For Your Consideration: David Graham In The WGHOF

Dave Shedloski catches up with David Graham, who has fallen off the World Golf Hall of Fame ballot even though he has two majors and 25 worldwide wins, not to mention all-important-to-Commissioner-Loyalty, a Presidents Cup captaincy.

"It's hurtful," Graham, 66, said of his omission from the Hall of Fame. "When you have a record that should mean something and it doesn't, you have to wonder what's going on."

Graham isn't even on the Hall of Fame ballot, having fallen off in 2000 after failing to garner five percent of the vote in consecutive years. His only avenue to Hall inclusion is the veteran's category -- the route through which Ken Venturi will be inducted in May with Couples, Montgomerie, former European Tour executive director Ken Schofield and Willie Park Jr., who won two Open Championships in the late 1880s.

Lorne: "The one and only relevant question: Is anchoring a stroke of golf?"

As the bickering over the anchoring ban turns political, Lorne Rubinstein tries to get us thinking about the heart of the issue: is it a stroke or not?

This seems to me to be an argument about that cloudy and also dreamy subject of “growing the game.” That’s the new buzz phrase in golf. The PGA of America and Golf Canada, to cite two national organizations, are always going on about “growing the game,” and if that means changing the game, or at least one important aspect of it, so be it. They may be interested in growing the game, but maybe they don’t care about considering the central and fundamental question of whether anchoring is a stroke of golf.

This all leads to irrelevancy number two, which is that anchoring has been around for 30 or more years, and it has, in much more limited numbers, and so why ban it now? Phil Mickelson has said he doesn’t think anchoring should be part of the game, but that it’s too late to ban it. Why should that be? If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.

"Elkington splashes onto the Champions Tour with the same gorgeous swing, but as a combination of 1920s barnstorming player and Internet startup CEO."

Brett Avery gets to the bottom of what Steve Elkington is doing with his cultish Secretinthedirt.com web community and his stunning new house on wheels that will be his home-away-from-home as he travels the Champions Tour.

Bob Croslin's photos of Elkington's amazing big rig accompany the story in Golf World and the online edition.

Through organic growth Secret has members from more than 125 countries. Maves equates the 30,000 unique monthly visitors to Twitter, where a core stokes conversations and far more read and retweet. Elkington claims that by dress and swing alone he can pick from a crowd any Dirters, as they call themselves. "We always try to get them to think a little deeper," Elkington says. "Take responsibility for your own game."

Among the converted is Ross Roark, a west Texas horse trainer who met Elkington 15 years ago. Roark discovered Secret as a mid-80s shooter with a looping, knee-dipping swing many instructors might scrap. Roark grooved his action by studying about 300 videos, one reason the new Secret channel on YouTube has logged a million views. "If you want to know anything about golf, about the swing or the way it's supposed to be done, it's right there in The Vault," he says. Last summer Roark, now scratch, shot a 63.

Video: See The Gretzky House Overlooking Sherwood That Lenny Dyksra Trashed

The house has been fixed up since Lenny Dykstra bought it and made a mess of things, but you can see what the views overlooking Sherwood Country Club are like and get a feel for a room with orange walls.

Thanks to reader Tobin for this "house of the week" video.

Furyk: "We have to wait and see what the USGA indeed does"

Ryan Lavner reports from Tucson where he spoke to Policy Board member Jim Furyk about last night's phone call.

Not surprisingly, Furyk was cryptic in his remarks though this made me wonder if the PGA Tour will not be asking for a withdrawal of the proposed ban:

Said Furyk, “We’re not discussing what we’re going to do – if the USGA does this, how are we going to reply; if the USGA does that, and so on. That’s down the road. We have to wait and see what the USGA indeed does do and then we can figure out what our job is at that point. For right now, it was just a real friendly talk getting ideas.”