Philly-Mick Coming to the SHO

The HGA told us yesterday that Phil Mickelson committed to playing in the Shell Houston Open. That means Houston's tour stop will have Adam Scott, Ernie Els, and Phil. Time to pack the house and represent, people! Bear in mind though that golfers can be pretty fickle about their commitments. Last year the HGA was expecting both Colin Montgomerie and Seve Ballesteros to play, but neither ended up hitting a shot at Redstone. Mickelson typically plays in to the Masters, but obstained last year when the PGA Tour switched the pre-Masters date from the BellSouth Classic (in Georgia, 30 minutes away from Augusta) to Houston. However, players were falling all over themselves heaping praises on the course conditioning and Masters-esque setup at Redstone in 2007. Guess word percolated.

Did you happen to catch professional football contest?

The clip above is from the classic Eddie Murphy comedy "Coming to America." Freaky, huh?

Here's an interview posted on golf.com with Eli Manning about his golf game:

When did you take up golf?
When I was about 10 or 11. But I've kind of just picked it up again in the off-season.

Your family's full of football players, but do you guys tee it up together?
Oh, yeah. We usually go out a few times a year, my dad [Archie] and my two brothers [Peyton and Cooper]. It's a great way to spend time away from everything.

What's your handicap?
I never tell. I don't want anybody holding me to it!

Is there any strategy that you can apply to both football and golf?
Visualize, then execute. In football, you picture the throw you need to make. Obviously in golf you don't have a guy running up trying to sack you, so you have an opportunity to really visualize what you're going to do before you actually do it.

Linebackers in golf — you just solved the slow-play problem! We hear you're a karaoke fan. Are you a better golfer or singer?

[Laughs] Well, I'm not very good at either. But I guess that's the great thing about singing and golf: you don't have to be any good at either to have fun.

Jimmy Demaret said the same thing about golf and something else, but this is a family blog.

Soapbox

I mean...Really?

I know this ridiculousness doesn't have anything to do with local golf, but as a journalist working at a golf magazine I had to espouse on this. In case you haven't heard, a couple weeks ago Golf Channel broadcaster Kelly Tilighman made a racially insensitive remark when she jokingly said that the only way young American players could stop Tiger Woods would be to gang up on him and "lynch him in a back alley."

In an appropriate response, The Golf Channel suspended Tilighman for two weeks. You should know that Tiger and Tilighman are friends. In fact, a couple weeks before the incident, Tilighman hosted a Nike Golf event in which Tiger debuted Nike's new line of clubs. After the gaffe, Tilighman apologized on-air, and called Woods personally to apologize, which Woods accepted. Tiger then issued a statement through his agent that he felt their was no racist intent in Tilighman's use of the word. End of story, right?

Just when the furor was beginning to die down GolfWeek busted out with the cover below.

As you can imagine, the cover received an overwhelmingly negative reaction. PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem called it "tabloid journalism" and called the article "outrageous and irresponsible." I agree.

Here are some of GolfWeek's editor David Seanor's comments:

"We're a weekly news magazine. The big story of the previous week was Kelly Tilghman, and that's what we chose," Seanor said. "How to illustrate that? It was tough. Do you put Kelly Tilghman out there? But was it so much about her or the uproar?

"I wish we could have come up with something that made the same statement but didn't create as much negative reaction," he said. "But as this has unfolded, I'm glad there's dialogue. Let's talk about this, and the lack of diversity in golf."

Clearly, Seanor thought he'd be fostering discussion about African-Americans in golf and on the uproar itself. Instead he's guilty of the same crime as Tilighman: underestimating and/or being ignorant of the emotional impact of one of the darkest (and most unreported chapters) in American history. That's the heart of the issue. People just don't understand the connotation the word carries.

For the greater part of this country's history, African-Americans and other minorities were systematically tortured and murdered for no other reason than skin color. I'm not exaggerating. Torture and murder. That's what lynching is: Americans committing terrorism against their fellow citizens. They mainly occurred from right after the Civil War into 1930s. There was a infamous lynching as recently as 1981 in Mobile, Ala. I'm fain to put a direct links to any specific educational websites because of the extremely graphic nature, but a good online exhibit is "withoutsanctuary.org" WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC CONTENT. When I saw these photos I wanted to vomit. It's on par with photos of Holocaust victims. Maybe Seanor and Tilinghman didn't learn about stuff like this in school, I don't know. I'm 22, and in high school we were taught about the lynching of Emmit Till and how outrage over the 14-year-old's murder initiated the American Civil Rights movement.

The difference between Seanor and Tilighman is that Tilighman committed a slip of tongue in the heat of the moment. That's forgivable, but deserving of punishment. Tilighman was suspended for two weeks and this incident will follow her for the rest of her career. Suitable enough. Seanor had time to mull over the decision before running the image of a swinging noose. Far worse. It's always unfortunate when someone looses a job, but Seanor has since been replaced as editor of GolfWeek magazine.

In closing, I'd like to point you to how GolfWorld handled the issue. Al Barkow wrote an amazing story about one man's struggle to integrate professional golf and the hurdles he faced. It's a great read and really makes you think about the struggles of the many nameless golfers to earn the right to tee it up.


If you've made it this far, thanks. Again, I understand that this post has little to do with the stuff we write about in Houston Links. But people who have read this blog for awhile know what a sensitive subject this is for me. I welcome the chance to discuss an issue like this.

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Oh by the way. Cage won. Anyone see that? Go Woodlands!

Curtis Cup Teams Announced

The USGA announced the Curtis Cup team yesterday.

The Woodland's Stacy Lewis is on it, as are both members of the 2007 U.S. Spirit Team, Amanda Blumnherst and Tiffany Joh. Lewis is a senior at Arkansas, while Blumenherst and Joh are juniors at Duke and UCLA, respectively.

The Curtis Cup will be played May 30-June 1 at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. Lewis plans to turn pro after the Cup.

EPIC Post

Sorry for the delay, but I hope everyone of Houston Links' readers enjoyed the holiday season, because I sure did!

Let's get to it.

One of the things on my Christmas List was a new pair of all-black golf shoes and a nice pair of slacks. I know, I know. My inner-child is disgusted. Anyway, I broke them in while in Austin with my cousin Dylan and brother-in-law E.Z. We played a quick nine holes at the venerable Hancock Golf Course in Austin. And I do mean venerable. Hancock claims to be the oldest golf course in the state. In actuality, it's the oldest golf course in continuous use. Hancock was the original site of the Austin Country Club. It was where Harvey Penick picked up the game. Pretty much everyone from Ben Hogan, to Byron Nelson, to William Howard Taft played there. It's the Austin equivalent of Gus Wortham. Like Gus it's a long way removed from it's glory days. Dad used to play there as a kid, and he said everyone used to derisively call it "Hardrock." It lives up to the moniker, but I later read that the conditions have improved. If that's the case I would've hated to see it before.

That said, it was a fun course with some neat holes. The funny thing is, Hancock, the lowest common denominator of the Austin golf scene (which was recently voted Best Golf City in the country), has more hills, elevation changes, blind shots and undulations than you would find in almost any course in Houston. There's just no substituting for the Hill Country. That's why I was actually pleased to shoot a 52. I took a nine on one hole when I smoked a 5-iron over a hill toward the green, only to crest the hill and discover the green almost 70 yards closer than where I though it was. Look out cars on 32nd street!

2008 is an exciting time at the magazine. As those who read our January issue will discover we've made a new hire. Mark Button left his post as editor of Avid Golfer Houston to become executive editor at Houston Links. He's really going to help us come tournament time and also do a better job of cultivating relationships with our advertisers and readers. Kevin was telling me the other day that when you work as hard as he, Kenny, and I do you don't have as much time to get out and press the flesh and put a face with the content that I hope y'all have been enjoying. Mark is going to change that. Plus, no more two-a-day USGA qualifiers for me!

Funny story about Mark. The first time I met him was at U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying at Lakeside in 2006. I was on my way to follow somebody, when he drove up in a golf cart and said, "Hey are you with Houston Links?" I told him that I was and he said, "Bastard." AG and HL, are competitors, you see. Mark was joking, and we exchanged pleasantries for a bit. But no one insults Alex Blair, so I've spent the time since then planning an elaborate prank that has yet to come to fruition. You'll RUE THE DAY, BUTTON!!! (I jest...or do I?)

Also from a business standpoint, we'll be discontinuing our free subscription service sometime in 2008. Hold your horses and let me explain. See, the most important this for us is that our readers who care enough about our publication to subscribe get the convenience of having their magazine in the timely manner. We pay good money to post office to ensure that your magazine gets there on time, but that hasn't happen. A lot of subscribers I talk to say, "Oh yeah I subscribe, but I pick up the magazine at the course so I can get it quicker." Most of the time, my parents in Sugar Land get the new issue after we've gone to press on the next issue, about the 15th of every month! That ain't right. So we'll be asking about $40 for a premium delivery service, which we hope to offset with some other benefits. This includes access to the magazine's content on the web (no more huge PDFs; website improvement will be big for 08), and access to all the photos we take at tournaments (no more waiting on me to e-mail them to you). There will be some other neat swag to boot. When it comes down to it, I think the product we put out every month merits this, and I hope you agree. But if you have some reservations, relax. This is still on the drawing board and we're not going to go forward with this until we know we can do it right. So please continue enjoying free home delivery service!

Add a new title to my Houston Links position of Managing Editor/ Photography/ Columnist / Blogger. Head Mover. Kevin redecorated the office with a new desk, new table for me to work on, and a newer, faster, sexier computer to help him work faster. Of course, who moved most of that furniture up to the third floor AND had to pull of a nifty bungie cord job to fit all that stuff into his truck? Yo. It was pretty awesome driving down the 610 feeder at 35 mph with my blinkers on, bed cover up, and tailgate down. Anyone see me? Kevin squared the deal with a sixer of Dunkelweizen, though. I'm a Shiner fan.

I read Game of Shadows during Christmas and gee did it make me paranoid about steroids in athletics. It really got me wondering about golf, and this year being the first year for testing. Before reading that book I was in the camp of "They need to have it for propriety's sake." I'm now in the camp of "Someone might be taking something." Dr. Bill Bryan wrote an excellent column about steroids and golf in our November issue. Here's where I come out on it: The same arguments on why steroids wouldn't help in golf were once used for baseball. "It's an a tempo thing. Muscled will get in the way of much-needed flexibility. It won't help hand-eye coordination." Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Here's the thing, you don't have to be a hulked-out bodybuilding wacko to benefit from the juice. Look at Andy Pettite. No one would have ever thought he used, but he did...to recover from injury faster. You can't tell me there are no golfers out there who wouldn't use HGH or another designer steroid to recover from an injury faster and have a shot at winning $1 million a year.

Can you believe this stupidity about Kelly Tilighman? Look, it was incredibly stupid. But when people are on the air for five hours talk-talk-talking stupid things happen. I refuse to believe that she said what she said with any racist intent. If she had said "mug" instead of "lynch" there would be no problem. Maybe she needs to put down the thesaurus, I don't know. Besides, Tiger and Kelly are friends, they've talked, he whole-heartedly accepted her apology, end of story. We don't need you involved, Al Sharpton! Golf Observer, one of my favorite websites has a good analysis of the situation.

COOL!

You've got to read this story about PGA Tour player Will MacKenzie. Party on, brah. Hope you can make it to SHO 2008.

That's all I have for now, have a wonderful day!