The World Hickory Open Was This Week...

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I'm a bit horrified to have acknowledged this cash grab in Turkey when soulful golfers were teeing it up in the World Hickory Open. The event was Monday and Tuesday at Monifeith and Carnoustie Burnside, reports the Scotsman.

The World Hickory Open Championship was established in 2004 and played at Musselburgh Golf Course, the oldest surviving playing surface in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records.

Hickory clubs are available on the day, which is primarily to encourage parties of all abilities to participate.

According to regular hickory golfers, one of the main attractions of using hickory clubs is being able to ‘feel’ every shot - and also allowing classic golf courses to be played as intended.

A BBC preview story featured this:

This year's event has attracted about 100 players from more than 30 countries.

Competitors are limited to clubs made before, or made to replicate those manufactured before, 1935.

The World Hickory Open Championship was first held in 2005 and has become popular across Europe and the United States.

The event's chairman, Lionel Freedman, said: "It is a lot to do with the fact that the game has changed out of all recognition in the last few years and there are people who enjoy the challenge of playing with clubs that were made after the Great War.

"It brings back into play the courses that are far too short for the modern club and ball."

The official website didn't have scores but it did have this fantastic featurette with the sweet-swinging Perry Summers and Randy Jensen talking about the joys of hickory golf, a famous challenge match between Old Tom Morris and Willie Park, and showing off the magnificent Musselburgh.

"That the European Tour could come to a decision less than two weeks after the Meltdown at Medinah is truly remarkable."

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Fantastically cranky stuff from Brian Keogh as he senses that Paul McGinley has been pushed aside for Lee Westwood's favorite public speaker Darren Clarke in the 2014 Ryder Cup captaincy stakes.

It’s a fait accompli anyway if you believe Her Majesty’s Press and one that will prove “popular with club golfers up and down the land, who identify with Clarke’s obvious struggles with his volcanic temperament on the course and his love of a pint off it.”

If that’s the case, so much for the transparency of the selection process, the opinion of the Tournament Players Committee and the general intelligence level of the sporting public, who have surely learned to see beyond the comic cut caricature of Clarke’s public persona.

Clarke, McGinley and captaincy candidates Thomas Bjorn and Miguel Angel Jimenez are also members of that august Committee alongside Colin Montgomerie, Felipe Aguilar, Paul Casey, Gonzalo Fernandez Castaño, Richard Finch, Joakim Haeggman, David Howell, Robert Karlsson, Barry Lane or Henrik Stenson.

Perhaps they’ve all agreed already that there really is just one man for the job given Clarke’s inexorable slide into irrelevance as a player since he captured the 2011 Open Championship at Royal St George’s.

And...

It’s not that Clarke would be poor but is he really a better candidate for the job that McGinley who led two understrength GB&I teams to Seve Trophy victories and played a blinder as a vice-captain in 2010 and this year. It’s certainly debatable and that the European Tour could come to a decision less than two weeks after the Meltdown at Medinah is truly remarkable.

Headbutting Turk Official Serves Up Fantastic Futbol Analogy

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From Phil Casey's Independent story on the first tee skirmish that livened up the Turkey Final and led to Turkish Golf Federation Head and Stevie Williams wannabe Ahmet Agaoglu serving up this explanation.

But give the man credit, he's doing his part to put the incident to bed.

"I was there explaining this is not like other sports - while Messi is going to take a penalty you cannot go into the six-yard area to take a picture - and while saying this there was a reaction saying 'You cannot push us back, you cannot shout at us'.

"I was being pushed by one of them and pushed them back as well, the poor guy (local journalist Cihat Unal) was in the wrong place in the wrong time.

"While organising such tournaments I shouldn't have to be there, but I am trying to make everything so perfect. It was unlucky it happened and I will given a written apology because one way or another it was not nice.

"He stumbled back and I was almost going to fall over him."

Why Tiger Joining The European Tour Would Have An Impact

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I saw the news out of the Turkey Final about Tiger suggesting he might take up European Tour membership if the rules are changed to include the various Cups as appearances. And I yawned, then moved right along.

But Bob Harig explains that such a membership requirement change, coupled with a few other factor$, makes the scenario increasingly likely and would certainly mean fewer appearances in the U.S. Perhaps as many as 3-4 events shaved off his PGA Tour schedule.

Because he is formalizing an endorsement deal with Turkish Airlines, it would make sense that Woods add a new Turkish European Tour event to his schedule -- which will be played in November 2013, just a week prior to the season-ending Dubai World Championship.

So four majors, four WGCs, Abu Dhabi (or something similar early in the year), Ryder Cup/Presidents Cup, Turkey and the season-ending Dubai event would bring the total to 12. He could, possibly, add the European Tour event in China prior to the WGC; or he could play another event around the time of Abu Dhabi during the tour's Gulf Coast Swing.

Bookies Drop Darren Clarke To Even Money!

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Paul Mahoney tweeted the new William Hill 2014 Ryder Cup captaincy odds and even better, Clarke Tweeted a Montyesque "the rumors are not entirely true but I really hope they are."

The decision will be made in January. Supposedly.

The Re-Match Of The Match That Was Tweeted

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Alan Shipnuck's tweets of the First Tee Special Boosters exhibition match, where Fred Couples was replaced at the last minute by Nick Watney, can be read here.

While Shipnuck was clearly holding back to prevent one of Tim Finchem's henchmen from marching him to a watery Pacific Ocean grave, there are some photos showing how sweet Cypress Point is looking.

Alec Baldwin Liked To Honk His Horn At The Top Of Backswings And Other Wacky Tales From East Hampton

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The NY Posts' Kate Briquelet talks to looper Scott Werner about his new self-published tell-all, Caddie Tales ($1.99 on Amazon for Kindle readers).

The 48-year-old former financier turned caddie tells stories about the Hamptons elite at East Hampton Golf Club, a $400,000-to-join Coore-Crenshaw course.

Werner recalls one morning when a mogul just couldn’t take losing to his financial adviser. He threw his putter in the air, upbraided the golf ball, and stomped around the fairway in anger.

Then he lined up next to a wad of foam he thought was a ball and swung so hard, he collapsed.

“These are people controlling the financial world, and it’s amazing, the things they say,” said Werner, who travels as a caddy-trainer and once carried for Tiger Woods and Jack Nicholson.

And my favorite because it's so believable, so perfect for Alec and is just plain funny to imagine:

When the club first opened years ago, Alec Baldwin would terrorize CEOs by driving up to the course in a blue car and park with a cup of coffee, Werner recalled.

Anytime someone would take a swing, he’d honk his horn to faze them. It’s rumored he loathed the club for environmental reasons.

Shorts-Wearers Win Three Of Four Matches In Turkey Final

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Derek Lawrenson in the Daily Mail, reporting on day one of the Turkey Final cash grab, which included of pro football pro-am participants...errr...golfers Lee Westwood and Charl Schwartzel in shorts.

The other thing of note was the fact, for the first time in a leading professional event, the players were allowed to wear shorts if they chose. Four of the eight-man field took up the option.

Intriguingly, all four matches featured one man wearing long trousers and his opponent wearing shorts.

The result of that little game-within-a-game was three to one in favour of the men trying something new.

"153 Golf Organisations unite to focus on sustainability as a core priority"

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The International Golf Federation that spearheaded golf's return to the Olympics is broadening its scope by issuing a statement today announcing sustainability as its "core priority." You can read the statement in PDF form here.

"The future will present many challenged but the IGF and its member organizations are working to ensure that many more generations will enjoy golf and the facilities on which it is played."

A couple of screen grabs of the fine print:


We were doing so well until the last jargon dump of an item. Go on...

It's pretty exciting to read this kind of focus on the future and desire to shrink the footprint of golf courses. But this is all utter nonsense if the distance the ball travels is not reduced via some form of regulation. Otherwise, the game will continue to spend money on new tees, more rough, faster greens and bigger properties.