On Our Mind Golf Blog

If you're looking to purchase a few fresh outfits for the golfer in your life this Holiday season, don't take any fashion advice from David Beckham.

Embattled English footballer and on-again, off-again midfielder for Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy caused quite a stir this fall when he took to the links in the City of Angels sporting a backward cap, hideously oversized cargo shorts and what appeared to be indoor soccer shoes.

In the days after a scuba diving accident drastically changed the path of Jordan Thomas’ life, the Chattanooga native and avid golfer decided to provide inspiration and answers to others rather than seek them.

At 16 years old Thomas’ legs were sheared off below the knee by a boat’s propellers during a family fishing trip in the Florida Keys. During his two-week stay in a Miami hospital, Thomas took note of the plight of other amputees whose families, if they had families, weren’t as financially fortunate as his. 

Rickie Fowler's early success on the PGA Tour is agruably the most impressive start to a professional career since none other than Tiger Woods exploded onto the scene in 1996. That year Woods won twice in eight PGA Tour starts, which was good enough for 25th on the money list ($790,594). 

It's worth mentioning that Fowler has already earned $553,700 by finishing in the top 10 in each of his first two PGA Tour starts (Justin Timberlake Shriners Hosptials for Children Open and Frys.com Open).

In his last full season on the PGA Tour (2002) Gary Nicklaus, son of 18-time major champion Jack Nicklaus, competed in 26 events. He made the cut just six times, and his best finish was T52 at the Reno-Tahoe Open.

Not exactly inspiring play from the man who Sports Illustrated once splayed across its cover under the headline of "The Next Nicklaus." Seven years later, there was Gary at the first stage of the PGA Tour's qualifying school still chasing his dream, although most probably view it as a man chasing his father's considerable shadow.

Generating a signifcant amount of energy and enthusiasm to complete yet another collaborate class project is a task high school students often fail at; after all class projects rarely give teenagers much to be excited about. My high school history teacher had us design costumes and cook dishes for a medieval feast in our school's courtyard and once that was over he had us build homemade catapults. But that was more for the Dungeons and Dragons crowd and overall enthusiasm was tepid at best. And those were the most captivating projects.

Even in college, working with your peers had its shortcomings. I thought the parties involved tended to be more concerned with the work being evenly divided up (I'll tell the professor if you don't pull your weight) rather than actually producing a successful product. During a sports marketing class my senior year, we did get to design a few holes on a golf course; although the course was fictional and we were only allotted about 20 minutes to sketch a few holes on a notepad and then discuss our ideas.

The piece of property neatly tucked between Interstate 4 and Walt Disney World is a long way from 301 Park Avenue, but the developers of the new Waldorf Astoria Orlando did their best to pay homage to the original’s historical footprint while making sure to account for the contemporary version’s more tropical locale.

Interior designer of the Waldorf Astoria Orlando, Rosie Feinberg, told the Orlando Sentinel that the question always under consideration by the staff working toward creating a combination of new and old was, “What happens when a historic, urban, gilded hotel takes a vacation?”

Tiger Woods' 2009 season will be remembered more for what he didn't do - win a major championship - than for what he did accomplish - win six tournaments and the FedEx Cup.

If you've watched Tiger from start to finish in each of the four major championships this year, you've probably caught and been left speechless by one or two phenomenally poor shots, the likes of which we've never witnessed from the architect of golf's most prosperous era. Tiger's also shown that he too can be lighthearted, interviewing himself after winning his own tournament, the AT&T National, at Congressional Country Club just outside of Washington, D.C.

That crazy Quaker William Penn and his ilk were a peace-loving people, and upon settling in Pennsylvania's largest modern-day population center, they envisioned it as a place where folks of all different creeds and colors could co-exist in harmonious accord. Penn's intentions led to Philadelphia earning the nickname, "The City of Brotherly Love."

There was no such thing on Wednesday afternoon at the city's Cobb's Creek Golf Club, site of the first public golf course in the Greater Philadelphia area that today houses 36 holes of golf. A sibling golf outing turned unruly, leading to a busted nose and an arrest warrant.

I know just where I'd want to be less than a week after one of my professional golf peers told the world that I arrived at my hotel "sideways" at 4 a.m., and as a result played the final round of the President's Cup hung over - Las Vegas.

That's right, accused party boy Anthony Kim is in Sin City, a place where bad decisions and hangovers are a byproduct of breathing and remaining upright, this week to compete in the PGA Tour's Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

West Virginia's historic Greenbrier Resort has embarked on a renaissance of sorts since native son and successful businessman Jim Justice saved it from bankruptcy earlier this year.

The resort recently opened an upscale steakhouse named for former West Virginia Mountaineer and NBA great Jerry West (Prime 44 West), and has plans to introduce an underground casino in the spring of 2010. But the feather in the cap of the new ownership came this past July when the PGA Tour announced that it would be staging a FedEx Cup event on the resort's Old White Course beginning in 2010.