Green Reading

A break from the blog

You won't be seeing a blog post for a week or so, as I'm off to Colombia for eight days, back on March 4. I hope I don't miss too much. Adios

A sample of Johnson's thoughts

Some of Dustin Johnson’s interesting quotes during press conferences early this season. He addresses taking on Tiger, a European resurgence and a youth movement on tour. 

Q. Clearly the game needs Tiger playing well. I mean, from a sponsor's point of view if nothing else. But yet the other side of the coin is that if he gets back to the dominance that he once had, you fellas are not going to have the same freedom to win tournaments that you have experienced in recent years?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: “I hope he does. It doesn't bother me. I'm still going to win. Tiger is a great player, but you know, he doesn’t win every event, so that leaves a lot of other events I'll have a chance to win.
I think he'll do just fine. He's a great golfer and you know he's playing pretty good golf right now.”

 

Q. Would you agree with a lot of commentary right now that the best golfers in the world are found in Europe?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: “No. Both. You could say they are European, but most of them play over here. There's too many good American players to say that the best golfers in the world are in Europe.”

 

Q. Just a comment on I think 13 different players combined for 16 wins in their 20s in 2010. Do you kind of see a shift? Do you envision that same wave rolling in 2011 as far as young, new breed coming along?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: “Yeah, I think the young guys, we had a really good year this year. We won a lot of golf tournaments and that's what we have to keep doing. We have to keep winning golf tournaments, stepping up, and we need to win a few majors.”

Televised golf gaining more eyes in 2011

Interest in televised golf has been up this year by just about all accounts, and numbers released by Golf Channel Golf coverage alive and well, even in the events Tiger doesn’t play, such as the Waste Management Phoenix Open. And numbers from the Phoenix Open, provided by the Golf Channel, are despite frost delays that disrupted the tournament’s scheduled tee times and forced a Monday finish.

Through the first six weeks of the 2011 PGA Tour season, ratings for every single comparable round televised on Golf Channel have been up over 2010. Golf Channel’s ratings for its PGA Tour coverage is up more than 50 percent through the first six events of the year versus 2010. Every comparable PGA TOUR round on Golf Channel so far in 2011 is up year over year through the first six events:

The highest increase was 115 percent (Round 2, Friday, of the Farmers Insurance Open, and the average increase per round is 56 percent.

The stats do not include Sony Round 1 (which was a rainout), or rounds 3 and 4 (weekend lead-in coverage) of the Waste Management Phoenix Open (Golf Channel had full coverage of weekend in 2010 due to NBC’s coverage of the Olympics, therefore rounds weren’t comparable in the two years).

In addition, tournament ratings for Golf Channel’s exclusive coverage of the European Tour’s Omega Dubai Desert Classic were up 420 percent over last year’s event.

Johnson is in potentially drama-filled Match Play bracket

It should be an interesting week for Dustin Johnson at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, however long it lasts.

Johnson is the fourth seed in the Snead bracket and is matched with 13^th-seeded Mark Wilson in his opening-round match at 12:25 p.m. (Eastern) Wednesday on the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain in Marana, Ariz.

Wilson, a Wisconsin native and North Carolina graduate, has already won twice in the PGA Tour’s opening seven tournaments of 2011 and is the tour’s only multiple winner this year. If Johnson gets through Wilson, he’ll face the winner of the Bubba Watson-Bill Haas match.

Haas, whose caddie is Galivants Ferry native Michael Maness, has been the tour’s most consistent player this year with four top-10s and five top-30s in five events and Watson won the Farmers Insurance Open on Jan. 30, though he withdrew from last week’s Northern Trust Open after the first round citing a pulled stomach muscle.

Johnson could face Tiger Woods in the third round, though Woods would face the major-champions matchup of Padraig Harrington-Geoff Ogilvy in a second-round match if he gets through Thomas Bjorn.

Johnson opened the season with a pair of top-10s but hasn't finished in the top-25 in his past three events.

The seeding is done based on world ranking. Johnson is ranked 14th in the Official World Golf Ranking while Wilson is 53rd.

Johnson grabbing headlines, whether he wants them or not

Myrtle Beach resident Dustin Johnson seems to become a story at every turn these days. In many of the instances, he'd just as soon fly under the radar.

Johnson gained fame and a following last year when he struggled mightily with a final-round lead at the U.S. Open, was assessed a two-stroke penalty for unknowingly grounding his club in a bunker at the PGA Championship that kept him out of a playoff, then rebounded with a win at the BMW Championship that gave him a legitimate shot at the $10 million FedExCup playoff bonus.

That brought added attention to Johnson, and he's been a story every where he has gone thus far in 2011.

LPGA star and model Natalile Gulbis said while following Johnson around the Kapalua course at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions that she was dating him, and that story reached even the tabloid level of exposure. Then Johnson said he wasn't dating Gulbis, which warranted another headline.

Johnson also withdrew from the second event of the season, the Sony Open, even though he was already in Hawaii that week for the season-opening event. He cited personal reasons to tour officials. The withdrawal, coming on the heels of Gulbis' revelation, created news as the media speculated on the reasons for his withdrawal, with his situation with Gulbis factored into many of the theories.

Johnson managed to plead guilty to a lesser charge last week than the driving under the influence charge he faced from a traffic stop in Murrells Inlet in March 2009, bringing his name up again for an off-the-course issue.

On Thursday, he was nearly disqualified from the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club when he was nearly five full minutes late for his tee time. He made it to the tee within six seconds of a DQ, instead suffering a two-stroke penalty that contributed to a rare missed cut.

The Associated Press wrote a 17-inch story on the late tee time. It would warrant a couple paragraphs for most players, but not Johnson these days. His caddie, Bobby Brown, accepted blame for thinking the tee time was about 30 minutes later.

You'd think the story of a simple missed tee time would end there. But it didn't. Golf Channel reporter Jim Gray apparently waited for Johnson on the 14th tee to ask about the mistake, leading to a verbal exchange with Brown, who was peeved the Gray would interrupt the round to bring up the error. Golfers are seldom asked questions from reporters until their rounds are complete.

Though Gray reportedly remained calm while receiving Brown's ire, Golf Channel executives opted to remove Gray from Riviera for the remainder of the week, eliciting another fairly lengthy story.

Johnson's missed cut is perhaps a sign he was looking for some peace this weekend.

I can't wait to see what happens at next week's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

Johnson is not a hard person to keep track of these days. Just keep reading the headlines.

 

 

 

McPherson commits to Founders Cup, names charity

Conway native Kristy McPherson has already chosen the charity that will receive her support if she plays well in the RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup, the first U.S. event on tour from March 18-20 at Wildfire Golf Club at JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix.

McPherson, who suffers from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, will donate any earnings in the tournament to the Arthritis National Research Foundation.

Amid some player and public criticisms of the inaugural tournament’s setup, the LPGA announced enhancements Friday to the event, which doesn’t pay players a purse but instead will donate at total of $1 million to charity. The amount to charity has been increased and players now have a say in which charities will benefit.

With the changes, the tournament increased its commitment to charity to $1 million, with $500,000 going to LPGA-USGA Girls Golf and $500,000 going to the top-10 finishers’ designated charities. The RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup will donate the full amount of the purse to charity—$1 million—while maintaining its designed competitive environment by attributing winnings to the players for purposes of the 2011 LPGA Official money list.

Additionally, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first major of the 2011 season, will provide the top-five finishers at the RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup a coveted entry into the tournament to be held March 31-April 3.

The winner will be able to designate $200,000 to the charity of her choice, while the second-place finisher will donate $100,000. The complete breakdown:

1st place: $200,000 to charity of player’s choice
2nd place: $100,000 to charity of player’s choice
3rd place: $55,000 to charity of player’s choice
4th place: $40,000 to charity of player’s choice
5th place: $30,000 to charity of player’s choice
6th place: $25,000 to charity of player’s choice
7th place: $20,000 to charity of player’s choice
8th place: $15,000 to charity of player’s choice
9th place: $10,000 to charity of player’s choice
10th place: $5,000 to charity of player’s choice

The 134-player tournament is designed to honor the founders of the LPGA while also contributing to charity and helping to grow the game among girls. It will be televised on Golf Channel and include special appearances by LPGA and World Golf Halls of Fame members.

Tilghman, Johnson sit down for interview tonight

A pair of Grand Stranders are about to be together on The Golf Channel. North Myrtle Beach native Kelly Tilghman has a taped sit-down interview with Myrtle Beach resident Dustin Johnson airing on The Golf Channel's 6 p.m. half-hour Golf Central show. Johnson is attempting to win a third consecutive AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am this weekend.

Strand all over top of Phoenix Open leaderboard

There are already some people with local ties to root for at the Waste Management Phoenix Open with less than a round played. Tied for the lead are Tom Gillis, who played at Coastal Carolina in 1990, and Bill Haas of Greenville, whose caddie is Galivants Ferry native Michael Maness. They shot 6-under 65s. Myrtle Beach resident and CCU alum Dustin Johnson, coming off a tie for third last week at Torrey Pines, is 4 under through just five holes and will finish his opening round Friday.

The First Tee a success story for the country's youth

The First Tee, which has chapters in both Myrtle Beach and Brunswick County, has been about as valuable and successful for young people across the U.S. as could have been expected when it was launched in 1997. The organization’s headquarters announced Wednesday it has completed Phase III of its development.

Since ’97, The First Tee has been teaching young people valuable life skills that build character using golf as a platform. At the conclusion of its third phase of activity, from 2006-2010, more than 4.7 million young people in total have been reached through its programs.

The organization reached several milestones in its third phase of activity, including: 

• Certification of more than 530,000 young people at various levels of The First Tee Life Skills Experience™, the educational platform delivered at chapters.
• Expansion of The First Tee National School Program to more than 4,000 elementary schools representing 500 school districts.
• Operation of chapters in 88 of the top 100 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the U.S.
• Roll out of the PLAYer curriculum that introduces young participants to the golf course early and addresses retention and progression in the program.
• Establishment of benchmarks that measure quality and consistent operational standards at chapters. At the end of 2010, 96% of The First Tee chapters are effectively meeting standards.
• Concluded of a four-year, independent research study that evaluated and ultimately substantiated The First Tee’s Life Skills Experience as an educational platform that leads to positive character behaviors in participants.
• Provided more than 1,000 participants of The First Tee opportunities to further their life skills, leadership and golf abilities through national academies, camps, golf tournaments and other events, and designated 250 The First Tee Scholars, resulting in 90 college scholarships.  
• Helped grow the game of golf by building confidence in young people’s ability to play. (Half of all The First Tee participants reported “high confidence” in their golfing ability, which is proven to have an effect on one’s decision to stay involved in the sport.)
• Developed chapters in six international locations: Canada (Montreal and Greater Vancouver), England (Manchester), Ireland, New Zealand (Auckland) and Singapore.

The First Tee’s next five year strategic plan will be launched at The First Tee Network Meeting Feb. 17-19 in San Antonio, where more than 500 chapter executive directors, program directors and volunteer board members will gather. Joe Louis Barrow, Jr., has been the First Tee’s chief executive since 2000.

In Phase III, The First Tee focused on expansion with the intention to deliver the program in places where young people were most apt to be.  The First Tee National School Program rolled out in 2004, bringing basic golf skill lessons along with The First Tee Nine Core Values into physical education classes at elementary schools.  A third delivery channel emerged as The First Tee extended programming to the dependents of U.S. military personnel.

The First Tee’s programs are currently offered at golf facilities, in elementary schools and on U.S. military installations around the world.