Square driver heads are the new big thing that are going to revolutionize the game, according to a host of the major club manufacturers at the PGA Show. The next big thing in a never ending run of next big things. Not all the giant equipment companies are buying in though. TaylorMade is staying resolutely old school in at least the shape of its driver heads. Back in the PGA Show for the first time in three years, the company is still beating to its own slightly maverick drummer (this is golf, nobody’s truly maverick) and resisting the square craze. TaylorMade’s not ... full post »

Irv Fish is a USGA Executive Committee member who could give Executive Director David Fay a run for his bow ties. Fish and Fay wore competing bow ties that would have made Raj - the last interesting contestant on The Apprentice jealous - at the cocktail reception party for the USGA’s deal with Lexus. Fay has nothing on Fish when it comes to rationalizing corporate sponsorship though. After well over a century with no corporate ties, the USGA is jumping in with American Express, Lexus and likely one or two more on the way. Which is perfectly keeping with the blue blazer ... full post »

Yearn for a golf cart that’s larger than a Toyota Prius? Want to show everyone that you have so much money that the next step would be throwing it out the window - or betting on Sergio Garcia to win a major? Then, Hummer is ready to answer your prayers with its custom-made H3 golf carts. They’re slightly smaller than the real H3. Slightly. But you also don’t need that pesky confining tank tough roof. Instead the wind’s in your hair and the jokes on all those fools in the regular carts that your huge wheels could run right over ... full post »

Annika Sorenstam carries something of a reputation for often being anything but pleasant with the media. It’s a pretty well earned rep for grumpiness if you talk to some tournament officials. Maybe it’s a burden of being the longtime No. 1 thing. Regardless, a somewhat different Annika showed up at the PGA Show to promote the USGA’s cocktail hour announcement that it was taking on Lexus as it’s first automotive partner. Lexus sponsors Annika and the car company used this as one of the five appearances she is obligated to make for them a year. But it seemed more than that made the ... full post »

If you’re looking for a golf computer experience that’s a little more real than Tiger Woods 07, the PGA Merchandise Show is full of NASA-level simulators. These things won’t just tell you what your club angle was at impact to the .0000000000 degree. They’ll practically inform you what you ate for breakfast. Next year, they’ll undoubtedly read your swing thoughts. Of course when you bring real clubs into the equation and people are watching the results of their swings transfer in 3D to a huge super graphics screen that’s about the size of Chris Rock’s home theater, there’s the potential for ... full post »

I came to the PGA Show hoping to get away from musicians posing as golfers. Both the real musicians and the Taylor Hicks kind. But there I was on the first night of the golf industry’s mad mixer, checking out the Hard Rock Hotel around midnight and up pulls the biggest black limo ever seen. And out pops Kenny G. Yes, the curly haired saxophone tooting man of elevator music legend. A glance into G’s limo shows a pulsating blue interior and enough alcohol to keep John Daly sated for a week. You just don’t expect Kenny G. to be rolling ... full post »

When you write a golf blog as pure as the first fresh snow like I do, you learn a few things along the way. This week for instance, I discovered that an American Idol hack named Taylor Hicks has a small band of overweight desperate housewives for fans who call themselves with much third-grade pride the Soul Patrol. These are the kind of people whose husbands always play 36 holes and never want to go home. Probably because they’d be stuck hearing a Taylor Hicks CD when they got there (that’s not a scratch, it’s really his voice). And who can ... full post »

I remember when the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic used to be filled with top notch celebrities. Oh for the days when Rush Limbaugh strolled the fairways smooching a cigar, getting cheers from fans who planted huge signs for him on the sides of their homes. (There’s a lot more red in Palm Springs than you’d first think). If only we could go back to the times when Matthew McConaughey preened around the course, apparently seeing mirrors that weren’t there. Ah, those golden times. You know, last year. It really is amazing how far the Bob Hope’s fallen in one calendar flip. One transition illustrates ... full post »

There’s far too much negativity in the world today. Everyone tries to pick out the bad, to accentuate the worst. Especially these grumpy golf writers who should be forever grateful they’re not working the graveyard shift at Denny’s. It really sickens me to see what’s going on. As I’m sure it does you too, fellow compassionate citizens of the Internet. It’s unfathomable what a sweet innocent girl with a five-million-dollar-a-year Nike contract, a sparkly wristwatch and a dream is being put through. Enough is enough. Like Jennifer Lopez in that bad movie that always plays on basic cable, I’m fighting back. Somebody ... full post »

It’s been amusing to see many declare Phil Mickelson’s talk about getting into course design this week earth-shattering news. TravelGolf.com readers only heard about it a year ago. That’s when Mickelson talked to us about it at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Last year’s Bob Hope. To read the whole story, click here. Give Mickelson and his marketing team credit though. After the fanfare Tiger Woods’ received on his design move, they probably figured they could get even more publicity this time. And it worked. They fooled a lot of people, including unfortunately some who work here. It didn’t really surprise me that ... full post »

Anyone who thinks Palm Springs is a tired, staid golf destination simply hasn’t been paying attention. While many other traditional golf meccas have seen little new - and in some cases the closing of plenty of old - the Coachella Valley has experienced a run of high-profile course openings in the last two years. Now, the few month-old Celebrity Course at Indian Wells Golf Resort is drawing the most consistent buzz. Built on the site of the old West Course which was closed for the construction in November of 2005, Celebrity Course is a whole different golf animal. This Clive Clark design is ... full post »

All these suddenly self righteous baseball writers keeping Mark McGwire out of the Baseball Hall of Fame are a joke. And a misguided one at that. These are the same guys who didn’t think anything was amok when Barry Bonds’ skull kept growing and growing. These are the same guys who still celebrated McGwire long, hard and fawningly after andro was found in his locker. Now that the anti-steroids crusade became mainstream, they’re suddenly the great defenders of the game? Please. Your average used car salesman is more committed to his ideals. McGwire deserves to be in the Hall based on his performance. A ... full post »

The casinos in Palm Springs are moving into the golf business like never before, coming up with their own courses. Fantasy Springs Resort Casino has a new Clive Clark design that’s reportedly as showy as something Donald Trump would dream up. “They’ve taken it to the next level,” said Tim Hurja, a PGA pro who now runs Palm Springs Golf Central, a hotel and golf packaging company. “Clive Clark is supposed to have a 100-foot waterfall on this thing.” Fantasy Springs already had its own huge, high tech bowling alley. Now, a waterfall to make The Donald swoon. As the Coachella Valley casinos keep ... full post »

I know Steve Spurrier. And Urban Meyer is no Steve Spurrier. Not when it comes to coaching skill. Not even after guiding the Florida Gators to a 41-14 trouncing of the Ohio State Luckeyes from the Big Overrated Conference. Sure everyone in Scottsdale should be grateful that Meyer sent the OSU fans in overalls and straw hats whimpering to the airport. But that doesn’t mean he’s even in Spurrier’s same league as a coach. Spurrier is a true innovator. Meyer had to strain his brain and waste games as he figured out how to use Chris Leak, a quarterback who’d only win him ... full post »

There are fewer pure pleasures as a sports fan today - with steroids in and out of the shadows, hype lording over substance and many multi-millionaire athletes who simply don’t care nearly as much as the fans. But then, every once in a while sports gives you something great. Like Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo going Bill Buckner on a perfect snap on a gimmie field goal that would have sent the second most annoying fan base in sports history into playoff win celebration. Sometimes sports justice is served. The unfathomable blunder could not have happened to a more deserving group of ... full post »

The national media is suddenly discovering Phoenix’s West Valley since college football’s national championship tilt is being held out in Glendale. Sportswriters who wouldn’t leave Scottsdale’s plush resorts if they didn’t have to - and who can blame them, even Florida and Ohio State are staying there - have to trek out to the West Valley to the Cardinals’ gleaming new stadium. They might end up being surprised by what else is there. TravelGolf.com readers already know that the West Valley long ago stopped being a wasteland not worth the drive. We wrote about the West Valley being the area’s new golf ... full post »

Outside Traveler - the travel arm of the hugely popular and award winning Outside magazine - lauds TravelGolf.com in its winter issue. The folks at Outside Traveler write that “For course and destination info, www.TravelGolf.com is hard to beat.” This is the kind of thing that makes everyone here as nervous as Mel Gibson running into a bus of rabbis during Chanukah. TravelGolf.com brings a maverick touch to covering travel after all, a commitment to actually telling the truth about destinations and courses. Critical travel stories, honest course reviews and photographs of what courses truly look like rather than those carefully controlled ... full post »

If you started talking about the best pure golf destination in the U.S., you’d get plenty of debate. And probably not one mention of Las Vegas. But if you want a golf spot where the partying’s so hardcore that Britney Spears faints, there’s only one choice. Fresh off a run in which Spears became the toast of certain internet communities because she doesn’t always believe in underwear, Spears was making one of those Vegas celebrity party hosting turns. This is where a big casino club pays the star to make sure they’re seen at their party (hopefully dancing on the tables for ... full post »