no matter who you are, there’s something beneficial about caddying. Money might be the main thing, but there’s the experience of meeting people. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a golfer take a liking to a caddy and then hire him to come work for him. That’s priceless.”

At the Lawrence Yacht and Country Club, Neil Cohen recently had such a bonding experience, walking 18 holes with one of the raw caddying recruits.

“It was delightful,” Cohen said. “The kid had never been on a golf course before, but he was respectful and he had a lot of legitimate questions. He knew when to ask them and when to keep his mouth shut.”

Cohen was so impressed he arranged to hire the caddie again the following weekend.

Richard Kaner, a member of the club for nine years, is on an informal one-man crusade to promote walking the course with a caddie.

“I’m always urging players to take a caddie,” he said. “I sense that, slowly, the mind-set is starting to change. People are starting to see the benefits of walking. By the end of last year, I had my whole regular foursome taking caddies. The pace of the game is so much more enjoyable. It’s infectious.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/sports/golf/long-island-club-reintroduces-a-golf-artifact-the-caddie.html?ref=golf&pagewanted=print

[BullNBear52]

Long Putters? How About Slow Play, Drugs and Phrankenwoods?

By KAREN CROUSE


The governing bodies of golf have spoken about anchored putting. Hopefully, they were just clearing their throats.

The announcement Tuesday that, beginning in 2016, anchoring a putter against the body would be banned ought to be the start of a thorough spring cleaning by the sport. If the United States Golf Association and the Royal & Ancient needed only 174 days of debate before officially outlawing a stroke that has been in play for at least five decades and is used by roughly 15 percent of PGA Tour members, it should have no problem acting swiftly to address more pressing issues.

Among them: performance-enhancing equipment used by 100 percent of touring pros; caddies lining up their players on putts; the slow pace of play; the viewer call-ins that are threatening to turn tournament golf into a good walk spoiled by armchair rules officials; and an antidoping program that is not up to the Olympic model.

It sounds like a golfer’s utopia, where a 3-wood shot travels farther than a driver, golf balls that don’t cut or curve, and utility clubs designed to help shots out of the rough brake on the greens. But not everybody is thrilled with the era ushered in by technology.

Adam Scott, who won the Masters putting with an anchored stroke, has said: “I don’t think putting is the biggest problem in the game at the moment. It’s commonly acknowledged that length is more of an issue than anything else. The holes haven’t been made smaller or the greens changed because of people putting with longer putters, yet tees are moving a long way back and courses are made obsolete because of other technologies in the game.”

Take the utility club — please, said the PGA Tour veteran Steve Stricker.

“When you had to sit back there and hit a 2-iron or a 3-iron over 200 yards and try to get it to stop on a green, before those utility clubs came out, that was a tough challenge,” he said. “I think that’s been a huge change in our game and I think one of the factors that has enabled us to shoot lower scores and get the ball to stop quicker on some of those long approach shots.”

Why does the U.S.G.A. bother growing rough that looks like Bart Simpson’s hair if it is going to allow clubs designed to cut through it like a scythe?

Stacy Lewis, the L.P.G.A.’s reigning player of the year, said she would not take part in a United States Women’s Open without her utility club because “it’s certainly easier out of the rough.” The hybrid that poses the greatest threat to the game, in her opinion, is the club called the Phrankenwood. Phil Mickelson has described it as “a 3-wood on steroids.”

“When you talk about something that’s an advantage to those who are using it, how about the 3-woods right now that people can use to hit farther than their drivers?” Lewis said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Lewis said she did not agree with the ban on the anchored stroke in putting. She would have preferred that the ruling bodies address the habit of caddies lining up their players on the greens.

“To me, lining up properly is an essential part of the game,” Lewis said. “You have kids growing up who are not learning how to line themselves up properly.”

The 14-year-old amateur Guan Tianlang’s slow-play penalty at the Masters brought to the fore another issue plaguing golf at every level.

“The fact that he is looking at tour players playing every week like snails means that he plays the same way,” Shane Lowry, who competes primarily on the European Tour, said in a Twitter message.

On Tuesday, Mike Davis, the U.S.G.A. president, acknowledged the influence of a couple of hundred PGA Tour pros on the millions of other golfers. “As we like to say, when white belts appeared on the PGA Tour, guess what: they appeared in recreational golf,” Davis said.

So if the PGA Tour were to penalize slow play more, it stands to reason that recreational play would speed up.

The U.S.G.A. could start with its signature event. At last year’s United States Open at Olympic Club, Jim Furyk was placed on the clock during the final round while holding the lead, and others were warned that they had fallen out of position. But no penalties were assessed. Despite rounds last year that exceeded five hours, the last slow-play penalty meted out at a United States Open was to Edward Fryatt in 1997.

The pace of play does not figure to be helped by the recent spate of call-ins from viewers pointing out rules violations during telecasts. Tiger Woods came under such scrutiny at the Masters and the Players Championship. During Sunday’s final round of the Byron Nelson Championship, Sang-Moon Bae, perhaps mindful of the extra eyes on him, asked for an official ruling on a drop after hitting into the water while holding the lead.

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said before the Players that the U.S.G.A. and the R&A were discussing the issue of viewers calling in to enforce rules, with an eye toward simplifying the rule book, which will become more complicated when the anchoring ban becomes official.

“Maybe systematizing the rules in certain areas that make it more realistic,” Finchem said, adding, “If you compare some of the penalties in our sport to what happens in other sports, it’s kind of crazy.”

If you compare golf’s drug-testing policy to the policies in other sports, it also sticks out. With few exceptions, golfers are tested only during tournament weeks, and only urine samples are collected.

“If you really want to be serious about it, and find out what’s really going on, we need to do blood testing,” the two-time major winner Greg Norman recently told The Australian newspaper. “I think it’s disgraceful, to tell you the truth. The golf associations have to get together and step it up.”

With the anchored putting stroke issue off their plates, the game’s ruling bodies can devote time to these issues. But do they have the appetite?

[BullNBear52]

Venturi Had Precious Friendship With Byron Nelson
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

IRVING, Texas — Ken Venturi was a 14-year-old with a camera trying to get a picture of Byron Nelson when he first met the golfer who would become a mentor and dear friend.

"He was, like, getting under the ropes a little bit, " Nelson's widow, Peggy, recalled Saturday of that moment during the 1946 San Francisco Open. "Byron said, 'Kid, could you move back under the ropes a little ways?' And Ken goes home and tells his mom, I met the greatest man today, Byron Nelson, and he spoke to me."

Venturi died Friday, in the middle of tournament week for the Byron Nelson Championship.

Venturi overcame dehydration to win the 1964 U.S. Open and spent 35 years in the booth for CBS Sports. He died at age 82, 11 days after being inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

When CBS came on the air Saturday for third-round coverage of the Nelson, the first 15 minutes of the broadcast were a tribute to Venturi, who retired as the network's lead golf analyst in 2002.

Jim Nantz, whose 54th birthday was on the same day his longtime partner and friend died, said it was "not going to be easy" to broadcast this weekend.

The death of Venturi came a month and a day after broadcaster Pat Summerall died, also at age 82.

"It's been an unbelievable month to lose guys like that," said Lance Barrow, the longtime CBS producer for golf and NFL broadcasts. "It's a sad day."

Barrow likened Venturi's lengthy career as a broadcaster to Nelson's surely unmatchable record of 11 consecutive tournaments won.

"There will be no one ever in sports television again that will have the run that Ken Venturi had," Barrow said. "And will not come close to it, as an analyst in any sport, much less golf."

Tiger Woods issued a statement Saturday saying that Venturi's recent Hall of Fame induction was a "fitting tribute to a special person in our game."

"He was a good man and the voice of golf for so many years," said Woods, who isn't playing the Nelson this week. "He will be remembered for what he did on the golf course and for his personality in the broadcast booth. "

Ten years after Venturi was trying to get a picture of Nelson, he was a top amateur teamed with Harvie Ward against Nelson and Ben Hogan in what has since become known as "The Match."

Peggy Nelson said that was an amazing day for the players, and that Byron Nelson, who died in 2006 at age 94, and Venturi would sometimes talk about different shots each of them hit that day.

She characterized their friendship as precious and talked about what it was like "to see Byron's face light up whenever he thought of him" or when Venturi would call.

"I think that if Byron could have, he would have adopted Kenny," Peggy Nelson said. "Kenny's values were so strong and so wanting to help people as much as he could, because he knew that he was a very blessed man in the game of golf and that he was blessed to have so many friends like Byron and Mr. Hogan, and being close to both of them."

Barrow said Venturi tried to do everything Nelson taught him, from never charging for a golf lesson "because Byron Nelson said don't do that" to also checking in with the pro shop at a golf course before playing a round.

"This was a great thing that Byron Nelson told him, always go in and ask the pro who holds the course record. And if it's a pro, don't ever break it because that pro is there every day. You're only there for a few days," Barrow said. "That's what Venturi was like."

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/05/18/sports/golf/ap-glf-nelson-venturi.html?ref=golf&pagewanted=print

[BullNBear52]

Ken Venturi, U.S. Open Golf Champion and Broadcaster, Dies at 82

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN


Ken Venturi making the final putt while nearing collapse from heat exhaustion in his victory in the 1964 United States Open.


Ken Venturi, who won the 1964 United States Open while nearing collapse from heat exhaustion and who was later the longtime chief golf analyst for CBS Sports, died Friday afternoon. He was 82.

Venturi’s son, Matt, told The Associated Press that his father died in a hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and that he had been hospitalized the last two months for a spinal infection, pneumonia and an intestinal infection.

Venturi had a five-way heart bypass surgery and valve repair in December 2006.

Venturi, who had recently been elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame, won 14 tournaments between 1957 and 1966 in a career cut short by circulatory problems in his hands.

He first gained notice in 1956 as an amateur when he led the Masters by four shots entering the final round, only to shoot an 80, losing to Jack Burke Jr. by a stroke. He was the runner-up at the Masters again in 1960, a shot behind Arnold Palmer, who birdied the final two holes.

But Venturi’s signature moment came at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., on a Sunday in June 1964. Temperatures were approaching 100 degrees, and the humidity seemed unconquerable as the players struggled to play 36 holes, the last time the Open staged its final two rounds on a single day.

Venturi had not won since the 1960 Milwaukee Open, had considering quitting and had been required to participate in two qualifying events before being allowed into the Open. He almost collapsed from the heat on the 17th green of his morning round but carded a remarkable 66.

Going into the final 18 holes, Venturi was two shots behind the leader, Tommy Jacobs. After a 45-minute break, Venturi virtually staggered through the final round, trailed by Dr. John Everett, who was monitoring the players and who had warned him against continuing out of fear he would die from heat prostration.

Everett gave Venturi ice cubes, iced tea and salt pills as he played on, instinct triumphing over the pressure and the exhaustion. Venturi overtook Jacobs and sank a 10-foot putt on the final hole to close out a 70, besting Jacobs by four shots.

“I dropped my putter and I raised my arms up to the sky,” Venturi told The A.P. in 1997. “I said, ‘My God, I’ve won the Open.’ The applause was deafening. It was like thunder coming out there.”

Venturi was so weak that he could not reach into the hole to get his ball, so Raymond Floyd, his playing partner, did it for him.

“I felt this hand on me, and it was Raymond Floyd handing me the ball,” Venturi remembered. “I looked at him, and he had tears streaming down his face.”

As Floyd later told The A.P.: “He was running on fumes. If you had asked him his name, he could not have told you. It is one of the most heroic things I have ever seen.”

Venturi was helped off the green by the United States Golf Association official Joe Dye and was so woozy that he could not read his scorecard. Dye assured him that it was correct and that he could sign it.

Venturi was named PGA player of the year for 1964 and was selected for the 1965 Ryder Cup team. By then, he had developed carpal tunnel syndrome and had surgery, hoping to relieve cold and numbness in his hands. But he never regained his form and soon retired.

He overcame a stammering problem as a child and was hired by CBS to provide commentary on the PGA Tour; he remained with the network for 35 years, retiring in 2002.

“With that exhausting, emotional victory, Venturi established a bond with viewers,” Peter McCleery wrote in Golf Digest in 2002, recalling Venturi’s triumph in the Open. “His strength as an analyst has been the passion and conviction he brought to the booth. He said things with such authority and in such absolute terms that you believed him, or wanted to.”

Venturi was born and reared in San Francisco, where his father, Fred, a skilled workman on the docks, ran the golf shop at the Harding Park municipal golf course. He began playing as a youngster and honed his game by playing repeated fade and draw shots in solitary drills.

Venturi became the San Francisco interscholastic golf champion, and he played at San Jose State University, where he received a degree in physical education. Byron Nelson, whom Venturi idolized as a youngster, later tutored him.

He is survived by his third wife, Kathleen, and two sons, Matthew and Tim, according to The Associated Press.

Venturi engaged in many charitable endeavors while working as a broadcaster, most notably the Guiding Eyes Classic, an event in New York that included blind golfers and raised more than $6 million to provide dogs for the blind.

He told Golf Digest in 2004 how a guide dog from the program saved his owner, a man named Omar Rivera, in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, leading him down 71 floors of the World Trade Center’s North Tower.

As Venturi recalled it: “At a Guiding Eyes gala at Rockefeller Plaza, Omar came forward and told his story. Toward the end, he said, ‘This dog came from Ken Venturi.’ I cry easily enough as it is, but I cried buckets that day.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/sports/golf/ken-venturi-us-open-golf-champion-and-broadcaster-dies-at-82.html?ref=sports

[BullNBear52]

At Masters, a Swan Song for Long Putters
By KAREN CROUSE
AUGUSTA, Ga.

The 10-foot putt dropped, and Adam Scott’s star ascended. Nine years before a 10-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole won him the Masters, Scott drained a putt from the same distance at the Players Championship to become, at 23, the youngest winner of the event, prompting the golf analyst Johnny Miller to say, “This might be another Tiger Woods in the making.”

Scott’s 2004 victory at T.P.C. Sawgrass was heralded as the changing of the guard in Australian golf, with Greg Norman, the Arnold Palmer of Down Under, passing the baton to Scott, a Queenslander with a swing purer than a mountain spring. Butch Harmon declared that Scott had a better swing than Woods and was “on the verge of breaking out.”

The bookmakers agreed, installing Scott as one of the favorites at the Masters, which followed the Players Championship that year. Scott posted rounds of 84 and 79 at Augusta National Golf Club, missing the cut. Between his breakthrough at the Players Championship and the end of last year, Scott won six tour events, including the 2006 Tour Championship and the 2011 World Golf Championship-Bridgestone Invitational. He built a handsome résumé, but it did not do justice to the beauty of his swing.

The problem was Norman did not pass Scott his putter, which Norman wielded with deadly efficiency in his heyday. Scott’s inexorable march to superstardom became a decade-long slog through greens that swallowed him like quicksand. In 2010, the year before Scott switched to the long putter that he anchors to his chest, he ranked 186th on the PGA Tour in putting, in a relatively new advanced statistic, strokes gained-putting.

The long putter did not look like a miracle cure last July at the British Open, where Scott had a four-shot lead, then played the last four holes in four over. On Sunday he became an overnight success 10 years in the making with birdies on three of the last six holes of regulation and a birdie on the second hole of sudden death to beat Ángel Cabrera.

Scott, 32, is the first Masters winner and the fourth winner in the last six majors to use an anchored putting stroke. His victory surely is the last nail in the anchored stroke’s coffin, never mind that at this year’s spring golf festival at Augusta National, the long putter was the maypole around which spun many of the best stories.

Fred Couples and Bernhard Langer, both green jacket owners and stars on the 50-and-older Champions Tour, played their way onto the first page of the leader board early Sunday using long putters. They ran out of magic on the back nine but not before infusing the tournament with a double shot of nostalgia.

Guan Tianlang, the 14-year-old from China, used a belly putter on his way to becoming the only amateur to make the cut.

Then there was Scott, whose graciousness after his British Open collapse won him more fans than any claret jug possibly could. Last summer he spoke as if it were better to have led and lost than never to have led at all. He vowed to build on the experience of having put himself in a position to win, leading those with less sunny dispositions to wonder if he was sincere or simply in shock.

“Everything I said after the Open is how I felt, and I meant it,” Scott said Sunday night. “It did give me more belief that I could win a major. It proved to me, in fact, that I could.”

Scott, who was introduced to the game at a young age by his father, Phil, a club pro, has the kind of genial personality that makes him everybody’s favorite practice round partner or pub companion. At Scott’s postround news conference, journalists from all over the world greeted him with a round of applause more enthusiastic than what followed the announcement in the press room that alcoholic beverages were available in the dining area.

On Twitter, the PGA Tour player Brad Faxon wrote, “Has to be as popular a player to win in awhile.”

Perhaps not with officials of the United States Golf Association and the R&A, the rule-making bodies that have proposed a ban on the anchored putting stroke. Their final decision on the issue is expected soon, which leads to the question: now that Scott finally has a major victory to celebrate, are the rulers of golf going to break up his party?

“We are all waiting to hear what’s going to happen,” Scott said.

Referring to his victory, he said, “I don’t know that this is going to impact any decisions at all.”

It was inevitable, he added, that players using anchored strokes would leave their marks on the majors.

“Because you know, these are the best players in the world,” Scott said, “and they practice thousands of hours. They are going to get good with whatever they are using.”

For Scott, it may not be the end of the world if the anchored stroke is banned. He will adapt and endure, the way he always has. Besides, it is not as if he has never performed well using a conventional flat stick. The year he won the Players Championship, Scott finished No. 1 on tour in putting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/sports/golf/at-masters-a-death-knell-for-long-putters.html?ref=golf&_r=0&pagewanted=print

[BullNBear52]

Woods story, predictably, dominates CBS broadcast
By TIM REYNOLDS | Associated Press – 11 hrs ago.

CBS announcer Jim Nantz led off the network's Masters coverage Saturday by describing what Tiger Woods did the day before on the 15th hole as an "innocent" and "absent-minded" mistake.

CBS devoted the first 12 minutes of its broadcast from the Masters entirely to Woods, who was given a two-stroke penalty earlier in the day for a bad drop that led to his signing an incorrect scorecard after his second round.

Woods' shot on the 15th hole of the second round hit the flag stick and bounced back into the water. He took his penalty drop 2 yards behind where he hit the original shot, a rules violation.

Woods was tied for 17th when the third-round broadcast started at 3 p.m. EDT, five shots off the lead. His story dominated the early coverage, and CBS didn't mention another player until 3:12 p.m., when it showed the leaderboard for the first time.

"A day of high drama at Augusta National Golf Club before a single shot was struck." was how Nantz described the scene.

The broadcast started with a live shot of Woods at the sixth hole and being applauded by the gallery.

From there, the network displayed the ruling that cost Woods two strokes but allowed him to remain in the tournament. It broke down what his three options were after his shot on the 15th hole on Friday ended up in the water, then aired a lengthy interview by Nantz of Fred Ridley, chairman of the Masters' competition committees.

Augusta National said it was Nantz who alerted Masters officials Friday that Woods' post-rounds comments were causing some doubts, leading to another review.

Woods had said after his round, "I went back to where I played it from, but went two yards further back and I tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit. And that should land me short of the flag and not have it either hit the flag or skip over the back. I felt that was going to be the right decision to take off four (yards) right there. And I did. It worked out perfectly."

"It was an innocent mistake," Nantz said, referring to Woods' actions.

Once CBS got through the initial wave of Woods coverage, it was largely business-as-usual, with cameras trained on an array of players over roughly the next 35 minutes. Then CBS again revisited the Woods matter, with analyst Nick Faldo — a three-time Masters champion — saying the way Friday's events transpired ultimately saved Woods.

Augusta National reviewed the matter Friday even before Woods' second round was complete and found no breach of rules. But when Woods said after the round that he chose to play his drop slightly farther back from where he played his original shot, Augusta National decided to review the matter once again.

"If this had all happened later at night, if somebody had called in late at night and then had gone back and reviewed everything, then in fact Tiger would be disqualified," Faldo said. "He would have signed for the wrong score. In a way, that helped him. They reviewed the situation, they decided from what they saw there was no infringement, but it was only after Tiger then said, 'Hey, I intentionally came back a couple of yards.'"

Faldo said he was surprised Woods did not know the rule, but added that he gave the world's No. 1 player "the benefit of doubt."

Earlier in the day, the Golf Channel's Brandel Chamblee said:

"The integrity of this sport is bigger than the desire to see Tiger Woods play golf today," Chamblee said. "I want to see Tiger Woods play golf. I have never seen anybody play golf like him. I want to see him make a run at Jack Nicklaus' majors record. I want to see that. But I don't want to see it this week; I don't want to see it under these circumstances. The right thing to do here, for Tiger and for the game, is for Tiger to disqualify himself."

Faldo agreed with Chamblee and didn't back down during the CBS broadcast.

"There was absolutely no intention to try to drop that as close to the divot, absolutely none at all," Faldo said. "So, in black and white, and that is the greatest thing about our game, our rules are very much black and white. You know, that's a breach of the rules. Simple as that."

Later in the telecast, Faldo's tone seemed more conciliatory.

Faldo reiterated that in his era, he thought most players — when presented with a situation like the one Woods was in — would either be disqualified or withdraw. But he stopped short of calling again for that to happen.

"We're in a new era now under new rules and even if they bring some controversy, Tiger is playing rightly under the new rules," Faldo said. "And myself and some of my old pros, we have to accept that now."

http://news.yahoo.com/woods-story-predictably-dominates-cbs-broadcast-201230101--golf.html

[BullNBear52]

Palmer Maintains Tight Grip on Masters Legacy

By REUTERS


AUGUSTA, Georgia (Reuters) - His handshake is firm, like a coal miner's. His memory razor-sharp.

When Arnold Palmer reaches out to take your hand it is swallowed in a meaty grip. It is the firm and assured handshake of a young man.

But time marches on even for 'The King' although on occasion it can stand still at Augusta National Golf Club as it did early on Thursday when an aged Palmer launched the 77th Masters with a ceremonial opening tee shot.

Golf fans see what they want to see, and in the chill of an overcast morning they came to catch a glimpse of the past as much as the present.

Standing on the first tee surrounded by an adoring gallery, the 83-year-old golf legend smartly attired in red sweater and grey slacks struck a solid blow up the middle as 'Arnie's Army' cheered.

"I still enjoy getting out but my game is not good. It's bad," Palmer told Reuters. "I hit balls. I enjoy going out and hitting golf balls and that's what I do most of the time."

And for decades Palmer did it better than almost anyone else, winning 62 career PGA Tour titles, including four green jackets as Masters champion.

Palmer competed in 50 Masters tournaments before ending his Augusta career in 2004, and right up until signing off with a final-round 84 believed he could win every time he teed it up at the year's first major.

"I thought I could win it every time I played in it," said Palmer. "I did.

"I enjoyed Augusta very much and was fortunate enough to win it four times but always felt I should have won it at least four more times."

While Palmer's role at the Masters is now purely ceremonial he remains as much a part of Augusta as green jackets.

The charismatic Palmer arrived on the golf scene just as television was becoming a fixture in every American home creating the sport's first superstar.

With leading man good looks and a swashbuckling daring style, Palmer became one of sport's first crossover celebrities.

But even at the height of his fame, Palmer never came under the type of crushing scrutiny that top golfers like Tiger Woods deal with today.

"Was it easier? Well it was simpler," said Palmer. "It wasn't the complicated issues we see occasionally now but I think that will all pass.

"I think it's a fad and it will go away if we can just do what we need to do and that's just remember where the game came from and how it's played."

STRONG OPINIONS

Life may quieter now for Palmer but no less busy.

He still possesses strong opinions about the sport and its future ,which he is not shy of sharing, but dedicates much of his time to his many philanthropic interests.

Friends say Palmer still loves to fly his own jet but even he admits he does not golf much.

At Bay Hill, the Orlando golf course he owns, young golfers continue to seek him out during the annual PGA Tour event he hosts. For many, the Arnold Palmer Invitational is a pilgrimage that must be undertaken each year to pay homage to 'The King.'

When Rory McIlroy, at the time ranked the world's number one golfer, skipped the tournament this year it was perceived by many as a snub and a lack of respect for the game's history.

Those who enter Palmer's Bay Hill sanctuary are first sized up by Mulligan, his dog which he can often be seen taking out for walks in the neighbourhood.

His office is filled with mementos and visiting friends, who during last month's Arnold Palmer Invitational included former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

A few minutes later there is another knock at the door with a request from a young golfer Palmer has never met seeking a moment of his time.

"They come in and talk about everything," said Palmer. "I have had players, and they still do, a lot of them come and talk and want to feel me out on what I'm doing, what I'm going to do and what I have done.

"Payne Stewart was one of them he came up periodically just to refresh his recollection of what I might tell him or what might be going on.

"We got a lot of others. A lot of young people come in and I don't mind, I enjoy it as a matter of fact."

(Editing by Frank Pingue)

[BullNBear52]

In It From the Beginning: 1934

By ADAM SCHUPAK


STUART, FLORIDA — Samuel Henry Ball hasn’t discovered the fountain of youth, but the secret to his longevity, he said, is simple: a Dewars on the rocks each day and a happy marriage.

Who can argue? Ball, better known as Errie, is 102 and had his driver’s license renewed two years ago. Truth be told, Ball has reluctantly surrendered the keys to his shiny black Cadillac, and now makes the four-mile, or more than six-kilometer, drive from home to the golf club in the passenger seat.

“I’m starting to feel my age,” he said.

Yet every April, the pro emeritus at Willoughby Golf Club feels young again at the sight of the emerald fairways of Augusta National on his television screen. Ball is the last surviving competitor from the inaugural Augusta National Invitational Tournament, as the Masters was called in 1934.

Golf was in his blood. Born Nov. 14, 1910, in Bangor, Wales, Ball learned the game at Lancaster Golf Club in England, where his father, W.H. (Harry) Ball was the professional. Uncles and cousins were club professionals, too, as was John Ball, his great-uncle and an eight-time winner of the British Amateur and the 1890 British Open.

In 1926, Ball exhibited his promise, qualifying for the Open Championship as a teenager. There, he first witnessed Bobby Jones, who later co-founded the Masters, strike a golf ball. “His swing was poetry in motion,” Ball said.

They met four years later at Royal Liverpool in England, where Jones captured the second leg of his Grand Slam. With his Uncle Frank recruiting him to come to America and work as his assistant at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Ball asked Jones, a member there, for advice. What had been a game played almost exclusively by the upper class, was becoming for the first time a part of the fabric of American life, Jones told him.

That was good enough for Ball. He landed in New York on Sept. 27, 1930, the same day Jones won the U.S. Amateur to complete the Grand Slam at Merion Golf Club in Pennsylvania.

Among Ball’s mementos is a framed copy of his original application for membership in the P.G.A. of America. The date: June 20, 1931. Dues at the time: $5. For a lesson, he charged $1.50.

“My uncle Frank took half of it,” Ball remembered. “So I got 75 cents.”

It felt like a fortune.

Ball has been married for 76 years. In 1936, while making an eight-day trip across the Atlantic, Ball met a Virginia girl, Maxie Wright. She was engaged. So was he. No matter, they were married two months later. She’s 98 and remains the brightest light in his life. The memories flood back, but the name of the ship? It was so long ago he can’t remember.

“It may be the Mayflower,” he joked.

The details of the first Masters, however, are etched in his memory. Ball still savors the letter from Jones, dated Feb. 7, 1934, congratulating him on his new post as the pro at Mobile Country Club in Alabama and encouraging him to play at Augusta.

In starting a tournament just months after the repeal of Prohibition, 72 men created a tradition like none other. Back then, there was corn liquor on the course and kegs of beer on the first and 10th tees. Heading into the final round, Ball stood in a tie for 22nd place, a stroke behind Jones and 11 off the pace set by the eventual winner, Horton Smith. Ball figured a round of par or better would get him invited back next year. He began with a couple of pars, and then crouched over a 15-foot birdie putt after landing his 6-iron tee shot on the back edge of the green, his ball resting against a clump of grass at what was then the par-3 third hole (now the 12th).

“You know that bunker in front?” he said. “My putt nearly trickled in it.”

Ball has not forgotten how it all went wrong. His putter froze, and when he finally pulled the blade back, he smacked the ball clear across the green. Four shaky putts later, he had carded a six.

“I blew it,” he said. “Shot 86.” That was the highest score of the week. He plummeted to a tie for 38th.

Twenty-three years passed before he returned to Augusta in 1957, tied for the longest stretch between appearances. He missed the cut by three strokes with scores of 75 and 78, and never returned.

“I prefer to remember it the way it was when I was there,” he said.

Those memories remain vivid. On the occasion of his 100th birthday, amid an outpouring of affection, Ball’s blue eyes watered, and it was as if he had been transported back in time.

“I feel that I’ve been called to the first tee at Augusta National,” he said. “Errie Ball, Willoughby Golf Club. Play away.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/sports/golf/10iht-srmalegend10.html?ref=golf&pagewanted=print

[BullNBear52]

Sixty Years Ago, an Unbeaten Season for Golfer

By MARTIN DAVIS


The 50th anniversary of Jack Nicklaus’s first Masters victory has been a much discussed milestone ahead of this year’s tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. But there is another significant anniversary this year.

Sixty years ago, Ben Hogan won all five official PGA Tour events he entered, including all three of the Grand Slam tournaments.

In the aftermath of the horrific automobile crash in February 1949 that almost took his life, Hogan was not expected to walk, but when he did, he was not expected to play golf and certainly not compete at the very highest level. But through guts and determination and hard work, he persevered, winning the 1950 United States Open 16 months after the accident. Red Smith wrote reverentially about Hogan in The Herald Tribune, “We shall never live to see anything like it again.”

With a truncated playing schedule — his battered legs could not take much play — Hogan went on to win the Masters and the United States Open again in 1951. In 1952, he played in only three events, winning the Colonial at his home course in Fort Worth, and tying for seventh in the Masters and placing third in the United States Open.

But 1953 would stand out as perhaps the greatest season a professional golfer has ever had.

It all started at the Masters in April. Despite scattered rainstorms, Hogan, 40, caught the best of the weather each day, playing under a sunny sky and a gentle breeze with just enough rain before his tee times to take the fire out of the fast, undulating Augusta greens. After a first-round 70, he was tied for fourth place, two back. After a three-under-par 69 in the second round, Hogan led by one stroke over Bob Hamilton, the 1944 P.G.A. champion. Such was his ball-striking that it was said Hogan was “knocking the flagsticks down.”

In the third round, his putter seemed to come alive and equal the quality of his tee-to-green shotmaking. His putting was usually his Achilles’ heel, but Hogan forged a 66, two off the then-course record. His round was highlighted by a 60-foot putt at the ninth for a birdie 3 to close out the front nine in 32. Hogan later said, “This was the best I’ve played at Augusta.”

Hogan’s 54-hole total of 205 bettered the previous record of 207 by Byron Nelson, his childhood friend and rival. Hogan continued his sterling play in the final round with superior ball-striking. On the downhill, par-5 second hole, he left his drive tight to the left-hand Georgia pines, making a long second shot to the green extremely difficult. He selected his 4-wood — his favorite club at Augusta, especially on the par 5s — and struck a magnificent shot off a downhill lie that drew around to the left in a gentle parabola to reach the putting surface. Two putts later, he had his first birdie.

To stake his claim during his final round, he hit a 3-iron to within 10 inches at the long par-3 fourth for a kick-in birdie. Despite a three-putt bogey at the par-3 sixth and another at the par-5 eighth, he added a birdie at the par-5 13th after a long, 275-yard drive, leaving him a mere 4-iron to the green. He added one more birdie at the par-5 15th after laying up with his second shot.

He sealed his round of 69 with a birdie from 8 feet at the par-4 18th hole. His aggregate score of 274 was a record at the time, smashing the previous mark by five strokes. Perhaps more remarkable: on a course full of eagle opportunities on the par 5s, Hogan made nary a one, scoring 22 birdies and 8 bogeys.

No less an authority than an Augusta National co-founder, Bobby Jones, said that he never thought anyone would put on such an exhibition. Only four golfers have had a better winning score since: Jack Nicklaus in 1965 (271), Raymond Floyd in 1976 (271), Tiger Woods in 1997 (270) and 2001 (272), and Phil Mickelson in 2010 (272).

Hogan went on to win the United States Open at Oakmont and the British Open at Carnoustie in the only time he entered, earning the love of Scotland, where he was called “The Wee Ice Mon,” for his approach to the ancient game.


Martin Davis, the editor and publisher of “The American Golfer,” has written or edited 24 books on golf, including “The Ryder Cup: Golf’s Grandest Event,” which is scheduled for release in July.

[BullNBear52]

In Scoring of Autograph Clarity, Palmer Gets an Eagle and McIlroy a Bogey

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Arnold Palmer reached for a pen and paper, and for a moment, he went back in time to the first grade.

“My first year in grade school, my teacher was a lady by the name of Rita Taylor,” Palmer said. “The blackboard around the room had ‘The Palmer Method of Writing,’ and that was the system with which we were taught to write.”

Palmer did not invent the popular method of teaching cursive. Among athletes, he perfected it.

Pen in hand, he moved his right arm in a slow, circular motion for several seconds, as if rehearsing. Then, he started writing what has become one of the most famous autographs in sports. Even at 83, Palmer makes sure every fan can read his name. And like so many other aspects of his golfing career, his influence spans generations.

“I’ve always heard you need to make it legible, and I try to do that,” Tim Clark said as he signed for fans behind the railing at Doral this spring. He used lowercase for his entire name, and it was as clear as could be.

Where did he hear this advice? “Arnold Palmer,” he said.

Tiger Woods has a distinctive style with his autograph, perhaps not as legible as Palmer’s, but easily recognizable. He signs his name with the same penmanship he would use to write a letter, and if you pay close attention, there is this idiosyncrasy in the way he does it — he always dots the “i” in his name.

The Masters, which begins Thursday, is not the best place for fans to collect autographs. Augusta National limits requests to a designated area near the practice range and during the Par 3 Tournament. There are no autographs allowed on the golf course. A prized possession, however, is a yellow Masters flag signed by players.

The question is whether anyone can read the names. The example set by Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and many others has not carried over to this generation.

Look at any flag filled with player autographs and try to figure out who they are. Some players sign. Most just scribble.

“I’ve never enjoyed trying to figure out who’s who,” Phil Mickelson said. “When you play on a Ryder Cup team and a name is missing, and I can’t figure out any of them that are actually on the flag, there’s no way to find out who’s missing. That’s always frustrating. It’s just showing respect, whether it’s for fans or whoever you’re signing for.”

Padraig Harrington and the Honda Classic winner Michael Thompson figured this out.

For more than a decade, Harrington’s signature looked as if it belonged on a doctor’s prescription. To say it was illegible would be a compliment. The “P” and the “H” could barely be detected. Otherwise, it looked like the ink stamp from a chicken claw.

And then he won the British Open at Carnoustie.

“Up to that, I always signed my name as I would sign a check,” Harrington said. “My caddie gave me a lecture after I won the Open. He said if he was a little kid and asked me for my autograph, and that’s what he got, he’d be very disappointed.”

Harrington took that to heart. He now signs his full name, a style similar to Palmer’s.

Rory McIlroy still has a lot of room for improvement.

His signature is a series of loops that are as curly as his hair. It is difficult to decipher the “R” or the “M” or even what language it is. A girl with an oversize foam golf ball at the Houston Open proudly showed her autographs. There were Steve Stricker, Justin Leonard and Mickelson. And then she gleefully said McIlroy had signed it.

Where?

She pointed to a bunch of loops. “I think he signed it upside down,” she said.

Mickelson is a master of autographs, signing for up to an hour after his round, though he has started to cut back as he gets older and has other obligations.

“I’ve got so many letters that it’s hard to make every one meticulous,” Mickelson said. “I do the best I can to make sure you know whose it is, but I still have to make it somewhat quick, too.”

Ian Poulter, as is his way, wanted some style. He finishes writing his name with a big loop that becomes a circle, and then he draws a hole and a flagstick in the middle of the loop.

“If you look at people’s signatures through the years, some you can read and most you can’t,” Poulter said. “And if you make something a little different, identifiable with the name, everybody knows what signature it is. Everyone knows my autograph.”

And then there’s John Daly, who has three autographs: one for children, another if he detects the fan wants to sell it and a third for personal items.

“It’s totally different on legal stuff,” he said. “I’ll do ‘John P. Daly.’ For autographs I know they’re going to sell, I scribble. It’s the ugliest signature you’ll ever see, and they can’t sell those.

“But for kids,” Daly said, stopping to sign for a young boy at Innisbrook, “that was a beautiful signature.”

[BullNBear52]

Palmer Is Down on McIlroy’s Absence, Long Putters
By KAREN CROUSE

ORLANDO, Fla. – Despite good-natured needling by the tournament host, Arnold Palmer, the world No. 1 Rory McIlroy chose love over a legend.

McIlroy is bypassing the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week to cheer on his his girlfriend, the tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, who is competing at a Masters Series event outside Miami. This, despite the fact that he will lose his top ranking if Tiger Woods wins the tournament.

Palmer said Wednesday, he was asked a while ago if McIlroy would play in his invitational, which typically draws a quality field. “And I said, well, if he doesn’t, I’m going to break his arm,’” Palmer said. “But it was meant in jest, and it was strictly a passing remark.”

Palmer, 83, expected McIlroy to be here. “Frankly, I thought he was going to play,” he said, “and I was as surprised as a lot of people when he decided he was not going to play.”

He added, “I’ve had conversations, brief conversations with him some time ago, not recently, about his playing. For some reason I got it in my mind that he would be playing, but that, obviously, is wrong.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Palmer said he was opposed to the anchored putting stroke and to two sets of rules, be it one for PGA Tour-sanctioned events and another for events sanctioned by the United States Golf Association and Royal & Ancient or one for pros and another for amateurs.

“I don’t think that golf has a place for two sets of rules,” Palmer said. “I think one of the reasons that the game has progressed in the way that it has over the years is the fact that the amateurs and the pros all play the same game and they play under the same set of rules.”

He added: “Now, the long putter, I’ve objected to that from the beginning. I only think that we don’t need a long putter. That’s not part of the game of golf. To attach it to your body in any way is taking a little bit away from the game. I’m not going to argue with anybody about it. I’d rather just – I’ve stated my position, and that is that we do not need a contraption to play the game of golf.”


http://onpar.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/palmer-is-down-on-mcilroys-absence-long-putters/?ref=golf

You tell 'em Arnie!

[BullNBear52]

McIlroy Struggles, but Woods Soars at Doral
By KAREN CROUSE
DORAL, Fla. — The featured group at the Cadillac Championship on Thursday was like a marquee with one light burned out and another flickering. In a grouping of the top three players in the world, only one posted a luminous score.

It was not the world No. 1, Rory McIlroy, whose struggles continued in the first round of this World Golf Championships event as he needed a late surge to negotiate the Doral Resort’s Blue Monster in a one-over 73.

It was not the world No. 3, Luke Donald, who plunked his opening shot into the water and struggled with his distance control on his irons before rallying on the second nine for a 70.

Tiger Woods, the world No. 2, accounted for most of the group’s electricity with a six-under 66 in perfect scoring conditions — ample sunshine and negligible wind — to move into a five-way tie for first with Fredrik Jacobson, Sergio García, Graeme McDowell and Bubba Watson.

“It was certainly a day that could have been a little bit lower,” said Woods, who birdied five of his last nine holes after starting out birdie, birdie, bogey, bogey.

Woods said he enjoyed the illustrious grouping, describing it as “fun for us,” never mind that for the first nine holes, none of the players looked happy.

A day after receiving a tutorial on the green from his good friend Steve Stricker, who adjusted his posture, Woods one-putted 12 greens and finished with 23 putts. “Whatever he says, I’m going to do,” Woods said. “He’s one of the best putters that’s ever lived.”

McIlroy, playing for the first time since he withdrew in the middle of the second round of last week’s Honda Classic because of a painful wisdom tooth and abscesses in his game, hit three fairways and had 31 putts.

On the eve of the tournament, McIlroy had vowed to focus on the fun of competing instead of the stresses of performing. The people around him did their best to keep the mood lighthearted. One of his managers, Colin Morrissey, remained rooted to the range as McIlroy made his way to the 10th tee. “Enjoy,” he said as McIlroy walked past him.

Was he not going to follow him? Morrissey said he planned to catch up to McIlroy when he was through. “I told him I’d meet him on the sixth hole,” he said, joking.

Despite their efforts, McIlroy’s face for most of the round was longer than a belly putter.

“It was a bit of a struggle, to be honest,” McIlroy said. “Hit some good shots, hit some not-so-good shots. As I’ve been saying all week, this is a work in progress.”

Between shots, McIlroy was often seen mimicking his take-away. The motion he made with his right arm was not unlike the half wave that players muster to acknowledge the cheers and support of fans. Throughout the day, the spectators tried to lift McIlroy’s spirits. With voices dripping with sympathy, they yelled encouragement like “Stay positive, Rory” and “Feel better, Rory.”

McIlroy’s tribulations were magnified by the sharp play down the stretch of his playing partners. Both Donald and Woods played the front nine in four-under 32.

“I could have shot 29 if I’d made a couple putts,” Donald said. “I’m excited about that.” Especially given his start. “My very first hole was just a duck hook, just a terrible shot,” he said.

At No. 7, a 454-yard par-4, McIlroy hit his best shot of the day and covered the flag with his approach. They were the first two solid shots he had strung together, and he made them count by draining the birdie putt. McIlroy hit solid shots on the next two holes, finishing birdie-par to take away some positives from the round.

“It’s something to build on,” said his caddie, J. P. Fitzgerald.

What people remember from last year is that McIlroy was second, first and third in his first three Tour starts and piled up three victories, including a runaway win at the P.G.A. Championship, in a span of less than a month to finish the season. What Woods reminded everybody on Thursday is that McIlroy endured a stretch in June and July when his best finish was a tie for seventh.

“I don’t think he’s quite drawing the ball like he used to, like he wants,” Woods said. “Maybe just a little bit defensive out there.”

Woods said he had “talked a little bit” to McIlroy, coming to his aid, similar to the way Stricker came to him on the practice green. Did he care to share any of what he said? “No,” Woods said with a laugh.

“We have all gone through stretches like this,” he said. “It happens and it happened to him last year in the middle of the year, and ended up all right at the end of the year.”

Woods added: “When you play golf and you play for a very long time, you’re going to have spells like this. You can’t play well every week, even though you try.”

Before he left the interview area, McIlroy told Fitzgerald to meet him on the range. He knows there are no short cuts to regaining his form. All he can do is work on it, and work on it some more.

[BullNBear52]

A Golf Club to Divide Them
Notable Wins With Long Putters Fuel Debate on Possible Ban
By KAREN CROUSE
Published: November 17, 2012

A golfer in his 40s and another in his teens qualified for the Masters 105 days apart, their generation gap bridged by a broomstick shaft. The belly putters used by 43-year-old Ernie Els in his victory at the British Open in July and by 14-year-old Guan Tianlang in his win at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship this month are the pokers stirring the game’s hottest controversy, one that has smoldered for decades.

Only three players before 2001 had won PGA Tour events using a long putter; that is a generic description covering belly putters and the longer broomstick models. At the British Open, Els became the third golfer in 12 months to win a major using a long putter. More than a quarter of that field used long putters, snapping the game’s guardians to attention.

The day after Els’s victory, Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the R&A, the organization based in Scotland that establishes the rules of golf in concert with the United States Golf Association, warned that anchored clubs were, in effect, being put on the clock. The use of the long putter by Guan, a teenager from China, which is just emerging on the golf scene, can be seen as further proof of the club’s reach.

An announcement from the R&A and the U.S.G.A. on the fate of long putters is thought to be imminent. The battle lines are drawn, with purists on one side and pragmatists on the other.

Several high-profile players are caught in the cross-fire as the debate intensifies over whether long putters anchored against the body illegally enhance performance or represent a technological advancement that is part of golf’s evolution.

Those supporting a ban include Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods and Tom Watson, who have won a combined 29 majors. Their argument is that anchoring the putter quiets the hands during the stroke, taking out of play nerves, which are a fundamental aspect of the game.

Brandt Snedeker, who finished first on the PGA Tour this year in strokes gained putting, is not a fan of the long putter. On Thursday’s “Morning Drive” show on Golf Channel, he said: “When it comes down to having a five-footer to win a golf tournament, I know how I feel. I know my hands are shaking. I know I am very, very nervous. I don’t think it is the same feeling if you have that thing stuck in your belly.”

Els was among seven players who used long putters to win on the PGA Tour in 2012. This year, his first full season using the club, Els improved to No. 112 in strokes gained putting, from No. 181. But no player ranked among the top 10 uses a long putter, buttressing the argument that it is not a magic wand.

The de facto general of the broomstick brigade is Keegan Bradley, who as a 25-year-old PGA Tour rookie at the 2011 P.G.A. Championship became the first man to win a major using an anchored putter.

Referring to a possible ban of anchored clubs, Bradley said, “Now that it’s becoming a reality, people with long putters are going to do whatever we have to do to protect ourselves.”

In an interview last week, Bradley did not rule out taking legal action if the rule book is amended to prohibit players from anchoring a club to any part of their bodies, including their forearms.

“I’m not trying to bully anybody into doing anything,” he said. “I just want to do whatever’s best for myself and the other players that use the putter. I realize that there’s some people who feel the other way, and they’re entitled to their opinion.”

‘That Stovepipe’

In 1965, Richard T. Parmley received a United States patent for a long-shafted club described as a “body-pivot golf putter.” This month, in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Tampa, Fla., Charlie Owens opened the trunk of his car and pulled out a long putter that he wished he had patented.

“This is my invention,” he said, showing off the 52-inch club he made in the early 1980s by welding together two shafts. Owens named his putter Slim Jim, and it helped make his wallet fat; he won two events and more than $700,000 with it on the senior tour.

His victories came in 1986, nearly a decade after poor putting from inside five feet had driven him off the PGA Tour and into a job in Tampa as head professional at Rogers Park Golf Course.

The putter also provided physical relief for Owens, who had trouble bending over the ball because of a surgically fused left knee, the result, he said, of a training accident he sustained in 1952 as an Army paratrooper.

“People would see me with my putter on the course and laugh about it,” Owens, 80, said. “They’d say, ‘What are you doing with that stovepipe in your hands?’ After I won the two tournaments, they didn’t laugh anymore. They wanted to know if I could get them one.”

A golf club manufacturer based in California made and marketed the Slim Jim, with limited success, Owens said. One PGA Tour player who took notice was Johnny Miller, who borrowed the idea and pieced together the long putter he unveiled at the 1985 Los Angeles Open.

In a recent telephone interview, Miller, who won two majors, likened his struggles at the time with putts inside five feet to a football team that keeps pushing into the red zone but cannot score a touchdown.

Miller anchored his putter’s shaft against his left forearm, as does Matt Kuchar, who won the Players Championship this year. Miller used his 44-inch Spalding putter when he tied for 50th at the Los Angeles Open and when he forged a one-stroke victory at the 1987 Pebble Beach National Pro-Am to break a title drought of more than three years.

“Not many people paid much attention,” said Miller, who is believed to be the first winner on the regular tour to use a long putter, his Pebble Beach victory preceding Rocco Mediate’s win at Doral in 1991.

The golf world could not help noticing in 1989 when Orville Moody won the United States Senior Open using a putter with a 48-to-50-inch shaft. Owens said that until Moody adopted the long putter, “he putted so bad, I almost cried.” Miller said Moody was “maybe the worst putter in PGA Tour history.”

Moody became a top putter on the senior tour using the long club, and the pendulum swung toward outlawing it. Moody indicated that he would take legal action if the club was banned. In August 1989, after much discussion, U.S.G.A. officials and their R&A counterparts ruled that long putters were legal.

In October 2011, when they amended nine rules, they left the long putter alone. That was before a surge in the club’s popularity at every level, and on seemingly every continent. Once seen as a crutch for older players, the long putter was flirting with conventionality and flying out of stores.

“I think it’s probably something they’re disappointed in themselves that it’s got to this point,” Graeme McDowell, the 2010 United States Open champion, told The Herald Sun in Australia last week. “They probably should have nipped it in the bud many, many years ago.”

Double-Edged Sword

In 1967, U.S.G.A. and R&A officials moved swiftly after Sam Snead, whose perfect swing was offset in his later years by the brownest of thumbs on the greens, tied for 10th at the Masters while putting as if he were wielding a croquet mallet. The officials met and recommended that taking a stroke while astride the putting line behind the ball be made illegal, pending approval by the associations’ executive committees, which signed off on the change. The rule took effect in 1968.

For those who embrace it, the long putter can be a double-edged sword, creating a tangle of emotions that is difficult to unknot. Stewart Cink, 39, one of the better putters of his generation, adopted the long putter in 2002 and won three PGA Tour events before going back to a conventional putter in 2009. Shortly afterward, Cink won the British Open, his only major title.

“I was glad to be able to be away from the long putter because I had developed just a hint of guilt, maybe, in the back of my mind,” he said. “The rules are cut-and-dried. It’s legal. But emotionally it may not be so black-and-white.”

Miller, an analyst for NBC and Golf Channel, spoke of the unease he felt when he first used his long putter at the Masters.

“It was slightly embarrassing for me,” he said. “I remember going into the officials’ room and showing them my putter and asking, ‘Is this thing legal by you?’ ”

In 2004, Els made clear where he stood on long putters. He wanted them banned.

“Nerves and skill are part of the game,” he said at the time. “You know, take a tablet if you can’t handle it.”

In the summer of 2011, Els changed putters but not necessarily his mind. Affirming his loyalty to the long putter at the end of last year, Els said, “As long as it’s legal, I’ll keep cheating.”

Els acknowledged that the belly putter had helped him make more short putts, but he said, “Now that I’ve used it for the best part of a year full-on, I see the work you still have to put in with the belly, with the long putter.”

If the club is banned, Els said, he will find some other tool for doing battle with five-foot putts.

“We’ll see,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/sports/golf/notable-wins-with-long-putters-fuel-debate-on-possible-ban.html?pagewanted=2&adxnnl=1&ref=golf&adxnnlx=1353261700-5PqT3V6nPA9ojUpCaxRF Q

[BullNBear52]

McIlroy Able to Look Back at Near Miss and Laugh

By KAREN CROUSE


MEDINAH, Ill. – As Rory McIlroy celebrated Europe’s Ryder Cup victory Sunday night, somebody draped a giant timepiece around his neck. He laughed, but it wasn’t funny earlier in the day when McIlroy nearly missed his tee time for his singles match against Keegan Bradley after confusing his time zones.

McIlroy thought he was starting at 12:25 p.m., but that was Eastern Standard Time, or 11:25 a.m. in Chicago, which is in the Central time zone. “I was just casually walking out of my hotel room and got a phone call saying, ‘You’ve got 25 minutes until you tee off,’” he said. “I’ve never been so worried driving to the golf course before.”

He was driven through heavy traffic to Medinah Country Club in an unmarked police car, lights flashing, by a state trooper, who will go down in history as the Bartman of golf. If not for his timely intervention, McIlroy would not have made it to the course on time and would have faced disqualification. Instead, he arrived with 10 minutes to spare and defeated Bradley, the Americans’ hottest player, 2 and 1.

It’s hard to overstate how dispiriting it would have been for the Europeans to lose a point because their world No. 1, McIlroy, failed to read his tee time correctly. “If I let down those 11 other boys and vice captains and captains this week, I would never forgive myself,” McIlroy said. “I’m just obviously happy to get the point and help the cause out a little bit today.”

McIlroy endured good-natured teasing from his teammates in the press conference after the closing ceremony. Lee Westwood made siren noises and Sergio García started to explain why he believed McIlroy had purposely pushed the time limit while the captain, José María Olazábal, shook his head.

Finally, McIlroy interjected and said: “In a way it wasn’t a bad thing because I didn’t have time to think about it, and I just went out and played, and I played probably the best I’ve played all week. I still would have liked to have gotten here sooner, but I delivered my point for the team, and that was the most important thing.”

McIlroy elicited laughter when he relayed snippets of his conversation with the state trooper.

“I was like, ‘Just get me there, get me there,’” he said, “He was like, ‘Do you have motion sickness?’ I’m like, ‘No, I don’t care, just get me to the first tee.’”

By the end of the day, American fans had reason to rue that ride that McIlroy received. It proved the first of many breaks that went the Europeans’ way on this fateful day.

[BullNBear52]

Home Is Where the Heartbreak Is
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY


MEDINAH, Ill. — The United States Ryder Cup team had a big lead and a big home crowd in its favor Sunday. One of the European team’s stars — Rory McIlroy — nearly missed the start of his match altogether, requiring a police escort to make it to the first tee in time.

But the Ryder Cup remains one of the most unpredictable and irresistible of sporting events. By the time the final putts had been made, missed or conceded in the fading light at Medinah Country Club, the Europeans were the ones exchanging bear hugs and swigs of Champagne as they wore their national flags as capes and celebrated their improbable 14 ½-13 ½ victory.

“Last night, when we were having our team meeting, I think the boys understood that believing was the most important thing,” said José María Olazábal, the European captain, his eyes red from crying.

It was a draining afternoon, and a draining week. But it produced, depending on one’s perspective, the most remarkable comeback or collapse in the 85-year history of the Ryder Cup.

In 1999, in Brookline, Mass., the American team rallied from a 10-6 deficit at the start of the final day. On Sunday, the Europeans found themselves in the same predicament, down by 10-6 with 12 singles matches remaining.

But unlike the Americans in 1999, the Europeans had to fight back on the road, with the crowd of more than 40,000 applauding their gaffes and sometimes taunting them as they walked close to the ropes on their way from green to tee.

Olazábal was down, 10-4, late Saturday before getting two late victories in the fourball session. Those, in retrospect, changed the tone.

On Sunday, Olazábal front-loaded the European lineup in singles, in an attempt to commandeer the momentum. It worked. The Europeans won the first five matches, with victories by Luke Donald, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, Paul Lawrie and the late-arriving McIlroy, who said he mixed up the timetable because the television coverage he was watching in the team hotel was announcing tee times in Eastern time, one hour ahead of the time here.

McIlroy arrived at Medinah only 10 minutes before his match with Keegan Bradley was scheduled to start and was unable to warm up on the driving range, settling for a few practice putts. Although he mis-hit his opening drive, he quickly settled down and defeated Bradley, a 26-year-old Ryder Cup rookie, 2 and 1.

But even with those five early and critical points, the Europeans still needed three more. At times the Americans appeared to have the requisite edge as the shadows lengthened, but their established stars ultimately cracked on too many occasions.

Singles, traditionally an American strength, turned into European territory Sunday as Olazábal’s team won the session, 8 ½-3 ½, with the only American singles victories coming from Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson and the Ryder Cup rookie Jason Dufner.

Tiger Woods, playing in the 12th and final position against Francesco Molinari, took a half-point and thus failed to win any of his four matches at Medinah.

Woods missed a short putt on the 18th green and then conceded a 3-foot putt to Molinari. But the competition had already been resolved. The Europeans have now won five of the last six editions of the Cup, with the only American victory coming in 2008 at home, at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky.

“I’m going to second-guess myself for a long time,” the United States captain, Davis Love III, said. “Could have done a lot of things differently, but I’m proud of our team.”

Phil Mickelson, 3-0 in his partnership with Bradley on the first two days of play, had a one-hole lead with two holes remaining but lost, 1-up, to Rose, who was brilliant down the stretch. Jim Furyk, who has long struggled at the Ryder Cup, blew a one-hole lead in the final two holes to lose to Sergio García.

Furyk, 42, who was one of Love’s four captain’s picks, missed a 12-foot putt to lose the 17th hole. Then, after a long examination of the lay of the land, he missed a 6-foot putt on the 18th that would have allowed him to salvage a half-point for the United States. It was the latest psychological blow in a season brimming with them for Furyk, who also lost a lead on the closing holes of the United States Open.

The Europeans were on their way in earnest, also getting a victory from Lee Westwood over Matt Kuchar. But the man who finished off the comeback was Martin Kaymer, a former No. 1 player in the world. Kaymer is in a slump yet still had enough composure and touch to sink a 5-foot putt on the 18th hole. He defeated Steve Stricker, another of Love’s captain’s picks who faltered at Medinah.

It was a full-circle moment for Germany. In 1991 at Kiawah Island, S.C., Bernhard Langer was unable to make a short putt that would have won the Cup for Europe. But Kaymer, the second German to play in this competition, fared better.

“I got to 16 today, and José María told me, ‘We need your point, and I don’t really care how you do it; just deliver,’ ” Kaymer said. “But I like those. That’s very straightforward. That’s the way we Germans are. Fortunately I could handle it.”

Langer has been a mentor for Kaymer, 27, and Kaymer said he sought out Langer for advice on Saturday. He also said he thought about Langer’s miss in 1991 before he putted on the 18th green.

“I thought, O.K., it’s not going to happen again; it’s not going to happen again,” Kaymer said. “And to be honest with you, I didn’t really think about missing. There’s only one choice you have: you have to make it.”

Kaymer, who said he saw a footprint in his line, struggled to recall any other particulars of his Cup-clinching putt. But once the ball rolled into the cup, he raised his arms, leaving the head of his putter on the grass, and then turned and raced across the green and leapt into his teammates’ arms.

“We’re all kind of stunned,” Love said. “We were playing so well. We just figured it didn’t matter how we sent them out there.”

The 12 members of the American team kept talking up the importance of their 13th man, a reference to the large and boisterous crowd at Medinah. But the Europeans had their 13th man, too. Seve Ballesteros, a former European Ryder Cup star and captain, died last year of a brain tumor, but he had a weeklong presence. The Europeans put a silhouette of Ballesteros on their golf bags and on the sleeves of their shirts, which were blue and white Sunday in honor of Ballesteros’s preferred color combination.

“I have no doubt in my mind that he was with me today all day because there’s no chance I would have won my match if he wasn’t there,” said García, who was close to Ballesteros. “It was amazing, and it feels so good to be able to win it for him and for captain José.”

Ballesteros was Olazábal’s mentor and a fellow northern Spaniard who gave him his first big break as a teenager by inviting Olazábal to play in an exhibition. They later formed one of the most successful Ryder Cup partnerships.

“José wanted to win it for Seve,” Graeme McDowell of the European team said. “And we wanted to win it for José and Seve.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/sports/golf/europe-rallies-for-stunning-victory-at-ryder-cup.html?ref=golf&pagewanted=print

[BullNBear52]

Rookies Give Americans an Early Edge

By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY


MEDINAH, Ill. — Clearly the Ryder Cup is not such a steep learning curve, after all.

While veterans were routinely transformed into club-carrying cheerleaders on Friday, the newcomers took turns hogging the spotlight and the birdies. In the end it seemed appropriate that the team with the abundance of rookies, the United States, was also the team with a 5-3 lead.

“We keep calling them rookies, but they are proven tour winners and FedEx Cup winners and guys who have played really well,” said Davis Love III, the United States captain. “We only consider them rookies in the Ryder Cup.”

Of the five American victories at Medinah Country Club, rookies had a hand in four of them, with Keegan Bradley making the biggest impact as he and his mentor Phil Mickelson turned into a fist- and chest-bumping juggernaut. First, in the morning, they ended the winning streak in foursomes of Europe’s previously undefeated duo of Luke Donald and Sergio García, 4 and 3. Then Mickelson and Bradley defeated the world’s top player, Rory McIlroy, and his partner Graeme McDowell, 2 and 1, in their afternoon fourball.

“I just love every second of it,” the 26-year-old Bradley said of the Ryder Cup. “Being able to walk down the fairway with Phil and do this is a dream come true. It’s another moment in my life that I can’t believe I’m a part of it.”

The score was 2-2 after the morning foursomes, but the Americans made birdies routine in the afternoon. Bubba Watson, the reigning Masters champion, and Webb Simpson, the rookie and reigning United States Open champion, set the tone with an overwhelming 5-and-4 victory over Paul Lawrie and Peter Hanson.

If not for Europe’s only rookie, the Americans would have swept the fourball matches and quite possibly put a chokehold on this edition of golf’s premier team competition. But Nicolas Colsaerts, a 29-year-old captain’s pick from Belgium, produced one of the greatest rounds in the Ryder Cup’s 85-year history to hold off Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker and win by 1-up in the last match.

Woods and Stricker lost both matches, and Woods’s Ryder Cup record now stands at 13-16-2. He will not play in Saturday’s morning session of foursomes, the first time he has been benched in his Cup career.

Colsaerts is 1-0, however. Playing with the European team’s most experienced player, Lee Westwood, the lean Colsaerts carried him from tee to green, making eight birdies and an eagle. Most of Colsaerts’s birdie putts came from well outside 10 feet. That included the 25-foot birdie putt that he rolled in on the 17th green, depriving Woods, whose ball was only 4 feet from the cup, of the chance to tie the match heading to the 18th.

“I thought we did all the things that we needed to do,” said Woods, who had seven birdies but missed a putt for another on 18 that could have halved the match. “Nicolas had one of the greatest putting rounds ever.”

It is difficult to believe that putting was long considered Colsaerts’s weakness. He leads the European Tour in driving average at 317 yards and would lead the PGA Tour with that number, too. But after losing his tour card and falling out of the top 1,000 in the world rankings, he has steadily rebuilt his career and shored up his short game with help from Dave Stockton, the former American star turned putting coach who has also worked with Mickelson and McIlroy.

Despite their different backgrounds — Bradley grew up in a golfing family in New England, Colsaerts in a field-hockey family in Brussels — both were in the crowd at the 1999 Ryder Cup in Brookline, Mass., when Woods, Mickelson and the United States roared back to beat the Europeans in singles on a raucous afternoon at the Country Club.

Colsaerts was at Brookline as part of Europe’s junior Ryder Cup team. Bradley, 13 years old, was there sitting on the shoulders of his father, Mark, a teaching professional who had access to the course. They ended up getting sprayed with Champagne as the Americans celebrated.

He also watched his aunt Pat Bradley compete in the Solheim Cup, the women’s equivalent of the Ryder Cup. “I was lucky enough to go to the ’99 Ryder Cup, and I remember the atmosphere,” Bradley said. “It was very similar to this. And I just really enjoy the crowd going crazy, and you know talking to Phil and getting each other pumped up and just kind of waiting for that moment you always want.”

Delayed gratification has been the rule for Mickelson in this event. He arrived with a Ryder Cup record of 11 wins, 17 losses and 6 halves. But Bradley turned into just the tonic for a veteran with too much Ryder Cup scar tissue.

At the par-3 17th, with the Americans up by two with two holes to play, McIlroy hit a terrific tee shot across the water within 15 feet of the hole that looked likely to give the Europeans a chance to extend their fourball match to the 18th.

McDowell hit into the water, and Bradley into a bunker. That left only Mickelson, and with thousands of fans gathered on either side of Lake Kadijah and the fading sunlight turning the panorama into a landscape painter’s delight, Mickelson’s tee shot stopped rolling within 2 feet of the pin.

The roar from the gallery startled the Canada geese that make the lake their home, and Mickelson never had to putt, as McIlroy and McDowell conceded it and the match.

“I felt young,” Mickelson, 42, said. “And it felt great.”

[BullNBear52]

With Win, Snedeker Also Takes Tour Title

By KAREN CROUSE


ATLANTA — Before the most critical round of his professional career, Brandt Snedeker stopped by the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation hospital for patients with spinal cord or brain injuries, and spent 30 minutes with his longtime instructor’s son, Tucker Anderson.

Anderson, an 18-year-old college freshman, is in a responsive coma, recovering from head and neck injuries he sustained in a one-car accident in Florida the same week Snedeker was named to his first United States Ryder Cup team as a captain’s pick. The juxtaposition of the two events was at once one of life’s cruel jokes and a cosmic blessing for Snedeker.

That one’s orderly world can spin wildly off its axis in an instant provided a dose of perspective that made a missed fairway or wayward putt infinitely easier for Snedeker to swallow.

“It’s a horrible thing, but it definitely gives you more, I guess, more focus, more reality of what’s really going on,” he said.

Snedeker was one of five players who came into the final event of the PGA Tour playoffs, the Tour Championship, with the chance to claim the FedEx Cup title, and the accompanying $10 million bonus, with a victory in the tournament. Before leaving for East Lake Golf Club, Snedeker asked Anderson what he thought: Could he beat Rory McIlroy, the world No. 1 who was first in the FedEx Cup standings and three strokes behind Snedeker going into Sunday’s final round? With his one good eye, Anderson winked, Snedeker said.

“That’s all I needed,” said Snedeker, who went out and calmly carded a two-under-par 68 to win for the first time when holding the 54-hole lead. Snedeker’s 72-hole total of 10-under 270 was three strokes better than the score of the Englishman Justin Rose, with whom he was tied at the day’s start.

McIlroy, who played in the twosome ahead of Snedeker, failed to break 70 for the first time in 12 rounds, finding only 2 of 14 fairways en route to a 74 that left him in a five-way tie for 10th in the tournament and second in the FedEx Cup standings.

Tiger Woods, who began the week second in the FedEx Cup standings, closed with a 72 and finished tied for eighth at two-under 278 with Hunter Mahan, whose 66 tied Webb Simpson for the low round of the day.

When his bogey putt dropped at No. 18, Snedeker let out a shout and pumped his fist.

“This is what you work your whole life for,” said Snedeker, who won the Farmers Insurance Open outside San Diego in January. “I look at all the putts I’ve hit and all the shots I’ve hit all though my life — it’s just unbelievable the ability to stay calm today.”

Snedeker missed seven fairways and nine greens, including the last one, when his tee shot sailed into the left grandstand, but he was masterly around the greens. He had 25 putts and holed a chip shot at 17 from 29 feet for a birdie 3 after a sudden shift in the wind blew his second shot away from the water hazard.

“I hadn’t made a pitch shot since I can remember,” Snedeker said. “It came off perfect and went right in the middle of the hole.”

It took all of his self-discipline not to glance at a single scoreboard during his round.

“I get too complacent if I’m ahead or trying to push too much if I’m behind,” Snedeker said, adding: “I had no clue where I was or what I was doing. My only goal today was to shoot as low as I possibly could, and that’s what I did.”

The FedEx Cup playoff arithmetic is only slightly less confusing than the formula that goes into deciding the college football B.C.S. standings. Ryan Moore, who began the week ranked 28th in the FedEx Cup standings, was tied for the lead with Snedeker until his round was derailed by three closing bogeys. If Moore, who closed with a 70 to finish tied for third with Luke Donald (67), had won the tournament, McIlroy, Woods and Snedeker were well positioned to win the playoffs.

Snedeker prevailed by keeping his eye on the immediate prize: the victory. He said the $10 million FedEx Cup bonus, which he likened to winning the lottery, did not enter his mind until he stepped to the 18th tee.

“And I hit an awful shot,” he said. “So that shows you what it does for you.”

Snedeker’s biggest struggle in golf has never been managing his game; it has been managing his emotions. After finding out about Anderson’s accident, Snedeker finished tied for 37th at the BMW Championship, his second-worst finish in a stretch of eight consecutive weeks of competition.

Snedeker said his visit with Anderson on Sunday gave him a boost.

“I was going there expecting the worst,” Snedeker said. “He was definitely a lot better than I expected him to be. And that was great.”

Snedeker knows he played a lot better Sunday than some people expected him to.

“Today was my day to go out and prove a bunch of people wrong,” he said. “Show that I can play with the lead, I can handle the pressure.” He added, “And I did it.”

[BullNBear52]

Friend’s Undoing Leaves Els With Subdued Sense of Triumph at Open

By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY


LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England — Painfully for Adam Scott, he was absolutely correct. Just as he had explained before Sunday’s final round, a four-shot lead was not safe at this British Open, not even with only four holes to play and not even with Scott looking every bit the part of a first-time major champion after a birdie at 14.

But golf is the ultimate mind game, and though Scott, the talented 32-year-old Australian, has tried to alter the equation in the last two seasons by changing his putter and his caddie, he could not change his luck in the tournaments that still define golfers.

With his sunglasses still in place but his form crumbling, Scott made four straight bogeys on the final four holes at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club. And when Scott’s last par putt of 8 feet rolled just to the left of the cup on the 18th green, this year’s Open champion was Ernie Els.

Rarely has a major winner greeted victory in such a minor key.

“I feel for Adam Scott; he’s a great friend of mine,” said Els, a popular South African. “Obviously, we both wanted to win very badly. I really feel for him, but you know that’s the nature of the beast.”

Els, whose seven-under-par total of 273 was one stroke better than Scott’s, knows plenty about the beast that is major pressure. Despite his nickname, the Big Easy, it has hardly been easy for Els to get his hands back on the claret jug. This was his fourth major championship but his first since 2002, when he won the British Open at Muirfield in a playoff after surrendering a final-round lead.

Els is 42, the same age as Darren Clarke was when he won the Open at Royal St. George’s last year. Clarke found a rare vein of form in extreme conditions and has done little of golfing note since his surprise victory. Els, even though he failed to qualify for the Masters this year, has been gathering strength and confidence, but this triumph was still quite a shock considering that he was six shots off the lead when the final round began and still six back when he completed the front nine in 36, or two over par.

But on a blustery day when Royal Lytham & St. Annes finally began to play like a brute, Els managed to feed off his frustration and commit to playing more aggressively and hitting more drives off the tees.

“When you’ve been around as long as I have, you’ve seen a lot of things happen,” Els said. “And I just felt that the golf course is such, if you just doubt it a little bit, it was going to bite you. There’s too many bunkers, too much trouble, and there was a bit of a breeze. So I felt I was going to hit the shots, and I felt, I still felt I had a chance.”

He birdied the 10th, the 12th, the 14th and, most important, the 18th and said he made many putts while thinking of his 9-year-old son Ben, who is autistic and was watching on television.

“He loves when I hit golf balls,” Els said. “He’s always there. He comes with me. He loves the flight of the ball and the sound. I knew he was watching today, and I was trying to keep him — because he gets really excited — I wanted to keep him excited today.”Scott, meanwhile, was losing his grip in a final-round collapse that will rank among the most complete at any major.

“I had it in my hands with four to go and, you know, managed to hit a poor shot on each of the four closing holes, which costs you on a course like this,” Scott said. “I’m very disappointed.”

Disappointment was a common theme Sunday. Tiger Woods, five shots off the lead when the day began, could surely smell an opportunity when Scott started the day with a bogey, a birdie and then another bogey. But he made a triple bogey on the par-4 sixth hole after requiring two shots to get out of a deep greenside bunker that forced him to his knees for the second shot. It was Woods’s first triple bogey in a major championship since the 2003 British Open, and he never recovered. He finished in a tie for third with his fellow American Brandt Snedeker with a 277.

Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland, who played in the final pairing with Scott, also made frequent visits to the sand and other undesirable locations. Three shots behind Scott after eight holes, he faded badly and ended up with a 75 and a share of fifth place at two under with Luke Donald, the Englishman who is ranked No. 1 in the world.

It is an apt reflection of golf’s current instability at the top that Donald still has not won a major championship. Els’s victory maintained a remarkable streak: he is the 16th different man in a row to win a major. And what will also stir debate is that he is the third man in the last four major championships to win with a longer-shafted putter.

Els switched to a belly putter last season despite years of criticizing their use as contrary to the spirit of the game. “As long as it’s legal, I’ll keep cheating like the rest of them,” he said last year.

Scott’s switch to a long putter last season has been critical to his renaissance, too, but it did not keep him from faltering at Lytham. He bogeyed 15 after hitting into a greenside bunker. He then missed a 3-foot par putt at 16. Before long, Els was generating a roar by making a 20-foot putt for birdie on 18, and Scott was misjudging his 6-iron approach shot on the par-4 17th, knocking it into thick rough to the front left of the green.

Looking back on it, it all comes down to the shot into 17,” Scott said. “That’s the one that I look at and am most disappointed about.”

He made a third straight bogey, then hit a 3-wood off the 18th tee instead of a long iron or driver. It ended up bouncing into a fairway bunker. He then blasted onto the fairway and hit his approach shot 8 feet from the hole. The line on his par putt looked quite straight, but there are subtle undulations on Lytham’s greens.

As it missed, Scott said, “Wow,” and slowly sank into a crouch, his head twisting away from the hole. But it surely will not be quite that easy for Scott to block out what happened on the final four holes.

“Well, look, it may not have sunk in yet, so I don’t know,” Scott said. “Hopefully, I can let it go really quick and get on what I plan to do next week and get ready for my next tournament. We’ll see. I don’t know. I’ve never really been in this position, so I’ll have to wait and see how I feel when I wake up tomorrow.”

Els, subdued in victory at first, was soon in a more festive mood: drinking toasts out of the claret jug at his Lytham hotel before heading to a car with the jug still in hand for the trip back to London to celebrate with his wife, Liezl, and their two children.

“I’ve been there before; I’ve blown majors before and golf tournaments before,” Els said of Scott. “I just hope he doesn’t take it as hard as I did.”

[BullNBear52]

Golf Balls Not All Created Equal, but They’re Getting Better

By BILL PENNINGTON


Of all the golf equipment advancements in the last 15 years, nothing compares to the improvements made to the once simple, flawed golf ball. The most expensive golf balls are technological marvels, and the best values are probably one step below the highest end of the market.

Meanwhile, high handicappers who lose a lot of golf balls and therefore do not want to spend more than 75 cents per new ball are no longer relegated to rock hard, inferior orbs found only in discount racks where you would pick through a collection of what seemed like industry rejects.

It’s a different world now. I was recently at a Golf Galaxy, and they were selling two 15-ball boxes of the Noodle golf ball for $25. The Noodle may not be a premium ball, but it is especially helpful for those with swing speeds of about 85 miles an hour or less (the majority of golfers). And it’s a deal.

Near the Noodle, they were selling a dozen Top-Flite Gamer V2 balls for $20. That may be the best three-piece ball by price you will find anywhere. And it tends to sell out quickly.

At the high end of the category, where balls sell for $40 a dozen or more, it’s hard to go wrong with any brand. They’re all high-performance balls. The Titleist Pro V1 and V1x ($48) are the runaway best sellers for a reason. But Nike’s 20XI balls ($46 a dozen) have made technological advances. Callaway, unlike most everyone else, has done us all a service and lowered the confusion by combining its premium offerings into one ball: the Hex Black Tour ($46).

But the most fruitful place to shop for golf balls if you aren’t losing, say, six balls per round is in the middle of the pack. A few favorites: Callaway’s Hex Chrome ($36), which is a tour quality golf ball in disguise; Titleist’s Velocity ($27), a distance ball from the industry leader; and Nike’s Vapor Black ($25), forgiving and longer at a nice price.

[BullNBear52]

Finally Passing Test of Time

By KAREN CROUSE


FORT SMITH, Ark. — The former United States Open winner stood on the practice range holding a driver like the one he saw in Fred Couples’s bag during this year’s Masters. He hit a shot as straight as a crow flies, watched it roll toward a flag 250 yards away and muttered, “I almost whiffed that one.”

At 90, and notwithstanding a résumé that includes a victory against Ben Hogan at the 1955 United States Open, Jack Fleck is still trying to find his game. Bending to plant another teed ball into the ground, he said: “I’m not going to try to hit it real far. All I’ll do is injure myself.” With a swing smoother than a good bourbon, he hit a drive nearly 260 yards. “Pulled it,” he said with a sigh.

Unless it is cold or raining or the course is playing downwind, which upsets his balance, Fleck spends part of every day at Hardscrabble Country Club, a five-mile drive from the Cape Cod home here on a quiet cul-de-sac that he shares with his third wife, Carmen.

“I’m still trying to get better,” Fleck said recently over lunch at the club. He ordered half a turkey sandwich and a cup of soup. It was the same meal he wolfed down before closing with a three-under-par 67 at San Francisco’s Olympic Club to force a playoff with Hogan, who was seeking his record fifth Open title, and his seventh major championship since his near-fatal head-on collision with a Greyhound bus in 1949.

The next day, Fleck beat Hogan by three strokes, his victory so unexpected that for years, Fleck could not shake the public perception that he was an undeserving champion. Through the alchemy of time, the polish has been restored to his crown. In two books published to coincide with the return of the United States Open to the Olympic Club this week, the 1955 tournament is portrayed as having been won by Fleck rather than lost by Hogan. The one-major-wonder label that Fleck wore for so many years like a scratchy wool sweater is gone, replaced by one as comfortable as a cashmere cardigan: the oldest living United States Open champion.

A Depression Son

Fleck, the son of an Iowa farmer, grew up in the cold shadow of the Depression. “We were dirt poor,” he said, remembering picking apples for pennies while in kindergarten to help his parents pay bills. At 17 he turned professional in golf, and after serving in the Navy during World War II, he returned home to Davenport and his duties as a club pro at two municipal courses.

Beginning in 1946, Fleck spent the winter months testing his game against the best players in events staged on the West Coast and in the South. In 1955, he played the PGA Tour full time, giving himself a limit of two years to show that he belonged.

At nearly 6 feet 2 inches, the lanky Fleck was known for his long strides and his short temper. He would simmer over imperfect shots, sometimes steaming off the course in the middle of a tournament.

Tim Reilly, a pro who works at Hardscrabble, said Fleck still flashes that temper on occasion, usually by letting his club slip out of his hands on his follow-through when his ball fails to fly straight. Never known for his poker face, Fleck turned his composure into his ace card the week of the 1955 Open.

He arrived in California for his third United States Open appearance after advancing through sectional qualifying. From the time he first laid eyes on the tight, sloping fairways that turned other pros claustrophobic, until his last putt dropped on the 90th hole, Fleck was a study in equanimity. He had such a peaceful, easy feeling that he wrote a letter to the sports editor of his hometown paper, The Davenport Democrat, suggesting he attend, the better to chronicle the top-10 finish Fleck predicted for himself.

“There was something about my nervous system that whole week,” Fleck said. “I was so calm.”

Putting was never Fleck’s forte, but during the second round, he said, he felt a mysterious tingling in his hands as he stood over his ball on the fifth green. For the rest of the tournament, he wielded his Bulls Eye putter like a magic wand. After opening with a 76, Fleck carded a 69 to move into a tie for second with Hogan and two others, one stroke off the lead held by Tommy Bolt and the amateur Harvie Ward.

The third and fourth rounds were played on Saturday. Fleck awoke that morning and was shaving at the Daly City motel where he was staying when he heard a voice say he was going to win. It sounded as real as the Mario Lanza recording of “I’ll Walk With God” playing on the phonograph in the next room. Fleck, who was alone, said, “I got goose pimples, like electricity was going through my body.”

Al Barkow, in his book “The Upset,” credited Fleck’s practice of hatha yoga with his mystical state.

“He was 25 years ahead of the curve in his daily yoga practice,” Barkow said in a telephone interview. “My take on it is that the yoga he was into helped him reach a meditative state that had something to do with his ability to defeat Ben Hogan in the playoff.”

Fleck credits his clubs, which bore Hogan’s signature. Earlier in 1955, Fleck came across a set of forged irons that were made by Hogan’s golf company and loved how they felt in his hands. He wrote to Hogan asking if he could acquire a set.

To his surprise, Hogan approved the request. Fleck became only the second pro, after Hogan, to use the clubs, which included a 3-wood and a 4-wood. He received the last two irons, the sand wedge and pitching wedge, from Hogan in San Francisco. They replaced his Tommy Armour Silver Scots.

Fleck said he believed Hogan respected his rise from humble roots, and could afford to be generous because he did not perceive him as a competitive threat.

“He wouldn’t let any of the big names past the front door of his factory,” Fleck said.

Proving TV Wrong

During the final round at the Olympic Club, Fleck was leaving the 13th green when a roving marshal told him he stood one stroke behind Hogan, who had finished with a 72-hole total of seven-over 287. On the par-4 14th, Fleck hit an aggressive approach that landed in a bunker, and he failed to get up and down for par. Two strokes behind Hogan with four to play, Fleck birdied the par-3 15th and reached the 18th tee needing one more birdie to tie Hogan.

“It was late in the day,” Fleck said. “The sun was breaking through the clouds. It was so serene, it was just like heaven.”

His drive landed in the first cut of rough on the left side of the fairway, 125 yards from the hole. Fleck’s ball was sitting up nicely, and he had a perfect angle for attacking the right pin position. The distance called for an 8-iron or a 9-iron, but Fleck took his Hogan 7-iron and hit a rainbow shot that landed like a leaf on the green, which sloped from back to front, and stopped 7 feet from the pin.

“Hit it right on the sweet spot,” said Fleck, who had practiced the high shot, devised to avoid backspin, many times on the range.

He took less than 25 seconds to line up and hit the downhill putt, which broke slightly from right to left and disappeared into the hole. By the time Fleck finished, NBC had finished its coverage, its hourlong telecast ending with Gene Sarazen, in his role as a commentator, pulling Hogan aside to congratulate him on his victory.

In the 18-hole playoff the next day, Fleck took 14 putts on the front nine — three fewer than Hogan — to card a 33 and build a two-stroke lead. He was three ahead after a birdie on No. 10. Hogan made a par at No. 11 to gain a stroke on Fleck but three-putted the 12th green to fall three behind. After Hogan birdied No. 14 and Fleck bogeyed No. 17, the players stepped to the 18th tee with Fleck leading by one.

Hogan’s right foot slipped during his swing and he pulled his drive into the left rough, then needed three swings with his wedge to land his ball on the fairway. From there, he got up and down for a double-bogey 6. Fleck two-putted from 20 feet for a routine par to seal his remarkable victory.

Hogan congratulated Fleck on the green and later posed for a photograph fanning Fleck’s “hot” putter with his white cap. During the trophy presentation, Hogan announced that he was through with competitive golf.

“From now on,” he said, “I’m a weekend golfer.”

Bill Callan, the Olympic Club’s historian, was 13 when he worked the 1955 Open as a scorecard runner. He recalled sobbing along with other fans when Hogan said he was done. Fleck did not look at the spectators’ tears as rain on his parade.

“Listen,” Fleck said, “Hogan was my idol. You know what my 4-year-old son said? He said, ‘I rooted for you, Dad, but I was sorry Ben Hogan lost.’ ”

After Triumph, Decline

Fleck earned $6,000 for the victory and about 10 times that amount in endorsements, exhibition fees and other off-course income.

“I had to make money,” he said.

On the banquet circuit, Fleck abandoned his strict diet, which forbade red meat; stopped doing yoga; and hit too few golf balls — not counting the ones he was paid to hit from home plate over the center-field fence at a baseball game in Des Moines.

Fleck never won another major. For decades afterward, accounts of the 1955 Open described him inaccurately as “a club pro” or “a driving-range pro” and referred to his victory as a fluke, which led him to build up a calloused attitude toward the news media.

In a telephone interview, Neil Sagebiel, the author of “The Longest Shot,” which also chronicles Fleck’s victory over Hogan, said: “In the immediate aftermath, the newspapers trumpeted Jack’s upset. It wasn’t until his game went into a three-year decline after he beat Hogan that this sentiment took root that it was an unworthy victory and his name became associated with fluke. If you look at how he played that week, you don’t come away with that feeling at all.”

Fleck won two more titles and finished his career with 5 seconds, 6 thirds, 41 top-10 finishes and 261 cuts made in 271 events, according to the PGA Tour. One of Fleck’s third-place finishes came at the 1960 United States Open at Cherry Hills in Colorado, where he finished behind Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus after a rash of three-putts down the stretch.

“If I had been a little better putter, I’d probably be a miserable character because of all the wins I’d have,” Fleck said.

Staying Busy at 90

The trophy from the 1955 Open sits on the Flecks’ kitchen table. Like its recipient, it does not stand as tall as it once did.

“We found it in a closet,” Fleck said. “Something fell on it and bent it.”

Fleck has not slowed much. Most days, he makes more than one trip to the golf course. One morning last month, Carmen Fleck said during lunch at the club, he hit balls, then settled in to watch the final round of the Wells Fargo Championship, which Rickie Fowler won in sudden death.

“He was watching the playoff,” she recalled, “and he just jumped up all of a sudden and said, ‘I saw something I want to practice,’ and he was gone.”

After he was done hitting balls on the Hardscrabble range, he dropped off his wife at home and switched cars, to the sport utility vehicle driven by Ed Tallach, a friend and former touring pro who manages two preowned-automobile dealerships in Hot Springs. He and Tallach headed to Calvert McBride, the local printer that produced Fleck’s paperback instructional guides and his hardcover autobiography, “The Jack Fleck Story.”

From the back seat, Fleck barked directions and commented on the shortcomings of the drivers. He started with Tallach, whose caution in making a left turn onto a busy thoroughfare annoyed him.

Leaning forward, Fleck hollered: “Turn! Now! You have room! Ahh, geez. What are you waiting for?”

In a softer voice, Fleck revealed that he had been pulled over by a police officer earlier in the week for speeding in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.

“He asked, ‘Have you been playing much golf?’ ” Fleck said. “And let me off with a warning.”

At the printing plant, Fleck and Tallach were greeted by Larry Reed, who produced a pin flag for Fleck to sign. It was from the 2001 United States Open at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla., won by Retief Goosen in a playoff with Mark Brooks. Fleck perused the other signatures, among them Raymond Floyd’s and Gene Littler’s, before writing his name in neat script.

Fleck said: “People ask me: ‘Why do you write such a beautiful signature? It makes it easier for people to forge.’ I say, ‘Who cares?’ ”

Reed led Fleck and Tallach to a stack of boxes containing collectors’ editions of Fleck’s books. Each box weighed close to 30 pounds, but Fleck lifted them without complaint and handed them to Tallach, who arranged them in the back of his car. The history that was heavy in Fleck’s arms, he carries lightly in his heart.

“You know, Hogan never thought I’d beat him,” Fleck said. “He thought he had a victory. Someone put the odds at 8,000 to 1 that I’d win. But old Flecky Baby did.”

[BullNBear52]

Who Made Mini-Golf?

By HILARY GREENBAUM and DANA RUBINSTEIN


There are conflicting accounts as to what prompted Garnet Carter, who already owned a real golf course, to open a miniature one in the late 1920s. His wife, Frieda, believed it was meant to distract “golf widows” — much as the Ladies Putting Club, built in 1867, did at the renowned St. Andrews links in Scotland. But Carter, who owned the Fairyland Inn, a hotel outside Chattanooga, Tenn., created more than a distraction. His course was different from other forays into mini-golf. It had hollowed-out tree trunks and gnomes. It was, John Margolies writes in “Miniature Golf,” “a way of reinforcing the Never Never Land atmosphere the inn strove to create.”

Carter’s brainchild became a fad. In August 1930, the Commerce Department estimated that of the 25,000 mini-golf courses in the country, more than half had been built since January. A Popular Science Monthly article, “Why Midget Golf Swept Country,” credited Carter’s “theatrical appeal.”

In those early days, builders used green-dyed cottonseed hulls, or sometimes asbestos, to make the courses. The habitués, Collier’s magazine reported, included everyone from “society women” to “truck drivers” to “girls and boys of 8 or 10.” Soon, players hit balls through mini-jungles, and occasionally past the claws of caged bear cubs. There were Wild West courses. Mary Pickford (“America’s Sweetheart”) opened Wilshire Links in Los Angeles.

The initial craze died down, in part from oversaturation, but the baby boom sparked a resurgence. In the 1950s, Don Clayton created the Putt-Putt brand, which eschewed gimmicks; and Ralph and Alphonse Lomma built Lomma Enterprises, which embraced them (see “Playing Through”). Bob Detwiler, the president of the United States Pro Minigolf Association, estimates that there are now only about 5,000 mini-golf courses nationwide. Fifty or so are in Myrtle Beach, S.C., the mini-golf capital of the world. This includes Detwiler’s own Hawaiian Rumble, which has a 40-foot volcano that spews fire every 20 minutes. He has high hopes for the sport’s renaissance. “All we need is for a title sponsor to see what we’re doing,” he says, “and we’re gonna be off to the races.”

LITTLE BIG LEAGUE

In November, Jay Klapper won first prize at the U.S. Pro Minigolf Masters, one of the sport’s most prestigious events. Here, he explains his passion.

How did you get involved in mini-golf? In 1971,a Putt-Putt course was built really close to our house, and we went out there to play. The owner accidentally poured some cement on my shoe. He felt real bad and gave me 25 free games. By 15, I had already gone professional.

Who’s your biggest rival? I actually beat a 16-year-old girl from the Czech Republic in the U.S. Masters. I’ve been playing against her since she was about 10, and she’s really hard to beat. She really is. I felt bad.

Any advice for beginners? The biggest thing is have fun. If you hit a bad putt and you get mad, you’re probably going to continue to mess up.

Do you ever lose your temper on the course? I used to be pretty bad about it, but the more positive you are, the better you’re going to play. I had cancer in ’94. It gave me a new perspective once I started playing again.

What’s your perspective now? A lot of times when people do articles on us, they poke fun at us. And, of course, you’ve got to laugh at yourself.

[BullNBear52]

Touchy Day at Augusta National Men’s Club

By KAREN CROUSE


AUGUSTA, Ga.

The azaleas have wilted, but change is in full bloom at Augusta National Golf Club. In his annual state of the Masters address Wednesday, the club’s chairman, Billy Payne, noted the addition of a restroom. Presumably it’s for men.

If the club had added its first female member recently, Payne did not crow about it. Joining the 21st century would be a monumental achievement for the green-jacketed gentry.

The club was given the cultural equivalent of a conceded putt this year when I.B.M., one of the tournament’s three corporate sponsors, along with Exxon Mobil and AT&T, chose Virginia M. Rometty as its new chief executive. The company’s four previous chief executives had been extended a club membership, so a precedent had been set. This was Augusta National’s chance to integrate its private men’s club, not at the point of a bayonet as Payne’s predecessor, Hootie Johnson, so colorfully put it in 2003, but as a matter of course.

It’s not as if the club is incapable of taking swift action when the situation dictates it. An overnight storm Tuesday dumped more than an inch of rain on the course. Several bunkers were flooded and fairways and greens were littered with debris, including a toppled tree that caused significant damage to a restroom at No. 16.

“We hope to have it rebuilt and up and running by the end of the day,” Payne said.

A restroom can be repaired in a day, but a club founded in 1933 on the bedrock of segregation is obviously not so easily rebuilt — or even touched. Before opening the floor for questions, Payne delivered an opening statement, from notes, in which he acknowledged that the sport’s stagnant growth is a major concern.

To make golf more attractive to a younger demographic, the club already has established a program in which juniors gain free admission to the tournament and participated in the creation of a golf video game.

“Impressive efforts, I hope, but not enough,” Payne said. “We can do better.”

At that moment, Payne’s next breath seemed pregnant with possibilities. Was he about to disclose that Rometty was a candidate for membership? That Condoleezza Rice has been a member for several years — or Louise Suggs, one of the L.P.G.A. founders and a friend and occasional golf partner of Bobby Jones?

Wishful thinking, as it turned out.

“We can be a better partner with the established golf organizations as they address these critical issues,” Payne said. “To that end, we have appointed a very smart and motivated team of members who have been given the charge of determining what more we can do.”

A few minutes into the question-and-answer portion of the news conference, a reporter had an idea about what the club could do. Payne had already answered two questions about the all-male membership, including one about Rometty in which he referred to her as “a named candidate,” which was more revealing than perhaps Payne intended.

“I note your concerns about the growth of golf around the world, and I also note that Augusta National is a very famous club,” Lawrence Donegan of The Guardian said. “Don’t you think it would send a wonderful message to young girls around the world if they knew that one day they could join this very famous golf club?”

Payne’s stock response to membership questions is that such issues are and have historically been a private matter.

“That is a membership issue,” he began, at which point another reporter interjected: “Seems like a mixed message, Billy, is what he’s saying. You’re throwing a lot of money into growing the game and yet there’s still a perception that certain people are excluded.”

A stricken expression crossed Payne’s face. He looked as if he had been struck by the point of a bayonet. He stammered and finally drowned out the reporter’s voice by saying, “Thank you.”

Already it was the most contentious state-of-the-Masters address in recent years. And Payne wasn’t out of the woods. I asked Payne how he would explain to his granddaughters that he leads a club that does not include women as members.

Locked on autopilot, he replied, “I think that’s a question that deals with membership.” I disagreed, saying, “It’s a kitchen-table question, a personal question.” With a forced laugh, Payne replied, “Well, my conversations with my granddaughters are also private.”

(I was the only woman called on to ask a question, and that was after having my hand up for 20 minutes.)

He was squirming like a cornered animal. At that moment, Payne must have had some idea how awkward it is to be Rometty or others in I.B.M. management trying to explain its Masters ties to its female employees. Or Tim Finchem, the PGA Tour commissioner, who has to justify why the tour continues to recognize the Masters as an official event despite its mandate that its tournaments take place at clubs with nondiscriminatory membership practices.

There were more questions — about the practice facility and the Masters’ Web site and mud balls. Then a reporter asked Payne what he would suggest he tell his own daughters about why they are not welcome to become members at the most prestigious golf club in the country.

“I have no advice for you there, sir,” Payne said.

The next voice belonged to Craig Heatley, the chairman of the media committee, who said, “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.”

[BullNBear52]

Amid the staid confines of golf’s most hallowed grounds, Woods acted like a petulant teenager who wasn’t getting his way. He cursed wayward shots, hung his head after missed putts, and took mock swings in anger. To top things off, he kicked his 9-iron about 15 yards on the 16th teebox after badly missing yet another shot.

About the only thing he didn’t do was grab his bag from caddie Joe La Cava and toss it into the nearby pond.

“We can safely say Tiger has lost his game … and his mind,” Nick Faldo said, commentating on local television.

[BullNBear52]

Mid-Amateur champ savoring 1st trip to Masters
By NANCY ARMOUR, AP National Writer
15 hours, 20 minutes ago

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP)—Two double bogeys, five bogeys, never even sniffed a birdie. It was the best 81 of Randal Lewis’ life.

“Dream come true,” said Lewis, who at 54 is believed to be the oldest Masters rookie ever. “There’s nothing that can be bad about a sunny day at Augusta and the first round of the Masters.”

A financial adviser from Alma, Mich., in real life, Lewis is living every duffer’s dream this week. Entitled to a spot at Augusta National thanks to his title at the U.S. Mid-Amateur last fall, he played a practice round with Tom Watson, won a crystal pitcher in the Par 3 contest and, in the biggest treat of all, teed it up for real Thursday.

That he was in the running for worst score of the day hardly mattered. Nor did the fact that his Masters career is almost certain to be over by the weekend.

“I do have a great appreciation for it,” Lewis said. “As I’m walking around here, I’m just trying to take in the scenery and all the sights of the crowds and just the beauty of the golf course. It’s incredibly special. I’m very lucky to be able to experience something like this.”

Especially because he figured he’d lost his chance more than a decade ago.

Lewis came to golf late, not taking up the game until he was 16. As soon as he did, however, he was hooked, going from shooting 76 for nine holes to 75 for 18 in his first season. He played golf at Central Michigan, where he met his wife, Melanie, also a golfer.

He turned pro for about a month after graduation, then decided he’d rather play golf for enjoyment rather than his livelihood. He reclaimed his amateur status, and began climbing the ranks in the business world. But golf remained a big part of his life; when he and Melanie decided to name their second son Nick, Lewis suggested they spell it Nicklaus.

“We kind of subjected him to a life of a misspelled first name, but we thought that would be pretty cool,” Lewis said. “Both my wife and I love the game, and Jack was always my hero.”

His son met his namesake Thursday, tracking Nicklaus down after the ceremonial tee shot and showing the Golden Bear his name badge.

“I said, `Mr. Nicklaus, I’ve got the two best names, yours and my dad’s,”’ the 19-year-old said. “He chuckled a little bit. It was pretty funny, pretty cool.”

As his family grew and his career flourished, Lewis continued playing tournament golf. He won his first Michigan Amateur title in 1992 and, four years later, reached the final at the Mid-Amateur, reserved for players 25 and older.

He lost 3 and 2 to John “Spider” Miller.

“The first three years were pretty painful, and I took it the wrong way. I took it as a failure,” Lewis said. “You get to a national championship final, you should be proud of yourself. Not, `Why couldn’t you finish the deal?’ So it hurt.”

He eventually came to grips with the loss, as well as probably never getting to play Augusta National.

Then, last summer, he reached the finals of the Mid-Amateur again. The match ended 3 and 2 but, this time, he was the winner. He was the oldest Mid-Amateur champion by five years, more than 20 years older than the average competitor.

“My ultimate goal in the game was to win a USGA championship,” Lewis said. “Once I won the Mid-Am, that was the greatest goal that I had. This was just an unbelievable perq that went with it.”

Lewis has taken full advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

After his invitation arrived around Christmas, he sent Watson a letter—not an email— asking if they could play a practice round together. When Lewis was here in March, he ran into Nicklaus—the original, not his son—and introduced himself after a little prodding from the guys he was playing with.

“What a thrill for a guy. Never expected to play in the Masters, wins the Mid-Amateur Championship and here he is,” Nicklaus said. “It’s wonderful that the amateurs have the opportunity to play and be here.”

Lewis is not a particularly long hitter, and using hybrids off the tees didn’t leave him many opportunities for birdies. But his score matters little compared with an unforgettable experience.

Even if Lewis isn’t playing, he and his family plan to stick around Augusta National for the weekend. Then it’s back to Michigan with “enough Masters gear to last me 10 years,” and memories to last a lifetime.

“I kind of joked with my wife, they’re probably going to have to have security guards escort me out of here,” Lewis said. “It’s just a place that you just want to be here as much as you possibly can.”

———

[BullNBear52]

Bisher, the Loss of a Legend
By LYNN ZINSER

The press room at the upcoming Masters just got a lot quieter and a lot less fun. For the first time in more than 50 years, legendary Atlanta columnist Furman Bisher won’t be filling it with his booming laugh and charming cantankerousness. Bisher always showed up like a force of nature, so full of life and bluster that people managed to be surprised when he died Sunday at age 93. He had battled time like he battled his sports column topics, relentlessly and with such flair that you always thought he would win.

Back when he retired at age 91, that struck some people as a little soon.

Bisher was a poetic columnist, fearlessly blasting through several eras of sports writing and starring in every one of them. A little while back, I noticed Bisher had a Facebook page. It struck me as hilarious, but of course he had a Facebook page. Bisher was a true Southern institution, but he didn’t shrink from progress or change. He just kept climbing on board.

As Jeff Schultz wrote so poignantly in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he was Bisher’s colleague for more than 20 years, he was a walking sports museum, having written about Ty Cobb and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. But he was so much more than that. He never let himself be of the past, even if he could talk about it with such wisdom.

“Before news traveled with the speed of a Tweet, Furman Bisher painted pictures for us,” Schultz wrote. “He wrote with a voice. When he was revved up about a topic, and that was more often than not, the words jumped off the page. It was as if he was sitting next to you, talking into your ear.”

His most recent editor claims he never wrote a bad column. There were some, though, where he truly shined:

From his column on Joe Louis’s death in April 1981:
Joe Louis became Barrow again Tuesday. In death they returned the name by which he began life and returned the body to the soil. The beginning and the end were of contrasts as broad as a chasm, and reflect the American legend. Joe Louis Barrow came out of a sharecropper’s cabin in east Alabama and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, a ground sacred to Americans who come here to honor their military dead. Just a few days ago, Gen. Omar Bradley was put to rest here. Just up the hill from the old heavyweight champ’s grassy spot is the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In death, he’d be keeping good company.

And this, from Bisher’s saddest column, when he son Roger died in April 2000:


The subject of Roger comes up today because I have lost him. A beautiful, handsome, loving man, no finer son has any parent ever had, and I grieve. Old men like me should be going first, not one who had so much to give to the world as he. Roger Chisholm Bisher passed away Monday afternoon. I saw him take his first breath in life and I saw him take his last. He was just 44, but in my heart he shall always be that smiling child blowing up his workshop. Thanks for giving me your time.

We count ourselves lucky that Bisher gave us his time.

http://onpar.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/bisher-the-loss-of-a-legend/?ref=golf