The 20th Hole

Last week, we're sloshed around at Pasatiempo in pouring, driving rain with temperatures in the low 40's.  A week later, we teed it up at Amata Springs Country Club in Chonbori, Thailand.  We arrived in Bangkok late Friday night and it was 88 degrees with at least 90%...

California has been pelted with rain for almost the last six weeks and I'm beginning to feel like we live in the UK.  We know this is not really true and can feel that the good weather is coming.  Our reservoirs are full, mudslides abound, our umbrellas are broken,...

February was a brutal month for the golfing public in the United States.  Those of you that live in Florida or Hawaii need not read the rest of this post.  For retirees who play four or five times a week it was a time to read a good book; and for their wives, whose...

I'm sitting here in the Lufthansa lounge in Munich, Germany suffering through a flight cancellation as I'm trying to make my way to Brian's place in Somerset, England for the weekend.  This visit was almost destined not to happen as the airline that was supposed to...

The AT&T Pro-AM has always had a checkered reputation for bad weather conditions but 2019 set a new standard.  I believed that we have had a pretty good run of warm sunshine and benign conditions generating envy throughout the rest of the country.  It's the one...

Pebble Beach It's hard to write about a tournament (Phoenix Open)  that you can't watch.  We are here in Pebble Beach and lost power for almost a day from Friday AM to Saturday night.  Extreme wind and rain have blasted the Monterrey Peninsula causing significant...

The Farmer's Insurance Open at Torrey Pines Justin Rose nailed his 10th PGA Tour victory with a methodical run of the mill, ho-hum mastery of the South Course at Torrey Pines in San Diego.  The South Course is the last venue where Tiger Woods won a major championship...

January is the worst month of the year.  It's a natural downer coming off the Christmas and  all the other holiday festivities.  The weather doesn't bother us in December but after New Year's Day, the gloom sets in.  The days are shorter and in Europe, particularly...

The professionals are in Hawaii blasting tee shots 350 yards and further in the brilliant sunshine and perfect conditions.  The PGA Tour in Hawaii requires a birdie fiesta--par just isn't a good score there.  Gary Woodlands went into the final round last week  with a...

It seemed to me that golf treaded water in 2018 with some momentum offset by the continued decline in interest in the younger segments of the population which is really the future of golf.    The most significant factor to positively impact the game's popularity was...

On December 19, we played in the Annual Pebble Beach Homeowner's Tournament at Pebble Beach Golf Links.  The competition is a foursome team event with each contestant playing their own ball.  The two best balls are then selected to determine the team score for the...

We had a conversation with my publisher yesterday and were surprised to hear that "Through the Green" was ranked No. 500 on Amazon in the Sports Genre category and  92 in the genre of Non Fiction Sports and Travel.  On Kindle the similar ranking was 70.  The publisher...

The Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelsen event occurred on Black Friday.  Readers of this blog that intended to pay $19.95 to watch these two duke it out for $9M (winner take-all) were few and far between.  Some brilliant marketing executive at AT&T conceived this idea...

I've played 3 rounds at the Kauri Cliffs golf club and the word "cliffs" is clearly operable.  The course is impossible to walk in my view but there are some brave souls that do it with a push cart or a caddy.  There's lots of distance between the holes and...

Well we finally made it.  It almost took us more time to get to Kauri Cliffs, New Zealand from Melbourne, Australia as it did from San Francisco to Auckland.  I won't elaborate about this trip as we've all had our travel miseries. Kauri Cliffs is at the north end of...