"No, sir. Rice."

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Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum fired 61 to open the World Cup in China which gave them the lead, but more importantly, meant a press room visit for Boo.

Anyone know what this means?

BOO WEEKLEY: We played pretty solid today. We just brother in lawed it very well, kept it in play and kept us it front of us.
Love this exchange:
Q. What did you know about China before you came here?

BOO WEEKLEY: Not much.

Q. Anything?

BOO WEEKLEY: No, sir. Rice.

Q. The Wall?

BOO WEEKLEY: Sir?

Q. The Wall.

BOO WEEKLEY: Oh, yeah, I know The Great Wall of China, but I thought it was closer to where we're at, and I found out it was a lot further away. But yeah, I knew the Wall was here.
Shockingly, Boo is not out and about much...
Q. And what have been your impressions of China so far?

BOO WEEKLEY: We ain't been ever doing nothing. We go straight to the motel and straight here, but I know the people here are friendly. It's very nice, they always say hey and they are polite and stuff, and that's always a plus when you show up somewhere, especially in a foreign country and they are polite and nice. That's a plus for me.

For more Boo, check out his My Shot in the latest Golf Digest. 

One More MacKenzie Design Out There?

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Granted, it needs to be built, but...

Thomas Dunne pens one of my favorite stories of the year in the November/December T&L Golf on an Alister MacKenzie design that was never built.

The course that the Good Doctor drew up for Anchorena turned out to be something special, even by MacKenzie’s standards. Though it would bear many hallmarks of other great courses he designed, it was in one way compellingly different: It features nine double greens of the sort that distinguish the Old Course at St. Andrews. The routing was an ingenious intertwining of two nine-hole loops, somewhat similar to that of Muirfield. MacKenzie apparently scouted the grounds, drew up the plans, handed them over and presumably collected a fee—but then the course was never built.

Why MacKenzie’s design for El Boquerón wasn’t executed remains a mystery. Instead, Anchorena hired Dentone to build a nine-hole course on the estancia grounds that, although situated in the location that MacKenzie had in mind, was only loosely based on his design. It too was called El Boquerón, it had a clubhouse, and golf was played on it for a generation by the Anchorena family and their friends. But after the patriarch’s death in 1951, the property was divided among his heirs, and the course gradually disappeared.

One of those heirs was Enrique Anchorena Jr., who turned the clubhouse into his permanent home and kept the original MacKenzie plans in a frame above the fireplace. There the document languished for the rest of the century, a faded star in the Englishman’s glittering career.


Knockdown Shot Follow Up

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You know I got something wrong here the other day.

I pointed out that the various British writers gushing over the European Tour's "Road to Dubai" announcement also happened to have their way paid by the Tour.

Actually, that was not the case. It seems to have been much worse.

From Elling's Knockdown Shots:

News item: Members of the British press corps on Monday were flown to Dubai on the personal jet of the royal family of the United Arab Emirates in order to attend the announcement regarding the mega-money 2009 event.

Knockdown Shots: LPGA Edition

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Steve Elling is back with another edition, this time punching knockdown shots at the LPGA's season ending madness.

Here's the link to the printer friendly version in case you don't want to wade through four pages of someone brilliant way to generate page views. Or if you work in Daytona Beach and need to print this out for next Monday's staff meeting when the Commissioner asks who this Elling guy is.

My favorite:

News item: As one of the new wrinkles in the ADT Championship, the LPGA's quirky shootout with $1 million awarded to the winner, those advancing to the final eight were allowed to pick their playing spots for Sunday's round. One by one, before a crowd of perhaps 1,000 fans, players placed their names into openings in the four scheduled twosomes.

Knockdown shot: As the field filled out, the last available slot was in the pairing opposite prickly princess Cristie Kerr, who laughed aloud to the crowd, "Nobody wants to play with me, apparently." Actually, it was no joke. Minutes earlier, a very prominent player noted how she didn't want to play with the reigning U.S. Open champion, who is, to put it kindly, on the snooty side of condescending.

Oh and it's not all LPGA. Here's the YouTube clip he referenced where there is a special moment 29 seconds in... 

 

Sweet Home Chicago**

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Essentially, it appears the PGA Tour is admitting in its own special way that it made a mistake taking the Western BMW out of Chicago:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 21, 2007

       BMW CHAMPIONSHIP TO MAKE THREE-YEAR CHICAGO RUN (2009-2011)

     Crooked Stick Golf Club to host PGA TOUR Playoff event in 2012

(PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL) — The PGA TOUR, Western Golf Association (WGA) and BMW of North America today announced that the BMW Championship, the third event in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, will play three consecutive years in the Chicago area beginning in 2009.

Crooked Stick Golf Club, outside Indianapolis, originally scheduled to host the BMW Championship in 2010, will now host the event in 2012. The previously announced 2008 schedule remains unchanged as the event will be played Sept. 1-7 at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis.

The  Dubsdread  Course  at Cog Hill Golf and Country Club, located 30 miles southwest  of  Chicago and the site of the 2007 BMW Championship, is set to undergo  a  re-design by Rees Jones in 2008. The tournament is scheduled to return to Cog Hill G&CC in 2009.

BMW entered a six-year partnership agreement in June 2006 with the PGA TOUR and  the  WGA  to sponsor the third of four PGA TOUR Playoff events for the FedExCup.  Tiger Woods won the BMW Championship at Cog Hill G&CC in 2007 en route to capturing the inaugural FedExCup. Woods is a four-time champion of the BMW Championship.

“The  PGA  TOUR is delighted with the support of Crooked Stick, the WGA and BMW  for  this  schedule  change.  We believe this new sequence for the BMW Championship  will only enhance the tremendous appeal of this great event,” said  PGA  TOUR  Commissioner  Tim  Finchem.  “The BMW Championship will be exceptional  next  year  at  Bellerive  Country Club in St. Louis, and then Chicago-area  golf  fans  will  enjoy  four  straight years of watching the world's  best  players  through  three  consecutive  playings  of  the  BMW Championship followed by the 2012 Ryder Cup.”

“The  new  schedule  for  the  BMW  Championship  is  a  plus for everyone, especially  the  golf  fans  of  Chicago and Indianapolis,” said Tournament Director  John  Kaczkowski  of the Western Golf Association. “We’re looking forward to playing three consecutive years in Chicago beginning in 2009. It also makes sense to move the BMW Championship to Crooked Stick in 2012 with Chicago  set  to  host the Ryder Cup that year at Medinah Country Club. Our partnership  with  BMW  and  the PGA TOUR allows us to generate significant funds for the tournament’s sole beneficiary, the Evans Scholars Foundation, and this schedule will enhance that commitment.”

“Chicago  is a tremendous sports town, and 2007 marked an outstanding debut for  the  BMW Championship at Cog Hill,” said Tom Purves, Chairman and CEO, BMW (US) Holding Corp. “We look forward to returning to Chicago for another three  years  and  are  already  working on ways to further enhance the BMW Championship experience for fans over the coming years.”

“We’ve  been  looking  forward  to  the  arrival of the BMW Championship in Indianapolis,  but with our club already hosting the 2009 U.S. Senior Open, the  2010  date  would have presented some challenges in preparation,” said Doug  Cook, Crooked Stick Golf Club president. “With the club now scheduled to  host  the  BMW Championship in 2012, we have some breathing room to get ready.  We’re  expecting  great  support from Indiana golf fans for the BMW Championship,  and with the extra time to prepare, that support should only grow.”

"The players are open to something that's new and exciting and fun."

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071123newsmakers_gwindex.jpgIn Golf World's year-end "newsmakers" issue, I pitch an alternate scenario the PGA Tour should consider for the conclusion to the FedEx Cup. Granted, I'm simply advocating that they adopt an ADT Championship-like format for the finale.

Based on some of the post ADT comments here and here, I think some of you would agree. But, I'd still love to hear what you all think even though we've probably covered the FedEx Cup enough!

Oh and on the ADT front, Craig Dolch reports that no major changes are in order. And why should they be?


"For the same reason it works for the best players, it works for everyone."

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gwar01_071123stacktilt.jpgGolf World includes the Stack and Tilt dudes in their year end newsmakers issue. Peter Morrice writes:
On the PGA and Champions tours, six players have won in a year and a half using Stack & Tilt: Aaron Baddeley (pictured), Mike Weir, Dean Wilson, Eric Axley, Will MacKenzie and John Cook. Converts also include: Jesper Parnevik, Steve Elkington, Charlie Wi and about a dozen others. Plummer estimates they'll add 10 more tour students before next season. But the Plummer-Bennett plan sees the tour as just a stopover. "Teaching tour players gets you great exposure, but we want to change the way the average person plays golf," says Bennett, 39, who grew up in upstate New York and still tries to Monday-qualify for tour events. "It's the simplest way to swing a club," adds Plummer. "For the same reason it works for the best players, it works for everyone. The geometry doesn't change."

"We want to come back, we want to support the tour, but you come back and all you do is cop abuse from the media"

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Thanks to reader Hugh for this Robert Allenby rant on the morbid state of Australian professional golf events. It seems  we read about this argument every year...

In an unprompted tirade during a press conference ahead of this week's Australian Masters in Melbourne, Allenby accused the media of having driven former world No.1 Norman out of the country through constant negativity.

And he said a similar thing was being done to the latest generation of Australian players.

"It's quite amazing that everyone plays in America, they think (Australian players) are pretty awesome in how we play and they love us over there, but sometimes we're perceived that we're not that good in Australia," Allenby said.

"I think it comes down to that tall poppy syndrome that Greg Norman fought for a lot of years.

"If you look back and look at the abuse that the media did give Greg Norman, eventually he'd just had enough and said I'm not coming back.

"That's kind of what happens to a lot of players.

"I'm not saying that's the reason why Geoff (Ogilvy) and Adam (Scott) are not here (for the Masters), but sometimes it can wear on you, especially when we're over the other side of the world playing for most of the year.

"We want to come back, we want to support the tour, but you come back and all you do is cop abuse from the media ... I think that's really hurt Australian golf."

 

"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"

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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!"

Driver Sought Unprecedented Third Term As USGA President

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driver_annual.jpgYou may recall that I wondered what was taking so long to nominate a replacement for beleaguered outgoing USGA President Walter Driver. After all, Driver's nomination for 2006 was announced in July, 2005, effectively rendering his fellow Augusta National member and then-president Fred Ridley a lame duck with six months to go.

Now we may know what took so long to learn that Jim Vernon was the nominee.

Several sources within the USGA report that the 2008 nomination was held up due to Driver's attempts to secure the position for an unprecedented third term as USGA president.

Though I first heard the rumor at the U.S. Amateur this summer and shrugged it off as idle gossip involving a widely despised leader, I've since learned that Driver's intentions were well known throughout the organization. My sources also say that once Driver had failed to convince nominating committee chair Trey Holland that a third presidential year would keep the USGA on the right course, Driver reportedly turned his attention to nominating Jim Hyler over Vernon.

No source could explain why Driver pushed so hard for Hyler even though Vernon has served on the Executive Committee longer and seemed to be the most logical replacement. In a few years, Driver will chair the nominating committee and you have to wonder if he will nominate himself again when given the chance.

To put this into some historical context, not since the inaugural term of Theodore Havemeyer in 1894-96 has anyone served longer than three years, and Havemeyer died midway through year three. Furthermore, since 1936 every USGA president has served a pair of consecutive 1-year terms.

My sources also report that Executive Director David Fay has been neutralized by the current Executive Committee and Driver in particular. The longtime head staffer holds far less clout within the current USGA power structure and reportedly has been asked to leave several recent Executive Committee meetings while other staff members below him on the chain of command remained in the room.

This may explain one of the curious quotes in Vernon's nomination press release:

“I look forward to working closely with executive director David Fay and his talented staff to make sure that we continue to conduct the very best championships in golf and to fulfill our responsibilities to establish equipment rules that are based on informed science and facts.”

Good times in Far Hills!