GolfStinks

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I Might Join the Tour This Year…Wanna Come?

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IMG_3793You know, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of joining the tour. Consider the life: I’m hitting complimentary balls on the range before my round and realize it’s time to make my way to the first tee. Upon arrival at the tee box, I’m greeted by a tour official, handed my official scorecard and then…

“Now on the tee in the 10:00am pairing…from New Haven, Connecticut…Greg D’Andrea!“

And if that weren’t cool enough, there would be camera crews following me around on the course and on certain holes, I could check the leader board to see my position in the field! Afterwards, I could watch highlights of my round on my iPad as I lay in bed. And just as I’m about to fall asleep, I can dream of making a run on the leaders in following day’s final round!

How cool would that be? And the best thing of all, I wouldn’t have to change a thing with my current golf game – not my swing or my chipping or my putting. Nope…I could just take my 18 handicap, waltz onto the first tee and get announced.

Oh, I’m sorry. DHurricane-Golf-Tournamentid you think I was talking about the PGA Tour? Heck no! I’m talking about the Hurricane Amateur Golf Tour! This year, in addition to its junior and collegiate tours, Hurricane has added an amateur golf tour that is open to men and women of all skill levels from ages 18-90! And because the amateur tour has events in 12 different states up and down the eastern United States, millions of average golfers will have a chance to compete!

The 2014 season kicks off at Grande Pines Golf Club in Orlando, FL on May 17th. From there, the tour heads to Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, New Jersey, Virgina, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, South Carolina and Georgia. See the complete 2014 tour schedule (at what appear to be all fantastic courses) here.

Each tournament is two rounds over two days (Saturday and Sunday) and not only features all the stuff I mentioned above (including camera crews following you around and posting highlights to YouTube immediately after your round), but it also includes a tournament dinner with a raffle and prizes and several additional activities to boot! There’s even a National Tour Championship in Florida at the end of the season! Check out all the tour amenities: The Hurricane Difference.

OK, so what does it cost to have a tournament experience like a pro? To join the Hurricane Amateur Golf Tour is 25 bucks (USD). That grants you access to participate is as many of the 20+ tournaments that you want. Then, you pay a per-tournament entry fee (between $220 and $365 depending on the event, but it appears most are in the $250-$275 range). Guys like me might play one or two local events (say in New York or Jersey), but retired folks (or those with extra time and money on their hands) might want to hit every event on the schedule – what a great way to spend half the year!

Tour stops in my area are in the fall – so stay tuned – if I play, I’ll blog about it! In the meantime, I encourage you to check out this tour for yourself.

Is The Pro Golf Season Too Long?

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Does the pro tour need an off-season?
Does the pro tour need an off-season?

I’m watching some college football games on Saturday afternoon when across the bottom of the screen scrolls an update reading Tiger Woods leads in some golf tournament.  As I reach for the remote to rewind what I just saw (gotta love DVR), I’m thinking to myself that I couldn’t possibly have seen what I think I just saw.  They must have just been mentioning his name as part of some other story.  I mean, it’s December.  What golf tournament is still going on?

But sure enough, I was wrong.  Tiger, at the time, was leading the World Challenge in California.  So I know I’ve mentioned it before but, come on.  Doesn’t golf have an off-season?  If you take a look at the PGA Tour schedule, it sure doesn’t appear so.  Don’t get me wrong, golf is great.  But wouldn’t some down time make for more excitement when “golf season” came around?  Everyone has heard the expression “Too much of a good thing.”  Well, why wouldn’t that apply to golf also?  I love football, but I would lose some interest if it was on every weekend.  I need the off-season to keep me excited and interested.  But if there isn’t going to be an off-season, then why not add a wrinkle here and there?

What do I mean by a wrinkle?  How about we see more of a connection between the pros and the hacks like us?  If they’re going to play in December, lets see them play somewhere other than southern California where the temperature is still 70 degrees.  Head a little more north and play where the temperature is hovering around the 45-50 degree mark.  Myself and three other stinky golfers played a nine-hole round last month on a shoreline course.  The temperature topped out around 45 degrees and the wind was blowing/gusting from start to finish.  I’d like to see the pros play in that once in a while.

Did anyone happen to see the Eagles-Lions game this weekend?  They played that game in blizzard conditions with 4-6″ of snow on the ground.  Now I don’t want or expect to see golf played in that weather.  However, let’s do something other than the “challenge of playing by the ocean breeze of Pebble Beach.”  I mean, please.

The problem I’m getting at is, I enjoy golf, but I had absolutely no idea that a golf tournament was taking place this weekend.  I truly believe the sport could be helped by simply creating a more condensed season.  I mean, December?  The NFL is into the final few weeks of the regular season.  The NBA is now in full swing, as is the NHL.  There’s simply too much competition for viewers.  Shorten the season to April through early November (at the latest).  The only competition through a good part of the season is baseball.

If it seems like I’ve said this before, it’s because I have.  But I’m truly only trying to help!  The whole point is, if I as a golf fan had no idea that a golf tournament was even happening this weekend, then there may be a problem.  Not that I would have been watching anyway with football going on…but you see my point.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

What Is It About The Masters?

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In most sports, the most important or biggest game of the year usually happens at the end of the season.  The NFL puts the Super Bowl at the end of the year.  The NBA Championship, the Stanley Cup, March Madness…they all come at the end of the season.  OK, so there was a point during the 90’s when the NFC Championship was considered to be the “real” Super Bowl.  Those games between the Cowboys and 49ers were epic.  But in golf where, for some reason there is no actual championship, they’ve decided to do things differently.

Instead of a championship game, golf does majors – four tournaments that are “more important” than other tournaments.  And still…none of the four is an actual title match.  Oh sure, many of these tournaments are called the “Blah-blah-blah” championship.  But that’s nothing more than a title.  However, there is one tournament that gets more press and more attention than any other tournament – The Masters.  And yet in still, it’s not a championship match, nor is it at the end of the season.

So what is it about The Masters?  What is it that makes this one tournament stand out above the rest?  Now right here, I’m sure you’re expecting a history lesson on The Masters, but no way.  I actually want to ask and learn.  When did The Masters become the big deal that it is and why?  Is it because of the exclusive private country club?  Is it the course itself?  Maybe the traditions such as the green jacket, the honorary tee shot or the par-3 contest?  Is it because of the international flavor that started in the 80’s?  Or was it because there was only one player from outside of the U.S. to win it prior which at the time made it a truly American tournament?

See, I honestly don’t know.  And no matter what I do, I can’t wrap my head around the idea that a sport which has no actual championship match, has the most hyped tournament of the year right in the beginning of its season.  That tells me that it’s all downhill from there.  Sure, there are still three other majors along with numerous other tournaments throughout the rest of the season.  But that’s like putting the Super Bowl in October and then playing a bunch of playoff games throughout the rest of the season.

But, I guess we’ve all grown used to that now.  Golf just seems to do things differently than most other sports.  No actual championship, biggest match comes practically at the beginning of the season, leaders are based on money…I guess I just don’t get it.  But hey, that’s OK.  I’m not here to figure it all out.  I’m not here to say what’s right and wrong, although I’ll try.  But for the most part, I don’t care about any of that stuff.  I just want to play.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Every Golf Tournament Could Be An All-Star Game

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So we all know by now that the NFL’s Pro Bowl has become more of a side-show than an actual competitive game.  Defenses haven’t really shown up since 1998.  Star players opt out.  Super Bowl players don’t participate.  The rules are changed to make the game “safer.”  It’s a sham really.  It’s bad football, but it’s still football nonetheless, so I usually watch.

Like any all-star game in any sport, the potential is there.  It has the chance to be such a great game!  How could a game featuring all of the league’s best players at their respective positions not be fantastic if played as hard as the game should be played?  But with the risk of injury, the changes in rules and lazy play, it becomes just the exhibition game that it actually is.  But all of the pieces are there…it’s just missing that meaningful game feel.

But this is an area where the PGA Tour has a leg up on every other major sport.  They have the ability to put together an “all-star” lineup at every tournament if they would simply shake-up their tournament schedule a bit. 

I’ve said it several times before, but the PGA Tour needs a real championship at the end of their season.  Enough of the money leader.  Enough of the ranking system that no one understands.  The players need to battle it out on the course.  And if there was a smaller, more streamlined schedule in which players were required to play in order to qualify for the championship, then every required tour stop would result in a star-studded field.  If this was the case you’d have to imagine the TV ratings would rise, as would the gate.   

But you can’t expect every player to play all of the tournaments, right?  Of course not.  Only a certain amount of the stops would be required – maybe in the 15-20 area.  The rest would be their choice to play either for a shot at the purse, the chance to make some more money or just to keep the competitive juices flowing.  But certain stops would be required to qualify.  Play all of the required stops and you play in the championship.

The point is, the PGA Tour has the ability to field an all-star game every time out.  What if every meaningful tournament featured all of the top players on the tour?  No one skipping out on tournaments because if they did, they wouldn’t qualify for the championship.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t watch golf on TV very much…but an idea like this would certainly get me more interested.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Do Golfers Know Bo?

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Last week I got into the idea of the multi-sport athlete being a golfer.  But I really focused that on the idea of an athlete from another sport taking golf as their “other” sport.  So what about a golfer becoming a multi-sport athlete?  Could a PGA Tour pro make it in another sport?  Well, I guess that would partially have to do with what the other sport is.  But at the same time, there are reasons why I would have to say the answer is, quite simply, not a chance.

It’s not that I’m of the school of thought which believes golfers are not athletes, because I do believe they are…to an extent.  However, I do also believe that it most certainly does not take a finely-tuned athlete to be a professional golfer.  After all, just take a look for yourself.  But if you look at the athletes in some of the other major sports, you can see the conditioning, strength, durability and endurance shining through.  By comparison, most golfers look like they couldn’t handle a day of practice in another sport. 

Take a look at this list of multi-sport athletes – if you were to scroll down to the golf section you’ll find one name – Babe Zaharias.  The only other sport on the list with only one athlete listed is Netball…and I’m not even sure what that is.  So that should be your first clue.  Otherwise, I remember back when John Daly first began making a name for himself, the Indianapolis Colts had talked about possibly bringing him in for a tryout as a kicker, but that never actually came to fruition.   
But another reason I believe there are no multi-sport athletes in golf is due to the fact that golf is just too hard of a game to master.  Do you think a player can make the tour if they spend half of their time playing or practicing another sport?  I don’t care how superior an athlete you are, I just don’t see that happening without dedicating just about every waking hour available away from your other sport to golf. 

But as mentioned last week, with all of the money and big contracts floating around, another Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders is not realistic in this day and age.  But imagine what a multi-sport athlete could do for golf, especially if it was primarily a golfer who took up another sport.  At the very least, it sure would put a dent in that “golfers aren’t athletes” argument.

Swing ’til you’re happy!       
  

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