Yeah, I know it’s football season in Texas and no other sport really matters, but I’ve been wanting to pass along a few interesting tidbits from the golf world.
John Hawkins reports that Fred Couples, a fan favorite in Houston from his playing days at the University of Houston, has had a rough year, including enduring a potentially dangerous blood clot in his arm a month ago;
Dallas-based Hank Haney, who has the good fortune to be Tiger Woods’ current swing guru, isn’t as lucky in a real estate deal;
Those golf course designing brothers — Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Rees Jones, the latter of whom designed Houston’s Tournament Course at Redstone Golf Club — conduct most of their communications between each other through their lawyers. The article notes a comment from a reporter who has tracked the brothers’ careers:
Bradley Klein, who has tracked the brothers’ careers as Golfweek’s architecture editor, said Rees and Robert Jr., who goes by Bobby, probably began trying to one-up each other “in the crib.”
“They hate each other,” he said. “They are rivals in every way.”
By the way, did you notice who is currently 192nd on the PGA Tour money list? Oh well, he still has the best golf picture of the year; and
Finally, In more of the Ryder Cup post-mortem (earlier posts here, here and here), Jeff Rude makes the case that the top-125 all-exempt Tour has bred complacency and mediocrity among most of the young US players:
American golf has sunk to this new low: Not only can’t the country come close to winning Ryder Cups and Palmer Cups and various other containers you can drink out of, but only two U.S. players under 30 have won more than one PGA Tour title: Ben Curtis, 29, once thought of as a one-shot wonder after winning the 2003 British Open out of nowhere, has three victories, and Jonathan Byrd, 28, has two, including a B.C. Open the same week the big boys were at the British. [. . .]
Chris DiMarco has never won a tournament in golf’s prime season ñ March through August ñ but has made $18.7 million in official Tour earnings. There are plenty others besides three-time winner DiMarco who haven’t won many tournaments and yet have broken the bank. Consider that these four-time winners have all earned more than $13.6 million: Stewart Cink ($18.4M), Scott Verplank ($17.9M), Bob Estes ($15.5M) and Tim Herron ($13.6M). And you can win only twice and bag $14.3 million, as Jerry Kelly has proved.
Not to pick on these fine players, but the point is: One could wonder about the incentive to win, grind, dig deep and dig dirt if you can live like Jed Clampett without collecting many trophies.