When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
This has to be the most tortured way of saying the 2009 Open site can be yours for £100m...
Yesterday, a spokeswoman said: "In line with Starwood's asset strategy, the Westin Turnberry Resort, Ayrshire, has taken the decision to source an investment partner to realise the development potential of the resort, where there are 300 acres of undeveloped land."
Thanks to reader Ed for this story.
As always thanks to reader John for passing along John Paul Newport's column weighing in on the CEO's-caught-by-posting-scores issue and notes this near the end of his piece.
And a little bit of help is on the way. After much debate, the USGA's executive committee voted in June to make some changes. Effective next year, the name of the course and the day of the month on which posted rounds were played will not be part of the records available to the general public. Only fellow members of a golfer's club and the competition committee at any venue where a golfer intends to compete will be able to see the complete record.
But the USGA insists that "peer review" is essential to an honest handicapping system that enables golfers of differing skills to compete on an even basis and protects against "sandbaggers" who deliberate inflate their indexes to gain an unfair advantage. "If you want to have a handicap, you give up your privacy regarding your scoring record," says Kevin O'Connor, senior director of the organization's handicap department.
Finally someone with some sense on this issue. Isn't it odd that a prominent professional is the one advocating amateurs to represent countries in the Olympics while the governing bodies of amateur golf want to see professionals playing?
Nice spot by Bob Carney at the Golf Digest editor's blog: the esteemed Michael Lewis has obtained ousted Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal's scorecards, including notes to himself.
Good irreverent fun if you enjoy humor at the expense of a golden parachute recipient.
George Monbiot apparently started the Burma nightmare for Gary Player and probably doesn't make things any better with this Guardian guest column discussing his questions for Player's design group following Player's response.
He first explains how the controversy came about:
I came across him while researching the column I wrote about Burma a fortnight ago. In trying to discover which western companies have been operating there, I stumbled upon a list of the country's recent golf course developments. He was named as the designer of the Pun Hlaing course in Rangoon. His website boasted that he had turned "a 650-acre rice paddy into The Pride of Myanmar".
I asked his company who owned the land on which the course was constructed. How many people were evicted in order to build it? Was forced labour used? As his company is based in Florida, did this work break US sanctions? It refused to answer my questions. I suggested in my column that Nelson Mandela should remove his name from the charity golf tournament Player is due to host next month.
My call was taken up by Desmond Tutu and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, which claims to own the event, asked Mr Player to stand down as the tournament's guest of honour. Player's company responded by claiming that it was in fact the joint owner of the event; he has refused to stand aside. The controversy is still raging. Cosatu has promised to turn up and protest if Player does not withdraw.
One result of the fuss is that the Gary Player Group was obliged to issue a statement about its involvement in Burma. It maintained that "the company's decision to design the course in Burma was actually humanitarian in that it took no profit from the endeavour, but rather encouraged the developer to put the money toward creating jobs, as well as the establishment of a caddy & agronomy program ... the company was paid expenses only". Converting 650 acres of rice paddy in a country suffering from malnutrition into a golf course likely to be used by the generals looks to me like an unusual object for charity, so I asked Player's company to provide some evidence for these claims.
Oh boy, here's where it reeeaaaaallllyyyy awkward.
The same statement maintained that "Gary Player has always been a great supporter of human rights" and has "a solid record of campaigning for democracy around the world". To test this claim, I ordered the book he wrote in 1966, when he was 30 years old and at the peak of his remarkable career. Grand Slam Golf is well-written and strangely compelling: it makes the game seem almost interesting, even to me. But chapter two contains the following statements: "I must say now, and clearly, that I am of the South Africa of Verwoerd and apartheid ... a nation which is the result of an African graft on European stock and which is the product of its instinct and ability to maintain civilised values and standards amongst the alien barbarians ... The African may well believe in witchcraft and primitive magic, practise ritual murder and polygamy; his wealth is in cattle. More money and he will have no sense of parental or individual responsibility, no understanding of reverence for life or the human soul which is the basis of Christian and other civilised societies. ... A good deal of nonsense is talked of, and indeed thought about 'segregation'. Segregation of one kind or another is practised everywhere in the world."
Journalists in South Africa pointed me to allegations that Gary Player was used as a kind of global ambassador by the apartheid government. In 1975 he collaborated with the Committee for Fairness in Sport, which was set up by the government to try to overcome the global sporting boycott. In 1981 he featured on the UN's blacklist of sports people breaking the boycott. So I asked Player's company questions about these incidents as well.All this is a long time ago, and Gary Player's attitude towards the apartheid regime is very different today. But another human rights issue is still current. There is a real problem with golf, and it is not confined to the dress sense of the participants. All over the world the construction of golf courses is associated with dispossession and environmental destruction. You'll find a flavour of the controversies it stirs up in Aberdeenshire at the moment, where Donald Trump is promoting a project to create the "world's greatest golf course" on a site of special scientific interest.
From there it spirals into a rant about environmentally destructive practices in golf, not all of which are true.
Well, sort of. Gary Player, whose involvement in the Nelson Mandela Invitational annual charity event has been called into question over a course he designed in strife-torn Burma, has hit back fiercely at those who wish the event to distance itself from the man who has been the driving force behind it.
In a statement placed on the official Nelson Mandela Invitational website on Friday, nine-time major winner Player had this to say:
"I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that my company’s involvement in the design of a golf course in Burma has been taken entirely out of context.
"We did business there when the world’s relations towards the regime there had thawed. We believed that the talks in which the regime was engaged with the democratic opposition would lead to free and fair elections and that, like South Africa, Burma would embrace the chance to free their people and live harmoniously as an example within Asia.
"With that in mind, we completed the design of a golf course in 2002 – an effort for which we were paid expenses only. At the time we were appointed, Dawn Aung San Suu Kyi had been released and it seemed as though real political change was in the air.
"Sadly, since that time it has proven to be a false dawn.
"I therefore, once again, want to make it abundantly clear that I decry in the strongest possible terms the recent events in Burma and wholeheartedly support Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in his efforts to bring peace and transition to that country, including his call for sanctions.
"The Nelson Mandela Invitational charity golf tournament has been, and still is, my way of thanking and paying homage to our truly remarkable former President, whom we all love and respect."
I finally had a chance to peruse the November Golf Digest and was rivetted by Dave Kindred's investigation into purported hole-in-one specialist Jaqueline Gagne. Do read the entire piece as it's great entertainment told only as Kindred can when he's hot on the trail of a shyster.
Most entertaining of all...
Gagne lapped up the attention. Her website, jacquelinegagne.com, carried 39 citations of national and international media outlets reporting on her, including Golf Digest, Golf World, USA Today, The London Times and The Wall Street Journal. She hired a Los Angeles public-relations firm. She planned a book, Turning Up Aces. She posted a Titleist feature bragging that she used the Pro V1 ball on every hole-in-one. She waxed enthusiastically about Cobra clubs (the company sent her a set and a staff bag). She did a testimonial for the Q-Link pendant (over the signature, "Jacqueline Gagne, World Record Holder, Most Hole In Ones in One Year"). She agreed to play in certain events as a national spokesperson for a breast-cancer charity.
Gagne twice appeared on CBS television's "The Early Show." Co-anchor Harry Smith began the first segment saying, "Oh, do I love this story." Later he brought her to New York, where he enlisted golf analyst Peter Kostis. When Gagne revealed that she reads the green from the tee, Kostis declared that "the first clue" to the holes-in-one. Then she made a few swings, and Kostis liked what he saw. His conclusion: "It's the real deal."
Another feather in his every growing plume! Oh wait, Kostis gets an endorsement too...
Anyway, Gagne and I had talked only briefly, but it was clearly long enough for her to decide she didn't like the way it was going. When I asked if she could help me find the SilverRock witnesses, she said, "Nope."
"Why not?"
"They've already been interviewed."
"I haven't seen a word from them," I said.
She said, "I'm really getting tired of this."
She thought the Kostis chatter should have convinced me. "He's the No. 1 golf man. He believed it when he saw how I read the greens and how I hit it."
Nice read Peter.
Meanwhile, it seems Gagne is a blogger now and she's fighting back at Kindred, confirming she weighs 140 pounds, not 155 as was reported. Oh and Kindred's wife was rude on the phone to some of her friends.
So glad we got that cleared up!
...and they didn't even see the courses in question.
Oh that Desmond Tutu...from Reuters:
South Africa's former Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu had urged a boycott of Player over his involvement in a property development in Myanmar.
Last month, Myanmar's military rulers sent in soldiers to end the biggest pro-democracy protests since 1988, rounding up and arresting scores of people. Official media say 10 people died in the crackdown, although Western governments say the toll could be higher.
And...
The Mandela fund said it was not fully aware of Player's involvement in Myanmar nor the political impact of this involvement.
Player denies Gary Player Design has profited from developments in Myanmar, and argues he only became involved there when it appeared political repression had eased.
"I am very disappointed that my integrity and support for human rights has been brought into question," Player said in a statement. "The company's involvement in the design of a golf course has been taken entirely out of context."
From the AP story:
Louis J. Willie Jr., a black businessman who helped defuse a racial dispute surrounding the 1990 P.G.A. Championship, died here Sunday. He was 84.And...
The 1990 P.G.A. Championship was held at Shoal Creek Country Club, in suburban Birmingham. Protests mounted after the club president said Shoal Creek would not be pressured into accepting black members. Mr. Willie helped quiet the situation by accepting an honorary membership.
Thanks to reader Steve for this ebay post break-up rant/sale listing. Warning, some R-rated imagery here.
Thanks to reader John for catching Jim McCabe's excellent overview of practice round gambling in pro golf:
"It's different out here. It's way too serious," said Brett Quigley, who isn't against tossing down his own money to back his game, except his colleagues seem to prefer the company of swing coaches, sports psychol ogists, and agents as they walk the fairways in practice rounds. A spirited Nassau? Not enough of his peers seem to go for that sort of thing anymore, "at least, not like when I was watching Dana grow up."
That would be his uncle, Dana Quigley, who at 60 is old enough to remember when money games during practice rounds were standard.
"I'm sure guys would still want to do it, but the fact is, they're all in their private planes, going home between tournaments, so they don't travel together," said Dana Quigley. "It's too bad, but there's no one around to have money games with."
Certainly not like the days when players such as Doug Ford and Bob Goalby were part of the traveling PGA Tour show.
"We had to play the money games," said Ford, a two-time major champion. "We made our money in the practice rounds."
To illustrate his contention, Ford recalled a practice round at the 1957 Masters when a colleague challenged him. Accepting the game and the stakes, Ford pocketed a sum of money that nearly matched what he made later in the week when he captured the coveted green jacket ($8,750).
OK, that pales in comparison to the gaudy sums that Mickelson and Huston took from Daly, but Goalby offers reminders of inflation and perspective.
"You'd probably have to play a $100 Nassau to match the $5 and $10 Nassaus we played for," said Goalby. "The only difference is, we didn't have the sort of money that these fellows do today, so the pressure was probably greater back then, because we couldn't afford to lose what little money we had."
Still, Goalby doesn't begrudge today's players for their treasures.
"They're so much better than we were, it's unbelievable," said the 1968 Masters champ. "They drive the ball better, they putt it better, they practice more."
But Goalby offers a disclaimer.
"But I think we had a better time playing golf in our day," he said. "We definitely had better times in our practice rounds. I'm sure of that."
Tim Rosaforte posts a peculiar little blog item about Andrew Giuliani, the Duke golfer and son of presidential candidate Rudy.
It didn't surprise Phil Mickelson that Andrew Giuliani (right, with Tiger) was doing so well in the Met Open, shooting 71 in the opening round Wednesday at the Meadow Brook Club on Long Island. Lefty and the former New York City mayor's son played in the Buick Classic Pro-Am a few years ago, before Giuliani enrolled at Duke, where he is entering his junior year as a walk-on member of the golf team. "He's got game," Mickelson told me after his opening-round 67 at The Barclays.Uh, that stuff his dad taught him outside of golf. Was that when they were still speaking?
Rudy Giuliani is an 18-handicapper, but in Mickelson's mind, Giuliani's 21-year-old son got his father's disposition. He lists a muny, Van Cortlandt Park, as his home course, but also plays out of Trump National in Briarcliff Manor. "His dad taught him a lot outside of golf that has carried over into the way he plays," said Mickelson. "He doesn't let bad shots affect him. He plays without fear. He plays aggressive. He plays smart. He's got a good overall way to attack the game."
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
