The Golf Watch

1-armed golf tournaments should be televised

I read a story last week in my local paper about a golfer who has two arms, but suffers from cerebral palsy.  Vince Biser can only use one side of his body so he swings a golf club with one arm.  He can crank his drives 290 yards and competes in 1-armed golf tournaments.  In fact, he just won the North American One-Armed Golfer Association championship. 

It is stories like these that remind us how wonderful the game of golf is.  Wouldn't you want to see this on The Golf Channel?

Some video games never get old

As I was rummaging through some old boxes over the weekend, I found a number of my old computer games.  I subscribed to PC Gamer then, now I subscribe to Golf World.  But I have so many fond memories of battling Diablo, the Lord of Terror, or building my own roller coaster park. 

So many of the games are dated.  Such as my NBA Live 2000 'Jordan is Back!' game and my Triple Play baseball 1997 box with none other than Tony Gwynn on the cover.

Golf is another story though. 

Taking a look at my Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 box almost seven years later (pictured above), the game is pretty current.  Just look at the player list: Steve Stricker, Stewart Cink, Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, Stuart Appleby, Charles Howell III, Justin Leonard, etc.  The only player who might raise some eyebrows to the casual golf fan would be Ty Tryon.

One of the most heard complaints from gamers is that sports games don't have that have the same longevity as a Super Smash Bros. or Halo.

They might be right, but at least if you buy a golf game in 2003, you can still relive the Tiger Woods-Steve Stricker showdown you saw on television in 2009.

Eye candy caddies?

At Mission Hills in China, the caddie corps is comprised of all women 25 and younger.  They are housed in dormitories and wear red jumpsuits.  In Britain, another kind of female caddie corps has surfaced, and not as modestly dressed. 

Eye candy caddies are available for hire in Britain.  They are young females who wear tight-fitting uniforms and are touted as being the 'the gorgeous new solution for unforgettable golf days'.

According to the Daily Mail, one of Britain's largest golf firms has banned the company from its courses.  Dan Newling writes:

Leaderboard golf courses has banished the caddies from its four courses in Kent and Surrey, claiming the service is 'culturally insensitive'.

For a sport that most likely wants to walk away from that chauvinistic stereotype, more courses will have to speak out. 

Golf on the attack: "Is Golf Unethical?"

That's what Randy Cohen asked this past weekend in a commentary piece in the New York Times' Sunday Magazine in response to the high likelihood of golf getting the olympic nod for 2016.  Cohen goes on the offensive in the piece, saying that the current customs and values of big-time professionals golfers seem remote from the Olympic ideal. 

To support his argument, Cohen writes about Augusta National's policy to not accept women as members, the high percentage of conservative republicans on Tour and how golf can be detrimental to the environment--all to prove how exclusive and insular the game still is.  He even brings up this stat: "(out of 76 PGA Tour players) 8 percent supported the invasion of Iraq; and 0 percent had seen “Brokeback Mountain.”

It's a shame that Cohen didn't bring up how global golf has become.  Or how charitable the PGA Tour and European Tours are each year.  And how the game has made major strides with its First Tee program to get inner city youth involved. 

Golf still has a long way to go before it can transcend that country club mindset.  Still, don't tell me shuffleboard, bobsledding or luge are sports of "the people."

What Matt Kenseth and the U.S. Senior Open have in common

Last week, Kenseth's sponsor, DeWalt, announced that it would be ending its sponsorship of the reigning Daytona 500 champ in 2010.  A tough time for parent-company Black and Decker, right?  Well, not so fast.

This week, DeWalt employees/supporters will have another athlete to rally around, a vice president in charge of global engineering who will be wearing the brand and challenging the best over-50 golfers in the world at the U.S. Senior Open.

John Howson (pictured), an amateur and only one of a handful of Europeans in the field this week, will be wearing DeWalt apparel including a polo shirt and hat.  His bag has also been custom-made to have the DeWalt logo.

Who knows how much exposure he is going to get, but his caddie, also a vice president of the company, said that productivity might not be at its highest Thursday and Friday at Black and Decker.

You can read the story I wrote for my newspaper in Baltimore here.

Justin Timberlake: A golf preservationist/innovator?

That's right.  JT isn't just hosting his own PGA Tournament, he is also serving as a strong ambassador for the game. 

Livescience.com reports that Timberlake invested $16 million into a Memphis golf course in order to save it from being turned into a housing development.

But this isn't just any course for Timberlake--it's the first place he learned how to hit a golf ball. 

Timberlake is trying to make the course the "greenest" golfing destination in the U.S., featuring irrigation systems that maximize the use of rain water and golf carts powered by solar panels. 

Timberlake's impact on golf is being felt more and more.  And hopefully, more people will catch on to the "green" movement. 

Evolve Golf: #1 performance tee on Tour?

If you're a Golf World or Golfweek subscriber, you know what it's like to open a magazine and see various golf manufacturers promoting their equipment.

Titleist, for example, congratulates PGA, LPGA and European Tour top finishers in print each week not only for winning, but for using the #1 ball in golf.

So how about a company that prides itself on making the #1 performance tee on Tour?  Evolve Golf sent out this press release about how its tees were used by three top-10 finishers at the AT&T National.

But how much extra game can a tee give you?  The release explains:

Since its 2004 debut, the Epoch has been part of 113 major Tour wins, including 38 PGA Tour victories, and is the only performance tee with radius posts that span the width of a golf ball dimple. This unique feature creates the lowest coefficient of friction of any tee, eliminating deflection at impact and increasing ball speed and control. It has been scientifically proven via a series of rigorous independent robotic tests combined with extensive player testing to provide improvements of up to 12 yards distance and nine yards accuracy.

Now all we need to find is the #1 performance enhancing ball marker on Tour, and we'll be set.

Don't drink and drive home in a golf cart

While in the newsroom yesterday, this wire story about a 47-year-old Milwaukee man caught my eye.

According to the report, a South Milwaukee golfer's family had left him behind at Kettle Hills Golf Course.  So how did he make the 40-mile trek home?  Well, why not use a golf cart? 

So the man hopped on nearby Highway 167, hoping to make the drive in under 8 hours. 

To make matters worse, he was intoxicated...10 beers intoxicated.

He only made it about one mile before county police caught him.  Most golf carts generally max out at around 10-15 mph, so he didn't get far.

Nation's only 15-hole golf course could expand to 18

If you are on the west coast and want to play the nation's only 15-hole golf course, you better get in your round soon. 

Los Angeles' Westchester Golf Course was built in 1965 as an 18-hole trek, but lost three of its holes in 1993 when a major road was expanded.

According to the Daily Breeze, the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners approved a 10-year lease Monday with Westchester to restore the three holes. (The deal still requires approval from the Los Angeles City Council and the Federal Aviation Administration)

It looks like some of the regulars can say goodbye to their three-hour rounds. 

Golf is getting greener and greener

Two Arizona-based entrepreneurs say they have made the ultimate "green to the core" balls.  Dane Platt and William Carey of Dixon Golf have designed balls made of proprietary polymer and other renewable materials that are packaged in recycled material. 

John Davis writes that they are the first 100 percent eco-friendly balls.  The product was introduced in January at the PGA Merchandise show. 

They say they are high performance--but with a retail price of $34.95, will any players actually opt to use them?