On Our Mind Golf Blog

When Michelle Wie failed to affix her signature, the very same signature that has been penned on lucrative endorsement contracts earning her close to $30 million, to her scorecard after the second round of last week's LPGA State Farm Classic in Illinois thus disqualifying her from the event, a Pandora's Box of criticism dissecting and second-guessing the 18-year-old's career was again torn open.

For the record Wie, who wasn't alerted to the infraction until after the completion of her third round, which placed her second just one stroke behind the leader, was on the verge of her first ever LPGA Tour victory.

Indecision - a phenomenon that grips Americans each and every day as we struggle to sift through the vast abyss of choices presented to us almost constantly. Wouldn't it just be better to have a little bit of everything?

Leave it to the restaurant industry, seldom the picture of pioneering and innovation, to provide a framework of just how to do it. 

The first United States Golf Association Rating system was established in 1911. The proposal made by Leighton Calkins, who served on the USGA Executive Committee in 1907 and 1908) was that par ratings be based on the play of the U.S. Amateur Champion; at the time the amateur champion was Jerome Travers, who won four amateur titles from 1907 - 1913.

Rating courses according to the "expected" score of the national amateur champion became accepted, and course rating was born in America.
 

Enamored as we are with the many of idiosyncrasies of links golf (the wind, the rain, the bunkers capable of consuming humans as well as golf balls) the prevailing thought headed into this year's Open Championship is that it would take something special for us to forget who wasn't at Birkdale. That was not a reference to Kenny Perry.

Padraig Harrington's eventual repeat victory is a monumental story in Ireland and is being celebrated across the European continent but we were all sucked in by the Shark. Greg Norman's presence on the leaderboard captured our attention like that monotone music signaling the beginning of the end in Jaws. 

If you're widely hailed as the best golfer on the planet yet to have won a Major Championship questions about how you deal with the pressure and how long until you break through are lurking around every corner. Talking about it becomes as tedious and frustrating as not being able to go out and do it.

Immediately following Sergio Garcia's win at this year's PLAYERS Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida at TPC Sawgrass, an event some in the game consider golf's unofficial "fifth major", Garcia made a rather odd statement.

A well-manicured lawn can often induce a healthy hubris in a man this time of year, especially when he is gathered with the guys for a Saturday afternoon cookout in the backyard. It's a point of contention right up there with success in one's chosen profession, who has the most attractive wife and who has the most athletically gifted children. So it goes without saying that losing that beautiful green grass surrounding your property will certainly cost you a bit of bragging rights.

Let's think of a golf course as a gigantic lawn for everyone in the neighborhood (or club) to enjoy. This summer, and for the foreseeable future, there will be no lush green grass to brag about at Haywards Heath Golf Club in West Sussex located in South East England.

This year's British Open at Royal Birkdale will mark the ninth anniversary of Frenchman Jean Van de Velde's monumental collapse at Carnoustie. Infamously, Van de Velde blew a three-shot lead on the 72^nd hole and would eventually fall short in a playoff. Regardless of what Tiger did at Torrey Pines this year, nothing can supplant that moment in my mind for sheer theater. Come on, everyone out there still has a vivid mental image of that poor schmuck rolling up his pant legs and wadding out into the hazard. Was he really going to play that shot? Nothing at that point would have shocked me.

Watching the telecast that year was like watching the Exorcist when you were a child, or for some of us as adults; hey haunted houses and ferris wheels still freak me out. You're on your couch with your knees pulled close to your chest and your hands covering your face. You tense up and can barely watch but through a gap between your fingers. It was just one of those television moments where picking another channel wasn't an option. 

The Raleigh News & Observer is reporting that Cheyenne Woods, a two-time Arizona state high school champion and one of the best high school golfers in the country, is headed to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Cheyenne's uncle is the World's No. 1 player, Tiger Woods, and her first golf mentor was her grandfather, the late Earl Woods. 

In elementary school science classes we learned about a simple classification system used to group living things and if I recall correctly a favorite remembrance device our teachers used was "King Phillip Came Over From Germany Sailing."

If we broke down sports into classifications, golf and tennis would surely share the same subdivision. So naturally, it was inevitable that soon after Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal finished their epic battle at Wimbledon late Sunday evening London time, the comparisons and debate between the historic tennis match at the All England Club and historic U.S. Open golf tournament at Torrey Pines would begin. 

Gary Player is recognized as one of the most successful golfers of all-time. He is a member of the exclusive club of men who have captured golf's grand slam. Lapping the globe and becoming one of the world's most traveled athletes, Player has become the ultimate ambassador and spokesman for the game that has given him so much. In The Golfer's Guide to the Meaning of Life, Player shares the lessons he has learned from his life on the links.

Recently Player has been one of the leading proponents of physical fitness, speaking out to young people about the physical and psychological benefits of finely tuning your body. If there are two aspects of Player's life worth nothing, they are his workout regimen that has allowed him to remain competitive at an advanced age and his astonishing travel record that now stands at about 12 millions miles logged while competing in golf tournaments, doing charitable work and representing his sport. In the book Player writes, "I am convinced that frequent traveling is the single finest education a person can attain."