AJGA Teen Fires 61; Makes Nine Straight Birdies!

Thanks to reader One Universe for the tip on Colin Kober's 61 at the AJGA event in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He's listed as class of 2016, so he's 15 or 16.

The 11-under round came on a 6608 yard course with a rating of 72.2 and a Slope of 131.

Even more amazing for the Southlake, Texas resident: nine straight birdies. Nine!

He leads by two.

Belmont Goes Bushwood: Tale Of An Overbudget Clubhouse Redo

Thanks to reader Bud for this Callum Borchers story of a Belmont Country Club's members feuding over an $18 million clubhouse redo swelling to over $30 million.

Add this one to the files of, why do people spend millions on a place where they will spend 15 minutes and skimp on the golf course they'll spend 5 hours on, and think it'll turn out well?

Backslapping has been replaced by back stabbing, and successful business people are doing “things that we would never do in our professional lives,” according to one message from the clubhouse building committee.

“Welcome to Belmonts very own - ‘Big Apple Circus’!!!,” Robert A. Schlager, president of Bulfinch Cos., wrote in an e-mail­ to club leaders last year.

Schlager had been asked by a friend on the building committee to offer advice on utility work and concluded that the club had a “team of misfits” handling the project.

Video: Rickie Does Dallas

Under dark and blustery Dallas skies Rickie Fowler and Colt Knost plugged sponsor Red Bull and launched Crowne Plaza Invitational week while attempting to make a hole in one to a Texas-shaped green.

Take that...guys over playing the Open Championship qualifier.

The name of the game was to see who could hit it closest to the pin, while egged on by special guests and former Dallas Stars hockey player Marty Turco and Kip Brennan.  The two contestants strolled out to the sidewalk and warmed up with an 80-yard lob wedge, followed by 115-yard gap wedge from across the street and onto the AT&T Plaza green. Fowler started off slowly in these practice rounds, while Knost consistently landed on the green.

Then the two players jumped into a golf cart and drove around the block to an adjacent 3rd floor parking structure for the main round.  From there, they attempted blind shots from 140+ yards that to had fly over a 6-story building or be sliced left-to-right to land softly on the Victory Plaza green.  With golf balls flying over the heads of hundreds of spectators, Fowler first jumped on the MIC to let the fans know they “should probably duck.”

The video.

Only On ebay Files: The Unworn Memorial Shirt

Thanks to reader John for sending this link to an auction ending soon on a shirt with quite the backstory in the seller's mind.

I'll just copy and paste the opening graphs in case they disappear...

This is a NWOT, never been worn Jack Nicklaus "The Memorial Tournament" commemorative golf shirt which was purchased at the PGA Tour 2011 Memorial Tournament gift shop at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin Ohio as a gift from my significant other who of course is a golfer.  Feel free to ask any questions.
 
I never liked golf - frankly if you need to wear a collared shirt to play it, it is not a sport.

Dare you to tell that to a rugby player!

My SO wanted to introduce me to his "classy" gentleman's game for whatever reasons since I've always found it Freudingly peculiar that grown men want nothing more than to stare down and wrap their hands around a shaft for 5 hours a day in a toxic artificially manmade environment they call "nature".

So, so cynical. Clearly this person hasn't heard of the minimalist movement.

Anyway, the buyer goes on to detail a broken foot and ankle. It's quite the yarn!

Romo To Spend More Time Not Golfing Publicly This Off-Season

Fresh off signing a $108 million extension, Dallas Cowboy quarterback and excellent golfer Tony Romo is giving up some tournament appearances and attempts to qualify in the name of being like Peyton. Or at least, letting Jerry Jones think he's getting his money's worth.

Calvin Watkins reports that Romo won't be trying U.S. Open or Byron Nelson qualifiers:

Romo isn't interested in those things now, but it was nice following him around in Houston a few years ago when he tried to qualify for the U.S. Open.

The public perception was that Romo cared more about golf than football. I've always thought this theory from some fans and media members was silly. Romo always cared about football.

Boston Bombing Persons Of Interest In Branded Golf Caps

The Smoking Gun makes the easy ID of a black Bridgestone cap on suspect number one while I'm pretty sure Daily Mail Reporter gets it wrong in claiming suspect 2 is wearing a Ralph Lauren hat (the hat they show has the "3" on the left side, the suspect's hat has the number, possibly a 7, on the right side).

Either way, they're both the lowest form of being on the planet and no companies are at fault here. Other released FBI images of the suspects can be seen here.

"The Golf Shot Heard Round the Academic World"

Thanks to reader Kevin for David Feith's WSJ story on an upset philanthropist and the head of Bowdoin College butting heads over identity politics on the golf course.

The dispute has since led to a rich-guy commissioned study and upheaval at Bowdoin.

One day in the summer of 2010, Barry Mills, the president of Bowdoin College, a respected liberal-arts school in Brunswick, Maine, met investor and philanthropist Thomas Klingenstein for a round of golf about an hour north of campus. College presidents spend many of their waking hours talking to potential donors. In this case, the two men spoke about college life—especially "diversity"—and the conversation made such an impression on President Mills that he cited it weeks later in his convocation address to Bowdoin's freshman class. That's where the dispute begins.

In his address, President Mills described the golf outing and said he had been interrupted in the middle of a swing by a fellow golfer's announcement: "I would never support Bowdoin—you are a ridiculous liberal school that brings all the wrong students to campus for all the wrong reasons," said the other golfer, in Mr. Mills's telling. During Mr. Mills's next swing, he recalled, the man blasted Bowdoin's "misplaced and misguided diversity efforts." At the end of the round, the college president told the students, "I walked off the course in despair."