"What %$#@!&^%$ fool put a %$#@!&^%$ bunker right in the %$#@!&^%$ center of the fairway?"

It didn't make the story, but another fun trace of the Old Course in the original Augusta National design came on the eleventh hole. It existed for a few years back when the tee was to the right of the tenth green, and when the hole doglegged right. It played much shorter then with a fairway sloped away from the tee. (Long before Hootie made an awful mess of it (right image).)

Jones and MacKenzie planned a 415-yard dogleg right par-4 where drives down the left side were rewarded with a better angle to the green. To inject the ultimate St. Andrewsian touch, Jones insisted on a small, blind pot bunker in the fairway center. He found out on opening day in 1932 that not everyone was enamored with the mystery, vagaries and quirk of the Old Course.

In The Making of The Masters, David Owen shares the story of Jones’s father, Colonel Bob Jones, driving into the bunker while playing with his son and Clifford Roberts.

“When the Colonel found his ball in the sand, he shouted, ‘What goddamned fool put a goddamned bunker right in the goddamned center of the fairway?’ or words to that effect.

One can only imagine how much delight that gave Bobby Jones!

"Kindergarten Teacher Blows Whistle on Tiger"

Just when you thought we'd hit rock bottom...was she just waiting for the steady drip of mistresses to come to a halt?

Update on 2010-04-03 01:15 by Geoff

She wants an apology. Get in line!

"Tiger Woods treats his audience like his bimbos."

Sally Jenkins with another hard-hitting Tiger column, this time picking apart the veracity of some of Tiger's recent statements.

The golf industry seems more than willing to collude in this hasty public rehab, whether it's real or not, given that TV ratings without him can fall by as much 55 percent, and sales revenues are off by 11.6 percent. There's an industry behind Woods struggling and writhing to survive -- and willing to do anything to preserve the empire. Woods gave brief five-minute TV interviews to ESPN and the Golf Channel on March 21, apparently in a deliberate attempt to ease back into the public eye. "There's a natural progression of things he's got to do before he tees off," as Jim Furyk put it. It's not good for business if fans decide Woods's "legendary focus" is just compulsion, his "competitive fire" is just epic selfishness, and his "quest for history" is just insatiability.

But the fact is, despite the rush toward the redemption of Woods, there remains a gap between his lip service and his actual honesty. It's a handicapping issue. When it comes to telling the truth in his public statements, the guy is shooting 80.

"Woods is not invited to stay on the course grounds overnight during the tournament, as he apparently had requested"

Filip Bondy of the New York Daily News buried this lede in a column today, perhaps because it was coming from one source. Though it wouldn't surprise me since it would cut down on what figures to be an excessive security tab next week:

Woods is not invited to stay on the course grounds overnight during the tournament, as he apparently had requested, according to a source.

Only amateurs and members - Woods is an honorary member, which only gets him into the champions' locker room - are allowed to stay overnight on the course. The amateurs lodge in a 30x40 foot Crow's Nest above the clubhouse, which sleeps up to five.

The cabin arrangement would have been extremely convenient for Woods, who surely wishes to avoid the hassles of commuting and media exposure.

"The Temptation Of Tiger Woods"

I've read the Vanity Fair story on Tiger's mistresses and it's safe to say that it doesn't cover much new ground if you've read the tabloid reports and believed them. However, Mark Seal pieces together various elements of the Tiger saga in a way that is quite powerful and ultimately very unflattering to Woods, Earl Woods, IMG, Mark Steinberg, Bryon Bell and the National Enquirer (which is hilariously still denying the Men's Fitness quid pro quo deal).

What's interesting is that most of the information in the article has been available for some time, yet news reports only went with the story after Vanity Fair put it all together. And the thinnest component of the story was what got picked up most: the role of Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley in encouraging Tiger to gamble and fool around.

But the story is only impactful because of Woods' poor choice to lie in his 5-minute interview with Kelly Tilghman about his enablers. Had he just answered somewhat honestly (as I noted recently), the Vanity Fair story would not haunt him or those around him. But since he chose to make the silly claim that he had no enablers, the story has cachet and will greatly impact the credibility of Steinberg in particular. 

What does this have to do with golf?

Steinberg's few comments have been of the "media is getting it wrong" variety and he has denied the few reports he's chosen to acknowledge. When it came to Dr. Galea, he strongly denied that IMG or he made the connection between Woods and Dr. HGH. But at this point, and in large part because of Tiger's untruthful statements to Tilghman, it's hard to believe anything the Woods camp puts out.

Here is a Today Show feature on the story, with an interview of Seal:

"One look at Augusta in 3-D will make high-definition seem obsolete."

Richard Sandomir got a sneak peek at the Masters in 3-D and appears to have been blown away by what he saw.

If the test footage shot recently at the Augusta National Golf Club is an authentic gauge, the Masters in 3-D will look terrific. Only a few thousand early adopters with 3-D television sets will be able to see the tournament in this manner, but they will be fortunate: one look at Augusta in 3-D will make high-definition seem obsolete.

This had to make Tim Finchem's morning...

Golf may be perfect for 3-D. It is a slow sport, one player in action at a time. Cameras need not pan quickly and can be closer than they are in, say, football or baseball.