The fate of golf would seem to lie in the hands of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club and the United States Golf Association. Can we expect that they will protect and reverence the spirit of golf?
MAX BEHR
As we head into weekend play at The Memorial and defending champion Tiger Woods trails by ten shots, we look back at his unforgettable hole out from off the 16th green in 2012.
That's Jim Furyk talking about his February Golf Magazine interview talking about his 2012 season that was a few different swings from being a career year.
This was interesting...
Here’s the way I look at it: Amateurs come in at the end of the day, they sit down, they have a beer, and they talk about the two great shots they hit for two hours. Golf professionals come in and piss and moan about the two bad shots that cost them a 66, and were the reason they shot 68 or 69. Those two shots will keep them up at night, thinking about how they’re going to get rid of them, so they can trust their swing the next day.
Karen Crouse tells us far more than we'll ever want to know about Disney winner Charlie Beljan and his "panic attacks" (he's taken a meeting in Hollywood!).
After reading the story, I'll be putting "panic attack" in quotes when it relates to Beljan from now on since the fine print reveals this attack, for which some producer thinks is film-worthy, came when Beljan had not eaten for 20 hours. 20!
Because foraging for food can be exhausting when one’s tastes are so narrow, Beljan sometimes would not bother eating. He skipped meals and never packed food in his bag during rounds. The day of his panic attack on the golf course, he had not had a meal in nearly 20 hours. He has vowed to rectify this behavior by carrying bananas and peanut butter sandwiches this season.
And there was this about supposed panic attack sufferer Bubba Watson...
On Wednesday, Watson, the reigning Masters champion who is also in this week’s 30-man field, said he had gone to the hospital three times with panic attacks, mostly recently two years ago.
And later on Wednesday, Bubba told Golf Magazine's Cameron Morfit that his panic attacks were, in fact, caused by the same problem that plagued public golfers tracked down by the New York Times last fall in their page A1 quest to expose the widespread problem of panic attacks in golf: acid reflux.
GM: Were you stressed out at the time?
BW: What we found out now is acid reflux, which is the same nerve endings as your heart—I was eating really, really bad, really unhealthy.
I'm pleased to say the Golf Writers Association of America acknowledged Roger Chapman's improbable 2-major win season with the player of the year award. Rory and Stacy Lewis won the others, Lewis with a surprising 79% of the vote in a tough year on the LPGA side.
Doug Ferguson kicks off his annual look at field strength with a quote from Jeff Maggert about the impact the WGC events have had on the PGA Tour:
''When I started, the tournaments were very consistent week to week,'' Maggert said. ''Now there seems to be a real up-and-down on strength of fields. That's just the way the Tour has evolved. The World Golf Championships have really hurt the consistency of the rest of the tournaments out here.''
And regarding the strongest fields, non-WGC, non-major and non-The Players:
The strongest tournament not on that list was the Memorial, which attracted 15 of the top 20 players in this week's world ranking. The only other regular tournaments that had at least 10 of the top 20 were the Northern Trust Open at Riviera (12) and the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill (11).
The surprise was that nine players were at the Transitions Championship outside Tampa, Fla., which is in dire need of a title sponsor. The Copperhead course at Innisbrook is one of the best-kept secrets on Tour, and some believe it's the best tournament course in all of Florida. The other tournaments drawing at least nine players were the Phoenix Open and the Zurich Classic, which has a separate ambassador program that compensates some players in the field.
If you were away over the weekend you might have missed that Keegan Bradley reported he was heckled by a fan for anchoring his putter, and the USGA swiftly denounced this "deplorable incident."
Since Bradley's caddie didn't hear the heckle and the USGA reaction was severely overblown, Keegan seemed appropriately eager to have this go away after the final round of the World Challenge at Sherwood.
Q. Crowds today, any incidents? Everything all right?
KEEGAN BRADLEY: No, no, no. People were great. I don't want to make yesterday into too big of a deal. The people here in Sherwood were awesome.
Q. I know the USGA issued a statement. Did you get wind of that?
KEEGAN BRADLEY: Yeah, I did. That was very nice.
Be sure to cast a vote in the instant poll about the timing of the ban. We'll kick this around after a few more votes are cast.
The NY Times' Karen Crouse takes on the delicate subject of technology and tradition and I got very excited to read that the R&A's driving distance plateau talk was debunked using a little different method than the governing bodies use: the average of the 50th ranked player.
Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the R&A, said his organization and the U.S.G.A. issued a joint statement a decade ago saying they were prepared to take action if distances increased any more. “Distances have actually plateaued since then,” he said in the same conference call.
The PGA Tour statistics tell another story. In 1997, the 50th-ranked player averaged 272.3 yards. By 2002, the distance had risen to 285.0. In 2012, it was 294.7.
Typically the governing bodies will point out that in 2002 the average was 279.8 and in the case of the most recent year, the PGA Tour driving distance average was 289.1.
Because a 9.8 yard discrepancy is much more palatable than a 22.4 yard increase!
Following his impressive win in the World Challenge Presented by Northwestern Mutual, Graeme McDowell was asked about several topics and was as engaging as usual.
But I know a lot of you are tired of "You The Man" types and GMac agrees.
And let's hope there's not too much more of that going on out there. I'm kind of fed up with all this "mashed potatoes" and all this rubbish that the crowd are kind of enjoying shouting right now.
Keegan had a guy out there who was after every shot he was yabba dabba doing and it was just stupid. It's something for the players, it's not a lot of fun and it's kind of becoming a little bit of a cool thing to do for the spectators. It kind of gives them their two or three seconds of fame. But it gets a little frustrating for everyone.
Many have asked about the timing of the anchoring ban start should the Rules of Golf change become effective January 1, 2016 as the governing bodies expect. ;)
There may be no better example as to why this could be too long to wait. Keegan Bradley said he was heckled Saturday at the World Challenge (Bob Harig reports) and common sense even before Keegan's claim says that belly putterers will now be treated differently if they continue to use a method headed for a ban.
Even before the incident, this poll question was in the works for Monday based on the most frequent reaction to the ban: why wait so long?
When should the anchoring ban start? (Note: the October 7, 2013 option is the first event of the 2013-14 PGA Tour schedule. There is certainly the possibility that Commissioner Image Over Substance may consider expediting the ban to avoid having some of his players branded as cheaters.)
Full disclosure, I voted January 1, 2014 because (A) the Rules of Golf should not revolve around the PGA Tour, especially its product diluting year-round madness, and (B) this gives all golfers a year to adjust.
Geoff
**The USGA saw fit to address the incident. For Immediate Release...
STATEMENT FROM USGA ON SPECTATOR INCIDENT AT WORLD CHALLENGE
Far Hills, N.J. (December 2, 2012) – The United States Golf Association (USGA) today issued the following statement regarding yesterday’s incident at the World Challenge in which a spectator called Keegan Bradley’s use of an anchored stroke as “cheating.” The incident follows the Nov. 28 announcement by the USGA and The R&A proposing changes to the Rules of Golf that would prohibit anchoring the club in making a stroke. The proposed Rule change would take effect on January 1, 2016, in accordance with the regular four-year cycle for changes to the Rules of Golf.
“This is a deplorable incident, and there is no place in our game for this kind of behavior. As we noted when announcing proposed Rule 14-1b, it has been and remains entirely within the Rules of Golf for players to anchor the club while making a stroke. There should not be a shred of criticism of such players or any qualification or doubt about their achievements, and we think that it is inappropriate even to suggest anything to the contrary. Rule changes address the future and not the past. Up until now and until such time as a Rule change were to be implemented, golfers using an anchored stroke will have been playing by the Rules of Golf.”
“We are sorry that Keegan had to experience this unfounded criticism from an obviously uneducated spectator. Instead, Keegan and other PGA Tour professionals should be commended for their maturity and grace in managing through a proposed change to the Rules of Golf.”
“While we understand that the proposed Rules change would cause some short-term angst, we believe the new Rule would serve the long-term best interest of the game.”
A bit lost in all of the belly putter and Old Course news was a super press conference I was privileged to sit in on where Brandt Snedeker talked about life after winning the $10 million FedExCup. If you have a few minutes you'll get a kick out reading the transcript where he talks about the day the money arrived and how he has no plans to spend it other than on a new foundation. 
Jill Painter did a nice job putting his story together, hitting on Snedeker's revelation that he's still driving his 2004 Chevrolet Denali, now missing a door handle after he broke it the other day.
And this will warm tournament directors' hearts:
He played in his first Ryder Cup, and the U.S. loss still tears at him. As does the fact he hasn't played the Shell Houston Open except twice, even though he earned his first sponsor's exemption there.
"I feel awful because (executive director) Steve Timms helped me out when I was an amateur or when I first turned pro," Snedeker said.
"I haven't been able to return the favor. I know I will because I still feel indebted to him."
Doug Ferguson with a fun end of the year note about money earned if someone shot even par every week. Of course no one could play each event, still it's fun to dream what a lot of pars will get you.
Throw out the Tournament of Champions at Kapalua, the four major championships, and count the tournaments opposite the World Golf Championships. Count the money earned for finishing at even par. The total comes out to $817,142, which would be the equivalent of finishing 111th on the money list.
The only thing I love more than a YouTube dog video is a hits-grabbing slideshow, so indulge Derek Evers, Alex Myers and Sam Weinman as they hand out Turkeys from the golf year.
So, so many to choose from! Though it's hard to toss Rory McIlroy's fabulously awkward club toss at Wentworth during the BMW PGA Championship.
