I almost couldn’t believe my eyes as I scanned the page. Keith Foster, well-known, well-respected, well-sought after golf course architect had just pled guilty to smuggling and selling goods made form endangered species, a felony, and was facing up to a five-year prison sentence. Pre-eminent sports writer Len Shapiro broke the story for local Virginia paper The...
If you needed any more proof that Tiger Woods is still getting free passes from the media, the deafening silence by the golf media on the day he pleaded guilty in his DUI case was concrete proof. “Looking haggard in a black suit and white T-shirt, the golf legend entered the plea to reckless driving through his lawyer at court in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.”...
Two bits of Tiger Woods news as we head to hump day. First, despite being torn apart by a pack of harpies during his infamous sex scandal, Tiger allegedly traded nude photos by cell phone with Lindsay Vonn. In a completely bone-headed move, Vonn stored them in an Internet cloud that was hacked, along with the nude photos of dozens of other celebrities. The photos...
Special to GNN and AWITP by Yale Bluer CHARLOTTE, NC – She had a voice like Foghorn Leghorn and the manners of Yosemite Sam. She’d fake-baked her skin to a brassy orange and streaked her spaghetti-straight hair a metallic gold. She wore ass-high, crack-tight, denim short shorts, wedges, and a scoop top two sizes too tight. She said she was 34, but my...
Ryan Ballengee has this story about the surreptitious…and disconcerting…adjustment of Euro Tour players’ drivers while the clubs are stored for the night. Ballengee reported that a number of players, including rising European Tour star Bernd Weisberger, had their driver settings adjusted while the clubs were stored for the night at Le Club National...
The year was 1971, and even though the Rolling Stones had just generated grillions of dollars with their world-wide hit “Satisfaction,” there was Mick Jagger on a media dais surrounded by a forest of microphones and a phalanx of international journalists explaining that – for tax reasons – the Stones had to flee their beloved England and...
Steve Czaban has this eye-opening expose on the graft, incompetence, and neglect plaguing the future of the Rio Olympics course. I remember telling certain golf architects that losing that bid would be a blessing, and that the guy who won would be sorry in the long run. And while it was fun for three weeks, it looks like that might be the extent of the course’s...
It’s the day after Thanksgiving. Every dish in the house is soiled, the tablecloth is stained, the rug is a shambles, and there’s dry, stringy, tasteless turkey leftover for the next two weeks. See why I eat steak instead? That also means it’s time for another AWITP holiday tradition – Jay’s Sports Awards, a.k.a. the Jazzys. We’ll...
The New York Post got a video snippet from something un-cleverly called “Keeping Score,” a reality show about Hope Solo and two other members of the USWNT. Who knew it was to become the sports world’s “Weiner.” Solo’s post-firing reaction is caught on tape – boy, the irony. Why would she allow them to film this? In the same...
On the face of it, this looks unfair. A 10 year old girl, clearly a child prodigy at golf, is mysteriously being banned from golf for one year while her parents fight over custody. From the Deadspin article: “The ban comes as the kid is thriving on the links. By the count of Vechery [the father], a career real estate salesman and part-time golf coach, his...
With all the grace and class of a Tinder profile, Hope Solo once again proved that if she’s the voice, face, and heart of the United States Women’s National Soccer team, then they are the quintessential Ugly Americans. It was as colossal a disaster as Women’s soccer could possibly absorb: a perfect storm of athletic defeat, ghastly sportsmanship...
We all read Sally Jenkins’s indispensable guide to the corruption, lack of security, and filth of the 2016 Rio Olympics. Now she breaks down like a fraction all of the mounting failures – everything from acid green pools to suspicious packages to shots fired at media sites. Meanwhile IOC execs have gone Full Mayor Quimby – “Nothing to see...
If you want the truth about what’s happening in the darker corners of the sports world, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post should be a daily stop. Today he skewers Nike’s entire Tiger Woods-fueled lunacy that led to their demise. From the article: “Nike was barking up the wrong money tree. Golfers aren’t as impressionable or as vulnerable as...
We’ve said it from day one – golf didn’t need to be in Olympics. This was just a money grab for the networks, the IOC, and the PGA and European Tours. We’ve steadily reported about the terrible format of the tournament, the devastating Zika virus, the filthy water conditions sickening athletes by the dozens, and the security risks. Now Sally...
What a lousy week for professional golf. First boats start floating across fairways at The Greenbriar Resort, forcing cancellation of the PGA Tour event and sending everyone scrambling for rescue and clean-up efforts after a disaster displaced thousands in West Virginia. But then came the embarrassing double whammy that a) Jordan Spieth is pulling out of the Olympics...