Golf Digest Search Results

Podcast: Paul Azinger on Riviera's 10th and Obama/Tiger's round

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:01:00 GMT

With the drivable par-4 10th at Riviera CC again proving pivotal in the outcome of the Northern Trust Open, Paul Azinger recalls his approach to playing the risk/reward hole--and some of the trouble it caused him--in the latest edition of Zinger's Corner. Paul and Golf World editor Jaime Diaz also discuss the benefit of having a someone in the Oval Office who plays golf after President Obama's round yesterday with Tiger Woods at The Floridian (Exclusive: Details of Obama's round with Tiger) as well as Bernhard Langer's continued excellence on the Champions Tour and just what keeps him going.

Download and subscribe to the Zinger's Corner series in iTunes

Is Finchem opposed to anchoring ban? Stay tuned

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:08:00 GMT

By John Strege

Keegan Bradley lines up a putt during the second round of the Northern Trust Open. Photo: Chris Condon/Getty Images

Here we are again, at the intersection of golf and politics, though not to bear witness to the heavyweight pairing of President Obama and Tiger Woods. Nothing so trivial as that.

On Monday, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem will convene a conference call with members of the PGA Tour policy board to discuss the USGA's proposal to ban the anchoring of a putter against the body. And if former board member Brad Faxon is correct, the potential ramifications won't be insignificant.

Faxon predicts that Finchem will attempt "to persuade the board that the tour should urge the USGA to withdraw the proposed ban," he wrote in a column for Golf.com.

This would put the tour in direct conflict with golf's governing bodies, the USGA and the Royal and Ancient, who have proposed the ban because they believe it necessary. "This decision gets back to the USGA and R&A feeling that fundamentally golf for 600 years has been about picking up the club, gripping it with two hands and making a free swing away from the body," USGA Executive Director Mike Davis told Golf Digest's Mike Stachura in November.

It also would pit two important and powerful entities, the PGA Tour and the PGA of America, against the two governing bodies. Previously, PGA of America president Ted Bishop said that the organization opposes the ban.

Faxon also predicts that the USGA won't back off its position and that ultimately the tour will acquiesce. But if it doesn't? Section I in the Rules of Golf, dealing with etiquette ("the game relies on the integrity of the individual to show consideration for other players and to abide by the Rules"), will be tested.

The tour conceivably could override the USGA, allowing anchoring as a condition of play on the PGA Tour. But it would have no jurisdiction over the U.S. Open, the British Open or the Masters, none of them PGA Tour events. "If that happens there will be chaos," Faxon wrote, this an understatement.

The PGA Tour is not immune from controversy, but neither is it the partner with whom other professional sports are forced to dance with alarming frequency. A solitary player confessing to his use of deer antler spray is a big deal in golf. Elsewhere, it's business as usual.

But the possibility, however remote, that the most powerful and visible group in golf might unilaterally choose to play by different rules would qualify as bona fide in the controversy industry.

The USGA and R&A have reserved the right to stand down and allow the status quo to prevail. Ostensibly, that's the purpose of their open comment period, to entertain all opinions before rendering a final decision.

Obama beating Woods from the back tees at the Floridian on Sunday seemed more likely than the USGA backing down. As Davis told Golf World editor-in-chief Jaime Diaz recently, "If we don't do what we think is the right thing for fear of a lawsuit, then shame on us. We shouldn't be in the governance business then."

All we know for certain at this point is that that Monday conference call will be a spirited one. Meanwhile, Bernhard Langer won the Champions Tour's ACE Group Classic on Sunday using a long putter anchored to his chest, and Webb Simpson was in contention at the PGA Tour's Northern Trust Open using a belly putter.

The beat goes on.

Follow @JohnStrege

Golf World Preview: Scott seeks major momentum

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:10:00 GMT

By Jaime Diaz

From the February 14 issue of Golf World Preview:

Adam Scott was last seen in competition winning November's Australian Masters, but the other Masters will be on his mind as he leaves his surfboard behind and opens his 2013 season at the Northern Trust Open.

Photo by Getty Images

Scott finished T-2 at Augusta in 2011, overtaken by Charl Schwartzel's closing run of four straight birdies. The finish marked Scott as a vastly improved player in the majors, an impression that was strengthened even in his devastating slip at last year's British Open when the 32-year-old Australian lost by one at Royal Lytham & St. Annes after bogeying the last four holes.

Related: Our Northern Trust Open picks

That wound received some salve from the November victory in his homeland, which earned Scott a gold jacket.

"Maybe i can set the theme of winning jackets and turn it green next year before I come back to defend," he said.

With the long putter still in the bag and Steve Williams still on it, Scott also retains the most eye-pleasing swing in the game and looks ready for a big year. The world's seventh-ranked player has a good record at Riviera, too, with an unofficial victory at 36 holes in 2005 and a solo second in 2006. He finished T-17 last year.

Follow @jaimediaz24

Riviera's long history of celebrity sightings

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:32:00 GMT

By Brendan Mohler

Located only a few miles from Beverly Hills, Riviera Country Club has always been a popular hangout for Hollywood A-listers. Among those who have held memberships at the host of this week's Northern Trust Open are Walt Disney, Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck and more recently, Adam Sandler and Larry David. With names like that patrolling the grounds, you can expect the presence of many distinguished (and not always well-behaved) celebrity guests.

Around the time Riviera became known as "Hogan's Alley" (Ben Hogan won the LA Open in 1947, '48 and '50 and the U.S. Open at Riviera in '48), Humphrey Bogart spent so much time watching golf from underneath a sycamore tree on the 12th hole that the club eventually named the tree after him. "Bogey's Tree" sits left of the green and provided a comfortable spot for Bogart to relax with a thermos of Jim Beam and watch the pros play through. This is not surprising considering Bogart once said, "The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."

Bogart is only one of many famous entertainers of his day who frequented Riviera, joining the likes of Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, even Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, who shot the 1953 film The Caddy on the club's grounds that included a cameo appearance by Ben Hogan himself.

In the Los Angeles area, Hollywood shenanigans at country clubs have been curbed in recent years according to David D. Pavoni, co-author of Golf In Hollywood, because of "the era of political correctness." However, that hasn't stopped the antics of Jack Nicholson, who once took a 2-iron to the windshield of a car that had cut him off in traffic. Kevin Cook, a Golf Digest contributing writer, called it, "the most famous instance of road rage meeting golf tantrum."

In another instance of golf tantrum, Nicholson hooked his tee shot on the 12th hole at Riviera and was unable to advance the ball successfully with a 5 iron on his second shot, prompting him to grab a bunch of vines in anger hanging from a nearby tree.

"They pulled back! Lifted me straight up in the air so I was flying around for a few seconds before I came down," said Nicholson in a 2007 interview with Golf Digest. "Now I can't play that 12th at Riviera without somebody saying, 'The Tarzan Hole!'"

Larry David, creator of Seinfeld and the star of the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm, has had his moments at Riviera as well. David is a member there and has filmed several Curb scenes at the club, although not this memorable one:

I'd expect David and Nicholson to steer clear of Riviera this week, as most members (especially high-profile ones) tend to do when the PGA Tour invades their course. There should still be plenty of star power, though, with the Northern Trust Open featuring perhaps the year's strongest field to date.

Follow @BrendanMohlerGW

(Photo by Getty Images)

Gear On Tour: Northern Trust Open

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 05:00:00 GMT

A glimpse of what players are using this week at Riviera

Golf World Monday: Singh plays under cloud

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:08:00 GMT

By Dave Shedloski

From the February 11 issue of Golf World Monday:

Vijay Singh told Golf World at the Sony Open in Hawaii that he was so excited for the season that he planned to play the PGA Tour's entire West Coast schedule. "My attitude is like I'm 30 again," he gushed.

Photo by Getty Images

That was before he obtusely admitted in a national magazine that he used a deer-antler spray containing a substance prohibited under the tour's anti-doping policy. Singh's admission, which he later confirmed in a statement, is tantamount to a positive drug test. Singh met with tour commissioner Tim Finchem last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, presumably to give his explanation.

Singh looked out of sorts on the Monterey Peninsula, but he was allowed to play, and he is entered in this week's Northern Trust Open. The obvious question is: Why is Singh permitted to keep competing? The answer is that a decision-making process, and possible appeal, are underway.

What seems like a clear-cut case from the outside probably is much less so from where Finchem sits, because the tour is given huge discretion in the severity of sanctions, from maximums of a one-year suspension and $500,000 fine to a minimum of rehab with no suspension or fine.

The tour is required to make public any suspension under its anti-doping policy (with the discretionary exception of "drugs of abuse"), but until or unless that happens, the process is confidential.

Follow @DaveShedloski

Hooray for Hollywood: Mickelson, Haas give 'em a show

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:55:00 GMT

That's entertainment, as they say in these parts, the Northern Trust Open delivering a performance worthy of its proximity to the show business capital of the world.

The star was the Riviera CC, a few steps from Sunset Boulevard, a few miles from Hollywood, and its diabolical par-4 10th hole, only 310 yards, all of it menace -- Lee Marvin's Liberty Valance, but a smaller target. With bunkers.

This was the dramatic stage on which Bill Haas prevailed on Sunday, the second hole of a playoff with the marquee player in the field, Phil Mickelson, and a reigning major champion, Keegan Bradley.

Photo: Harry How/Getty Images

It was among golf's better defenses against the perpetual charge that the game is plodding and boring. It was at times both on a long Sunday, but only to those who don't appreciate the entertainment value of thrill Mickelson.

A high-wire act working without a net, Mickelson is as likely to go splat as he is to reach the winner's circle at the other end of the wire.

Trending: Mickelson's ball ends up in man's shorts

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:18:00 GMT

Sometimes the SEO-Gods drop one right in my lap. Or in this gallery member's lap as the case may be. On the 15th hole at the Riviera County Club, during Saturday's third round of the Northern Trust Open, Phil Mickelson's tee shot sliced left, caromed off a tree and landed inside the shorts of a gallery member. That's right, in his shorts. Turns out the man was already laying on the ground (basking in the afternoon sun we presume), when the ball rolled up his pant-leg. Being the conscious golf fan he is, the spectator didn't move until Mickelson and the rules committee came to make a ruling on how to proceed. As you can see by this video, Phil gently retrieved his ball, took a drop and went on to make par. Michelson is currently tied with Keegan Bradley heading into the final round. The fan received an autographed glove for his trouble--which is more than we can say for poor Allan Henry.

-- Derek Evers
Follow @DerekEvers

PGA Tour: Fantasy Fix: Northern Trust Open

Alex Myers — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

We discuss Mickelson's magical round, a special Sergio-related gift to a friend, Jeremy Lin, and of course, this week's PGA Tour stop.

Revisiting Hogan's Alley

Alex Myers — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

A look back at Ben Hogan's success at Riviera Country Club.