|
|
A Look Back: Sept. 27 1930: Bobby Jones defeats Eugene Homans 8 and 7 to win the U.S. Amateur Championship at Merion Cricket Club in Ardmore, Pa., to complete the Grand Slam. 1964: Billy Casper wins the Seattle Open. 1981: Morris Hatalsky wins the Hall of Fame Classic by two strokes over Jerry Pate and D.A. Weibring. 1987: Europe defeats the United States 15-13 at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, for its first Ryder Cup victory on American soil. 1992: John Daly wins the B.C. Open by six strokes over Joel Edwards, Ken Green, Jay Haas and Nolan Henke. |
Events
Pledges by the PGA Tour, PGA of America and National Golf Course Owners
Association at a San Antonio patriotic rally total more than $6 million.
The rally, called "A Tribute to America," raised money for relief
efforts in New York and Washington.
|
Those wishing
to contribute to the PGA TOUR's relief efforts can write to:
|
For more...
Equipment
Four new putters join Carbite Golf's line of Polar Balanced putters.
Two of the new putters are mallet designs and two are blades -- one of
each is center-shafted and one heel-shafted. All four use the company's
Brass Balls insert material and will be available in October.
For
more...
Aviara Golf Academy
at Four Seasons Resort agrees to serve as the official place for professional
and amateur golfers to evaluate Graphite Design International's
golf clubs. GDI, which is less than one hour from the academy, makes the
YS shaft used by 19 PGA Tour winners in the past 20 months.
For
more...
The term "Dynamic
Cleat Technology" and its acronym, DCT, become fully registered trademarks
of Softspikes, makers of plastic golf cleats. The term refers to
the technology used in the company's popular Black Widow spikes that permits
the cleats to flex.
For
more...
United Turf Industries,
developer of SofTrak Putting Greens, announces that SofTrak will
be featured during TBS Network's Thursday, Sept. 27 airing of its weekly
"Man-Made Movie" at 8 p.m. ET. The segments will show a three-hole golf
course being built at the Man-Made Movie House during commercial breaks.
For
more...
People
Twelve-year LPGA professional Maggie Will provides autographed
golf balls, rounds of golf at Pinehurst and 2005 U.S. Open merchandise
to Ebay.com's Auction for America. The goal of the auction is to collect
$100 million for relief efforts in New York and Washington.
For
more...
Courses
Plans
begin for a fourth golf course at Ocean Ridge Plantation in North
Carolina. The residential community already boasts three championship
18-hole courses.
For
more...
Instruction
Full Swing
Golf installs three golf simulators at the Schenley Park Golf Course
in Pittsburgh for use in its First Tee program. The simulators let kids
play their choice of 38 courses in a 18x13x10-foot unit that features
a wall-sized hitting/viewing screen and a large hitting mat which simulates
tee box, fairway, light and heavy rough, sand traps and putting green.
For
more...
Apparel
Perry Ellis introduces the PING Apparel Collection for 2002. One
of the key items in the collection is the "PING Stretch" basic knit golf
shirt that will retail for $50.
For
more...
|
The
19th Hole Editor's note: Following are e-mails received in response to the Wednesday, Sept. 19 Commentary. The Wire welcomes any response to issues regarding golf. Please include your first initial and last name, along with an e-mail address and send to info@gpagolf.com. Laura
Diaz's comments about using sex to promote the LPGA are well taken.
I have attended several LPGA events in order to watch a great game
played by so many beautiful women. Caddying for any of these ladies
on tour would be the ultimate treat for me or any one who appreciates
what the these ladies and the LPGA has done for golf. |
Five Questions
Mike Hughes
Executive Director
of the National Golf Course Association
The
NGCOA, with its mission of helping independent golf course owners, is
currently made up of about 4,500 golf courses and 3,500 individual members
with a majority of those courses in the United States. Tuesday the association
unveiled On Course America, a fundraiser in which courses all over the
United States will donate proceeds from rounds played Oct. 19-21 to the
Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.
Q.: After the disaster of Sept. 11, how did the On Course America initative get started?
A.: It was really a spontaneous outpouring from the membership that caused it to happen. They were all contacting us saying what can we do how can we help. One of the staff members here, Jay Karen, said why don't we do something to coordinate the efforts of all of our members and make this thing more significant.
Q.: With so many different initiatives going on was it difficult to come up with something that was going to be meaningful and yet serve the people who need it?
A.: We knew that the Red Cross disaster relief was an overall relief effort that was going to be effective and managed well, so that wasn't a problem.
The question then became what do we do? The most logical answer of course was to mobilize the golf courses and the golfers in the relief effort in the actual playing of the game. That was a pretty logical and easy solution to come up with.
Q.: How does this project work and what are your goals for On Course America?
A.: The primary mechanism for actually signing on and activating is the Web site, oncourseamerica.com. If people are interested is supporting the effort they go on the Web site and it tells them exactly how to do it. In terms of the proceeds, the proceeds should be earmarked directly to the Red Cross Disaster Relief effort and then we act as a collection agency for those, as a pass through of those contributions on to the Red Cross. What that does by acting as sort of the funnel point we can tally the number and we know exactly what kind of impact the programs had.
We expect after all our efforts are complete that every golf course in the United States will be aware of the program.
Q.: How many do you believe will participate?
A.: We'll have to see how that goes. We know that there is tremendous enthusiasm and support from our membership. We will have to see how the other courses respond.
Q.: The dates for the events are set for 19th to 21st of October. Will that weekend be the end of the initiative?
A.: We will include any effort through the month of October and beyond that specifically for this relief effort. We just picked those dates as a unifying date. We also wanted to do something before the golf courses in the Northern tier shut down because of their short season.