Thought for the Day:
Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow
Your heart bleeds
Joe Miller was favourite to lift the 2013 RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship, held in Las Vegas. He was European long driving champion and regarded as the most likely of the eight finalists to lift the $250,000 first prize. But his best effort of 405 yards meant he had to settle for runner-up spot to winner Tim Burke, who hit the ball 427 yards.
It’s hard not to feel sympathetic.
Your chance to be humiliated
If you have always wanted to play Sawgrass in Florida, home of the Players’ Championship – and specifically its infamous par-three 17th with the island green – you may soon be able to achieve your dream. Or at least, a facsimile of it. Pete Dye’s design company has revealed it has its first commission to build a course in Britain, near Edgeware. Announcing the project, the company said: ‘The course will feature a Dye-signature island green similar to the famous 17th at TPC Sawgrass.’
The original design, incidentally, came about by accident. Dye was forced to excavate a great deal of sand that was needed at other parts of the course, leaving an enormous hole between the 17th tee and green. He was debating what to do with such an odd-looking hole when his wife, Alice (herself an accomplished golfer and course designer) said: ‘Why don’t you just leave it as it is?’
On such accidents are international reputations made.
Go Get ‘em
This man is called Dino Kapadia. He comes from Frankfort Illinois and he is my hero. One of the many things you can do on the internet is what’s called crowdfunding, where you go to a website created for the purpose, and persuade people to back your idea or invention, with their cash. In Dino’s case he used a site called Kickstarter. The green thing that Dino is holding is called (for no reason I can fathom) a Drutter and Dino describes it as: ‘a sturdy slingshot on top of a telescopic shaft to shoot the golf ball forward from tees and fairways, and a putter head at the bottom to putt when you reach the greens.’
The absurdity of Dino’s invention is what originally caught my attention but what astonished me even more is that he was seeking $2000 to develop its production. He is over-subscribed and has received $2148 in pledges. You can only applaud such entrepreneurial spirit.
Enough is enough
Almost as nonsensical as Dino was a press release in advance of the Turkish Airlines Open earlier this month featuring the world number one. It reads: ‘Tiger Woods achieved another first in his long and illustrious career while in the Turkish city of Istanbul on Tuesday, becoming the first golfer to hit balls from east to west off the Bosphorus Bridge.’
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone involved in this ridiculous stunt that Woods is the first because no-one else would be remotely interested. But presumably the reported $2 million plus appearance fee he received for playing in the event (significantly more than the winner’s prize) came with a few provisos, such as agreeing to this nonsensical photo-opportunity.
Tiger, you’re a hero to millions so please stop demeaning yourself for even more money than you will never be able to spend in your lifetime.
On a personal note, with the way he’s been driving the ball lately I wouldn’t feel too confident if I was driving on the side of the bridge that wasn’t closed.
Got it in one
On a related theme David Feherty, king of the apposite one-liner, recently said of Tiger’s driving: ‘He couldn’t hit the ocean from the deck of an aircraft carrier.’
Tempting fate
Phil Mickelson spoke at a few press conferences at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai (the one that Tiger ducked for a pot of appearance money in Turkey). Asked about his chances of ever winning his own national championship (in which he has famously finished runner-up six times) he said: ‘In the US Open I’ve come close so many times and I’ve played well so many times that I know it will happen.’
I had to turn around three times with my fingers crossed so that the golfing gods wouldn’t also rain retribution on my head just for reading the words.
Stick to what you know
Australia has just won the World Cup of Golf and Jason Day took individual honours. Team USA was runner-up (albeit 10 strokes adrift), and took the form of Matt Kuchar and Kevin Streelman. But once again we saw just how insular Americans can be in recognising that there may be worthwhile golf events played outside their own borders. Teams are selected simply on the basis of their world rankings, so Kuchar got in because the three men ranked above him (Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Steve Stricker) said no. But finding someone to partner him saw refusals from, among others, Jason Dufner, Zach Johnson, Jim Furyk, Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson, Dustin Johnson, Hunter Mahan, Bubba Watson, Nick Watney, Billy Haas and Rickie Fowler.
Eventually Streelman, ranked 37th at the time, said yes.
Quote of the Week:
I get pissed off. I simply do not understand someone who hits a ball that lands behind a tree and can look at it and say: ‘Well, that’s golf.’
Simon Hobday