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Kia ora - Welcome to Golf New Zealand

​Golf’s Answer To The Kardashians

11/27/2018

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“Phil and Tiger trying to be Kardashians. And, of course, TV was trying to keep up with the Kardashians,” writes David Livingstone reporting on the, “enjoyable, but fairly ordinary golf match between two men who neither need the $9m nor the aggravation arising from a loose comment.”

What’s happening here?
So there I was ready to do my stuff at the gym and I see there’s golf on one of their screens.
My god it’s the Tiger and Phil match but isn’t it getting quite late? Squinting my eyes at the distant screen I eventually saw that the game had finished all square after 18 holes. 
Of course I had to get closer and chose a nearby spinning bike which provided some useful exercise in contrast to the excruciating performance from the ‘Kardashians’ which ended up with a comical pitch and putt contest as a climax.

Why the generous gimmes?
David writes, “Let's be clear. Tiger Woods does not concede a four-foot putt that keeps the match alive. What he did on the 18th at Shadow Creek all but confirmed they were splitting the $9m. For me, there's no other explanation of why he'd give him that putt when, on the evidence of previous holes, it was 50/50 he'd miss it.”
David previously stated, “I guess they viewed it as a vindication of golf's sportsmanship. Well, sorry guys, this was not Royal Birkdale in 1969, this was not the Ryder Cup, and these two were certainly not Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin.”

Vulgar display of American excess
The following is from Alan Shipnuck’s mailbag.
“How much of a car crash was ‘The Match’ as seen in the USA? Viewed as a total disaster from Great Britain. -@PasDeDeuxBetty

Alan replies, “Boy, I’ve rarely seen a group of people hate anything as much as the British golf press despised The Match, and that was before it was even played. Sure, it was a vulgar display of American excess, but otherwise rather harmless. I read a million tweets about The Match from golf fans and pundits and nearly that many words typed by my esteemed colleagues and I think the overall impression, which I share, was this: Eh, coulda been worse.”

Link to David Livingstone and Alan Shipnuck 

Quote of the Day
“I couldn’t sacrifice my heart for a publicity stunt” - Kim Kardashian
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Going Down The Rabbit Hole

11/20/2018

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“You can speak to any Tour player out here past or current and I think they would tell you the same thing, that you can go down a rabbit hole and work and work and work and literally on the back end nothing come out of it, and I think that’s the hardest part to swallow.”
That’s from Luke Kerr-Dineen reporting on Charles Howell III explaining what he loves — and hates — about golf

Charles comes out of the rabbit hole
Luke writes, “Charles Howell III, once golf’s next can’t-miss prospect that never fulfilled the lofty expectations that were once set upon him, captured his first win in 11 years at the RSM Classic at Sea Island over the weekend.”

As for what Charles loves about golf we are advised “I love most about [golf] because it’s all on you, it’s all on the player. Golf is never about one competitor versus another and it never will be. It’s against the player versus himself and versus the golf course.”
Or in other words as I hear it, he loves the competitive aspects of the game and the challenge of self discipline.

On keeping on keeping on
I’m of the opinion it would be kinda boring hanging around for 11 years and not winning. In essence simply making up the numbers in a PGA event and then I read, “Charles Howell III won on the PGA Tour for the first time since 2007 and earned over $1.1 million in the process. The earnings bumped him to No. 20 on the Tour's all-time earnings list with a career total of $37,048,795.”

On second thoughts I could hang around for a wee bit longer regardless of where I was on the leaderboard if I could accumulate that amount of money for coming second or lower in most events.

Link to Luke Kerr-Dineen

Quote of the Day
“One of the most fascinating things about golf is how it reflects the cycle of life. No matter what you shoot — the next day you have to go back to the first tee and begin all over again and make yourself into something.” - Peter Jacobsen

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An Aussie’s Extravagance

11/14/2018

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“This guy had £450m in the bank, so he built his own golf course,” writes Rob McGarr and the first thing that strikes me is the guy’s an Aussie with attitude and a golf course called Ardfin.

"Extremely unget-at-able"
Rob writes, “Former hedge fund manager Greg Coffey decided to take things one big step further, building his own 18-hole championship course, and it looks like an absolute belter.” 
The thing is, it’s nowhere near Australia, it’s on the Isle of Jura which takes four different ferry rides to reach from the Scottish mainland and has less than 200 total population and a very fine whisky distillery. 

"Extremely unget-at-able" was how George Orwell (author of 1984) described the location of Jura in 1946, and it would appear it’s much the same today. It’s said George wrote most of 1984 on Jura.

Ouch!
Not everyone approves of the Aussie’s attitude, David Garside at the Isle of Jura’s website writes, “A developer who knows lots about costs, but very little about values – monetary or otherwise. The loss of access to the walled garden robs the island of one of its most attractive features for visitors. Hence, we have omitted Jura from our annual Scottish tour for the last 6 years. Won’t hurt the millionaire, but won’t bring our trade to the rest of the island either. A selfish world is’nt it?”

As a matter of fact I found out about Ardfin while following up on its near neighbour The Machrie  on the Isle of Islay which has come under criticism for the changes that’s been made to the course. But that’s another story.

No surprise 
It comes as no surprise to read that Ardfin Estate has indicated that access to this golf club is restricted only for resort guests. That’s all I could find to determine if I should pop across from Islay and have a game at Ardfin until I found this from Golf Week, “Playing Scotland’s exclusive new course requires approval from 'Wizard” and reference to a wizard is because Greg Coffey is known in the financial press as “The Wizard of Oz” Shouldn’t that be the wizard from Aus?  

As expected Golf Club Atlas have a comprehensive review of the course and combined with fabulous photographs. The website is well worthwhile viewing since it’s unlikely you or I will have the opportunity to play.

Link to Rob McGarr and Isle of Jura website and Golf Week and Golf Club Atlas

Quote of the Day
“Cypress Point is such a beautiful place, but it’s also very exclusive. They had a very successful membership drive last month. They drove out forty members.” — Bob Hope
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Taking The Mickey Perhaps?

11/6/2018

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Who am I to disagree with Michael Bamberger’s words proudly displayed above the bar at the Machrihanish Golf Club.
“If I were allowed to play only one course for the rest of my life, Machrihanish would be the place.”

And yet I can not agree when he writes, “More of that (cheating) will lead to the death of the game as we know it. The best antidote to possibility is to bring in as many rules officials as possible, including TV viewers.”
Given my admiration for most of his work I’m thinking Michael is, “Taking the Mickey” an expression more familiar to the Brits whereas our American friends would most likely say, “Taking the piss”

A note for those about to Google search “Where the heck is Machrihanish?” please note that much as I enjoy playing Machrihanish, the nearby Machrihanish Dunes provides even more enjoyment however it did not exist when Michael played Machrihanish.

Stating his case
In supporting his case for more rules officials and call-ins from TV viewers Michael writes, “The Doris Chen LPGA 144-hole Q-School situation, where she clearly willfully violated a rule and may have been abetted by her mother, is another illustration that some golfers will try to get away with things if they can.”

Long story short her Mother moved her out-of-bounds ball back into play.

Fair play

Every time; honestly every time an important rules issue comes to my attention I recall watching on TV, Peter Thomson and Bobby Locke on the 18th green and final hole at a St Andrews Open Championship and the following is from Wikipedia.
“His (Bobby Locke) win in the 1957 Open Championship was with some controversy. Locke had failed to properly replace his ball after marking on the 72nd green, and proceeded to putt out. This had been confirmed through newsreel footage provided to the R&A after the trophy presentation. The rules at the time made no provision for a two shot penalty, thus Locke's win could have been overturned through disqualification. However, the Championship committee did not enforce the disqualification rule, citing "equity and spirit of the game" as overriding factors in sustaining the posted result.”

Spirit of the game and old farts
God bless the USGA and the R&A for trying to reinforce the spirit of this great game, simplifying the rules and hopefully assisting in shedding the image of a game ruled by a bunch of old farts. However one has to ask if they’ve it right when presented with a recent example of a need for further simplification and for decisions made that are more in tune with the spirit of the game.
Speeding up the game is on the agenda of the USGA and the R&A and yet this is allowed to happen.
I’ll leave it to Andy Roberts to report.

Crazy golf rule
Andy reports, “CRAZY GOLF RULE SEES EUROPEAN TOUR HOPEFUL DENIED PLAYOFF SPOT” His headline not my need for emphasis.
Andy writes, “Petrozzi was docked two strokes on his final hole - under Rule 13-2 - after he walked through a bunker to pace out his yardage, before then raking his footprints in the sand.

Despite making a hole-in-one and five birdies on his closing six holes for a round of 65 and 6-under total, the resulting two-stroke penalty brought him back to 4-under and proved costly as it denied him the chance of a playoff for an alternate spot.”

Gotcha!
RULE 13-2, explained...
A player must not improve or allow to be improved, his line of play or a reasonable extension of that line beyond the hole.

I leave it to you to decide if this decision is in the spirit of a game especially since it’s said that one of the major reason for people not attempting to try golf is because they feel they would need to read-up on the rules of the game.

Links to Michael Bamberger  Kyle Porter on the Chen affair and Andy Roberts

Quote of the Day
“The law is an ass” - As written by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist and of whom I can find no mention if Charles attempted to play or for that matter attempt to read the golf rules book.
Come to think of it perhaps in his time there was only the 13 original rules.

What's the meaning of the phrase 'The law is an ass'?
Said of the application of the law that is contrary to common sense.

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    Author

    For several years. Since March, 2009 to be precise I have regularly posted golf blogs at Voxy and now's the time to also start posting them here. 

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