The 2007 tours have ended. One 2008 tour has begun. I guess it’s time to reflect.
The 2007 golf year is all but over, but what a year it was! With the debut of the FedExCup and the emergence of a new number one on the the LPGA, the world’s top men’s and women’s tours had major stories. They weren’t alone.
Let’s review some of the best, if not necessarily the biggest, stories on each of the top tours.
The Skins Game is just about fun, and that can’t be all bad.
It’s almost Thanksgiving here in the U.S., and that means one thing… OK, it means a bunch of things: turkey dinners, football games featuring the Jets/Cowboys and Packers/Lions (and Colts/Falcons if you happen to have the NFL Network), pumpkin pies, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, turkey sandwiches, Black Friday, cranberry sauce, college football, gravy, and, of course, the 25th iteration of that yearly golf tradition without equal… the Skins Game (or, officially, the LG Skins Game).
The Skins Game, Nov. 24-25, provides a last gasp of golf season, and signals the start of the Silly Season proper (though the whole Fall Series has felt a little more silly this year with its near total lack of big names).
12 steps aren’t enough to treat this addiction. This one takes 18 holes, at least.
I’ve always had a little touch of Monk to me. But when it comes to golf, I have to admit I’m more than a little touched.
Here’s what I mean. After returning home from a recent golf trip during which I played seven rounds in four days, I went to the range. I currently subscribe to not one but four print golf publications (in my defense, one is a free regional publication). I read several golf sites, listen to podcasts, and, oh yes, write about golf.
Dude! Where’s my golf company?
The speculation can finally end. For months, golf industry observers have been wondering who was going to snap up Cleveland Golf and the Never Compromise brand of putters from surf duds company Quiksilver. The surprise suitor is the parent company of Srixon, Sumitomo Rubber Industries, a leading Japanese tire company.
Quiksilver has agreed to sell Cleveland Golf to the SRI Sports Limited division for $132.5 million. The deal is expected to close during the fiscal quarter ending Jan. 31.
Ah, winter, a time to relax by a warm fire? Nah! Time to hit the links!
Even if you are not lucky enough to live in place blessed with a 12-month golf season, you can still get more golf out of your year (as long as you’re willing to make a few concessions to Mother Nature). As JP recently pointed out, many of us in the northern half of the northern hemisphere are facing another winter with less golf than we can enjoy in the summer. Here in Ohio, we are currently enjoying bonus rounds (in shorts!) at the moment, but Old Man Winter will surely rear his ugly head at some point.
You can only use five clubs to play your next round. Quick! What do you pick?
A friend of mine invited me to play in a casual five-club challenge a few weeks ago. By “five-club challenge,” she meant that you could only carry five clubs (not that there were five different clubs competing). As it turned out, I wasn’t able to play because of a little thing called a job (my early retirement plan hasn’t yet come to fruition… come on Super Lotto!), but I did go so far as to start planning out my strategy.
Steve Stricker found his golf swing on a range in Madison, Wisconsin, in the dead of winter. It’s always the last place you look.
Steve Stricker almost disappeared into the woods of Wisconsin. His resume went from “promising young player” to “washed up 30-something” in a matter of months. But with the help of a space heater, his father-in-law, and a trailer on a driving range, Stricker found his game again.
By all accounts, Stricker is a nice guy, a “regular joe.” Tiger calls him “classy.” His rollercoaster PGA Tour career has been a riches-to-rags-to-riches story.
Stricker showed early promise on Tour. He won twice in 1996, his seventh year as a pro, and he seemed destined to be among the premier players. He won again in 2001, but then gradually, his swing left him and his scores rose.
He missed getting his card at the 2005 Q-School, but he’s has come a very long way since. This year, Stricker finished second in the FedExCup, made the Presidents Cup team, and scored his first win since 2001. He’s on a two-year streak of solid play that shows no sign of slowing. 2008 could be another very good year for Steve Stricker.
It’s no Ryder Cup, but the Presidents Cup has been a lot more competitive lately than its big sister.
Here’s the question this week: will more people tune it to watch David Duval play in the Viking Classic or most of the top golfers in the world play the Presidents Cup? I would think it’ll be the Presidents Cup hands down. After all, Tiger’s playing (but I am pretty interested in seeing how Duval does).
Sometimes a plan comes together and sometimes it doesn’t. The FedExCup actually worked (surprised?), at least for the most part.
The PGA Tour’s first FedExCup (FEC) is in the books, and the Cup is in Tiger’s hands as most of us thought it would be. For the most part, the “playoffs” were a success. They attracted more attention to the Tour, post-PGA Championship, as it was supposed to. The best player from the regular season was also the hottest player going into the FEC, and sure enough, he continued to be the hot player in the playoffs.
Continue reading “The Good, Bad and Plain Old Ugly of the FedExCup”
