"There's one guy in his 20's who has the physical strength, the putting, the monster ball flight to dominate and win six, seven, eight majors in the next 10-12 years."

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I think this was the most intriguing statement from Brandel Chamblee in his Golf Magazine interview, conducted by Connell Barrett. The topic? The Ryo, Rory, Rickie talk and their future in majors.

Who steps up? One of the three R's?

Maybe. But they all lack one thing: size. I like the bigger guys who don't have to swing at 100 percent. Big guys tend to have what I call "big game" — the sky-high ball flight that wins majors. Bigger guys can do that while swinging at 80 percent. Think Tiger, Vijay, Phil. Ryo, Rory and those guys swing full throttle all the time. But there's one guy in his 20's who has the physical strength, the putting, the monster ball flight to dominate and win six, seven, eight majors in the next 10-12 years. And that's Dustin Johnson. Dustin has everything. He has some weaknesses around the greens, but so did Jack. If he doesn't win a Masters or two, I would be shocked.

"It's time to accept that the sport is in a much better place than it was 10 years ago, but it's not the next great sport that's going to give the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball a run for its money in terms of nationwide relevance."

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That's Darren Rovell writing for CNBC about...NASCAR and its second straight year with a big ratings decline and the dreadful 10-race chase inspiring no one.
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GCSAA Cuts: "The economic recession, particularly in the golf industry, has been deep and severe."

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James R. Fitzroy, Golf Course Superintendents Association of America President, writing to his members today after announcing significant staff cuts.

Dear GCSAA Members,

In recent years, my predecessors and I have shared with you the steps we have taken to ensure that GCSAA remains a viable and sustainable organization that delivers value to you, your facility and the golf industry.

The economic recession, particularly in the golf industry, has been deep and severe. Since 2008, GCSAA has reduced expenditures $5.4 million with the objective of having the least amount of impact on members as possible. Earlier this year, the GCSAA Board of Directors conducted an extensive strategic planning session to review our mission and vision, and chart our path for the upcoming years. Our responsibility as leaders is to keep GCSAA strongly positioned for the future by seeking new resources and optimizing the ones we have in order to execute programs and services on the members' behalf.

Therefore, today I am announcing a series of significant actions that will result in reorganization of GCSAA programs and services. Unfortunately, it will also result in reduction of staff. In the last three years, we have reduced staff from 122 to 85, so taking these additional steps places additional responsibility on those that remain. Working with interim CEO Rhett Evans, we will continue to focus on those areas we have deemed to be a priority. There is no denying that we will discontinue some activities and reduce the magnitude of others as we manage the association through this difficult period. But the reductions are also necessary to create the capacity to expand into areas of significant opportunity such as field staff, continued international expansion, advocacy/outreach and professional development, among others.

"These guys can thrill thousands with their shot-making -- and don't need to squirt vintage champagne over nightclub revellers to make themselves appear 'interesting'."

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A very nice column by Karl MacGinty makes a simple case that the need for more colorful characters is ultimately not a product of their off-course life, as in Anthony Kim's case, but what happens on the course and how the emotions, strategy and beauty of the game will bring out the color.
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"Wild Green Yonder"

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Thanks to all the readers who emailed the link to Alastair Gordon's WSJ Magazine story on just how far the game has drifted from the kind of golf many of us love. He also touches on the surge in cross-country golf.

As we were starting to get a feel for the raw conditions, the back nine opened with a series of surreal encounters as I climbed over a barbed-wire fence and faced an enormous bull who seemed aggravated that I’d sliced my ball into his paddock. The 12th green was completely hidden within a mysteriously bowl-shaped depression within a hillock (cnoc in Scottish Gaelic) and I had to shoot blindly over a jagged ridge and scamper up to the top of the cnoc, where I found that my ball had landed in this secret little valley and rolled within a few feet of the pin. By this point we had torn up our scorecards in a moment of giddy liberation, and Iain turned to me with a bright expression and said: “This is the only way that golf should ever be played. No status, no fancy pants.” And he was right. We could have played stark naked and putted with stale baguettes and no one would have cared or known.

Gordon also lists some of his favorite remote golf experiences.