Happy holidays my fellow golf aficionados! Seeing as how Christmas is poking it’s head around the corner I thought I might do something a little different and provide you last-minute shoppers out there with a a few ideas for the golfer on their list. The main rule I would recommend if you are buying for a golfer, especially a golf nut, is to NEVER, EVER buy anything performance-based that can be confused with “golf art”. In general, a tartan golf towel or funky ball marker with a “I love to Golf” emblazed across will be used about as much as those clubs designed specifically for chipping.

But have no fear, buying for the serious golfer is not a tough task and I have scoured the internet for the coolest gifts of all shapes and sizes. Here are a few of the best-

*    A dozen Titleist Pro-V 1s- Let’s face it, every golfer loses balls (some more than others) and an extra dozen balls will always be of use. The fact that these are still regarded as the best balls in the game means that a player of any level will appreciate them, and with the price of a dozen of these babies coming down more and more, they have become a bargain gift.

R.R.P- $39.99 at Golfsmith.com

*    Bushnell Pro 1600 Rangefinder with slope – With rangefinders becoming legal to use in many tournaments, as well as a staple amongst professionals the world over this is a great gift for any serious golfer. One of the advantages about playing with a rangefinder is you don’t need to go tramping all over the fairway to get a yardage; just point and shoot, pull a club and you’re away. But the absolute best thing about this model in particular is the slope aspect. It gives you an exact yardage with regards to how far the shot is uphill or downhill. Ben Hogan might roll over in his grave but the fact remains- all the guess work is gone when you have one of these in your bag.

R.R.P- $381 at Amazon.com

*     J Lindeberg Slater Belt- Golf is becoming more and more of a way to make a fashion statement and one of the most fashionable accessories out there is the J Lindeberg belt. Whether on the runway or on the links, J Lindeberg has been making the most fashionable, youthful and fresh clothing out there ever since Jesper Parnevik first donned his gear almost a decade ago. Even if Jesper’s style is not the one you’re after this belt has become one of the most iconic fashion statements in the game and will add a little flair to anyone’s wardrobe.

R.R.P- $110 at trendygolfusa.com

*    Under Armour Zone Impact Polo shirt- One of the most popular buzz words in golf is ’performance’, not just in equipment, but in clothing as well. Five years ago Under Armour was a company based around performance under- shirts and work out gear. Today they are one of the fastest growing companies in sports, branching out into shoes, clothing, winter wear and yes, even golf. To top things off they make one of the best shirts, with fantastic materials designed to make you cooler in the heat and warmer in the cold. To top it off they are worn by several of the games top young players, from Hunter Mahan to Michael Sim.

R.R.P- $34.99 at Edwinwatts.com

*    A series of lessons with your local pro- Now, I know a lot of people that take lessons from various pros and I an honestly say that there is no better way to improve your game than getting together with your local pro for a couple of lessons. The key is to take several lessons over a period of time. One lesson will provide you with some quick fixes, but when you take a series of lessons a good pro will map out a game plan for going from point A (your current action) to point B (where you want to be). Also, add a twist- instead of just going to the range and working on your swing, why don’t you book a couple of short game lessons where you learn the proper way to chip, play bunker shots and putt. I guarantee you’re long game will thank you.

Check out- golfswingsecretsrevealed.com or pga.com/profinder to find a pro in your area.

Happy Holidays!

There are certain holes in a golf course where you don’t even need a putter. At least that was the case in two holes for 64-year-old retiree Ruth Day.

Day had plenty of reasons to celebrate earlier this month at the Whitley Bay Golf Club in England, shooting two holes-in-one in a single round.

In what is estimated to be a 67 million-to-one chance, Day, a widow, aced the two par threes 10 holes apart.

The first was on the 149-yard third hole, in which the ball trickled into the hole for her, her playing partner and players from the flight ahead to see.

The second was on the 161-yard 13th, where Day and her friend went looking for her ball behind the green but then realised it was in the cup.

Day, who has been playing golf for 10 years, talked about her experience in the Club journal. AP quoted her as saying:

“A hole in one in itself is usually pretty amazing. But I couldn’t believe it when I did the same thing 10 holes further on. Some people go through their whole life and never get a hole-in-one. I think there are only a very small number of people around the world who have done it twice in one round.”

The feat is, indeed, rare, but the report cites another case in the United States in early September when Steve Blass, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, scored two aces during the team’s annual golf day.

Day is a retired British Gas showroom manager and her achievement is even more surprising given the fact that she has a relatively high handicap of 35.

India hopes to do for golf what they have done for Twenty 20 cricket.

The sports-loving Indians may not have invented either game but they have provided the platform to enhance the spectacle thanks to their huge fan base.

For instance, T20 cricket, courtesy of the Indian Premier League, is a multi-million dollay industry in India where the world’s top players gather every season to play for regional teams around the country.

Now, a British amateur golfer and course designer, Peter McEvoy, is hoping the advent of PowerPlay Golf can have the same crowd-pulling effect on India’s golf fans as T20 has done for cricket.

At a press conference in Mumbai, McEvoy unveiled his plans for the game, which involves golfers playing over nine holes and having two flags to target, with bonus points and nett birdies on offer for those selecting the tougher black flags.

McEvoy, a former Walker Cup captain, said he was inspired by shortened versions of sports that have done well globally, such as T20 cricket, sevens rugby and five-a-side football. He said in an Indian online news portal:

“We realised the audiences were dropping steadily maybe because golf was taking too long. So we came up with a shorter and exciting format for golf too. We believe in the mantra that half the time, twice the excitement.”

The “PowerPlay” part is a term also borrowed from cricket. In cricket, powerplay is when a team chooses to bowl under certain fielding restrictions. In golf, each golfer has three powerplays within the first eight holes in which they must go for the more difficult hole.

PowerPlay Golf shares another aspect with T20 cricket in that both games originated in England.

According to the news report, the first game was played on February 6, 2007 by 16 British golf journalists at the Playgolf Northwick Park course in London.

Seven months later, Surrey 3-handicapper David Kemp won the first ever National championship at Hampton Court Palace Golf Club.

The sport has since been played in 140 courses in UK, 14 in Australia and 30 in South Africa. The first dedicated PowerPlay golf course is being built in East Kilbride, Scotland, says the report.

India will play its part in popularising the game with the Signature Club Golf Championship, involving more than 40 clubs all over the country. It tees off on September 26 and ends on December 14.

The historic Merion Golf Club will host the best amateur golfers from the United States and Great Britain and Ireland when the 41st staging of the Walker Cup kicks off from September 12-13.

This past Sunday the United States Golf Association selected eight of their ten players to compete against Great Britain and Ireland in the bi-annual event, and despite several of the countries’ top amateurs leaving early for the pro ranks, Captain Buddy Marucci’s squad is starting to take shape.

Leading the side will be the only two players to have played in a previous Walker Cup, Rickie Fowler of Murietta, Calif. and Brian Harman from Savannah, Ga. Both Fowler and Harmon had performed impressively in the past 12 months and both we favourites to be picked in the side. Fowler is coming off a playoff loss a couple of weeks back at the Nationwide Tour’s Children’s Hospital Invitational and is one of the hottest amateurs in the world. In addition, he was a first-team All-American in 2009, finishing third in the NCAA Championship and the Sunnehanna Amateur where he was a two-time defending champion. He had a 3-1 record in the 2007 Walker Cup matches in Ireland, helping the U.S secure it’s first win away from home since 1995. Harmon, a former U.S junior champ, played in the Cup matches as a 17 year old in 2005, and despite a couple of years where he struggled to maintain that high level of play he established as a junior, he is well and truly back in the upper echelons of the amateur game. He was a 2009 second-team All American winning the Dogwood Amateur and finishing runner-up at the Sunnehanna.

2009 Porter Cup champion Brendan Gielow from Muskegon, Mich. also has had a strong summer in ’09 earning his way onto Marucci’s side. Along with winning in the Porter Cup, he had top 10 finishes at the Sunnehanna, Northeast Am and Southern Am, showing he is a player for all course conditions. Gielow was the 2008 Northeast Am champ and was also an All-American selection while competing for Wake Forrest.

One player who will be expecting to see some familiar faces as competitors is 2007 British Amateur Champion Drew Weaver from High Point, N.C. Weaver came from relative obscurity to win that event, but has parlayed that success into an impressive amateur resume playing in several professional majors so far. He made the cut and finished in a tie for 40th at the 2009 U.S Open and he has extensive experience in match-play, making the knockout section of the U.S Amateur twice. He was a third-team All-American and All-Conference at Virginia Tech this past season and has just graduated.

One player who hasn’t had to worry about university tests in a long time is mid-amateur Nathan Smith from Pittsburgh, Pa. The 30-year old Smithis a career amateur and a past winner of the U.S Mid-Amateur Championship and has put up an outstanding 2009 season. He won both the Western Pennsylvania Am and the Pennsylvania match-Play Championship and has finished prominently in no less than three of the countries top amateur events this summer. He adds much needed experience to a squad that is loaded with youthful talent and enthusiasm. It will be his first Walker Cup.

Fowler and Harmon are going to see a couple of very familiar faces at Merion, as they both have a teammate that has been selected in the first eight players. Morgan Hoffmann, Saddle Brook, N.J, is a freshman at Oklahoma State University alongside Fowler, and he had a very impressive first campaign as a collegiate. He was the Phil Mickelson Award winner as the nation’s top freshman and also won the very competitive Big 12 Conference championship and was also named Big 12 Player of the Year. He won three collegiate events in 2009 and was named to the first-team All-American squad. While Hoffman put up his best performances in college events, Chattanooga’s Adam Mitchell, a teammate of Harmon’s at the University of Georgia, did most of his in the summer amateur events. He won the prestigious Porter Cup in 2008, and finished third at both the Players and the Dogwood Amateurs. An all-conference selection in 2008 and second-team All-American in 2009, Mitchell is looking to close out his amateur career with a bang.

The University of Alabama’s Bud Cauley from Jacksonville, Fla. capped a strong summer of amateur golf with his selection in the side. He recently won the Players Amateur against a very strong field, and was medallist at the 2009 United States Collegiate Championship. In 2008 he won the Terra Cotta Invitational and was co-medalist at the World Junior Championship in Japan.

Two further players will be added to the roster following the U.S Amateur to complete the ten-man side.

On the other side of the pond, Captain Colin Dalgleish has put together an even less experienced side than his counterpart, with every player on his side making their Walker Cup debuts. But what the GB & I side lacks in experience, they more than make up for withtheir form. Like the U.S, the GB and I side is youthful and loaded with talent, the majority of which has come from the English Golf Union’s national squad. Of the ten players selected, seven are from England, with two Scots and an Irishman filling out the line-up.

The two oldest players on the squad also happen to be the two Scottish selections, Wallace Booth, 24 and Gavin Dear, 25. Booth is a product of the Augusta State golf program and has been applying his game in his homeland the past few seasons. He was in the Scottish side that won the World Amateur Team Championship in 2008 where he finished 4th as an individual. He was also the 2008 Scottish Amateur Champion. Dear was a teammate of Booth’s at the World Amateur Championship, helping his country to take the title for the first time in the tournament’s history. He was also the leading point-getter at the Home International matches which will provide some invaluable match-play experience. He was the 2009 Irish and Dixie Amateur Champion.

As noted, there will be a strong English contingent at Merion in 2009. Two 18 year olds have made Dalgleish’s side,  Tommy Fleetwood and Stiggy Hodgson. Fleetwood won the Scottish Amateur in 2009, was runner-up at the 2008 British Amateur and made the quarter finals this year. He also finished in the top ten at two of the highest profile amateur events in Britain, the St. Andrews Links Trophy and the Brabazon trophy. Hodgson came on strong in the summer of 2009, finishing second at the South of England Amateur and 4th at the Brabazon, 7th at the Lytham Trophy and 3rd at the Tillman Trophy. He also went within a match of making the final of the British Amateur.

Like Hodgson, 20 year old Luke Goddard has also rattled off a string of high finishes in major Amateur events this season and is considered one of the hottest players in country. The English national team member won his home Amateur Championship and added top 5′s in the Links Trophy, the South of England, Irish, Scottish and Welsh Amateur Championships. He also won the Argentine Amateur in 2008.

Sam Hutsby won the European Nations Cup in 2009 to earn his spot on the side, and added runner-up finishes at the Spanish and British Amateur Championships. Dale Whitnell has made the Tillman Trophy his own the past two seasons and thus has earned his spot on the Cup team. He was the 2009 Portuguese Amateur and was a semi-finalist at the English Amateur among many other strong accomplishments.

19-year old Matt Haines put his name in front of the selectors with an impressive win at the 2008 Lytham Trophy and has added the Duncan Putters title in 2009. He also had runner-up finishes in the Welsh Open Amateur and the St. Andrews Links.

The only English player with ties to the United States is University of Tennessee standout Chris Paisley. The runner-up at the 2008 Tillman, English Amateur and South of England, Paisley has carried his Vols to the upper echelons of NCAA competition the past few seasons and has played on the English national team the past few seasons. At 23, he will be one of the elder statesmen on the GB & I side.

While Irish golf is experiencing a golden age being led by Padraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy, only one player, Niall Kearney, has made the 2009 Walker Cup side. Kearney won the prestigious Brabazon Trophy and was also the South of Ireland champion in 2008. He has put up several top tens in 2009 while playing on the Irish national side.

Although the United States leads the bi-annual matches 33-7 all-time, since 1989 the matches are 5-5. In 2007 the United States’ Jonathan Moore hit a 252 yard 4-iron to three feet on his final hole to make eagle, defeating Nigel Edwards and retaining the cup for the U.S. 2009 is shaping up to be just as exciting.

Tiger Woods has just about done it all in the game of golf: 14 major championships, 69 career wins on tour, a record stay at world number one, NCAA, U.S Amateur and Junior titles, Fed-Ex, Ryder, and Presidents Cups. There’s not much else to conquer really. Over the weekend at the Buick Open Sir Nick Faldo noted that one day Tiger is going to save the world a lot of paper because when he gets done with his career the record books are just going to read “Tiger” and nothing else. But there is one thing Tiger’s good buddy Roger Federer still has a lot over him- a gold medal.

That all might change on August 13 when the International Olympic Executive Committee meets to announce the results of its vote on the inclusion of golf into the Olympic rotation for 2016. On that day the IOC will announce which two of the seven sports under consideration to be considered for final admition into the 2016 summer games. The other six other sports under consideration for the bid are baseball, karate, roller sports, rugby, softball and squash. The two sports nominated will then be discussed before the entire International Olympic Committee at a panel in Copenhagen, Denmark and the announcement with come on October 9, the same day as the announcement of the 2016 host city.

Golf has been a conspicuous absentee from the Olympic rotation since 1912 and its nomination for the 2016 games has divided the world golfing community.

The main argument against golf being included in the Olympics is that golf is already a global game, one too entrenched in the professional side of the sport to do the Olympic experience justice. With major world tours, on both the men’s and women’s side, ranging from the powerful PGA and LPGA tours of America and Europe to tours in Japan, Korea, Australasia, South America and South Africa to name but a few, the sport already has a wide global reach, touching down on almost every part of every continent on the planet.

Add to that international competitions like the Ryder Cup (now considered only behind the soccer World Cup and Summer Olympics in terms of popularity), Presidents’, Walker, Solheim and Curtis cups, WGC championships and the four major championships, it remains to be seen how an Olympic gold medal could top any of that.

The only other sport that has been in a similar situation recently to golf is tennis, which was re-introduced to the Olympic rotation at the 1988 Olympics Games in Seoul after a 62 year absence. It was in Seoul that Steffi Graff famously won the “Golden Slam”, all four majors plus the Olympic gold in one calendar year (she is still the only person to do this). Since ’88 many of the games’ top players have skipped the Olympics, deciding instead to concentrate on a hefty summer schedule of major championships. Many fear that golf will follow the same trend. Many of the top-ranked players, including Tiger Woods, have, so far, shown a luke-warm support for golf in the Olympics.

“It would be great to have an Olympic gold medal,” Woods recently said, “but if you asked any player, ‘Would you rather have an Olympic gold medal or green jacket or Claret Jug?’ more players would say the majors.”

It’s pretty clear which one he would rather win.

Woods’ comments about the validity of golf as an Olympic competition appears to be one of the major arguments against the inclusion of golf in any future Olympics, just like there is currently in tennis. Even if you are a follower of tennis, it is much easier to name the winners of each of the years’ majors than it is to note who won Olympic gold, even though it only happens once every four years. Experts and former tour players alike believe the same thing is sure to happen with golf should it make it to 2016.

“Who wants to run the 100-meter dash, and not have the world’s fastest runner show up?” said Olin Browne, a tour player and member of the PGA Tour’s Policy Board. “What’s the point?”

Former tour player and Australasian PGA Tour board member Mike Clayton agrees.

“One wonders why there is this seemingly never-ending quest to include golf in the Olympics,” Clayton said last year. “Presumably it would qualify the game for extra government funding but . . . an Olympic tournament could never approach the importance of the game’s grand slam championships.”

One man who knows an awful lot about both the running both professional golf event and the Olympics is current Augusta National chairman Billy Payne. Payne served as the CEO of the Atlanta Olympic Committee and is considered the driving force in Atlanta’s surprise winning bid for the 1996 games. Since then Payne has taken over the reigns at Augusta National from Hootie Johnson and run the Masters tournament. While many have speculated that some of the world’s top players will be absent from the Olympic experience should golf be included in 2016, Payne has a different opinion entirely.

“Once players are asked to represent their country, they will play,” he says. “You’d be surprised by the power of the Olympics to move people.”

Indeed, international stars like Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia, Lorena Ochoa and Suzanne Petterson have all expressed interest in playing for their respective countries in 2016.

Another who has ties to both parties and is a strong advocate of golf in the Olympics is former LPGA Commissioner and current Executive Director of the International Golf Federation’s Olympic Committee, Ty Votaw. Votaw points to the growth of other Olympic sports as the main arguement for golf becoming an Olympic sport.

“There are 300 million people now playing basketball in China,” Votaw said. “There wasn’t anywhere near that number before the (U.S.) Dream Team played in Barcelona (in 1992). I’ll take 10 percent of that. The estimated number of golfers in the world is around 60 million, so if we get another 30 million then we’ve grown the game by 50 percent. Even if it’s 1 percent, 3 million, then we’ve still grown the game.”

Even though Votaw has neglected to take into account the fact that Chinese and NBA superstar Yao Ming has accounted for a great deal of the recent basketball growth in China (not to mention a relaxing of communism in the country in general), Votaw still has a point. He goes so far as to sight tennis as a perfect example of how the game can be advanced in counties just based on the far-reaching influence of the Olympic experience.

“Look at how women’s tennis in Russia has grown since tennis became an Olympic sport,” Votaw said. “I don’t think there would be so many world-class Russian tennis players if tennis didn’t have Olympic status.”

Again Ty, the end of the Cold War around that time may have had a lot to do with the growth of sports in general in that area of the world.

Greg Norman, a long-time proponent of spreading golf as a global game, sides with Votaw and Payne as well.

“Golf is one of the most global games out there, among the top five in the world,” Norman said. “So why not include it?”

Why not indeed?

Many aspects of Olympic golf have yet to be determined, and one of the main focal points is the inclusion of professionals, as well as the actual format for the event. In 1992 the IOC allowed professional basketball players to represent their country for the first time in Olympic history, and out of that decision sprang the aforementioned “Dream Team” which went onto win the gold medal by an average of over 40 points a game. Heck, head coach Chuck Daly didn’t call a single time out the entire tournament. Opposing teams were seen asking members of “The Dream Team” to pose for photos and autographs before they played.

Since 1992 however, the rest of the world has caught up with USA basketball, and subsequent team USA’s have not always taken the gold. In fact, in 2004 in Athens Team USA failed to even make the gold medal match. An argument could be made that the rest of the world has caught up to the Americans because of The Dream Team and the way they spread the popularity of the game globaly. Their popularity spawned a world-wide basketball epidemic and today more players from overseas play in the NBA than at any other time in its history.

Olympic golf has the potential to do the same thing that professional basketballers in the 1992 Olympics did. Imagine a player from a lesser known golf nation, one with a huge population such as India or China, playing along side the likes of Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson. This would be the dream scenario for the IOC and the main reason behind the Olympic golf push. The potential for growth in countries like China in this scenario could be exponential. However the chances that something like this would occur all depends on the format that the IOC decides on (should golf make the cut).

Many are calling for the absence of professionals should golf be awarded a spot on the roster for the 2016 Olympics. One proposal suggests a format that would essentially be a re-hashing of the Eisenhower Trophy, the event currently known as the World Amateur Championship. It is currently contested by 3 players from the participating countries in a stroke play format. Some are calling for a similar event where 2 professionals from each country, based on world rankings, would compete in a four round event to decide the medal winners (WGC World Cup anyone?).

In a discussion appearing on The Golf Channel recently, world no. 3 Paul Casey of England favoured a format along the lines of the Alfred Dunhill Cup which was contested by 3 players from each country in a combined stroke play and match-play format. That event was discontinued in 2000.

Clearly much as still to be discussed, including of course, if golf deserves to bask in the Olympic flame.

Regardless of the outcome of the IOC meeting later this month, golf will continue to come up on the Olympic radar and be a hot-button talking point in the future. Whether, in 20 or 50 years’ time an Olympic Gold medal becomes as prestigious as a major trophy or a Ryder Cup is unsure, but Ty Votaw makes a good point about golf and its history.

“If Jack Nicklaus had won three Olympic gold medals, then you can bet Tiger Woods would have had that target on his chart on his bedroom wall when he was a kid.”

Tiger Woods winning Olympic gold? That would certainly be one for the record books.　

Phil Mickelson did it on the PGA Tour. So did Scott Verplank. In recent years Pablo Martin and Danny Lee have done it in Europe. I’m taking, of course, about winning a professional tournament while still an amateur, something Oklahoma State’s Rickie Fowler came oh so close to doing Sunday at the Nationwide Tour’s Children’s Hospital Invitational in Columbus, OH.

With a three-foot par putt on the second playoff hole, Nationwide Tour rookie Derek Lamley ruined Fowler’s hopes of emulating current Nationwide Tour player Daniel Summerhays’ 2007 performance in winning the Children’s Hospital Invitational as an amateur. The 29 year-old closed with a stellar 6-under 65 for an 11-under total to snatch victory from the collegiate in just his 10th Nationwide Tour start since making the finals of Q School last December.

Fowler led for much of Sunday’s final round until Lamley’s precision iron play kicked in, producing birdies on the 14, 15 and 16th holes, none coming from more further than five feet. Meanwhile, playing a couple of groups behind, Flower played steady, par golf before overshooting the 72nd green which led to his only bogey of the final round, and dropped him back into a tie with Lamley.

Both players made par on the first playoff hole, missing almost identical 18 foot birdie putts, thus sending the playoff on to the par 3 13th hole. Both players hit nervous tee shots into the second playoff hole, Fowler coming up short in the front bunker, while Lamley missed long and left of the green. From there Lamley played an extremely delicate chip shot that pitched just on the green and ran down to three feet past the hole. The Oklahoma State standout then hit his bunker shot 12 feet past the hole. His par attempt slid past the hole and Lamleybrushed in his nervous length putt to take his first Nationwide Tour title.

“A year ago I might not have even gotten that one on the green,”

Lamely said of his chip shot in the playoff.

“I might have gotten it on the green, but it definitely wouldn’t have been 3 feet.”

The $139,500 winner’s check gave the Florida native an incredible boost up the Nationwide Tour money list, catapulting him from 135th to 12th, well inside the season ending top 25 players earning their PGA Tour cards for 2010. While the result has positioned Lamley firmly in the fight to gain full exempt status on the PGA Tour, he is not letting the win get in the way of his year-end goal.  

“My goal is still the same,”

Lamely said following the win at the Scarlet Course.

“The goal still is to get on the big tour. It’s the same goal I’ve had forever. I just helped myself significantly today.”

For Walker Cup star Fowler, it was a disappointing way to end another impressive professional start. In 2008 at the U.S Open at Torrey Pines, Fowler shot 69 in the first round to hold tie for 7th. He would eventually go onto make the cut and finish 60th in that event. His burgeoning resume, which includes wins in the 2007 and 2008 Sunnehanna Amateur, the 2007 Players Amateur, as well as the Ben Hogan Award which goes to the nation’s top collegiate player in 2007/08 (Fowler was the first to do it as a freshman).

“I hit some really good putts there at the end and they just didn’t go in,”

Fowler said.

“I was giving myself good looks all day. I struggled a little bit coming in and thought I hit some good shots there on 18.”

A 2007 Walker Cup member, Fowler has announced he will participate in the 2009 cross-Atlantic battle and following that he will forgo his final two years of college to turn professional.

He told Newsok.com two weeks ago that he was “100 percent” certain he would be turning professional by the end of the summer, adding, “If it wasn’t for the Walker Cup, I’d probably be turning earlier.”

His next start will be at the U.S Amateur at Southern Hills in Tulsa where he will be the consensus favourite, while his first start as a professional is slated to be the Nationwide Tour’s Seboba Class which kicks off on October 1st.

Two golfers who have the potential to make it big will shed their amateur status this week when they take part in the European Open at the London Club in Kent, England.

Shane Lowry, the amateur winner of the recent Irish Open, and Scott Arnold, the top-ranked amateur in the world, have both entered the European Tour event hoping to make an impact in the professional ranks.

The 22-year-old Irishman Lowry became only the third amateur to win on the European Tour and said his victory in his native Open swayed him to turn pro. He said in a Reuters article:

“It has been madness. I am just starting to calm down now. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else (other than turning pro). I didn’t fancy teeing it up in amateur tournaments again so it was the right thing to do. I’ve known I wanted to turn pro since I was about 15. Professional golf was all I wanted to do and it was the right time to do it.”

According to some reports, the Northern Irish pair of Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell were ready to pick up Lowry in their private jet for the trip to England, but he prefers to shun the celebrity life, saying: “would that look like me?”

Arnold is a 23-year-old from Australia and has joined the International Sports Management agency, joining the likes of teen sensation McIlory, Enrie Els, Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood.

He is the Australian Men’s Amateur champion and is looking for the chance to make his name as a professional. He said:

“It’s always been my aim to play golf professionally in Europe. It’s definitely where I think my game will improve the most. There are so many challenges for rookie pros and plenty of Aussies have done well.”

One this for sure, it will not be easy for the two newcomers. The tournament boasts a strong field that includes US Masters champion Angel Cabrera, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Westwood, Clarke, John Daly, Colin Montgomerie and defending champion Ross Fisher.

When you’re a mid-size college golf program making the NCAA Championship is a big deal. When your team is less than two seasons old and comprised entirely of freshmen and sophomores, that achievement becomes a whole lot more impressive.

Two seasons ago Colette Murray was named head coach of the University of Tennessee Chattanooga women’s golf program, a program that was discontinued in the mid-1980′s due to a lack of funding and support. Starting from scratch with Murray at the helm the program has grown in leaps and bounds in its first two seasons, faster than even those close to the program could imagine. In 2007/8 the Lady Mocs left Chattanooga in a team van to travel to Jacksonville State University in Alabama (Murray’s Alma Mata) to play their first tournament in close to 20 years. The five first-year players promptly went out and won the Chris Bannister Gamecock Classic hosted by Jacksonville State by 27 shots. As if that result wasn’t impressive enough, it was quickly overshadowed by the next two results, both wins at Elon and Iowa St.  Before the season was over Murray’s squad of freshmen had won four times and barely missed out on post-season play, a late-season slump costing them a spot at the 2008 East Regional Championship.

The Lady Mocs were rewarded for their astounding first season with invitations to some of the top tournaments in the country this season. A stronger schedule has led to less wins (only two on the season), however playing the best teams in college golf week after week has allowed Chattanooga to feel comfortable at the top, and an extra year of experience has proven invaluable to the players themselves.

In their first trip to the East Regional two weeks ago the UTC shot a final round 320, edging out Georgia State and Washington to secure the 8th and final spot in the NCAA Championship Tournament. It was an accomplishment even the Lady Moc’s coach could not fathom fully.
 

“Our schedule this year was designed to prepare us for nationals. It will not be an easy task, but we will compete and see what happens.” Murray said last week following her team’s qualification. “We were not just happy to qualify I assure you. Getting to Regional was a great first step, but we were not satisfied just to get that far. I am so proud of the effort we displayed in Columbus. It is a bit of a whirlwind.”

Australian native Emma de Groot has been the Lady Mocs’ go-to player in their first two seasons. de Groot has posted some impressive numbers both as a freshman and a sophomore in college golf. In 23 career tournaments she has posted 13 top 10 finishes and 16 in the top 20. This season her good play was rewarded when she was named in the All-Southern Conference team for the second time, posting a 75.87 career scoring average to go along with her four career individual titles. Last season she competed at the East Regionals as an individual, earning an impressive T17 .

Murray’s other sophomore, Austrian Christine Wolf shot the low round of the day for her team in the 3rd round at the East Regionals, showing patience and poise in the gusty conditions, she ground out a 78 and tie with teammate de Groot for 40th place. Wolf posted a 77.55 scoring average in her second season and despite her youth is one of the more experienced players on the team.

The rest of the Lady Mocs NCAA Championship squad is comprised of freshmen with extensive international playing resumes. In fact, noted online publication Golfweek recently produced an article on Murray’s team of foreign stars. The article went so far as to call Chattanooga’s meteoric rise, “an incredibly impressive feat at an unheralded school like Chattanooga.” It went onto praise Murray’s recruiting process and her ability to “harvest diamonds” from foreign soil.

Moa Duf is first year player who arrived in Chattanooga in January 2009 and wasted no time making an impact on the Lady Moc roster. Duf comes direct from the Swedish national program that has produced the likes of Annkia Sorenstam. She posted a 78.53 scoring average in her half-season with a best finish of 5th at the JMU/Eagle Landing Invitational. The final two members of Murray’s squad are her South American connection. Maria Juliana Loza comes from Columbia has been a solid performer her first season, posting a 77.71 scoring average with a best finish of T6, one shot behind teammate Duf at the JMU/Eagle Landing Invitational. Southern Conference Freshman of the Year Maria Salinas from Peru rounds out the side. Salinas put up the second-best scoring average on the team, a 76.13 stoke average that included five rounds of par or better, including a team-low 72 at the East Regional. She produced a team-high 5 top 10s and was named to the All-Conference and All-Freshman teams.

Despite the rise and rise of the UTC program, youth and inexperience are a fact of life as Chattanooga trys to continue their fairytale post-season run at the NCAA Championships at Caves Valley Golf in Owings Mills, Maryland this week. So far this season’s East Regional is the only event outside the regular season the team has competed in as a whole. But Chattanooga has done nothing if not surprised a lot of people in their first two years on the scene. Golfweek, in an NCAA Championship preview gave UTC the “Congrats on making it” award. Quietly, Murray believes her team may be doing more than just “showing up” at Caves Valley.

“We played a (strong) schedule like we did so we could be prepared for this level.” she said. “We have 5 good players and you never know what can happen when a group like ours comes together.”

Murray and Chattanooga seem to be building a reputation on understatement. Count on them making some noise in the very near future.

Follow Chattanooga and all the scores from the 2009 NCAA Women’s Golf Championships at  http://www.golfstatresults.com/home.cfm

A story out of UK tells of a Royal Air Force probe into why a search and rescue helicopter was used to drop off servicemen for a round of golf.

This instantly reminded me of the long and arduous trek I used to make every fortnight to play golf at the Kau Sai Chau Golf Course in Hong Kong, the territory’s only public course.

I lived nearly at the southern-most point in Hong Kong, near Aberdeen, and the journey involved an hour’s drive to Sai Kung on the north-east coast and then a 20-minute boat journey to the island of Kau Sai Chau.

For Hong Kong, that was a major trek, and how I could have used an RAF helicopter. It would have been especially useful on the way back home because the golf itself was hard work.

The course had more hills than a Welsh countryside and someone once commented that you needed to be a mountain goat to trudge the 18 holes, designed by South African great Gary Player.

An RAF chopper would have been quite appropriate as well because, before the island turned into a golfing facility, the British military used it for bombing practice.

It is quite possible that they might have even had a helicopter identical or similar to the yellow Sea King that landed at Willingcott Valley Golf Course near Woolacombe, Devon to ferry soldiers in and out the golfing island.

According to a PA report, about a dozen passengers were seen disembarking the chopper, which was from a nearby air base. They played nine holes. A Ministry of Defence spokesman was quoted as saying:

“There are strict rules in place regarding use of military aircraft and we are urgently investigating this incident to ensure regulations have been observed. Search and Rescue cover was not compromised in any way while this sortie took place.”

Annika Sorenstam may be retiring at the end of the year but judging by the quality of their amateurs, there are plenty of talented Swedes waiting in the wings ready to take her place.

Caroline Hedwall and Pernilla Lindberg, both students at Oklahoma State University, joined Anna Nordqvist in winning the World Amateur Team Championship at The Grange Golf Club in Adelaide, Australia.

It was also Sweden’s second world team title in three years.

The Swedish team completed the tournament with a team total of 19-under-par 561, which was 12 strokes better than the second-placed Spanish team.

The United States finished third on 575. The tournament, which is held every two years, is a 72-hole event in which the lowest two scores from each team count towards the total.

Hedwall, originally from Lodderopinge, Sweden, shot a final round of two-under-par 270 for a total of 10-under 280 to top the individual standings. She was just one stroke ahead of Nordqvist.

Lindberg tied for 18th thanks to her total score of 293 after a closing round of 73.

Sorenstam has been Sweden’s most famous player over the past decade. The former world number one is retiring from the professional scene at the end of the year, though Sweden have showed that they have a number of candidates ready to pick up the baton.

The Oklahoma ladies will have little time to celebrate their victory because they must return to the United States and represent their college at a Stanford Intercollegiate event in Palo Alto, California this weekend.

A unique golfing event is taking place in the Welsh valleys.

If you take a close look at each of the more than 50 golfers taking part at the Bryn Meadows resort near Ystrad Mynach, you will see that every one is missing some part of their bodies.

That’s because it is the annual Amputee Golf event, organised by the British Amputee Golf Association and founded by the late Brian Mayo, with golfers from all over the world taking part.

The BBC website interviewed one of the players, American John Novak, who lost an arm more than two decades ago after an accident. Novak, who uses a prosthetic arm, said:

“I was doing a power line inspection and I got electrocuted. I fell 60 feet into the water and some fishermen pulled me out, they saved my life.”

The tournament was first started in 1989 by Brian Mayo, who lost both his legs. He had licked a golf ball contaminated by weed killer and contracted meningitis. Mayo died in 1999 but his family has carried on the tradition of the tournament.

Apparently, Mayo was in the habit of picking up his golf ball off the green, licking it and then wiping it clean before taking a putt. That incident left him in a coma for 11 days and doctors said it was due to the weed killer.

The BBC quoted Mayo’s son Gary as saying that his dad was inspired by World War II pilot Douglas Bader, who also lost both his legs. Gary said:

“My dad read a book (about Bader) after he had his legs amputated and also met Bader and he inspired my dad. He was my dad’s hero. He was back on the course six weeks after he came out of hospital using his Mercedes as a golf cart!”

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said at the Travelers Championship that golf tours around the world should work harder to implement anti-doping programmes.

It appears that every other governing body has made moves to establish drug testing. The LPGA Tour is to start testing in 2008 and the European Tour is aiming to have its own system in place by next season.

The R&A and USGA performed sample testing at last year’s World Amateur Championship in South Africa with all 12 golfers tested coming clean.

Finchem said in an Associated Press article:

“It’s unfortunate that these realities are with us, but they are. And we have to deal with them, and I think it’s important that golf deal with them collectively.”

Finchem is merely trying to keep golf in line with other sports, many of which have not really succeeded in keeping their backyards clean but are more concerned with having some kind of anti-doping policy to show their sincerity.

Some commentators, such as Sports Illustrated’s Bill Syken, believe dope-testing in golf is laughable, as he writes:

“Does he (Finchem), or anyone else out there, really think golf as a steroid problem? I mean, look at golf’s No. 2 player. More specifically, look at his body. If Phil Mickelson is taking hormones,, they’re the wrong kind.”

In a way, Syken has a point. However, he is looking at the wrong type of drug. Steroids are not really conducive to golf. They are mainly used by athletes in power sports where bursts of energy are required, such as sprinting, swimming or weightlifting.

And in these sports, the steroids are only of value during training, when athletes can speed up their recovery time from strenuous training activities to … well, train some more.

The PGA Tour is now in the process of establishing a list of drugs that would be on the banned list. Most probably, they will be looking at substances that enable golfers to keep calm

It is those six-foot putts for the championship where these drugs can really help, and that is where one golfer could have an unfair advantage over another.

Whether this happens already, we will never know. Maybe if we starting dope-testing, we will soon find out.

World class amateur golf  returns to Northern Ireland in September as home grown talent Rory McIlroy leads Britain and Ireland’s Walker Cup charge.

Unfortunately restrictions at the Royal County Down course mean that only 10,000 tickets will be available: mainly through golf clubs in Ireland, the UK and America. 

That’s probably a bit of a cunning ruse by the R&A – any event that has ticket restrictions tends to capture the public imagination so the amateurs should be guaranteed a full and probably reasonably partisan crowd.

Now a golf blog is no place for politics but, given the momentous events in Northern Ireland this week, politics is not always easy to ignore. 

The staging of major events on the British mainland has, in recent years, been a security nightmare. Indeed the Scottish police are already having sleepless nights about the 2014 Ryder Cup (to be held at the same place as the G8 Summit of 2005 so they’ve had practice). These security factors would, unavoidably, have been heightened at a major tournament in Northern Ireland.

But could this be about to change? With devolved power returned to the province and the overwhelming majority of people relishing peace is there not a case for Northern Ireland to stage a really big event? A really big event played on links courses? A really big event like the Open? 

Now at this stage I must stress this is just me speculating. But would there be any better way to celebrate the peace process and pay tribute to the forbearance of the people of Northern Ireland than taking the Open back across the water (1951, Royal Portrush was the last and only time Northern Ireland hosted). And, of course, money flows from the old Claret Jug so the boost to the economy would be massive.

For selfish, geographic reasons, I have long been of the opinion that when the Open isn’t at St Andrews it should be at Muirfield. But even I wouldn’t begrudge a welcome trip to Northern Ireland.

It was a weekend for history-makers on both sides of the Atlantic with Spain’s Pablo Martin-Benavides and Morgan Pressel notching up significant firsts on the European Tour and LPGA Tour respectively.

Before Martin-Benavides, American Scott Verplank was Oklahoma State University’s most storied golfer because he won as an amateur on the US PGA Tour.

Now, it is Martin-Benavides’ turn to fly the Oklahoma State flag as the 20-year-old Spaniard became the first amateur to triumph on the European Tour with his victory at the Estoril Open de Portugal.

The rising star of world golf carded a final round of three-under-par 68 for a seven-under total of 277 at Oitavos to beat Frenchman Raphael Jacquelin by one stroke.

Martin-Benavides, who led the 2003 Canarias Open de Espana heading into the final round, said on europeantour.com:

“My coaches have been giving me stick about that [Verplank’s victory] for the last three years. They kept telling that I was no good if I couldn’t win a pro event as an amateur! But it actually helped me a little bit, even though it was a joke it helped me.”

In Rancho Mirage, California, Pressel, at 18 years, 10 months and nine days, became the youngest Major champion in the history of the LPGA Tour when she won the Kraft Nabisco Championship on Sunday.

Pressel sunk a 10-foot birdie for a final round of three-under-par 69, thinking she would finish second to Suzann Pettersen. But the Norwegian suffered a huge collapse on the home stretch.

Pettersen had a four-shot lead with four holes left but dropped five shots to hand Pressel victory. Pettersen finished in a three-way tie for second with Catriona Matthew and Brittany Lincicome.

Pressel, 10 months after graduating from high school, was on the practice range when she heard about her victory and broke down in tears. All she could managed was a few words, according to AP, via Yahoo:

“Oh my God! Oh my God!”

It is not the first time she made history with age. In 2001, she was only 12 when she became the youngest female golfer to qualify for the US Women’s Open. She was 13 when she played the event.

While there were no major records at the Shell Houston Open in Humble, Texas, there was plenty of drama as Australian Adam Scott sank a monster 50-foot putt on the final hole to save par and defeat defending champion Stuart Appleby.

Scott’s six-under-par 66 put him at 17 under for the tournament, three ahead of Appleby and Bubba Watson, and provided him with a great boost ahead of this week’s first Major of the season, the US Masters at Augusta.

For the record, Scott became the sixth Australian, with Appleby on that list, to win the Houston Open. He is also well aware that last year’s Masters champion, Phil Mickelson, also won the week before Augusta. Scott said on pgatour.com:

“I still think I can do some work on my putting, although it was pretty good today. And obviously next week putting is a key factor to getting around the golf course.”

America and Thailand have Tiger Woods, now Britain and India hope they have their own mixed-race superstar.

She is Kiran Matharu, the first high-profile British-Asian golfing star who is hoping to supplant Michelle Wie as the next true teenage sensation.

The 17-year-old Curtis Cup player has a string of titles to her name, including the 2006 English Ladies Amateur crown and is the youngest golfer to qualify for the Ladies European Tour. In her first pro event in Wales, she finished 15th.

The sponsorship dollars have also started to roll in after she landed a deal with Puma India to endorse their brand in one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

Matharu has no problems being hailed as the female Tiger Woods, simply because the American star is one of her heroes. She can also count English legend Nick Faldo as a friend and mentor who is helping Matharu reach her career goals.

Matharu was quoted recently as saying in the India’s Financial Express as saying:

“I want to play like him (Tiger Woods) one day. I just want to play golf and that’s it.”

In the same publication, she also talks enthusiastically about her relationship with Faldo.

“I can call him up anytime and clear my doubts. This helps me to improve my game every time I talk to him. Nick’s a great friend.”

The Yorkshire native started playing when she was 11 years old after accompanying her father to golf courses.

Last year, she was denied the chance to qualify for the LPGA Tour because of her apparent lack of success in pro events, although this has not put Matharu off her ambition of one day playing in the United States.

Faldo predicts great things for the teenager, and was quoted in the media as saying:

“Kiran combines a great game with a steady nerve and I’m confident that, with a little more experience, she will be in a position to challenge for the very highest honours that the ladies game has to offer.”