Green Reading

Golf tours opening arms

The spirit of inclusion is sweeping through professional golf. First the LPGA bumped up the number of Duramed Futures Tour players receiving exempt playing privileges next year based on their finish on this year's money list from five to 10. It gives the 100-plus players struggling to pay traveling expenses on the Futures Tour more hope.
And this week the Champions Tour announced it was reinstating exempt cards awarded through its National Qualifying Tournament. That gives more hope to players on tours such as the Sunbelt Senior Tour that if they stick it out, there are possible riches awaiting. And neither the LPGA nor the Champions Tour will be adversely affected by the five new exemptions.

LPGA mandates English

The LPGA has given its members a directive that they have to learn English. Shouldn't be much of a problem for the U.S. players, but it might mean some extra work for many of the young Asian, particularly Korean, players on the tour. It's a new strategy for me.  If you can't beat 'em, make 'em speak like you.
In all honesty, it's a mandate that is designed to help the tour's marketability in the U.S., especially as TV contracts and tournament sponsorships are expiring in 2009. Sponsors and people who pay to play in pre-tournament pro-ams want to be able to have at least a casual conversation with the player they're paired with.
I'm sure the young Asian players will try to comply, and they probably want to learn English anyway. But it will be difficult to enforce. Will the LPGA Tour be giving pop quizzes to its players? The tour says it will require players to pass oral English exams once they've been on tour for two years. But do you kick a player off a tour because they can't speak English fluently enough. Should a great golfer who is a slow learner be punished. It's a golf tour, not a university. And for fringe players struggling to cover traveling expenses, are they expected to hire a traveling tutor? It will be interesting to see if the tour follows through with threatened suspensions if any players fail to learn English. It could conceivably set the tour up for a legal battle.

McPherson on a roll

Kristy McPherson of Conway is tied for 56th after shooting a 1-over-par 73 today in the opening round of the CN Canadian Womens Open in Ottawa, and based on her recent play that should improve. In her second season, McPherson entered the event as one of the hottest players on the LPGA Tour. She had three consecutive top-seven finishes prior to the Ricoh Women
s British Open, and closed that event with a 7-under 65 with five birdies and an eagle to tie for 21st.
McPherson said of the experience playing her first British Open: ``The whole week was up and down, kind of like this weather, you know.  The first day was really good golf, and not too many mistakes, and same as [Sunday], and I'm the same person that played the last two days. Got a little bit of the British Open style weather and the crowds here are unbelievable, but my first British Open, I loved it.  It was great.''

Long wait is over

It was a joyous weekend in England for Myrtle Beach resident Mark Schoenwald and Kansas native Bruce Vaughan. Both ended long winless droughts, as neither had won since the mid-1990s. Vaughan, scrambling to retain his status on the Champions Tour, won the British Senior Open with Schoenwald on the bag, defeating John Cook in a one-hole playoff. Vaughan had never won on the PGA or Champions tours, and his last significant wins came in 1994 when he won a pair of events on the Nationwide Tour. Schoenwald has been a caddie on the Champions Tour since the mid-1990s, but hadn't won since he captured his second tournament championship with player Jimmy Powell in 1996. Their future seems a lot more secure and bright than their recent past, and a well-deserved congratulations are in order for both.

Local caddie contending overseas

Bruce Vaughan shot a 3-under-par 68 Thursday in the opening round of the Senior British Open and was tied with Eduardo Romero for the lead. The crazy round included eight birdies, eight pars, a double and triple bogey. Perhaps more noteworthy to Grand Strand golf fans is that Vaughan's caddie is Mark Schoenwald of Myrtle Beach. Schoenwald, who has been caddying on the Champions Tour for more than a decade, has been Vaughan's primary caddie since the latter part of last year.
After getting off to a slow start this year, Vaughan has recorded three consecutive top-14 finishes, including a tie for fifth, and earned about $125,000 in the past three events. Vaughan managed to get into 17 events in 2007 despite having to Monday qualify as the third-place finisher in the 2006 Champions Tour Q-School, and earned $434,934. It wasn't enough to secure a fully exempt card this year, but was enough to get him in to just about every event. Vaughan played predominantly on the Nationwide Tour in the 1990s, and spent the 1995 season on the PGA Tour.
Now you have someone to root for in the tournament. Unless you actually know Mark.

Mark knows I'm just kidding. Good luck.

LPGA defends actions

The golf world is looking ahead to Michelle Wie's impending missed cut next week at the PGA Tour's Legends Reno-Tahoe Open, but the LPGA is still looking back at her disqualification this past weekend at the State Farm Classic. Though Michelle Wie is the only person who should be held accountable for not signing her scorecard, LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens felt her tour was taking some misguided heat for its handling of the situation, so she released a statement Wednesday.
She said the tour has received feedback e-mails, blogs and phone calls, and many have had varying and inaccurate accounts of what happened, why and when. ``All of this has confused and angered individuals.'' Bivens said.
Bivens describes that Wie left the designated scoring area without signing her card, a scoring volunteer noticed that the card was missing a signature and caught up with her approximately 40 yards from the tent, where Wie signed it. An LPGA staff member overheard volunteers recounting the situation only after Wie teed off in the third round, and after verifying the story with Wie and others following her round, they disqualified her for a rules violation. Bivens said they waited because they didn't want to disrupt her playing partners.
That's all well and good. Having a volunteer accept scorecards, however, is a mistake. You'd think the LPGA would have at least one paid staffer in the scoring area considering the importance of scorecards and chances of an incident or error there. They shouldn't have to rely on accounts from volunteers. This should be a lesson for the tour.
Bivens finished by commending her workers much like an elementary school teacher would commend a class: ``In the end, we should all hold our head up high knowing that our organization upheld the rules of golf and administered them with Michelle the same way they have been applied to every player since the LPGA's founding in 1950.  The rules are the rules.''

Regarding Wie playing in yet another event against men, if that's what she wants to do and is afforded the opportunity, who am I to tell her she shouldn't? That said, I will anyway. She has yet to make a cut in a PGA Tour event, and none of those events did her any good. This one won't either.

Kristy's forgotten share of first

Kristy McPherson of Conway is trying to replicate this week in the LPGA Tour's $1.7 million NW Arkansas Championship at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Ark., what she did at the event last year. She recorded the best finish of her career in the inaugural NW Arkansas event in 2007. Sort of. McPherson tied for second last year _ tied for first among pros _ but the result is nowhere to be found in her two-year LPGA record. That's because heavy rains left the course unplayable following McPherson's 6-under-par 66 in the first round, resulting in the cancellation of the final two rounds. Since the event was shortened to 18 holes a winner wasn't declared the event wasn't recognized as an official LPGA event. The money she earned spent the same, however. McPherson said the purse was cut in half last year and she received $60,000 for her share of first place. Without the $60,000 on her resume, McPherson officially earned just under $80,000 as an LPGA Tour rookie. This season she's already collected $128,000. The NW Arkansas Championship will be played Friday-Sunday, weather permitting.

U.S. Open extras

There are some interactive features that go along with this year's U.S. Open that might interest golf fans, especially early in the championship. With a local slant, North Myrtle Beach native and Golf Channel announcer Kelly Tilghman will host two live online chats on www.GolfChannel.com. They will be from noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday and 10 to 11 p.m. on Friday.
A U.S. Open Live Challenge is also available. Golf fans compete live while watching broadcasts from Torrey Pines by playing along on the Web. Fans can predict the action live for a chance to win an expenses-paid trip to the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black. Players can predict the scores of their most-watched players, and call out live course action such as whether a player will sink a putt on the third hole or bogey on the next par 4. It happens in real time during the broadcast with immediate leaderboard updates, golf trivia questions, player-to-player chat and up-to-the-second opinion polls.
To play the U.S. Open Live Challenge, log on to www.USOpen.com, www.NBCSports.com or www.AirPlay.com.

This week's winners

The St. Jude Classic is the warmup to next week's U.S. Open, and in that spirit I'll take a major champion this week. David Toms hasn't won since January 2006, but two of his 12 career wins have come at the St. Jude Classic and the TPC Southwind, which is an accuracy-first layout that fits his game. The two titles came in 2003 and 2004, and he's got three other top-five finishes in the tournament this decade. He also enters the event playing some consistent if not spectacular golf, with six consecutive cuts made.
Picking the LPGA Tour has become as predictable as picking the PGA Tour. The first thing you do is see if Lorena Ochoa is in the field. If so, the pick is made. The 26-year-old from Mexico has won six of the nine events she has entered this season. Hard to go against a percentage like that. And in this week's McDonald's LPGA Championship, she's attempting to become only the fourth woman to win three straight majors.

Iron is out, Annika is in?

Tournament officials for the Ginn Tribute Hosted by Annika have come to their senses. They have scrapped the ill-conceived large, heavy and cumbersome cast iron Pineapple that was created by area artist Phillip Simmons to serve as the championship trophy. It has been replaced by a glass trophy created by a company in Sweden. It may have been the worst tournament trophy since the ill-fated soccer trophy created by former Myrtle Beach SeaDawgs owner Brian Kukon in 1999 that he presented to former U.S. National Soccer Team coach Bruce Arena and billed as the ``Heisman Trophy'' of soccer awards.
Tournament host Annika Sorenstam said Sunday that she is not considering making the Ginn Tribute the one tournament she continues to play every year. That is assuming the tournament returns to the area and RiverTowne Country Club. Bobby Ginn's company has a contract with the LPGA to stage the event for two more years, but the company has reportedly been seeking title sponsors for the tournament. Jane Geddes, the LPGA's vice president of competitions, said Saturday she expects the tournament to return and Ginn to honor the contract. If the event does continue, my guess is Annika may make this her one competitive week a year. Jack Nicklaus played for years at the Memorial Tournament that he hosts, and Arnold Palmer played right up until the past few years at his event at Bay Hill. And Annika can certainly be more competitive than those two legends were in the final days of their participation in their own events.