Research shows that about 1,000 Americans are hurt on golf carts every month. Males aged 10 to 19 and people over 80 had the highest injury rates
Through the mist he appeared in a doorway of the Augusta National clubhouse, his forehead creased, his eyes heavy from haunted sleep. Out stepped Lee Elder, dressed in shades of green, carrying his thoughts into the moist Georgia morning. For months the hate mail had said he would never make it to this day in April 1975. Watch your step when you get to Augusta, other letter writers warned him. There will be blood.
Walking into the Colur Tyme Tattoo Parlor is a lot like walking into a head shop. One wall is lined with gang monikers and symbols, the other with bongs for smoking marijuana and other drugs -- one even shaped like a skull.
Not only are the mailbaggers going through normal channels to get their voices heard, they're leaking through the cracks and finding their way into my own interoffice mail at the majestic Time & Life Building. A few, having evaded all security personnel, are even climbing through the windows of my own private, personal mailbox out near the yard where we saw that gigantic snapping turtle. That's the result of the stir generated by 1) Packers-Bears and Cowboys-Bills, and 2) the Trent Green-Travis Johnson incident.
A Georgia meat processor expanded its recall of canned meat products that may be connected to a botulism outbreak
In his heyday Seve Ballesteros would periodicallygive us Statesiders a chanceto know him. Never amountedto much. He'd play our windlesscourses and eat our dull foodand retreat quickly to his homein Spain and to his tour in Europe,where he was king.
Tim Finchem was asked if The Players was a major earlier this week. After saying that he's been asked that for 13 years, and that he's been consistent on the matter, the PGA Tour's commissioner artfully dodged the question. (Although this fact pretty much sums up the Tour's position: the winner of the Players gets as many FedEx Cup points as the winner of any of the four majors.)
The most pressing question in golf is not who will win the Smurfy blue jacket that goes to the winner of the Wachovia Championship. It's not whether Phil Mickelson can get any less popular with the rank and file after getting a free pass out of last week's EDS Byron Nelson pro-am.
People still talk about the Match Play,when Tiger beat you 9 and 8 after youcritiqued his driving. That bug you?
Ernie Els has been beaten down the stretch by Vijay Singh, by Retief Goosen, by Phil Mickelson and, of course, by Tiger Woods. Add a new guy to the list: Boo Weekley of Jay, Fla. Ernie has it all, the major titles and the big contracts and the private jet, but on Monday afternoon at gusty Hilton Head, S.C., Weekley had something Els did not: tremendous good luck. On the final two holes Weekley duffed pitch shots for birdie, then holed pitch shots for par. Now he has the tartan coat, the delightfully gaudy wrap the winner of the Verizon Heritage Classic is draped in each year. (Els is still looking for his first one.) Now Weekley has secured a berth in the 2008 Masters, thanks to the reintroduction of the win-and-you're-in rule. (Els hasn't officially qualified yet.) Now Weekley is ninth on the 2007 money list. (Els is 19th.)
Research shows that about 1,000 Americans are hurt on golf carts every month. Males aged 10 to 19 and people over 80 had the highest injury rates
Through the mist he appeared in a doorway of the Augusta National clubhouse, his forehead creased, his eyes heavy from haunted sleep. Out stepped Lee Elder, dressed in shades of green, carrying his thoughts into the moist Georgia morning. For months the hate mail had said he would never make it to this day in April 1975. Watch your step when you get to Augusta, other letter writers warned him. There will be blood.
Walking into the Colur Tyme Tattoo Parlor is a lot like walking into a head shop. One wall is lined with gang monikers and symbols, the other with bongs for smoking marijuana and other drugs -- one even shaped like a skull.
Not only are the mailbaggers going through normal channels to get their voices heard, they're leaking through the cracks and finding their way into my own interoffice mail at the majestic Time & Life Building. A few, having evaded all security personnel, are even climbing through the windows of my own private, personal mailbox out near the yard where we saw that gigantic snapping turtle. That's the result of the stir generated by 1) Packers-Bears and Cowboys-Bills, and 2) the Trent Green-Travis Johnson incident.
A Georgia meat processor expanded its recall of canned meat products that may be connected to a botulism outbreak
In his heyday Seve Ballesteros would periodicallygive us Statesiders a chanceto know him. Never amountedto much. He'd play our windlesscourses and eat our dull foodand retreat quickly to his homein Spain and to his tour in Europe,where he was king.
Tim Finchem was asked if The Players was a major earlier this week. After saying that he's been asked that for 13 years, and that he's been consistent on the matter, the PGA Tour's commissioner artfully dodged the question. (Although this fact pretty much sums up the Tour's position: the winner of the Players gets as many FedEx Cup points as the winner of any of the four majors.)
The most pressing question in golf is not who will win the Smurfy blue jacket that goes to the winner of the Wachovia Championship. It's not whether Phil Mickelson can get any less popular with the rank and file after getting a free pass out of last week's EDS Byron Nelson pro-am.
People still talk about the Match Play,when Tiger beat you 9 and 8 after youcritiqued his driving. That bug you?
Ernie Els has been beaten down the stretch by Vijay Singh, by Retief Goosen, by Phil Mickelson and, of course, by Tiger Woods. Add a new guy to the list: Boo Weekley of Jay, Fla. Ernie has it all, the major titles and the big contracts and the private jet, but on Monday afternoon at gusty Hilton Head, S.C., Weekley had something Els did not: tremendous good luck. On the final two holes Weekley duffed pitch shots for birdie, then holed pitch shots for par. Now he has the tartan coat, the delightfully gaudy wrap the winner of the Verizon Heritage Classic is draped in each year. (Els is still looking for his first one.) Now Weekley has secured a berth in the 2008 Masters, thanks to the reintroduction of the win-and-you're-in rule. (Els hasn't officially qualified yet.) Now Weekley is ninth on the 2007 money list. (Els is 19th.)
In a final-round duel between the legendary Ernie Els and the career grinder Boo Weekley, you know who wins, right?
Nobody had Zach Johnson penciled in on the list of the game's best players who hadn't won a major. Now that he's won the Masters, he'll never make the list.
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) -- Masters champion Zach Johnson says he came to the Verizon Heritage to win. Johnson's tired play Thursday showed otherwise.
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After his first round in the 1984 Masters, Ben Crenshaw got in a car and drove 20 miles to Aiken, S.C., and the relic of a course there, the Palmetto Golf Club. He parked in the visitors' lot, an odd-shaped field of dirt and rocks, and walked over to the sagging pro shop manned by Tom Moore, who finds gutta-percha balls on his course after heavy rains.
Amy Mickelson likes to say of her husband, "With Phil, it's all about the fun." With Phil, it's all about the numbers, too. Both Phils were on display last week at the Masters.
They came by the thousands to Augusta National Golf Club to watch the Masters this week, and a U.S. Open broke out.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 8 -- How can it be? How can it be that a bunch of world-class talents -- Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia, Chad Campbell, Robert Allenby and Steve Stricker, among others -- didn't make the cut at the Masters this year, but a foursome of graybeard former champions did?
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 8, 2007 -- The cold front that has whisked through Georgia caught many of Augusta's patrons completely unprepared. "I only brought one pair of long pants," said Houston native Lee Strain. "I haven't even put on my shorts yet. They stayed packed."
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - Cracking jokes and talking about his impending doom - make that date - with Tiger Woods, Stuart Appleby sounded more like a guy who was leading the Masters than someone who had just made a ghastly triple bogey.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - If not for ol' No. 18, Retief Goosen would be in great shape.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 7 -- The last red number at Augusta National died quickly in the third round of the 2007 Masters. Stuart Appleby performed last rites with a pull-hooked drive into the trees on the 17th hole and six more awful strikes through forest and sand.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- They walked off Augusta National much the way they came on it, two by two, bundled against the cold. Their misery finally over, they trudged into the scorer's shack where the carnage could be tallied.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- Break out the Day-Glo golf balls, hand-warmers and the winter rules.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 7 -- Magnolia Lane ends at a clubhouse, yes, but before that is a raised grass circle, sort of like a giant pitcher's mound, where tourists gather amid yellow flowers in the shape of Augusta National's logo.
Augusta, Ga., April 7, 2007 -- By PGA Tour standards, Vijay Singh is an old man. At 44 in the Age of Tiger Woods, he should be counting his pension assets and preparing to break Hale Irwin's Champions Tour record of 45 wins. He shouldn't be staying on the range all hours of the night, making busy work for the Augusta National grounds crew.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 6 -- Paul Casey, Padraig Harrington and Jerry Kelly were the only players to break 70 Friday as the 2007 Masters continued to confound the players. The struggles of one man, Tiger Woods, spoke loudest.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- The most impressive swing Tiger Woods makes this week could end up being the one that didn't make the ball go an inch.
Augusta, Ga., April 6, 2007 -- If the Ryder Cup was being contested here at Augusta, the Americans might actually have a chance of winning it.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 6 -- True to form, the pretty-but-deadly par-3 12th hole, Golden Bell, dished out another spate of bogeys, double-bogeys and "others" in the second round of the 2007 Masters on Friday.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- Even with low temperatures leading to high scores at the Masters, Tiger Woods was getting into dangerous territory Friday.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- Looking for low numbers at the Masters? Check the thermometer.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- On a day when the winds swirled and the greens hardened, Phil Mickelson carried two drivers in his bag to try and better navigate his way around Augusta National.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - Henrik Stenson was one of the popular darkhorse picks for this year's Masters. He did nothing in the first round to prove the prognostigators wrong.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 5 -- Justin Rose took only 20 putts.
We are told, annually and often, that the people who come to Augusta are not your normal, rowdy, beery golf fans. Heck, they're not even fans. They are patrons. Or so we're told.
AUGUSTA, Ga.(AP) Last year's Ryder Cup rookies were this year's early leaders at the Masters. Zach Johnson and Henrik Stenson were among the few players shooting under par Thursday during a slow start at Augusta.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - Fred Couples bent backward on the 13th fairway, looking as if he might start doing some yoga right there in Amen Corner. There was a little twist to the left, a little twist to the right.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- Arnold Palmer stepped up to a first teebox that used to be the practice green Thursday and kicked off the Masters with a tee shot that looks nothing like what he used to hit when he ruled the course.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- Fred Couples bent backward on the 13th fairway, looking as if he might start doing some yoga right there in Amen Corner. There was a little twist to the left, a little twist to the right.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 4--As competitors coaxed their tiny caddies/children around the par-3 course on Wednesday at Augusta National Golf Club, anticipation of the far-more serious event, the Masters, grew. The 71st playing of golf's first major will answer a wide variety of questions. But even before Arnold Palmer hits the much anticipated ceremonial first shot, we can safely assume the following:
According to the forecast, Augusta is about to get colder and wetter. Scattered thunderstorms will start moving through the area Tuesday night, which could cause delays to Wednesday's practice round.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 3 - Arnold Palmer announced in an emotional press conference on Tuesday afternoon that he will revive a Masters tradition by hitting the ceremonial first drive Thursday.
An excerpt from Fanatic: 10 Things All Sports Fans Should Do Before They Die by Jim Gorant, published by Houghton Mifflin June 2007. Copyright Jim Gorant. For more information go to jimgorant.blogspot.com
When Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1952, golf's first golden age was a distant memory, but the conditions in postwar America were ripe for the game's resurgence, and Ike was just the commander in chief to lead the charge. During his two terms in office Eisenhower played nearly 800 rounds. He befriended the game's most beloved players, including Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer, and was the subject of hundreds of golf jokes and cartoons. All an enterprising satirist needed in the 1950s was a pencil and a respectable rendering of a golf ball.
On Sunday, the day Morgan Pressel won in the California desert and Adam Scott won in Houston, Tiger Woods played a leisurely nine holes at Augusta National. He had no playing partners, and almost nobody was watching. Steve Williams carried the bag, and Hank Haney, Tiger's swing coach, carried an umbrella he did not need. When Woods came off the 9th green, there was a column of sweat between the shoulder blades of his shirt, and his shoes were speckled with green dust, spring pollen off thedogwoods. It was only Sunday, the Sunday before Masters Sunday, and the course was already hard and dry-just the way the Augusta bosses want it.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- Nothing could drag Geoff Ogilvy out of bed before dawn when he was growing up.
Augusta, Ga., April 2 -- The 2007 Masters marks Gary Player's 50th time competing here, and even with the last half century's remarkable changes in the game, Player said he thinks we've only seen the beginning.
Augusta, Ga., April 2 -- Remember Olympic runner Michael Johnson's gold cleats in the 1996 Games? They've returned, but this time they're laced onto the reigning 2006 U.S. Open champ, and they include soft spikes.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 2 -- Nick Faldo was playing a Monday practice round for the 1996 Masters when the awful truth hit him like a 7-iron between the windshield wipers of his Porsche: He had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
AUGUSTA, Ga., April 1 -- It didn't take long for Phil Mickelson to put his stamp on the 2007 Masters.
The Masters is built on lore. The heroic shots of Sunday afternoons. The tragic failures. It is the glory of the game set against the backdrop of azaleas, a falling spring sun and (warning: cliche alert) a cathedral of pines.
HUMBLE, Texas (AP) - Stuart Appleby set a course record in the first round, broke 70 on all four days and finished 19-under-par to win last year's Houston Open.
What the Masters does is preserve the code. The PGA Tour money folk, left to their own devices, would chase every last dollar until the Tour fell into the NASCAR/NBA/NFL/WWE abyss. (Exhibit A: the 44 corporate logos in the Tour media guide.) The Masters reminds us of the importance of gracious losers, replaced divots, hushed spectators-the actual game. That's why the chairman of Augusta National Golf Club (along with the game's dominant player at any given time and very few other people) is one of golf's most influential figures. Every April trees bud, the clubs come out, we turn on CBS and fall for the whole thing again, the grace and beauty and athleticism. We actually like the knot in our stomach that makes us want to heave our lunch, even if it's all vicarious. Your grandmother doesn't watch the Honda Classic, but she watches the Masters, right?
MIAMI (AP) - Mark Calcavecchia's final hole of the CA Championship was a complete disaster.
The spring flower of the new baseball season is the arrival of box scores in the back pages of the daily sports section, at least for those of us still wedded to newsprint and the national pastime. The spring flower of the PGA Tour also comes from a newspaper: the arrival of David Westin of The Augusta Chronicle, accompanied by a sidekick, for back-to-back Florida tournaments, gathering string for scores of Masters-week stories. Nick Price once greeted Westin with this: "Here he is -- the face of spring." Which is funny, because Westin's newsroom nickname is The Ghost.
PGA tour pro Arjun Atwal could face charges after a man who was speeding alongside him on County Road 535 near Windemere, Fla., last Saturday died in a car accident. John Noah Park, 48, of Windemere lost control of his automobile on a curve and hit a tree. Atwal, 33, also lost control but skidded to a stop on the shoulder. Police were uncertain if it was a chase or if the two were racing, but witnesses said the two cars were "engaged," and an investigation was under way. Atwal did not return calls requesting comment, but on Monday his agent issued a statement that said in part, "It will be abundantly clear that this was simply a horrible accident and tragedy, with no one at fault."
While it's hard to remember the Masters without Tiger Woods, here, from the pages of our sister publication Sports Illustrated, is a decade-old snapshot of something you'll never forget: the nail-biting quiet before Tiger's first Masters as a professional in 1997, and the aftereffect of the most dominating performance ever seen up to that time in a major championship. (Unattributed lines excerpted from stories by Rick Reilly, John Garrity and Jaime Diaz.)
Here, some of the greats recall the two days that could satisfy you for a lifetime: the first time you set foot on Augusta, and the first time you win the Masters (ifyou're lucky enough).
These guys have played in as many Masters as you (zero!), but this April, that's going to change (for them). Here are the lucky seven of the 12 Augusta first-timerswith the best chance at a tournament known for making sure the first (timers) come in last.
IN THE ANNALS OF CALAMITOUS partnerships, Gary McCord and Augusta National ranks right up there with Wile E. Coyote and Acme Products, a bitter War of the Azaleas that spelled disaster from its very inception. McCord was witty and irreverent, a "smart ass from Southern California" as he puts it today. Augusta National was, well, Augusta National. The marriage never stood a chance. The end came on April 10, 1994, the fateful Sunday when McCord, perched in the CBS tower at 17, quipped on-air that the greens at Augusta were so slick that the club must have "used bikini wax" on them and that the bumpy terrain looked "suspiciously like body bags."
IT'S MASTERS SUNDAY. ARNIE'S SIPPING A COCKTAIL ON THE VERANDA, Tiger's in the lead and Phil's mounting a comeback, and you are...well, you are at home. At home having the time of your life, that is! Why? Because you've invited your buddies over and followed this plan to turn your Masters-viewing room into the Green Party. Here's how you did it.
1. Phil Mickelson After a month of playing his way into shape, he was in complete control of his game -- physical and mental -- during a dominant win at Pebble Beach. He and Tiger Woods obviously have different ways of preparing, but the destination is the same. I can't wait to see them get it on at Augusta.
Hey, Tiger. It's Phil. You're not using caller ID, are you? Joking, joking. I'll bet you're in the Jacuz after a long hard day on the slopes. Been there, man. Enjoy! I don't know if you check your messages, but I'll leave you a short one, just in case.
Owen Wilson got an eyeful at the British premiere of his new movie, "You, Me and Dupree."
Augusta. St. Andrews. Pebble Beach. For most golfers, those three courses represent the sacred trinity of 18-hole layouts. Play one and consider yourself among the truly fortunate. Play all three? Welcome to duffer nirvana.
BEGGING. BRIBERY. KICK- backs. Stories abound about what it takes for an outsider to wangle an invitation from a member to play Augusta National, Baltusrol, Winged Foot, Shinnecock Hills, and other...
In February at the Pebble Beach Golf Links, amid the crashing waves of the Pacific and bellowing sea lions, three dozen of America's most powerful business leaders gathered for a showdown. Among th...
Tiger Woods won the Masters at the "old" Augusta National in 1997. He won in 2001 after three holes were changed. He won yet again in 2002 after a substantial redesign added 285 yards to the course...
Talk about hitting into hazards. Not only does the PGA Tour have the Augusta National flap to deal with (the club's men-only policy has sparked controversy), but in addition the weak economy is wha...
Open a door at an American workplace today and you may find one of them: the old-old, defying life's clock. In a culture that all too often extols young workers at the expense of seasoned elders, t...
Want to own a piece of the NBA--right in time for the playoffs? Well, actually, it's just the Boston Celtics that are available. True, the once-dynastic team of Bird, McHale, and Parish didn't make...
I think of myself as an itch golfer, as opposed to a scratch golfer, because I pick up a set of clubs only when I get the itch. A scratch golfer plays often enough to get good at the game, while I ...
GOLFERS, START hating me now: I visited the Augusta National Golf Club earlier this spring, and though I had the opportunity to play, didn't. (In golf, this is tantamount to visiting Lourdes and no...
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