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 BBC's description of a three minute clip at the Old Course first tee where Bill Murray is playing the Dunhill Links Championship.
Hollywood star Bill Murray is grouchy with "moron" reporters but his mood improves after what must have been a good practice round at St Andrews for the Dunhill Links Championship.
There was actually some inexplicable social media criticism of NBC for airing a replay of Bernhard Langer's 1991 Ryder Cup putt right before Martin Kaymer's putt to ensure the cup returned to Europe.
Seems the putt crossed Kaymer's mind, too. From an Graham Otway's Dunhill Links Championship report today:
"I was standing behind the ball and then when I bent down and saw a footprint, Bernhard's miss crossed my mind for half a second. But it didn't have any influence in a positive or negative way. I saw the footprint, thought Bernhard, okay, gone. But it's in the past – it was 21 years ago.
"And if you stick to the facts it was the easiest putt you can have, even though with all the circumstances. It was uphill and inside the right line. There is no easier putt. We have to make that putt millions of times and I had to try to forget about the Ryder Cup."
It's just a shame Kaymer only made the putt to secure a tie. Unlike Molinari, who won the Cup for Europe!
I'll be curious to read the entire Tom Callahan piece on Ernie Els in the November Golf Digest, but the snippet released today would seem to suggest that Els is inching ever so close to admitting an addiction that he has been able to shake.
"Excessive drinking is not good for my health, my family or my game. There has definitely been a change, and I feel better for it. The boys from the club will say, 'Come over Friday and we'll have a couple of beers.' 'No thanks; I feel too good. I want to go practice. I want to be with my kids.' If I don't have one more party for the rest of my life, I'm still ahead of the game."
"Adam Scott traveled with me around the world. We could write books on the stuff we did. But fun stuff. I'm not talking about seedy crap. Just fun, almost like boy stuff."
I think it's time to bring back the Buddies Issue and share the details of boyish but not seedy drunken escapades!
I see a published "diary" and I brace myself for spin or few details, but not in the case of Davis Love's detail rich Ryder Cup recollections (presumably ghosted by SI's Michael Bamberger).
There are several fun insights like this:
I said to Scott Verplank, one of my assistants, "Which match do I watch?" You want to do everything, and you really can't do much of anything. You're a baseball manager, and every one of your pitchers is on the mound in the ninth inning of a Game 7. Jim Furyk walked by me after losing the 17th hole. The Ryder Cup on the line. I wanted to say something, but what could I say? He walked by me with that fierce game face of his on, and frustratingly I found myself saying nothing. I turned to Jeff Sluman, another of my assistants, and said, "Well, that was brilliant." But the fact is, in golf it's better to err on the side of saying too little than too much. And I'm sure there were times I said too much.
This is going to give his critics of Saturday afternoon's Keegan/Phil benching some ammunition. Personally, I just love the honesty:
After three sessions we had a considerable four-point lead, with the team of Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson winning three times. Fred Couples, another of my four assistants, said to me, "Man, that Keegan Bradley is on fire. Ride him all the way to the house."
In other words, he wanted me to play the Bradley-Mickelson team again on Saturday afternoon in Session IV. I know a lot of fans and commentators were thinking the same thing. But Phil told me he was tired after three matches and wanted to rest for the Sunday singles. There was no reason to play Keegan with a partner with whom he had not practiced. There was no reason to mess with order. Things were going according to plan. In Session IV, Europe, and most especially Ian Poulter, caught fire late and won two matches. Still, everything was good. A four-point U.S. lead. Enter Seve.
Steve Carp on an unseamly ending to the relationship between Shriners Hospital and Justin Timberlake on the eve of this year's PGA Tour stop in Las Vegas.
The event chairman, tournament chairman Raoul Frevel, who probably a few chilly calls from Ponte Vedra over these remarks. And deservedly so.
"We're a world-class organization," Frevel said. "At the time we got involved with golf, we were told by the Tour we needed a big name, and that's how our relationship with Justin came about.
"Justin's a wonderful person. But we tried everything we could to get him more involved with our kids and the hospitals. But it seemed that when the TV cameras weren't on, he disappeared."
I'm not sure if Las Vegas is just spoiled by all of the celebrities or the parties involved just don't like Timberlake, but I noted last year after visiting the event how impressed I was with Timberlake's energy during the Wednesday pro-am, but that didn't stop some pretty tough criticism in the Las Vegas press. Apparently these events never saw how tour stops went with Andy Williams and Glen Campbell who couldn't put on the kind of fundraising concert that Timberlake did in Vegas.
They also have the tour's best tournament logo.
The New York Daily News's Greg Smith reports that Ferry Point, a Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course to be managed by Donald Trump, has been put on notice by New York city controller John Liu due to staggering cost overruns.
On Thursday, Liu informed Parks that the audit “will determine whether the Parks Department carried out or implemented recommendations” from that prior audit.
The recommendations included tracking progress of the project against its start and completion dates, preparing an “itemized breakdown of all required activities” at the project and carefully monitoring all “invoices, canceled checks and other related documentation.”
Parks spokeswoman Vickie Carr did not respond to requests for comment about whether the agency had implemented the 2007 recommendations.
The Parks Department says the project is expected to cost the taxpayers $97 million, although The News found contracts assigned to the Ferry Point golf course totaling $120 million.
As a result, commentaries (here and here) are questioning the wisdom of spending so much while other city services are falling apart.
In a speech last week endorsing Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Nicklaus bemoaned the number of Americans on government funded food stamps and lamented excessive government spending.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
