East Lake: From Bobby Jones, amateur, to FedEx Cup and ‘a beacon of modern-day gluttony’

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Bobby Jones was a career amateur. The Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup playoff finale, is at East Lake Golf Club, Jones’ home course. Jason Sobel of ESPN notes the financial dichotomy in this story. “A quick stroll through the ornate clubhouse offers glimpses into the life of its most famous member, Bobby Jones, the career amateur who learned the game here and whose memorabilia adorns the walls. Step outside the clubhouse doors, though, and the old-school design becomes a beacon of modern-day gluttony, with Coca-Cola-labeled signage dotting the landscape, providing unending reminders that one Tour Championship competitor will walk away from this week $10 million richer -- and the other 27 in the field won't exactly be hurting for cash, either.”

Geoff Ogilvy, who writes columns for Golf Australia, takes on in this column the subject of player/caddie relationships. “Perhaps the most interesting thing about ‘caddie bashing’ is the fact that the guy is 100 percent invested in his man playing well,” Ogilvy writes. “The better you play, the more he gets paid. So it makes no sense for the players to not remember that…So it pays to keep in mind that the caddie is doing is best. He wants his player to shoot the lowest score he can. Yet, so often, players lose sight of that.”

NBC’s Dan Hick and Johnny Miller is the longest running golf broadcast tandem in history, 16 years and counting. “They started together on Tiger Woods’ meteoric rise through golf that began with his U.S. Amateur titles,” Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes. “No doubt, there is more to come for the broadcast duo. ‘He is so good under pressure,’ Miller said of Hicks. ‘I’m a person who focuses on pressure and how well people handle pressure. I think I admire him most because he’s so good under pressure.’”