This column marks the beginning of a weekly feature called “ProFiles.” Our aim is to highlight high profile people associated with golf’s biggest stage. You can expect to see current PGA players, past greats, architects and influential people in the game featured one at a time every week. I’m looking foreword to looking at colorful characters in golf each week with you.
Jim Furyk is the player I’ve chosen for this first installment of “ProFiles.” I’m impressed with the kind of golf that Furyk has been playing this year even though we could safely say he has not found the kind of results that he might have became accustomed to through the middle of his career… yet. Jim Furyk is a bit of an anomaly on Tour as he has such a strange looking swing. In a day and age where many swing coaches are saying many of the same things about swing plane and technique Jim does not fit their profile. David Feherty once said he thought Furyk’s swing looked like “an octopus falling out of a tree.” Well, this octopus is a classy guy in my book.
The Western Open is the oldest non-major golf tournament on the PGA Tour. That being said, it’s always a special tournament when the top two players in the world are in the field, and that is the case this week at 
The first regular-season women’s match-play event on U.S. soil since 1954 will take place this week at Hamilton Farm Golf Club in Gladstone, New Jersey. 64 of the top women’s golfers will tee it up in an attempt to grab the first-place check of $500,000, the second largest payday on tour. Only the U.S. Women’s Open has a larger first prize.
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I’ll admit that I have never been a big fan of the LPGA. I know a lot of people who aren’t, but they shy away from the question. I have enjoyed watching the PGA Tour since I started playing golf around 1996. The PGA Tour is the home of the best golfers in the world. I always believed the LPGA was just a sideshow like the WNBA is to the NBA. Don’t get me wrong, I have always respected the women that play the LPGA Tour, as many of them are just as athletic as their male counterparts. The LPGA Tour just didn’t have anything that set it apart from other sports. It was too easy for me to watch something else on television when the LPGA was on.
A few eagle-eyed Bag Drop operatives have pointed out something that’s an open secret in the equipment business: sometimes pro tour players don’t use the gear they endorse. Now, if you’re the type that still believes in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, stop reading right now. But if you’re ready to face up to the fact that paid spokesmen (and women) sometimes don’t actually use the products they’re paid to gush about, read on.