January 2010: Golf Digest Woman: Golf Digest

Print
E-Mail
Feeds

Golf Digest Woman Blog: golfdigest.com

Results for January 2010 Back to Golf Digest Woman Index

Let's try this again

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

It should be taken as an encouraging sign that the LPGA has plugged another event into its schedule, with the tour announcing on Monday the addition of the Sybase Match Play Championship at Hamilton Farm Golf Club in Gladstone, N.J., May 20-23.

In many ways, it is. Any tournament on the schedule is better than no tournament, so by that measure, you can score one in the victory column for new LPGA commissioner Mike Whan. But in doing so, perhaps you should consider an asterisk as well. Because the reality is the new Sybase Match Play Championship isn't all that new, and the tournament's predecessor wasn't all that successful.

First, some history: In 2005, while the stroke-play Sybase Classic was still being held at Wykagyl Country Club in New Rochelle, N.Y., the LPGA unveiled the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship, a limited, elite field event to be staged at the scenic but somewhat remote Hamilton Farm Golf Club in New Jersey horse country. That tournament was played at that location to mixed results -- great field, unpredictable winners, uneven attendance -- until, in 2007, the LPGA in the New York metropolitan area entered into a game of musical chairs that is apparently still ongoing.

First, the Sybase Classic organizers decided to move their tournament from Wykagyl to Upper Montclair Country Club on the other side of the Hudson River in northern New Jersey. Then, with the Sybase inching in on the HSBC's turf, and with an established venue on tour now without a tournament, the HSBC agreed to shift the match play to Wykagyl, which seemed to make sense until you factored in the reality of top players like Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa being eliminated early in the week, and a final between Seon Hwa Lee and Ai Miyazato that had all the buzz of a high school golf match (albeit a very well-played high school golf match). After that one-year run, the HSBC decided to abandon the women's match play experiment altogether, and instead now sponors a limited-field event in Singapore. Meanwhile, the Sybase Classic continued its modest run at Upper Montclair Country Club through last spring, before announcing over the summer that it wouldn't return.

But now the sponsor and the tournament organizer, Octagon, are back, albeit with a new format and a new venue that actually aren't all that new.

Confused? You're not the only one.

-- Sam Weinman

(Photo: Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

Keywords:

Futures Tour players get creative

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

What should a mini-tour player do when the economy goes south and sponsorships dry up? Take money-making matters into her own hands. That's exactly what a group of five Futures Tour players have done by starting GolfProGirls.com, a subscription website where the very photogenic players (you may recognize Susan Choi, Amber Prange and Charlotte Campbell from former seasons of Golf Channel's Big Break and Highway 18) offer up tips on travel, gear and golf instruction with the help of 10 top-ranked PGA professionals.

Think this is a D-list operation? Think again. Rick Martino, Laird Small, Todd Sones and Gary Wiren are among the featured teachers, and the website design and video-production quality are top-notch. Membership costs $6.95 a month or $60 a year.

--Stina Sternberg

Keywords:

Pro golfers make television acting debuts

Friday, January 22, 2010

Pro golfers Natalie Gulbis, Duffy Waldorf, Rocco Mediate and Kevin Na made their network-television acting debuts playing themselves on an episode of CBS's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" titled "Long Ball" Thursday night, and it was a cringe-worthy doozy. The players' acting chops were nowhere near par (if Screen Actors Guild cards were to be doled out, the only golfer worthy of inclusion would be Mediate, who at least seemed somewhat relaxed; Gulbis and especially Waldorf looked like they needed a sedative), but still -- they had a good excuse. They're not actors. It was the episode's preposterous golf-focused plot that made it hard to watch.

Try to follow me here: During a fictional PGA Tour event in California, Mediate's ball lands in the lap of a dead body that's sitting in a golf cart in some O.B. bushes on the course. The ensuing investigation shows that the dead man is the father of the player leading the tournament, who had shot a miraculous 61 in the first round the day before. Through much scientific research (including clubhead CT and volume tests using machines that have never before seen the inside of a CSI lab), it is determined that Danny, the dead man's son, had been cheating by using golf balls that had been X-ray-laser-beamed to have a harder core so they went 50 yards farther than they should (because that would naturally make him hole more putts -- or...?). Danny's caddie, who had been demoted from PGA Tour player to caddie 20 years earlier when the dead guy had outed him for using performance-enhancing drugs (which, incidentally, wasn't a crime on the PGA Tour until last year), had supplied the balls to his unwitting boss, who apparently thought his sudden increase in distance was pure luck. Who was the murderer -- the disgruntled caddie? The son whose father was mad at him for betraying the "honor" of the game? The son's sex-crazed step aunt who had given the caddie the "juiced" golf balls? The father's ex-wife who didn't want to see her favorite stepson lose a tournament over his father catching him cheating?

I could go on, but it just gets more ridiculous from there. In the end, a swing robot helps confirm that the death was not a crime after all, but the result of an angry man slamming his driver in the ground, the shaft snapping and the clubhead end of the club bouncing back up to lodge the shaft stump in the victim's jugular (ever heard that one before?).

Here's a clip of the first eight minutes of the show, with the players' cameos. Gulbis' lone line comes at the 6:38 mark:

--Stina Sternberg

Keywords:

Can Wie Take World's Focus Off Tiger?

Thursday, January 21, 2010

According to CNN International, Michelle Wie might just have what it takes to help professional golf regain its good name in the post-Tiger-Woods-sex-scandal era. In an article on their website, they call Wie an "uplifting story," then continue to paint a very pretty picture of the 20-year-old's competitive history (completely skipping over the less-than-fortunate events of her 2007 and 2008 seasons -- but who remembers those?).

Rose-colored glasses aside, the article includes an interesting clip from the cable outlet's "Living Golf" show, where Wie got candid about her life on and off the course:

Is she the game's greatest hope? Only time will tell.

--Stina Sternberg

Keywords:

The LPGA On Live TV -- Finally

Thursday, January 21, 2010

When the LPGA and Golf Channel recently announced the tour's 2010 television tournament schedule, eyebrows across the country were raised in pleasant surprise. Most golf fans have been looking forward to the beginning of the LPGA Tour's new 10-year exclusive GC contract, simply because now they'll at least know where to find the women's golf telecasts; at the same time, fears have run high that the cable outlet would continue its trend of only airing LPGA events on tape delay during prime time. But it seems those fears were at least in part unfounded, as the 2010 broadcast schedule shows that nine of the 12 tournaments that are played in North America and covered by GC (three of the majors are still on other networks) will appear both live and in evening re-runs.

Feb. 18-21, Honda PTT LPGA Thailand (TAPE DELAY)

Feb. 25-28, HSBC Women's Champions (TD)

March 25-28, LPGA Classic (LIVE)

May 13-16, Bell Micro LPGA Classic (TD/LIVE)

June 10-13, LPGA State Farm Classic (TD)

June 18-20, ShopRite LPGA Classic (LIVE)

June 24-27, LPGA Championship (LIVE)

July 22-25, Evian Masters (TBD)

Aug. 20-22, Safeway Classic (LIVE)

Aug. 26-29, CN Canadian Women's Open (TBD)

Sept. 10-12, P&G NW Arkansas Championship (LIVE)

Oct. 7-10, Navistar LPGA Classic (TD)

Oct. 14-17, CVS/pharmacy LPGA Challenge (LIVE)

Oct. 29-31, LPGA China (TD)

Nov. 11-14, Lorena Ochoa Invitational (LIVE/TD)

Nov. 18-21, LPGA Tour Championship (LIVE)

The only question now is who will be in the broadcast booth. Is Dottie Pepper out and Judy Rankin in? Here's hoping they'll co-pilot the women's coverage.

--Stina Sternberg

Keywords:

A Presidential Celebration

Monday, January 11, 2010

The President is going to congratulate the victorious U.S. Solheim Cup team tomorrow. At his House.

And Natalie Gulbis is already gearing up.

"We have been invited by the white house to meet the President what an honor," she tweeted this morning to her 31,313 followers.

The team visited the White House in 2007 after they retained the Solheim Cup in Sweden. Their 30-minute meeting with President George W. Bush included a few putts on the Eisenhower Putting Green near the Rose Garden. President Dwight D. Eisenhower installed the green in the 1950s. He was a hard-core golfer and a member of Augusta National Golf Club.

And a few gifts were exchanged. The team gave Bush a Ping Solheim Cup putter, and he gave each of them a golf ball stamped with the logo of the presidential seal.

Meeting the President will be a thrill, but Gulbis is also excited to see all of her teammates together in the same room.

"Packing for a trip to meet up with my solheim cup teammates in DC. Can't wait to see everyone again," she tweeted.

The LPGA Tour will tee it up again at the Honda PTT in Chonburi, Thailand during the third week of February.

--Ashley Mayo

(Photo by: David Cannon/Getty Images)

Keywords:

A Golfer Gives Back

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

A 21-year-old isn't supposed to be raising millions of dollars for a greater cause. But Morgan Pressel doesn't quite understand that concept.

The LPGA Tour phenom lost her mother to breast cancer six years ago, and it inspired her to launch the Morgan & Friends Fight Cancer golf tournament. The first two events, held at the St. Andrew's Country Club in Boca Raton, Fla., were wildly successful, so Pressel is hosted the event again this year. A bunch of LPGA Tour players, including Christina Kim and Cristie Kerr, played yesterday in the hopes of raising enough money to find a cure for breast cancer.

"She's a young woman who's an absolute inspiration," said Kim. "She took something tragic that happened to her in her life and is really seeking out trying to help people in the world and it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever come across."

In three short years, the Morgan and Friends Foundation has raised more than $1 million for breast cancer awareness. Yesterday morning, Pressel revealed a mammography van that was purchased with these funds. She calls it a "mammovan" and hopes it'll help to spread the word that early detection is the key to standing up against breast cancer.

Pressel's ultimate goal is simple: she doesn't what other daughters "to suffer and go through what I did." Read about her experience in her own words.

--Ashley Mayo

Keywords: