2010 was a hell of a year on many levels. I’m going to break it down into three categories: The Golf World, HOG and Personal. Today’s post will be The Golf World category.
Man did a lot of amazing things happen in the 2010 golf world!? There are so many threads to the Tiger Woods story, which by every account on nearly every golf media outlet, was the biggest story of the year.
Not a lot of fist pumps in 2010 for TW.
Tiger Woods
Here’s a quick bullet list of all that which comprises the Tiger story for 2010, in no particular order. I’m sure I’m missing something, but these are straight out of my cerebral cortex:
The Tiger Woods divorce.
The big televised apology.
Sponsors dropping Tiger, resulting in an estimated $48 million drop in earnings for TW.
The mistresses and all of their whackiness, trying to find some way of milking TW or whoever else’s tit they could suckle.
Tiger loses #1 ranking to Lee Westwood, on Halloween.
Tiger plays the entire calendar year of 2010 without a win.
Tiger on another losing Ryder Cup team.
Tiger changes putters from the Scotty Cameron to the Nike Method.
Tiger’s return at The Masters. I watched him on the Tuesday practice round.
Tiger records worst 18 hole score of his professional career.
Tiger’s coach Hank Haney resigns, clarifying that it was his decision and not Tiger’s.
Guy tries to sell Tiger’s Titleist irons on ebay for $250,000.
Tail of the Tiger golf balls come out, creator sued by TW mistresses.
Tiger fails to qualify for the Tour Championship.
Though he doesn’t typically play it anyway, he doesn’t qualify for the Hyundai Championship (formerly The Mercedes) in Hawaii.
Tiger posts his first twitter tweet.
New photos of Tiger Woods home are released, complete with golf practice facility in the back yard.
Dustin Johnson had a tough, but great year
Dustin Johnson
Dustin Johnson had two majors in the palm of his hands but couldn’t seal the deal. He had a three shot lead on Sunday at the US OPEN but eventually lost that by going triple-bogey, double-bogey (including a shanked chip), to eventual winner Graeme McDowell.
PGA Championship’s “Bunker Gate” was one of the craziest finishes I’ve seen in a major championship. The grounding of the club by DJ on that 18th hole approach which cost him a penalty and a spot in the playoff was mind boggling.
Later DJ won the BMW during the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Furyk won the FedEx Cup and all the cash
Jim Furyk
Jim Furyk was steady Eddie all year, and proved that the tortoise wins the race. Despite being DQ’d for missing a pro-am after sleeping in, Jim won the FedEx cup and the $10 million prize. Hey Jim, got any spare cash I can borrow?
Ryder Cup
As I predicted, the USA Ryder Cup team lost to Europe. At the end, it turned out to be a closer match than I anticipated and the finish was exciting. Hunter Mahan felt the pressure and didn’t perform as well as he wanted, and in the post round interviews was so shaken up that he couldn’t really talk.
Two 59’s This Year
Stuart Appleby (comeback player of the year) shot a 59 at the Old White course, Greenbriar Classic. Paul Goydos also shot a 59 at the John Deer.
Jail Time For Jim Thorpe
Champions Tour player Jim Thorpe was jailed for tax evasion.
33/1 odds to win the money title a 2nd year in a row
Matt Kuchar
Matt Kuchar won the money title with a great surge at the end of the season. I vividly remember standing behind Matt on #15 at Augusta last April. Fun stuff.
Ian Poulter
Poulter won is first tournament on US soil thanks to a spectacular short game display.
Puerto Rico Open
I attended the PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open, hung out with a bunch of PGA Tour guys and shot a lot of photos. Gained a new respect his raw talent when I followed around John Daly.
JD's pants were the story
John Daly
Speaking of John Daly, it seems like JD’s pants were more of a story than his golf game in 2010.
Lorena Ochoa
In a very surprising and unexpected event, #1 LPGA player Lorena Ochoa retired in her prime.
The Masters
I attend my first Masters practice round with my dad my son and my best friend. My group shoots over 1100 photos of Augusta National and the Masters! What a great experience.
Phil Mickelson won the 2010 Masters.
Phil Mickelson
Speaking of Phil, he had the chance to gain the #1 world ranking but faded a bit in the latter half of the season. It was then revealed that Phil was diagnosed with severe psoriatic arthritis.
Cobra
Acushnet sells Cobra to Puma.
"Tiger's bulging d*ck"
Tiger’s Bulging Dick?
Hot Golf Channel babe Win McMurry had a hilarious Freudian slip and talked about Tiger’s bulging “dick.”
Rory McIlroy’s 62
At Quail Hollow, Rory McIlroy fired a stunning 62 to win.
Oosthuizen
Excuse me? Fetch you a tissue? Louis Oosthuizen wins the (British) Open Championship at St. Andrews.
Erica Blasberg
In a very strange and mysterious event, Erica Blasberg was found dead in her residence in Las Vegas.
Cigar Guy
A guy wearing a fake wig, mustache and smoking a cigar was seen in the crowd at the Ryder Cup in a picture where Tiger Woods hit the photographer.
Cigar Guy
“Cigar Guy” was born and became a huge sensation all over the web.
Tiger turns 35 today
Today is Tiger Woods’ 35th birthday.
Happy birthday from HOG to TW.
Who do you think will win the money title in 2011? I really doubt anyone thought that Matt Kuchar would win it in 2010.
With the PGA Tour staring up next week, the odds makers have come out with their odds to win the 2011 PGA Tour money title. Keep in mind, the odds makers aren’t necessarily trying to predict the money winner. They’re hedging their odds based on the action they anticipate in such a way that they’ll make a profit.
Tiger Woods tops the list and is at 1/1 odds.
Next is Phil Mickelson at 8/1. Phil has never won a money title, and odds are he won’t again, despite likely having some wins and perhaps even a major championship.
Jim Furyk and Dustin Johnson are 14/1 odds.
Matt Kuchar (2010 money title winner) is an amazing 33/1. Ah, hindsight.
It has been great, but I’m looking forward to the end of the holiday season and the beginning of 2011!
The year is ending and the chaos of all the holiday parties and running around from function to function is finally coming to a close. January 2nd will mark the first non-chaotic day in my household since mid November. Lack of sleep, too much food, too many adult beverages over the last month have compromised my cerebral cortex and caused me to not be able to deduce that 50 divided by 52 is not 2.1….
Can’t see too good (Ah the Jerky Boys. What memories)
On one of my recent trips to some golf travel destination I think I left my glasses in the seat pocket in front of me on the plane. I used to rely on glasses for reading now and then, or when I got tired they’d help me focus. But over the last few months or so my vision has declined to the point where I find that I can’t read the letters on the signs over the isles in the grocery store, or see the golf ball in the air or on the ground beyond about 150 yards.
I went to the eye doc and had a new exam. It was quite funny, or at least I thought it was:
Eye doctor: “So why are you here?”
Me: “Rectal exam?”
Eye doctor: “Haha.”
Me: (In the voice of the Jerky Boys’ Sol Rosenberg, a whining sounding New York Jew with a high pitched voice) “I can’t see too good.”
So I have a new prescription coming and two new pairs of hip RayBan specs on the way. They were supposed to be done Monday and it is now Wednesday. So until then I will only take partial credit for any typos or mathematical calculations which go awry.
I wonder how or if my golf game will change when I can see better. My putting is pretty damn good, so I hope it doesn’t make that worse. Being able to see certainly won’t make my iron game any worse than it already is.
Can’t do contacts
I’m very sensitive with my eyes or I would have tried contacts. I can’t touch my eyes or have anything in them. I can barely watch when someone else puts in contacts or takes them out without getting the creeps.
"I golf more than you now TW."
In my endless googling and wondering around golf cyberspace I saw an article on Obama golfing in Hawaii today. I’m sure his gig is pretty stressful, so blowing off some steam and chasing a little white ball around is probably good for him, and thus the rest of us.
It is a bit hypocritical though that he’s playing golf, enjoying the lifestyle and hanging around at the same country clubs which are owned and patronized by those evil rich people he villainizes and wants to bump up their taxes. I digress. That discussion is for another day, or for my other site Hooked On Politics (HOP).
Some media outlets are criticizing Obama for playing somewhere between 41-52 rounds of golf since becoming President. By my calculations that is 2.1 rounds per week month. I’m sure any critic of Obama will find some negative in that. I’m not saying it is right or wrong, just interesting.
So is 2.1 rounds of golf per week month a lot for a President? Who holds the record?
Obama beats Bush
Bush played 24 times during his Presidency. Obama eclipsed that mark in his 2nd year.
Ike Eisenhower is perhaps the most famous “golfing President” with his ties to Augusta National and the many rounds of golf he played there (45) with the likes of Bobby Jones. In fact, on #17 at Augusta there’s a large tree called the “Eisenhower Tree.” I spent some time under that tree last April.
As the story I heard goes, Ike asked the Augusta board to remove the tree and Chairman Clifford Roberts declared the president “out of order.”
But Ike isn’t the record holder for most presidential rounds of golf. The highest number for a president I found was 1,200 by Woodrow Wilson.
Call me Mr. President
So if I play about 100x per year, that is two times per week. That puts me right up there with Obama and Ike. Now if I could only log 45 rounds of golf at Augusta somehow. Something tells me I don’t quite have the pull Ike did. But hey, I run a golf blog. You never know.
« Previous
1
…
595
596
597
598
599
…
1,159
Next »
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
