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
The Luke Donald-Webb Simpson money title story has caused too many sleepless nights across the globe as these two starving students won't be dueling Sunday over bonus clauses. Instead, as Helen Ross note, there are some players to watch whose careers are on the line.
Derek Lawrenson gets Chubby Chandler on the phone and after a few more hours (and perhaps a wee nip or two), he opened up about Rory McIlroy's shock firing of the famous manager.
Tim Rosaforte talks to Chubby Chandler after the game's most prominent 10-percenter was dropped by the game's most marketable star. Besides revealing how McIlroy fired Chandler (Kennedy Airport will never be the same for Chubby), he reveals that Chandler was caught off guard by the decision.Chubby charged the net first, as quoted in this unbylined SkySports.com story on the stunning player-agent break up.
Chandler said: "Onward and upwards. We have had a quite brilliant year. The company is growing and adapting to ensure it stays at the forefront of golf and the business of managing players. We wish Rory every success.
"It has been an honour representing Rory and we take great pride in the role ISM has played in guiding him successfully through his formative years as a professional golfer.
"Under our management he has grown into an international figure and he leaves us as a major champion."
McIlroy, given the opportunity to demonstrate the form taught to him by Caroline, volleyed back.
I would like to sincerely thank Andrew 'Chubby' Chandler and his team for their guidance, representation, and management over the past four years, since turning pro.
Okay, first sign someone else wrote this: the "Andrew" reference. Go on, PR person:
"Chubby and his team have played a very important role in my success to date. I have made great progress under their management and for that I will always be grateful.
"I am now keen to move onto the next stage of my career and I feel this will be facilitated by a fresh view and a new structure around me. Therefore I am delighted to be joining Horizon and I look forward to working with my new team."
In Emily Kay's item on James Driscoll reluctantly looking to the belly putter, there was this about his fellow Sean Foley accolyte and Medalist member.
Despite the mass migration to what are quickly becoming conventional blades, Driscoll believes one golfer fans will never see with one is Tiger Woods.
“He was giving me a hard time for practicing with it a couple of weeks ago,” said Driscoll, who shares Woods’ swing coach, Sean Foley, and is a long-time member of Woods’ new course, Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Fla. “He said he’d never go to the long putter. He has tried it and says he just can’t stroke it.”
Robert Lusetich explains the various backstories in the Norman-Woods-Couples-triangle. Oh, and perhaps why Robert Allenby's name got dragged into the drama too.
Perhaps it’s not surprising, given the bad blood between Norman and Woods, dating to when they shared coach Butch Harmon. Sharing’s a difficult proposition for two men accustomed to getting their way.
“Tiger and Greg don’t speak,” said a source who knows both well. “There’s a lot of animosity between them.”
Indeed, one reason Woods wanted the word spread about the course-record 62 he shot at the Medalist course in Jupiter, Fla., a few weeks ago is that Norman’s best score on the course he co-designed is 64.
It was a classic retaliation at the Great White Shark’s declaration a week beforehand that Woods would never win another major.
Although the PGA Tour's announcement of a new Latin America developmental tour felt a bit rushed based on the announced timing and light details on how exactly players could work their way onto the Nationwide Tour, lost in this is just how seriously the PGA Tour is taking the Olympics.
Sean Martin reveals that U.S. Amateur champion Kelly Kraft will not pull a Colt Knost, and instead play the Masters before turning pro. Of course, that means passing up the U.S. Open and Open Championships.
“I’m going to turn pro basically Sunday night after the Masters,” Kraft said. “I’m not going to play in the Open or the Open Championship because I can try to qualify for those.”
In contast, an unbylined Daily Mail report says Javier Ballesteros is going to turn pro after…law school.
'I have an invitation to play next May in the Majorca Open and I will play, for sure,' one-handicapper Javier said.
'Then when I've finished my law degree I would like to give it a shot and turn pro.
'While I am studying I cannot train a lot. I hit 200 balls every day but I can play only once a week and playing is when you really learn the game.'
PGA TOUR Latinoamérica to kick-off inaugural season in 2012
Wow, only one cap on Latinoamérica...
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL (October 20, 2011)—The PGA TOUR announced today the creation of PGA TOUR Latinoamérica, a professional tour initially consisting of 11 events played in seven countries across Latin America.
“We are delighted to announce the launch of PGA TOUR Latinoamérica,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem. “This expansion into Latin America, when combined with what the Nationwide Tour has been able to accomplish in the region in recent year’s, is part of the natural progression for golf which continues to grow globally. We see this as an opportunity to help in the further development of elite players across the region. The timing is right, with South America hosting its first ever Olympic Games, which includes golf’s return to the competition for the first time in more than 100 years. The Latin American market has already produced several PGA TOUR stars, and one of our goals for this tour is to help develop the Latin American stars of the future.”
The 11-event schedule, the result of a collaborative effort among the PGA TOUR, Tour de Las Americas, National Golf Federations, promoters and host clubs in the region, will be contested from September through December 2012. In 2013, the plan is to have up to 14 events on the schedule. The events will take players through various parts of the region including Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru. A complete schedule will be released in the near future.
And now for the quote pile-on.
Alright, let's get to the takeaway here...
PGA TOUR Latinoamérica events will be 72-hole stroke play tournaments consisting of fields of up to 144 players. The fields will consist primarily of the top professionals in the region with the top money earners receiving access to the PGA TOUR’s Nationwide Tour the following year. The specifics of Nationwide Tour access will be disclosed next year prior to the start of the 2012 PGA TOUR Latinoamérica schedule.
Receiving access? Translation: details to be bickered over at upcoming player and policy board meetings.
From there, the release features a big quote pile-on that won't improve your day.
My knee-jerk takeaway?
The European Challenge Tour should stay away from Latin America, and, as Sean Martin noted when writing about this earlier this year, this should help get more South Americans world ranking points and therefore eligible for the 2016 Olympics. But as Martin notes in a new story on the announcement, discussions about those points have a ways to go.
We should probably leave the last word on the Tiger selection by Captain Couples to Geoff Ogilvy, who summed it up best during a pre-Presidents Cup teleconference call today:
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
