Golf Digest Search Results

Tiger at Pebble: It's a love/hate thing

Alex Myers — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 05:00:00 GMT

With Tiger Woods skipping the 2013 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, we take a look back at his up-and-down history at the famed course.

Celebrities to watch this week at Pebble Beach

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:10:00 GMT

By Brendan Mohler

The AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am starts Thursday, which means the usual array of celebrities teeing it up alongside the pros. No surprise that the likes of Bill Murray, Carson Daly, Ray Romano and Kenny G are playing, a few of whom have even had some success in past years (Murray won with D.A. Points in 2010; Daly finished fifth with Jason Allred in 2005). Despite the barrage of duck hooks and power slices sure to plague many celebrities, their presence will produce some laughs. It's hard to take Nick Faldo seriously when he breaks down Bill Murray's swing:

(Not bad considering the outfit.)

Aside from actors and musicians, a few NFL stars and coaches will be making appearances, including recent Super Bowl runner-up Jim Harbaugh, whose San Francisco 49ers lost to his brother John's Ravens, 34-31. One of Harbaugh's foes, Bill Belichick, will be playing in his second consecutive Pebble Beach pro-am after finishing third with Ricky Barnes last year. Here's hoping Belichick shows up in anything other than a cut-off hoodie.

Aaron Rodgers and Tony Romo, two quarterbacks whose seasons ended well before they hoped are in the field. If the Cowboys and Packers were squaring off, Rodgers would surely have the upper hand. But golf is the great equalizer, and Romo gets the nod here only because his swing looks nice and he's played in a few U.S. Open qualifiers (Tiger has also allowed Romo to be his partner, which must be good for something).

(Romo's swing can be seen at the :16 mark).

If Romo's lucky, he'll knock in all the short ones. He's known for botching easy plays, and he's playing alongside 19-year-old Jordan Spieth, who will surely be battling some nerves.

And finally, flamethrowers Justin Verlander and Matt Cain are in the field. Their respective teams (Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants) squared off in last year's World Series, which Cain's Giants won in only four games. Verlander will be out for revenge on Matt Cain, who also happened to throw a perfect game last season. However, Verlander has a firm grasp on the crown for hottest girlfriend award as my colleague and author of The Grind, Alex Myers, pointed out.

Speaking of hot girlfriends, Dustin Johnson is playing alongside his new squeeze's father, also known as "The Great One." Wayne's daughter, Paulina Gretzky, is a fashion model and Instagram star, and has been posting a lot of photos of her and Dustin's off-the-course escapades. Dustin won at Pebble in '09 and '10, but didn't have the distraction of playing with his girlfriend's father.

Hoopla aside, there must be a favorite among all these amateur hackers. I'm going with Skip McGee, the head of Global Investment Banking at Barclays and a 15 handicap, simply because he's paired with Phil Mickelson. Not only did Phil narrowly miss shooting the first 59 since Stuart Appleby in 2010, but he also seems to be in love with his driver. And we all know true love is hard to find. Skip, you lucked out.

Follow @BrendanMohlerGW

Golf-Crazed Celebs

Sam Weinman — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 05:00:00 GMT

As celebrities descend on Pebble Beach, a look at the most passionate golfers among them.

Golf & Football: The NFL's Top Gridiron Golfers

Alex Myers — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 05:00:00 GMT

We are at that point in the calendar when the remaining NFL teams are desperately hoping to extend their season a couple of weeks and into the Super Bowl. But that's not to say life is so bad in the off-season, especially when there is golf involved. Here we look at how some of football's best measure up when trading their cleats for soft spikes.

Swing Sequence: Tony Romo

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Tony Romo works on extension in his powerful swing

Tiger Woods set to begin PGA Tour season at Pebble

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:24:00 GMT

Rumors that Tiger Woods might need a GPS to find the Pebble Beach Golf Links proved largely unfounded. When Woods elected to begin his 2012 season, American-style, at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am it was the first time he'd played on the Monterey Peninsula in a non-major championship in 10 years. Despite having won a U.S. Open there in a turn of the century performance the likes of which neither man nor beast had ever seen before was immaterial to the perennial No. 1 player in the world who isn't anymore. The reasoning all those years was the poa annua greens were too bumpy and the thrashing about of the amateurs made the rounds painfully slow. So, Woods went elsewhere.

When he came back for his first February visit in a decade, the biggest piece of news he brought with him was his disdain for the belly putter and the conversations he's had with the R&A's Peter Dawson about it. "I've never been a fan of it. I'm a traditionalist when it comes to that. I've talked to Peter about this," said Woods, "and gone back and forth over how we could word it. My idea was to have it so that the putter would be equal to or less than the shortest club in your bag. And I think with that we'd be able to get away from any type of belly anchoring. You can still anchor the putter like Bernhard Langer did against the forearm. I think you can get away from the belly or the long putter by that type of wording. (Whether) you actually measure everybody's sand wedge and putter before you go out and play, that's another thing."

Photo by Getty Images

In all other respects, Woods seemed very much like a man who remains on the mend. Rather than being discouraged by his final round 72 in Abu Dhabi, he put it down as part of the process.

Enough with the Tiger, Tiger Tiger!!! Or not.

Bob Carney — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:58:00 GMT

Tim Rosaforte's Voices column in Golf World this week, with details of Tiger Woods' move to Jupiter, and sightings of him and his kids at the local mall, seemed innocent enough and mildly interesting to...

Update: Shane Battier made __ pars for charity.

Matt Ginella — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:42:00 GMT

If you missed my quick Q&A with NBA defense specialist Shane Battier, he was using three days of "competitive golf" at the American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament in Tahoe to raise money for his charity,...

Spieth makes cut, but might miss graduation

Fri, 27 May 2011 20:05:00 GMT

IRVING, Texas - Looks like Jordan Spieth is going to miss his high school graduation. His classmates at Jesuit College Prep School will be picking up their diplomas about 4 p.m. Saturday at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. At about that time the 17-year-old Spieth, who will be a freshman at the University of Texas in the fall, will be on the back nine at TPC Four Seasons Resort Las Colinas playing in the third round of the HP Byron Nelson Championship.

Spieth, who finished T-16 here last year, easily made the cut again as he backed up his opening round 69 with a 68 Friday to be a three-under-par through 36 holes, just five strokes off the midway lead of Ryan Palmer going into the weekend.

The 2009 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship winner certainly has a home-course advantage. Spieth plays here often, frequently picking up a game with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who is a member, and once with former President George W. Bush, and is the clear crowd favorite. 'The crowds just kept growing and growing out there," Spieth said after his solid second round.

But familiarity or not, to open a PGA Tour event with consecutive rounds in the 60s on a par-70 golf course at the age of 17 is a tremendous achievement. Any nerves he felt Thursday, when he began with bogeys on two of the first three holes and made a double bogey on the back nine, were erased in a flurry of six birdies.

"I didn't have the nerves off the first tee like I did yesterday," a remarkably composed and mature Spieth said after his 68 Friday. "There were not as many people on the first tee in the morning. No one wanted to get up that early." He teed off at 9 a.m. Friday compared to 1:45 p.m. on Thursday.

On Friday, he stumbled at the end; playing his last five holes two over par after opening his back nine with three birdies in four holes. Spieth hit a lot of fairways Friday - 71 percent - and averaged 305 yards off the tee. He missed greens - hitting only 56 percent in regulation - but made up for that by using the putter only 23 times. Through two rounds, he has just 48 putts. That'll save you a lot of strokes.

"My putter has never felt better in my life," Spieth said. "The ball striking is coming." If there was a momentum-saving putt it was the 8-footer he rolled in on No. 15 for bogey. "That was a really, really big putt," Spieth said. "If I had made a double there, I would have given back all I had worked for."

As for graduation on Saturday?

"Hopefully, I'll play well enough to be in here again, but then I'll shoot right over there." With 250 in his graduating class, and being an "S" in alphabetical order, maybe he'll luck out and they won't have gotten to him yet. Then maybe he can carry that luck into the final round of the Byron Nelson on Sunday. He certainly has the skill.

-- Ron Sirak

Tahoe, Day 2: Clear Creek and Timilick

Matt Ginella — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:28:00 GMT

Monday in Tahoe, I woke up in an old house on the lake. Sunrise wasn’t a horrible scene:This is the same house that Tony Romo and his entourage will be staying in this week. They’re...