I Just Wanted To Tell You, I Love Your Comments
/I took a look at the hundreds of comments on the Padraig video at YouTube, then read the discussion here. What a contrast!
You guys and gals are the best.
When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
PGA Tour: Clinton Was Our Idea!
/Yesterday when John Strege reported Joe Ogilvie's suggestion that Bill Clinton and his Global Initiative could help jumpstart the Bob Hope, he clearly ruffled feathers in Ponte Vedra, where they oxford shirt set rolled up their sleeves and spent Friday evening crafting a statement to let the scribes in La Quinta know they were already on the Clinton initiative!
Read More"Professional golfers sitting in judgment on fellow professional golfers is just plain wrong, never mind illegal."
/John Huggan offers a final word on the Eliot Saltman cheating hearing and suggests that the European Tour may be in for a losing legal battle now that Saltman is fighting back. This fact wasn't lost on the player committee that voted on his 3 month ban.
Read MoreUSGA To Re-Open Discussions About Rule On Scorecard DQ's
/First we learned the R&A is open to revisiting the scenario of disqualifications for signing incorrect cards that, at the time players signed them were not incorrect. Now, Mike Davis, Senior Director of Rules and Competitions, confirms to the USGA is "absolutely going to reopen" discussions with the R&A. The Padraig Harrington situation was the final straw.
"We're all bothered by what is a narrow set of circumstances where someone can get the facts right and still be disqualified. In Harrington's situation, he thought ball was replaced and only television is telling us otherwise. He knew the rules, he thought he did everything right, he just didn't know all the facts. So the USGA and R&A will open it up again, but we also have to make sure we don't do something that has domino effect."
Davis was speaking after just returning from R&A meetings in St. Andrews and said emails have already been exchanged between the USGA and R&A on ways to remedy the rule without creating unintended consequences, such as allowing players off the hook for not knowing the rules. Which was not the case in the Harrington scenario.
Ogilvie: Bring Clinton On Board To Save Hope
/Like most of the PGA Tour's finest didn't have enough reason to skip the Hope! Nonetheless, Joe Ogilvie's given this a lot of thought and like most logical PGA Tour-related ideas, it probably has little chance of happening.
Governing Bodies Must Act To Protect The Viewer At Home!
/Forget Padraig, we need the rule changed on scorecard DQ's to protect the viewers at home who have been called every name in the book after the latest call-in violation.
Thankfully, most of the scribes cooled off after their initial tweets about the sheer horror of a viewer witnessing a violation and daring to point it out. They directed their emotions at the rule the USGA and R&A refuse to budge on.
"And now you can maybe, yeah, give me some questions that are a little bit more interesting, a little bit different than what I usually get.”
/Wouldn't you love to see Tiger or Phil pull a Caroline Wozniacki just once?
Christopher Clarey explains how the women's world No. 1 in tennis decide to answer all of the boring questions by posing them herself! Deadspin has the video.
TV Viewer Frees Padraig Up To Spend Weekend On The Range
/I just want to know how you can replace a ball like that?
Padraig Harrington was DQ'd from Abu Dhabi's HSBC Classic for signing an incorrect card after a viewer spotted this violation after the card was signed.
Here's the video of the violation called in after his round:
But some good news: more practice time!
Tour To Westwood: You'll Be Missed But The Fifth Of Four Majors Will Go On
/Somehow I'm not sensing they are worried about a sales dip in Ponte Vedra on the news that Lee Westwood won't be coming to The Players. Garry Smits reports:
Read MorePurple Cardigans Not Expecting Return Invite To Ryder Cup After Love Vows To Have U.S. Team Looking, Feeling Comfortable
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From Nancy Armour's story on Davis Love's widely applauded (here, here, here and here) appointment as 2012 Ryder Cup captain.Historic Shadow Creek To Re-Open After Renovation!
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You know those masterpieces, requiring tree removal and other dusting off after 20 years. Anyway, I know it's the Las Vegas Sun, but still, you have to giggle at John Katsilometes revealing that after all of these years, Shadow Creek is finally going to be available to the public for either $500 or as a spectator at Michael Jordan's Celebrity Invitational.NGF: "Market Correction of Supply/Demand Imbalance Continue"
/You have to chuckle at that header from the NGF, former proponents of the open-a-course-a-day-to keep up with demand.
Read MorePadraig's Driving Range Addiction Becoming Apparent
/After a 65 despite 438 swing thoughts:
"And obviously then I had a knock on effect. I had to change my chipping action and bunker action. I had a good six weeks," he said to much laughter in the interview room.
Whoa: Monty Was On The Committee That Suspended Saltman!**
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From the beloved you-can't-make-it-up files, Lawrence Donegan writes about the European Tour considering a revamp of their disciplinary procedures now that it looks like Elliot Saltman's suspension may not stand up to legal scrutiny. And it was Colin Montgomerie, who received what many declare to be one of the great caught-cheating free passes ever, who sat in judgement of Saltman. But that's not what they want to overhaul!
