There is nothing more fun than watching old folks sing a song from their youth.  Watching Freddie shoot 67 at Augusta National today to take the second round lead of the Masters at 5 under par is about as fun as it gets.  He sure looked like he was having a good time singing that tune.

In his Los Angeles Times article today Bill Dwyre says, “With a golf club in his hands, Couples is 52 going on 30………In senior citizen centers all over the country, they were high-fiving each other with walking sticks and demanding extra warm milk”.

Augusta National brings out the best in Freddie’s game it always has.  He made the cut there about a bazillion times in a row and won the Green Jacket in 1992.  As Dwyre points out, Freddie has earned well over $2 million walking among these azalea bushes.

If you doubt that he can win this thing just note the spring in his Eccos and the magic in his putting stafff.  In his own words, “Can I win? I believe I can, yes”.

If it was cool to see Jack win the Masters in 1986 at 45 years old, how awesome would it be if Freddie pulled off the same at age 52?  Adrenaline meet nostalgia.  Freddie is seven years younger but this has that misty feel of Watson at Turnberry in 2009.  We just hope that father time doesn’t pay Freddie a rude visit between now and the final hike up 18 on Sunday.

Any way you look at it, there will be legions of Grecian Formula fans rooting for Freddie to keep hope alive for another two days.  Freddie in a Green Jacket when the Fat Lady Sings……that would be cool indeed.

(Click to read Bill Dwyre’s “Putting, Not Puttering, Couples Shares Masters Lead”)

Bill Dwyre

Los Angeles Times

April, 2012

For an amateur who has had the privilege to play The Masters their experience at this revered place began in “The Crow’s Nest”, a secluded living space in the upper reaches of the Augusta National clubhouse.  Many of those amateurs return to play again, many of them become winners of the coveted Green Jacket.  But for all of them, the first Masters memories they have are of this cloistered living space and times of discovery shared with other young men they lived with that week in Georgia.

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Dave Kindred’s wonderful Golf Digest article “Boys To Men” describes the experience of living Masters week as an amateur in the Crow’s Nest at Augusta National.  Through stories told by the young players who carry first images of the place indelibly etched in their minds, he reveals what a rite of passage it is for a player to unveil the mysteries that surround the hallowed place that Bobby Jones built.

Stairway to heaven? (Don Furore golfdigest.com)

The challenge begins with finding the Crow’s Nest.  There are no signs, no directions offered to where it is-just that it is on top of the clubhouse above the second floor.  They eventually discover through a door on the second floor marked TELEPHONE, down a hall, another innocuous looking door that when opened reveals a carpeted stairway that looks like it is ascending to heaven.  Appropriately there is a portrait of Bobby Jones himself staring down at them from above at the top of the stairway.

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The rooms are simple but somewhat surreal.  Kindred says, “If not a dorm room–the place whispers rather than shouts–it might be your grandmother’s place: quiet, cozy, immaculate. Its ancient timbers are painted a white as pure as that of the robes, fringed bedspreads and bathroom ceramics. Sunlight falls in from the high cupola’s four sets of windows. The room is all shining whites and Masters greens.”

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These are stories of 20 year olds who are living a childhood dream of playing in a major tournament and the last thing they were thinking about was decorum and rules.  Indiscretion has them climbing on to the roof in their skivvies to check the morning weather or walking into prohibited places like the Champions locker room or hastily trying to make it to their tee time and nearly running down Gene Sarazen or Byron Nelson in the hallway or staying out so late that they have to clandestinely climb the fence to get back on the property.

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The black and whites on the wall make you realize this is a place of great history.  “Lloyd Mangrum signs autographs for wounded soldiers. Gene Sarazen and Byron Nelson walk to the sixth green. Lean and hungry, his arms a blacksmith’s, Arnold Palmer stands in a fairway, young, strong and alive.”

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It is like sleeping in a museum  with voices of the past  whispering from the rafters. This article is a scrapbook of the compiled memories of greats like Nicklaus, Watson, and Crenshaw and lesser greats like Billy Andrade, David Chung, and Don Cherry.  Recollections of youthful fascination and discovery provide a unique perspective on the eve of the annual ritual we call The Masters.

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(Click to read Dave Kindred’s Golf Digest article ‘Boys to Men’)

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Dave Kindred

Golf Digest April, 2012

Ginni Rometty is the new CEO of IBM and one of the main architects of the reinvention of this old line technology giant. Under her influence IBM has embraced cloud technology as the centerpiece of their product and service offerings and , as a result,  their company shares are at the highest valuation in their history.

As their new ad campaign boasts this makes her the #1 IBMer in a lot of ways.  She is entitled to all the spoils that go with responsibility she has embraced, including a membership in one of the most exclusive all boys fraternities in the country, Augusta National Golf Club.

Augusta National has a history of extending membership to the chief executive of IBM, one of the main sponsors of The Masters each year, as well as the top executives of other fortune 500 companies like Coke, GE, Rockwell, and more.  As Sally Jenkins points out in this Washington Post article, “Inherited money doesn’t get you into Augusta, nor does status or reputation alone.  The best way to become a member is to shark your way to the top of a large American Company…..Rometty earned her way into a winner’s circle that is genderless.  Her defining characteristic is not that she’s a woman but that she has a talent for corporate victory”.

By process alone it seems that Augusta National has an opportunity to put into it’s rear view mirror past criticism of it’s penchant for male only membership.  Most important, they can do this on their own terms and not “at the point of a bayonet” as Hootie Johnson characterized it back in 2002 when women’s rights advocate Martha Burk tried to force it on them through her unsuccessful parking lot demonstrations down the street from the club entrance.

Seems to me that if the membership committee of Augusta National really means what it has said in the past, women will eventually be members of this austere club, this is their opportunity to pull it off seamlessly, without fanfare, and for a reason that fits with their policies.  As Sally concludes, “If Rometty does slip on a (green) blazer, it will be quietly, for the simple reason that, in business, she plays from the tips”.

(Click to read Sally Jenkins article about Augusta National and Ginni Rometty)

Sally Jenkins

Washington Post

March, 2012

In his Golf World column, Final Say, Roland Merullo talks about the reason there is such a bond of deep friendship created by those who regularly play golf together.  Nowhere else do we relate to people of such diverse interests, political and social views, and income standings.  It is a wonder that we can spend four hours regularly with people who think so differently from us, yet golf seems to create a bridge of tolerance and shared purpose that gets beyond all that.

True friendships are built with a measure of humility.  Merullo points out that the game dishes out humble pie without regard to who you are. “The moment you set foot on the first tee you’re signing up to periodically make a fool of yourself. Nobody escapes.”  When we watch Ernie gag a three-footer to lose a championship we can feel his pain because we have experienced that pain-in front of others we know well-so many times before.

That protective shell  we wear to ward off the slings and arrows that life throws at us every day has to be permeated if we are to establish real relationships with our friends.  It does not take  but a few holes on the golf course to get a good sense of someone in your group and, as he says, “if you tee it up with someone 30 times a year for decades you can probably sketch out a map of his DNA”.

In the end knowing whether a person will be there when you need them has a lot to do with witnessing how they handle the expected and the unexpected.  Appropriately put “every golf outing includes moments of failure, disappointment, even heartbreak.  How we face those things speaks volumes about the creature we are underneath the mask of the personality”.

It has occurred to me many times that when I want a piece of solid and objective advice I will pick up the phone and call someone who I have befriended through golf.  There is something about the authenticity of their advice I can embrace because we have read or misread a putt for each other in a two-man team competition and hold no malice from the result.  Golf does provide a unique platform for experiencing such things together with people we have come to trust.

(Click here to read Roland Merullo’s Golf World article)

Roland Merullo

Golf World

March, 2012

With the LPGA Tour coming to the U.S. this week for the first time in 2012 all eyes will be on  young Lexi Thompson who will be making her state-side debut as a full fledged, card-carrying LPGA pro.  There has been so much written about this young phenom since here win at the Navistar Classic in September and the Dubai Ladies Masters in December, almost too much to digest.  But as you can read in this Sports Illustrated article by Alan Shipnuck last fall, there is a whole lot to this young lady and the clamor is justified.

She is about the same age as Michelle Wie when she went pro at 16 so the comparisons are inevitable.  But unlike Michelle, Lexi’s focus has totally been on the women’s game and beating her peers.  From age 12 to 16 the results have been phenomenal.  She has the game, the poise, the athleticism, and the drive to compete at the LPGA level right now.

Shipnuck says in the article, “Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez says that the ideal formula for an LPGA player to achieve popularity is “to look like a woman but play like a man.”  Which is why (Jim) McLean, in a nod to the LPGA commissioner, says, “Lexi Thompson is God’s gift to Mike Whan”.

In reading this article you have to conclude that Lexi’s strongest attribute the next few years will be the support group of her family.  It has provided her the competitive foundation within which to develop her golf skills and the grounded perspective to handle the challenges success and fame will bring.

It is not going to be easy for her to develop as a regular kid competing every week with women ten years her senior.  She will need to avoid the “burn out at a young age” that has foiled careers of other gifted and talenteds in women’s sports.  Some mentoring from more recent peers like Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel who have made this transition successfully would do her a world of good. Hopefully her parents will give her the latitude to seek this out.

Any way you look at it Lexi’s arrival will be a huge boost for American presence in the ladies professional golf ranks.  American fans have lots to be excited about, the next Solheim Cup should have another loaded gun on the American side.

(Click here to read Alan Shipnuck’s “Lexi Thompson” SI Article)

Alan Shipnuck

Sports Illustrated

November, 2011

Brandt Snedeker is an accomplished player on the PGA Tour with over $12 million in career earnings since 2004, three PGA Tour wins, and a boatload of fans who just love the lanky boyish gait, blond curls popping out of the back of his visor, and the Opie Taylor smile that seems to say “I’m glad to be playing the game I love for a living”.

His dramatic playoff win at Torrey Pines this year and getting to the third round of the WGC Accenture Match Play have put him on our radar screen once again this year.  Currently eighth on the PGA Money List, FedEx Cup Standings, and 2012 Ryder Cup List would indicate that he is likely to stay there for the rest of this year.

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With The Masters approaching it is a great time to reflect on Sneds connection to the major he probably covets more than any other.  Flash back to 2004 when Snedeker, playing college golf for Vanderbilt, qualified for The Masters as an amateur winning the U.S. Public Links Championship.  He knew of The Masters tradition providing players who qualify access to the course prior to their appearance in the tournament.  So for the eight months leading up to his first appearance he would drive seven hours each way nearly every weekend between Nashville to Augusta to play a couple of rounds on one of the most revered venues in the game.

In that Masters, he made the cut as an amateur, shooting 12 over for the four rounds, but this cache of practice rounds gave him a familiarity with  Augusta that would serve him well four years later.

Flash forward to 2008 (I love these special effects) he was not playing his best coming into the Masters and he only hoped to somehow get into the top 16 to get an automatic invite back in 2009.  He got a dream pairing with Tom Watson his boyhood idol and proceed to play the course he knew so well like a wily veteran shooting 69-68 to get within one of the lead after the halfway cut.

With family and friends walking each step of the way, Sneds flirted with history and embossed that smiling image into the consciousness of a growing group of endearing golf fans.  Take a moment and read this revealing 2008 article by Michael Bamberger from Sports Illustrated Vault that recounts Sneds journey that week to an incredible third place finish in The Masters.

With his putting stroke, I would not be surprised this Easter Sunday if Sneds is hawking twenty footers through Amen Corner and nipping at the seams of a green jacket.

(Click to read Bamberger’s article “No Man Is An Island”)

Michael Bamberger

Sports Illustrated

May, 2008

What you have to love about Rory McIlroy is the fact that he does not seem to get caught up in himself.  As you can read in Gene Wojciechowski’s article from ESPN.com Rory is not buying this Tiger-Rory Rivalry thing that the media seems so intent on creating.

Golf Channel has gone as far as hyping this week’s WGC event at Doral as Rory against “the red hot Tiger Woods”.  Bad news for Golf Channel is that wearing a particular color shirt and shooting a 62, especially after being only one under in the previous three rounds, does not constitute being red hot.

Rory understands, as the article says, that a rivalry on this order takes a decade to gestate and bring to fruition and that focusing on that would only be a distraction to what his real goals are-to be the best player he can be.

The wise young one says, “To be honest, in golf, you can have a rivalry if you want, but at the end of the day your biggest rival is the golf course”.

Rory seems content following the script he has been using that has gotten him to the #1 World Ranking, setting goals, working hard, and enjoying the ride.

“I’ve never said that I want to be the next anyone.  I just want to be the first Rory McIlroy”.

I like his perspective-it should take him a long way.

(Click here to read Wojciechowski’s Article on Rory McIllroy)

Gene Wojciechowski

ESPN.com

March, 2012

As you can read in John Paul Newport’s Wall Street Journal article “Golf’s Biggest Delusions”, perception and reality in this game can be miles apart.  The nine things he alludes to that people talk about all the time are just not true.

So the next time one of your buddies tells you to keep your head down or that golfers overseas always play in under three hours or that it is all about length on the PGA Tour you can tell them where to put that old husband’s tale.

(Click here to read John Paul Newport’s Golf’s Biggest Delusions)

John Paul Newport

Wall Street Journal

February, 2012

As you will read in this wonderful article by Ron Sirak from Golf World this past week, Sophie Gustafson may have slain the most important dragon in her career this past fall when she stood in front of a microphone to do an interview with Val Skinner before the Solheim Cup.

Sophie has been an accomplished player on both sides of the Atlantic for a long time.  She has 28 pro victories to her credit, 5 on the LPGA Tour and 14 on the Ladies European Tour.  She has 13-12-6 record in that competitive furnace called The Solheim Cup and was a perfect 4-0 as one of the heroes at Killeen Castle as the Europeans won the cup this past fall.  (Click here to see the review Europe’s Solheim Triumph)

For all her accomplishments she has been an enigma to the golfing public for her lack of  public profile considering all her success.  But there was a good reason for that since Sophie has had to struggle with a debilitating stutter her entire life.  As Sirak says, “Gustafson has been unable to share her personality because of a stutter so severe one sentence rarely follows another without hitting a stop sign”.

With the same tenacity that she has always shown on the golf course Gustafson decided this fall to take her greatest fear head on and release herself from the shackles that this condition has bound her with her entire life.  The interview was a watershed moment for her in many ways.  Besides casting aside her own demons she was surprised at the public response she got from others who have family members with this condition.  One parent wrote that their child who stutters “now has a sports hero they can relate to”.  I think she now sees this as an opportunity, instead of a curse, an opportunity to set an example and make a difference in the lives of others.

Gustafson is an accomplished athlete but she is also a bright, intelligent, and outspoken advocate for the ladies’ game.  This article touches a cord about how hard it can be for even the most gifted athletes to deal with the challenges that life can pose for any of us.

(Click here to read Ron Sirak’s “From Stage Fright To Stage Presence”)

Sophie wrote an elucidating article of her own for Sports Illustrated in March 2012 a month before she is slated to accept the annual Ben Hogan Award at a ceremonial dinner before The Masters.

(Click here to read Sophie’s SI Article “Speaking Up”)

Ron Sirak

Golf World/Golf Digest

January, 2012

(Photo by Joey Terrill)

No matter what you think of Johnny Miller you have to admit two things:

-The man could hit some irons in his day.  He literally was knocking down flagsticks when he was in his prime.

-He may be opinionated about player’s swing mechanics during the NBC golf broadcasts, but he is generally right in what he says.

So the attached article from Golf Digest called “Johnny’s 10 Rules For Sticking Your Irons” attracted my attention when I stumbled on it the other day on the web.

What I found most intriguing about his tips in the article is that they are not technical swing tips at all.  Only two of the ten are remotely about swing mechanics.  These are just practical suggestions on how you should mentally and physically approach iron play to get the most out of your game.  It is what I would call suggestions for “Good Swing Hygiene”.

Take five minutes and give this article a read.  I am sure there are a couple of things therein that will help you hit your irons more solidly and maybe, just maybe,  stick a few of them the next time you are out.

(Click here to read “Johnny’s 10 Rules For Sticking Your Irons”)

Golf Digest

January, 2009