How will a distinct difference in generations affect the travel industry, asks a story at Delaware Online. The Baby Boomers and Generation X are at a crossroads when it comes to travel ability and interests, and just one can emerge victorious, while the other must be pummeled into submission. Ok, it’s not that dramatic, but it is interesting. We are at the cusp of a generational switchover, and those generations have much different tastes and interests. On one side, you have the Baby Boomers who tend to go for the more classical, opulent style of luxury and travel. On the other ...

There is an obscure federal mandate that declares that all golf bloggers must have some type of year-ending awards presentation. It’s a Patriot Act thing and yet more proof that the best laws are ones that are actually read by those doing the passing. So, in order to keep with federal regulations and to keep myself out of a secret Romanian gulag, I figured it was time to announce the “William K. Wolfrum Most Important Golfer of 2005″ award. There were the obvious choices, of course. Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam again blitzed their respective tours and are worthy of consideration. John ...

As we enter 2006, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that golf needs one thing more than anything else: a competent bad boy. John Daly had the title for a while, but he’s gone way too mainstream. They could find Daly passed out naked with a brigade of hookers at the first tee of the U.S. Open this year, and everyone would laugh it off. “Oh that John, isn’t he colorful. Grip it and rip it, eh John?” At least the LPGA has their bevy of bodacious babies to keep an eye on. But really, how controversial do you expect Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer ...

To update: The “Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005,” which will create eight billion dollars in tax relief for Gulf Coast businesses affected by Hurricane Katrina, has passed through congress and will likely be passed into law. The Bill will exclude casinos, liquor stores, massage parlors, racetracks, tanning parlors – and golf courses. “They are so flush with cash they really don’t need the benefit like many other businesses need them so Congress made the right call and decided it just wasn’t appropriate to subsidize those kinds of businesses,” moralized Barrett Duke with the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. So sorry Gulf Coast golf ...

From the Department of “Man I Wish There Was Video of This": According to the Island Packet, a 49-year-old Hilton Head Island woman was arrested recently, facing charges of vandalizing her neighbor’s property and assaulting a police officer. It appears one Rita Miguel Caruso had some troubles with her neighbor and decided to resolve the issue by imploding spectacularly. First Caruso pulled her golf clubs out and started smacking golf balls into her neighbor’s house, which, even in a golf-liberal environment like Hilton Head, is frowned upon. Then it was just off to the races. Caruso then started knocking over her neighbor’s plants, then ...

After basically choking away his chance at winning the Target World Challenge this past weekend, Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke was pragmatic regarding his downfall. “I swung it pretty poorly all day and it was going left a bit, and then bogeying two holes of the last three was not really the way I wanted to finish. I should have went out last night,” said Clarke. “I hit it all over the place. It was the lack of alcohol.” While the $800,000 Clarke pocketed for his second-place finish likely gave him the green light for glibness, something much more important can be ...

Gulf Coast golf courses are no different from a massage parlor, liquor store, casino or hot tub facility. At least not in the eyes of the U.S. House of Representatives. In voting through a multibillion-dollar tax package of tax breaks to revive hurricane-destroyed businesses, the House excluded casinos and country clubs, two stalwarts of the region’s tourism industry. According to the Associated Press, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., said Congress should not allow ‘‘our constituents’ hard-earned tax dollars, in these kinds of record deficits, to subsidize the rebuilding of a massage parlor, a liquor store or a casino.’’ Or a golf course, it ...

There’s nothing quite like curling up with a good book, or so they say. Right now, I’m reading The Morris Men by Stephen E. Mitchell. And I’m reading it, because I told the guy I’d review it. The Morris Men is the riveting tale of two lifelong English rivals and their battles for dominance on the golf course. Ok, that’s all I have. I’m only on page 17. Both main characters have died already by page 17, though I’m assuming there will be some serious flashbacking coming up. The problem is, I’ve had this book for a month. Reading 17 pages in ...

According to the News Herald in Ohio, Army Spc. Allen J. Knop of Munson Township was killed in Iraq recently, after spending 13 months in combat, then reenlisting. From the News Herald: “He was a golfer and he was always very careful with his money. He didn’t like to spend it freely,” Allen’s father William Knop said. “But before he left this time, he went and bought a new golf set for himself.” William said he also bought an expensive new driver with the set. “It was this brand new driver, like a $300 driver, which was really kind of out of character for ...

So lets say you have the gross national product of South Africa stuffed in your bank account, and use krugerrands in vending machines just for the rush. If that’s the case, here’s a potential Holidays gift idea – a private Caribbean golf resort designed by Pete Dye and P.B. Dye. According to Robb Report magazine’s “Ultimate gift guide,” the resort includes it’s own island, the Dye-designed 18-hole course, a 5,000 square-foot clubhouse, which comes with eight bedrooms. The price tag: $62 million. Now, I figured this out, and all I need is to get every human being on the planet to ...

For some unknown reason, it’s tough to be critical about anything this week. Not that it’s a bloggers job to be pure criticism, mind you, but let’s be honest, it’s fun to lay the blast down sometimes. And therapeutic, I’m sure. But in all seriousness, a great number of times, some good stories don’t get the ink they should because they’re not sexy enough. Case in point, the events of this past weekend’s Nelson Mandela Invitational in South Africa. Now, just the name “Nelson Mandela Invitational” gives you a pretty good idea that charities will be involved, which they are – ...

The holidays are just a fantastic time to be a writer. A writer’s lonely existence is mollified by being surrounded with family, friends and loved ones in a heartwarming, soul-enrapturing yadda, yadda, yadda. But mainly, it’s a great time to be a writer during the holidays because finding topics to write about is just so easy. Let’s see, it’s Thanksgiving, what am I thankful for? It’s Christmas, what gifts would I give to golfers? It’s Hanukkah … Ok, I got nothing for that. Or Kwanza, for that matter. But New Years is just a “2005’s Top-10 Whatevers” free-for-all. It’s sad really, and ...

The year is 2634. Around noon-ish on, say, a Monday. Two beleaguered scientists rummage through debris in a long-abandoned television studio. They find a strange looking video: Beleaguered Scientist 1: Hey, I found a DVD that looks playable still. It looks like a fat guy on the cover, may be another Santa Claus thing, I’ll put it on. Using their super-DVD-modular dealie, the scientist plays the DVD. The pair watch at first, in stunned silence. Beleaguered Scientist 2: It’s just this fat guy sitting there, smoking. Beleaguered Scientist 1: There are a couple trophies on the couch with him, he must do something. Fast forwards Beleaguered ...

This deserves immediate attention: David Duval is leading the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan, as we speak, one shot up on Tiger Woods after shooting a 64. “I played well,” Duval said. “I’ve been playing well for about a month now but just haven’t been scoring well. I’m well aware of how I’ve played over the past few years but I’ve worked hard and it’s good to start a tournament not behind the 8-ball.” People, we need to start lighting candles, or something. If you have any voodoo rituals you’ve been holding back, now’s the time to unleash them. Duval, a British Open champ ...

Michelle Wie’s continued escalation into becoming “The World’s Most Important Human” seems to be going smoothly, as the young star continues to amass headlines and controversy around the globe. Ok, no victories as of yet, but lots of headlines and controversy. First, we get a Sports Illustrated reporter calling out Wie on a nothing foul, getting her disqualified from her first pro tournament. One TravelGolf.com writer has gone so far as to say that the SI reporter did it solely to promote his new golf book, and that the golf book might be the worst piece of literature since “Psychiatrists are Devils: ...

I remember the day clearly. I was summoned to the TravelGolf.com main complex to receive an important assignment. It was a normal day at the complex, which inside is somewhat similar to the bar scene in the original Star Wars. Boss-in-chief Mark Nessmith was running around shirtless, screaming in a language I believed to be Farsi. Tim McDonald was mainlining Rogaine, while Chris Baldwin was furiously trying to locate Paula Creamer’s home phone number. Basically, it was business as usual around here. Then came the assignment: They wanted me to go undercover to GolfBoards.com, take command away from Colonel Kurtz and restore ...

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has made it clear he wants his sport to have more and new viewers with his new plan for finishing the season with a “World Series” of sorts. Meanwhile, in Kansas City, Luke Kohl, along with partner Mike Yohay, are looking to introduce golf to an audience that Finchem and a good part of the rest of the golfing industry has avoided – inner-city kids. Kohl, who was a caddie on the Senior PGA Tour as a young teen-ager, has created an ambitious plan to create an environment that will introduce new players to the sport he ...

Being a TravelGolf.com blogger is a job full of perks. We get to travel all over the globe to play golf and write about it, for one. I mean, that’s a seriously cool perk. But there are others, like seeing Cheap Bastard spend an entire evening trying to hook up with Heather McMichael at the office Christmas party. It was disturbing, but you couldn’t take your eyes off of it. Another perk is that we get to see random search-engine queries people used to get to our blogs. They don’t give out anything else, like IP’s or anything personal, just the ...

Having seen the leggy rara avis that is Heather McMichael comment that nothing may be deemed a golf blog without two mentions of Michelle Wie, I realized some important things. First of all, trust me on this, be happy that Chris Baldwin is fixated on Michelle Wie (that made my quota). If it wasn’t for her, he’d be writing about his laundry, an electric bill that seemed slightly higher than normal, his favorite cereal (Frosted Flakes, extra sugar), etc. Seriously, talk to the guy on the phone, you’ll want to gnaw your arm off to escape. More importantly, however, I realized that ...

When John Daly missed a three-foot putt to lose in a playoff to Tiger Woods at the World Golf Championships in San Francisco, Woods gave a look of dismay and later said “You don’t want to win tournaments like that.” It was at this point that Colin Montgomerie lost it and just went totally kung-fu on Woods, Daly, the fans, the media and the poor saps who were just there to clean up the course. Ok, so Colin kept his cool, but really, who could have blamed him if he decided that enough was enough and it was time to go commando. ...

After reading Jennifer Mario’s absolutely gushing blog about South Korean golfers dominating the LPGA’s Office Depot Championship, I realized something needed to be done to present a more balanced picture of Korea. I mean sure, South Korea has great athletes, doctors, scientists and whatever other types of professionals Koreans need. Sure the South Koreans have food and freedom. But North Korea has something that totally wipes them off the map (figuratively, not literally, at least as I’m writing this). The Great Leader, the Sun of the Nation and of Mankind: Kim Jong Il. Put aside any notions you may have about the man. ...

Golf is very well regulated, which is good, for if it weren’t a simple golf tee would considered a dangerous weapon and be taxed accordingly, making a bag of 100 tees cost upward of $78,000. With that in mind, welcome to the Weekend Rules, where today we’ll be looking at if golf etiquette can be considered a legal issue. Today’s Scenario: Lance Fingley III, CEO of EndlessProfits Inc is behind some trees in a small gully on the fairway. Being the omnipotent master of industry that he is, he doesn’t bother to yell “Fore!” when he hits a screaming hook into the next ...

It was 75 years ago this week that Bobby Jones won the U.S. Amateur title, which was the final triumph of a historic Grand-Slam run that saw him take home the U.S. and British amateur championships, and the U.S. and British Opens. “To say it’s remarkable is really not even a fair assessment,'’ Phil Mickelson has said of the accomplishment, and Lefty is as accurate as his short irons. Jones set out in 1930 to win all four prestigious titles. But there was no special ESPN feature presentation on Jones’ quest and no shoe deal to promote his campaign in ...

There’s a popular bumper sticker in Alaska that reads “Please God, let there be another oil boom, I promise not to piss it away this time.” Now the golfing world, which saw a huge opportunity by the name of Tiger Woods fall into their laps, may have a shot at a do-over with Michelle Wie. While there’s no denying that Woods helped shine a huge spotlight on golf, in the end, the gains of his mercurial breakthrough are slowly falling by the wayside. According to the National Golf Federation, the number of core golfers in the U.S. (golfers that play at least ...

Golf had to be created as a gentleman’s sport with strict rules of conduct and etiquette. If not, it would just be a blood bath out there on the links and scientists would be scurrying to create an antidode for a Big Bertha to the forehead. So, welcome everyone to the first installment of “The Weekend Rules.” Every weekend (that I feel inclined), we’ll go over a different scenario to see what the ruling or etiquette would be. Feel free to send in your own scenario, by the way. The stranger the better. Today’s scenario: You and your pal are at No. 14, ...

In a seemly endless array of “Well, they played some good shots today” interviews following the first day of the President’s Cup, International captain Gary Player – who is, let’s face it, the coolest human to ever trod on this planet – made a comment that struck me deeply. “I was standing next to President Clinton and he said to me, ‘Wow, what a match.’ At the same time, I’m thinking ‘isn’t this fantastic?’ Here the No. 1 player in the world is teeing off first, at this wonderful event, here are two ex-presidents of the United States, and my mind ...

Not satisfied with polluting the golf courses of their homeland, members of the U.S. political system have now gone and drug St. Andrews through the mud. News Brief: Bush administration official charged with obstructing federal investigation. So it seems that one David Safavian, who resigned from his position with the Office of Management and Budget on Friday, sort of took liberties with the truth when he accepted a trip to Scotland to play famed St. Andrews a few years back. And it also seems that U.S. representative Bob Ney from Ohio was also on that flight. So to make a long story ...

Less than a week removed from kneeling on the golf course clutching his chest, David Toms has announced that he will hold off on corrective heart surgery so that he can compete for the PGA Tour in the Presidents Cup. David Toms: Championship golfer, great American, idiot. “I’ll be fine,” Toms said on Sunday. “I’m going to … see how my body reacts to the medication I’m on and go from there.” So if Toms drops dead from a massive cardiac incident on the fairway, we’ll assume his body didn’t react as well to the beta-blockers as he had hoped. As a sport, golf ...

Born in Davenport, the odds had always been stacked against Jack Fleck. After returning from service in World War II, Fleck continued what had been a lackluster golfing career. It all changed in 1955, when Fleck put it all together and stunned the legendary Ben Hogan in a playoff for the 1955 U.S. Open. It was an upset that kept the golfing world buzzing for years afterward, and gave Fleck instant international fame. Jack Fleck: WWII veteran, golfing champion, international hero, and most of all, an Iowan. Now who do you suppose Iowans should respect? A man who fought the odds to author ...

The city of San Antonio has thrown down the gauntlet: If you plan on doing something, they plan on taxing you for it. Yesterday, the San Antonio City Council announced their 2006 budget which will include a raise in property tax payments and new fees on everything from ambulance rides (this will go from $90 to $500), increases in parking at events, as well as golfing at one of San Antonio’s six municipal courses. Mark Lawson, manager of Mission Del Lago Municipal Golf Course said it appear that the fee for golfers will be an extra $2 for cart fees, though it ...

When Mike Weir missed the cut at the Bell Canadian Open and Canada as a nation didn’t implode into crazed anarchy, I was somewhat red-faced, to say the least. I blame myself for that overeager prediction, which was made immediately after I watched The Day After Tomorrow". I suppose I figured if global warming could wipe out the Earth in 15 minutes, a Mike Weir collapse should take out Canada in roughly the same time. Luckily for my predictions career, it does appear Canada is being overrun with hippies, but they’re lollygagging, as hippies are prone to do. Case in point: In ...

That Iowa still desperately clings to the selling point that John Wayne was born there is really enough to kick them out of the Union, in my opinion. But recently, Iowans everywhere are showing a graphic display of anti-golfer behavior that one wouldn’t expect from people who live in the same state as the world’s largest strawberry. Oh, call me an alarmist if you will, but it’s time golfers everywhere faced the growing menace that is Iowa. To wit: A recent City Council meeting in the thriving metropolis of Ottumwa, led to a glorious debate on whether hunters should be allowed to ...

In a stunning rebuke to the common theory that only Americans like huge, mostly worthless things (i.e. SUVs, quadruple-bacon-cheeseburgers, Oprah), the Khaleej Times reports that they have created the World’s largest tee in Dubai. The tee stands five meters high (about 17 feet). It will be used as a promotional tool for an upcoming GolfEx convention, so that people can look at it, and exclaim, “Wow, that is one big tee.” Just so no one gets the wrong idea, however, the paper pointed out that the tee is likely illegal on most golf courses. “When playing on a course, the legal height of ...

There’s nothing worse than putting additional pressure on a professional athlete. Oh, who am I kidding. There are plenty of things worse than that. Things like death or even a good toe stubbing. So in that case, while doing my normal, exhaustive research on the Bell Canadian Open, I realized one important fact: If anything ever happens to Mike Weir, the entire Canadian golf industry will collapse. In fact, maybe all of Canada. Since the tiny, island nation of Canada welcomed home Weir after winning the 2003 Masters, he has become the lifeblood of the sport. This year, with hockey sidelined, Weir ...

After more than a week of hearing golf relentlessly disparaged, I feel it’s time someone spoke up. As has been reported everywhere by everyone, President Bush was playing golf while Hurricane Katrina was busy making New Orleans into a giant jacuzzi of death. Now, the hardcore golfers amongst us look at this and privately think, “Hey, he had a tee time,” but please remember these people are in the minority. While I feel that it’s vital to point out that golf isn’t the issue here, I also believe it’s time for a nation-wide ban on presidential golfing. I mean, it’s not really ...

The Associated Press ran a story awhile back on the recent “startling” growth of golf in Brazil. “The sport has grown at a very fast rate, it is amazing what has been happening,” said Alvaro Almeida, president of the Brazilian Golf Confederation. Everything sounds fantastic until you bring up the numbers: Five years ago there were 6,000 Brazilians playing golf, while today there is 25,000. Now, this falls into the category of “you can make anything look good with math.” Brazil is a country of around 200 million people. When 25,000 of 200 million pick up a club at least once a year, this ...