When you’re not used to walking 18 and especially when you’re playing a roller-coaster golf course like Cruden Bay Golf Club in Scotland, you need a comfy place to crash. You don’t want to come off the course, cooked and grousing about blind tee shots and ball-eating gorse and have to drive an hour or more back to your digs. Players in the Cruden Bay area could do a hell of a lot worse than staying at the Red House Hotel. It’s 1. just across the street from the course (Aulton Road, tel. +44(0) 1779 812215 ) and 2. a casual, ... full post »

After taking offense at something Chris Baldwin wrote about Harding Park in San Francisco, a “Denver Player” chimed in to take a shot at the writer (making him the 768th reader to do so in the past couple months). No, it wasn’t anything Baldie wrote about Michelle Wie this time. It seems Denver Player was miffed that Chris would dare to criticize that golf course. But based on this comment, it seems like Denver Player is the kind of person the golf industry is lousy with - he’s miffed if anyone who criticizes anything. “If I play an away ... full post »

I just read a BBC article about the European Union’s competition commissioner saying the vacation-heavy lifestyles of Europeans hurt the economy. The story reported that members of the British House of Commons took no less than 80 vacation days this summer. EIGHTY DAYS! In the summer alone! This doesn’t even count days taken for Christmas and other important holidays like the 4th of July. In fairness to Neelie Kroes, the sourpuss EU competition commissioner, she’s not necessarily calling for a rollback in vacation days - she’d just like to see holiday time spread out more throughout the calendar year, not all ... full post »