Golf discrepancies don’t start and end at Wikipedia with Fuzzy Zoeller, who claims defamatory material was added to his biography in 2006. The “Encyclopedia anyone, seriously, can edit” is calling Musselburgh Links in Edinburgh - not St. Andrews the birthplace of golf in the 17th century. It also credits the Netherlands for inventing the game. Here’s the paragraph (Under the entry “Golf”): “Golf is said to have originated in the Netherlands (see History below), but has been played for at least five centuries in the British Isles. Golf, in essentially the form we know today, has been played on Scotland’s ...

Just one six-foot reason why us northerners dig golfing in the swamp. We don’t have critters like this in our neck of the woods. (Apologies for not getting the extreme close up.) Photo below… An alligator takes advantage of sunny, 70-degree February weather at Aberdeen Country Club near Myrtle Beach.

Phil Mickelson’s under-the-radar donations to former NFL player Conrad Dobler was an unnecessary act of giving and helped to expose the NFL’s lack of appreciation to the stars who helped put the league where it is today. The NBA All-star Game took place in Las Vegas last night. Fittingly, it was a bet between two players that led to a much more entertaining $100,000 donation to East All-star Gilbert Arenas’ charity. When TNT’s coverage cut back from commercial in the second half last night, they showed a clip of a group of Elvis impersonators who brought a trampoline on the ...

Phil Mickelson is driving the ball better than ever and the “incident” at Winged Foot only made him wiser for the rest of his career. At least that’s what he’s telling anyone who asks. After driving the ball well all tournament, Mickelson missed his tee shot left again on the 72nd hole at the Nissan Open Sunday afternoon, a goof that ended up costing him back-to-back wins in early 2007. Only this time around, the 18th was a dogleg right, not left. He still had a very real shot at par, but his short game of all things failed him. ...

I’ve only been in Myrtle Beach two weeks now. So far, my hands-down favorite course is Caledonia Golf and Fish Club. As a Michigan native, playing southeastern golf can get redundant, since many of the courses are in residential communities, flat, winding around ponds, creeks and huge waste bunkers. It’s still kind of weird to me carts can go in bunkers at a lot of courses here. Caledonia blew me away. It’s got a good deal of undulation, which while playing, I wasn’t sure if it was natural or not. Turns out, the marshy property only had four feet of ...

I played Willbrook Plantation on Pawley’s Island south of Myrtle Beach yesterday. I went off the back nine and the twosome I paired up with crapped out after six holes. They were seniors and had been playing 36 holes a day all week. The intermittent rain was an excuse for them to get off the course and hit a movie. Anyways, I partnered with a new threesome beginning their round on front side. I was shocked to discover the first hole is easily the most difficult drive on the course. It’s 400 yards from the white tees and is a ...

A recent feature at Golf Digest ranks America’s Toughest 50 golf courses. The state of Michigan scored one track: the infamous Bear at the Grand Traverse Resort near Traverse City. It placed 18th. While this course definitely put a hurting on me with it’s tricky green complexes, I would rank newcomber Eagle Eye near East Lansing as the toughest I’ve played in Michigan. Greens are huge, there are hazards everywhere and a few blind shots. It also features a replica of the 17th at Sawgrass. There’s another difficult course in Michigan that will never be the subject of any national lists ...

I know golf is boring to watch on TV. But today at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in Monterrey we were offered the alternative to generic PGA pros with no personality and shoddy fashion sense. Namely: Danny Gans. This Vegas show entertainer who headlines at the Mirage in Las Vegas (I only know this because he’s on probably 25% of billboards and advertising on the Strip – I would never actually pay money to see this self-absorbed loser) was all over CBS’s coverage of the 3rd round. Maybe Bill Murray was having an off-day with his gallery antics, or maybe we’ve ...

We as a civilization have become far too dependent on technology - technology that isolates us. It gives us a false sense of reality. We can sit on our computer for 14 hours and think the world is more connected. We can play video games against our friends without inviting them over to our basement. We don’t write grandma as much as we should because she doesn’t have email. There was a time I used to allow our society to free-fall into the depths of technological solitude. That time was BEFORE I learned Scotland will open an indoor golf simulation ...

The USGA has decided it doesn’t want four-plus hours of exclusive Pat Hurst on TV. Beginning in this year’s Women’s U.S. Open, the tournament will stage a same-day, three-hole playoff if necessary and rid the 18-hole marathon held on Mondays. The decision came after nobody watched the extra session on a work day. However the men’s Open will continue to use the additional 18-hole format. The Senior Open went to a three-hole format in 1999. The PGA Championship has a similar three-hole playoff and the British Open has a four-hole format. The Masters holds a sudden-death playoff beginning on the ...

You can play the Old Course at St. Andrews for about half the cost as you would in the high season. But a lot of golfers will still tell you it isn’t worth it. And it’s not just because of the spotty weather and lack of sunlight. The course gets over 40,000 rounds a year and needs a breather. So each November-thru-February, you must use little portable mats off the fairway. For players who might only get one shot at the Old, using mats may take away some of the aura. Or do you? One blogger has discovered the Old ...