After just two months with WorldGolf.com I’ve decided to retire. At my age, I don’t need the stress of a full-time job anymore. But before I go, I’ve got a few parting words for Chris Baldwin about his friend Rush Limbaugh. So, Chris, you like the guy because he agrees with you about Michelle Wie? And because you saw him being nice to people on a golf course? And you admire him because he had the drive to succeed in the radio business? I think when history makes its judgment, those factors won’t weigh heavily. This is a guy who I ...

Two women from Missouri introduced a line of products unlike any other at this year’s PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando. Their Sassy Swings hand-beaded women’s golf gloves are targeted at the high-end customer who cares about style on the golf course. Each glove is accented with 14K gold and sterling silver, and each has a bracelet whose beads can be used as a stroke counter. The gloves drew admiring stares at the merchandise show, and now they’re sold in five countries and 12 states. The biggest problem for the owners of the company is convincing the men who run pro shops ...

This week’s TCL Classic is the most watchable European Tour event since the Johnnie Walker Classic. It’s got a better field than the tournaments in recent weeks in Singapore, Jakarta and Malaysia, and the Yalong Bay Golf Club on the Chinese island of Hainan is a well-maintained course with manicured greens like we’re accustomed to seeing at PGA tour events. David Howell, billed as the “Tiger Tamer” and currently 14th in the world, is the favorite, but Ed Loar, an All-American from Oklahoma State and Liang Wen-chong of China lead the field after the first round, tied at 10-under-par 62. This ...

What’s this big uproar from Duke University fans who are stumbling over each other to defend Mike Krzyzewski’s foul language? Next time you’re at a college basketball game, try shouting the same language that Coach K uses and see what happens. Chances are a gang of burly security guards will escort you from the arena. Why? You’re offending the people around you. So I guess it’s OK for a coach to offend the fans, including families, sitting near him, but it’s not acceptable for the rest of us. Can’t anyone see the hypocrisy in that? Who says coaches should get ...

Everyone knows about the exponential growth of China’s economy. One outcome of that growth is the burgeoning popularity of golf. For a little insight into that, check out the website for the Mission Hills Golf Club. Located 90 minutes by car from Hong Kong, the club features an astonishing 180 holes of golf – ten very lush golf courses designed by the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Nick Faldo. Half the members come from Hong Kong, but 3,000 come from the mainland, and are paying $25,000 a year in dues. It’s very important in China not ...

The writer Dan Jenkins once did an interview with Golf Digest in which he complains about the lack of charisma and excitement on the PGA Tour – aside from Tiger Woods who he admires tremendously. PGA tournaments, he says, are about “getting sunburned at the rich man’s country club” and then he goes on to talk about the players. “I think Greg Norman still sells some tickets. (The interview was in 2001.) Maybe Fred Couples and Phil Mickelson. All the others you lump together. Part of the spectacle.” I pretty much agree with Jenkins and that’s why I’m joining W.K. Wolfrum ...

Marcus Fraser of Australia holed two chips to tie for the lead in the sultry Singapore Masters on Thursday. Singaporean Mardan Mamat shares the opening-round lead at seven under par 65. I watched the stunningly listless broadcast on Thai satellite TV. By the ninth hole, many of the Europeans were rather unattractively bathed in sweat, a condition which afflicts every white golfer in Southeast Asia. With the problems these tournaments are having in attracting sponsors, maybe somebody should approach Bristol-Myers Squibb, the makers of Ban Roll-On. Maybe that company would agree to support a European Tour event in which none of ...

The Singapore Masters begins Thursday with a field of players similar to the lackluster one at last week’s Indonesia Open. Many of the top European players have gone missing again, in pursuit of larger purses in the United States. This is an issue that has plagued the European Tour for years. Its lenient rules state that tour members must participate in 11 European-sanctioned tournaments to remain in good stead. However, those include events co-sanctioned with the PGA such as the majors and the World Golf Championships, which will be played only in the United States for the foreseeable future. Thus, ...

While researching my Phil Mickelson, generous tipper blog yesterday, I came across a hiliarious Web site I’d like to share with you. It’s called www.bitterwaitress.com and it’s full of juicy anecdotes about the behavior and tipping practices of famous people. Like most folks, I like to read about famous people in their unguarded moments. Some of the celebs come across on the website as genuinely nice people - like Teri Hatcher, Howard Stern, Katie Couric, Pedro Martinez, Joan Rivers, David Schwimmer, Drew Carey and, yes, Pete Rose and many more. But then there are others – Dennis Miller, Bud ...

I read with interest today’s story on Yahoo about Phil Mickelson, the big tipper. The story says that Phil once gave a waiter a $700 tip after a cheap meal. Personally, I would like to know the details: Did the waiter give Phil a sob story about his kid needing an operation? Was Phil high or drunk when he gave such a generous gratuity? Had he just won the Masters and, relieved at no longer being called a choke artist, decided to share his good fortune? After reading this story, I’m starting to feel that GQ wasn’t fair to Phil when ...

The No. 2 man in the South Korean government is on the hot seat for a scandal that’s escalating by the hour. No, he didn’t embezzle money or take bribes. And, no, he didn’t get caught with a hostess at a karaoke bar. What Prime Minister Lee Hae-Chan did was something most of us do routinely. He played golf on his day off. Lee, who is second in command to President Roh Moo-hyun, spent Wednesday on the golf course. Wednesday in Korea was a national holiday marking a 1919 civil uprising against colonialist Japan. It was also the first day of ...

Just like the Malaysian Open last month, the Enjoy Jakarta HSBC Indonesia Open is having thunderstorm problems. That’s one of the hazards of Southeast Asia along with bird flu, malaria, ant bites, dengue fever and jock itch. Simon Dyson of England shant complain. He shares the lead after two rounds with Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand. Dyson’s round was smooth and consistent while Thongchai weathered a wild one: He three-putted five greens but still carded a 68 thanks to two eagles and four birdies. Jai dee in Thai means “good heart.” He needed a good, strong heart on this day. Thongchai is ...

If you ever decide to travel to Southeast Asia for a golfing vacation, consider Vietnam. Until recently, golf in communist Vietnam was considered a decadent capitalist pastime. No more. With a reforming economy that’s growing nearly as fast as China’s, golf is the new status symbol in the Land of the Dragon. Currently there are only nine golf courses in the country, but recently the government announced that a consortium of Japanese companies will invest $1.2 billion to build a “romantic town” with 30,000 villas, five-star hotels and, yes, a 36-hole golf course just a chip shot away from the ...

Part of the charm of the European Tour is its threadbare, seat-of-the-pants quality which mirrors the harsher realities of life on this continent. Some of these tournaments - like the recent Malaysian Open and this week’s Indonesia Open - don’t even find sponsors until the month before they happen. So I’ll be careful to mention the sponsor’s name of the “>Enjoy Jakarta HSBC Indonesia Open, co-sanctioned by the European and Asian tours. The purse is just $1 million, compared to the $5.5 million purse at the other big tournament this week, the Ford Championship at Doral on the PGA Tour. So guess ...

A few readers objected to yesterday’s blog in which I said Arnold Palmer ought to stop playing golf on television. One reader called me a loser. A second said he was surprised that hit men hadn’t already gunned me down. What we are dealing with here is a taboo. I don’t like taboos. Here’s how Webster’s defines a taboo: “The stinking turd on the carpet that everybody is too polite to smell.” Every one of you, including the guy who called me a loser, knows it’s undignified for Arnold to play golf in his present state of deterioration. Have you looked ...

Here I am in a Southeast Asian country men call paradise, and what am I doing on a warm and sunny Thursday afternoon in late February? I’m watching a three-week-old re-run of the Wendy’s Champions Skins Game on Thai satellite TV. How pathetic is that? And yet, I can’t tear myself away. Watching the immortals of the game turn mortal holds a fascination for me. As long as they’re able to perform without peeing on themselves, I’m attentive and sitting upright This was a tag-team match of the following pairs: Nicklaus-Watson, Player-Irwin, Floyd-Quigley and Jacobsen-Palmer. Of the eight, only Peter Jacobsen ...

Nobody in the history of sports has fallen further from a higher place than David Duval. To go from the world’s No. 1 player to a guy who has trouble breaking 80 is unprecedented in golf. Every sport has examples of athletes who have fallen from grace, but few have done it as dramatically while still in their prime. The most prominent, baseball pitchers Steve Blass and Rick Ankiel, both of whom developed mysterious control problems, were not stars of Duval’s magnitude or duration. Whenever a great athlete’s game disintegrates for no apparent reason, you’ll find a writer taking the role of ...

Joo Mee Kim of Korea won the LPGA Tour’s SBS Open in Hawaii over the weekend. She beat 22-year-old Soo Young Moon, also of Korea, in a playoff. Korean Charlie Wi won the European Tour’s Malaysian Open on Sunday. Michelle Wie, a Korean-American, is the most promising young player in women’s golf. Before Wie, another Korean named Grace Park was probably the most promising. Why are Korean golfers becoming so prominent in the game today? I can only relate a personal experience I had recently in Thailand. I was at a driving range, doing my usual impeccable job of spraying drives ...

Although defending champion Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand is seeking his third straight Malaysian Open victory this week, Padraig Harrington was tapped as the favorite in Kuala Lumpur, despite the fact that he’s never won the tournament before. This gives you an idea of how Eurocentric some people can be. It’s the Asians who know the golf course best. But somehow the oddsmakers still favor an Irishman coming off a nine-week layoff. I watched the first round today on Thai satellite television, and found it to be an utterly listless beginning. Harrington looked rusty, and all the other European players were sweating ...

When I worked at The Denver Post we had a Sunday columnist who, whenever she wanted to generate a ton of letters from readers, wrote negative stuff about the pope and the Catholic Church. I don’t see much resemblance between the pope and Michelle Wie except one - every time one of us writes a blog on Wie, we get a bigger-than-usual reader response. Can somebody tell me why? What is the big fuss over Michelle Wie, and why are golfing fans so ardent in their praise and condemnation? Why the unusual level of interest in a girl who has never ...

I was disappointed when Mike Weir came apart in the final round of the 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach, carding six bogeys and a double-bogey to finish with a 78. After his brilliant opening-round 63 – and having finished fourth, third and second in the AT&T the previous three years – I thought he might win, but Sunday wasn’t his day. I have always liked Weir’s game, his character and style. He is by most accounts a genuine and caring guy, and I can’t resist pulling for a golfer who, in this era of the big boppers, stands 5 feet 9 and ...

Some of you remember when the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am Tournament was known as the Bing Crosby Pro-Am. The crooner started the event as an informal get-together with his Hollywood friends and some pro golfers in 1937. Sam Snead won first prize of $500 at the first tournament at Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. - and probably never spent a dime of it. After World War II, a deal was struck to bring the tourney to the Monterey Pensinsula, and it was Crosby’s brilliant idea to play it at three golf courses. Bing died in 1977 and a foundation took ...

I have a rooting interest in this week’s Johnnie Walker Classic where Colin Montgomerie, the moody Scot, is itching for a win. Last weekend, Tiger Woods won the Dubai Desert Classic while a subdued Monty finished 101st. Even more distressing was the size of his estimated $14 million out-of-court divorce settlement. One can only imagine how painful, especially for a Scot, such an expensive trip to the cleaners must be. Taking Monty’s money woes into consideration, won’t everyone please be especially civil to him this week? Stow away your cameras, stand nice and still, and keep those barbed comments to yourselves. ...

The Zagat Survey’s “America’s Top Golf Courses” names Riverdale Dunes in Colorado the best budget course. Zagat’s criterion for a “budget course:” greens fees of $40 and under. I don’t know about you, but $40 twice a week puts a big dent in my budget. How can a fellow play golf often enough to improve his game? Here’s one answer: Move to Thailand like I did. Thailand really is a golfer’s dream. Weekdays, many excellent courses here charge $10 per round plus $5 for the mandatory caddie. Even the driving ranges are super. Pay about 35 baht (less than 90 cents) ...

By the final hole of the Phoenix Open (I prefer the old name to “FBR Open"), the TV announcer was predicting superstardom for the winner, J. B. Holmes, who won by seven strokes in only his sixth PGA Tour event. Granted, the kid from Kentucky – who looks like a young model for Red Man Chewing Tobacco – put on a show. But can we please give him time to win a couple of majors before we turn him into Sam Snead? Over the years, many now-forgotten guys in sports have made a brief splash. Bobo Holloman threw a no-hitter in his ...

According to the February GQ article naming Phil Mickelson one of the most hated guys in sports, the other players on the PGA Tour call him “FIGJAM,” which stands for “F**k I’m great, just ask me.” Why do they call him FIGJAM? Just go to Phil’s official website www.philmickelson.com which contains Phil’s letters to his fans and a description of what a truly warm, caring, cuddly, charitable, big-lug-you-love-to-hug Phil really is. Excerpt: “What separates Mickelson from his peers is there truly is more to this young man than his smooth swing, silky putting stroke, booming drives off the tee and ...

Congratulations to Phil Mickelson for making GQ’s list of the “10 Most Hated Athletes” in the February issue, now on the newsstands. Way to go, we’re proud of you, Lefty! After years of trying, you finally won a major tournament. And now you’ve been exposed as a phony in a major magazine. Phil was named the eighth biggest jerk in sports, and what makes the accomplishment really noteworthy is the select group of certified schmucks he joins, among them: 1) Terrell Owens, 2) Barry Bonds, 5) Kobe Bryant, 7) Bonzi Wells, and 10) Lleyton Hewitt. The article says Phil doesn’t have ...

Talk of Michelle Wie winning a major is just so much blah-blah Pretty courageous of Jennifer Mario to bet us in her blog that Michelle Wie will win a men’s major sometime in her career. Way to go out on a limb, Jennifer. Since we’re talking about a 16-year-old kid, will we have to wait 25 years to collect on that bet? Or is that 30 years? If Wie hasn’t won a men’s major by the age of 50, will that be conclusive? Sorry to say, many of us will be dead by then. Fact is, nobody born before the Age of the ...

Michelle Wie has signed up to play in a men’s tournament again, this time the SK Telecom Open in Korea in May. It’ll be her eighth attempt to make the cut against the guys, and maybe eight times is a charm. This business - and it is about business - of Wie challenging the boys reminds me of the time when Pete Rademacher challenged Floyd Patterson for the world heavyweight boxing title in his first pro bout. Predictably, Rademacher suffered four knockdowns in the fifth round and was bombed out in the sixth. The difference between Rademacher and Wie is that Pete ...

I was surprised this morning to read, belatedly, that The International tournament in Castle Pines, Colorado has signed a new six-year deal with CBS and The Golf Channel. Surprised why? Because after last year’s sleep-inducing 36-hole closing day, I thought the tournament was kaput – finally and at long last. The International was an ambitious attempt by its founder, Jack Vickers, to create a new major golf tournament, one that was so different that it would capture the imaginations of golf fans worldwide. But it has never succeeded on that level because it employs a scoring system that most people ...

If there’s an Everyman in pro golf, let’s put aside John Daly for a moment and consider Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand. At five feet seven and 139 pounds, he’s Bangkok Al’s size but without the Milwaukee tumor. And he’s very dark-skinned in a country where skin-whitening cosmetics are found in every hand bag and bathroom cabinet. Thai people will do almost anything to flee the sun, and not just because of skin cancer. There is no such thing as a rich golf course tan in Thailand. If you’re dark, it means you’re probably a poor laborer in the rice paddies. You’re ...

I will admit to having a thing for Grace Park. Go ahead and accuse me of having an Asian fetish if you want to, and maybe that’s true. I didn’t land in Bangkok for no reason at all. But if Grace Park isn’t the classiest looking and most desirable woman on the LPGA Tour, I’d like to know who is. Seems like we don’t hear much about Grace Park these days. Michelle Wie soaks up most of the attention, and Annika Sorenstam wins most of the tournaments, and Grace gets very little ink. Maybe that’s because she isn’t much of ...

For many years, old Bangkok Al was a newspaperman in Denver, Colorado. Then he got divorced and came to Thailand – to play golf. If you believe that last part about golf, listen up - I’ve got a go-go bar for sale in the tourist center of Bangkok that is hugely profitable and available cheap. E-mail me and I’ll give you the details. My point is, very few men come to Thailand just to play golf. That’s what they tell their wives, but the reality is Thailand has a richly deserved reputation for offering pleasures that can’t be talked about in the ...