Looking for Golf in All the Wrong Places

We here at Eye On Golf would be interested to discover the names and locations of any out of the way golf courses in the southwestern United States primarily in Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona. We’re looking for nine-holers or eighteen-holers that are not part of the ‘resort tour.” We’re not trying to break the bank with one round of golf. We’re just searching for fun and perhaps even quirky courses that you have played or have knowledge of. Such as places where you might find a monument like the one to your left. You'll encounter this at Apache Stronghold, a Tom Doak design, in Globe, AZ.

Just drop us a comment with some info.

Book Review - Teeing Off

Back again with another recommendation for your late summer reading pleasure. You see we view it as our mission to inform you of good golf literature. Lord knows there is no shortage of journalism – good, bad and ugly - when it comes to our favorite game. So let’s get on with it.

Teeing Off by Ken Bowden

Teeing Off is a compendium of journalism from a lifetime covering the game. For forty years Bowden has been in press tents around the world – an insider if you like. His book is a lifetime of reflection on that experience. During that time Bowden has developed a close association with Jack Nicklaus similar to the relationship that O.B. Keeler had with Bobby Jones. He shares some of that “insider” time with us.

The book is neatly organized into five major sections – Players, Technique, Characters, Experiences and Reflections. Within these sections Bowden gives us a wide variety of golden nuggets from his years in the game. Most of his recollections are but a page or two long. To his credit Bowden gets your reading adrenalin flowing in the very first chapter, “My Greatest of the Greats.” In nine pages we get his baker’s dozen of the all time greats of the game. You can agree or disagree with his assessment, but it’s a gutsy and fascinating start. As a result of the diversity within the book, one never gets bored or lulled to sleep with an endless rambling of stories. As a teacher of the game I found his second section, Technique, most intriguing especially the discussions on "The Secret" and whether or not "Published Instruction (is) Gold or Garbage." You'll find this interesting.

My only disappointment was a glaring factual error in Bowden’s first chapter. In a short biological paragraph on Hogan, he lists the year of Hogan’s car/bus accident as 1940. If memory serves me correctly, the accident occurred in 1950. That error aside Teeing Off provides us with an engaging reflection from a career on the inside. Get your foursome to read this book. It'll make some rousing nineteenth hole discussion.

LPGA To Endorse Rosetta Stone – Buy Now

Just about a week ago the LPGA hierarchy put out the edict that all players will be required to have some proficiency in English. For those of you not familiar, that is the preferred language of the country from which the LPGA sprang forth.

Now, you can think what you want about the policy (and if you have a really big bullhorn (or mouth) it might be heard a little better), however, in this time of economic upheaval there is an unparalleled investment opportunity – Rosetta Stone, the language learning software.

I would suspect that the LPGA is working on a major sponsorship deal with the folks at Rosetta Stone, probably one with will fill the void of the sponsor-free tournament that is held in Phoenix every spring. And that is why it is imperative to buy now before the sponsorship deal is announced.

Don’t say Eye On Golf didn’t give you a heads up.

PGA Championship Thoughts

Halfway through the PGA Championship the “CUT Leaderboard” has more “superstars” at the top than the actual tournament. Just take a gander.

Atop the leaderboard is J.B. Holmes; atop the “CUT Leaderboard” is Rich Beem, Fred Couples and John Daly. ‘Nuf said.

I really hope something great happens today. I sure don’t want to be relegated to watching tape-delayed coverage of the Olympics.

No PGA club professionals made the cut, so now the name of the tournament must be changed for the weekend to the PGA Tour Championship. Or is that being used somewhere else?

Ryder Cup Captain Paul Azinger made the cut. It might be safe to assume that if you are a Ryder Cup hopeful and are not joining Azinger to play on the weekend…well, your fate is pretty much sealed.

Golf Getting Dismal

I really did try to watch some golf this past weekend except the Reno-Tahoe (Michelle Wie) Open. Despite the high level of importance of the events – two “majors” and a WGC – either the golf was less than stellar or the coverage was boring and less than dramatic. Here’s the recap.

At Firestone, a boring back and forth golf course, Phil bogies three of the last four holes when he hits drives that nearly leave the state. He looses by a couple and then Appleby and Westwood fail to make 15-footers on the final hole to tie Singh who appeared to be the last man to play with the same ball for the entire round.

At the U.S. Senior Open the last four players made it look like the Sunday morning men’s club at the Colorado Springs Municipal Golf Course. They combined for a glorious 20 over par in the final two twosomes. Thank goodness play was slow so our friends at NBC could pump us with Olympic preparatory crap.

And finally our friends at ABC covering their third British Open for something or other tournament in succession went through the motions. The Women’s British Open (and don’t forget “presented by Ricoh”) was so important that ESPN/ABC flew Andy North across the Atlantic on Friday night to help with the color commentary over the weekend. The announce team made some pretty good golf really uninteresting. With Asians finishing in the top five spots in this tournament, I can’t wait to see the ratings. Let’s face it the LPGA is having an identity crisis. But that’s for another time.