A few months ago, I was in Montreal, covering the Presidents Cup. During one of the press conferences - if memory serves, it was to the end of the event - Gary Player launched on a mini-tirade about the need to bring golf to more countries. He said, using the Presidents Cup as an example, that such an event should start being held in eastern Europe. He singled out the former Eastern bloc countries as one of the regions into which golf desperately needed to make inroads. Hey, he’s got a supporter in me. As I’ve written elsewhere, golf has been ...

Go on, admit it, I know you’ve been wondering where former U.S. Open Champ Michael Campbell has been up to all these years after his victory in 2005. Well, he hasn’t been doing much, but it seems that he’s still the marquee draw for the The Michael Hill New Zealand Golf Open, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this week. The European PGA Tour is reporting that the Kiwi will become the “official Ambassador to the New Zealand Open” this week. He’s won the event once before. He’s pledged to donate his winnings - NZD 1.5 million - to the New Zealand ...

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - Golf is a relatively straight forward game, not difficult to comprehend even at its most arcane. And even the best golf courses in the world have more in common with the rank-and-file than not. Fundamentally, if you’ve been on one golf course, you’ve been on them all.(I’m talking fundamentally, folks.) So I wonder why all these starters around Myrtle Beach feel the need to preface your round of golf with a 10-minute rundown of “rules” and “instructions"? On a recent trip, it started as an oddity, morphed a bit into an impertinence and finally settled firmly ...

I’ll say this at the outset: I often agree with much that TravelGolf.com’s Chris Baldwin has to say. Not everything, but a lot. More often than not, Baldwin is spot on with his takes on the game, and I usually admire his willingness to take unpopular positions and hang his opinions out there. That bit of throat-clearing now over, I did a double-take at Baldwin’s most recent blog entry: Impossible to overestimate the impact of Justin Timberlake as new host of Las Vegas’ PGA tournament. Yes, it seems that Baldwin thinks that boy-toy Timberlake is really going to have them lining up ...

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - Should an 18th hole be hard or easy? Should it let you down softly into the clubhouse and give you a jolt of confidence (all the more important after a tough round)? Or should it make you work to get home. A hammock hole (just lay back and relax), or a hole that brings things to a dramatic and challenging finish? I think most of us would agree that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. No one wants to get a beat down on the home hole, especially if the round has not been going, ...

Justin Rose was recently crowned the European PGA Tour’s Player of the Year, winning the coveted Order of Merit and simultaneously snapping most of our attention away from what were other, more marquee Euro tour golfers that seemed to be having a hell of a 2007. There was Angel Cabrera winning the U.S. Open. There was Padraig Harrington winning the British Open. Euro Tour veteran Ernie Els seemed to wake up during the second half of the year and contend in nearly every event the was playing in. But there was Rose hoisting the storied Harry Vardon Trophy. I thought: Rose? He ...

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - Here’s a question: Can anyone working in America today besides a weatherman be so consistently wrong and still keep his job? Think about it. How often has your local “meteorologist” been wrong, and I mean dead wrong , on his “forecasts"? And how often have you feared that a bad call at work might lead to some, I don’t know, trouble with the higher ups? Trust me, whatever you do out there, if you were wrong as often as weathermen, you’d be out of a job. Yet night after night they keep coming back. OK, they’ve got a ...

DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. - In a little more than a year from now, America’s eyes, if not the world’s, will be focused on this little hamlet in the mountains of New Hampshire’s North Woods - if only for about 30 minutes. Every presidential election, Dixville Notch, population 18-20 (depending on who you ask), casts the nation’s first votes, at 12:00 a.m. on the first Tuesday of November. New Hampshire law says that once every registered voter has had his say in a particular town, voting stations there can close and votes can be tallied. In Dixville Notch, the whole process takes around ...

NEWRY, Maine - I’m sitting on the slopes of Sunday River Ski Mountain, at the Sunday River Brewing Co., drinking the Sunday River Summer. Yeah, it’s Fall, I know, but this brew is seriously quaffable. Which got me thinking about some of the secondary benefits of golfing in Maine. Pretty much everywhere you’ll end up will have a microbrewery nearby. This state is replete with really solid local brews - in Carabassett Valley, in Farmington, in nearby Bethel. Check out the Granary Brewpub in Farmington, the Sugarloaf Brewing Co. in Carabassett Valley, or stuff from the Casco Bay Brewing Co. ...

CARABASSETT VALLEY, Maine – If you play Sugarloaf Golf Club here, then you’ll quickly learn all about Robert Trent Jones Jr.’s ‘String of Pearls’. Jones designed the course about 20 years ago. The string consists of Nos. 10-15 that wind along the southern branch of the Carabassett River (some say ‘pearls’ come from all the boulders that are strewn along the riverbed and take up position along side, or in the middle of, the holes. It’s as impressive a series of holes as you’ll find anywhere. No. 10 is an easy par 4 with breathtaking views (and a tee shot to a ...

BELGRADE LAKES, Maine - New Englanders consider Fall their birthright, the best time of year. On about this time of year, especially up here, summer is a distant memory (it probably only lasted two months or so anyway). The days grow increasingly short, and there is a bite to the air, a suggestion of something not that far off, maybe only a week or two away: the first frost. From there, well, it’s a ski ramp down into winter. But that’s in a little bit. Now there’s only the crispness leading the way. Oh, did I mention the leaves? Yellows, crimsons, scarlets ...

MONTREAL - Mike Weir did today what few have done: Survive a Tiger Woods comeback. Trailing by one stroke with two holes to play, Weir held on to beat Woods 1-up in what was today’s most highly anticipated match-up. Woods was down by as many as three points, but went on a torrid run on the back nine, winning four or five holes. But Woods could not close the deal on the 17, barely missing his birdie putt. Weir stepped up and made birdie. On 18, the first time Woods had played the hole this week, his drive found the tall grass ...

MONTREAL - The United States has won the 2007 Presidents Cup today, after Stewart Cink clinched it by beating Nick O’Hern 6 and 4. It is the first time the Americans have won the Presidents Cup outside the U.S. Earlier, Phil Mickelson bested Vijay Singh 5 and 4, and Scott Verplank beat Rory Sabbatini 2 and 1. Tiger Woods and Mike Weir are all square heading into 18.

MONTREAL - Phil Mickelson has put the first point on the board today for the American side at the Presidents Cup with a romp over Vijay Singh, 5 and 4. This could have been a real battle. Instead, Vijay left his game at home. Lefty had his way with the Fijian, making birdies at Nos. 2, 10 and 12. Singh did his part to help, making bogey on Nos. 3 and 6. The points now stand 15.5 to 7.5 in favor of the Americans. The Internationals are leading in only three matches, the Americans in six and three matches are all square.

MONTREAL - Driving into the Presidents Cup today, I saw a sign outside a cheap hotel that read, simply, ‘Go Mike’. There’s probably scores of those signs all over the place here today, because the biggest story in Canada is Mike Weir’s match-up against World No. 1 Tiger Woods. There’s no denying the draw in this singles pairing, and given the fact that the Presidents Cup itself could well be won after the first three matches (the United States only needs three points to win), the Weir-Woods head-to-head will still give us a reason to stay tuned (there’s no way ...