Tag: Golf

Funny Quotes From Boo

Book Weekley, one of the guys representing the U.S. in the Omega Mission Hills World Cup played in China November 22 – 25, is notorious for his quotes. Here’s a recent sample:

Q: Boo?
BOO WEEKLEY: I’m excited to go over there, and like Heath said, it’s an honor to represent your country. I wouldn’t have gone by myself, though; it’s not that I didn’t want to represent my country, but I ain’t into traveling, especially during hunting season.

Q: What season is it?
BOO WEEKLEY: Deer.

Q: It would be deer season if you were at home now?
BOO WEEKLEY: I would have gotten up at 4:30 in the morning, and I’d probably still be in the woods right now.

Q: You would be looking around and —
BOO WEEKLEY: I’d be up a tree, about 35, 40 feet.

The PGA Tour Season Is Cooked

The 2007 PGA Tour season is cooked. Done. Finis. The Fall Series has finally limped to a close and the top 125 spots are set. You would have had to win at least $785,180 to make keep your card. Even more impressive, ninety-nine players made over $1,000,000 this season. I don’t know what the expenses are, but even after taxes, travel and caddy expenses, they’re making a good living. (Their job is golf – I would kill for that.)

Stephen Ames won at Disney yesterday. He seems like the kind of guy who should win “Disney.” Nice, big smile – really big smile.

So, what now?

I suggest you take some time away from the boob-tube and play some real golf. If it’s too damn cold out, here’s the Silly Season line-up:

ADT Skills Challenge – Played on November 5 -6, but not aired until December 29 -30. This is like The Golf Channel’s Big Break with PGA Tour pros.

Why I’ll watch: Greg Norman is slated to play.

Wendy’s 3 Tour Challenge – November 12 – 13. I’d like to see more tournaments that pit the three major U.S. professional golf tours – PGA, SPGA, LPGA – against one another. Or some combination thereof. It’s fun to see the strengths and weaknesses of the women vs seniors vs men.

Why I’ll watch: Cool to see the three tours playing on one course.

OMEGA Mission Hills World Cup – November 22 – 25. This isn’t so silly, but it’s not that big of a draw for players. Boo Weekley, who would rather be hunting, and Heath Slocum will represent the U.S.

Why I’ll watch: The event is being played in China.

LG Skins Game – November 24 -25. This is the grand daddy of all the off season. It’s like the off season major, but it means absolutely nothing, except maybe to Freddy Couples who dominates this event year after year.

Why I’ll watch: Couples is playing. Again.

Merrill Lynch Shootout – December 7 – 9. Greg Norman hosts as player-pairs vie for silly season glory in three rounds of alternate shot, better-ball, and scramble play.

Why I’ll watch: Good field and fun format to watch.

Target World Challenge – December 13 – 16. This is Tiger’s tournament and it will be his first appearance after his longest break as a professional. The purse is $5.75M for a invitational field of eighteen.

Why I’ll watch: Tiger Woods will be playing.

The Housing Bubble Effect On Golf Courses

The housing market was on a huge upswing through about May 2006. It’s stagnated there for a while and now there is talk of the bubble bursting. The sub-prime market – mortgages made to those who don’t qualify for legitimate mortgages – is a mess, and part of the problem. Overvaluation is also a problem.

Here’s a nice graph of what’s happening with housing prices in 20 major cities (link):

So, what’s the effect on golf courses? Myrtle Beach last year:

Sixteen area courses closed in 2005 and 2006, all with redevelopment plans that included housing developments.

And now…

The rash of course closures has remedied a struggling golf market that had been saturated with layouts, and contributed to the flooding of a housing market that has been burdened with increased listings but slower sales over the past two years.

If courses aren’t now jumping to convert to the housing developments, at least they’re not closing. I suppose that’s an improvement.

Looking at the cities listed in the graphic above, we can get a sense for what “golfing cities” housing markets are hit the hardest. I don’t have any data on the state of golf course closings or developments in these cities, but my best guess would be that course development projects will slow with the housing market.

Halloween Special: Scary Course Names

Sports Illustrated lists the top nine scariest golf course names:

1. Purgatory Golf Club
2. The Devil’s Claw at Whirlwind
3. The Blue Monster at Doral
4. Hell’s Point Golf Club
5. Deep Cliff Golf Course
6. Shark River Golf Course
7. Devil’s Lake Golf Course
8. The Monster Course at Concord
9. Bigfoot Golf & Country Club

My thoughts on the list: Golf course names are, predictably, not that scary. How about these:

  • Scariest shot: Long bunker shot with water behind the green.
  • Scariest closing hole: Long par four with water right, perhaps.
  • Scariest looking golf clubs: Cleveland VAS irons – the ones Corey Pavin used to play. I used them for several years.

Roundup: Beaver Meadows GC – Part 2

Yesterday, I sped to the golf course as soon as my Evidence class ended at 2:30pm. I grabbed my phone and wallet off the car dashboard, slipped on my golf shoes without even a thought of tying them, and hurried into the clubhouse to pay my twilight fee – twenty-two bucks for all the golf I want and ten bucks for a cart. I don’t usually take a cart, but rain was imminent and I didn’t want to get stranded on the outer-reaches of the course without my umbrella, which was thoughtfully left in the closet at home.

Expecting the rain to shorten my round to nine holes or less and wanting to play the back nine for the fist time ever, I started on the tenth hole. The tenth hole was a par-5 with a slight dogleg right. I striped a driver down the center of the fairway with a slight fade. For not warming up on the range, it was a fluke shot. I laughed, and ran back to the gas cart and sped off.

Beaver Meadows is at best a mediocre golf course. It’s draw, for me, is its availability. On fall weekday afternoons there may be ten other people on the entire course besides me. It allows me to play one, two or as many as eight balls on each hole.

The front nine is boring, relatively unimaginative and open. Open is OK, if there is some definition to the holes. The only hole that catches my eye is the eighth hole, which is a par four with a right-to-left sloping fairway. The green is relatively large and has a closely mowed collection area to the front right. It’s bunkered on the left and back.

Playing the back nine was refreshing after having made several semi-loops around the front nine. The back nine was more wooded, which doesn’t make a golf course unless, like me, you grew up in Northern Lower Michigan and you’re used to courses cut through forests. The trees provided some definition, and gave me an idea of what type of shot to hit. More importantly, they challenged me to not hit certain types of shots, lest I wish my speeding golf ball meet a heavily wooded peril accentuated with that distinctive Titleist on bark click.

I birdied the fourteenth hole, an uphill dogleg right par-4 that measured 430 yards, by hitting a fade driver and an eight iron to ten feet. The putt, a slippery left-to-right breaker, made more difficult by the recently punched greens, poured in the front left of the cup. That was the best execution of three consecutive shots I’ve hit all year.

After fighting the wind, avoiding the rain, and trudging through thousands of fallen leaves, I completed sixteen holes. I skipped six and seven on the front to get around a slow walking couple. I flushed two two-irons of the tee on the ninth hole (my 18th). It was a strong finish to a fun round on a late fall day.

Fined for Lack of Effort?!?!

Can you imagine being fined for “lack of effort”?

Fourth ranked men’s professional tennis player Nikolay Davydenko was fined $2000 for just that after losing a match in his home country of Russia to a player ranked outside the top 100.

How’s that for the ol’ heave ho… sigh… sputter… can I go home yet?

Allegations of match-fixing have been flying around for a while in professional tennis, and it’s just now coming to fruition. The organizations are considering an “integrity unit,” whatever that is.

How easy would it be to tell if a top ranked golfer was “mailing it in”? And does it even matter?

I can’t get beyond the “does it matter” question. Golf is such a fickle game that a player in the zone one day can play horribly the next. There is a margin these guys play within, and it’s fairly tight, but even the best players in the world will post a round in the high 70s a few times a year. A round which could be accused of lacking effort.

If the player knows he’s well outside the cut or not in contention on Sunday, some “lack of effort” can be presumed. It’s like a nod to the golf gods that he’ll save his best for the next tournament.

So, does it matter if a player tries his hardest? It might matter to the individual player and his image, but it likely doesn’t matter to the tournament.

Golf has long been known for it’s emphasis on self-regulation. It’s often said that if you want to teach your kids integrity, have them take up golf. Every round of golf offers the opportunity to cheat and to cheat yourself by giving in by becoming apathetic. What builds character is persevering when your fades are hooking and you’re hitting out of divots.

However, there’s no direct opponent in stroke play, so throwing a match isn’t possible. Even if a player does “check out early,” his impact on the tournament is far less noticeable than when a top ranked tennis player throws a match. And no one at home can tell when a golfer is displaying a “lack of effort.”

One of the many great things about televised golf is that it ignores most golfers (excepting Tiger Woods) when they’re not playing well. It’s tough to pull away from a featured tennis match.

(Or maybe professional golf needs an integrity committee along with it’s new drug testing policy.)