Mother's Day

In Scotland, I saw these courses that were rough around the edges, and built on sandy loam, with deep bunkers. We were fascinated -- we were seeing things we had never seen before. Alice Dye

Every major championship deserves a major holiday. The Masters has Easter. The U.S. Open has Father's Day. The Open Championship has St. Swithun's. Well, anyway, now the Players has Mother's Day. (It's fitting that its famous 17th hole, the one we've been talking about so much this week, was the brainchild of Pete Dye's partner-designer and wife, Alice.)

If you haven't seen it yet, check out Jaime Diaz's "Momma's boys" in the May issue. Love this quote from Golf Digest's new playing editor, Arnold Palmer.

My mother was a very gentle, generous person, but I never felt as if I was being soft by going to her...I sought her becasue she was the balance I needed to my father, who was tough and hard-core and refused to give me a compliment. I was always afraid to lose because of my father's reaction, but I never felt that way about my mother. No matter what, she was the one who always understood. All that was so important—much more important than I realized at the time.

And this one from Nick Faldo:

My mother trusted me and what I wanted...She could see my passion. I was so much into imagination and dreaming when I was a kid and she and my father encouraged that. Everything I ever said I wanted to do, they never knocked it. It's like when I told the employment officer I wanted to be a golfer, he said, 'Well, one out of 10,000 makes it.' So I said, 'OK, I'm that one.' That's my mother."

Happy Mother's Day.

—Bob Carney[#image: /photos/55adb4a6add713143b449c86]|||Mom_1|||