Author: Erik J. Barzeski

2005 Newport Cup Recap

The 2005 Newport Cup has come to an end, and with that come our scores. How close were the matches? Find out here.

Newport CupThe inaugural playing of the Newport Cup has come to a close, and with it, an 11½-8½ Blue Team victory. Though we’ll have coverage of the event in later posts, this story will share with the world some of the scoring.

As many know, our first two rounds at Talamore and Pine Needles were played in two-man best-ball competition, while our final round featured singles matches at Davis Love III’s Anderson Creek. Each member of the Newport Cup played with every member of his team and against every member of the opposing team at least once, and we all had a great time getting to know each other.

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Woods Shows Wie the Way to Winning

Tiger Woods wins in the worst way – with a John Daly three-putt – for his 10th of 19 WGC events.

Tiger Woods at Harding ParkFive days after Michelle Wie turns pro, Tiger Woods shows her the way to true fame, admiration, and status: by winning golf tournaments. The youngster has won but one major competition – the 2003 U.S. Women’s Public Links Championship – to go along with several disappointing finishes in LPGA events and missed cuts on the PGA Tour.

Tiger, who with this win has taken more than half of the WGC events (10 of 19) and four WGC-AmEx championships, seizes career victory number 46 and puts himself in a place where he can record the all-time season high in earnings with a win at the Tour Championship. If he wins, his $11.13M will top Vijay Singh’s $10.9M 2004 season.

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Speeding Up Play, Part 2 of 2

Slow play drives everyone nuts, but everyone is responsible for slow play. Odds are, there are ways you too could speed up your play. This is part two of a two-part series.

Trap Five LogoLast week, we examined five ways to speed up play. This week, we’re continuing the series with the second of two parts on picking up the pace.

As we said last week, a round of golf should not take five hours to complete, despite what you may tell your significant others. This week’s top five list: five more ways to speed up play.

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TourEdge Bazooka JMax 460cc Carbon Driver Review

The TourEdge Bazooka JMax 460cc Carbon Driver may be the best driver you’ve never heard of. But now you don’t have that excuse anymore, do you?

Touredge Jmax DrawThis review comes to us via our partners at GolfWRX.com. Specifically, we’d like to thank Sam Torrez (aka “Sam-Tee-Time”), who plays out of Dallas, TX, for this review.

TourEdge is a company that I’ve been aware of for their Bazooka JMax drivers, but I’ve never had the opportunity to test their clubs until recently, when I got my hands on the TourEdge Bazooka JMax 460cc Carbon driver. I was pleasantly surprised. Reading other Internet reviews of the previous model Bazooka drivers indicates that these are very solid, well engineered clubs that should be up for consideration for players of any ability level. As the limits to driver size has increased, TourEdge has responded likewise, with larger and larger clubheads that are now at the 460cc size limitations.

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Speeding Up Play, Part 1 of 2

Slow play drives everyone nuts, but everyone is responsible for slow play. Odds are, there are ways you too could speed up your play.

Trap Five LogoRory Sabbatini was vilified this year for putting on a display of intolerance towards the slow play of a fellow PGA Tour player. This site even labeled him Jackass of the Week for his rude behavior towards Ben Crane, a notoriously slow player.

Who knows how Rory would have behaved playing behind that same dreadful foursome playing ahead of you every Saturday. Would he have driven over their heads? Hit onto the green while they were putting out? Or just skipped the hole and moved in front of them?

A round of golf should not take five hours to complete, despite what you may tell your significant others. This week’s top five list: the top five ways to speed up play. In fact, it’s part one of two.

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TaylorMade Rescue Dual/TP Review

TaylorMade’s Rescue Mid was a good club. Can the addition of movable weights vault the Rescue to “must-own” territory?

Taylormade Rescue Dual TPThe hybrid. In today’s world, we have hybrid cars, hybrid plants and animals, and hybrid golf clubs. Which you choose to care about most is a matter of your personal, political, and playtime preferences. But here at The Sand Trap, we care about the golf clubs.

Though many can claim to have created the first hybrid (our money is on Cobra’s Baffler from 20+ years ago), some of the first to get some serious ink started showing up in 2003 and 2004. TaylorMade found that it had one of the more successful hybrids when it released the Rescue Mid in late 2003/early 2004.

What, then, is TaylorMade to do with the follow-up to a verified hit? Why, the same thing they do to everything else: add movable weights to it! 2005 saw the introduction of the “Rescue Dual” where “dual” means two movable weights. What’d we think? Read on…

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Presidents Cup Wrapup

The Presidents Cup is over, and our staff predictions are either right or wrong. Let’s see how they break down.

Presidents Cup CelebrationJust before the start of the Presidents Cup, the staff of The Sand Trap .com made some predictions. By now, of course, you know that the United States won the Presidents Cup, 18½-15½ over a strong International team. You know that Chris DiMarco holed a clutch 15-footer to seize the 18th and critical point. You know that Phil Mickelson is the only player to halve his match on Sunday, and that Tiger Woods lost in singles – a rare occurrence.

Let’s see how our predictions held up.

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Gamesmanship

Gamesmanship: Seve Ballesteros was famous for it, and you can become pretty well known at your club as well by employing some simple tactics.

Trap Five LogoDictionary.com defines gamesmanship as:

The use in a sport or game of aggressive, often dubious tactics, such as psychological intimidation or disruption of concentration, to gain an advantage over one’s opponent.

The singles matches in the Presidents Cup take place tomorrow, while the Seve Trophy is being contested in Europe. The Seve Trophy is named after one of the greatest gamesmen of all time: Severiano Ballesteros. Ballesteros was (in)famous for developing a rather severe cough during past Ryder Cups.

Gamesmanship, though not covered by the rules except in rare cases (i.e. extremely poor etiquette can earn a disqualification and giving wrong information can earn penalties), skirts the boundaries of decent human behavior and “win at all costs” behavior.

Furthermore, gamesmanship can backfire, stoking the competitive fire of your opponent. I typically laugh off any attempts at gamesmanship, personally, and vow even more to beat the snot out of the guy who would be so foolish as to try a lame little trick.

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Presidents Cup Staff Predictions

The staff of The Sand Trap .com weighs in on the Presidents Cup and the final score, big point-getters, disappointments, and key matchups.

Presidents CupThe Presidents Cup is here, and we’re as excited as we can be for a Ryder Cup wannabe event that ended in a tie the last time it was played. The last time a major sporting event ended in a tie, Bud Selig was commissioner of Major League Baseball and the All-Star Game was called a draw.

What? You say Bud Selig is still the commissioner of the MLB? Oy.

Here are our staff predictions for this, the sixth playing of the Presidents Cup.

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