"Jordan Thomas: Making A Connection Between Golf & Health Care Rights"

Nice post and audio interview of Jordan Thomas by Ryan Ballengee. Check it out and Thomas's foundation here.

"PGA Tour big bird didn't like this tweet"

Steve Elling reports that master Tweeter Stewart Cink heard from The Man Wednesday after Tweeting about AT&T's wretched (I can attest!) cell coverage.

That's when Commissioner Tim Finchem called to ask him to stop ragging on key PGA Tour sponsors on his Twitter site. AT&T is the title sponsor at events in Pebble Beach and Washington, D.C., and now stands as the lone sponsor of multiple events on the U.S. tour.

Cink was somewhat amused by it all. Later, when he got to the course, he was asked by another tour official to take down the posting, which he did. Eventually.

The offending Tweets:

Letter From Saugerties, Jimmy Cannon Edition

After a number of recent posts, Frank Hannigan files this Cannonesque "Nobody Asked Me, But..." Letter from Saugerties:

Dear Geoff,

There are no words to express my gratitude for your posting of The Crazy Swing of a man in Egypt.  I wonder what happens when he finds himself in a bunker?

Peter Thomson ran for the Australian equivalent of our Congress. His politics? Let's just say he was not a man of the left. He came here in 1985 to play on the senior tour for only one reason: to beat Arnold Palmer like a drum. He told me not to pay much attention to his scores since "we are playing from the ladies tees."

He is also memorable for his speaking the ultimate truth about instruction which is that neither he nor anyone else could teach a newcomer anything useful other than how to grip the club properly and to aim. Peter once covered a US Open at Oak Hill in Rochester for an Australian newspaper. I asked him what he thought of the course. "It's too good for them" was his response.

Slow play by the women in the Solheim Cup, with 4-ball rounds approaching 6 hours, could be cured immediately by the simple device of sub-letting the role of the committee to officials not employed by the LPGA or the European women's tour. I would put USGA alumnus Tom Meeks in charge and tell him that if any given round takes 4 hours 45 minutes to transpire that he would not be paid.

Corey Pavin's average driving distance on the Tour today is 260 yards, or 8 yards longer than he was in 1999. You figure it's the mustache?

Comparisons of some other short drivers: Jim Furyk 278 now, 268 then. Paul Goydos is up 12 yards in a decade to 276, Billy Mayfair has become a brute at 284 but was only 269 a decade earlier.

In the early 1990s I was a consultant (unpaid) for a golf course project at Liberty State Park - the site of this week's Tour event. It required the blessing of then New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman, herself an enthusiastic golfer.

She wouldn't help us because the mayor of Jersey City said that golf was inherently elitist and that none of his city's precious land should be wasted on the rich. Never mind that the land in question was poisonously polluted. My idea was for a daily fee course supplemented by renting the course out once day a week for huge fees from Wall Street firms who would arrive by boat. What's happened is the creation of a $500,000 private club that is out of the reach of anybody who isn't loaded.

Liberty National is a design of the architectural pair of Tom Kite and Bob Cupp who survived the misfortune of designing a 2nd course at the Baltimore Country Club. It's adjacent to the wonderful Five Farms course created by AW Tillinghast. There were to be 36 holes as routed by Tillinghast. Because of the Great Depression the second course was put off for 50 years. The contrast between the two courses? Let's just say that the Kite-Cupp course concludes with a double green.

I twitched whenever I heard the name "Solheim" on television last week. Remember the great U groove wars of the 1980s when Ping sued both the USGA and the PGA Tour? There were endless meetings in attempt to resolve the matter without litigation. One took place in our USGA offices in New Jersey. Karsten sent one of his primary technicians. The man recorded the meeting secretly with a device hidden in his briefcase, hoping I or my colleague Frank Thomas would be caught saying something that might be useful to Ping in the suit to come.

Never mind how we found out. The tapes are stored in Mayer Brown, the USGA's Chicago law firm. Pity the
meeting did not take place in New York where such bugging is a crime. Anything goes in New Jersey.

Frank Hannigan
Saugerties, New York

“Well that’s wonderful, I beat everybody by two shots.”

Sean Martin reports on Tim Jackson's record-breaking play to become the oldest U.S. Amateur medalist at 50, despite a one-shot penalty for slow play.

The only thing that upset Jackson was a slow-play penalty that he received after the round. “I’m not real happy about it, let’s put it that way,” Jackson said. His group was warned at three of the four timing checkpoints (the fourth, ninth and 13th holes).

When it was confirmed that Jackson, who’d finished earlier in the day, was the medalist, he replied: “Well that’s wonderful, I beat everybody by two shots.”

How can you be a jerk about it when you are warned at three of four stations?

Teddy Forstman's Lucky Day: No More Pro-Am Rounds With Vijay

Doug Ferguson reports the sad news that the big Fijian has left Forstman's IMG to spend more time with his longtime advisor and a former IMG agent.

“I understand what you are saying.”

Adam Schupak says that the USGA's Dick Rugge visited Liberty National to take in the lovely architecture to let Phil Mickelson vent about the latest turn in the grooves saga.

For 45 minutes, Rugge and Mickelson stood in the middle of the putting green, nearly toe-to-toe, and engaged in a wide-ranging – at times, animated – but cordial discussion.

Rugge termed it a “pleasant conversation” but would not reveal specifics.

But much of it could be overheard easily. Mickelson, speaking with conviction, expressed his disappointment with the USGA’s recent ban of his prototype irons, his concern that the 64-degree wedge could be banned in the future and his view that this wasn’t good for golf on a global scale.

And...

Rugge repeatedly answered Mickelson by saying, “I understand what you are saying.”

I suppose that was better than, "thanks you sir, may I have another."

“I woke up that morning and didn’t expect to win"

Thanks to reader Tim for this Kyung Lah CNN report on Y.E. Yang which included what could not have been music to Presidents Cup captain Norman, assuming the translation was correct.

Watching Yang play with his friends on this Dallas, Texas golf course, you can see that love of the game is obvious. Yang later tells me that he hopes to never face off with Tiger again, because he’s not sure he’d win again. You get the sense that while wins at the PGA level are important, this game with friends is just as important — and at the heart of why Yang managed to accomplish what no other golfer in the world could.

The video version:

Jack Nicklaus has also has some interesting observations on the Yang win at Hazeltine in this sitdown with Tim Rosaforte. And is me or is Jack way too pleased that Tiger won't be breaking the all time major's mark at St. Andrews next year?