Open Friday Reads

The British Open is nice, but this Michelle Wie business is getting serious. A 15-year-old girl pummeling elite amateur male golfers! Amazing. Here's the match play tree link, and here's the page where you can follow her quarterfinal match.

As for the Open, boy was that TNT telecast great. For us West Coasters, it was like watching a Bruce Lee movie. Everytime they showed an interview the failed to match the images. Meanwhile, TBS’s PR pimp sent out a press release highlighting the exhilarating on-air commentary, quoting the key lines of the day (as if writers would want to quote this from Ernie Johnson: “If you bottle those, you can sell them to most of the people in this field…kick ins.”). Oddly, they didn’t include this quote from Bobby Clampett, who seemed much more engaging than normal (perhaps because he wasn't working as many hours):

You are really seeing on 18 an example of how technology has changed the face of this game. I can never recall in all the years I’ve been watching the Open Championship at St. Andrews, this many players able to go for the green at 18. And there’s no place for them to lengthen 18.

David Whitley in the Orlando Sentinel writes that the Old Course changes indicate just another wave of progress and everyone should relax, including this unidentified R&A guy.

"It's a complete farce," one unidentified tournament official told The Guardian newspaper. "This is the Open Championship at the Old Course, for God's sake. Not some pitch-and-putt tournament down on the beach."

Unfortunately that quote from Lawrence Donegan's story had nothing to do with the lengthening of the course. It was in regard to the farcical out-of-bounds situation on #1 and #2 tee. Elsewhere, Peter Finch and Dean Knuth expose the Links Trust at St. Andrews. So if you got one of those flyers in the mail asking for a $100 donation to the “Friends of St. Andrews Links,” you might want to read this excellent Golf Digest story before sending a check.

Sal Johnson writes about the Royal Bank of Scotland's five pound note and the people lining up to get 'em. Frank Deford mails in a fawning yawner of a column on Jack's second-final appearance. Deford focuses on the RBS Bank note anecdote that has Nicklaus joining the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth as the only folks to get their photo on the currency. For some perspective, Deford might want to read this Financial Times story (reg req) by Jim Pickard which notes that the Royal Bank of Scotland, besides having Nicklaus as an endorsee, is joining with American firm Guggenheim Partners to finance 10-15 Nicklaus residential projects, worth $600 million annually. Gary Nicklaus will be co-chairman of the partnership.

Golf residential complexes have been popular in the US for years and are now springing up elsewhere. This would continue because of demographic trends, said Andy Rosenfield of Guggenheim Partners.

"More and more people who are 40 to 70 have reached a stage in life where they can afford to have a second home, which may even become their primary residence, but in a community different to one in which they raised their children and went to work," said Mr Rosenfield.

The trend was also supported by the increasing popularity of golf, said Jack Nicklaus' son Gary, who will be co-chairman of GNP. "It is about the lifestyle of being within that community and having the gate and knowing the property is going to appreciate faster than properties that aren't on a golf course," Mr. Nicklaus said.

Gotta have that gate! Finally, alert the Joe McCarthy fan club. We've got liberal technophobe commies in Scotland too! According to Dan Bickley in the Arizona Republic, even St. Andrews caddie master Rick Mackenzie dares to think something isn’t right.

"Technology is a four-letter word around here," Rick MacKenzie said. "That shows you how good we can spell. We just call it the new stuff, and the new stuff is nae (not) golf."

"I swear, there's more technology in golf than there is in rocket science," MacKenzie said. "It's time to get back to the old stuff."