Sports-wired.com has a list of some amusing golf facts. For instance, it says the busiest golf course in the world is Ala Wai municipal in Hawaii, which does 500 rounds a day. The most expensive is not a Donald Trump course. It’s said to be Liberty National in Jersey City, New Jersey, at a cost of $130. The highest course in the world is Tactu Golf Course in Peru, at 14,335 feet above sea level, and the largest bunker in the world is at Pine Valley, No. 7. The largest green in the world is at the Sebring Resort in Sebring, FL. at 47,000 ... full post »

Johnny Miller writes in Golf Digest how he would spice up the Silly Season to make it more interesting to fans. As usual, his ideas are good. Pair John Daly with Laura Davies in a mixed team event. A senior-junior event with teams made up of Champions Tour and PGA Tour players. He also says make these events anything but individual stroke play. Good ideas, Johnny. Here are some others. The Skins Game is getting old. Pair up calendar girls in a “bikini match:” Natalie Gulbis and Sophia Sandolo. Beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking, fat guys tournament: Daly, Craig and Kevin Stadler. You don’t tee off til ... full post »

Are you one of those golfers who sneers at par? You don’t excited about anything but birdies and eagles? Check this: The LPGA did a study in which it concluded that a player who finished at par at all official events would have won $600,000 and finished 24th on the money list. Over on the boys side, par would have won The Masters and U.S. Open, and you would have won more than $4 million, putting you fifth on the money list. So don’t be so arrogant next time you “settle” for par. full post »

I’ve always been ambivalent about replica, or “inspired by” golf courses. It can be fun playing copies of famous holes you’ve read about or seen on television or, if you’re lucky, played yourself. The other school of thought is: I’ve paid my green fees, I want something original, something unique. Golden Ocala Golf and Equestrian Center has a great compromise. It has eight replica holes and 10 original works by noted Florida architect Ron Garl. It is a testament to the course that Garl’s holes hold up as well as the replicas. Look for the full review coming soon. full post »

Anybody see Natalie Gulbis lag her putt at No. 18 at the ADT Championship? Crazy. She mounts this terrific charge - combined with a near-collapse by Lorena Ochoa - to get to within a Sunday stroke. She knocks it to 15 feet on the last hole before Ochoa fires off a career 6-iron from the rough inside her. Gulbis, needing a birdie putt, played it about as safe as you can get. What the hell good is a par going to do there? Ochoa, of course, knocked down her putt and the $1 million prize. Gulbis, the former pin-up calendar girl, wants us to ... full post »

Diamond Back Golf Club in North Myrtle Beach has changed its name to the Woodland Valley Country Club, though it is staying open to the public. The club made the name change in September, and is offering memberships to the burgeoning and nearby Woodland Valley residents. The owners are making some improvements to the course, including putting in new cart paths, renovating the clubhouse and enlarging and adding lakes. The Russell Breeden design was named by TravelGolf.com as one of Myrtle Beach’s under-rated gems. full post »

Actually, in this case, it was the offender, or a friend of the offender, doing the whack job. South Korean golfer Youn Youn Hyeon, now based in the Philippines, yelled at a group of players ahead of him recently whom he considered slow, which included a Vice Governor. The groups confronted each other when Hyeon hit a ball toward Filipino golfer Gary Santiago. He then began yelling at the Vice Governor, named Emmanuel Pinol, whom, after trying to calm him down failed, allegedly smacked him with his putter. Youn reportedly filed charges against Pinol, but Pinol is actively working to get the South ... full post »

Zach Johnson, Masters champion, is a professed Christian, and I’ve always liked the way he’s made it known in a forthright though low-key manner. Still, I wonder how he reconciles his religion with what is essentially a gambling game, the LG Skins Game. Johnson and Brett Wetterich gave a press conference recently, and of course, the moderator never asked him that question. But I will: Zach, what gives? Johnson admitted playing skins with some of his “buddies back home,” and “throwing some money in the pot, that sort of thing.” All the players donate at least a portion of their earnings to charity, but ... full post »

The real estate downturn has everybody in a dither, but there’s good news for golfers, or more specifically, those who own golf course homes. “Even when a market is really getting hammered people will find a golf course home more appealing than a non-golf course home,” Sara Killeen of the Longitudes Group, which just finished a recent study, told TravelGolf. Still, it’s relative. The study identified “up” markets and “down” golf course home markets, and some of the findings might surprise you. For example, Myrtle Beach, which has had quite a bit of golf course closures recently, scored very high, as did Park ... full post »

Golf Tips magazine is coming out with its 10 best swing tips ever. They’re a “collaboration of the best instruction from Golf Tips magazine’s top-notch professionals,” according to a press release from the magazine. See the problem? Golf instructors don’t know what they’re talking about. They’ve lost their connection with the average weekend hacker, and their tips are too vague and confusing. They try to top each other by making up the most incomprehensible tips. Take it from me. I’ve played with some of the best golfers and some of the worst known to man. As an antidote, I’ve come out with ... full post »

I had heard a lot about the Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Georgia before I traveled there this past week, and all of it was good, even glowing. After visiting, it even exceeded my expectations. The plantation is in hilly, rolling terrain, perfect for building golf courses. It has five top-notch golf courses, and there’s not a dud in the bunch. The Great Waters course is one of the most picturesque courses I’ve ever played, and the Creek one of the strangest, and most fun. The National is a terrific, under-rated layout, and the Plantation and Oconee courses are right behind. My only regret is ... full post »

If you got all the world’s golfers together and asked them what their pet peeves were, probably 90 percent of them would include a tirade about horrendous green conditions and golf club officials who neither give discounts nor warn golfers. I played the City Club of Marietta with a threesome recently, and the greens looked like something a Bagdad, Iraq course might resemble after a good strafing by FA-18s. They were bumpy, and that may have been their best quality. Large, bare patches were found on many of them. It was impossible to make a putt, unless it was simply blind ... full post »

A couple of new surveys say South Africa, Turkey and Dubai are the three biggest, emerging golf destinations, and may overtake Spain and Portugal as the world’s leading golf destinations some day. South Africa I can understand. I’ve been there. It’s spectacular. I’ve never been to either Turkey or Dubai, but I have a problem believing either will be giants in the golf tourism business. Turkey has actually been popular with Scandinavians, French and German golfers for years, and now the British are starting to flock there. Still, I don’t see Americans buying into Turkey. Same for Dubai. I can’t see Americans making tee ... full post »

You’ve probably heard me rant and rave enough about intrusive advertising and marketing, but I have to pass along the latest abomination that might further sicken you. In the near future, you won’t be firing at flags, you’ll be aiming at Wendy’s old-fashioned hamburgers! Custom Golf Flagstick of Scottsdale says it’s coming out with a “patented new design” for flagsticks. They include a 42-inch sleeve that can be “custom designed for branding purposes.” “The flagstick is at the heart of the game of golf,” CEO James Deen said in a press release announcing the tacky, new product. “This new product will help all courses ... full post »

This is what I loathe about the modern-day athlete. They’re not so much people as they are “brands.” They’re mostly just symbols working hand in hand with business trying to get us to buy more cereal, toilet paper and hamburgers. Natalie Gulbis, now that she has actually won a golf tournament, is being “re-vamped – and devamped” – according to Jeffrey Kelly of the Richmond Times Dispatch by her new “branding agency” in Richmond. Gulbis, of course, pushed her considerable physical gifts on her previous calendars, provocatively posing in skimpy swimsuits and sexy dresses. So provocative, in fact, the USGA banned one ... full post »