I’m taking a break from golf blogging until next year. See you then.
I thought I’d done my last post of 2009 but there’s new news in the Tiger Woods situation.
AT&T has dropped Tiger Woods. The AT&T logo will no longer be on Tiger’s bag. Furthermore, Tiger won’t be hosting the AT&T National PGA Tour event, an event he has hosted since 2007.
AT&T has also been the primary sponsor of the Tiger Jam concert event in Las Vegas, but that contract has now expired. I doubt they’ll renew.
Well it has been an interesting year for me in the world of golf and in my personal life.
My golf game got worse technically, from a 1 to a 3.8, probably due to lack of concentration on my part. That’s because of non golf related issues getting in the way. I hope to bring that handi back down in ’10 and have a better year on and off the course.
Anna Rawson never returned my phone calls…
Tiger didn’t win a major, but won 6 times.
Tiger’s mistresses surface and a media frenzy happens.
TGS’s new dedicated server worked great. I went through a couple of format/template changes (hopefully improving the site).
The TGS Shop got up and running and made a few sales over the year.
My University of Utah Utes football team won the Sugar Bowl and ended up #2 in the country.
My best friend Alan played golf at St. Andrews with Boynie as his caddie. They called me from a pub! Alan called me from the 1st tee and told me “I’m touching the 1st tee with my hand.” I said “Take a picture.” He said, ” Every great the game has seen in its history has stood at this spot.”
I played the TPC Sawgrass Stadium course.
This year I met Anna Rawson, Rocco Mediate, Fuzzy Zoeller, Hale Irwin, David Leadbetter, Duffy Waldorf, Smokey Robinson.
TGS membership grew from 3800 to 4900 over the year (no advertising).
TGS visitors went from 4.3 million to over 7 million.
I had a bout of the shanks, changed irons 3 times.
I shot a 65 in my men’s league on “ladies’ day” where we played from the ladies’ tees.
Withdrew from the city amateur on my home course because of back problems.
A guy hit me in the ass from 3 feet with his driver on the driving range.
My youtube video views topped 1 million, then 2 million.
I vowed to play a golf hole naked if Sergio Garcia won the Masters. Pretty safe bet.
I won the money title in my men’s club.
| As 2009 comes to a close it is time for my annual HOG SPACE awards. For those new readers, HOG is short for my blog Hooked On Golf Blog. SPACE is short for my golf networking site called The Golf Space.
The awards come in no particular order. Just how they leak out of my cranium. Drum roll please… |
| Player of the year & “Playa” of the year |
Tiger Woods
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| Best golf course I played in 2009 |
Black Mesa in New Mexico, pictured below. And yes I played TPC Sawgrass this year and like Black Mesa better… |
Black Mesa, New Mexico
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| Best new driver |
TaylorMade r9. I would have picked the Nike STR8-Fit, but since my STR8-Fit head caved in and Nike wouldn’t replace it, I’m awarding the best new driver to TaylorMade’s r9.
|
| Best new golf accessory |
Sumi-G Head Covers
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| Best putter I played in 2009 |
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| Best irons |
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| Best new golf ball |
Bridgestone B330-RX
|
| Best golf shoe (tie) |
FootJoy Icon and Puma Swing GTX tie for best golf shoe of 2009. Tough choice.
 
|
| Best resort, mud bath and spa I reviewed |
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| Best new golf apparel item |
Sumi-g Dormy Belt
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| Best new golf company |
Winner of the best new apparel item and best new accessory, SUMI-G is hands down the best new golf company for 2009! |
| Funniest, yet useful golf gag item |
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| Best new golf site |
Home of Golf by Andy Brown. Andy is great and does great video interviews from Scotland. |
| Best golf site for women |
The Golf Girl (needs new URL) |
| Best golf blog (tie) |
This is a tie between Geoff Shackelford and Armchair Golf Blog |
| Shot of the year |
I hole out a 5-iron for eagle on a par-4. |
The mother ship of golf web sites has a redesign for 2010. PGATour.com’s new design (pictured below) is such a big improvement over last year. It is very clean and sharp looking. Best of all it isn’t all jumbled and chaotic like last year’s design. Last year’s was hard to navigate since the links and menus and styles were all over the map. Kudos to pgatour.com for the new design. I’ll probably spend more time there now as a result.
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