Golf Digest Search Results

Trending: Jason Collins comes out... as a bad golfer

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:31:00 GMT

Jason Collins will forever have a permanent place in the annals of sports history thanks to his Sports Illustrated cover story where he came out as the first openly gay male athlete in one of America's "big four" sports. While the occasion has been marked with an outpouring of support, both in the physical and virtual worlds, it should be noted that his first remarks on this momentous day were not about his sexuality, but about his golf game -- on Twitter at least.

Yes, the SEO Gods were with us when his first tweet since the cover story hit newsstands was about how he broke 100 playing a round yesterday, even dropping a birdie. Jason should be commended for both his courage and his game, and if anyone should ask you what he was thinking on the day the news broke, you can now say at least one of his thoughts was about golf.

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Trending: Quadruple amputee, and Tiger Woods fan, to leave hospital after successful double-arm transplant

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:34:00 GMT

By Derek Evers

Brendan Marrocco (left) sits with Tiger Woods and Jon Bon Jovi at the 2010 AT&T National preview day. (Photos by: Getty Images)

If Tiger Woods' victory at Torrey Pines wasn't your feel good story of the week, this one should do the trick. In fact, if it doesn't, you better check your ticker.

As the Daily News (and multiple other outlets) reported yesterday, 26-year-old Iraq War veteran Brendan Marrocco is preparing to leave Johns Hopkins Hospital after receiving the hospital's first successful bilateral arm transplant.

Marrocco lost all four limbs on Easter Sunday, 2009 in an Iraq bombing that killed one soldier and wounded another, becoming the first veteran of the war to survive such a catastrophe. While he has been living with the help of a prosthetic (photo above), Marocco underwent the 13-hour procedure to replace both of his arms on December 18.

"I feel amazing," Marrocco said during a 90-minute news conference. "It's something that I was waiting for a long time."

In 2009 Marrocco became a celebrity in the golf world when Tiger Woods handed his golf ball to the young veteran (left) after sinking his final winning putt at the AT&T National. Despite his unenviable predicament, the 26-year-old has remained extremely positive, even referring to himself as "fortunate" when discussing the explosion that left him without any limbs.

That positivity was rewarded by a surgical team led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee. "Six weeks ago today, a team of physicians and nurses helped restore the physical and psychological well-being of Brendan Marrocco, who lost both arms and legs serving our country nearly four years ago," Lee said. "Only six other [U.S. double hand or arm transplant] patients have been successful and Brendan's was the most extensive and complicated."

"It's given me a lot of hope for the future. I feel like I'm getting a second chance," Marrocco happily added. "When people say you can't do it, be stubborn. Do it anyway. Work your ass off and do it."

That's sound advice.

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Finally, some vindication for the hole-in-one-less

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 18:46:00 GMT

By Derek Evers

You know how many holes-in-one I've had? The same amount as my one-year-old nephew. None. Nada. Zero. And for a long time I was OK with this. Despite my ineptitude, I could always take solace in knowing I was only one of the millions of golfers who have yet to know the feeling of putting a "1" on the scorecard. I mean, the odds are about as good as winning the lottery, right? Apparently not.

Apparently, it's so easy a 12-year-old girl can do it TWICE IN ONE ROUND. Which is not nearly as rare as you'd think, even among teenagers. This Texas teen did it. A pair of sisters playing for the Central Oklahoma golf team both aced a hole during the same round. Even a guy from New Jersey dropped two in a day. And just when I thought I couldn't feel any worse about myself, came this story about four guys who each recorded a hole-in-one during the same tournament.

Only at a tournament as prestigious as "The Great Googly-Ball" held at the McCormick Woods Golf Club in Port Orchard, Wash. could this against-all-odds event take place. Except it didn't. And Jeff Graham, the local Kitsap Sun reporter who wrote about it, was none too pleased to find out.

Related: The Hole-In-One Lady

As explained in the foreward that now accompanies the article, the story was a hoax. The work of a local comedian who called in the four aces as part of a 64-man scramble. Turns out the "tournament" was actually a golf outing with his friends, and the "holes-in-one" were "instances where golfers hit their tee shots with golf clubs, then rolled balls in the hole using their hands."

To his credit, Graham did his due diligence, confirming the story with all parties involved. After all, how was he to know the COMEDIAN who called it in might be playing a joke on him? Still, I do feel slightly bad for Graham, but I feel a lot better about myself today. I might not have a hole-in-one to my name, but at least I'm not a local comedian in Kitsap, Washington.

Now I can go back to thinking holes-in-one are the work of professionals like these.

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Trending: Is the 'Is Tiger Woods Back?' debate back?

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:49:00 GMT

Tiger Woods' back. Photo by: Stan Badz/Getty Images

If one more person asks if Tiger Woods is back, I'm going to go postal. I realize the phrase "going postal" is a bit dated, but it's appropriate being that it dates back to around the time everyone wants Woods to revert to. And now that he's collected another trophy -- passing Jack Nicklaus' career win total in the process -- professional golf journalists the world over are back to beating the proverbial horse. That poor horse; if it ain't dead, it's dying a slow, painful death.

So now that he's passed Jack in career wins, is he back?

Maybe he was back when he won his first tournament in two years?

Or was he back when he took the lead in wins on the PGA Tour this year?

Leading the money list?

Apparently none of these accomplishments have satiated the journalistic quest of golf pundits. As if pounding it into our ear holes will make us want to carry on this fruitless debate any longer.

So let the horse-beating resume.

Related: How Tiger's swing has changed

After winning the Memorial, the question dominated most every sports page. A Google search for the phrase "Is Tiger Woods Back" on June 4 (the day after the Memorial), returned 106 results. 106 different people proposed, and tried to answer, the question in one day. If you assumed the past 24 hours wouldn't yield such high results, you'd be right -- only 96 posts so far, although the day is only half over (and this makes 97). In the past month alone, from that June 4 to today, there have been 542 to pose the question. Those are but a drop in the bucket of the over 59,000 articles online containing the exact phrase.

ESPN has no fewer than 447 search results for the phrase "Is Tiger Woods Back", including a video with the very SEO-friendly title.

CBS Sports at least had the presence of mind to try and reframe it around the tired conversation instead of the question itself. But maybe that's because they're letting CBS News do the heavy lifting (vote now!)

Our very own Ron Sirak and John Strege have asked it; although to be fair, Strege did rephrase it as, "Is he the best player in the world?" -- well played.

After this weekend, SBNation not only posed it, they dubbed it a "key question."

Hell (no pun intended), the Christian Science Monitor even weighed in.

Of course the list goes on and on. And while we may not be able to agree upon the level of Tiger's back-ness, at least there is one thing we can agree on: Tiger Woods can finally put the horse out to pasture by winning one of these last two majors. Let's hope he does, because I don't think I can take another year of this hard-hitting journalism.

Besides, we still have a few more decades of the "Who's the next Tiger Woods?" debate to look forward to.

-- Derek Evers
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Trending: Hey Tiger, Allan Henry wants a signed glove

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:50:00 GMT

If you were watching the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am yesterday, you're sure to have seen Tiger's meltdown on way to a final-round 75. But his struggles became personal for photographer Allan Henry on the 14th hole when Woods hit him with an errant approach shot. Tiger was actually fortunate to hit Henry, keeping the ball closer to the green. Henry not so much, as he was quick to point out on Twitter when he posted this video.

-- Derek Evers