Three short bits today:
1. Tim Finchem announced that Tiger new tournament will be a limited field invitational. Finchem said cryptically:
Now there’s a couple of reasons for that. One is prestige of the event. The other is, even though it’s snowing today, it’s quite warm here — I used to live here for ten years, July 4th, and pace of play — we want the pace of play and the experience for the players to be positive as well. So you put those two things together, and it argues for a somewhat shorter field and I think that’s where we’ll be.
What? Because of the prestige of the event? You mean because Tiger said so because he thinks it will grow into his rejoinder to the Masters, that’s why. Don’t feed us this gibberish about “it’s hot in DC in July.” Athletes play in hot weather you know. Four words – Southern Hills in August.
Players can override the decision if they get a 2/3 vote of the membership.
Geoff Shackelford covers this imbroglio, which has some tour vets seething, here and here. Two of his readers had brilliant rejoinders: “It’s amazing what they now have to go through just to get Tiger to play a regular PGA event” and “Tiger now has two sanctioned events?”
Doublespeak, Tiger and the last dollar;.welcome to the PGA Tour of the 21st century.
2. This weekend my prep piece for the Hootie at Bulls Bay tourney will go up at Cybergolf and I’ll be turning in two more pieces for Golf Observer as well.
3. Sad news from last week. One of the best golf bloggers out there, Kristen “Golfchick” Williams lost her pet, friend, heartwarmer and co-columnist, Goose the Great Dane. Kristen, who like many of us started with a blog and a dream, has become one of the most well-liked and well-respected bloggers out there. We are so sorry for your loss Kristen. I know I loved your “Ask the Goose” feature, (where she – Goose was a female – would answer Kristen’s mailbag) and will miss it alot. She was the best blog animal in cyberspace and truly lived up to the billing of a great Dane.
[…] Special thanks to Jay Flemma at A Walk in the Park and Mulligan Stu at The Waggle Room for the thoughtful posts and Scott at Time Fore Tee for the beautiful grip design and donations in her honor. Scott sent me the gorgeous Artan grip he designed based on the MacKessock tartan. It will become my new putter grip so that I can have a symbol of her with me on every golf hole I play (though I will continue to try to hole out from off the green). […]