The European Tour will send Padraig Harrington, Justin Rose, Anders Hansen, Peter Hanse, Sergio Garcia and many other fine players to battle at Augusta, but the PGA Tour news is just all Tiger all the time. There are some other stories in golf, guys; and lets be honest, the season beigins in earnest at Augusta. Till then: Here’s Sal Johnson with this...
Thank you, Sal Johnson…and George Bahto. Welcome to Jersey’s rejoinder to Bethpage Black.
Two of the best in the business, Sal Johnson and Len Shapiro, breakdown the Golfweek mess. Sal discusses Golf Channel broadcasts with Rich Lerner in the chair. Len discusses why Golfweek should have known better than to pull the bush league publicity stunt they did and that they got what they deserved. Here’s my favorite section, where he calls out the...
Sal Johnson, editor-in-chief and publisher of Golf Observer, has finished his e-book previewing the entire 2008 PGA TOUR season and has it available for download at Golf Observer.com for a mere $12.95. Considering you’d pay $8-15 for the tournament program of any particular tournament during the year, Sal’s 52-week guide is not only a staggering bargain...
There’s a few new sections that didn’t appear on this site as well as some classics like “I’m half 162, you know” and the bit about why Alice hasn’t designed a course yet. Sal Johnson did a great job finding great pics, especially the one of Alica Dye. Also check out new articles by Sal, Lorne Rubenstien and John Huggan.
Two quick orders of business today: First, the wisdom of Sal Johnson, the sportswriting world’s rejoinder to James Joyce, fixes some holes in the FedEx Cup. Second, lets have a big ol’ golf clap for the return of Insta-Marv, one of the first golf bloggers ever and a heck of a photographer. It’s nice to see Western Canada where they belong: at the...
No tricks today – or social commentary for that matter. Why bother? The FedEx Cup is too contrived to find popularity, but will die not because the concept is flawed, but because the players are lazy. No, scrap all the hue, cry, whoop and crash and curl up with a good read about Oakmont by one of the world’s best – Lorne Rubenstein of The Globe...
Here’s the best tournament preview. Sal Johnson of Golf Observer breaks it down like a fraction for us. I like this quote: Key stat for the winner: Craig Perks blew the greatest stat the tournament had going for it with his win in 2002. Before his victory, nobody had ever won the Players without a win on the PGA Tour. Matter of fact, other than Perks, every...
Red Tail Golf Club by Brian Silva was awarded the 2009 Women’s Amateur Public Links. Built on an old army base in Devens, Mass, just minutes west of Boston, the course is named for the Red Hawks which inhabit the site. My detailed breakdown of the course is here. My interview with Brian Silva is here. Part 2 is here. The article announcing the...
David Barrett’s great article “Was Augusta too firm or too fast?” is up at Golf Observer. Great stuff, David. You can also get excellent coverage of the LPGA showdown between Lorena Ochoa and Laura Davies at GO’s LPGA Tour Notebook. Lorena may overtake Annika as the world’s number one player and that is ENORMOUS news. Most...
Sal Johnson of Golf Observer found a particularly interesting factoid between the stats in his prep piece on the Honda Classic:
Did you know 9 of the last 13 winners of this tournament…played on your quintessential palm-lined, water soaked Florida-typical course…have been Floridians?
David Barrett, my colleague over at Golf Observer won the Golf Writers Association of America award for Internet writing. His piece discussed Michelle Wie’s record against the men on the PGA Tour.
Way to go, David! See you in Pittsburgh!
Sal Johnson is a genius – you have to see the AMAZING photo he found of Mike planting the Hinkle Tree at the 1979 U.S. Open. While I have the floor, to dispel a myth, Mike Strantz never worked on Tom Fazio’s terrific designs at World Woods. I know it looks that way, but Mike told me in interviews (Part One and Part Two) that he never set foot on the...
Geoff Shackelford, my colleague at Golf Observer slams the recent changes to Riviera. Here are some excerpts: But is the architectural demise really that surprising? After all, the Fazio Design group has a consistent track record of showing little or no interest in classic architecture. Just ask the members at Oak Hill and Inverness. Or even some of the members at...
It’s great to see Phil in the winner’s circle again, but his comments that “Winged Foot made me a better driver of the golf ball” missed the point entirely. The issue at Winged Foot was not that Phil drove the ball poorly, it wasn’t his drive that killed him, it was his choice to go for the green in two with a three iron around the huge...