Controlled Media Emphasizes Need For Mainstream Media

The big reason for the backlash over Tiger Woods’ decision to skip a presser at last week’s Wells Fargo Championship so he could take lob ball questions from fans is that this non-issue is about the golf media’s two favourite topics: itself and Tiger.

The big concern among media hand-wringers is that that bypassing the media press conference will become standard procedure. That’s highly unlikely considering Woods did talk to the media at the tournament, where he missed the cut.

Another fear is that other players may go the same route, but that’s also unfounded considering Phil Mickelson’s reported jab at Tiger upon entering the media room and asking, “Didn’t you guys see my video?” Read more

Don’t Count Out The Longshots

To hear people talk this week, you would think that the Masters doesn’t exist outside of Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson.

Tell that to the other guys who have won this year, or the rest of the field at Augusta National. Actually, first-time winners and longshots have done pretty well for themselves in recent majors, but as usual, we get caught up in the hype heading into Augusta. Read more

Canadian News From The Masters

As a past winner, Mike Weir is the only Canadian partaking in the festivities on the course at Augusta National this week, but he isn’t the only Canadian making news at the Masters.

Dave Perkins of the Toronto Star chatted with Weir about the struggles of his comeback from elbow surgery last year. So far, Weir has missed four cuts in four PGA Tour events, but says he’s determined to move forward despite the setbacks.

You can read Perkins’ story here. Weir also posted this recent blog on his website.

The buzz off the course is the recent success of Canadian coach Sean Foley after Tiger Woods’ recent win at Bay Hill, but Foley’s hot streak isn’t limited to Tiger after other students such as Justin Rose and Hunter Mahan also won on tour.

Add to those successes the fact that Andrew Parr of London, Ont., tied for sixth last week on the European Tour and Jennifer Kirby of Paris, Ont., won a recent college event for the University of Alabama. You can read about Kirby’s win here.

Both Kirby and Parr are Foley students, as well.

Lawrence Donegan of The Guardian in the U.K. took an interesting look at Foley last weekend before Mahan won the Shell Houston Open prior to this week’s Masters. You can read Donegan’s story here.

It promises to be a wild week ahead and Sun Media’s Jon McCarthy has a good warm-up through some travel snafus on the way to Augusta. He says a stroll around Augusta, once he got there, helped chill him out.

You can read McCarthy’s story here.

Tiger Or The Field? Canadians Offer Their Thoughts; TaylorMade Chief Goes Undercover For CBS

To listen to all the Tiger-talk going on since Tiger Woods had his breakthrough win at Bay Hill just over a week ago, it sounds like many people have already fitted Woods for his green jacket, even before the ceremonial tee shot takes place.

There was a time when a commonly-asked question going into a major was “Tiger or the rest of the field?” After all the challenges faced by Woods the past two-and-a-half years, how will you answer that question now?

A group of well-known names from Canadian golf are evenly split on that subject. Read more

Did Haney Cross The Line? Your Turn

It’s unlikely the students that denizens of the Canadian golf industry teach would ever be fodder for a tell-all book, or in most cases, that club level teachers get so close to their pupils that they would be considered part of their “inner circle.”

There has been recent debate within the industry and among golfers, however, about whether Hank Haney crossed the line with his book, The Big Miss, about his former client Tiger Woods. Read more

Haney Book On Tiger Hits Shelves

With the dust settling on Tiger Woods’ breakthrough win at Bay Hill on the weekend, The Big Miss by Tiger’s former swing coach Hank Haney has hit the shelves with impeccable timing.

The book offers an inside view behind Woods’ seemingly impenetrable wall around him from a coach who worked with him for six years. Read more

Sean Foley’s Thoughts On Tiger’s Win

Canadian Sean Foley got to celebrate a victory with Tiger Woods for the first time since beginning to work with the former No. 1 player in the world. Here’s what Foley had to say about Tiger’s win at Bay Hill:

“Tiger has been working hard and I am so pleased for him. We have the blueprint in place now and we are only at the halfway point. If you include the fact that he has been injured for six of the 16 months we have worked together, we are definitely ahead of schedule. The statistics were a detailed sign of the direction we have been headed for quite some time now. It was great to see him win and now his focus will turn to the Masters. It is fantastic to be a part of it and it is great for the game of golf to have him in the mix every week he tees it up.”

Foley’s In The Fishbowl At Augusta

As swing coach to the most recognizable player in golf, Canadian Sean Foley has regularly found himself caught in controversy as speculation and opinion about Tiger Woods continues as he struggles to get back to the form that made him the most dominant player ever.

Foley and Woods will be in the fishbowl this week as the world turns its attention to Augusta National, where Woods has made several contributions to the long history of the Masters. In today’s multi-media, instant information world, Foley’s methods are up for dissection as the world continues to scrutinize Woods. Read more

Let The Whining Begin About Olympic Golf, But Ignore the Sterotypes

The bellyaching about why golf should not be included in the Olympics will now begin after Thursday’s decision by the International Olympic Committee to recommend that it and Rugby Sevens be included in the 2016 Olympics.

A final decision by the IOC will be made in early October in Copenhagen, but it’s expected to be a mere formality, so the moaning will begin, mostly from those outside of golf who are ticked about their own sport not getting in who will spew their venom golf’s way.

The critics will use a wide brush to paint golf as elitist and not accessible for most due to the expense of playing and, to a certain extent, they won’t be wrong if they use the example of Martha Burk’s campaign a few years back against Augusta National for its exclusion of women from its membership. Read more

If You Think I’m Trashing Tiger, You’re Crazy

Kyle German earned an exemption into this week’s RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey after winning the Titleist and FootJoy Canadian PGA Club Professionals Championship last fall. He continues his daily blog on GNN as the countdown is on to his first tee-off time on the PGA Tour on Thursday.

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Ever sign a golf ball?

It’s a lot harder than it looks. I still can’t read what I wrote, but I love getting range balls and giving them to the kids just to see their reactions.

They’re faces just light up and, it’s funny because the dads’ faces light up too. It’s great.

I guess I can relate with my son just being born earlier this year. Speaking of that, my wife Taryn and son Lane were due in Wednesday night and I was planning to meet them at the hotel. Taryn has been e-mailing me pictures so I can see him before I go to bed every night.

My parents arrived on Tuesday night and, I didn’t realize this, but an aunt and uncle who live here are going to come too, so I’ll be surrounded by family,

I should sleep well on Wednesday night, but Thursday morning will be hard because I don’t tee off until 1:45 with Matt Weibring and Wil Collins.

I don’t know either of them, but I’m usually quiet on the golf course, which may be surprising to some because you can’t stop me from talking anywhere else. Gene and I will talk and just try to make sure we have our numbers right.

No matter what happens, I know I’m going to be really nervous, so first tee, I’m just going to swing hard, go find it and keep going.

I think there’s going to be so much adrenalin and so much nervous energy when I’m on the first tee, I won’t be able to breathe. There will be a few really, really deep breaths and I’m sure I won’t be able to feel my legs, so I’m just going to put the ball on the tee and go.

That’s all I can do.

Actually, not feeling my legs might be a good thing with the way my hamstring has been acting up the past few days.

Wednesday was pretty quiet. I slept in until about 10 a.m., came over and had breakfast, putted and chipped for about two hours and had another treatment on the hamstring that has been bothering me.

I asked the trainer how bad it is and he gave me the, `It’s not the best,’ line. He said it’s going to need a lot of work when I get home too, but he’s working hard on it and he’s getting in there good. He said it’s definitely better than it was because he could get down to the deep tissue.

For a couple of hours after he works on it, it feels perfect, but then I hit balls and putt and stand around and it starts aching a bit. When it gets up into the glut muscle, I tend to pull out of my swing, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

As I was waiting for my treatment on Wednesday, I got a call from the Team 1040. It’s the sports radio station in Vancouver and they wanted me on the Blake Price show.

I said, `Yeah, I’ve got time right now.’

He tried to get me to give Tiger the gears about his performance at the British Open. I guess there had been some bad press about how he acted, but the truth is, I didn’t see much of that because I was getting ready to come out here.

I said, `Blake, you’re crazy if you think I’m going to start trash-talking Tiger Woods. It’s not going to happen.’

I can’t remember who it was, but someone was in the locker room and heard me and he started howling,

I didn’t know if they were going to run the interview straight, or if they were going to chop it. I got an e-mail from a girl I used to work with and she said, `Nice work on dodging the Tiger question.’

I guess I’ve learned something with this experience.

The countdown is on, I’m about to be on the PGA Tour officially.

Hill Scores Tour Exemption

Matt Hill’s summer just got a little more jam-packed after winning the NCAA individual title earlier this year.

Hill now has two professional tournaments on the horizon after recently receiving an exemption into the RBC Canadian Open and he recently learned that he will also be playing in this week’s AT&T National hosted by Tiger Woods at Congressional in Maryland.

Hill will join another Bright’s Grove, Ont., native as Mike Weir is scheduled to play at Congressional as is U.S. Open champ Lucas Glover.

A Tiger Sighting at Fox Harb’r

Tiger Woods, coach Hank Haney and Charles Barkley combined for a fundraising event Friday at the Nike Golf Invitational at Fox Harb’r Golf Resort and Spa in Wallace, N.S.

The event, attended by 100 invited guests of Nike Golf Canada, raised funds for the Tiger Woods Foundation and Canadian junior golf.

“I’ve never been to this part of Canada before. It’s really beautiful,” said Woods. “The event was great and it was really fun to play with my friends Hank and Charles. We don’t get a chance to play with each other very often.

“I’m also thankful that we were able to raise a lot of money for my foundation and for Canadian junior golf,” said the world’s No. 1 golfer.

Ron Joyce, who founded the Tim Hortons chain and created Fox Harb’r, said the Tiger sighting was a milestone event for the resort.

“We were thrilled to host Tiger Woods at Fox Harb’r for this important fundraising event and to welcome him to Atlantic Canada,” Joyce said.

Vitalis Gomes, director of golf for Nike Golf Canada, added that the event served several purposes.

“We are grateful to have had the opportunity to provide an intimate setting for our partners to interact with Tiger Woods and to showcase spectacular Fox Harb’r and raise significant funds for young people,” he said.

Canadian Open’s Stepping Up Again

It’s inevitable that anytime a gathering is held to discuss a PGA Tour event, the T-word will be used and so it was that Mike Weir was asked yesterday about the availability of Tiger Woods for this year’s RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey.

“He doesn’t talk much about his schedule,” said Weir, whose five-year-old charitable foundation was named the official charity of the tournament, a move that will also include the launch of the Mike Weir Charity Classic at this year’s Open.

“I have no idea what his plans are as far as the event this year. Obviously, with his knee, you have to plan for everything – how many tournaments he wants to play in a row, what’s he going to play,” said Weir.

With that out of the way, the conversation returned to the point of the press conference, that being the charitable side and how the Mike Weir Charity Classic to be played on Monday, July 20, is another step forward for the Open after years of seemingly sliding into oblivion. Read more

Imagine the Game Without Tiger

The return of Tiger Woods to this week’s Accenture Match Play Championship has been dissected more than the injured knee that caused him to miss action since his win last June at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

Media scrutiny goes with the territory when it comes to the world’s No. 1 player, who makes news with every step he takes, whether it’s on a sore joint or not. This week’s media coverage has reached amazing proportions.

The buzz surrounding Tiger’s return provides a badly-needed injection of adrenalin to a game that, in some people’s minds, has been lethargic since his departure.

Those of us in the golf industry and hardcore golfers may have taken great interest in Padraig Harrington’s wins at the British Open and PGA Championship, an exciting Ryder Cup that ended a streak of futility for the Americans and the emergence of young stars such as Anthony Kim, Camilo Villegas and Dustin Johnson.

Core golfers are always the foundation of golf if you read any of the participation studies that have been done over the years, but turning casual fans into hardcore golfers is the big challenge and Woods has done his part by delivering those casual fans big time. Can the game take advantage? Read more

Nike Celebrates Tiger’s Return

The much-anticipated return of Tiger Woods this week to the Accenture Match Play Championship has sparked a new Nike Golf commercial entitled “The Good Life.”

The commercial also features Nike players Stewart Cink, Trevor Immelman, Anthony Kim, Justin Leonard and Carl Petterssen.

“This ad celebrates a significant moment in sport with Tiger’s return, but it also frames the winning successes that our Nike Golf athletes enjoyed in 2008,” said Cindy Davis, president of Nike Golf.

“It represents the breadth of talent that Nike has on Tour, while also bringing out their humorous and fun side” added Davis.

The commercial will start airing tomorrow and run through next Sunday. The Golf Channel will air it immediately after Woods’ first tee shot at the Accenture and the campaign will also be featured at www.nikegolf.ca. In Canada, the commercial will also air on TSN and Global.

Woods will play with new clubs this year, including the Victory Red Forged TW Blade irons and SQ Dymo driver.

One Way Isn’t the Only Way to Teach, says Jim Flick

CARLSBAD, Calif. – The way he’s moving around The Kingdom, across the street from TaylorMade-adidas headquarters, belies the fact that Jim Flick is on the verge of becoming an octogenarian.

“This is my 54th rookie year of teaching golf,” said Flick, who coached Jack Nicklaus, among other top players and countless other less-profile names through various programs and the Nicklaus-Flick Golf Schools over the years.

Flick’s reference to being a rookie is not based on age, just a willingness to continue learning, something he feels every good teacher of the game should be doing. “Each year, I feel like I understand the swing better,” he said.

Experience is a solid foundation for a teaching career, but an open mind is a sign of passion for the profession, something Flick has plenty of if this day is any indication. The worst thing that can happen to a teacher, he says, is getting stuck in a rut and becoming apathetic. Read more

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