Quick Hits – Vol. 5

By now I’m sure everyone is pretty tired of the whole Tiger Woods cheating scandal and the poorly photoshop-ed pictures, and many golf fans wish the whole thing would just go away. I live in Central Florida, so the local coverage is even more annoying, since there isn’t anything else going on. Most of our fans are familiar with this column, where I leave the objective, unbiased commentary on the cutting room floor and instead allow myself to be sarcastic, obnoxious and maybe even rude. Deal with it. I gotta vent people! There’s a lot going on in golf this week, so lets get to it!

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1. Ok, so the Tiger thing isn’t totally over. Even though most of us are tired of hearing about it, one wonders how much more will come out. Rachel Uchitel was supposed to hold a press conference where she was likely to admit playing hide the salami with Tiger on many occasions. Suddenly, her lawyer called it off due to “Unforeseen circumstances.” In other words, she didn’t expect to get the hush-money check from Tiger so fast! It’s being reported that she was offered (and took) the sum of $1 million to keep her mouth shut about the whole thing. If that is true, the problem now for Tiger is – How many of the other women he’s “transgressed” with over the years come out of the wood-work? (sorry, pun not intended)
2. Here in Daytona Beach, the LPGA is conducting the Q-School finals for the 2010 LPGA Tour season. The weather has moved in and made things very soggy indeed. There are a few good stories to tell and a few not so good ones. Well known amateur star Amanda Blumenherst sits in a tie for 13 at -1, and looks to be on track to secure a tour card. LPGA Tour veteran Julieta Granada is also in good shape. However, Rising star and Puma Golf cover-girl Erica Blasberg has withdrawn. Her caddy for the week told me she wasn’t feeling well. Erica was +6 after rounds of 72-78 and was in a tie for 70th. The biggest shock of the week is 4 time LPGA Tour winner Dorothy Delasin. She opened with rounds of 90-95 and is dead last by 26 shots! I’m not sure if I’m more surprised that Erica Blasberg withdrew, or that Dorothy Delasin didn’t. Every golfer has been through a horrible slump before, but Dorothy’s game is in free fall. In 2009 she’s played in 16 tournaments, missed every cut and only broke par twice. Ouch. Blasberg will have to Monday qualify and try to earn enough to move up the list for 2010.
3. The PGA Tour Q-School finals are also going on this week in West Palm Beach, at Bear Lakes. Normally the host course on the east coast is Orange County National in Orlando. I heard that this year the PGA Tour representatives rolled in to OCN, took a look around and said “You guys aren’t ready to have us” and left. I don’t know much about Bear Lakes, but it appears that the Lakes course is much tougher than the Links course. According to the PGA Tour’s Website, the lowest score of anyone playing the Lakes course is in a tie for 50th. Every one of the players on top of the leaderboard played the Links course twice, and the Lakes course only once. My guess is that once each player has played each course twice, we’ll have a much better idea of who’s playing the best.
4. The Australian Open, played at the oceanside links-style New South Wales Golf Course near Sydney, was delayed in the third round due to high winds. Local boy Brett Rumford made an eight at the par-3 second after his tee shot ended up close to the flag. As he got ready to putt, a gust blew his ball clear off the green. After consulting with the rules officials, Rumford decided to chip the ball back on the green and then proceeded to three-jack it. He was subsequently penalized one shot for addressing a moving ball and if that wasn’t enough – two more for not replacing it, and shot 78. Remember, he consulted with two rules officials before playing the shot. Thanks for coming out Brett. Maybe the professional tours should make all the players attend a rules workshop once a year? If a CPA unwillingly broke the rules as much as pro golfers do, many of his clients would be in “Federal pound me in the ass prison!”, to quote Michael Bolton from Office Space.
5. My friends over at MyGolfSpy.com tweeted about an interesting new putter that is coming out, called the Clearview Putter. I find this idea intriguing. The putter is made entirely of clear acrylic, and the putter has alignment lines on the top and bottom of the head. When standing over your putt, simply align the top and bottom lines to form one, and you’ll know your eyes are directly over the ball. I emailed Stephen Ross, the inventor of this putter, and I’m looking forward to trying it out. Of course we’ll post a write up as soon as we have had a chance to put it through it’s paces on the putting greens!
6. We are working on several good articles coming up soon at ITG. The long overdue second part of our Mental Game Minute series will come out next week, and we are also working on reviews for the new Srixon Z-TX driver, Hybrid and Irons. The Clearview putter sneak peak is coming in a few weeks, as is a look at Robert Bettinardi’s new line of putters. Finally, we are waiting to hear from Taylor Made about testing out their new xFT wedges that have generated so much buzz. Stay tuned!

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P.S. – Just wanted to share just one more photoshop-ed picture. Have a good weekend!