It’s hard to believe such a renowned landmark like the Dunes Golf & Beach Club could ever be in jeopardy of not making it. But believe it or not, its place as a forefather in what has become one of the biggest golf destinations in the world wasn’t a given. This day 60 years ago, local Myrtle Beach businessmen met in Chapin’s Cabin just off of where the 11th now sits. They wanted more recreational options in town and decided a golf & beach club on this property would be a good start. The early going was rough for the club. ...

TravelGolf.com’s Chris Baldwin’s recent newsletter on how Arizona desert golf is harder than just about everywhere else in America poses the question: What is the world’s hardest golf destination? I have a hard time believing it’s the Valley of the Sun or similar desert golf. The only desert golf I’ve played is in Las Vegas and it wasn’t remarkably more difficult. In fact, Bali Hai Golf Club has fairways so wide, if the pilot of a 747 happened to miss its landing strip across the street at McCarran International Airport, it wouldn’t think twice about touching down on one of ...

This Sunday afternoon on the High Stakes Golf Tour airing on ESPN, 20 players will be putting up $250,000 each in a two-man best ball tournament. 19 of the players are Y-Chromosomes. The one woman who thinks she has the cojones to beat these high rollers? Janet Jones, former actress and dancer and wife of Wayne Gretzky. She’s teamed up with jack-of-all-trades Vince Van Patten. It’s a bit of a head-turner, hanging out at Bali Hai practice green and seeing a score of middle-aged guys with five o’clock shadows and big egos. Then among chatterboxes like Phil Hellmuth is one unassuming, blonde ...

David Leadbetter is mouthing off “woulda coulda shouldas” to the press again regarding his phenom-turned-Titanic. That’s in his words, by the way. After suggesting to the press that Michelle Wie shouldn’t play mens tournaments earlier this summer, now he’s going public analyzing her dreadful 2007 season. This coming from the Toronto Globe and Mail: “If she hadn’t played those [men’s] tournaments, then everybody would have considered 2006 her best season yet,” Wie’s swing coach, David Leadbetter, who had made his opinions known to her and her family, said Monday from his home in Orlando. “It was absolute madness for her ...

Sometimes all it takes is beating the world’s most dominant golfer heads up to end a streak of 86 events without a title. Sure it’s the “silly season", but Mike Weir is surely giddy over his performance over the last month - first beating Tiger Woods in a pretty-close-to-meaningless match at the Presidents Cup - now winning the Frys Open. When Weir won The Masters in 2003, he was touted as a possible Top 10 mainstay. Well, he’s barely been on the radar since his win at the 2004 Nissan Open. On a side note, it was nice to see ...

Tiger’s grilling brats with Roger Federer on his yacht somewhere between Gatorade endorsement mega-deals. Ernie Els is giving pre-game rugby pep talks apparently. Yep, it’s about that time for golf’s “silly season". There is one new addition this year, but it isn’t PGA Tour affiliated. It’s the new High Stakes Golf Tour, scheduled to air this Saturday and next on ESPN. There are no scratch golfers in the two-day event. In fact, most of them are pretty terrible. Some are allowed to use a tee on every shot. They’re mostly poker players like Phil Helmuth, Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivey ...

When a friend of mine who lives in Charleston suggested we watch Thursday night college football at Moe’s, I thought, “Why would we want to watch a football game at a southwestern grill?” Moe’s Downtown Tavern isn’t the chain restaurant you go to for takeout fajitas - and when we asked the front desk where Moe’s was, that’s the direction they pointed us in, so be specific when you ask. Moe’s is a great place to watch sports, eat dinner, drink beers and talk trash to opposing fans, but everyone in there - actually everyone in Charleston - is really ...

The family building a home to the right of the 11th hole at Coosaw Creek in North Charleston couldn’t possibly be golfers. Only about half of home owners on golf courses play golf. The other half simply enjoy the open green spaces behind them and the higher resale values. But since they don’t understand that 90% golfers hit at least five or six stray Scud missiles during a round, it’s hard to know they’re sitting ducks. Coosaw’s middle tees are only 6000 yards, and the backs are 6500 yards but a sneaky-hard slope of 140, so most mid-handicappers are tempted ...

Donald Trump is back in Scotland and the site of his proposed golf resort just north of Aberdeen, and the Scotsman has a very detailed report of current happenings. The $2 million project continues to face opposition. When I visited the location last October, Trump officials hoped it would have been green-lighted by June and construction would have begun by now, but it continues to be held up by those pesky nature conservationists. The Scottish Wildlife Trust says the course would do irreversible damage to the dunesland, which is a Site of Specific Scientific Interest. Local businesses, including nearby golf ...

Call me blind, call me naive. Sorry Gary Player, I just don’t see steroids as a problem in golf. Not now, not in the foreseeable future. Tour pro Charley Hoffman agreed with me, as we trolled the fairways at the Viking Classic Pro-Am at Annandale (actually he was in the fairway, I was looking for my ball O.B. around some little girl’s lemonade stand). “I think the PGA Tour was pressured into it,” he said. “I don’t think steroids are being used out here. It’s not a problem.” Actually, he said something way funnier off-the-record I can’t use (maybe I’ll tell ...

Detroit has had three temporary casinos since the late 1990s, but its first full-blown casino-hotel opened opened this week at the new MGM Grand. Building permanent, Vegas-style casino-hotels have always been the master plan and in 2007 its finally coming to fruition. There are three casinos downtown, the Greektown Casino and Motor City Casino being the other two (they will open permanent casino-hotels next fall). It was all part of a desperate plan to try and revitalize the gloomy downtown that saw its population - and money - head towards Oakland County over the last two decades. But there ...

All this talk about how the Presidents Cup actually features a better field than the Ryder Cup, and how it’s more of a worldly event and should get more publicity than its more famous competition is omitting one major factor as to why it will never be as big of a deal: There’s no Sergio Garcia. Okay, it’s not just Sergio, but the whiny, waggle-happy, yellow pants cry baby is the icon to use. The American Sports Fan just can’t get riled up about the International Team like the Europeans. To bemoan about 6/7’s of the world’s landmass would be ...