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Business
Carbite Golf, maker of Polar Balanced putters and wedges, reports that it has laid off the majority of its work force and suspended most of its normal business operations.
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People
Cleat maker Softspikes hires Greg Fudge as Director of Sales. In that position, he will oversee domestic sales efforts and manage a staff of account managers and sales representatives.
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Equipment
According to the independent Darrell Survey, Softspikes brand cleats are the No. 1 choice among players competing this week at the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship in Scarborough, N.Y. Seventy players in the field are wearing the brand.
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Nike Golf officials are presented with the results of a survey conducted by the Golf Digest Companies' Research Resource Center in which the respondent base rated Nike's Forged Titanium Driver an 8.2 on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 represents the highest possible level of satisfaction.
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Courses
The Irvine Company contracts with Environmental Golf to provide course maintenance at its California courses Pelican Hill and Oak Creek. In addition, Environmental Golf announces it will provide maintenance services for Bonaventure Resort in Florida.
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Briefly
Gauge Design Golf had 16 putters in play at last week's Iiyama Cup on the Japanese PGA Tour. As well, Shingo Katayama will use the GAA1 model at the PGA Championship. ...

All-American SportPark reports revenues for the second quarter of 2002 of $674,660 compared to $662,976 in the second quarter of 2001. Losses from continuing operations and loss per share for the quarter were $45,735 or $0.01 per share compared to year 2001 amounts of $107,799 or $0.03 per share. ...

Sports Entertainment Enterprises announces its second-quarter revenues dropped to $832,782 compared to $872,175 in the second quarter of 2001, while losses increased to $50,326 from $4,100. ...

Integrated Business Systems Inc. hires Brian D. Hall as its new West Coast Account Manager, working out of Sacramento, Calif.

 

Reader's Forum Should the USGA allow amateurs to use drivers with a higher spring-like effect, or are they right to set one limit for all players? What would you tell the manufacturers who were operating under the earlier proposal and designed high COR clubs for use in the U.S.? Let us know your opinions by sending your responses to info@gpagolf.com with the subject line RE: USGA Ruling. Also include your first initial and last name, along with your email address.

Casual Friday
Remembering Hagen

In the midst of the 84th PGA Championship, Casual Friday would like to pay brief homage to one of the undervalued giants of the game, Walter Hagen.

The winner of 11 major professional championships, second only to Jack Nicklaus' 18, Hagen owned the PGA Championship for a period in the 1920s, winning five titles in seven years and four straight from 1924-27. This was during the difficult and unpredictable days of match play when one bad round, or even one bad hole, meant a trip back home.

From 1914-32, Hagen also won four British Opens and two U.S. Opens. He won the Western Open, then considered a professional major, five times.

Of course, his primary competition, at least for the British and U.S. Open championships, was Bobby Jones. It is Jones who is remembered today as the supreme golfer, the quintessential amateur (whether strictly true or not), the great gentleman who created a world and a tournament of his own in Augusta, Ga.

Hagen is more famous for his panache, for his showmanship and gamesmanship than he is for his game. That's a pity. Although he had an awkward swing, a sort of quick backswing with a stiff lurch at the end, it worked for him. His swing looked much like those you see at your own course any day of the week.

Bad shots were simply part of Hagen's game. In fact, they helped build his legend as player who was going to win, not matter what. In a famous exhibition match against Jones in 1926, Hagen was 2-up in the afternoon when the twosome came to the sixth hole. Jones' drive was perfect; Hagen's was in the rough behind a tree. After Jones put his approach within 12 feet of the hole, Hagen tried to cut a midiron around the tree. Instead, he topped the ball. It rolled down the fairway, through a bunker and within 10 feet of the pin. Jones missed his birdie, Hagen made and the match had turned.

One British golf writer said that Hagen "makes more bad shots in a single season than Harry Vardon did during the whole period 1890-1914. But he beats more immaculate golfers because three of 'those' and one of 'them' count four, and he knows it."

Even writers in his own day wrote more about his style, his flamboyance, than his game. The legends swirling around Hagen -- the beautiful women, the champagne picnics, his arrival at the first tee still in his tuxedo from the previous night's festivities -- are what we think of when Hagen is mentioned. The liquor some smelled on Hagen's breath at the first tee was another bit of gamesmanship, the same as the long waits some opponents had to endure before Hagen ever showed on the tee.

Hagen was a great golfer, but he was also a great performer, a man who loved the attention of the galleries. Fans would come to tournaments just to see Hagen. In fact, Hagen probably was the first golfer to realize that part of the game was being an entertainer. Jones hated the limelight; Hagen loved it.

Hagen also helped raise the status of professional golfers at a time when they were considered hired help, unworthy of stepping into clubhouses of the rich and famous.

The late 1920s and then the '30s, of course, were difficult times in America and much of the world. Hagen was trying to earn a living with his clubs. Perhaps that is why after winning his first PGA Championship in 1921, he chose not to defend the title the next season, opting for a series of more lucrative exhibition matches.

Maybe that says something about Hagen, but it probably says more about the early days of professional golf, when the paycheck was worth more than the hardware.

FIRST CUT

If you'd like to know more about Hagen, the best source of information is Stephen R. Lowe's Sir Walter and Mr. Jones, published in 2000 by Sleeping Bear Press. The book not only examines the lives of both men, but Lowe does a terrific job of presenting the two men in the times in which they lived.

For his work, Lowe was awarded the USGA International Book Award.

DOUBLE CLICK
www.pga.com

At the Internet home of the PGA of America, you'll find the nuts of bolts of the PGA Championship, from live scoring to brief histories of each of the previous championships.