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Well, while there is golf to be played year-round in many different places on this planet, most of us put the sticks away after the President's Cup or Ryder Cup matches and wait for spring to come.  The PGA Tour, however, kicks off their 2008 season right after the New Year beginning on January 3rd in Maui for the annual Mercedes-Benz Championship.  The MB Championship is a winners-only limited field event that will feature about 30 tour players at the Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club in Maui, Hawaii.

This tournament is interesting to me for a couple of reasons.  First, since the MB Championship and the following tournament (the Sony Open) are played in Hawaii, it's pretty neat to see live first-round action at 6pm EST.  What's better than turning your TV on after a long day at work and getting your first golf fix for 2008?  Second, the views from Kapalua are spectacular.  With the exception of Torrey Pines in San Diego and the ridiculous collection of Pebble Beach/Monterey courses (Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, Poppy Hills and Cypress Point), Kapalua offers some of the most beautiful oceanside scenery you'll see all year on tour...and all of it comes right away between now and the middle of February.

The Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club

With Tiger keeping in his tradition of opting out of this tournament and the defending champion Vijay Singh missing from the field, there will be quite a number of first-time winners playing in Maui this week including Charlie Hoffman, Mark Wilson, Boo Weekley, Nick Watney and Hunter Mahan.  Veterans such as Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, Scott Verplank, Fred Funk and Mark Calcavecchia will also participate, making this year's field a nice mix of new and old talent.  Look for precise ball-striking and trajectory control as gusty conditions can make this course difficult to navigate.  The winning score will probably be just a few strokes under par if the weather holds up the way it normally does on Maui at this time of year.

Having these tournaments so early in the year is a real treat for me because it means that televised golf will now be shown regularly, but the first 3 months of the year are just practice for Augusta anyway.  The week or two before the Masters is the official start of the season for this guy; once the talk of Amen Corner and green jackets starts circulating there is no holding back...time for golf!

If only I can be so patient...

Just three more months.  Three more months...

Posted by vaca22 at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Are you laughing at this idea as much as I am?

Golf has always been an honest, gentlemanly sport.  Golfers take pride in sportsmanship and competition and never on the PGA Tour have I seen a player contest or dispute a penalty that was given to them.  In last year's Honda Classic, Mark Wilson called a 2-stroke penalty on himself on the 5th hole of the 2nd round.  Wilson and Camillo Villegas both missed the green to the right and Wilson's caddy aparently gave Villegas some advice on club selection.  Wilson immediately docked himself the two strokes and wound up shooting 66 for the round - even with only 64 swings.  And talk about karma...Wilson ended up in a 4-way playoff on Monday and won the tournament, a sign that sometimes nice guys don't always finish last.

It's tough for me to think that there are golfers taking steroids to gain some kind of competative advantage.  No one on tour appears to be jacked, with the exception of Woods and Villegas, but Villegas is as thin as a rail and Tiger's slow, steady transformation has been clearly visible over his professional career.  Are you really going to win more because you can now drive a golf ball 330 instead of 310?  Golf is very much a finesse game that requires great sense of feel, not just the ability to bash the ball around. 

It is my understanding that the drug testing manual that players received (41 pages of it) will contain a large list of banned substances  that fall under 10 categories, ranging from anabolic steroids to human growth hormones to narcotics to beta blockers.   Beta blockers are used particulary for the regulation of electrical activity in the heart that is irregular or is faster or slower than normal.  Different drugs are prescribed for many different reasons, so if a player tests positive after one of these random tests I think it will most likely be due to some odd medication and not some anabolic steroid or HGH.  Of course, this is all just an assumption, and you know what happens when you assume.

I would not be surprised, however, if one particualar player showed up on this list for any reason.  And that would be Rory Sabbatini.

Maybe his ridiculous mood swings are really just roid rage.  He certainly has the most questionable behavior on tour and making him one of, if not THE most hated player on tour.  From walking ahead and hitting in front of Ben Crane at the 2005 Booz Allen Classic to his latest antic of pulling out of this year's Target World Championship on the morning of the 4th round, his bad boy image has really done nothing but get him on the wrong side of practically everyone on tour.  If you didn't know, the Target World Championship, hosted by Tiger, was a limited-field event that guaranteed every player some kind of money.  According to Fred Couples he actually saw Sabbatini the morning of the 4th round.  After withdrawing from the tournament, Sabbatini went on to collect a last place check of $176,000 - not too shabby.  His poking and prodding of Tiger Woods has made him look like an idiot each time, and I'm sure this latest incident will not go unnoticed by Tiger.

Has anyone checked Sabbatini's bag for needles?

Posted by vaca22 at 04:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Do you win by 7 strokes?

Do you set the course record at Sherwood (62)?

Do you tie the tournament record at -22?

Tiger does.

After a two month hiatus, Tiger Woods showed up at his own tournament and captured the title for the 4th time with guns blazing and total disregard for anyone else in the field.  His high round of the week was 69, and that with WITH a double-bogey on 18.   Stinger draws...check.  Rocket 3-woods...check.  Laser approaches...check.  It seems as if the more difficult the shot is, the better the outcome.  Jack Nicklaus had his best professional year when he was 32, winning 7 times including two majors.  Tiger  turns 32 at then end of the year, and if he keeps up this torrid pace he may shatter all-time records  even sooner than people have anticipated.

Who hits stinger draws?! 

Only twice in Tiger's  professional career has he failed to win more than 4 tournaments in a year.  Since missing the cut at the 2006 US Open he has positively dominated the game.  In 26 starts worldwide he has won 14 times, a staggering 54% of the tournaments he has played in.  In those  tournaments, his scoring average was 68.37, and a combined total of over -220 under par. 

In terms of the upcoming 2008 majors, he pretty much owns every square foot of Augusta (although Phil Mickelson also has an incredible career at the Masters), he cleans house at Torrey Pines (2008 US Open), he negotiates his way through Open Championship courses like no one else (in 2006 at Royal Liverpool he used his driver only once) so it's safe to say that Royal Birkdale stands a good chance of being added to the list of venues that Tiger has won at.  Finally, the PGA at Oakland Hills is familiar territory for Tiger as well, as the 2004 Ryder Cup was held there.  You know he'll win a WCG event at least once, and a Buick event as well.  One more win puts him ahead of Arnold Palmer for most career PGA tour wins (63), and 3 will put him ahead of some no-namer people called Ben Hogan. 

Sit back and watch the domination unfold in 2008...I have a feeling this is going to be another stellar year for the world's greatest golfer. 

Posted by vaca22 at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I ended the year on a great note by finding a true gem of a course.  My goal was to find a course with excellent conditions and a great layout, all while not dropping a ton of cash.  I had put together a list of about 12 courses, almost all of them south of Connecticut.  Based on reviews and price, I settled on The Architects Club. Located near the PA border, The Architects Club in Lopatcong, NJ was really an amazing course.  I play the same 2 or 3 courses all year round (props to Darkness, whose employment at a local country club saves me untold amounts of cash in greens fees), so taking a day trip to play something different was really great. 

Designed by golf course architect Stephen Kay and Golf Digest Architectural Editor Ron Whitten, The Architects Club pays tribute to golf architects of the Golden Age of course design.  Rather than replicate and copy the holes that these famous architects constructed, the course is designed in the style that made these individuals such masters of their craft.

As you make your way around the meticulously maintained layout you'll encounter the styles of architects such as Old Tom Morris, Alister MacKenzie, Donald Ross, and A.W. Tillinghast, just to name a few.  If you're unfamiliar (GASP!) with the courses these men are responsible for, allow me to remind you:

• The Old Course at St. Andrews (modification), Machrihanish CG  (Old Tom Morris)
• Cypress Point and Augusta National (Alister MacKenzie)
• Pinehurst #2 and Oakland Hills (Donald Ross)
• Winged Foot and  Bethpage (A.W. Tillinghast)

Are you looking for the steep, sweeping-faced bunkers of Tillinghast?  How about Donald Ross' diabolical greens, with more twists and turns than the Tour de France?  Elevation changes, cascading greens, false fronts, blind tee shots...you can encounter all of these obstacles at The Architects Club.  Mind you, this isn't an impossibly hard course; as a matter of fact, it's very fair.  In my opinion, this is what makes this course so great.  With a little bit of thinking and planning, navigating your way through the course is a great pleasure.  You can actually see the intent of the designers with their placements of hazards, rough, doglegs and of course the greens.  The greens are definitely kept at "tour level" speeds.  I could have knocked at least 5-7 strokes off of my score had I been used to the speed of these greens and ended up with a score in the high 70's.  They are definitely faster than your average golfer is used to.  With rolling undulations and complex breaks, putting was the biggest challenge at Architects.  To me, the harder the putts were, the more I enjoyed the challenge.

At just a little over $100 per round, which includes a complimentary bucket of balls to use at the beautiful range, a yardage book and a ball marker (in the likeness of one of the classic architects!), this course is an excellent alternative to your local muni.  Some public and semi-private courses can run you at least $200+, so as long as you don't make The Architects Club a regular weekly stop, your wallet shouldn't be crying that much.  The new 16,000 sqft clubhouse is immaculate, the staff is courteous and friendly, and for being a public course the pace of play is excellent - rarely was there any wait to hit and we were never rushed at any point from the groups behind.  If it hadn't been for a single walk on 2 minutes before we teed off, my group would have just consisted of myself and Darkness. 

Not bad for a 9:45am Sunday tee time.

Posted by vaca22 at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)