Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Old golf clubs

I gave up on my 1984 Ben Hogan Apex irons this week.

It's not as though I've been using them. They've been gathering dust in the closet of our office since 2001, when I switched over to a set of 2000 Apex irons.

Golf's technology improvements have been significant. I have a 440cc driver (Nicklaus) that makes its predecessor, the Titleist 875, look tiny. My mishits are as good as solid hits with the 875. And a friend's 460cc makes my 440 look small.

I can't imagine what it was like way back in the early '90's when I played with persimmon woods - "real" wood.

The 1984 Hogans were special to me. They were "blades," forged and thin, and I used them for all those years, never once really considering anything else. But the forged cavity backs a friend sent me to replace them...well, they're not as pretty, but they're pretty forgiving.

I couldn't sell them on eBay. They're not exactly collector's items, and who would want to play with them? No one I know wanted them. So I put them in a Club Car golf bag - also from my past - and dropped them off at a Goodwill center in Greensboro.

The attendant asked me if I wanted a receipt. "No, thanks," I said. "I should pay you, I guess, to take them."

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

2005 U.S. Open

My college buddy Howard Waters, formerly the owner of a marketing company in Tidewater, VA, called late last week offering practice round tickets for Pinehurst. Neil MacKenzie snapped them up and went down yesterday (Tuesday, June 14) to see how the course and the players were getting along.

Neil and I often make a bet about the outcomes on the majors. Before The Masters, for instance, we each chose three we thought could win, added a "long shot" each, and bet a case of beer. I enjoyed 24 cold Harps.

Here's how it works:

We flip a coin to determine who chooses first. (I won and chose Tiger.) Then the other of us makes two picks. Then back to me for one, to him for his third, then to me for mine. By then each of us has a team of three. If any of my picks wins the tournament, I win the beer. Same for Neil. But if none of them wins, we go by cumulative score for those who make the cut. If Neil has 3 players - including his "long shot" - who make the cut, and I don't have at least three, he wins. If we both have 2, then the lower cumulative score wins.

Make sense?

I won the toss again for the Open, so I chose Tiger (although I don't think he can win - more on that later). Neil then chose Phil and Ernie. I chose Retief and DiMarco. He chose Vijay. My long shot is Ryan Moore. His is Jeff Maggert(!).

Here's where Neil was on Tuesday...
Ernie@PNH
I'm sure he had lots of encouraging words for Ernie there on the practice tee.

Who will win? Many, including Sports Illustrated, say Phil Mickelson. He was so close in '99, he's been preparing well, and the course suits his bold style around the greens. Although he was my first pick, I don't think it will be Tiger who wins the Open trophy. Pinehurst is just too tough a course for him to build a commanding lead in the early rounds or on Saturday, and his inconsistency off the tee will punish him with must-make shots on Sunday.

Whatever, I'll be watching my HD set-up beginning tomorrow afternoon to see how the favorites, the long shots and the course hold up. It's oppressively hot this week - 98 as I write this - and there's little chance for rain other than the always-possible late afternoon thunder bumpers. It should be a great tournament. And this time, I think I may just be buying Neil 24 of his beloved Samuel Adams ales.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Herbert Warren Wind

Back when I worked with Pinehurst (the site of the Open next week), the resort hosted a festival surrounding the arts and golf. Each year they honored one who had contributed much to the genre. Linda Hartough, for instance, was the recipient one year.

Anyway, on more than one occasion I recommended my own "golf art" hero, Herbert Warren Wind. It disappoints me that the powers of the festival never agreed with me. I wanted an opportunity to meet him. HWW passed away on May 30 at age 88.

Wind was a writer for the ages, perfectly mirroring the best of the game. His "Story of American Golf" is definitive and comprehensive, but I believe his best work came in his long pieces for The New Yorker. He would meander through a recap of The U.S. Open or The Open Championship as a walker in no hurry meanders through an 18-hole round, including references to historical champions, golf course architecture, and the drama of the event just played.

My favorite sports writers are those who can be called, perhaps, "writers" first, then "sports fans." There was Wind, of course, in golf (and to some degree championship tennis), and there remains, thankfully, Roger Angell for baseball. To a degree they, too, are my heroes in sport.

To read SI's story about Herbert Warren Wind's death, try this.

[And on a later date - July 24, 2005 - I found this Golf Digest piece by Charles McGrath. Great photo too.]

To my knowledge, The New Yorker has not made available online any of HWW's long pieces. I'll let you know if I find something later. Here's
The New Yorker's David Remick obit.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Wild Dunes - June 3-4, 2005

Rick Hall and I played together in the Wild Dunes Member Guest. We didn't attend any of the social events, just 45 holes (one of those match play events) against 5 different teams in our flight. (My favorite format for this kind of thing.)

We got off to a great start in our first two matches (5.5 to 3.5, 5 to 4), but sucked in the third and fourth (2.5 to 6.5, 3 to 6). So we shot our way out before the final nine hole match. Oh, well. It was great fun.

Rick Hall in perfect pose

Rick is a great partner. Hilarious with a joke, and easily pleased in almost any situation. He clearly loves what he does, selling Golf Digest in the Southeast. We're headed to Scotland together with the Blue Elephants in July, so he'll have plenty of opportunity to get sick of playing with me.

Nothing much to report from this event, only one gripe to voice: why is it that events like this still include something as funky as a "mulligan"? We play the ball down, the course is perfectly painted, everything is set up to make it "real golf," and we buy a $20 mulligan.

(Needless to say, Rick and I didn't use our mulligan very well. In fact, we forgot to use it in 3 of 5 matches.)

Finally, heard a number of good jokes, but the best line of the week came from Rick. Sitting at breakfast on Saturday morning, one guy was waxing on Sage Valley, including the food, wines, etc. Rick put it all in perspective: "Sage Valley's 'Orange Cake' is the best in all of golf."