In the mid-1970s, Johnny Miller owned the Tucson Open, winning it three times in a row (1974-76) while earning the nickname “the Desert Fox.’’ Now, some 30 years later, there is a new Johnny Miller in control of the Old Pueblo’s PGA Tour event – the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. “Actually, I don’t go by Johnny …
The first signs of trouble for the Waste Management Phoenix Open came when the weather forecast called for temperatures in the 20s with highs in the low 50s – the coldest temps in 25 years at the TPC Scottsdale.
Phil Mickelson really is “Phil the Thrill,’’ especially in the big eye of CBS. At least you would think so after David Feherty gushingly glossed over Lefty’s calculated “lay-up’’ on the last hole in San Diego, thus literally handing the Farmers Insurance Open to one Bubba Watson on Sunday. Knowing it was elementary, that he …
As soon as Arizona hosts the Waste Management Phoenix Open (Feb. 3-6) in Scottsdale followed by the WGC-Accenture World Match Play Championship (Feb. 23-27) in Tucson, professional golf in the desert as we know it will take a huge twist with the all-new RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup in Phoenix (March 18-20).
Nice move by Mike McQuaid and the Thunderbirds, giving the first of five sponsor’s exemptions into the Waste Management Phoenix Open to local pro Tom Lehman, the 2000 champ. Too bad everything can’t go so “green’’ for McQuaid, the tournament chairman for the WMPO, which tees off Feb. 3-6 at the TPC Scottsdale. Actually, the T-birds never can grumble because Waste Management has
With the downfall of Tiger Woods and “off years’’ by name players like Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia, Vijay Singh, Lucas Glover and Angel Cabrera, to name a few, opportunity has come knocking at this week’s TOUR Championship for Scottsdale’s “Magnificent Seven’’ – Paul Casey, Martin Laird, Geoff Ogilvy, Bubba Watson, Tim Clark, Ryan Moore and Kevin Streelman.
I’m not sure exactly how the dictionary defines tradition, but to me it’s usually something that has to do with an annual event involving the same place and people who have same modus operandi. In other words, it’s time-honored like Thanksgiving or Christmas.
That’s why I had to laugh just a little when it was announced this week that The Tradition, the Champions Tour major that began in 1989 at Desert Mountain Golf Club, was moving again for a fourth time. After spending 12 years in Scottsdale, one year in Gold Canyon and nine years in Portland, golf’s version of “The Changeling’’ is on its way to Birmingham, Ala., and infamous Shoal Creek Golf Club.
In a world where a lot of people don’t follow the rules, Dustin Johnson’s two-stroke penalty for grounding his club in what looked like a very scraggly, marginal bunker at Whistling Straits seemed a little over the top during Sunday’s final round of the PGA Championship.
Especially when that ruling cost Johnson a chance to join Germany’s Martin Kaymer, a part-time Scottsdale resident, and Bubba Watson, a full-time Scottsdale resident, in a three-hole playoff for the Wannamaker Trophy.
Apparently coming out of the wild blue yonder to win the British Open doesn’t make for great theatre these days, or so says the record-low 2.1 television rating that ESPN drew for the final round of the British Open.
Louis Oosthuizen looked like a great story to me – young kid with a farm background; never sniffed it before in a major; a South African who prevailed on Nelson Mandella’s birthday; nicknamed “Shrek” because of the gap in his front teeth and big ears – but “King Louie’’ he is not, said the golf world.