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Equipment
More than 60 percent of the champions across the world's six major tours used Callaway Golf equipment in their wins. Callaway Golf Staff Professionals alone combined for 41 victories around the globe, including 13 victories by Annika Sorenstam. All told, Callaway Golf clubs, balls and Odyssey brand putters were used by hundreds of golfers in scores of worldwide wins.
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Events
Leaders from the entire spectrum of the golf industry will gather for a first-of-its-kind panel discussion on the state of the business of golf and its future, during The PGA of America's first Business of Golf Conference, Wednesday, Jan. 22, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.
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Players
Two-time LPGA champion and outgoing LPGA Tour President Gail Graham has been chosen as the 2002 recipient of the William and Mousie Powell Award by the members of the Tournament Division of the LPGA. The William and Mousie Powell Award recognizes an LPGA player who, in the opinion of her playing peers, through her behavior and deeds best exemplifies the spirit, ideals and values of the LPGA.
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LPGA Tour member Kim Williams, who joined the Tour in 1987, is the recipient of the 2002 Heather Farr Player Award. Williams was chosen for her exemplary attitude on and off the golf course, her love of and dedication to the game of golf and her perseverance in returning to a high level of competition following a variety of setbacks over that past eight years.
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Briefly
Tour Golf, Inc. is selected by Nicklaus Design to be the preferred vendor for yardage books, scorecards and yardage products. For more than 12 years, Tour Golf has been producing 3-D color yardage books for some of the country's top courses. ...

In a special edition of the award-winning Sports Innerview with Ann Liguori cable show, Ann takes her viewers on a sporting adventure at Ashford Castle, located north of Galway, in Cong, County Mayo, Ireland.ÝThe show will air on the Sunshine Network starting tonight; check local listings for other dates. ...

SHOT SELECTOR will introduce Synthetic Tee Markers at the 2003 PGA Merchandise Show. These casted units, offered in almost any color and complete with anchoring spikes, have the look and feel of real stone and wood but at a fraction of the cost. Shot Selector will display their complete line at booth No. 9433. ...

The Special Committee of ClubLink Corporation continues to urge shareholders and debentureholders to reject an offer made by Tri-White Corporation and not tender their common shares or 6 percent debentures. ClubLink is Canada's largest owner, operator and developer of high-quality courses and resorts. ...

The Toro Company reports net earnings of $5.0 million or $0.39 per share on sales of $275.4 million for the quarter ending Oct. 31.

Note
Monday's issue of The Wire will be the final one of 2002. The Wire will next be published Jan. 2, 2003. Happy holidays!

Reader's Forum What do you think was golf's biggest story this year and why do you rate it the highest? The decision of Augusta National to not admit a woman member and to maintain its stance in the face of pressure from Martha Burk; Annika Sorenstam's 11 wins in one LPGA Tour season; Tiger Woods claiming two major titles and continuing to dominate men's professional golf; the European team winning the Ryder Cup; the sharing of titles twice in Europe and Australia; the large number of first-time winners on the PGA Tour; or something else? Let us know your opinions by sending your responses to info@gpagolf.com with the subject line RE: Year-end. Also include your first initial and last name, along with your city and state or country.

Casual Friday
What's in a Name?

Changes in the game of golf happen for a reason. Most of the time.

Steel shafts replaced hickory, gutta percha balls replaced featheries, Haskell balls supplanted gutties. The reasons were simple: People played better with the new equipment. A maddening game became just a bit easier.

So why did we stop calling our clubs by the old names? A 3-wood instead of a spoon, 3-iron instead of mid-mashie? And why do some clubs still have names instead of numbers: driver, pitching wedge, sand wedge, putter?

Casual Friday doesn't know the answer, although he is sure one exists somewhere. He would guess that as golf became more popular and clubs more the products of factories instead of individual club-makers in pro shops, we lost the old names in favor of the more prosaic numbers. Perhaps it was simple as manufacturers stamping "4-iron" on the sole of the club.

A 4-iron might be more precise, but it lacks of the romance and mystique of the old club-makers' art.

Here is one list of clubs from the early 1920s: Driver--driver; 2-wood--brassie; 3-wood--spoon; 4-wood--baffey; 1-iron--cleek; 2-iron-- midiron; 3-iron--mid-mashie; 4-iron--mashie iron; 5-iron--mashie; 6-iron--spade mashie; 7-iron--mashie niblick; 8-iron--pitching niblick; 9-iron--niblick.

There were other clubs, too, such as the jigger, a thin-bladed chipping iron, and the rut-iron, a club for, what else, hitting balls from wagon ruts.

With the disappearance of horses and wagons from course maintenance, the rut-iron faded into obscurity.

You will notice that the pitching wedge and sand wedge hadn't come into being, not to mention 7- and 9-woods.

Golf was a much less technical game in the early decades of the 20th century. Harry Vardon didn't stand in the fairways St. Andrews and listen as his caddie rattled off yardages: "That's 156 to the front, 63 to the pin and 81 to to the back." Vardon would have eyeballed the shot and pulled a club. Perhaps a spade-mashie.

Nor would he would thought about core of restitution or launch angles. Game improvement was a matter of working harder.

The game was played with a simpler set of tools and simpler thoughts. It was a game of feel. Based on the player's experience, a shot might feel and look like a mid-mashie.

For most of us, at least in the United States, that's something that's gone from the game. We need those exact yardages, or think we do anyway. When Casual Friday has an approach, he will know that the shot is 163 yards to the front from the sprinkler head beside his ball, that the pin, according to the day's chart, is five yards from the front. And more than likely, he still won't pull off the shot.

That's when Casual Friday reverts to names for his clubs, the old, gritty Anglo-Saxon names, although all the names he might place before the word 5-iron are not allowed in this newsletter.

FIRST CUT

The Nationwide Tour got a bit more important this week when it was announced that next season 20 players from that tour, instead of 15, would earn promotions to the PGA Tour.

Qualifying School will lose five spots, going down to 30 graduates in 2003. Obviously, that will make next year's six rounds of Q-School even more tense.

The thinking behind the move is that nine months of excellence on the Nationwide Tour deserved more reward.

DOUBLE CLICK
http://www.lpga.com

The LPGA doesn't begin play until March, not counting their Skins game in January, but this site has done an excellent job of recounting Annika Sorenstam's record-setting 2002 season.