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| A Look Back: Dec. 3 1950: Sam Snead wins the Miami Open. 1961: Gay Brewer wins the West Palm Beach Open, his second straight win of the season. 1967: Marty Fleckman makes his PGA Tour debut a memorable one, defeating Jack Montgomery in a playoff to win the Cajun Classic. 1972: Jack Nicklaus cruises to the Walt Disney World Open title, finishing nine strokes ahead of Jim Dent, Bobby Mitchell, and Larry Wood. 1978: The United States wins the World Cup of Golf by 10 strokes over Australia at Princeville Maka Golf Club in Hawaii. American John Mahaffey, who teammed with Andy North, wins the individual title. |
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Events
Organizers of
the $5 million dunhill links championship announce the event will be played
from October 3-6, 2002, at St. Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns Golf Links.
The tournament, which was first staged last October, will be part of the 2002
European Tour International schedule.
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more...
Se Ri
Pak withdraws from the Hyundai Team Matches Dec. 7-9 to be with her ailing
father in Korea. Pak will be replaced by Janice Moodie, who will now team with
Lorie Kane for this match play event at Monarch Beach Golf Links in Dana Point,
Calif.
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Architecture
Arnold
Palmer and Ed Seay, founders of Palmer Course Design Company, celebrate
30 years of working together to design golf courses. The two men met in December
1971 and their first collaboration, the Manago Country Club in Japan, opened in
1974.
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People
Former
Thai soldier Jaidee Thongchai claims the Davidoff Tour Order of Merit title
after earning $10,712 by finishing the Omega Hong Kong Open in a tie for 13th.
Thongchai won once, finished in the top 10 ten times, and missed only one cut
all season to best Korean Charlie Wi by more than $37,000 for the crown.
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Disabled
golfer Casey Martin joins more than 700 participants at the Hartford Ski
Spectacular in Colorado, the nation's largest winter sports festival for people
with physical disabilities. Hartford Life, which sponsors the event, also sponsors
Martin.
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Courses
Golfers
will have the opportunity to play the Old Course at St. Andrews earlier
in the day for four months next summer following a recent decision by the Links
Management Committee. During May-August, the Old Course will open at 6:30 a.m.
-- a half hour earlier than its usual opening time. This will make over 250 extra
tee times available.
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more...
Real
estate investment trust Golf Trust of America closes on the sale of Cypress
Creek Country Club in Florida. True Shot, LLC, a Florida company, purchased the
course for $4.1 million.
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more...
Retail
Distributors
of three-wheel golf push cart Kaddy Stroller reach agreements with Golf
Galaxy, Copeland's Sports, Nevada Bob's, Don Sherwood's Golf and Tennis World,
as well as select Edwin Watts Stores, to have Kaddy Stroller products sold through
more than those retailers' more than 40 specialty golf stores.
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more...
Apparel
Golf
clothing design and marketing firm Cutter & Buck sign a license agreement
with Leed's, maker of small leather goods including golf items, to produce a line
of casual bags. The new bags will be sold under the Cutter & Buck brand.
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People, Places &
Things
Alignment
Made Easier: Odyssey 2-Ball Putter
Former British Open champion Paul Lawrie stood on the 18th green at St. Andrews' Old Course and took a deep breath. With the dreaded "Valley of Sin" between his ball and the hole, his chances of winning the Dunhill Links Championship were fading. He would need to sink this difficult 40-footer for the victory, his first since the 1999 Open.
Lawrie sunk the putt, claiming the trophy and drawing plenty of attention to his brand-new and rather odd-looking putter, the Odyssey White Hot 2-Ball. He'd put it in his bag on the eve of the tourney and called attention to it with strong play, which included a third-round 63.
"To have a major championship winner like Paul Lawrie put the Odyssey White Hot 2-Ball Putter in play -- and use it to win the first week it was in his bag -- is tremendous validation for this new product," said Ron Drapeau, president, CEO and chairman of Callaway Golf, which makes putters under the Odyssey brand. "Several top golfers have already put the Odyssey White Hot 2-Ball Putter in play, and we're very excited about the amount of attention it is receiving."
From October, when Lawrie won at St. Andrews, to now, the offbeat 2-Ball putter has attracted pros, golf writers and everyday duffers searching for a way to hole more putts -- and it won't even hit the market until January. Twenty-three pros, including Lawrie, used the putter the first week it was available to tour players. Bruce Fleisher, Charles Howell III and Annika Sorenstam all found success with the putter.
Why are so many people be interested in this large mallet putter with two golf-ball sized white circles behind the center of the face? Because of the visual assistance those two circles give the golfer when he's lining up a putt. With the actual ball in play forming the third circle, the golfer can see whether the putter is square to the target if all three balls form a line.
"In our testing, the vast majority of golfers who used the White Hot 2-Ball Putter increased their accuracy compared with their previous putter," said Richard C. Helmstetter, senior executive vice president of research and development and chief of new products for Callaway Golf. "Improved accuracy is a function of seeing the line better, and that leads to golfers feeling more comfortable -- which results in a more confident putting stroke on a regular basis."
But, like most things under the sun, the 2-Ball putter is nothing new. In fact, the concept for the club came from putting guru Dave Pelz, who introduced a Three-Ball putter in the 1980s. Pelz' putter featured three actual golf ball-like orbs behind the face, and it was used by PGA Tour pros Tom Jenkins and D.A. Weibring for a time.
"I realized I could make a long, white, dotted line appear if I made the putter out of golf balls, and set them in a straight line behind the ball in play," Pelz wrote in his 1989 book, Putt Like the Pros. "The longer this line of golf balls is, the more accurately you can aim that line."
But alas for Pelz, after the putter's introduction, the USGA ruled that the distance from face to back of a putter cannot be longer than the distance from the heel to the toe, making the Three-Ball putter non-conforming. Callaway's incarnation of the Pelz putter limits the line of "golf balls" to two so it will conform to USGA rules. But the concept remains the same.
"I had been struggling with my putting until this week," Lawrie said after winning at St. Andrews. "My ball-striking had been good, but I couldn't make the putts. All that's changed now. I really have confidence with this new putter."
And Odyssey has confidence that you will find the 2-Ball putter too good to pass up at any price. The putter will retail for $215, and will be available in right-handed and left-handed models in lengths from 33 to 36 inches.