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Showing posts from September, 2013

Why Did Driving Distance Decline on the PGA Tour in 2013?

Driving distance is down. Well down, on the PGA Tour, in 2013. The tour leader in driving distance was Luke List, whose average was 306.3 yards. That's a big drive for mere mortals, but for long-bombing PGA Tour guys, it's a pretty puny average. For example, in 2012, the driving distance champ averaged 315.5 yards. In 2011, it was 318.4 and in 2010 315.5. List's 306.3 average is the shortest by any Tour driving distance champ since John Daly's 301.4 average in 2000. In 2012, Bubba Watson averaged 315.5; but in 2013, Watson's average was only 303.7. Charlie Beljan dropped from 311.6 to 295.4. Robert Garrigus's average fell from 310.3 to 302.4. Dustin Johnson's average fell from 310.2 to 305.8. And while the fall in driving distance is more pronounced at the very top, it happened all down the line. The 10th-place finisher was at 304.6 in 2012, but 301.5 in 2013. The 25th-place finisher fell from 299.2 to 297.2. The golfer in 50th place was at 294.7 a

Michelle Wie Shooting Guns

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The headline says it all. What's going on here? Wie, along with Jane Park and Christina Kim and others, were in Austin for a girls weekend with Jeehae Lee, who is getting married. Is this the new bachelorette party? We don't know about that. We do know this: If Wie played golf in those shorts, the LPGA's TV ratings would go up.

The Secret Society of Hogan Bootleggers

Something just jogged my memory and reminded me of an hour or so I spent with a friend, a golf pro, a few years back. My friend had a stash of videos - almost all of them of poor quality, from having been recorded and re-recorded so many times - of Ben Hogan's swing. Golf pros and Hogan are like high school football geeks and game film. These are guys who have the game film from the game in which Kenneth Hall set the Texas state rushing record back in the 1950s, or the 1971 (or was it '72?) state championship game where Tommy Kramer led San Antonio Lee to a stirring victory. And once a month they get together with their fellow high school football geeks and watch the games all over again. (Yes, these people actually exist.) My friend's Hogan video collection included such things as copies of television commercials Hogan made in the late 1970s and early 1980s for Ben Hogan Golf, commercials in which he was shown hitting shots. These are the scraps of video on which the H

Urban Legend: Mrs. Palmer on 'The Tonight Show'

Is an urban legend about golf actually a suburban legend? There's a story that's told about Arnold Palmer's wife appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson . This would be Winnie Palmer, and the time was the late '60s. According to this legend, the following snippet was part of the conversation between Winnie and Johnny: Johnny: Do you do anything for Arnold before a tournament as a sort of good-luck charm or superstition? Mrs. Palmer: I kiss his balls. Johnny: Well ... I bet that makes his putter flutter. I've heard many people tell this story. Even had one friend who insisted that he watched it in real time. But there are a couple problems with the story. First, why would Carson have Arnold Palmer's wife on the show? Winnie Palmer was not herself famous. Second, nobody who knew Winnie can imagine her going on a talk show, nor - especially - coming anywhere near such a double-entendre. And, sure enough, a check of the Johnny Carson archives

Michelle Wie's Art

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I find Michelle Wie's artwork - her paintings, watercolors, drawings, stencils, multi-medias - very interesting. I'm not an art expert or an art critic, so whether or not they are good , whether or not she displays a deep well of talent for art, I can't say. I can only say that they I'm drawn to them. They seem impressive to my untrained eye. They're intriguing. Let's take a look at some of her recent efforts: Wie posts photos of her art on her various social media platforms, particularly Instagram. She used to write on her own blog, but it's been dormant for more than a year now. However, she once wrote: ... held up the brush again in my hand and it felt glorious. it was fun to take an afternoon listening to music while painting. took my mind off everything and i love how these kinds of activities just really reset my buttons. Another time, Wie wrote: "Sometime I can't describe how I am feeling with words...so I paint...#calming" Here

Micheletti, Modano Now Married

Allison Micheletti and Mike Modano are now married. They got hitched at a wedding ceremony Sunday night at The Joule, a luxury hotel in Dallas. Before the ceremony, Allison tweeted this: "...Once in awhile, Right in the middle of an ordinary life, Love gives us a fairy tale..." ~ @9modano pic.twitter.com/KVfdx3ipjr — Allison Micheletti (@AllisonmGOLF) September 1, 2013 According to the Dallas Morning News , attendees included former hockey greats and former Modano teammates, including Brenden Morrow, Darryl Sydor, Marty Turco and Brett Hull. Some of Micheletti's former Big Break cast mates were also in attendance, including Sara Brown. The couple's engagement was announced in early June . And we first told you about this cross-sports couple in January after they met and connected over mutual loves of golf and hockey.