“The world’s most dangerous golf course.”

/

AP's Bradley Brooks writes about the actual Green Zone golf course (as opposed to the proposed one). Thanks to reader Jim for the story of Crossed Swords Golf Course, which Brooks writes "is closed in by 15-foot concrete blast walls and watched over by humorless Gurkha guards from Nepal."

Our tee time was 5 p.m. The day had cooled to about 109 degrees.

The first challenge was getting by the Gurkha guards. Despite gaining access a few times before, on this particular day our security badges were deemed insufficient. After 45 minutes of explaining, pleading and miming a golf swing— the guards had little command of English—a British officer took pity and got us to the first tee at what must be one of the quirkiest courses in the world.

It has competition, though. Several years after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, the Kabul Golf Club was cleared of landmines and reopened. Near the DMZ separating the Korean peninsula, the single, 192-yard hole at U.S. Camp Bonifas playfully billed itself as “the world’s most dangerous golf course.”

In the Green Zone, there is so little grass on the course golfers must carry their own: swatches of artificial turf for all shots except putts.

“I guess we’ll always hit the fairway, right?” Petr quipped as we made our way to the first tee, fake grass in hand.

"Tigris Woods Golf and Country Club"

/
greenzone10d.jpgThough April Fool's Day was last month, apparently the Pentagon is a bit slow when it comes recognizing important holidays. Or, as Michael Howard reports in The Guardian, this is truly disturbing:

A $5bn (£2.5bn) tourism and development scheme for the Green Zone being hatched by the Pentagon and an international investment consortium would give the heavily fortified area on the banks of the Tigris a "dream" makeover that will become a magnet for Iraqis, tourists, business people and investors. About half of the area is now occupied by coalition forces, the US state department or private foreign companies.

The US military released the first tentative artists' impression yesterday. An army source said the barbed wire, concrete blast barriers and checkpoints that currently disfigure the 5 sq mile area would be replaced by shopping malls, hotels, elegant apartment blocks and leisure parks. "This is at the end of the day an Iraqi-owned area and we will give it back to them with added value," said the source, who requested anonymity.

Yep, that value is what they are looking for these days in Baghdad. They have MBA's running around the Pentagno now!

According to several stories, military planners have apparently dubbed the golf course portion of the development, "Tigris Woods Golf and Country Club."

I'm sure Tiger, with his family ties to the military and respect for the service of our troops, will find that to be really, really cute. 

"I don't have a comment about that."

/

amd_holy-name-golf.jpgThanks to Scott for Dennis Hamill's New York Daily News column on a case of greed from Goldman Sachs-owned American Golf. They are running off a New York charity group with excessive pricing...at a city owned course.

Last year, Houlie organized 600 neighborhood people to board an ocean cruise, kicking in $60 each toward Holy Name and Bishop Ford.

"And every year for the past 13 years on the first Thursday of June we've held a golf outing at Dyker in honor of Eddie Farrell, who used to own Farrell's," says Houlie. "The Boy Scouts volunteer to cook and clean up at a barbecue in the schoolyard after the golf outing. The proceeds, around $15,000, go to Holy Name. This year, the Dyker Golf people priced us right off the course. For the first time, we're forced to leave Brooklyn and go to Breezy Point pitch and putt because Dyker got greedy with our little religious charity."

Mike Coyne, a hospital administrator, handled the Holy Name negotiation with Dyker. "Every year, we get about 160 guys who participate," he says. "In 2006, Dyker charged us $57 per golfer. In '07 they charged us $68. This year, they wanted $89. That's a 31% jump over last year."

On weekdays, Dyker Beach Golf Course charges $54.67 for greens fees and a cart for a city resident. "But they wanted to charge us $89 a head," says Coyne. "When we did the cruise, the cruise line gave us a big discount for having a large number of people. In this case, Dyker Beach Golf wants to charge us $89 a head because there are a lot of us. It's crazy."
And...

 

"This isn't a corporate event," says Coyne. "This is cops, firemen, sanitation workers who want to help keep their neighborhood school open. We can't ask a working guy for $180 for a day of golf. I tried to explain that to the people at Dyker Beach but they didn't want to hear it. I asked them if we could get a better price at Marine Park, which most golfers feel is an inferior course, and they said, 'no.' They run that one, too. You can't negotiate with a monopoly. So we went to Breezy Point to a pitch and putt and we're charging $100 a head."

This didn't sound right. Especially when American Golf boasts on its Web site about, "... our commitment to improve the quality of life for those who live and work in the communities we serve. That's why we support local grass roots charitable efforts. ..."

So I called Jeff DeFranco, manager of Dyker Beach Golf, and asked about all of this. He said, "I don't have a comment about that."

And hung up.

"That means this place has touched a lot of lives."

/
image_6860931.jpgKevin Robbins reports on the fight to save Lions Muny, owned by the University of Texas, one time grooming ground for Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw.
A group of residents, including a veteran of the two previous campaigns, is trying to figure out the best way to prevent the short, busy and historic course from being lost to development by the University of Texas, which owns the land. The UT System Board of Regents meets today to consider the next step as it formulates a plan for the 345 acres known as the Brackenridge tract.

The citizens group — which formed Thursday at the Lions clubhouse and heard an impassioned plea from pro golfer and West Austin resident Ben Crenshaw — is planning a tournament in June to raise money to advertise its cause. Other events are expected.

"It's another opportunity for people who support and love Muny to get together," said Mary Arnold, a longtime environmental activist.

Arnold was involved in successful efforts in the early 1970s and late 1980s to persuade UT to leave the 84-year-old course right where it was on 141 acres between Exposition and Lake Austin boulevards.
And...
Since the last campaign in 1989, Lions has seen more than a million rounds of golf, Fleming said.

"That means this place has touched a lot of lives."

“We feel we are democratising golf"

/

And how are we doing this? By "bringing online gamblers back in play" with online golf gaming!

Chris Nuttall of the Financial Times delivers the breathtakingly good news.

American executives frustrated by online poker bans have been taking to the virtual golf course, where they can work on lowering their handicaps and make money at the same time.

Utour Golf and World Golf Tour are two sites exploiting a developing demographic of casual gamers: males over 30 looking to compete with one another online.

Utour has staged more than 500,000 games on four different online courses during its beta testing phase and allows wagers of up to $100 on a single hole. There is stroke play or match play for pairs and tournaments where thousands of dollars can be at stake.

Groove Games, the company behind Utour, says the golf prizes are not classified as gambling as golf is a skill-based game rather than one of chance.

Riiiiigggggghhhhhhttttt!

“We’re just like real golf leagues funded by player-entry fees and the PGA’s prize pools subsidised by advertising,” says Jon Walsh, chief executive. Groove takes a 15 per cent cut of every dollar staked and sells advertisements placed around its golf courses. It says the average player is a 34-year-old male.

World Golf Tour will go fully live this summer with its Kiawah Island’s Ocean course in South Carolina. The company took the unusual step of taking high-resolution pictures of every inch of the course with helicopters and radio-controlled drones to create the imagery, rather than use artists to render the landscape.
The photos were then matched up pixel-by-pixel with the 3D topology of the course and rendered in high quality within a browser window. Over half a million people have already played the beta, spending at least 20 minutes per session.

“They are very affluent, college-educated, mostly male, average age 35 and average income of $110,000 – not your typical gaming demographic, but middle-aged professionals are great for advertisers,” said YuChiang Cheng, chief executive.

Strong demo! Not long before the PGA Tour wants a piece of that.

World Golf Tour’s business model is based on in-game advertising, sponsorship and sales of virtual items such as new clothing and clubs. It encourages foursomes among friends and will introduce social networking elements.

“We feel we are democratising golf,” says Mr Cheng. “For those who think it’s too expensive and takes too much time, this is free and you can just play from your desk.”

One Golfer Left...

/

ObamaBarack.jpgI'm not sure where, but I do recall someone writing or saying that with Mitt Romney's departure from the presidential race, the next occupant of the White House would not be a golfer. Where, I can't recall. Hey, it happens.

Anyway, I was pleased to see this in Lisa Furlong's introductory story to the Golf Digest ranking of Washington golfers:

We haven't seen President Bush playing golf in a while, but he's still considered a 15. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who's about a 16, weighed his decision to run while playing golf in Hawaii in 2006.

"Nice job, dumbass."

/

On the post about Tripp Isenhour's unfortunate decision to hunt down a harmless hawk and make a fool of himself (not to mention, break the law), I noted that this will not help golf's cause with environmentalists. Reader Adam Clayman wondered what I meant.

Well, Pat Jones answers the question in a short rant that probably violates the number of times you can call someone a dumbass in such a short span.

All I can add is this: for at least the next five years (and probably longer), everytime a golf architect or superintendent is dealing with an environmental group over an issue related to wildlife, this incident will come up.
 

"Nobody at Golf Magazine would dispute Chicago is one of the great cities in the world as far as passion for the game."

/
Ed Sherman effectively dismantle's Golf Magazine's case for Chicago as America's 46th best golf city in the U.S. and includes an apology from this L.A. resident.
Perhaps fearing area readers might cancel their subscriptions, deputy editor Michael Cochran said, "Nobody at Golf Magazine would dispute Chicago is one of the great cities in the world as far as passion for the game."

But …?

Cochran said weather and affordability weighed heaviest in the equation.

"There may be a slew of great public-access courses in Chicago, [which our numbers acknowledge,] but if you're stuck with too many unplayable, lousy days to play, then it also hurts in the rankings," Cochran said.

OK, we'll concede Chicago has about five good weather days per year. But Cochran's weather argument takes a hit when you consider Columbus, Rochester, Detroit (12th) and Indianapolis (16th) all are in the top 20. At last check, those towns have weather comparable to Chicago. There aren't many January days where you see players in shorts on the golf courses in Detroit.

Then further defying logic is Chicago's ranking under the category of quality of courses, which is defined as "The best courses in the best overall condition." Chicago is fourth.

And Chicago placed first in number of courses designed by "esteemed architects."

John Kaczkowski, the BMW Championship tournament director, asks the obvious.

"How can Chicago be 46th and ranked one and four in those categories?" Kaczkowski said. "Those are two pretty big categories, aren't they?"

It almost sounds like a scouting report for a baseball player saying, "All he can do is hit for average and power."

"Yes, 'quality' was a significant category," Cochran said. "But if the citizenry can't afford them or they have to fight for the tee times, then it doesn't resonate as well."

"The flags flying in front of the nation's clubhouses are permanently at half-mast in memory of Old Sid, who expired halfway through the Seniors Section Autumn Fur and Feather"

/

Thanks to reader Patrick for the latest Martin Johnson gem, where this time he takes on the recent article bemoaning older golfers.

Not many of us were even aware of the existence of a magazine called The Golf Club Secretary Newsletter until it recently bemoaned the "leech" effect of increasingly elderly memberships at the nation's clubs. It paints a world of wheezing old Methuselahs, who do not so much require lessons from the club pro on the art of clearing the hips, as a consultation with their GP on the advisability of replacing them.

What we are now seeing on the country's golf courses, however, is merely a reflection of society as a whole, and more particularly, of the apparently limitless desire of a nanny government to make sure that we all live to be at least 150. They do not seem to have twigged that if they continue to issue dire warnings on everything from alcohol to bacon sandwiches, the social security system will eventually collapse under the sheer weight of wizened old fogies, and the reigning monarch will eventually be forced to sell off the royal tiaras in order to pay for all those 100th-birthday telegrams.
Fast forward...

 

In any event, as we all know, it is not the seniors who cause the most frustration on a golf course, it's the confounded juniors. They have largely taken up the game from watching how the professionals do it on television, which means that they spend several minutes tossing up bits of grass to test the wind, decline to play until they have not only checked their yardage for the 15th time, but also the alignment of Jupiter and Pluto, and when they finally duff one about 10 feet, stand with hands on hips pouting and muttering for another 30 seconds.

The likes of Monty may take a bit longer to get to his golf ball, but when he does, the group behind is in little danger of sprouting a beard before he has hit it. When you are 84, and you have probably only got another 25 years of golf left in you, life is far too short to be hanging around.

It's about time The Golf Club Secretary Newsletter got stuck into the single most irritating genre of players, and we are talking here about all those who utter, about 30 times a round, such irritating inanities as: "Drive for show, putt for dough, I always say."

For these people, there is only one appropriate punishment. Get them to dig a six-foot grave, line them up in front of a firing squad, pull the trigger, and yell out at the top of your voice: "Get in the hole!"