My bud Robert Matre snapped another gem at TPC Sawgrass yesterday. Take a look at the notice of a local rule on the island green at 17. Makes sense to me… I’ve never played the hole myself, but if I did… I might have to follow the local rule… 2 in the water isn’t out of the realm of possibility 🙂
Thanks Robert!
Anyone who has played Tiger Woods Golf knows how cool flyovers are. You get a bird’s eye view from tee to green, which is helpful for knowing what to expect and to decide which club to use.
When watching a tournament, flyovers provide more depth to the coverage as you get a better feel for what the Pros are up against. This week, Best Approach has created hole-by-hole course flyovers for the Quail Hollow Championship which you can find on the Quail Hollow website. This is the first PGA TOUR event this year to feature CourseFlight™ 3D flyovers.
The feature is very cool. For example, you may have read that Tiger Woods struggled on the par-3, 17th where he ended up double-bogeying. He hit his tee shot into the water.
Using the Best Approach 3D flyover, you can really gain perspective. To see for yourself, click here and then scroll down.
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Marriott Golf, one of the world’s premier golf operators, has just announced a first-of-its-kind alliance with The Bag Boy Company, to create Walk For Health, a program designed to promote the health benefits associated with walking the golf course.
Starting immediately, the Walk For Health program will be launched at leading Marriott Golf resort destinations in the U.S., whereby each participating property will be outfitted with Bag Boy’s lightweight, eco-friendly Express Auto, three-wheel walking carts. Equipped with an assortment of features, the cart provides resort golfers with a fun and healthy way to navigate the course, as well as support environmental consciousness.
Participating resort destinations include: Camelback Inn, A JW Marriott Resort, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Desert Springs JW Marriott Resort & Spa, Palm Desert, Calif.; JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa, Phoenix, Ariz.; JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa, Tucson, Ariz.; Doral Golf Resort & Spa, Miami, Fla.; Marriott’s Grande Vista Resort, Orlando, Fla.; Grande Pines Golf Club, Orlando, Fla.; Marco Island Marriott Beach Resort, Naples, Fla.; Oak Brook Hills Marriott Resort, Oak Brook, Ill and The Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain, Tucson, Ariz.
Each of these properties holds the distinction of being a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, which indicates that Marriott Golf has gone to the greatest lengths possible to protect the environment by enhancing precious natural areas and wildlife habitats.
No details were released about whether guests would be offered a BagBoy discount to continue their healthy course walking habit when they get home.
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Golfweek is reporting that Lorena Ochoa’s farewell event, the Tres Marias Championship in Morelia, Mexico has sold out — 40,000 tickets (15,000 more than last year!). She is scheduled to tee off Thursday at 9:20 a.m. CST with good friends Ai Miyazato and Natalie Gulbis.
Six of the top ten players in the Rolex Rankings, including defending champion and Rolex Rankings No. 1 Ochoa, will compete for a purse of 1.3 million and a first place check of $195,000. Ochoa will attempt to win her fourth Tres Marias Championship in six years.
For the 40,000 spectators, getting around the mountainous Tres Marias, a Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, will be a challenge. According to Golfweek’s Beth Ann Baldry, “Three holes are closed to spectators on the back nine: Nos. 13, 14 and 17. On many holes, fans can line only one side of the fairway, which means getting a glimpse of Ochoa over the weekend will be difficult.”
A glimpse may be more than most people will get. It appears that the Tres Marias Championship will not be televised.
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Chances are very few of us will ever get the opportunity to drive down Magnolia Lane at the famed Augusta National. The privilege is reserved for members and their guests, and, once a year the very best players in the world. Thank goodness for good guys like Ian Poulter… While driving up Magnolia Lane earlier today, Ian shared the above video for all to see via Twitter.
Thanks Ian, and play well next week… I’m hoping that one day it’ll be me driving down that lane… oh wouldn’t that be sweet 🙂
The entrance to the 2nd Green at Augusta National has been widened by 8 feet.
The anticipation growing in the pit of my stomach for this years’ Masters. At least, I think that’s what it is… it could also be the Thai food I ate for dinner.
Thai food aside, the excitement is growing by the minute, and as April draws near, I find myself reading (and watching) more Masters goodness than a guy can handle. Earlier today, I was poking around the Golf Channel when I came across the Shag Bag Blog (If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend). One quick post in particular that I came across was by Rex Hoggard, and it touched upon the changes (or lack thereof) to Augusta National this year.
The changes to the course for the 2010 edition of the Masters are surprisingly small… in fact, some would even consider them surprising. The 2nd hole has had the entry to the green widened by 8 feet. This should make for more birdies and eagles at the 575 yard par 5. Also worth noting is the fact that the 5th and 13th teeboxes have been extended… FORWARD. I had to do a double-take the first time I read that! But it’s true! The fifth is a challenging dogleg left par 4 at 455 yards. The 13th of course is one of the most famous par 5’s the world over, measuring 510 yards. The extension of the teeing areas forward on these holes should make for shorter approach shots on 5, and more green-hitting attempts on the par 5 13th.
In the end, we know we’re not going to see the tees forward very much… But if and when we do, we can count on more birdies and eagles than we’re used to seeing. We could be in for a real treat at The Masters this year, weather pending 🙂
At the PGA Merchandise show in January, the new official website for St. Andrews Links was launched.
Alan McGregor, chief executive of St Andrews Links Trust, said:
“The website is such an important part of our business. It acts as a gateway to the Home of Golf for so many users around the world who are either coming here or who aspire to come here. It has been a major project for us to develop the new site in time for the Open this year and we are pleased to have a new and improved service to offer our golfing customers.”
Indeed, when you arrive at the site, the first thing you’ll encounter is a countdown clock. The Open will be held 15 – 18 July.
There is a stroll down memory lane in the Old Course section. Also, you’ll find a hole guide with playing advice. The webcam feature is kind of fun too.
And, of course, there is a brand new Golf Shop section which enables visitors to purchase a full range of official Open 2010, Old Course, St Andrews Links and Castle Course apparel and merchandise.
The new site replaces one that was developed in 2003.
With the World Golf Championships-CA Championship coming to a conclusion at Doral this weekend, I thought it might be fun to take a look at some facts about this tricky track. Sure, we all know the Doral Resort and Spa Blue Course is dubbed the ‘Blue Monster’ due to its length and abundance of water… but did you know some of these interesting tidbits below? Check ’em out to find out for yourself!
1. The course was designed by Dick Wilson and Robert von Hagge in 1961. Together with the PGA Tour and the folks at the Doral Golf Resort and Spa, Raymond Floyd gave it some redesign attention in 2006. The course plays to a par 72, and houses 110 bunkers, 11 mammoth water hazards, and greens of Bermudagrass.
2. In tournament play, there have been 10 hole-in-ones recorded at Doral. The most recent of which came from Robert Allenby on the 233 yard 13th hole. The club he used to sink the magical ace? A 5-wood.
Hole-in-ones by hole: 3 at #4, 3 at #9, 3 at #15… and Allenby’s ace at the 13th was the first ever recorded on the hole in tournament play.
3. The course record at Doral is 61 by Stephen Ames. The 11-under round was shot back in 2000 in the Doral-Ryder Open (as it was known at the time). By the end of the tournament, he finished 8th.
4. In terms of difficulty, the Doral ‘Blue Monster’ is ranked 40th out of 54 tracks on the PGA Tour (this ranking is from 2008). With a total yardage over 7,200 yards, it is indeed a ‘Monster’, yet, many of the pros do use a lot of fairway woods off the tee.
5. The most difficult hole on the course? That would easily be the finale at the 18th. A par 4 at 467 yards, this tough one will play havoc with your mind. An extremely tough (and precise) drive is needed. The fairway narrows to only 32 yards roughly 275 yards from the tee. The trick is to avoid the water left, while keeping your shot from sliding right into the rough. A ball played from the rough for a second shot will require an exceptional effort to reach the green (guarded by water and 2 bunkers) safely in two. The finisher at Doral has consistently been among the toughest holes on tour, with stroke averages ranging from 4.10 to 4.63 in recent years.
So there you have it. 5 fun facts about Doral’s Blue Monster… Hopefully the info will give you some more background and appreciation for the tough track our beloved pros are navigating this weekend. Get ready for an awesome finish on the 18th… no lead is safe!
Looks like the design team of Masters Champion Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore have been hired to do some restoration work on the classic Donald Ross design at Pinehurst No. 2. The work is being commissioned with the 2014 US Open and US Women’s Open in mind. The two major events will hit No. 2 in consecutive weeks, four years from now. Time to make the changes, and in a few years, all will be ready for the big events!
The goal of the course changes will revolve around restoring the strategic and aesthetic feel that Donald Ross so aptly built into the original design. That being said, Coore commented on the task at hand:
‘It is not our intent to radically change this golf course. We’re trying to uncover it, not recover it.’
Sounds like Coore knows what he’s talking about. Taking a dozer to a classic like Pinehurst No. 2 would be tragic. Revealing and slowly chipping away at some of the finer details would be clearly the way to go. Look for Coore and Crenshaw to restore sandy waste areas, widen some of the fairways, and bring some of the native wiregrass and natural bunker edges. I can already see it now. No. 2 is going to look great.
[Via: GolfWeek]
This is a shame…and a situation that I sincerely hope works out for the best!
News out of Hilton Head South Carolina notes that while there will be a Heritage Classic in 2011, the event may run without a title sponsor. Tournament director Steve Wilmot has commented that enough funds have been saved to run the event in 2011, and 2012 is looking doubtful at best. Last fall Verizon announced it would end sponsorship of the event, which it had been sponsoring since 1987 (when they were known as MCI). In a nutshell, a new title sponsor is needed!
If Wilmot fails to secure sponsorship, the 2012 event at the Harbour Town Golf Links could be a non-starter. Which, as I said a moment ago would be a huge shame. Harbour Town is an iconic track, with it’s small greens, wood-planked bunker faces and hazards, and of course, who could forget the harbour with the red and white lighthouse overlooking the 18th. What a track.
In my humble opinion a huge part of securing sponsorship could sit with Tiger Woods, should he choose to step up. While ratings are way down with the absence of Woods on the tour, if he were to commit to the Heritage Classic… I highly suspect title sponsors would line up to throw down their money. Forget all the troubles he’s had over the past little while. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s the #1 player in the world, and the #1 draw on tour. Just sayin’.
Your thoughts?
[Via: TheGolfChannel]
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