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by Jeff Skinner

The European Tour is off to a great start this year.  The tournaments have been exciting and have showcased some of its best players.  One of the most unique characters on The European Tour took home one of the most unique trophies this week.  At The Dubai Desert Classic, Miguel Angel Jimenez out lasted European Tour number one, Lee Westwood in a three hole playoff to show that some things get better with age.  “Like a good wine, with age, I get better and better” he said after his win.

Jimenez is forty six years old and shows no signs of fading away.  This win is his first since he won twice in 2008 and continues to prove that an older player with years of experience can use guile and craftiness to still compete with the young guns on tour.  Miguel first appeared on tour in 1988 and his contemporaries included Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam and Bernhard Langer, who are long gone from the tour.  To illustrate Miguel’s staying power you need not look past his first round pairing.  He played the first two rounds with twenty year old Rory McIlroy and twenty three year old Pablo Martin. “Guys like Rory McIlroy and Alvaro Quiros hit the ball so long; it’s difficult for guys like me. But here I am.” McIlroy finished in sixth place and Martin tied for forty fourth.  Miguel needs to find space for his sixteenth European Tour Trophy.

Jimenez has always appreciated the finer things in life and is known to enjoy wine more than most fellows on tour.  He has also is smart enough to realize that he needs to keep himself in good physical condition to stay on tour.  Don’t let that gut fool you; Jimenez spends enough time in the gym to keep himself in shape as he proves with him still being a factor on tour.  He has rededicated himself to a new fitness program and it looks to have paid off early this year.

Jimenez’s attitude on tour may be as big a factor in his success as his skills and experience.  He is as determined a competitor as there is out there, but rarely lets a poor shot or a bad round stick with him or affect his play.  That’s not to say he doesn’t show emotion.  He’ll smash the turf or flip the putter with the best of them but he loses the frustration long before his next shot.

With Tom Watson’s near miss at The Open Championship last year proving that “the old dudes” can still get it done, wouldn’t it be sweet if Watson and Miguel could be paired together at The Masters.  That’s a pairing with plenty of class and experience and the two of them could show what a little experience can do.  Jimenez has three top tens at Augusta and he’ll be forty six.  Maybe lighting could strike twice for another forty six year old as it did for Jack Nicklaus back in 1986.

by Jeff Skinner

It was perfect timing for the PGA Tour and a great day for Steve Stricker yesterday.  The Northern Trust Open finished up a little yearly, just in time for all of us to switch to The Super Bowl and Steve Stricker finished what he had come so close to doing last year: winning at Riviera Country Club.  Stricker fell one shot short of tying Phil Mickelson last year but there was no doubt this year.  Luke Donald made a valiant effort shooting five under and finished two back of Stricker.  Stricker started the final round with a six shot lead and while his one under par 70 wasn’t spectacular it was enough to give him the win.

Stricker earns his money with straight drives and as the saying goes he”…putts for dough.”   He led the field in putts per round and was third in putts per greens in regulation.  His driver isn’t long but it is accurate, he was tied for tenth in driving accuracy.  A good big stick and a hot flat stick: it is the perfect combination.

Steve Stricker is one of the truly nice, sincere and unassuming gentlemen on The PGA Tour.  He also is now number two in the World Golf Rankings.  Nice guys don’t finish last.

by Jeff Skinner

From the Mags…

For years Michelle Wie was as difficult interview to land as anyone.  She lived a very public life but a very insulated one.  He team limited her time with any media but in the March issue of Golf Magazine, Wie is given an opportunity to speak her mind.  To some extent she does but you can still see that “Team Wie Media Training” coming through.  Connell Barrett does an admirable job in trying to draw Michelle out and at times she does share much of herself but for the most part she keeps he guard up.

Listening to Wie it sounds like she is a young woman that has started to find herself. It seems she has been around forever, but she is just a twenty year old college student.  She is very determined to do well at Stanford and realizes she had a gifted life early on.

“I appreciate the ups more now. I was fortunate early on in my career. I had it easy. It was a dreamland. Everything turned out fine. Then it all came crashing down. The work to get back was not easy. It definitely makes me appreciate things more. Because I went through so much, it’s hard to get me down. I’m a lot stronger.”

Her dad, B.J. had ruled Michelle’s career with a tight fist and limited her exposure to the media.  Michelle now feels more comfortable with her life but still chooses to avoid some of her more difficult memories.  She says she really can’t remember much of 2007 when she had her toughest year.  She broke her wrist and withdrew from tournaments for various reasons.

“There were times when it would have been fine if I didn’t play again. It hurt so much. [The wrist injury] was dragging on forever. I felt like I would never get better. I would feel that way, and the next day I would want to go at it again. There was no way I was ever going to give it up. I didn’t want to go down this way. It was not the way I wanted this to end. I had goals. I’m not a person who gives up. So I fought through it. The low points were low. My wrist was broken, but I was determined not to let it break me.”

Surprisingly she says her relationship with her parents is normal.  They drive her up the wall and that sounds pretty normal to me, but she isn’t ready to go on tour alone yet.

“We’re very close, and I love having them around. They’re so supportive. My dad and I bicker. We’re too similar. We clash. Obviously, they drive me up the wall, like any parents would. There will come a day when it’s just me, my manager, and my caddie. But it’s not time for me right now to go out on my own. It’s a brutal, tough world, and I feel fortunate that I have two people who will love me no matter what. So I’ll keep them around for a while.”

Michelle Wie has come a long way, not only as a player but as a person.  Her performance at the Solheim Cup acted as her true coming out party.  She led the team and her teammates raved about her as a person.  When she won in Mexico at the Loreno Ochoa, her first win anywhere since she was 13, Michelle described the feeling as “pure happiness.”  It was a long time coming but it’s really just the beginning.

Golf Magazine Interview with Michelle Wie

by Jeff Skinner

Love him or hate him, we have to admit that Donald Trump has acquired himself a fairly extensive selection of golf courses.  “The Donald” calls himself an avid golfer that is”committed to creating the world’s finest portfolio of golf courses.”  He appears very committed to me.  After all, how many course owners carry a big divot of turf around on their head?  Trump is special; according to him every course he owns is the “best in the world.”

Trump has courses on both US coasts and a sprinkling of international courses.  His most controversial project in Aberdeen, Scotland has taken another step forward this week as Trump named Ireland based SOL Golf Course Construction as its main contractor.  SOL has worked on many Open Championship courses including St. Andrews, Royal Liverpool, Royal Lytham & St. Anne’s, Muirfield and Royal Birkdale.  Dr. Martin Hawtree is the course architect and has also worked on Open Championship courses.

The Scottish government has been very active in assisting Trump in acquiring the land he needs to complete his project. He has been awarded “special purchaser” status by local authorities which makes him the only one allowed to apply to purchase a half-acre plot that is critical to his plan.  There are still a few holdouts that refuse to sell to Trump, but those parcels are not as critical to the development.

It looks like Trump is getting most everything he wants from the Scots and maybe even a little more.  Local school children will spend time on Trumps’ seaside property planting grass on the sand dunes.  The grass is used to stabilize the dunes and the program is part of an educational collaboration between the local council and Trump International.  The local school is happy to give the kids a chance to understand their heritage and utilize the project for outdoor learning.  Oh yea, Trump gets some free labor too, like he really needs it.  For all the controversy, Trump looks to be making out fine.

You know it’s tough when even a Miss America contestant is taking shots at you.  Such is the case when Miss Georgia takes a shot at Tiger Woods during the Miss America competition when she says, “I’m from Augusta, home of the Masters golf tournament, where I didn’t meet Tiger Woods.”

Chip Shots from the Weekend…

This weekend the PGA Tour looked more like an episode of Judge Judy than it did a golf tournament.  Scott McCarron, in a less than classy move calls out Phil Mickelson for “cheating.”  McCarron is on the Players Advisory Council which is supposed to help the players and the tour.  Do you really think that was a good move Scott?  I would hope that a player in his position would know better than to use the word “cheater” when talking about a fellow player.  That happened on Friday and Scott hasn’t been heard from since.  Do you think maybe he got a call from Tim Finchem telling him to shut up?  I bet the next time we hear from McCarron, if we ever do, he won’t be using that word again.  Oh yea, McCarron missed the cut.

Cheers to Phil for handling the situation with more diplomacy than was given him.  Now if he could just hit some fairways.  He was tied for 75^th in driving accuracy, so much for turning his weakness into a strength.

The golf at the Farmers Insurance Open (Torrey Pines to me) was much less interesting than the Phil/Scott debate.  Ben Crane hung on to win by a stroke and he didn’t even know it.  He’s not a scoreboard watcher and it was his playing partner, Ryuji Imada that informed him he had won.  If any of his close competitors had made at least one shot coming down the stretch instead of throwing up on themselves it might have been a different story.  Crane has two reputations: one he is the sincerest, nicest man on tour, the other he is one of the slowest players on tour.  He has made an effort to speed up but I could hardly tell.  I counted five re-grips, six waggles and four head turns over one shot.  I don’t want to say watching him play is like watching grass grow, but I swear I saw some blades move while he was putting.

The European Tour had another banner week.  The leader board was dotted with highly ranked, popular players.  Robert Karlsson sizzled with a 65 to come from behind to beat Alvaro Quiros and Lee Westwood in Qatar.  Westwood had a difficult week. He cracked his driver face and needed a replacement and lost his temper at least twice on the course.  On the 18^th on Saturday after hitting a fat shot from the rough he took a massive swing in anger that tore a huge divot from the rough.  On Sunday he was so frustrated that after his putt on 17 veered past the hole he flipped his putter in anger onto the green.

If you didn’t catch any of The Nationwide Tour’s Michael Hill New Zealand Open you missed a good show.  The golf was good, Robert Gates hung on to win after his six shot lead dwindled to one but the star of the day was the course.  The Hills Golf Course in Queenstown, New Zealand stole the show.  With mountains as the backdrop, severe natural wastelands bordering some holes and the wind blowing at 25 mph it looked to be as exotic a course as any of the pros play.

by Jeff Skinner

Just when we thought the pros would concentrate on playing golf and not the controversies and scandals surrounding golf all hell breaks loose at Torrey Pines.  The much anticipated debut of fan favorite Phil Mickelson has stirred more controversy then ever expected.  Phil and a few others are playing the twenty year old Ping Eye 2 that was grandfathered in under a lawsuit settled by Ping and the USGA.  Under the lawsuit even though the groove design is illegal according to the new rule change, the club has been approved for play forever.  By the terms of the settlement the club is legal.

So now, some players, led by Scott McCarron, have called Phil a cheater. From the San Francisco Chronicle, “I think it’s cheating…All those guys should be ashamed of themselves for doing that. … As one of our premier players, (Mickelson) should be one of the guys who steps up and says this is wrong.”

Phil took the high road when asked about McCarron’s remarks and says he agrees that the rule is “ridiculous.”   He even said he agreed with McCarron about the loophole but still feels he is within the rules and indeed he is right.  Phil has been peeved about this change for a year.  He said he has “sent in legal grooves and they have not been approved for play.”  He states that the problem is we have two standards: Legal and conforming clubs and approved for play and they are not the same thing.

Personally I think Phil is trying to put it to the USGA and force them to clean up this mess of a loophole which has given golf another black eye at a time when they need it the least. Phil in the role of bad guy? Are you kidding me?  This weekend should be fun!

Another revelation occurred at Torrey pines when John Daly told his producer from the new Golf Channel show, Being John Daly that he was done with golf. After missing the cut at Torrey, Daly was so depressed with his play that he said, “I’m done” and when asked with what, he responded “golf, I can’t compete.” (John’s interview.) Daly appeared solemn and on the verge of tears during a clip shown on The Golf Channel when he said, “I just can’t do it anymore,” Daly continued. “I can’t keep taking spots from guys out here playing this bad.”  We’ll see if Daly retires or gets a new perspective when he is able to put this week’s poor play behind him.  I don’t think we’ve seen the last of John Daly, not by a long shot.

Phil Mickelson spent about thirty minutes in the press tent yesterday giving the media a “State of Phil Address.”  He took the upfront approach and shot right from the hip.  “I’m excited to get the year started,” Mickelson said. “But before we talk about that and the tournament, there’s a few other areas I’d like to discuss before we go into that.”  He then went on to touch on Tiger, Amy and his mom, his schedule, the Tour, his support team and the groove debate.  He seemed open and honest but was consciously diplomatic on Tiger.  Phil says he is ready for the year to start and is confident that this could be ”an exceptional year.”

It’s a great day for watching golf if you can.  The European Tour’s Qatar Masters is on The Golf Channel at 9:30am EST and Phil and the boys are live from Torrey Pines at 3:00pm EST.  Check out Phil’s interview.

by Jeff Skinner

Ok, be honest.  Who knows what the real story is with all this “banned groove” stuff?  I know I’m not.  But I figure I know enough to get by and I know where to go to find out.  You’ve got to go right to the source: The USGA.  They set the rules so that’s the place to go to see if your sticks are legal or if you’re playing with some outlaw clubs.

The USGA website is a great place to read up on the game and the “Equipment” page gives you all you can handle on equipment standards, testing, research and the dreaded “Conforming Club and Ball List.”  I wouldn’t recommend surfing this site at work.  You’re bound to get hooked and spend all day on it.  So surf at your own risk.

For the heck of it I checked all the clubs in my bag against the “Banned List” and the results were just as I thought.  My Cleveland CG14 wedges were on the banned list.  No biggie, I don’t plan on playing in any real legit competition anyway.  I love my wedges and as a recreational player I can use them with no problem.  But I was shocked to see that the new Cleveland CG15’s were approved and do meet the new groove rules.

Have you seen the faces on those wedges?  Cleveland calls them “laser-milled” and there are grooves on the face of the club in addition to the “Zip Grooves” that are the same grooves that the CG14 has (but are banned).  To the untrained eye, mine, they sure look illegal, but no, The USGA has approved them. It goes to show you, when in doubt, go to the list, the USGA Conforming Club & Ball List.

by Jeff Skinner

Bill Haas made two birdies on the last two Holes of The Bob Hope Classic to win and finish one stroke ahead of Matt Kuchar, Tim Clark and Bubba Watson.  It was Haas’ first win on The PGA Tour but not the first time he has held a championship trophy.  His dad, Jay Haas, won The Hope in 1988 and eight other PGA Tour victories and fourteen Champions Tour wins.  Jay was there to see Bill win his first after flying in from The Champions Tour event on Hawaii.  If The Hope isn’t delayed by rain and forced to finish on Monday a father doesn’t get to see his son’s first win.  There’s a silver lining in every cloud, even those at La Quinta.

The Haas family is one of the better represented families in American Golf.  Bill Haas is a former three time All-American and won the Ben Hogan award at Wake Forest University.  Bill’s great uncle Bob Goalby won the 1968 Masters.  Jay is still playing on the Champions Tour and has won two Charles Schwab Cups.  Bill’s uncle Jerry, Jay’s brother, is a former tour player and All-American at Wake Forest and is now the Men’s Golf Coach at Wake Forest, and Bill’s brother played golf for Augusta State.  That’s a fairly healthy family tree.

I saw Bill play in The 2004 US Open and was shocked to see such a skinny kid pound the ball like he did. Even from a distance his looked mature for his years and seemed like he belonged on tour.  When I talked to his uncle Jerry last year for some insight on Webb Simpson, another one of Jerry’s Wake Forest boys, we spoke briefly about Bill and the “Golfing Haas Family.”  Jerry said he had the best job in the world at Wake Forest and loved teaching his kids.  He commented on the maturity of Webb and Bill and how he knew both would succeed on tour.  One of the threads that connect all the Haas’ in addition to golf is the class and decency they display.  I’ve watched Jay be interviewed many times and he is always gracious and considerate.  I’ve spoken to Jerry and he was more interested in promoting his players then he was in talking about himself.  And I watched Bill say he was “nervous” coming down the stretch at The Hope.  Jay and Jerry have to be thrilled that their “kids” are continuing the family tradition of good golf and great people.