WGT Golf News

...First, First, Second, Second, First, First, Second and Still Not Win The Fed Ex Cup

By Peter Kessler

Photo: AP Images

Tweak Time.

Greg Norman will likely choose two of the following players next week for his two captain's picks for the President's Cup: Rory Sabatini, Jeev Milka Singh or Shingo Katayama-still awake??

I vote for Katayama because he wears a cowboy hat he got at a birthday party for 10 year olds many years ago. He just refuses to part with it. It's a stunner. Go ahead. Look it up. Check it out. Google. Katayama. Nice hat, huh?

And that my friends is the major excitement of this year's President's Cup. Hurry, get in line, tickets are almost gone. Still awake?

Mark O'Meara is on my radio show today. How come he isn't in the World Golf Hall of Fame?  Set aside the notion that I think you should be 60 years old before you get to be voted in. Active players in their 30's and 40's going into halls of fame just doesn't feel right. Their careers are in mid-stream yet there they are being toasted as though they're full of white hair dyed purple. Why is Isao Aoki in?  What did he ever win.  Nothing of consequence.  So what's the deal?  How about Deane Beman?  He won the Blinder Robinson Classic. Not exactly a major. Or a minor. If Tommy Bolt is in, so is Mark. If Bob Charles is in then O'Meara is in twice. Hubert Green? Same thing.  And what about Chi Chi? I know all about the hat over the hole trick but that is not the stuff of which hall of famers are made. And what about Lanny? Lanny is in. Well then.....   So I vote for O'Meara in and I vote for some of these guys out.

Jack and Arnie have been on course rivals for FIFTY YEARS!!!!!!! So next spring they will together be honorary starters at the Masters. One shot on the first tee on Thursday morning at 8am. One shot. One shot. One shot?  Why one shot? Why not play a few holes? Like 1,2,17 and 18. Why not play nine holes from the members tees? We want to see them. They would love to play. Let them have reasonable second shots into the par 4's, wedges into the par 5's. Why rush them off the course? Where do they have to go? To Waffle House? Oh, I forgot. They are both members at Augusta National. Think they can get a table at that busy hour? I mean after all there will be a lot of people eating breakfast waiting to get a look at Arnie and Jack teeing it up at The Masters.

By Stephanie Wei

Tiger Woods and Boston Celtics guard Ray Allen chat at the Deutsche Bank Championship Pro-Am on Thursday morning.

Aside: I love Allen’s jump shot. No doubt one of the sweetest and smoothest in the NBA, at least IMHO.

[Photo via NBA Off-Season 2009]

Across the nation this Labor Day weekend, thousands of golf courses are charging an extra $1 for tee times in support of Patriot Golf Day, the flagship fundraiser for the Folds of Honor Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides postsecondary educational scholarships for the children and spouses of military men and women disabled or killed while serving our great nation.

We at WGT think this is a very worthy cause, and will donate 100% of Pro Shop sales that are made on Labor Day to show our support. Please help make this a significant contribution by making a purchase in our Pro Shop this Monday, September 7th. Together we can help make a big difference for the families of our most honorable heroes. These men and women sacrifice for all of us. Let’s show our thanks.

By Peter Kessler

Photo: Dave Einsel/AP

That would be Adam Scott.

He would be the current big disappointment.

Liberty National cost $250 Million to build. $250 million. And not one player likes it. Not one.

That may be inexplicable but what may be splicable (my word) is like all courses, old and new, it will get better-it will be tweaked and and massaged and rejigged and turned into a course that the pros won't mutter about--particularly since it's not on the schedule going forward.

Heath Slocum and YE Yang. One great weekend or a sign of things to come?

Cabrera, Glover,Cink, Yang and Slocum. Not exactly golf's Mount Rushmore.

Goydos and Marino-window dressing again.

Someone actually wrote that Tiger was stuck on 14 majors after "blowing the PGA Championship." Last time I checked,he got beat by Yang.

The Fed Ex Playoffs may be a mathematical mystery but I do know that the first week identified the best players and one unknown, just like a great tournament is supposed to.

Tiger did not misread the last birdie try on the last green, he pulled it.

Tiger is still by miles and miles the best clutch putter of all time. We are just so spoiled we think he will make everything all of the time...Forever.

In 2009 Tiger has won twice as many tournaments as the next guy. Who is the next guy?

September is here, and you have until the 30th to enter the World Amateur Challenge for a chance to win a trip for two to Myrtle Beach to play in the 2010 PGATOUR Superstore World Amateur Handicap Championship. Other prizes include two playing spots in the event and a $500 gift card to the PGATOUR Superstore. Anyone can play, but only players in the US are eligible for the sweepstakes prize drawings. Please see rules for complete details.

Photo: www.worldamgolf.com

By Ryan Ballengee

After Byeoung-Han An's 7 & 5 crushing defeat of Ben Martin to become the youngest US Amateur winner ever at age 17, the USGA had some relatively easy decisions on their hands for the final two spots for the Walker Cup team.  They chose Cameron Tringale and Peter Uihlein to round out the team.

Ben Martin would have made the team had he won the title.  Instead, he's now the second alternate.  50 year old medalist Tim Jackson is the first alternate.

Buddy Marucci's squad is basically a bunch of college boys, plus a fifty year old man on guard in case one of them pulls a hammy or something.

The amateur ranks have essentially turned into a third mini-tour.  As mentioned by Tom Dunne in another post on the US Am, college kids are dominating the amateur world as a proving ground for turning pro either during college or immediately thereafter.  Though Danny Lee and An were both high school aged winners of the amateur, the trend of young men winning this championship has carried on well before them.  Think about Nick Flanagan, Ryan Moore - all the way back to Tiger Woods.  The thing is, though, that the Amateur is so much more apparently dominated by youth.  It's the money available in going pro that makes these competitions so youth-driven now.  The caliber of the field shows that a lot of these guys will be on the Nationwide, European, and PGA Tours awfully soon.

Buddy Marucci and Tim Jackson will probably be the last bastion of amateur golfer that is happy to remain with an (a) next to his name on a leaderboard.  Allen Doyle long gave up on that.

By Peter Kessler

But I bet she will before the month is over. She is too feisty, too colorful a character not to blast a sponsor's name successfully across her bag.

There were fake swans in the lakes last week at the Solheim Cup.

Five time Open champion Peter Thomson said Tiger should smile more. If he had won the PGA last week....

Tiger is playing in all four Fed Ex Cup events. Do you think he has something to prove to himself?

Tiger was asked what he thought of Liberty National, site of the first playoff round. He said it was "interesting." "In a good way," he was asked. "It's interesting." he said.

No eye contact between Tiger and Yang when they walked past each other several times this week.

Michael Bradley won the Puerto Rican Open and didn't qualify for the Fed Ex Cup Playoffs. Time to tweak the format.

Nicklaus said course design work in the U.S. is way down but that he expects it to pick up again soon. Really? Soon? Courses are closing, not opening right now.

I still don't understand golf in the Olympics. If you don't play golf, how can you fall in love with it by watching on television? It's slow, you can't follow the ball and you can't see the contours in the greens properly. Olympic stuff is usually measured in seconds, not hours.

I think Tom Watson would be a perfect pick as a member of the President's Cup team.

Two shining stars have presented themselves this year as the future of golf: Rory Mcilroy and Michelle Wie.

Congratulations to johnh41461 and DRWR, Pro and Master tier winners of the July Wolf Creek Challenge! What’s in their bags?

johnh41461 (Pro):

• WGT Starter 3 Fairway Wood
• WGT Tour Starter 3 Fairway Wood
• WGT Starter 3 Hybrid 19° (Steel)
• WGT Tour Starter Irons (Steel)
• TaylorMade Z Satin TP 54° Wedge
• TaylorMade Z Satin TP 60 Wedge
• WGT Starter Putter

DRWR (Master):

• TaylorMade R9 TP 9.5° Driver
• Ping Rapture V2 3 Fairway Wood
• Ping Rapture V2 3 Hybrid 21° (Graphite)
• Ping Rapture V2 Iron Set (Graphite)
• Snake Eyes 685BX 56° Wedge
• Snake Eyes 685BX 60° Wedge
• TaylorMade Spider Putter
• WGT B-ES Balls

By Ryan Ballengee

Photo: Rob Hayashida

In case you haven't noticed, there has been quite a bit of reaction in the press and in the blogosphere about the kind of celebrating and showboating that the Americans did during the Solheim Cup. While some it centered around the incessant Hustle butt bumping (Is this the 70s?!  Do the Mackarena for crying out loud!), a lot of it was focused on Christina Kim's celebrating.

Check out the thoughts from John Huggan, Mark Reason, Fanhouse (on a separate note: please, Greg Couch, just stop), Golf Digest's Local Knowledge, Stephanie Wei, the SI Golf Group, and the banter at Geoff Shackelford's joint for a taste of what others are saying.

Here's my thought on it. Not to rip off of Rich Lerner, but golf needs more people like Christina Kim. She is like the female Tommy Bolt for this generation. Kim is engaging, has a potty mouth, and tells some awesome stories. My round caddying for her in a pro-am in like '03 was one of the best experiences that I have ever had playing golf.  It is difficult not to like someone that charismatic as a playing partner or watching.

It's not like she or any other American pulled a Terrell Owens after each holed putt. No Sharpie ball signings. No signing of the television cameras. No snow angels on the green after dropping a bomb for birdie.

Kim didn't ride her driver down the fairway like Boo Weekley did at last year's Ryder Cup--a tribute to Happy Gilmore that I loved. She did a lot of fist pumps, shouted to the crowd to get them going, and danced a lot. Isn't that the kind of thing that critics say is missing from the game?

So many modern professional golfers are stiffs on the course, resigned to show as little outward emotion as possible because they think it may miff their mojo. Mojo is psychological. Crowd pleasing is part of entertainment. And in case you haven't been reading the headlines about the LPGA Tour on your local business page, the LPGA Tour is in need of some serious entertainers that can both play golf and play up a crowd. Christina Kim can do that.

I am fairly certain that Kim's style brought out some of the best of Michelle Wie. For as much as the angle about Wie's parents being banned from clubhouses and team meetings is overblown, Christina Kim's influence on Michelle is clearly positive. It helped her become more expressive and appreciative of the nationalistic adulation going on around her. If this event turns out to be the springboard for Wie's personal career--as I suggest great caution about predicting that--then no one will remember the kind of influence that Kim and Wie's other compatriots had on her lifting an enormous burden off of her shoulders. 3-0-1. And some of that came because of the positive emotion coming out of her friend.

Should any player be jacked up when 6 down in a match? Probably not, but a comeback has to start somewhere. Tiger jumped around several US Amateur venues when he made his match play comebacks during his six year run in the US Junior and US Amateur events. Fist pumps, shouting, cheering to pump himself up.  And we laud him as such a competitor even if the fist pumps are seemingly equally balanced out with f-bombs. If it is ok for him to do it, it's ok for Christina Kim to do it.

Kim reminds me a lot of JJ Redick. In my time at Maryland, I booed that guy more than anyone I have ever booed. 17,000 of my fellow Maryland students and I chanted "F*%$ you, JJ!" at him several times when he made the trip to College Park. We hated that guy. Why? Because he was so smug and he knew he was good. But, even worse, we hate (and still hate) him because he was damn good. Christina is damn good. She went 3-1-0. It's not like she didn't back up the celebrations by losing. She won.

And to the victor goes the spoils.

By Peter Kessler

If Michelle Wie was the best player on the planet what would that mean for women's golf?

Michelle has had a good yet winless year. She has made all 13 cuts with some strong finishes. With her career changing performance in the Solheim Cup she will win this year, five times next year including a major and be the Player of the Year.

Michelle learned how to close, how to handle momentum shifts and make five footers down the stretch.

I submit that there have never been consecutive shots that left eagle putts of two and four feet as the ones hit by Helen Alfedsson and Michelle in the singles of the Solheim Cup.

Really nice not to see Michelle's overbearing parents at the Solheim. She seemed happy and carefree as opposed to stressed and unhappy.

Michelle's last two shots to the par five final hole were spectacular. A 355 yard drive and a 200 yard five iron to seal the win were Tigeresque.

Michelle hasn't won anything, and I mean anything since 2003!!

Christina Kim was perfectly appropriate in her handling of the Solheim circus. It's a festival and she provided the much needed personality and fireworks.

Cross Ryan Moore off the list of best player to never win on the PGA TOUR.

Sergio is oh for 44 in the majors, lost 2 Fed Ex playoff tourneys last year,hasn't won in 15 months and he still can't putt. And he looks like an old 29.