"David Fay To Write Column For Golf Digest"

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My money is still on Fay becoming Dick Ebersol's Tom Hagen for the golf side of NBC Sports/Versus/Golf Channel, also allowing him to still do his rules thing during USGA events.

But for now Jerry Tarde nabs the former USGA Executive Director to write a monthly column "from the perspective of the passionate player."

New York, NY—Golf Digest has signed on former USGA Executive Director David Fay as a monthly columnist beginning in the April 2011 issue.
 
“David Fay has one of the brightest minds in sport, as his friends in golf have known for 30 years,” said Golf Digest Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Jerry Tarde. “He’s incisive, witty and opinionated. He understands the game at the highest level from the perch of the U.S. Open—and the lowest level as a passionate golfer with a bag full of hybrids. He has participated in every major decision and event in golf for the last generation. And he brings to all this a democratizing sense of inclusion. It was no accident he’s known as the man who took the Open public. This kind of refreshing attitude and insight is what he’ll share with readers. In other words, don’t be fooled by the bowtie.”

"And now you can maybe, yeah, give me some questions that are a little bit more interesting, a little bit different than what I usually get.”

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Wouldn't you love to see Tiger or Phil pull a Caroline Wozniacki just once?

Christopher Clarey explains how the women's world No. 1 in tennis decide to answer all of the boring questions by posing them herself! Deadspin has the video.

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GeoffShackelford.com In Partnership With GolfDigest.com**

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So let's just get the inevitable speculation and conjecture out of the way: Tiger's failure to renew with Golf Digest deal was not caused by the need to free up funds to pay me.

But yes, the day has finally arrived when this site has taken on a partner. I'm also joining the Golf World masthead as a contributing writer, though subscribers know I've been contributing to their pages for a few years now.

Naturally I'm thrilled and honored to be part of the Golf Digest family. To your inevitable second question...no, I don't plan to change.

Oh, you eagle eyes may spot subtle changes in tone or raise an eyebrow when I link to a GolfDigest.com item, but my intention and emphatic instruction from Golf Digest is to continue doing what I do in the style you are accustomed to.

A feed of my most recent posts will now appear on the revamped GolfDigest.com News And Tours page, as will occasional contributions to their website.  Otherwise this site remains at this URL with the same attitude and mission that began after The Future of Golf was published: to cover state of the game issues with insight and, on occasion or when appropriate, a touch of wit (something the late, great Stu Schneider encouraged during this site's early days).

And if you haven't hit refresh yet, then you don't know that the site has been freshened because, well, it was time.

The old site look (click to enlarge)A few changes and incorporation of suggestions:

-A new masthead debuts incorporating the same postcard art, but modernized, refined and tuned up by Photoshop artist Tom Naccarato. GolfDigest.com's logo now adorns the sage scrub hill of Rustic Canyon and we've added an "Established 2003" to recognize the nearly eight years the site has been around. (Internet age-wise makes the site 56 years old.)

- A white and blue color scheme in coordination with GolfDigest.com and because I think it looks clean. Simplicity and ease of reading remains a priority.

-An RSS feed of recent GolfDigest.com postings now tops the lone sidebar on the right. You'll find everything else in the sidebar to be pretty similar, with links to other sites and my past articles, except...

- Improved (I hope) site speed on mobile devices and when you are visiting via a slow connection speed. 15 posts appear on the homepage now instead of 20. Condensed are the long lists of Amazon links. This is still a work in progress depending on early speed reviews. However, I plan to create a new "recommended reading page" and intend to continue interviewing authors and promoting books no matter how hard the publishing industry tries to remain in the 20th Century.

- The daily quote atop the site is now going to be Tweeted (@GeoffShacQuotes), which will allow those of you who rely on Twitter as a news source to subscribe to the quote feed. As many requested, you will now have the ability to scroll through an online archive on the @GeoffShacQuotes Twitter page to find posted quotes. I've been Tweeting the quotes since Christmas day, 2010. Both feeds can be viewed and accessed via the Twitter widgets in the righthand sidebar.

- @GeoffShac will continue to be my primary Twitter account and act as a source for my site feed, but I will also still chime in with real Tweets or re-Tweets. For those who don't like the cold nature of a straight feed to Twitter, I hear you, but it saves me a lot of time having posts go straight to tweets and for readers accessing the site via Twitter, Flipboard or other new ways. For those of you who don't use Twitter, ignore the preceding comments.

- Archives remain intact. GeoffShackelford.com remains the URL which not only allows you to keep the same bookmark, but keeps six years of archives in place. In recent months many of you have asked about finding an old post.  You have several options. Besides the excellent Search option at the top of the page, the Topics and Archives options make it pretty easy to find old content. Those links are now found immediately below the masthead.

- Commenting remains open and unregistered. I'm hoping when Squarespace updates their excellent hosting technology that they'll allow for the option to have registered commenters as well as anonymous posting so that registered users can communicate with each other more fluidly, search past postings and do many of the other things you requested.  Sorry, I know this wasn't the answer many were looking for.

I hope you continue to find many reasons to visit the site in 2011 and please don't hesitate to comment on the new look, but go easy on the new partner!

"Each week, from both sides of the Pond, the twosome of Huggan and CBSSports.com's Steve Elling will kick at corpses and hornet's nests, tip over a few sacred cows, poke and prod..."

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Great news Ty! Your two favorite writers will be gathering in the same spot every week to bicker about golf!

From the first Pond Scrum between Steve Elling and John Huggan at CBSSports.com. The topic is the Hyundai Tournament of Some Champions:

Elling: I have no problem with the notion of appearance fees. The purses in Europe are lower. They need to draw the top guns. The point being, if the PGA Tour's season opener was any more sleep-inducing, they'd need to give hammocks to the 1,000 fans that are actually in attendance. Maybe Mark Rolfing of NBC Sports has it right. Open field to guys who have won over past two years. More warm bodies that way. Then, maybe Hawaii is the right locale for the opener. It's a sleepy start. The whales are cavorting in the Pacific. Sharks like Tiger and Phil stay home. Everybody in the States gets to watch the palm trees swaying in prime time. No stress, no strain ... little drama?
 
Huggan: Open it up to European Tour winners! What a concept, eh? Cooperation between tours.

There was also this from Huggan on young players to watch:

Huggan: Matteo Manassero also springs to mind. But that is hardly an original thought. Pencil this 17-year-old Italian in for the next Ryder Cup in Chicago. Schwartzel wants it more than Oosthuizen, who already shows signs of being happy with what he has already achieved.

Ooshuizen did his best to confirm that fact with this quote about staying in South Africa to play a minor event instead of flying to Hawaii to test out that new PGA Tour card.

"I decided not to go and play the two tournaments in Hawaii because that won't leave me with enough off time before the start of the new season," Oosthuizen said in a story posted on the European Tour's website

Taylor Made's Dustin Johnson Ad...

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I'm not exactly a connoisseur of golf equipment company ads and I certainly am not counting the seconds until the January 4 Hot List release or salivating over the new Taylor Made white driver splashed on golf.com's homepage all day--finally a club designed to remind me of all my worst sky jobs and other embarrassing misshits--but you have to admire the simplicity of their latest ad featuring Dustin Johnson. Thanks to reader Sean for the link:
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NORAD Returns To Defcon 1 After Twitter-Driven Tiger Woods Injury Scare

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And it all started on Twitter and ended with Tiger merely getting a cortisone shot from someone other than Dr. Spaceman. I'm not going to address the Twitter ethics debate that erupted amongst bored golf writers, but let's just say, Shipnuck resorted to pulling Marshall McLuhan out from behind a movie theater cardboard cutout. 
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