The Loop

Harold Varner III, making his debut as PGA Tour member, is African American, ‘and, yes, this still matters in 2015’

October 14, 2015

Stories of interest you might have missed…

Harold Varner III makes his debut as a member of the PGA Tour at the Frys.com Open this week. Varner is an African-American. “And, yes, this still matters in 2015,” Ron Kroichick of the San Francisco Chronicles writes in this profile of Varner. “More than 18 years after Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters — amid predictions he dramatically would diversify the game — Varner is only the second African American player since then to become a full-time PGA Tour player.”

Harold-Varner-III.jpg

Getty Images

Luke Donald is a former No. 1 in the World Ranking who has not won on either the PGA Tour or European Tour in three years. Yet in a reversal of what often transpires, Donald did not fire his caddie. His caddie, Johnny “Long Socks” McLaren, fired Donald. “It is fair to say that McLaren’s decision is a mystery,” James Corrigan of the Telegraph writes. “There have been rumours that he has been lined up by Adam Scott, but McLaren has scotched these.”

Jarrod Lyle is a two-time cancer survivor, who “spent the past five months sharpening his game - and more importantly his strength and fitness - back in Australia,” Ben Everill of the Australian Associated Press writes. Lyle makes his return to the PGA Tour at the season opener this week, the Frys.com Open.

Pine Valley, N.J., has 12 residents, six police officers and one world-class golf course. “[The officers’] job is to protect a golf course…which occupies most of Pine Valley's one square mile and is the reason for the Camden County borough's existence,” Michael Boren of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes in this story on “the second-smallest municipality in New Jersey, and the smallest to have a police force.”