...but not a word about distance issues from the former U.S. Open champion and member of the Masters Cup and Tee Marker Placement Committee.
Jim Achenbach says Graham believes amateurs should be able to carry as many clubs as they want, with as much loft as they'd like to allow them to hit flops like Tiger and Phil (even though that takes special skill) and he's for the long putter too.
“If we examine long putters, it’s easy to see they have allowed a lot of people across the board to get more enjoyment from the game,” Graham says. “Absolutely the long putter has helped the game. It’s a good thing.
“Besides, even with a certain amount of opposition to the long putter, it may be too late to change it. Many golfers thoroughly depend on these putters. With this kind of passion, I think the game itself becomes the benefactor.”
The TPC Sawgrass maintenance blog has video of the scene Monday after over six inches of rain. Good luck to superintendent Tom Vlach and team with the damage assessment and cleanup.
The 14-year-old landed in the U.S. Open field after Paul Casey withdrew with an injury. He played a Tuesday practice round with Masters champion Watson, and after walking off the 18th green was surrounded by media members who didn't stop asking questions.
"It's my first time doing all this stuff," Zhang said. "I should have said 'Stop,' when I wanted to stop. I didn't know what to do. I kept going and answering questions. I didn't want to keep up the group behind us."
Ah the young lad, who was better than most twice his age at answering questions, just needs to understand that we didn't want to talk to the geezers behind him.
Lost Farms 15th, as viewed from the resort restaurant (click to enlarge)From an unbylined ABC report, landowner Richard Sattler has prevailed in a dispute that has paralyzed one of the great golf destinations from moving forward with future plans and better coordinating operations between two world class designs, Tom Doak and Mike Clayton'sBarnbougle Dunes, and Bill Coore's Lost Farm.
Links Golf Tasmania, the operator of Barnbougle Dunes, sued Richard Sattler the owner of the land upon which Barnbougle and the neighbouring Lost Farm courses are built.
LGT claimed Mr Sattler, a former director and chief executive officer of the company, used expertise gained while involved with Barnbougle to set up the rival Lost Farm course.
LGT claimed it should have had the opportunity to build and operate the Lost Farm Course and Mr Sattler breached his position of trust and duties under the Corporation Act when he developed it as his own. But Federal Court Justice Christopher Jessop has found as the owner of the land it was up to Mr Sattler how he used it.
The Irish Open returns to one of the world's great courses in Royal Portrush this week, with a solid field that includes 10 major winners, including Rory McIlroy, Padraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell and Keegan Bradley. This is also an opportunity for Portrush to show the R&A if it's capable of hosting another Open Championship, which last visited Northern Ireland in 1951.
Golf Channel will be airing coverage in the U.S. at 6 a.m. PT Thursday and Friday, and starting at 5:30 a.m. PT on the weekend. Whether you've been there or not, or just remember it from recent Senior Opens, it's a fantastic links worth watching.
In the years from 1927 to 1953, an informal rota of using courses North and South operated and, then, after a 10-year hiatus, the tournament returned (under the Carrolls International banner) and was played exclusively in the South (mainly at Woodbrook) before the Irish Open was properly revived in 1975.
Since then, 11 courses, all in the South, have played host to the championship . . . and, so, its return to Northern shores, for the first time since Belvoir Park in 1953, is both apposite and timely.
Deborah McAleese explains how Northern Ireland is preparing for the Queen's visit along with the Irish Open, and notes that Bill Murray is among those scheduled to play the pro-am.
Finally, there's an excellent Renton Laidlaw narrated "Hidden Links Golf Tours" video that is just under four minutes and tremendous fun, including a tour inside the Doctor's Locker, a look at one of golf's great halfway houses (but not halfway on the course), and plenty of fun course insights.
Guess he just wanted to keep the pranksters at the All England Club on their toes by whipping a kids golf club out of his racket bag before his opening match.
Except for that one drawing for the warden, I never copy holes exactly. I use a photograph as a starting point and then morph the image in my own way. Sometimes I'll find a tiny piece of reference material, like a tree on a stamp or mountains on a calendar, and then imagine my own golf course with it. I find the challenge of integrating these visions very rewarding.
The past two years I've drawn more than 130 golf pictures with colored pencils and 6-by-8-inch sheets of paper I order through the mail. We're not allowed to have brushes and paints, but that's all right; I like pencils. When I was little, my mom and grandma used to slap my hand because of the unconventional way I gripped the pencil, until one day my aunt Gwen told them to stop and look at the comics I'd done from the newspaper. My mom didn't believe I'd done it without tracing, so she made me draw them again freehand as she watched.
John Strege explains the peculiar Travelers finale where Marc Leishman fired a 62 and the leaders playing two hours later all folded down the stretch, handing the win to the 28-year-old Australian.
Leishman, it should be noted, counts another Aussie, Greg Norman, as his idol. Norman won here, too, in 1995. But Norman is known as much for his pratfalls as for the otherwise stellar record that landed him in the World Golf Hall of Fame, and he'd have been at home among those kindred spirits littering the course on the back nine.
"It's a funny game," Leishman said. But a comedy of errors doesn't make it a comedy, nor does a one-stroke victory make it a drama. That leaves horror among the available genres.
If you look closely during the highlight package, you'll see Leishman make one putt during his round.
Geoff Shackelford
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning Drive, is co-host of The Ringer's ShackHouse is the author of eleven books.
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