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...
While we’re down in Florida playing Seminole, Old Memorial, and both Streamsong courses, Ernesto the Prediction Iguana is ready for the Super Bowl. It’s his last appearance for the year, so lets end on a high note. We went 3-1 over all last wee, 1-1 in teasers, bringing the playoff totals to 4-2 in teasers, 9-3 overall. Here’s your winning play for...
Well golf certainly had a What-the-hell? Weekend! Tin-foil hat stuff meets the PGA Tour. First there was Robert Allenby who is mysteriously sporting facial cuts and bruises after some sort of attack in Hawaii. Allenby missed the cut in the SONY Open and went out to a wine bar for dinner and drinks with his caddie and his friends. The rest of the story is Twilight...
It’s that time again – silly season. Yes the advent of the Holidays heralds peace, love, and goodwill to all men, (and shopping deals to part you from what little disposable income you have left…), but it also means lowest common denominator television events, strange formats, and pining for golf if you live in the North Country. Still, each year we...