Golfweek Comp Issue August 12, 2011 : Page 1

THE F ORECADDIE Rory to America! Or so we think . . . The rain in Spain falls mostly to the PGA Tour’s gain. OK, so The Man Out Front is taking literary license here (the rain fell in England, not Spain). But it’s all in an effort to weigh Rory McIlroy’s announcement that he may change his mind and take up PGA Tour membership after all. Seems that howling wind, pelting rain and miserable cold at last month’s Open Championship at Royal St. George’s made the young Irishman long for what the PGA Tour has to offer. “Most of my favorite events are on this side of the pond,” McIlroy said at Firestone. McIlroy had PGA Tour membership in 2010, but alas, The Forecaddie still can recall Young Master Rory appearing exhausted at the BMW Championship outside of Chicago last autumn, offering concessions that the FedEx Cup playoff schedule was too tax-ing and cut into October/November tournaments in Asia that he likes. So in 2011, McIlroy said he would not meet the PGA Tour’s 15-start minimum and turned down PGA Tour membership. Of course, the FedEx Cup September marathon (four tournament s in five weeks) won’t be any different in 2012, which perhaps is why McIlroy’s manager, Andrew “Chubby” Chandler of ISM, is moving cautiously on this one. Asked to comment on the apparent change of heart, Chandler said he was “meeting with Rory ( on Aug. 8) to discuss this, and I will know a lot more about all of them next week.” McIlroy has until late November to tell the PGA Tour his intentions for 2012. If he accepts membership, he would need 15 starts. That shouldn’t be a huge problem – he played 16 events a year ago and still kept his European PGA Tour membership. This week’s PGA Championship will be his 10th PGA Tour start of ’11. It’s surely a flip-flop scenario, though. Up Ethan Tracy THE MAN OUT FRONT He did what most Tour players haven’t been able to do this summer: outplay Patrick Cantlay. Scott Piercy He has been golden in the Silver State; his win at Reno follows a $2 million windfall in a 2007 made-for-TV event in Vegas . J.J. Killeen He went from being a guy who couldn’t close the deal to two consecutive Nationwide victories. AP/CATHLEEN ALLISON GOLFWEEK ILLUSTRATION Scott Piercy Only eight or nine months ago, storylines were all about top Euros not taking up membership in the U.S. So here’s McIlroy having a possible change of heart at the same time his ISM stablemate, Louis Oosthuizen, is confirming that he’ll do dual memberships again in ’12. “I have to figure out a schedule so there’s less flying,” said the 2010 British Open champion. He thinks he knows why he has struggled in America this year: “We had a place in Florida,” he explained, “but we hardly spent any time there.” Oosthuizen suggested that would change in 2012. Hey, if he pines for a game in an offweek, he always can dial up Rory, who plans to do some Florida house shopping in Jupiter and at Orlando’s Lake Nona, where his pal Graeme McDowell resides. ❍ Down Steve Williams He apparently forgot the third tenet of the caddie maxim: Show up. Keep up. Shut up. Tiger Woods Knee healthy? Check. Competitive fire? Check. More unwanted drama in his life? Um, check. Keegan Bradley He was poised to pounce before collapsing with a back-nine 41 . Golfweek • August 12, 2011 • www.golfweek.com 1

The Forecaddie

Rory to America! Or so we think . . . The rain in Spain falls mostly to the PGA Tour’s gain. OK, so The Man Out Front is taking literary license here (the rain fell in England, not Spain).But it’s all in an effort to weigh Rory McIlroy’s announcement that he may change his mind and take up PGA Tour membership after all. Seems that howling wind, pelting rain and miserable cold at last month’s Open Championship at Royal St. George’s made the young Irishman long for what the PGA Tour has to offer. “Most of my favorite events are on this side of the pond,” McIlroy said at Firestone. McIlroy had PGA Tour membership in 2010, but alas, The Forecaddie still can recall Young Master Rory appearing exhausted at the BMW Championship outside of Chicago last autumn, offering concessions that the FedEx Cup playoff schedule was too taxing and cut into October/November tournaments in Asia that he likes.So in 2011, McIlroy said he would not meet the PGA Tour’s 15-start minimum and turned down PGA Tour membership. Of course, the FedEx Cup September marathon (four tournament s in five weeks) won’t be any different in 2012, which perhaps is why McIlroy’s manager, Andrew “Chubby” Chandler of ISM, is moving cautiously on this one. Asked to comment on the apparent change of heart, Chandler said he was “meeting with Rory ( on Aug. 8) to discuss this, and I will know a lot more about all of them next week.” McIlroy has until late November to tell the PGA Tour his intentions for 2012. If he accepts membership, he would need 15 starts. That shouldn’t be a huge problem – he played 16 events a year ago and still kept his European PGA Tour membership. This week’s PGA Championship will be his 10th PGA Tour start of ’11. It’s surely a flip-flop scenario, though. Only eight or nine months ago, storylines were all about top Euros not taking up membership in the U.S. So here’s McIlroy having a possible change of heart at the same time his ISM stablemate, Louis Oosthuizen, is confirming that he’ll do dual memberships again in ’12. “I have to figure out a schedule so there’s less flying,” said the 2010 British Open champion. He thinks he knows why he has struggled in America this year: “We had a place in Florida,” he explained, “but we hardly spent any time there.” Oosthuizen suggested that would change in 2012. Hey, if he pines for a game in an offweek, he always can dial up Rory, who plans to do some Florida house shopping in Jupiter and at Orlando’s Lake Nona, where his pal Graeme McDowell resides. THE MAN OUT FRONT Up Ethan Tracy He did what most Tour players haven’t been able to do this summer: outplay Patrick Cantlay. Scott Piercy He has been golden in the Silver State; his win at Reno follows a $2 million windfall in a 2007 made-for-TV event in Vegas . J. J. Killeen He went from being a guy who couldn’t close the deal to two consecutive Nationwide victories. Down Steve Williams He apparently forgot the third tenet of the caddie maxim: Show up.Keep up. Shut up. Tiger Woods Knee healthy? Check.Competitive fire? Check.More unwanted drama in his life? Um, check. Keegan Bradley He was poised to pounce before collapsing with a back-nine 41 . Lefty’s Akron cage match PGA Tour players are well-known for their love of other sports. Let the record show, they aren’t stuffy, either.They’ll do minor-league games, too. The Man Out Front was told that Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Jeff Overton and assorted friends attended Saturday night’s Akron Aeros-New Britain Rock Cats Double-A baseball game during the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. (Mickelson, of course, once tried out for the Toledo Mud Hens.) Though the evening ended on a down note for the home team, all was not lost – there was a celebrity in the house. Mickelson? Not on this night.Instead, Jim “Hacksaw” Duggan was signing autographs. So The Forecaddie had to ask: Did Mickelson have any idea who Duggan was?“I know now,” Lefty said, grinning.“He’s a big, famous wrestler.” Dustin Johnson, of course, a man of the Deep South, needed no introduction. Sources said he was ecstatic upon seeing Duggan. Heck, Johnson probably remembered that Duggan won the first Royal Rumble, in 1988. Impressively, Duggan started signing autographs in the first inning and still was there at game’s end. Which apparently makes Duggan the Phil Mickelson of the wrestling world. Lee’s quest to be best Though he’s ranked No. 2 in the world and has five top-3 finishes in his past eight major championships, Lee Westwood sought the advice of sports psychologist Bob Rotella and putting coach Dave Stockton before the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.It just so happens Rory McIlroy worked with Stockton before winning the U.S. Open, and old pal Darren Clarke got help from Rotella before his Open Championship victory. “I had to do something different, get some different thoughts,” Westwood told The Forecaddie. “I got stuck in some of the same old thoughts.” Westwood has expressed disinterest in sports psychologists over the years, but he spent more than five hours with Rotella on July 31 in suburban New York City before working with Stockton for about 90 minutes the next day in Akron. He said it wasn’t Clarke’s success that influenced him; rather he has been thinking about seeing a psychologist for a while. Rotella and Stockton advised he speed up his putting process and become more natural and less mechanical. The two have a similar philosophy in approach in that they strongly advocate a free and unconscious stroke, one that involves seeing and feeling and letting go, as one might do while signing his name or throwing a ball at a target. Stockton told The Forecaddie he counted as Westwood approached a putt. “I told him, I get to 4, you had better have hit the putt.” Rotella, who also spent about 90 minutes on a putting green with the Englishman, told The Forecaddie he was trying to get Westwood to trust himself when putting, have confidence with his short game and “believe in his own way.” Rotella said they also talked about having more fun playing golf. “He wants to enjoy his talent more,” Rotella said. “He wants to be more relaxed.I think it’s cool he’s No. 2 in the world and wants to get better.” Sunday at Firestone, as Westwood put the finishing touches on his 65 and a tie for ninth , something appeared to be clicking. Attention, ladies: You may breathe again! Ah, the Internet. Can’t live without it, can’t believe a thing it provides. For the latest example, The Man Out Front presents the curious case of Adam Scott’s nuptials, an event reported upon by The Roar, an Australian website . One glitch: Even Scott was unaware that he had gotten married. Seems someone at The Roar read a report by The Guardian’s Lawrence Donegan, who reported from Akron, Ohio, and wrote about “the married Scot.” Taking that to mean Adam Scott had somehow, quietly, been married the week before the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, the site trumpeted the news and said single women everywhere were crushed. If only the blogger had read more carefully. “The married Scot” to whom Donegan referred was Scotsman Martin Laird, who indeed had been married the week before the Bridgestone. The website later apologized and reported that “the Australian golfer is not married.” Thank goodness. Relief to womankind everywhere. Tap-ins & lipouts What will junior golf look like in 2014? The Forecaddie safely can assume three things: Every player will be at least 6 feet, 5 inches ; rounds will take seven hours to complete; and the No. 1 player in the country will hail from Texas.OK, maybe just the last one.Three of the top four players in the 2014 class are from the Lone Star State: No. 1 Connor Black, age 15; No. 2 Will Zalatoris, 14; and No. 4 Scottie Scheffler, 15. Get to know them. These guys have been on college coaches’ radars since they were in seventh grade. Which was, like, three years ago. Black’s stock soared even higher this summer when, in consecutive starts, he won the Western Junior and reached the Round of 16 at the U.S. Junior.Said Black: “You can name a college and I’ve probably gotten a letter from them.” Who will represent the U.S. at this year’s World Cup in China? The Forecaddie’s smart money is on Matt Kuchar, who may ask either Stewart Cink or Zach Johnson to join him on the two-man U.S. side.Americans ranked higher than Kuchar all have declined the invite. Dustin Johnson passed, citing a couple of reasons: One, it’s Thanksgiving week; and two, Clemson and South Carolina play that weekend. Hey, a man has to have priorities. A legend imparts his lessons Tom Watson’s “Lessons of a Lifetime” DVD is really good, and truly informative, but The Forecaddie also knows this: The real-live, in-person Watson is even better. Watson, 61, was the keynote speaker at last week’s Junior PGA Championship at Sycamore Hills in Indiana, and he regaled a crowd of about 200 with dozens of stories, going on well past his allotted time, leaving the suits in the folding chairs to kick back, smile and enjoy the show. Wearing a blue sport jacket and gray slacks, Watson riffed on his early playing days (as a 9-year-old under the watchful eye of mentor Stan Thirsk , the famed Kansas City CC pro ), to how to improve as a player (The Three Ds) to one of his most heartbreaking professional moments (the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry). Watson didn’t use a script or cue cards. He spoke from the heart, and he did so resoundingly. A few samplings of Watson’s, well, lessons of a lifetime: One of Watson’s earliest junior golf moments was when he won the Kansas City Men’s Match Play at age 14. “I kind of got a big head,” he said, “but my dad (Ray) put it in perspective. He said: ‘You did something special here, but this game will be difficult for you.’ And man, was he right.” The easiest way to improve? Study the best. So, in Watson’s case, he watched Nicklaus.He watched Palmer. He watched Trevino. He watched Johnny Miller and Sam Snead and Gary Player. “I wanted to absorb what they knew,” he says. Speaking of Player, Watson recalled asking the South African what one thing would make him a better player. The answer: “The Three D s – desire, dedication and determination.” Funny how all three were rolled into that one magical week at Turnberry in ’09. The enduring message from that close-call Open, at least for Watson: “It still hurts. And it’ll hurt for you, too.It hurts if you really want to be good.” What did Watson do for an encore? He spent an hour signing autographs for juniors. There’s a lesson in that, too. A real flyer at the Western Amateur Some of the morning-wave players at last week’s Western Amateur at North Shore Country Club couldn’t help but look skyward on Aug. 3.They didn’t see a bird or Superman, but rather a plane. And this one was pretty special. It was Air Force One, bringing President Barack Obama into his hometown of Chicago, where he was to spend his 50th birthday (Aug. 4) and attend two re-election fundraising dinners Aug. 3 at the Aragon Ballroom. The first dinner had prices starting at $50 per person and featured performances by Herbie Hancock and Jennifer Hudson. Some of the estimated 2,400 in attendance wore cone-shaped birthday hats with the number 50 and the campaign’s logo. Following that soiree, Obama capped the night with yet another dinner, this one for some 100 VIP donors who paid $35,800 each (the legal maximum ). Attendees received a slice of a two-layer (chocolate and carrot) birthday cake. Money means little to The Man Out Front, and he loves a good carrot cake, but he opted for the cheaper, earlier dinner simply to get ample rest for match-play rounds. “It was kind of cool looking up and seeing that plane,” said Blayne Barber, a senior at Auburn. “You pretty much knew it was the president coming in .” On Nantucket, a different kind of caddie story If ever proof were needed as to why the caddie camp at Sankaty Head Golf Club on tony Nantucket island off the Massachusetts coast is the last survivor of a bygone era, The Man Out Front suggests you consider the proceedings of Aug. 2. Barely an hour after a mishap with a propane truck delivery set off a fire that burned down three buildings – including a cabin for 20 campers and the dining facility – camp organizers, club officials and caddies proved they were committed in their resolve. The camp would go on. “The outpouring of emotion and support has been nothing short of miraculous,” said Peter Montesano , director of the last remaining caddie camp in the United States. It has been in existence since 1930. Whereas there were dozens of caddie camps throughout the 1940s, ’50s and even into the ’60s, slowly they all went away. Except for Sankaty Head’s, which remains a study in community pride.The fire has served to punctuate that, Montesano told The Forecaddie. “Merchants, vendors and especially the club members have stepped up,” he said. “And the kids? Even in the face of adversity, they’ve held true.” Sixty campers live at Sankaty Head each summer, 20 to a cabin. Those who were displaced lost their personal belongings, but by that evening, Montesano said clothes had been replaced. Given the option to return home, none left. Montesano thinks he knows why. “To be honest, they are caddies, and while golf is what we do, what we try to deal with and teach them are life’s lessons, and definitely, this was nerve-training.But the kids took a very bad situation and showed great character.” The driver of the propane truck , Mark Phillip, 43, walked away from the blaze, but was flown to a Boston hospital and released the next day. With the dining hall out of operation, Montesano said the campers made do with pizza, sandwiches and barbecues , and all systems were go for the Aug. 5- 7 annual member-guest that arguably is the club’s golf highlight of summer. “We stress teamwork,” he said, “and this showed why we have such a great team.” A bucket of balls . . . And valued nuggets of trivia Players aren’t the only ones who make great use of the practice grounds during PGA Tour stops. So, too, does The Man Out Front, who continues to be amazed at the information that unfolds given the time it takes players to hit buckets of balls. At the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, for instance, there was talk of golfers playing so well into their 40s, which led to a discussion about which baseball players played the longest. Immediately, Frank Williams, the caddie for Stewart Cink, was prompted to toss in some trivia. When he played some minor league baseball in the late 1970s for the Paintsville Highlanders in the Appalachian League , Williams hit his first professional home run off of a left-hander for the Elizabethton Twins . “Jesse Orosco,” Williams said, laughing.“Imagine that. Heck, he just retired a few years ago.” Indeed, Orosco and his rubber left arm bowed out of Major League Baseball in 2003 at age 46 . Certainly, Orosco, who pitched for nine teams , had a longer run in baseball, but Williams hasn’t done too badly. He found a career in which he can perform well years beyond when it’s time for most athletes to hang it up. And on those rare occasions when a bagman recommends a wrong club or offers bad yardage in the bottom of the ninth, seldom does he get universally booed and berated by a stadium filled with 45,000 of his closest friends.

Previous Page Next Page

Publication List
Using a screen reader? Click Here