On Our Mind Golf Blog

At your local golf course the course marshal is the often overbearing individual dedicated to shaving every possible second off the pace of play. And yes, sometimes this person can go about their duties in a delicate and friendly manner, but on most occasions the shepherd tending to his flock of daily-fee golfers can be an ornery son-of-a-b!tch. But the demeanor goes with the territory. This traffic cop of rolling topography is also responsible for settling disputes between groups or answering questions or concerns should they arise. The order of law is a marshal’s primary concern.

A marshal’s duties are a bit different when tending to crowds at a professional tournament. If you’ve ever been to a PGA, LPGA or Champions Tour event, the marshal can be spotted wearing a brightly-colored t-shirt, coat or hat, and is in charge of crowd control and flow; they tell you to quiet down before a putt and usher you through the fairway between a labyrinth of yellow ropes before the next group arrives. 

Greg Norman would have his name in more tabloid headlines at the moment if it weren't for David Letterman and Jon Gosselin. Yet, the International Team Captain for the 2009 President's Cup is still bound to face plenty of questions about his impending split from the media assembled at Harding Park. Hell, even celebrity blogger and self-titled "Queen of All Media" Perez Hilton picked up on the Shark's marital discontent.

Hopefully the lack of nuptial bliss between Norman and Chris Evert won't overshadow the action at the President's Cup which is taking place this week in San Francisco. The Associated Press reported that the announcement of the couples' separation was to quell rumors about Evert's absence in San Francisco this week. Don't you suppose the public would've bought anything less obvious than she was hiking the Appalachian Trail as a valid excuse? 

While the International Olympic Committee hasn't officially approved golf for inclusion in the Olympic Program for the 2016 Summer Games, a vote is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 9, the odds are equal to the likelihood that Tiger Woods walks away with PGA Tour Player of the Year Honors.

The bigger question is whether or not Chicago will host the 2016 Summer Games. Tomorrow in Copenhagen, Denmark a delegation led by President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle will be present to make a final plea for the Games and to witness the subsequent voting that will determine the winner. The Obamas will be joined by parties from other cities vying for the Games which include Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. 

Rummage through your garage long enough and you're likely to find an old outdated golf club that looks like a relic when it's held next to one of today's big, bright and shiny pieces of equipment.

Advances in modern technology, whether it be the golf ball itself or the clubs used to launch the little white, dimpled orb farther than ever, have rendered classic courses defenseless against today's top professionals. The negative effects of such cutting-edge craftsmanship have been widely debated, but this post isn't about to recount those arguments and counters or debate the merit of the new groove regulation set to debut in Jan., 2010. 

Not so long ago the Writers Guild of America went on a 14-week strike to protest the lack of compensation its members received for their services in comparison to the considerable profit earned by large studios such as NBC Universal and Warner Bros.

Unfortunately for fans of the popular Fox television program 24, which stars Kiefer Sutherland as rouge badass Jack Bauer, who often leaves it all on the field to defend America's interests against bad guys at the risk of his own well-being, the strike resulted in a longer than expected offseason. 

This week's announcement by Anheuser-Busch that the company would not renew its sponsorship with the LPGA Tour's Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill essentially ends one of women's golf's most popular and prestigious tournaments. The event's cancellation also calls attention to the gaping hole that's been opened in the Tour's May 2010 schedule.

Earlier this year, the LPGA Corning Classic was the first shoe to drop. Citing that the tournament had become economically unfeasible, Tournament President Jack Benjamin announced in late April that the LPGA Tour's longest-running event with the same title sponsor played at the same venue would not return in 2010. The Corning Classic was first played in 1979. 

Last week Golf Magazine released its well-regarded list of the Top 100 golf courses in the U.S. and the World, and once again New Jersey's Pine Valley Golf Club reigned supreme in the biennial rankings.

Shrouded in secrecy, yet known for its visually-intimidating layout and tremendous difficulty, Pine Valley is always one of the first layouts mentioned when long-time golfers are asked where they'd tee it up if they had only one round left to play.

If you didn’t happen to catch a single second of golf this past Sunday, whether it was Tiger Woods’ romp at the BMW Championship or the ladies teeing it up in Arkansas, it’s probably because you were glued to your television set watching the National Football League – America’s new national pastime.

The NFL owes its success in part to the violent nature of its sport, fantasy football and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. But why do we really love NFL football like our first born? On any given Sunday, any team has a chance; even Detroit or Oakland. League-wide parity is the main reason for the sport’s success and the key to maintaining a competitive balance between small- and large-market teams is the practice of revenue sharing. Essentially, mega franchises like Dallas with owners like Jerry Jones get the same check for television contracts as the Cleveland’s and Green Bay’s of the league. The more lucrative organizations help subsidize those less fortunate.

With the exception of the Open Championship at Turnberry, where he missed the cut, Tiger Woods worst finish in a stroke play event during the 2009 season is his T11 at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

Even if Woods struggles at the upcoming Tour Championship at East Lake and winds up finishing 12^th, and Y.E. Yang who overcame a final round deficit to beat Tiger at the PGA Championship wins, Yang would still come up short by 25 points. Yang enters the Tour Championship 21^st in the FedEx Cup Standings. And while Woods is the man they'll all be chasing in two weeks time, a golfer positioned within the top 5 can easily swoop in and steal the cup from Tiger with a top 5 finish if the World's No. 1 player finishes in the middle of the pack.

The adversity Padraig Harrington has faced over the course of the 2009 PGA Tour season has been largely self-inflicted, with the possible exception of an unpopular ruling by John Paramor at the WGC – Bridgestone Invitational.

He didn’t enter the year fresh off of reconstructive knee surgery, and his season wasn’t interrupted by his wife’s battle with breast cancer. And while it’s impossible to compare family tragedy with failure on the golf course, Harrington’s stick-to-itiveness has been most impressive of all.