Tim Coolican, owner/director of golf at Magnolia Plantation Golf Club in Lake Mary, Fla.

You see, when he’s not finding new ways to circumvent restraining orders, the Rebel spends a lot of time at HQ sorting the mail and trying to look busy until my afternoon tee time, or Happy Hour, whichever comes first.

So this morning, the Rebel comes across an interesting “reader review” in the in-box.

Ostensibly sent in from a “Casey Colepean,” it’s an over-the-top, glowing homage to Magnolia Plantation Golf Club in Lake Mary, Fla. “Casey Colepean’s” letter tells how the golf course recently re-opened after being closed for two years. “… it is now AWESOME!! They softened it up just a little bit and it is in great shape. New tif-eagle greens, fairways, bunkers, ect…. They must have spent millions. … It is a course that must be played.”

Starting to smell a rat, the Rebel gave this one a close look, as is custom. The e-mail address that “Casey Colepean” listed had the name “tim” in it, and the letters “pga,” as well. Hmmmm.

Further intrigued, the Reb opens the web site that this “Colepean” fellow listed for Magnolia Plantation and came across this page. The name of the owner/director of golf sure caught the old Reb’s eye: Timothy J. Coolican. And his bio says he’s a PGA member!

“Tim?” “PGA?”

Smelling a rat, one of our guys dials the phone number that “Casey Colepean” provided with the review. “Casey” wasn’t around. Gasp! In fact no one answered, it clicked over to voice mail and there was just a two-word message:

“Tim Coolican”

When I heard about that, I damn near choked on my cigar laughing!

No one ever accused golf pros of putting rocket scientists on the dole, but this one took the cake! Looks like Coolican went undercover as a TravelGolf.com reader to post a bogus review of his own golf course, and used his own e-mail and phone number, to boot. Guy’s name ought to be Mulligan, not Coolican.

From here on out, any time we spy a bogus letter, we’re calling it a “Coolican.” In fact, at the end of the year, maybe we’ll select the most obvious Coolican and award a prize. Not sure what yet, but the Rebel is suggesting a sack full of the Cheap Bastard’s sweat-stained tighty golf shorts.

Now, if any of you actual golfers want to submit a real course review, click here. (But be warned, we can smell a Coolican a mile away.)

Hooters Air Scaling Back Flights:
How can they AFFORD to stay in business? They are rumored to be the safest carrier in the U.S. with a personal floatation device ratio of 2:1!!

Unlike our babes in Santee, South Carolina, they have clean flotation systems that do not require Lysol

I will miss Hooters Air. The visuals made up for the awful food.
Rebel

Now, based on the comments that fly every time Young Michelle’s name gets mentioned, I know she has a lot of admirers – of which the Reb is one, I might add. ‘Course she has her detractors too. Anyway, best caption wins a prize! Come on, guys!

[Rebel’s Disclaimer Time! Do NOT post lewd or profane comments or you will be banned and the forced to spend 24 hours eating pork rinds and talking golf with the Cheap Bastard.]

Check out the

Jay Mohr column.

Here is one thing I can guarantee you: Cheap Bastard is way too cheap to get a lap dance.
Rebel

And, I love the fact he won the PGA Championship, sticking it up Chris Baldwin’s arse. Like Baldwin, however, we all know Lefty is a complete gagger who freezes up at the wrong moment, stealing defeat from
victory. Reading Tim McDonald’s article the other day on Lefty’s fitness trainer. I couldn’t help but think that what he really needs is a sports psychologist not a fitness guru.

The boy just needs a good shrink and a couch so he can let his natural talent shine in those tense moments. A shrink did wonders for John Smoltz of the Atlanta Braves. Smoltzie is a clutch pitcher for the ages who settled down after spending some time on the couch. Mickelson will achieve greatness if he can just make it past the seventh inning without that nagging cough and choke returning.

Rebel

Needing three players to make bogey with one hole to go to get into a playoff, Tiger Woods decided that he didn’t want to stick around for an extra day all for the grand prize of finishing in third place. Apparently, heading home rather than sticking around on a Monday to particpate in a forgone conclusion was not Tiger’s idea of a fine time.

I say who cares.

The fact that the PGA started the tournament so late, pandering to TV and
their ceremonies, devalued this “major” into second tier status. Those of
you blasting Tiger Woods for heading home were not even watching the
tournament in person or on TV. You are just complaining to listen to hear
yourself talk. (Which is better to do than actually reading Chris Baldwin’s blog)

Phil Mickelson won the tournament fair and square and Tiger amscrayed for a hot tottie. There will be plenty more Tiger Woods for us to enjoy and their will be plenty more of Lefty’s choke and gags for the future. Woods, like all golfers, is an independent contractor who can leave a tournament should he wish. Something tells me that Woods is quite confident he will win many more Majors.

Maybe the PGA Championship can someday act like a Major.

Rebel

Golf Blogger, as he tends to do, blogs without offering definitive opinions. He stated this is an “Exhibit A for how much technology has changed the game in the last 10 years.”

I’ll take it a bit further. The technology of today is a problem for golf worse than steroids are for baseball. Today’s rocket propelling golf clubs are making a joke out of great golf courses all throughout the World. Yes, one has to harness the technology to make it useful. Unfortunately, golf courses cannot keep up.

Steroids threaten the integrity of baseball by simply casting doubt on players’ performance. The stadiums themselves do not necessarily become irrelevant. Pitchers apparently use steroids more than hitters. Steroids increase run production some, but they do not greatly affect the integrity of the stadiums.

New technology can indeed give plenty of distance to amature and pro golfers. Fortunately, no technology can take the skill and the challenge out of putting.

I would love to know what Golf Blogger thinks.

Rebel

He could have played with Laverne and Shirley and had Squiggy as his point guard. The man would have figured out a way to win.

Tiger Woods is a similar kind of machine. He is the Michael Jordan of Golf. He is the greatest of the greatest. I admire Woods. He’s one of the great figures in the history of sports. He’s so good that he takes away the drama. He’s almost too good to be true.

Call me a chump. (Many of you do every day.) I am rooting for Phil Mickelson to win the PGA Championship today. Yes, the Chris Baldwin’s of this world love to make jokes about him as a pathetic finisher. Guys like him love to bring up his track record of choking and gagging. Yes, we are all ready for him to cough and bleed just at the wrong moment. Yes, Phil does indeed have a lot in common with the Marty Schottenheimers of sports.

But Phil is a lot more loveable than Shottenheimer. Shottenheimer just looks so imperial.

Watching Lefty in a major is like waiting for a car to crash in a NASCAR event. It will probably happen. It’s almost inevitable.

I enjoy the drama. Mickelson’s human misadventures make him fun to root for.

Rebel

This guy here uses the premium Lysol and picks the fleas off the strippers as they are strolling out of their trailers. For those of you who like the goat tracks located in this dank town, why not save your pennies and head to Myrtle Beach?

I think Santee stripper extraordinaire Maria owes these guys big!
Rebel

Comment:
I have been visiting Santee annually for the past five years. The same group of twelve guys have been having more fun each and every year. We have fun at the bars and the strippers are great!!!

I believe we create our own entertainment when we visit Santee, so I have one thing to say to Mr. Blogger- Get a few friends and you might enjoy yourself!

Marc O’Hair is a man with huge image problem. More than the typical gung ho father who domineers a son, this father takes take things to the extreme. While successfully manufacturing his son into a PGA Tour prodigy, he demanded his son contribute 10 percent of his professional earnings for life.

Marc O’Hair, frazzled by the bad publicity he has received from numerous media outlets, wrote a rambling, 17-page manifesto detailing just why he really is a swell guy and not the Nazi he has been painted as.

Everyone is just being silly and mean-spirited in making this guy look bad. Obviously, there is a conspiracy. He stated he hates liberals and the left-wing media is out to get him because he is “right” and “conservative.”

Actually, he’s just a boob.

Reinventing the term “tough love,” Marc told Golf Digest that he made Sean run a mile for making bogeys or finishing over par at tournaments. The publication stated that Marc even claimed he made Sean run eight miles in 93-degree heat after shooting an 80.

In his manifesto, he’s now denying that he did any of that, stating instead that he made his son run miles to toughen him up and get him in top physical shape.

Personally, I think Marc’s real dream in life was to be a drill sergeant not a father. This lunatic is just the extreme version of the Little League parents who are all over their kids, dreaming of them making the The Bigs. Marc sounds like a man with a two-inch tool and no hopes and dreams of his own.

To repair his image, Marc now wants to convince us that he doesn’t want his son’s money and all he wants is to be loved and respected by his child. After all, according Marc, he and his wife are quite well-off. His wife makes six figures as a dermatologist’s assistant, we’re told. (I have never heard of a dermatologist’s assistant making any kind of money.)

And he claims the bloody noses his son got from being “lightly slapped” around are not his fault, but because Sean has a “very delicate nose that bleeds easily.” Of course, all of these incidents have been exaggerated by the media. As Marc stated, “Sean was sometimes lightly slapped across the face. To explain, ‘lightly slapped,’ the velocity of the slap was similar to what a woman used when slapped a man who insulted her back in the old days.”

I can’t believe someone married this guy in the first place.

Marc should try fading off into the sunset. The more he writes, the more he gabs, the worse he looks. After years of mistreating his son, he is now getting his own payback.

Rebel

Ty Votaw’s apparent defection to the The PGA doesn’t do any good for the LPGA’s credibility. Votaw wisely wants to join the ranks of the Big Leagues.

Please check out Donald Trump couldn’t market minor league LPGA.

The LPGA offers fine golf and women who are great competitors. But even the femin-nazis have to acknowledge that this league can be nothing more than golf’s step sister.

Rebel

But even Donald Trump couldn’t market this minor league. The LPGA will always be to The PGA Tour what Arena Football is The National Football League. Aside from diehard women golf aficionados like Jennifer Mario, people don’t care about the LPGA when mens’ golf is the real deal. Annika may be the greatest golfer in the world. But men want to watch men and women want to watch men. Unfortunately, that’s the way it works.

The Michelle Wies of golf make for interesting reading and fodder. But those stories are sideshows. Women want to watch Tiger Woods, Retief Goosen and the greatest players in the game.

This is not a slam against womens’ golf. The LPGA has some great talent. Problem: Men don’t care. The NBA is figuring that out with the WNBA. Women don’t watch it. Men don’t watch it. No one cares.

Reader Roy Brown is right that the mainstream sports press slants everything to male sports. There is nothing wrong with that. After all, it is the women, like Mario, who go gagga over the Retief Goosens even when they are free falling.

The women just find the Retiefs cuter. The men just find them to be better golfers. Men will oogle over Grace Park for her looks and style, not caring about her game. Men certainly are not interested in watching the Meg Mallons. Meg Mellons, maybe.

Carl Rove may be out of a job soon. Maybe the LPGA can hire him.
Rebel

Strike another one for the proud United States Golf Teaching Federation!

Steve Johnson, a Bella Vista, an Arkansas “pro” sanctioned by the mighty United States Golf Teaching Federation, has come up with a stroke of pure Arkansonian genius: 10 minute golf lessons for $10.

Why didn’t I think of that!!

That’s right. Desiring to franchise this great idea, Johnson will let you stroll in without an appointment (that’s because he has no business to speak of) and he will gve you what he calls an “intense” golf lesson where he focuses on one thing for just 10 minutes.

Of course, in just 10 minutes, he will not know much about you, what your goals are or what you are desiring to accomplish. In 10 minutes it is hardly enough time to get each other’s name correct. In 10 minutes he will spout a few canned thoughts about a facet of the game, knowing very little about you and your swing.

“The objective of the USGTF is to have fun,” said Johnson to NWANEWS.com. “That’s the whole thing. You’ll have more fun when the ball goes where you want it to go.”

Actually, the objective of the USGTF is to get you to hand over your money, give you an official looking diploma and get you out the door. The USGTF is a made for marketing organization convincing hacks like Steve Johnson that he has a place in the hallowed halls of golf instruction.

So, when you stroll past Arkansas. Just drop in, get your 10 minute lesson, an oil change and for just $5 more, Johnson will probably throw in a steak dinner as well.

Johnson is a retired OB-GYN. He got tired of that gig and is now professing the good gospel of golf instruction. Hopefully, while he was a doctor he didn’t perform 10 minute exams on his fine patients.

Many hacks posing as instructors and “pros” should get nailed for malpractice.

You can read more about this fine man at http://nwanews.com/story.php?paper=bcdr&section=Sports&storyid=22287.
Rebel

However, this is a PR ploy that Tim McDonald has been suckered into. The fact is you can show up at this golf course just about any time and there is hardly anyone there. It’s not a bad track, really. But it is not very popular. I have been there three times and I could have played two ball. As of just last year their clubhouse was still a trailer. Great land, decent track….just not a popular course. They should go with 20-minute intervals with the scant business they draw.

Rebel

He says….

“I would not call #2’s greens inhospitable, merely very difficult. Remember the desire to test severely the best players in the world. The greens will hold a properly executed shot hit to the center. The greens fees charged are not necessarily (though one would so hope) reflective of the quality as much as the demand. Access to a classic old US Open course is a commodity, blame the business decisions behind it if anything. Do we want to go to an Open course and shell out major beans to play a dumbed down version? There are indeed many fine courses elsewhere in that area well worth playing and much cheaper to get on, but they are not #2.”

He’s dead on right. Pinehurst No. 2, even despite Vijay Singh’s complaints, is a spectacular place for The US Open. It provides one of the great challenges for any PGA Tour pro. I think the greens for most amatures are rather inhospitable, but not for Tour pros. They are indeed difficult and they present the ultimate challenge.

Do you yourself a favor and come to the Pinehurst/Sandhills area for some great golf. It’s worth it. The nightlife sucks, but the golf is great.

Rebel