The Green Blazer, Superhero Columnist of Golf

The Dan Plan insults golfers everywhere

2011-08-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

Dan McLaughlin

If a person that had never touched a golf club before told you that he was going to be on the PGA Tour with just five years of work, you would probably consider him or her egotistical and delusional, but that is hardly the attitude The Golf Channel and other media outlets have toward Dan McLaughlin and his Dan Plan.

The Golf Channel's "Golf in America" feature on Golf Central made an attempt at an inspirational piece Monday about The Dan Plan, a plan where a single 32-year-old quit his job to use what he describes as unlimited time and resources to make it to the PGA Tour in 5 years having never played a single round before.

The piece was painted as inspirational and might have been for some, but many real golfers were down right insulted.

"Who does this hump think he is?" asked Xtopher Woods, a well-respected plus two handicap from Oceanside, CA. "This guy reads a couple books, and now he thinks he can become a top stud with a mere 10,000 hours of dedication ... What a joke. This guy is a complete loser."

The 10,000 hours Woods is referring to is what The Dan Plan centers around. Dan believes that through 10,000 hours of "deep practice" or "deliberate practice" he can be one of the 250 or so golfers regarded as the best in the world. Although The Golf Channel didn't explicitly state how Dan came up with the plan, his fantastic notion likely arose after reading the hit book "The Talent Code."

In The Talent Code, Author Daniel Coyle came up with his own Dan Plan where he sought of talent hotspots and tried to discover what causes them. Not more than a quarter of the way through the book, Coyle coins the 10,000 rule where he specifically refers to deliberate and deep practice. Coyle spends much of the book discussing how talent his grown in the body in the form of of a substance that coats nerves called myelin, which grows fastest through deep practice identifying a particular thing to improve upon.

Although The Talent Code has many merits, the 10,000 rule isn't one of them as it applies to golf. It is highly unlikely that a young, athletic physical specimen from a warm state could successfully accomplish Dan's plan much less an admittedly non-athletic, 5'7", 145lbs 32-year-old from Portland who had never touched a club.

Looking like a hack: Dan McLaughlin putts in the rain at Broadmoor Golf Course in Portland, Oregon. Do these images look like the gear and putter a guy with "unlimited resources" would use?

On July 5th, 2011 Dan was 17 percent of the way through at 1700 hours, and the Blazer stopped by his blog to see how he was doing. Here are a couple highlights:

"Just a couple weeks ago I couldn’t miss from within 12o yards and was making crisp contact with pretty much every shot. But, then the golfing gods frowned and the hosel began leading the charge on too many occasions . . . "I’ve started hitting a bit too much grass in front of the ball, not a good habit to have, especially if you want to put some spin on the ball."

That's not exactly the words of a guy headed to the tour by his fall of 2016 target. In his latest post Dan talks about establishing a handicap playing from the "white tees" using only a 6-iron, 8-iron, PW, 56 degree, 52 degree and putter. Dan's instructor, Christopher Smith, was originally insulted by Dan's idea calling him "just another yahoo" but has since warmed up to it. He started Dan with putting and is slowly moving up the club length latter as the months go on. By the time he's half way to the tour, he may finally get to hit a driver.

Christopher's original feelings of insult seem like a more appropriate response from the avid golfer than the inspiring story The Golf Channel and others are now painting of The Dan Plan.

Follow Dan's quest for the card at thedanplan.com

Captures and Captions - Fumbling Buffoons

2011-08-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

A panic stricken maintenance crew at the Atlanta Athletic Club fumble around trying to fix the damage caused by a mower less than 24hrs before the players hit the course for the PGA Championship.

One crew member couldn't help but take a break for a cell phone photo op.

The Green Blazer's journal

2011-06-18T11:26:00.001-07:00

Green Blazer journal, sometime in the future...

They other day began much the same as any other. I awoke, enjoyed a cup of my special greenblazer tea made from st. andrews elephant grass and afganhi sativa, and began practicing my short game by hitting barefoot out of a bunker made of burning hot coals. I was just about to break for my afternoon Iron Byron massage (a massage in which an iron byron machine fires balls at your muscles from point blank range) when I got a phone call on my special greenblazer phone, which is rare because only Natalie Gulbis, Alice Cooper and my butler have the number and they all know better than to call me when I'm practicing.

"Hello, Blazelair. Yes, I will hold for Mr. Nicklaus."

It was Jack Nicklaus, probably wanting to reminisce on the days when we used to have a regular foursome with Ted Koppel and Bruce Lee.

"Hey GB, remember that one time you tried to hit over that dog leg and ended up burning down an entire forest?"

I was right. God, Jack Nicklaus can be so annoying these days.

"Yeah I remember Jack. At least I saved everyone from the blaze, you and bruce lee just sat there laughing it up like you were members of a live studio audience."

"We were Greeny B, or have you already forgotten your ugly little foray into bad ‘60s television."

He was right. They were members of a live studio audience for that miserable silver age Green Blazer television show. Fucking Jack Nicklaus and his constant reminiscing.

"How did you get this number?"

"Former President George W. Bush gave it to me, he said you told him he could give it out in an emergency."

At that moment I remembered about the time I traded President Bush my special blazenumber in exchange for the greatest golf joke of all time. But I was certain he couldn't have remembered it, or could he? We were playing a special match at the Camp David course as a part of his request in his first executive order. This was early in the term when I still responded to executive orders, before he started calling me there every time he needed a laugh, which ended up averaging out to a trip every three minutes or so toward the end. Early in the match I realized that he only had the capacity to harbor one thought at a time, when he forgot my name after I told him the joke about the pope and Si Re Pek. Upon hearing this joke he doubled over onto his hands and knees on the tee box and laughed for about three hours, before demanding that I tell him another. To shut him up I told him what I thought was the greatest golf joke of all time, but that only made him ask for and another, and another, and another, and it was getting really embarrassing because he was still on his hands and knees and he kept calling me "masterful blazer," which is normal, but in between his laughing all you could really hear was "master-er." When I was all out of jokes he told me there was one I didn't know and that he could make Rich Beem tell it to me in exchange for my emergency Blazenumber. I was so surprised that Rich Beem could possibly know something about golf that I didn't that I gave him the number without a moment's hesitation. He had Beem promptly sent to Guantanomo and tortured until he eventually gave up the joke, which turned out to be the first joke I had told to the president to get that whole thing started. "You can only call that number in emergencies," I told him, and he responded "I'll be the decider of what constitutions an emergency. Now watch this drive."

"Fine, Jack, what's the emergency," I finally asked Jack Nicklaus after he had been on hold for like 45 minutes while I thought about that first time I went golfing with former President George W. Bush.

"I'm having a clone of my former self made to play in a scramble against Tiger Woods, Jaquline Gagne and Kim Jong Ill, and I need to you to make sure nobody tries to interfere with it at the match."

Another goddamn clone? Jack Nicklaus just can't seem to get over his former self. This was like the 74th clone he's had made of himself since Tiger won the two grand slams in a row and passed him up in major tournaments won.

"Why would somebody try to interfere with the match?" I asked, certain Nicklaus was just paranoid again.

"Let's just say there is, I don't have to tell you everything."

I was starting to get the feeling Nicklaus wasn't telling me everything.

K.J. Choi shakes golf world with unprofessional antics

2011-05-15T19:44:00.005-07:00

SATIRE - *Please read with an open mind as we love KJ just as much as everyone else. If you're somehow offended, we recommend you pick up an Onion once in a while.

While the momentum of the international golf scene continued its ascent to the forefront with South Korean born KJ Choi’s victory in the Players Championship Sunday, a dark cloud was cast over his performance with what golf analysts are claiming “shameless self-promotion” by Choi’s on-course behavior at the culmination of The Players Championship.

While in contention late on Sunday, Choi violated typical PGA Tour protocol by high fiving children, waving to boisterous individual supporters, and affectionately tipping his cap to galleries and fellow competitors. He followed up such unprofessional antics by warmly and affectionately embracing David Toms after besting him in a sudden-death playoff. Ken Venturi, a long time golf analyst whose racist undertones against Tiger Woods throughout the previous decade helped him achieve notoriety amongst “good ole boy” golf scum described it best with his following statements:

“To see a player behave in such a manner, touching women and children, smiling and making eye contact with the crowds, and uncharacteristically hugging David Toms after his victory, was completely disrespectful to American golf fans.”

A smug hug from Mr. K.J.: K.J. Choi embraces David Toms following his playoff win at the 2011 Players Championship Sunday. This was just one of many unprofessional late round antics that has the golf world up in arms.

The PGA tour agreed with Venturi, issuing huge fines for the nearly 300 high fives Choi eagerly offered to fans down the final four-hole stretch of the tournament. Tim Finchem, PGA tour commissioner, said the self-seeking personal touch Choi extended to his supporters was “embarrassing” and “shameful” behavior that indicates Choi’s egotistical and self-seeking nature. The Tour issued a prompt apology for the manner in which Choi attempted to separate himself from the frigid stiffness and corpse-like persona typically expected of PGA players in contention.

Additional ire was cast towards Choi after conducting his post victory interview in English. Fuzzy Zoeller scoffed at the “despicable motives” of Choi to draw attention to the blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth manner in which Choi diligently learned the language and culture of a nation in which he competes regularly.

Kim Jong Il, noted North Korean terrorist who is not even from the same country as the well-industrialized South Korea, summarized the thoughts on this controversy by issuing the following statement:

"I am glad that the North Korean people cannot claim ownership of this extremist. I would hate to think of the world ramifications of people thinking that Korean people are capable of acting in such respectful and congenial ways. I will work diligently to rebuild the Korean image in the future, and am more determined than ever to invade South Korea and force my destructive views upon such a confused society.”

Speak of the week - Friend zone

2011-05-15T19:44:00.003-07:00

Next time you're playing match play and your opponent lags their putt up to 3-4 feet, instead of remaining silent or saying something like, "I got to make you putt it" tell them it's out of your Friend Zone. This zippy phrase can alleviate any awkwardness about making them putt what might be considered a gimme in some circles.

Awkwardness is also the number one cause for men falling into the friend zone with a woman they are pursuing, the zone a man never wants to find himself in. The zone where all his friends trash talk him for his weak, pointless pursuit to what will certainly be a disappointing finish.

In the Friend Zone: In match play, this putt would be considered part of the friend zone whereas a three footer against a known yipper might not be. This is the friend zone you want to be in.

In the Friend Zone: Ouch ... This is the friendship zone many lovable losers find themselves in but no man wants to be in. Women like to be in this zone though and almost all of them are convinced their male "best friend" for the past two years doesn't secretly want them.

You know you're a hack when ...

2011-05-15T19:44:00.001-07:00

You forget to grab a scorecard so you write your 7s and 8s on the steering wheel of the golf car.

Thanks to P. Johnstonian for this submission. Send your "You know you're a hack when ..." and "You know the course is a dump when ..." ideas to greenblazergolf@gmail.com

Seve Ballesteros was right

2011-05-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

While most golfers are left.

It is widely understood that the right side of the human brain is responsible for creativity. The list of ways scientists have tried to prove this is extensive. One mad scientist developed a sort of thinking cap that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate the creative side of the brain and proved it worked using a series of before and after tests. People have developed superpowers after suffering head injuries that have given them the power to do seemingly impossible arithmetic, allowed them to know the day of the week for any day in history, or even enabled them to play an instrument at an advanced level the first time using it. Experts say this is due to increased activity in the right side of the brain.

When the word creativity is mentioned in golf, the golfer that comes to mind is Seve Ballesteros. He was the most right brained golfer in history. When you search his name on the internet, undoubtedly you will find endless testimonials of his shotmaking. Youtube is filled with highlight reels of Ballesteros hitting amazing shots from trees and bushes.

Although all of us might not be able to rip a three wood under a tree on our knees, thinking of the most creative golfer in history when facing a trouble shot is a great way to lower your scores and honor the late, great Seve Ballesteros.

To honor the man and the great things he did in golf, The Green Blazer is urging all golfers to think outside the box next time you're faced with a difficult shot. If your shortsided from a mud lie, maybe the best shot isn't to try and strike a lob wedge perfectly (which can often lead to a compound fracture).

With this in mind, The Green Blazer would like to introduce a new concept: WWSD (What would Seve do). Anytime you find yourself in trouble, think WWSD to lower your scores and increase your fun on the golf course.

Big breaks and big laughs for Oren Geri

2011-05-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

The newest season of Golf Channel's The Big Break hasn't even started yet and already one of the contestants is racking up quotations, each worthy of its own tweet.

Oren Geri, who served in the Israeli military before moving to the states to fulfill his dreams of playing professional golf, told it like it is during The Big Break, Indian Wells 30 minute preview:

"Golf has pretty much ruined my life"
"My apartment is a dump"
"If I'm not playing in tournaments, I'm playing with rich people for money. To them it's not a lot of cash, to you it's a month's salary. There's no way to sugarcoat it, you're basically a golf prostitute."
"My journey chasing golf happiness has pretty much ruined my life"
"My apartment is pretty much I would say one of the lowest forms of living."

The Big Break has had many characters over the years. Blaze's favorite is of course Brian Skatell, and it's a damn shame we don't have a comprehensive list of his quotes during the two season's he served. Well Oren will certainly be bringing the truth in the 15th season of The Big Break, hopefully one of the other ten contestants, can provide Skatellike entertainment.

The 15th season of The Big Break premiers May 16 at 9:30 p.m. est.

Speak of the week - Compound Fracture

2011-05-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

Kelly Tilghman busted out her very own Speak of the week when she used "compound fracture" to describe a golfer adding to his problems after a bad shot.

She almost certainly had the phrase written down to use sometime during the broadcast and found her opportunity to bust it out. Next time your buddy tries to hit a knockdown four iron through some trees and clips a overhanging limb, bust out compound fracture and make Kelly Tilghman proud.

Furyk tries to penalize self, denied by officials

2011-05-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

SATIRE

In order to save face during a rough final round at the Heritage last Sunday, Jim Furyk attempted to call a penalty on himself but was denied by PGA Tour rules officials.

"It moved!" Furyk pleaded.

"Oh no you don't Jim," said the official. We know it just oscillated. Nice try."

"Alright fine ... I'll just move on with my round now."

The bitter defending champion then hastily hit his pitch and eventually carded 76, his highest score in his last 33 rounds at Harbortown.

Penalizing yourself has become very trendy lately, and the respect Brian Davis got for alerting an official after he nicked a reed at the 2010 Heritage was fresh in Furyk's mind. Furyk later admitted the attempt was not only to save face for this tournament but to put a permanent mark on his career as well.

"That's the one thing missing from my record," he said. "I've got a Major, $10 Million for the FedEx Cup, and if I could get a memorable penalty or DQ that would make all the difference for my career. It could put me over the edge for the World Golf Hall of Fame ."

Furyk tees it up next at The Players Championship May 12-15

Speak of the week - Clown's mouth

2011-05-01T17:27:00.001-07:00

Next time your partner needs to make one, instead of telling him to "knock it in" or "put it in the back" bust out a clown's mouth. "Alright Jim we need this one, roll it right in the clown's mouth."

The Green Blazer's Sunday Smorgasbord - Congrats to Brandt Snedeker!

2011-04-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Corps are happy for Brandt Snedeker, a player that seems to have his game back in gear. But, while everyone else will be talking about Snedeker's high points, we thought we showed some low ones leading up to this win.

Golf Slang - Speak of the week

2011-04-24T15:08:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wanted to increase your swagger on the golf course? In addition to sunglasses, a popped collar, and yellow soled Nike golf kicks, you will need to talk with a certain slang that shows everyone else you're up on the latest golf vernacular. That's why The Green Blazer is here to bring you: Speak of the Week . . .

Last week, we told you your clubs are not clubs, they're wrenches. But after another week hanging with some members of golf's brodier generation, we found that clubs can also be called hooks or bats.

Golf cars are also no longer golf cars or even golf carts ... They're buggies. Europe was well ahead of the U.S. on this one, but buggy is here now to stay. "Hey bud, will you throw my hooks on a buggy and bring it up front?"

Mizuno tries to play public for fools

2011-04-24T15:05:00.001-07:00

Well browsing the latest Golf World magazine (somehow G-Blaze has have a free indefinite subscription to seemingly every golf related magazine) The Green Blazer stumbled across the "Mizuno Challenge" where they claim that golfers hit their new JPX 800 iron 12.48 yards farther than whatever current iron they're playing. They say it's due to the new "Hot Metal design" and "Ultra thin clubface" but The Blazer won't be fooled so easily.

Mizuno is right; numbers don't lie, just look at the lofts of their clubs, the real culprit for golfers' added distance.

Blaze doesn't need to poll 100 golfers to tell you that on average they hit their 5 iron farther than their 6 iron. Lofts have been continuously decreasing over the last ten years, mainly in the game improvement sector. If Mizuno really wanted to give a true picture of how much farther their clubs go, they should have compared them to clubs of similar loft (Callaway RazorHawk, Taylormade R9 would have worked). It's safe to say most golfers are getting new irons closer to every 10 years than every year. Below are the 6 iron lofts of some of the irons that their polled golfers were possibly using:

Ping i3 OS - 30.5 degrees
Cleveland TA5 - 30 degrees
Callaway X-14 - 33 degrees (2000)
Callaway x-20 - 30 degrees (2007)
Mizuno JPX 800 - 28 degrees

Mizuno is right about one thing, Numbers don't lie.

Lobster balls not delicacy

2011-04-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Golf's latest push toward greener pastures might be in the ball
Do you like Lobster balls? Do you find them to be an Easter delicacy? Do you like hitting the golf ball 60-70 percent of the distance you normally do? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then the University of Maine may have a product for you.

From http://technabob.com:
The researchers found a way to use those lobster shells to make golf balls; more specifically, golf balls that are biodegradable. The shells are held together with a biodegradable binder and coating. Presumably they will just melt away to lobster dust over time in the environment. The balls sell for a bit under $1 each and cost 19 cents to make.

These lobster balls are the latest in a push toward green golf balls (no we're not referring to a new Srixon Tour Green). Research teams at the Danish Golf Union have discovered it takes between 100 to 1,000 years for a golf ball to decompose naturally. It is also estimated 300 million balls are lost or discarded in the United States alone, every year.

The Danish Golf Association found that during decomposition, golf balls dissolved to release dangerous levels of zinc and other heavy metals. When submerged in water, the zinc attaches itself to the ground sediment and poisoned the surrounding flora and fauna.

With all this said, we hope this isn't self defeating and that the Lobster shells they are using to make golf balls aren't already contaminated by golf balls.

The Green Blazer's Sunday Smorgasbord is back!

2011-04-16T22:48:00.001-07:00

Was that a 15 Kevin? Na, it was 16
With the highest score on a single hole since John Daly made an 18 on the sixth hole at Bay Hill, Kevin Na made a twelve over par, sixteen, on the ninth hole in the first round of the Valero Texas Open.

Although hackers across the country stare back at the hole and point as they count their strokes out loud, it's unheard of to see a professional do it. Na actually ran out of beads at 15, but after reviewing the video discovered one more whack.

The Golf Channel struck gold by choosing Na to be miked up on that specific day and the scene was entertaining for all viewers. His caddy recommended Na go back to the tee, but instead of agreeing, Kevin said na-nah-na-nah and BOOM, he paid the price on what was otherwise a solid round.

Check out the video of the circus below and make sure to pay particular attention at 4:07 where the gallery applauded his 12th shot and 4:47 where Na hilariously twirls his club following his 13th shot.

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Speak of the Week

Have you ever wanted to increase your swagger on the golf course? In addition to sunglasses, a popped collar, and tennis shoe style Adidas golf kicks, you will need to talk with a certain slang that shows everyone else you're up on the latest golf vernacular. That's why G Blaze is bringing back: Speak of the Week . . .

Your clubs are not clubs and your grips are not grips. If you're confused the following sentence should clear things up: "Hey Pro ... Is it possible you could have the guys clean up my wrenches and put some new handles on them before my round Sunday?

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Golf course supervillain strikes up north
A horse is a horse but in Wisconsin, a course is no longer a course
Nike's new commercial caught G-Blaze's eye (an eye with a built in rangefinder, one of Blaze's many superpowers) when a horse is seen tearing through a finely manicured golf course causing significant damage to the grounds, but a stampede of horses couldn't have created as much damage in a year as one vandal did in a night to Whispering Springs Golf Club in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.

Chris Wood, the pro who found the 15th club that created a mini media frenzy last year, sent G-Blaze a message asking for a quick piece showing the damage this vandal did to a great golf course. Below are pictures from Whispering Springs website showing the damage.

From Whispering Springs website:

On the night of April 8th Whispering Springs Golf Club was the victim of a malicious act of vandalism. Trespasser(s) came onto our property during the night hours with a shovel and intentions to harm the course and our business’s well-being. The assailants dug over 200 holes throughout the green of significant size and depth. Not only did they dig out chucks of turf, the vandals proceeded to carry the pieces of sod 30 yards away near a creek. Anyone associated with, or has knowledge of the game of golf knows how much work goes into maintaining a golf course. This act was a direct assault on the hard work that the Whispering Springs staff puts into our establishment. We view this act to be one of someone who was not looking for sick fun, but rather, someone looking to destroy our business. For these reasons, Whispering Springs will not take this act lightly. We will do everything in our power to pursue these criminals and take full action to prosecute them.

Thanks Chris for bringing this to our attention. Rest assured we will put the full power of the Green Blazer Corps behind bringing this supervillian to justice.

Until next week, this has been The Green Blazer's Sunday Smorgasbord. Green Blazer Golf ... You no longer have to hit the greens to experience golf euphoria.

Woods debuts new bracelet

2011-03-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

New age Buddhism bracelet or a gimmicky sports bracelet?

Tiger Woods debuted a new bracelet on his left wrist during the first round of the Bay Hill Invitational Thursday. Woods went back to wearing a bracelet after his affairs went public. He told the pubic it represented a religious rebirth as he had strayed from his Buddhist faith, but was likely more of a PR stunt.

G-Blaze believes this is likely a new Buddhism bracelet representing the same thing, although it does resemble the magnetic or hologram sports performance bracelets worn by many professional athletes.

The boards are bustling with discussion on the merits of the manufacturers' claims of higher performance, but G-Blaze tends to agree with one poster who took a dirty dig at Hunter Mahan in the process:

Golfwrx.com member MS22:

It was the same one Hunter Mahan was wearing when he flubbed that chip. Good thing he had it on, with all the extra balance and extended ROM you get from wearing those magical holograms "tuned to the frequencies of the human body" he probably would have whiffed at the ball . . .

Buy a CD, take the "SONY BMG" homogram off and stick it to a rubber band, same thing.

That company had claims on their website of people putting one on and jumping onto a surfboard for the first time ever in their life and riding 10-12 footers instantly because of the balance it promotes. Total BS.

Tiger Woods' secret

2011-02-23T20:23:00.000-08:00

Examining the only stat the matters
Any ol' wannabee golf historian would be troubled to research Ben Hogan without finding something about his "secret." Hogan wouldn't go on record of what his secret was until a Time magazine feature in August 1955 where he said it was a pronation of his wrists in the backswing, which resulted in turning his pronounced hook he had been struggling with into a baby fade. But, many believe Hogan's real "secret," a mixture of skill, focus and drive, is what enabled him to score better or even with the world's top players.

Tiger Woods also has a perfect cocktail, and it's more perfect than anyone in the history of the game. It's what has enabled him to score lower than his peers, which is the biggest key to winning golf tournaments. Few people have actually examined the scores Tiger shoots compared to the rest of the field, and used that to consider what would actually have to happen for the long term expectations of him to change.

Tiger has won the Vardon trophy eight of the last twelve years and would have won nine only he didn't meet the required 60 rounds to be eligible in 2006. Commentators and golf writers often refer to intangibles like performing when it counts and the so called intimidation factor, but he is the best because he scores the lowest. How he does it doesn't really matter.

Jack Nicklaus too had the lowest scoring average eight times in his career and finished second six times, but too few events made those averages "unofficial" and Nicklaus was never eligible for the Vardon Trophy, which is likely the reason they introduced the Byron Nelson Award in 1980.

Taken from Wikipedia:
Thirteen men have won the Vardon Trophy more than once (1937-2010).

* 8 wins
o Tiger Woods: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009

* 5 wins
o Billy Casper: 1960, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968
o Lee Trevino: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1980

* 4 wins
o Arnold Palmer: 1961, 1962, 1964, 1967
o Sam Snead: 1938, 1949, 1950, 1955

* 3 wins
o Ben Hogan: 1940, 1941, 1948
o Greg Norman: 1989, 1990, 1994
o Tom Watson: 1977, 1978, 1979

* 2 wins
o Fred Couples: 1991, 1992
o Bruce Crampton: 1973, 1975
o Tom Kite: 1981, 1982
o Lloyd Mangrum: 1951, 1953
o Nick Price: 1993, 1997

As far as G-Blaze is concerned, Tiger looked almost as good as he ever has in late 2009, just over one golf season ago. He finished the season 1, 1, 2, 1, T2, T11, 1, 2 with a scoring average of 68.07.

Changes in his personal life disrupted one element of his winning cocktail during the 2009 postseason, but that disruption will not last forever. The swing changes are giving him something to occupy his mind, but changes or no changes, G-Blaze believes he will at some point reign well above that game's other top players for one simple reason: He understands how to score slightly better than everyone else.

In 2010, Matt Kuchar won the Vardon trophy with the highest scoring average (69.61) since Tom Lehman won it in 1996. For Tiger to not regain his position easily on top of the golf world, someone in the field will have to permanently start scoring lower or Woods will have to fail to bring his scores back to a level that he has maintained for over a decade. The latter is quite unlikely given his age, health, work ethic.

Today, it's hard for some not to get emotional when discussing Tiger Woods. There's the camp that has never liked him and are not shy about voicing their enjoyment in watching him struggle. There's the camp that started playing the game because of him, idolize him, and will defend him no matter what. Then there's a third camp that just enjoy seeing any dynasty fall, whether it's the Yankees, Patriots or Tiger Woods.*

Emotions aside, it's more likely than not that he dominates for at least another five year stretch and remaining competitive for another ten or more.

*There's also a smaller fourth camp of dirt dogs that like him even more after discovering his off course activities.

On this day in 1962 ...

2011-01-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

Jack Nicklaus made his first appearance as a professional at the LA Open. 23-year-old Phil Rogers would go onto win the tournament with a 62 in the final round. Nicklaus would take 50th and pick up $33.33. for his efforts whereas Rogers took home the big prize ... $7500.

The Golf Channel gives up

2010-12-21T18:29:00.000-08:00

It's 9:00 on a Friday evening. The Green Blazer is staying in as the first Saturday morning tee time at the club is worth sacrificing a night out for. Hey, why not throw on The Golf Channel and hop onto the blogosphere for some catching up? What's this? Did the cable company flip the script on the channel lineup again? It's the same old story; just when we get a hold on the channels, they decide it's time for a change. But wait ... They didn't change the lineup, so why is Analyze This airing on The Golf Channel?

The Golf Channel roasted their nuts over an open fire last Friday when after seemingly running out of golf movies and Big Break reruns, they stepped over a distinct line and aired a movie starring Robert Deniro and Billy Crystal that doesn't even have a golf scene.

The move either slipped under the radar or went over well from their perspective, so the programming geniuses threw the towel in deeper with Point Break on Saturday (even a disgusted Blazer had a hard time turning the channel when Swayze is pimping the big screen).

By crossing this boundary, The Golf Channel is basically telling its viewers they've given up. They are no longer capable of providing enough interesting material, so they have been reduced to luring viewers with 90s movies.

TGC needs to stick to golf related programming. With dozens of other movie channels, On-Demand, and a cabinet full of DVDs, people need golf when they flip to The Golf Channel. They would be better off looping Tin Cup, giving The Hammer some free air time, or gaining permission to air a golf-centric episode Everybody Loves Raymond.

The Golf Channel ... "Golf's home" (but it you come knocking and golf isn't home to answer, whatever old movie they find lying around will).

On this day in 1973 ...

2010-12-15T09:35:00.001-08:00

Walt Disney's The Golf Resort opened.

Originally featuring 125 rooms, it was located near the Palm and Magnolia golf courses between the Polynesian and piece of land that would eventually become the Grand Floridian.

To appeal to more than just golfers, The Golf Resort became the Disney Inn in February of 1986. It was remodeled to include another 150 rooms and feature a Snow White theme.

In February of 1994, the Disney Inn was leased by the U.S. Government for military personnel and the name changed to Shades of Green (The Green Blazer had an impact on the name change, but we'll save that story for a different Green Blazer thread).

The government purchased the resort outright in 1996. Shades of Green was not staffed by Disney Cast Members and civilians could no longer stay there. Recently the complex was closed and torn down for remodeling (and by the look of that sign, which resembles one that would be found at a trailer park entrance, it may have needed it).

Who says comics and golf don't mix?

2010-12-13T11:08:00.000-08:00

Not The Green Blazer, and now not Golf Digest either.

For the first time ever, Golf Digest/Golf World released their 2010 Newsmakers in hand drawn pictures. Among the featured stories was "Tiger Tribulations" and a few paragraphs likening Dustin Johnson to Forest Gump, as Johnson seemed to be part of every big non-Tiger story in 2010. After you're done filing your next TPS report at your corporate job, peep the link and check it out.

On this day in 1899 ...

2010-12-12T11:24:00.001-08:00

George F Bryant of Boston patented the wooden golf tee, so naturally we must power out a scroll show showing the tee's progression over the years. Note -- all pics were taken from Google images and are being used with absolutely no permission ... Enjoy.

A golfer in 1921 gets poopy fingers as she reaches into a "tee box" to retrieve a handful of wet sand, which would then be shaped into a tee for the golf ball. The 1744 rules of golf said that the golfer must tee up within one club length of the previous hole; Ol' Blaze is sure this move is still used today a couple times a year at munis across America.

111 years ago today, American dentist, Harvard Grad, Dr George F Grant was the first American to patent a tee that he had invented in 1898. It was a peg with a rubber top and was pushed into the ground, and is very close to the modern tee, but but it did not have a concave head. He did not market it and neither this nor any other previous tee inventions caught on.

That was until another denti, who obviously idolized Grant and wanted to follow his footsteps, became responsible for sending tees commercial as he, with the help of Maplewood Golf Club, released the Reddy Tee.

This is the point where tee evolution stalled for decades, but over the last ten years numerous options have become available:

The Zero Friction tripod top tee has a tour presence, guarantees higher ball speed and rarely breaks, although it bends to the point it's rendered virtually useless*

*yet you fail to trash the deformed plastic tee for some reason, so it just takes up space in your bag and eventually you're just swimming through a school of bent tees looking for a straight one. This display of disorganization probably costs you a couple strokes a year.

Stinger brand tees clearly display the numerous options of small top tees, although good luck finding a small top tee at Golf Galaxy. For some reason, the retailer no longer stocks a single one. Also, their generic Zero Friction are more expensive than the real thing only disguised with larger packaging.

Most people have likely heard of Brush T, and all people should feel foolish using one.

And although many other variations have come and gone without really catching on, there is one more worth mentioning. The name of the next tee is also what you get by only playing nine holes (and also what we call around the club, Dipping the tip e.g. "You playing 18 today Blaze?" "No ... Just getting a golf tease and dipping the tip for nine).

Golfers getting gay

2010-11-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

Are Notah Begay and Brian Gay the only gays in men's pro golf?

While digging through old pics of Ben Hogan on AP Images, The Green Blazer stumbled across a couple of gay images of the action from Monday's Thailand Skins Game where Tiger Woods, Camilo Villegas, Paul Casey and Thongchai Jaidee tee'd it up for charity.

By gay we of course mean happy. Just look at how relaxed and happy Tiger and Paul Casey look taking that effeminate pose in their matching pink Nike shirts, hands nearly touching and they lean on Paul's bag.

Francesco Molinari (also in pink) and Lee Westwood's caddy also look very happy in this picture taken at the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai:

HSBC war zone has got nothing on 1940 England

2010-11-08T11:14:00.000-08:00

The Green Blazer may be peering too far through the haze on this one, but did anyone notice the considerable amount of war jargon that was tossed around in reference to last week's HSBC Champions tournament?

The headline "Shanghai is a war zone as golf’s battle for No.1 begins" was the first to jump out at us, but there have been others. Not to mention this photo from The Associated Press, which playfully illustrates Phil Mickelson and Martin Kaymer going to battle in classic swordsman fighter's stances.

It's true, there was a metaphorical war going on over the coveted No. 1 spot last weekend, as Mickelson, Kaymer, Lee Westwood, and Tiger Woods all had a shot at nabbing the No. 1 ranking at the event that has been referred to as China's major. Even though Francesco Moninari won the tournament, it was Westwood who ended up winning the battle and keeping his No. 1 ranking.

But for some, the media-embraced war clichés are doing more than symbolizing the intensity of the fight for the top spot. They are hearkening back to a time when a golf-war analogy couldn’t be thrown around without many taking it literally.

This circa-1940 "temporary rules card" from England’s Richmond Golf Club was recently forwarded to the Blazer as part of a chain of Internet meme (its cyberspace momentum perpetuated, no doubt, by members of the e-mail-chain-loving baby boomer generation). It’s an artifact from the WWII era, when golf and war did not have enough distance between them to allow for metaphors that combined the two. The sender, who refers to his or herself only as "Nice Ash," says it’s 100 percent real.

Normally, The Green Blazer Corps deletes messages from the e-mail forwarding baby boomer generation as nonchalantly as hack bumping his lie, but this one obviously grabbed our attention.

And speaking of nonchalance, how bout those Brits?

Sun Mountain prez ducks rainsuit accountability

2010-10-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

Did players get what they deserved by choosing second tier gear?

When you don't admit your golf product is second-rate after it is slammed by nearly every top American golfer, it's safe to assume nothing will change your mind.

Sun Mountain founder and president Rick Reimers finally spoke on the phone about the criticism that his rain gear received by the American team at the Ryder Cup.

But, Reimers didn't take the approach many good CEOs would take -- He defended the faulty suit.

Shane Bacon, writer for the Yahoo! Sports Devil Ball golf blog, reported that Reimers admitted that he was as confused (and depressed) as anyone, going as far as putting an employee in a shower for two hours with the team's rain suit with no leakage.

"We think nobody got wet with rain coming through the garment," Reimers said. "Did the outside material hold more moisture than you’d like? Probably. When something gets soaked, it feels cold on the skin. People might interpret that as being wet."

Reimers' point that uncomfortable, cold rain gear can still be waterproof is trivial. The quality debate was over as soon as the players turned them in, but it's hard not to sympathize with Reimers. He makes a good point that had the rain gear received 100 percent satisfaction, no one would have ever heard about it. Bacon certainly goes on to side with Reimers, encouraging the readers to go buy a Sun Mountain rain gear. G-Blaze couldn't disagree more.

First, if any person with a taste for quality golf products went to their local shop to purchase a best-of-the-best rain suit, they would skip right over a Sun Mountain product. It's not that the product is bad, it is just not what a golf product connoisseur would consider premier and not the choice of top professionals (note: save your Sun Mountain testimonials, please). If Sun Mountain wasn't planning to do a complete redesign of their materials, the U.S. Ryder Cup Team should have expected to get a second-rate rain suit. Or, was it the redesign that affected the quality? Had Sun Mountain given the players their stock gear would it have sufficed? This was primarily a materials issue. The gear was too bulky and retained the moisture, even if it didn't soak all the way through. It is more likely that if the Ryder Cup gear was inferior their materials across the line are inferior.

Second, Sun Mountain's president took a completely wrong approach of dealing with the situation. He first took a page of of Tiger's book of bad pr moves by failing to speak in a timely manner. He waited until the situation cooled down (much like a golfer cooling down in his Sun Mountain rain gear).

Then, Reimers doesn't admit fault. He doesn't say he was sorry that the players were forced to buy new suits from the merch tents. He doesn't mention caption Corey Pavin explicitly stating they were not doing what we wanted them to do. He basically questions the best players in the world's intelligence by defending his product's waterproofing.

It would have been nice to hear Reimers at least say that Sun Mountain was going to take a long, hard look at their product design, so the game's top players can have trust in Sun Mountain products. The only mention of improving the product was said in the context that Sun Mountain has been continuously striving to improve their products since their inception 40 years ago. If that's the case, they've had 40 years and still haven't figured out rain gear.

If Sun Mountain does get a second shot with the U.S. players at the Presidents Cup, the Reimers interview indicated they may get a product of similar quality. Of course, it'is doubtful that Sun Mountain will win the bid. If there is one thing G-Blaze has learned from buying an Odyssey Backstryke, it's that when it comes to golf products ... Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me ... can't get fooled again.

The Grand Slam of golf ... Give it up already

2010-10-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

The 2010 Grand Slam of golf recently finished up and most people didn't have a clue. That's because it is clear that the event that is supposed to bring together each year's major champions has lost its clout.

This year's Grand Slam of golf featured 2010 U.S. Open winner Graeme McDowell and PGA Championship winner Martin Kaymer. Since British Open winner Louis Oosthuizen and Masters champion Phil Mickelson were too busy, Ernie Els and David Toms were brought in.

The tourney organizers were likely thrilled when Els said he'd play, but Toms inclusion makes many wonder how far down the list they had to go to complete the foursome. It is nearly certain that Jim Furyk turned down the chance as he played in 2006, 2007 and 2008 even though his lone major win came back at the 2003 U.S. Open. And you know after a couple near misses, ol' Dusty J-Bone received an invite.

Last year was the first year since 2004 that all four major champions participated when Cabrera, Glover, Cink and Yang tee'd it up. Had a bigger name won a major, '09 would have likely been void of a major winner as well.

It won't be long before none of the year's major winners will want to participate, which will put a fast end to an event that has been fizzling out for years.

In case anyone cares, Ernie Els ran off three straight birdies on the back nine Wednesday and turned a three-shot deficit into a one-shot victory over Toms.

Thoughts from the Ryder Cup opening ceremony

2010-09-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

Players make funny faces as singer Katherine Jenkins performs during the 2010 Ryder Cup opening ceremony at the Celtic Manor golf course in Newport, Wales, Thursday, Sept. 30, 2010. click to enlarge

Remembering the '09 BMW Championship

2010-09-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

G-Blaze's view count on youtube went through the roof this week when the commentators brought this moment back into everyone's minds:

He definitely had himself a good cry after this one

Wrong Chris Wood, Devil Ball

2010-09-03T21:16:00.001-07:00

Yahoo Devil Ball blogger Jay Busbee did a piece Friday (even though the news broke Tuesday) about a kid from Wisconsin who disqualified himself from a tournament after the head pro at his home club, Chris Wood discovered a fifteenth club in his bag hours after the round. The only problem was ...

Either Busbee's auto-link picked up the wrong Chris Wood, or the writer of Devil Ball thinks a guy who has $1.6 million in career earnings picked up a job as a head pro in Wisconsin:

The man that the article is actually referring to is this Chris Wood, the well-respected head golf professional at Rivermoor Golf Club near Milwaukee in Waterford, WI:

DBrush ... Helping cheaters take an inch

2010-08-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

Historically pocket brushes for golf lived true to their name, they filled your pocket. DBrush changed that when they came up with a brush the size of a quarter, but along with it they gave the inchers a handy new tool for cheating.

Back in 2007, The Green Blazer wrote a piece on the now played-out MySpace, my only blogging outlet at the time, about a subject that most people probably think about but few talk about: Inching. A player inches when he replaces his ball slightly closer to the hole than he marked it.

THE WEDGE SHAPE OF THE DBRUSH ENABLES INCHERS TO MARK THEIR BALL EVEN DEEPER AND STILL REPLACE IT SHALLOW

Most inchers put the mark as tightly as possible behind the ball and then replace it with a slight gap between the mark and the ball. If an incher doubles his or her DBrush as a mark, the wedge shape has the cheater inching with ease. Off the course, an inching man is probably more likely to invest in products like natural male enhancement pills and the penis pump than a non-incher.

Probably the most famous case of inching involved Scotsman Lindsay Smith who had his membership suspended from the prestigious Nairn Golf Club after being branded a cheat. Wind of the incident blew into the Green Blazer's cipher when Smith, a one handicap senior bank official, escalated the matter all the way to the high courts of Scotland, and the story began tracking on the internet news sites.

Here's how John Robertson of the Scotsman Newspaper described the incident that got Smith removed: "On the tenth green, Mr. Scott told Mr. Smith he had marked his ball wrongly by placing the marker in front, rather than behind the ball, so that when he replaced the ball it had been closer to the hole than when he lifted it. He alleged that the same thing had happened at the seventh hole. Mr Smith denied the accusations."

Who knows, there may have been some club politics involved the suspension. Maybe Smith was disliked by some members of the board, or maybe he was liked too well by their wives. The Scotsman also mentioned, however, that "There had been similar allegations made against him twice in the past." So the club suspended him, and branded the message that Nairn will not be regarded as a place that takes fondly to those that compromise the rules set forth by the R&A. The Court of Session in Edinburgh eventually found nothing wrong with the way the golf club reacted, and the ruling for this extreme case of inching made The Green Blazer as excited as a Scotsman with a plaid tumbler full of Macallan 25.

Does inching really make a difference? The wife of a male incher might tell you indeed it does. And a 35 inch putt is easier to knock-in than a 36 inch putt, assuming the conditions are the same.

The Green Blazer would like to urge everyone to give future opponents a stern warning the next time you witness them inching. In a friendly game, give your partner a hard time about an inching incident. Tell him or her Timberland boots might make a person taller but you'd look ridiculous wearing them at a wedding. Then refer them to the amazon.com's Swedish vacuum enhancer pistol.

Survey: Giving up in playoff game worse than cheating on wife

2010-07-20T18:41:00.000-07:00

Amid Tiger Woods' torrent of torrid love affairs hitting the main stream, he is still America's favorite athlete -- he'll just have to share that spot with Kobe Bryant. LeBron James fell from 3rd to 6th.

Woods had held the position alone since 2006, but the Los Angeles Lakers guard moved up from fourth last year to grab a share of the top spot, Harris Interactive said Tuesday.

If anal sex counts, Woods isn't the only one in that top spot that has an adulterous past (or present). Bryant also has a splitting history with cheating on his wife, and Bryant's isolated incident may have been worse because the 19-year-old said she told him to stop.

LeBron dropped significantly on men's side in the company’s survey of 2,227 people that was conducted online from June 14-21, before he left Cleveland to sign with Miami.

Stinky Cinky not in "Big Three"

2010-07-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

Although over 1.2 million Twitter followers and a British Open is impressive, Stewart Cink should not be the other guy next to Tiger and Phil in PGATour.com's "The Big Three."

sidenote: David Letterman's Top Ten surprising facts about Stewart Cink both made The Blazer laugh and grow slightly fonder of Stewart Cink.

Link housekeeping

2010-07-10T11:36:00.001-07:00

Bloggers need to cut the fat on links
G-Blaze has had enough ... Bloggers need to join together and commit to scrutinizing their links more routinely. If the posters aren't posting, then so goes their link.

It seems everyone is too scared of offending another blogger by taking down a pointless link or they just don't check their links often enough -- they just plop them up and forget it.

The requirement for link removal should be subjective, analyzed on a case by case basis. As we know, there exists a few different types of blogging personalities.

There's the Streaky motivation blogger, who has high quality posts, but randomly a couple times a month. The Green Blazer is an SMB, and so is my man Bob Smiley at Fore Right.

Many SMBs strive to be an Everyday blogger, but often never make it because they either don't want to sacrifice quality for quantity or just never quite commit. Committing is difficult especially if no one reads your posts as is the case with many blogs (if a blogger makes a post and nobody reads it, was it ever really a post?). Tony at Hooked on Golf Blog is an everyday blogger, so is The Golf Girl, and so are some of the humps at Yahoo, who make pointless posts with generic titles like, "Woods looks uncertain entering British Open."

Many SMBs are worthy of linkage, just so long as they don't become a Gave up blogger. These are the type that should be removed from links. If you're blog goes months without an update and your stuff wasn't that ground breaking to begin with, it's safe to say you've given up on it. If you want to get your link back you should have to earn it be posting.

While recently visiting one of the golf blogs mentioned above, The Golf Girl's Diary (a golf blog that actually has a strong following) I noticed an extensive list of "Woman blog about golf" links.

Of the 17 links, 2 were broken, three hadn't had a single 2010 post and two hadn't posted in several months. One this short list, seven of the 17 should probably be cut, which would of course increase the value of the posting bloggers.

G-Blaze is using The Golf Girl as an example (I may have called out someone else if she hadn't removed her link to The Green Blazin' blog), but there exists unworthy links in close to every extensive link list out there.

What are you waiting for bloggers? Quit being scared to offend a non-poster. It's time to clean house.

Man searches for ways to avoid being annoying walker

2010-07-07T11:50:00.001-07:00

Exploring alternatives to riding
Have you ever been annoyed by four walkers enjoying the day while you're trying to play a fast round of golf? If you haven't you're probably either an annoying walker yourself or you welcome slow play because you like to spend as much time as possible on the course as your nagging wife only permits you to play nine holes per week.

With country club membership dues at record lows, broke ass golfers everywhere finally get a chance to be a member at a private club. Clubs that once had 10 year waiting lists and 20k down strokes just to get in the door are now one step away from implementing a Little Caesars style panhandle marketing campaign.

This following is the situation a Green Blazer Corps member by the name of Stefan Core found himself in:

He was ready to pull the trigger on a steal of a membership at 5k/yr but before signing on the dotted line he was informed that golf cars are not included. He would basically be forced into dropping $20 every time he wanted to play. After confirming that the club would not allow him to use and store his own golf car on premises, Stefan began his search for alternatives.

His first thought was to look into a golf specific mall cop style Segway. He found exactly what he had in mind, the Segway x2 Golf. For a one time fee of $4300 used his problems could be solved. He was ready to make the purchase, but decided he better run it by the country club first. The old codgers on the board quickly shot him down saying it qualified as a golf car under the club's definition.

If only he could create a vehicle that looked like a pull cart only with a kickstand that would support his weight. He decided to check the ultimate source for amateur engineers looking to display their talents ... Youtube.

He quickly found a vehicle called the ParScooter. It's nothing more than a nancyboy scooter with an electric motor and a pull cart attachment:

But that wasn't all he found. In the process, he stumbled upon a golf car that has nothing to do with serving his needs, but was funny to watch immediately after watching the ParScooter:

In the end, Stefan decided to get the membership and buy a Bat Caddy X3R. Now not only is he an annoying walker, he's an annoying walker with an even more annoying electric push cart.

Not "icy", just Tiger

2010-07-06T12:47:00.000-07:00

"Tiger growls at media"
"Tetchy Tiger dodges personal questions"
"Woods turns icy at personal questions"
"Woods loses cool over questions"

How can you lose your cool and be icy? Above are just a few of the headlines following Tiger Woods press conference in Ireland.

Finding a video of the conference proved to be a difficult task, but after trying many sources, ol' faithful youtube had at least part of the Tiger Woods press conference that made "icy" Tuesday's buzz word (hint -- to find the latest videos on youtube, switch your search options to sort by "date uploaded").

Based on the 55 second clip, G-Blaze thinks Tiger was rather timid, yet 55 seconds isn't very long. One word answers are nothing new to the world No. 1, a man who is probably more annoyed with the media vultures that anyone on the planet. He was giving one word answers to questions before he got caught pounding strange*, and he will certainly do so now.

In the end, Tiger haters will continue to hate and the people that like him will continue to defend him. As long as he remains the best player in the game, he'll always be golf's top story.

*strange is a term married men use to describe a woman they've slept with other than their wife.

Adidas: If golfers could play barefoot, they would

2010-07-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

In the midst of pimping their new shoe line, an exec (more likely a hired actor) for Adidas makes the claim, "If golfers could play golf barefoot, they would." The truth is that they can, but the don't.

The Blazer's initial inclination was to zing Adidas for putting this line in their commercial, but instead decided to throttle back and research the subject.

I tried a number of combinations on Google: golf + barefoot; golf + barefoot + pga tour; "barefoot golfers"; "barefoot professional golfers." None seemed to give me the comprehensive piece I was looking for.

There was a number of sites talking about the merits of playing barefoot most talking about the extra feel that they had. But, these comments were likely from high handicap hacks who have no feel with or without shoes.

The best source found was a thread on golfwrx.com. Much of the commentary related around pesticides and the negative effect barefoot golfing could cause to your body. One commenter even told a partially related story about a player that used to put his balls in his mouth (clean his golf ball by putting it in his mouth):

Golfwrx member Artemicion:
"Apparently there's a documented case of a guy who liked to clean his golf balls by putting them in his mouth while others were putting. After a while he fell ill and was eventually hospitalized and diagnosed with two types of hepatitis, of which one was an unknown type. After an extended stay he was fully cured, returned to the golf course and his habit of gobbling golf balls, and after a while fell ill again with the same disease. Doctors hypothesized the ingestion of pesticides, fertilizer and other stuff found on greens might be the cause, and urged the man to give up his habit. Apparently he's been healthy since."

But certainly the funniest comment was, "Two words, Goose Dookie!" (click here for The Green Blazer's -- "Geese are the shits" piece)

The only pro referenced in the thread was Sam Snead, who was said to play and practice barefoot. He even played a few holes barefoot at Augusta one year according to some hump on wrx.

If golfing barefoot was really something professionals believed would improve their game and pesticides were the only thing keeping them in shoes, it is certain that some sort of extra sensitivity latex foot condom would have been designed. In fact, it would probably be designed by Callaway since they never miss an opportunity to put their name on some crappy product idea.

COMING SOON ... THE CALLAWAY TUXEDO FOOT CONDOM (ALSO AVAILABLE IN MAGNUM)

Did The King sell out to sweetness?

2010-06-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

Arizona responsible for Arnold Palmer's ruin

Bartender: What can I get you Arnie?

Arnold Palmer: "Iced tea ... But why don't you sweeten it up a bit with some lemonade this time. Just go ahead and make it 50-50, lemonade and iced tea."

Bar patron: "Hmmm ... That's sounds refreshing. I'll have what Arnie is having."

Bartender: "So two ... umm ... Arnold Palmers coming right up."

The scenario above outlines an account of how the Arnold Palmer drink was created. You take an unsweetened drink, combine it with something sweet (in this case lemonade) and you come out with a tasty yet still thirst quenching drink.

Those days are long gone.

When most people think of an Arnold Palmer now, they picture a plastic bottle -- the upper half resembling a golf ball and the lower half containing Arnie's ugly mug. That product is different entirely. It's two sweet drinks combined, the end product having little to do with the original drink idea of sweetening a sugarless drink.

With the nation buzzed on high fructose corn syrup, Arizona wasn't about to keep the drink under the parameter in which it was created. What they did instead is the drink equivalent of deep frying a piece of celery in chocolate sauce before spreading it with peanut butter.

Arizona simply took their own high fructose tea recipe and combined it with their high fructose lemonade recipe destroying the hydration benefits by weighing the entire drink down with sugar.

So was Arnie involved in Arizona's discussion of how the drink with be created? Was he told that they would need to compromise his ingenuity to appeal to the boneheaded masses? Few know for sure, but if the question was posed to Arnie, he would probably say ... "What the hell is this idiot talking about."

Heavy Putter stingy with butt plugs

2010-06-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

Attempting to turn a Cameron into a Heavy Putter
Heavy Putter made a name for itself in the golf equipment industry by doing something that no other company has done before -- making putters with very high head weights and counteracting the head weight with a heavy metal butt plug.

Experienced butt plug users know that the plug better fit just right or it could get messy.

Recently a member of the Green Blazer Corps, Rob Digital, decided he no longer liked his Scotty Cameron Kombi long putter, so he chopped it down to 33 inches and started using it as a regular putter. But, there was a problem: the head weight was so high (500 grams) that he felt like he was swinging a noodle with a meat ball at the end of it. Enter the butt plug.

Heavy Putter inserts a 250 gram butt plug into all of their putters to increase the putter's total weight and move the balance point up. Upon doing some research, Rob Digital decided to see if any company besides Heavy Putter was making butt plugs. He found numerous butt plugs online, some double bubble, some triple ripple and some inflatable vibrating, but the closest thing he could find that would work is a GolfSmith universal butt plug.

After even more research, he found that even if the universal butt plug was filled with tungsten, it would weigh just 70 grams, 180 grams less than Heavy Putter's butt plug. Hmmm ... What does a person do when they can't seem to find a butt plug that fits their needs?

Rob called Heavy Putter and told then he ordered a Heavy Putter head on Ebay, and would like to purchase one of their custom butt plugs. Heavy Putter quickly replied that although they would fix one of their putters that had a broken shaft, they do not sell their butt plugs to anybody, even if a vendor tries to order one.

So Rob decided to take matters into his own hands. After digging around his garage, he found a rusty solid steel rod that looked like it would fit in his butt. He weighed the rod and found that it conveniently weighed exactly 250 grams. He jammed the steel rod in his butt as far as it would without doing damage; he said it felt great when the rod made it all the way in. Rob threw on a new grip on and he now has his very own Scotty Cameron Heavy Putter knock-off.

The moral of the story: Finding the right butt plug for you can be a difficult task, but if you open your mind and think outside the box, you may find the perfect butt plug in a place you wouldn't expect.

You know it's a dump driving range when ...

2010-05-18T09:56:00.001-07:00

They charge you to putt ...

Thanks to Jasper Keaton for sending this over

Out of his range

2010-05-15T08:03:00.000-07:00

Jerry Rice makes embarrassing gaffe
Since the golfer is responsible for the caddie he chooses, G-Blaze is gonna go ahead and call this blunder embarrassing rather than humiliating ...

Adding insult to injury Jerry Rice disqualified himself from the Nationwide Tour event he took last in with rounds of 92-82 by using a laser range finder during the second round. The fact that Rice didn't know that this was illegal should completely blow the mind of every competitive golfer out there. Another question is that if Rice and his caddie thought this was legal, why weren't they using it on every shot that week? You mean they were eyeballing yardage when they thought they could gun it?

Rice admitted after the round that he isn't good enough for this type of competition and will not be playing any Nationwide Tour events in the future.

There is one bright spot in what had to go down as one of Jerry Rice's worst weeks ever ... At least he wasn't using a SkyCaddie.

Tiger Woods' fat-mouthed neighbor launches profiteering website

2010-05-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

Fellow Isleworth resident claims to give untold story of world No. 1

It took him a hot minute but fellow Isleworth resident to Tiger Woods, Jerome (Jay) Adams is the latest profiteer trying to gain off the world No. 1 golfer's fall from grace.

James recently launched a pay-per-view website which he claims will provide stories of Tiger Woods never heard until now. James claims in a preview video on the site that he will give an “eyewitness account” of the Woods car accident scene on Nov. 27 even though it was Adams' brother Jarius that provided details to police the night of the car accident.

Jerome James goes on to claim in the same video on his new pay-per-view website that now his family wants “to tell exactly what happened that night.”

The only way this hump could know exactly what happened is if he was peeping in the windows the billionaire golfer's home that night. If James really wanted the story out then he wouldn't be be charging $4 for the privilege of hearing it. This is simply the latest in the many money-making ploys targeting Tiger Woods.

James, who admittedly is disdainful towards Woods, makes claim about Woods and his treatment of wife Elin Nordegren that James likely completely blew out of proportion. In the first PPV clip on the site, sportsbybrooks.com reports that Adams says he once saw Tiger push Elin to hurry her up when Tiger was eager to leave. Adams says he witnessed Woods grabbing one of Elin’s arms and, “he shoves her. … I was stunned by what I saw.”

There is no evidence behind James' claims, but alas he will release another video that he says will focus on the Thanksgiving accident scene.

Further proof that he would use his unique position to exacerbate stories for a few thousand dollars, Jay-bone even came up with a fresh, novel-like title for his m.m.o. -- "Behind the Gates, The Untold Story (Until Now!) of Tiger Woods."

note -- In unpromotional spirit, The Green Blazer will not be including a link to James' website

Being Badds is good unless he's "stacked"

2010-04-17T13:55:00.001-07:00

A year removed from Aaron Baddeley quitting the stack and tilt golf swing, the "I'm stacked" commercial continues to buzz like a knat in Golf Channel viewers' ears worse than the sound of Michael Breeds' voice.

Apparently Badds stacked off all his chips in his relationship with the pros behind the video series, "The Stack and Tilt Golf Swing" and they just continue to run it regardless of Badds is stacked or not.

It's worth mentioning that there is a direct correlation between Aaron Baddeley adopting the stack and tilt swing method and his plummet in the world rankings.

For The Green Blazer's detailed description of the stack and tilt golf swing, click here.

He's not stacked ... But the commercial still is.

Those bars on the side of the screen indicate that The Stack and Tilt commercial is not HD compatible.

Tiger Woods pissed ... And the Blazer loves it!

2010-04-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

This is what everyone will be freaking out about later today. G-Blaze loves it when Tiger gets pissed and loves it even more when he's fist pumping for victory. When I heard he was going to tone down his emotions I thought, "Shit this sucks ... Tiger is not going to get pissed anymore; that's a bunch of bullshit."

People make such a big deal about his temper, but we at The Green Blazer Corps love it. "Oh ... the children," they say. "Oh ... he's not being respectful of the game." That's a bunch of hog wash. If anybody is really that offended by his outbursts, they're probably a complete pussy.

Here's Tiger with a perfectly normal response for an athlete that just made an error:

Tiger hater makes funny at Augusta

2010-04-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

G-Blaze grabbed this pic from sportsbybrooks.com -- the authority in sports gossip. If only Tiger could hit is high and long enough to bring that plane down in a barrage of golf balls.

You know you're a hack when ...

2010-04-07T12:20:00.000-07:00

You use your retriever so often that you finish a round with more golf balls than you started with ...

The always desperate Callaway never misses an opportunity to capitalize on the hack market. This retriever pictured here with headcover is the perfect compliment to your Odyssey chipper.

Tiger still bested by tiger in Google search

2010-04-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

Reported today by Green Blazer Media Group, world No. 1 Tiger Woods is still being one-uped by tiger, the striped feline that is the favorite animal among many young children, in Google image search results.

When a Googler types "Tiger" in the search box, the billionaire golfer doesn't make it on the first page. In fact, it isn't until page-10 that the golfer makes his first appearance showing that although he might be bigger than the game of golf, he's not bigger than the entire animal kingdom.

It has not yet been announced whether Woods' team will attempt a "Google Bomb" or any practices intended to challenge the big cat for the No. 1 spot.

Tiger "New Endorsement" posts were never funny

2010-03-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

... and now they're getting more played out than Hip Hoppers 'keeping it real.'

So in the spirit of keeping it real, G-Blaze made a vow with himself to never come up with his own clever version of a satirical "Tiger's new endorsement" post.

Instead, we will go ahead and review some bloggers' ideas of a funny post in order of how obvious and stupid they are. note -- If you think these are funny, you probably don't have a very good sense of humor.

-- This one is certainly the stupidest. Any idiot could come up with this, but I'm sure the douchebag who posted it was very proud of his tag-line and photoshop work. Finding the original poster of any of these is nearly impossible because they were so highly circulated by email forwarding baby-boomers.

-- Most would enjoy watching Tiger smack the smirk off this next artist's face with a with a hard 6-iron.

-- Don't know if this one qualifies as an endorsement deal post, but we will include it anyway. This artist certainly just heard the oversized head, stiff shafted wood joke for the first time and found it so funny he just couldn't resist himself.

-- The Lays endorsement post is certainly the most clever one that we came across, but the conspicuousness of the idea outweighs the urge to chuckle, so do your best to resist.

The Green Blazer's morning with Tiger

2010-02-19T13:28:00.000-08:00

10:40 am EST -- The Green Blazer awakes after a 12 hour online poker session that lasted until 5:00am ... Another all-too-familiar final table bubble that pays so much less than the effort is worth.

10:45 am -- The robust Italian espresso pours out of GB's DeLongHi machine into a stainless steal cup. Espresso is GB's newest vice -- much different from Tiger's vice that he is about to apologize for.

10:50 am -- GB turns on The Golf Channel to catch the last 10 minutes of their Tiger Woods speech pregame. I still chuckle at the idea of a speech pregame. The Golf Channel reports that the Golf Writers Association are boycotting the speech. I think that many of them will now look back at that decision with regret.

11:00 am -- I switch channels to NBC because I wasn't 100 percent certain The Golf Channel would actually have the speech live, and I didn't want to miss a single word. I should have known better.

11:02 am -- Tiger emerges from backstage and the NBC commentator is cutoff mid-sentence by another broadcaster.

11:03 am -- Tiger starts to speak quite robotically from the sheet of paper in front of him. He seems more nervous and awkward than I ever remember seeing him. The first thing I notice is his receding hairline. It was always there, but it probably dropped back a full inch in the last few months.

11:07 am -- Something goes wrong with the feed and the screen goes dark for a moment. The audio stays intact. When the visual returns, it is from a side profile and will remain that way for the rest of the speech.

11:09 am -- Tiger does the first thing that I didn't expect and he admits that he thought the normal rules didn't apply to him. "I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn't have to go far to find them." I thought this was the best part of the speech.

11:11 am -- Tiger asked the media to "please leave my wife and kids alone." He is wasting his breath.

11:12 am -- I'm surprised to hear Tiger talk about his religion. I never knew he was a Buddhist.

11:15 am -- Tiger's speech ends and he walks down from the podium to hug his mother. I still wonder if the rumors of his father's infidelity are true. We will likely never know for sure, but my intuition says yes.

11:16 am -- Tiger then moves towards his wife Elin's family. He hugs her mother. I still think the family is somewhat enamored by his presence. This will likely never go away. He does a sort of handshake/hug to two younger guys who I assume are Elin's brothers. They do not seem angry at him.

11:17 am -- I switch back to The Golf Channel as I like listening to Brandel Chamblee better than any other non-golf commentators.

11:18 am -- Charlie Rymer begins to talk and you can see the tears building in his eyes. His bottom lip starts to quiver and he can't seem to hold the tears in. I laugh out loud at the idea of Rymer crying after Tiger's speech. Rymer says that when he sees someone showing that much emotion it makes him emotional. I did not see the emotion in Tiger that Rymer speaks of until Tiger hugged his mother after the speech.

Brandel Chamblee takes Tiger's back on the highly scrutinized speech timing. He says that he was watching Paul Casey and Sergio Garcia criticizing Tiger on CNN and notes that Accenture's logo was plastered behind them -- an advertisement they wouldn't have gotten had Tiger not chose this time. Chamblee also notes that Tiger's speech was scheduled hours before the Match Play broadcast, and had Tiger really been trying to stick it to his former sponsor Accenture, he'd of held the speech during the coverage.

11:30 am -- Rymer's emotional response leads to The Green Blazer's first ever Twitter post.

*I don't know if either of these people were the pioneers, but I'd like to credit both Dan Peterson (ESPN) and Bob Smiley (Author of 'Follow the Roar') with the formatting idea of this post.

Taylormade's 'Find your lame' Project Burner promotion

2010-02-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

Is the barrel full of old golf clubs in your garage in need of some more worthless crap? If so, Taylormade's new promotion will leave you and 19,999 others finding your 6 iron game by registering at Taylormade.

With so many golfers in need of new 6 irons, Taylormade is filling that void with their latest promotion -- Project Burner.

From Taylormade's fancy, difficult to navigate webpage:
"Project Burner is on a mission to replace obsolete irons. Over 133,000 golfers have switched to Burner making it the No. 1 selling iron ... Now it's your turn."

That's right ... Instead of just giving away 2,500 boring full sets, Taylormade is giving 20,000 people a chance to stick one oddball club in the bag. Make sure you head over to Taylormade and register soon or your chance to win some of Taylormade's purposeless scraps will be gone.

Since the 6 iron pictured here will serve no golfing purposes for you, try chopping it down and giving it to your local junior golf program or use it as a effective, convenient bludgeoning device.

Men around the globe lose respect for Fred Couples

2010-01-26T13:00:00.001-08:00

Crowd favorite Fred Couples gave the Champions Tour a bump along with the world's biggest badass Tom Watson when the two had a memorable Sunday duel that put anything that the Bob Hope Classic could offer to shame.

Unfortunately for Freddie, he was deserving of a hard bitch slap when asked a what his favorite James Cameron movie was. As G-Blaze sat enjoying the coverage with billy in hand, the thought, "No Freddie ... please don't say it" came when the lackey posed the question. Freddie's answer: "Well I haven't seen Avatar, so I'd have to go with Titanic." Ouch ... He could have went with Terminator, T2, Rambo 2, Aliens, True Lies, but no ... He'd rather watch Leo leave his heart on the screen while tens of weeping women look on in amazement.

Hopefully Freddie can redeem his manhood again soon ... A few 340 drives at 50 years-old should do it.

Coursetrends trending towards hackiness

2010-01-25T11:56:00.001-08:00

CourseTrends, a company that designs websites for golf courses all over the U.S., bills itself as, "The #1 provider of golf marketing solutions." They'll design a course's website, setup a a email marketing program, and claim that by using their sophisticated marketing system your course will generate a 400% return on investment.

It's amazing that so many courses will actually pay the ridiculous prices they charge for facilitating a website and auto-sending a couple emails a month. Upon trying to help our club settle on a new website solution, G-Blaze took a look at a typical website that's "Powered by Coursetrends." After one glance, I can tell you with utmost certainty that these are not real golfers behind this company. For proof, look no further than Exhibit A:

EXHIBIT A

This is a stock picture provided by CourseTrends for courses to use on their website. Nothing says golf like a hack waring a pair of $25 golf shoes placing hard, shiny white ball a top his step tee while waring a black baseball glove. If you're a golf course owner looking to "power" your website using Coursetrends, let G-Blaze be the first to suggest you don't get fooled.

Instead, go with a local brovider (a brovider is a bro that provides a skill set on the cheap as an alternative to a more expensive corporate provider). Coursetrends -- The #1 provider of Golf Marketing solutions from people who couldn't break 90 if someone was holding their families hostage demanding they do so ...

Daly, Wilson find groovy loophole

2010-01-16T13:00:00.000-08:00

Dean Wilson digs through the barrel in his garage looking to bang the dust off his old Ping Eye 2 wedges. These wedges have box shaped grooves, the type of grooves that are illegal on the PGA Tour starting in 2010. But, While playing the Sony Open this week in Hawaii (pronounced Ha-wa-eeeeeeee), Wilson and John Daly are relying on a precedent set in the 80s where a court settlement said any Ping-Eye 2 made before April 1, 1990, remains approved under the Rules of Golf.

"That settlement still takes precedence over the new regulation," Dick Rugge, the USGA’s senior technical director, told The Associated Press.

Daly stopped by Ping headquarters in Phoenix, AZ on his way to Hawaii and surprised company officials by the number of old wedges he had found. He says he has eight or nine sets.

Even so, he asked Ping for a set of V-shaped grooves that he might use at Torrey Pines later this month.

"A golf course like San Diego, you want V grooves in your wedges because the greens are so soft,” he said. “Here, you want square grooves. I’ll probably go through the year switching a lot."

Wilson said he hasn’t tried to compare the spin rate on the Ping wedges with new clubs.

“I’m not so much concerned with the grooves as I am the design of the wedge,” Wilson said. “If it does create more spin, great. But I can’t tell you it honestly does.”

Daly said he first tried his old wedges when he played in Australia last month.

EXPECT THIS $225 STARTING BID TO BE THE EBAY NORM NOW ONCE GOLFWRX NERDS THAT THINK THEY'RE GOING PRO CATCH WIND OF THE RULE-JIMMY THAT REAL PROS ARE EXPLOITING

Tiger to smooth things over with Haiti relief

2010-01-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

Billionaire golf mega-don Tiger Woods has not been seen or heard from since the night he redefined "Black Friday," but in a recent development the Tiger Woods Foundation will smooth over Tiger's infidelity with Haiti relief effort. The Foundation hasn't given an official figure yet, but if Russel Simmons' blow-up is on target, $3 million is the number.

Although this seems like a blatant yet benevolent attempt to gain pub-relations points, this isn't the first time Tiger's Foundation has helped relief efforts. Woods’ foundation gave $100,000 to tsunami relief efforts in 2004. It also gave the Baton Rouge Area Foundation $200,000 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Federer Takes Woods' back

2010-01-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

No. 1 tennis player says No. 1 golfer will be back at his best

Roger Federer recently received the No. 1 seed for tennis' first major, The Austrailian Open, and in a recent interview the world's best tennis player showed support for the world's best golfer.
Federer says he’s spoken to his friend Tiger Woods by phone and predicts he will be back soon “as the wonderful golfer we know.”

The tennis star said in an interview published Friday that Woods’ car accident in November and subsequent reports about his private life have been hard on the golfer and his family.
Federer told French sports daily L’Equipe that he expressed his support, and said Woods’ troubles were “instructive.”

“The tabloids are going crazy, sponsor contracts are falling apart. … I’ve always been aware that the image you patiently construct for an entire career can be ruined in a minute,” Federer said. “It scares you a bit, but that’s the way things are.”

Woods has not played since winning the Australian Masters on Nov. 15. Two weeks later, Woods world fell apart following a car crash that legitimized infidelity rumors.
Woods hasn’t been seen in public since the accident, and other friends have said they have unsuccessfully tried to reach him.

Federer did not say whether or not he is as dirty of a dog as Woods.

Urban Dictionary: "Tiger's Wife Mad"

2009-12-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

click to enlarge

Is Golf Digest stupid or just lazy?

2009-12-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

Although The Green Blazer hasn't subscribed to Golf Digest in years, for some reason they keep sending them. It could be from booking Golfnow.com tee times, or maybe they're sending them as a courtesy to stay on G-Blaze's good side. Either way, they pile up faster than our national debt.

Upon seeing the cover of the Jan/2010 edition, I quickly tossed it into the waste basket before even removing the plastic ... The cover is a joke (almost as laughable as Time magazine naming Ben Bernanke "Man of the Year.")

What better way to make people take notice than to come up with a fluffy story paralleling Tiger to Obama that allows them to put them both on the cover. "10 things Obama might learn from Tiger," the cover read. After some thought, I decided to pull the mag out of the trash and read the cover story for amusement.

Cover illustration By Michael Elins (Golf Digest actually gives credit for this crappy 5 min photoshopped cover they refer to as an illustration)

The story was clearly completed before the Tiger Woods scandal began, but the publication was released well after. The editor made no effort to even acknowledge the recent tribulations, or better yet, scrap the story altogether. Obviously the lazy hack had already put that month's edition to bed and, in classic "it's too late now" journalist style, decided to stay the course and go the complacent route.

The story starts by saying both men were defined by their fathers (Woods had more in common with Earl than most previously thought), and then goes on to list ten things Obama could learn from Tiger:

1. The Quick Recovery
2.The Cold Ferocity
3. How to Step on Their Necks
4. The Trouble with Compromise
5. The Value of a Few 'Majors'
6. Controlling the message -- and Spending
7. The Swing Change
8. Clothes the Deal
9. You've got to Deliver
10. The Danger of Looking Ridiculous

Put in prospective, the list is nothing short of hilarious. As most people know, Golf Digest is one of Tiger's sponsors, but one look at their website and you can see they're not pulling a CBS and putting a gag order out on Tiger talk. Golf Digest would have been best served to take their own advice from No. 10 as ridiculous is the only word to describe their publishing of this article.

Elin gives Tiger ultimatum

2009-12-01T17:09:00.000-08:00

Given the recent rumors that Tiger has been pumping something other than his fist with contestant from the first season of VH1's Tool Academy Jiamee Grubbs, Tiger's wife has issued him a written ultimatum: Tiger he must attend season 3 of Tool Academy to learn how to properly treat a woman or she will leave him and allow him to break his friend Michael Jordan's record for most expensive divorce. Elin said that she thinks this will add a quirky twist to a story that for Tiger fans seems like a strange nightware.

The body of Jaimee Grubbs' former boyfriend and Tool Academy contestant Shaun with the head of Tiger.

Doug Barron before and after PEDs

2009-11-03T14:43:00.001-08:00

Before Doug Barron became the first golfer suspended for violating the Tour's drug policy, he was best known for removing his shirt to hit a shot that would have otherwise soaked his shirt in dirty lake water.

By the looking at Barron's shirtless body in 2006 and comparing it to today, you don't need a test to show you that this man is on PEDs.

2006 Shirtless Doug Barron

2009 Shirtless Doug Barron

John Daly Fact

2009-10-27T14:01:00.000-07:00

John Daly shot 80 or higher 54 times on tour ...

Why do you think that is?

It's Street Fighter II at the Presidents Cup

2009-10-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

At Presidents Cup Sunday, Ryo Ishikawa and Kenny Perry are giving us a classic Street Fighter II rematch we thought we left in the 90s.

RYO VS KEN

Pictured here on the docks in California, Ryo fires a hadoken at Ken. If the hadoken connects, he will likely follow it up with a shoryuken and possibly a corner-trapping barrage of various fierce kicks.

Flash Forward to the 2016 Olympics

2009-10-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

After more than a century on the sidelines, it was announced today Golf will make its return to the Olympics in 2016. Tiger has announced that he will play given he is not already retired.

Brandt Snedeker Collapse at BMW Championship

2009-09-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

Brandt Snedeker is going to go home and have himself a good cry (again) after this one ...

Brandt Snedeker is all thumb

2009-09-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

The commentators at the BMW Championship exposed a certain quirkiness in Brandt Snedeker's takeaway Saturday:

In this picture Snedeker's backswing has actually started, and his right thumb is completely removed from the club.

But even Johnny Miller would agree ... One thumb is better than toe thumb:

Stray bullets after the PGA Championship

2009-08-16T18:17:00.000-07:00

With all the talk of Tiger choking it's worth noting that Y.E. Yang's pressure putting was tested on the green at 17. He did what many would refer to as a choke job, but it will never get noticed because Tiger didn't capitalize.
Expect Lerner, Cellini, Tilghman and Sands to ware out the phrase "Tiger Slayer" over the next week.
This is the second week in a row that a sculled short-sided lob into a water hazard removed Padraig Harrington's chances on Sunday.
Many will jokingly blame the pinkish hue in Tiger's shirt for the loss.
Rory McIroy finished T3 at age 20.
Watching Tiger Woods have to putt for par on 18 (and miss) after Yang had already dropped the birdie for the win was an awkward sight to say the least.
As expected, Tiger was kind of a dick during the post round press conference.

Article from Vail Mountaineer 8.5.09

2009-08-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

Click image to enlarge

Tiger Woods Farts - "Let it release a little bit more"

2009-08-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

Check out the new element to Tiger's preshot routine. Faldo describes it perfectly ... "You just got to try and let it release a little bit more." It's unclear if it was actually Tiger, but that stomp just before the release points to Tiger.

Article published in the Vail Mountaineer 7.30.09

2009-07-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

click image to enlarge

Giant penis crashes American Century Celebrity Championship golf tourney

2009-07-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

If they can show one on the cover of a Disney Movie, why is a giant penis on live TV a problem?

It was enough of a problem for a cop to tell the girls ”they might as well have a sign that says stupid bachelorette party ” and that they are all ”stupid dumb girls.”

Oh Snap! That cop has got zingers for days!

This incident happened on the 17th at Edgewood Tahoe, and Michael actually thought it was funny.

It's true that no bachelorette party is complete without a giant inflatable penis, but thanks to one heads up golf watcher, that picture made its way to the internet and for that we thank you.

UPDATE: Could this giant inflatable penis been responsible for giving this woman the idea to accuse Ben Roethlisberger of rape at last year's Tahoo celeb tournament? Picture it: She's watching the tournament on TV, dead broke, thinking about her consensual sex with Roethlisberger the year before, when she sees this giant weiner trying to force its way around the course and, Eureka! Rape it is ...

THANKS TO THE AUTHORITY ON SPORTS GOSSIP -- SPORTSBYBROOKS.COM FOR POSTING THESE PICTURES

Nike to confiscate tapes of Tiger's British Open

2009-07-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

Due to Tiger Woods' poor performance at this year's British Open, Nike is attempting to confiscated all tapes containing shots from his rounds in order to save Tiger from any further embarrassment.

Nike is particularly concerned with holes 8-13 on Friday where Woods played the worst six hole stretch of his professional career.

An representative from Nike said, "It's not as bad as getting dunked on by someone attending your basketball camp, but we can't be too careful with our top athletes nowadays."

Tiger Woods hangs his head on the 18th green Friday while Nike execs struggle to confiscate all recordings of the round.

Cold Top: Ben Crenshaw scalps it into water

2009-07-14T00:58:00.000-07:00

It's rare to see a tour professional (much less a two time major champion and former Ryder Cup captain) hit a cold top, straight duff, or dead shank, but when they do, you can count on The Green Blazer to capture it. Crenshaw hit his next shot into the water also, ruining an otherwise stellar round of golf.

Captures and Captions: Vijay's new putting grip

2009-07-02T15:04:00.000-07:00

In between hitting thousands of range balls, and attempting to bailout his piece of shit crook friend Allen Stanford, Vijay Singh found time to make yet another change to his putting grip.

When it comes to the putting grips of the game's top players, there should be no surprises nowadays. Singh reinforced that notion at the AT&T National on Thursday by debuting a cross-handed grip on his belly putter with a dash of claw. Don't be surprised if he adds a SuperStroke prototype to the mix next week ...

Vijay has made more putting grip changes than perhaps anyone in the game. Now he has decided to combine every grip change he has ever made into a single supergrip.

I'll show them: Drunk golfer heads home

2009-06-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to JBL who chopped this hilarious article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and sent it over.

click to enlarge

Article published in the Vail Mountaineer June 11th, 2009

2009-06-20T22:23:00.000-07:00

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The Green Blazer explains stack and tilt on Yahoo Answers

2009-06-20T11:22:00.001-07:00

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Donald gives Faxon a stroke a hole

2009-06-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

A number of players shot rounds in the 80s at the first round of the Memorial. These players aren't exactly notables, but they're not no-namers either (aside from Chappell at 86; no one has heard of him). Had Luke Donald given Brad Faxon a stroke a hole, he still would have won.

click to enlarge

You know the course is a dump when ...

2009-05-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

They charge more to play the simulator than the actual golf course on golfnow.com

Thanks to Green Blazer Corps member Pjohnstonian for submitting this picture
Dig through the archive for more entries in this recurring segment

Column from Vail Mountaineer - 5.3.09

2009-05-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

This article ran awhile back, but Daly is still dressing like a flaming Euro, so it's relevant.

Click on image to enlarge (article and time line are separate images)

New hybrid golfing sensation ... Rory Maccatini

2009-05-23T17:09:00.000-07:00

The Golf Channel asked today, "Which Rory will win the Byron Nelson Classic tomorrow ... Sabbatini or Mcilroy?"
Rumor has it, the two combined to make a new golf superstar who will take down the Nelson will ease ... Say hello to Rory Maccatini

Tom Kite sexing up photo collage

2009-05-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

The Blazer had a nice laugh upon seeing the photo collection pgatour.com used for its piece titled, "Texas Wedges." This image shows all the winners of the Byron Nelson Classic that are from the Lone Star state. All the images show the golfer in a nice, classic finish position ... Except one.

For Tom Kite, they chose the googly eyed down syndrome looking pic. This shot is evidence why in his heyday, Kite was known as golf's foremost sex symbol.

Play on player Stenson

2009-05-10T18:18:00.000-07:00

You can be guaranteed The Golf Channel will be stroking Henrik Stenson off all this week following that bogey free 66 to win the Players. So as much as The Green Blazer thinks Stenson is a badass, he will do the opposite of the sycophantic suck-ups at Golf Channel show this video of Stenson:

You know you're a hack when ...

2009-05-05T14:11:00.001-07:00

You ask the question, "How do I backspin it?"

On the occasion that the Blazer gets paired up with a hack, the hack will invariably ask how to put backspin on the ball.

After years of hackatural selection, this question has become an automatic response of a hack seeing a playing partner's ball check up after landing on a green.

The Green Blazer's explanation of backspin took years to perfect, but now we have it nailed down perfectly and condensed it into a simple three part answer.

1. Try not sucking -- When you suck, spinning a ball becomes increasingly difficult unless in the form of a bionic slice.

2. Don't use Pinnacle Gold -- Even though the hack, "likes the yellow ones" the rock hard cover of a Pinnacle or Top Flite XL will not produce much spin. (note: The Blazer is not advising hacks to go out and spend their hard earned wages on a $50 box a golf balls. Due to a horrible motion, hacks likely won't get any more juice from a Pro V1 than from their current choice of ball).

3. Make solid contact -- Putting backspin on a ball when you're chucking, topping, or toe shanking every shot is a difficult task.
------------------------------------------------------------

This three part answer will quickly silence most hacks. Granted, G Blaze could do like most golfers and pad his own ego by giving the hack a detailed explanation of shaft lean at address and how to strike it on a descending blow, but even if the hack can decipher the information, he certainly won't be able to apply it.

Until next time, this has been another edition of "You know you're a hack when ..." Feel free to search the archives if you're interested in reading previous editions of this recurring segment.

If the hacks didn't play them, who would?

Article from the Vail Mountaineer 4.5.09

2009-04-05T13:09:00.001-07:00

Start your own Footjoy Classics Biz

2009-04-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

As most have heard, Footjoy is closing the plant responsible for making the sought after, and very expensive, Footjoy Classics.

Classics will no longer be in the Footjoy line going forward. This is unfortunate for all as we can no longer browse through FJ catalogs and dream of all the pairs of Classics we could have if only we could afford them/quit being too cheap to pull the trigger on unnecessary extravagances.

Where there is misfortune, there is also opportunity. The Green Blazer has made the point before, if there is any appreciating golf equipment/apparel, it likely comes from Acushnet products. So why not grab ahold of some of the great deals on Classics, buy the lot, wait for the price to rise, and sell them back on ebay for more than you paid to rich golf nerds who likely can't break 90? Only time will tell if the going rate exceeds the $199/pair.

Golfsmith doesn't like Sergio's chances, neither does the insurer

2009-03-30T19:17:00.001-07:00

If Sergio Garcia wins the Masters, Golfsmith is promising a full refund for anyone who buys an R7, R9, or Burner driver by April 11th.

This is hilarious because they make it out to the public that they think the Serge has little chance of victory. The more perceptive public knows that they took an insurance policy protecting them from paying out millions if Sergio somehow finally gets it done in a major. The policy is similar in nature to the hole-in-one policy from your local charity outing, which we all know is ridden with hacks, and we all also know that one of them occasional hits a miracle.

How much would this policy have cost Golfsmith if they insured themselves against Tiger winning?

Article from Vail Mountaineer 3.28.09

2009-03-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

click to enlarge

Captures and Captions: Gore attacks sandwedge then attacks sandwich

2009-03-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

As one of the streakiest newer players on the PGA Tour, we all know Jason Gore's range of scores are wider than he would like. Now thanks to a horrible picture the Blazer nabbed totally without permission from Yahoo Sports, Gore's midsection range seems to be widening too:

FAT EVEN IN BLACK: Jason Gore has always looked like if you poked him with a pin, juices would run out resembling that of a pork sausage, but Gore is looking especially fat in this picture at Bay Hill on Thursday.

Article from Vail Mountaineer published 14 Mar 2009

2009-03-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

click to enlarge

Remembering a cool, calm Tiger at Doral in 2008

2009-03-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

Below is a video from the the 2008 CA Championship where Tiger snapped after a camera click in his downswing. The quote isn't in the video, but it was said to be:

''The next time a photographer shoots an fucking picture, I'm going to break his fucking neck.''

Last year, The Blazer wrote a hilarious post that we (of course) still stand by.

Tiger will head back to Doral for his first stroke play event since his surgery, and he may deliver a flying knee to the side of a photog's dome if they break his concentration again.

GREEN BLAZER SPECIAL REPORT: Michael Phelps reading Green Blazer while green blazing!

2009-03-03T18:33:00.000-08:00

We had heard Phelps was an avid reader, but now we have the proof (notice the computer in the background) . What better thing to do while blazing the green than checking out The Green Blazer's page. Thanks Micheal for your continued support, and keep the greens ablaze.

Article from Vail Mountaineer published 2.24.09

2009-02-24T12:49:00.000-08:00

Click to enlarge

Hoff ya go...

2009-02-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

Charlie Hoffman lost last week's FBR in a playoff against the wildly popular Ken boy Perry. Hoffman is known on tour as a fashionless nerd, who stands out in an era where many of the young studs (and Steve Elkington) dress like some str8, right-on, no-worries bros. Hoffman's lack of style is exemplified in the pic below:

Adam Scott is pimping Kate Hudson, Lance is pissed

2009-01-18T11:25:00.003-08:00

Every since The Green Blazer pierced the blogosphere and nabbed a regular byline in a real newspaper, we've been struggling to keep these articles poppin' every Sunday. We've made an agreement not to reproduce any printed articles onto our blog, but this week, we've got some action, so enjoy ...

Lance isn't actually pissed (reportedly), and Adam Scott is keeping it on the down low, but he is definitely pimping Kate Hudson.

Quote of the Week

2009-01-18T11:25:00.001-08:00

"They're the Tiger Woods of pilots," passenger Matt Kane said of Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeff Skiles after an emergency water landing on the Hudson River.

Sullenberger made a split second decision to switch course and land the crashing plane down the Hudson river. Much like the unconscious split second decisions many golfers make to crash land their ball into a water hazard ... "Don't go right!"

No more no go on negotiating your club membership

2009-01-18T11:24:00.001-08:00

Are you currently a member at a chincey, semi-private (otherwise known as public) golf course? Have you stopped bothering to call for a time on a weekday afternoon because you are 95 percent sure the course is filled with outing hacks?

If you answered yes to either of these questions, The Green Blazer has got some truth to drop on ya: Private clubs are suffering; now is the time to negotiate yourself a fatty deal! Follow the steps below and you'll never have to see an outing hack in a cutoff t-shirt again:

Which club is struggling the most: A sign is a sign
You should be able to gauge the clubs that are suffering by word of mouth and the level of desperation in the ads. A sign on the the fence that borders the busiest surrounding round is a good indication that they need new members. The Golf Club at Cape Cod in Falmouth, MA temporarily waived its $85,000 initiation to attract temporary members. That is not a move on an, "exclusive enclave," as they bill themselves, but would be a sick opportunity to sneak in.

Call the GM and make him aware of your interest
A GM at the brink of losing his job will cream his pants at prospective members contacting him. By calling and giving him your info, he may even contact you, sweetening the deal if you haven't reached out to him in a while.

Express discontent with one or more of the offerings
The club you are targeting likely already has a deal going, but they might be sugar coating it a bit, so ask questions and call them out on anything that sounds fishy. Maybe the club doesn't offer a cart membership, or maybe their minimums are too high. Whatever it is, make your contact at the club aware that hey ... That sucks. Sensing your discontent, the manager will often offer you something extra without you having to ask.

Do's and Don'ts in Negotiating your deal
Many GM's are up creek without a paddle, their job hanging on by a thread. Even so, most will not circumvent the clubs policy on the dues members pay. If you ask them for lower dues and no initiation, you'll likely end of gaining nothing and looking like a chince in the process. Initiation fees, however, can often be amortized over many years, so definitely tell your contact that you will not be able to pay the entire initiation the first year.

Guest Passes Glore
There is no end to the number of guest passes you can conjure out of a softy manager at a desperate club. If their deal offers 3, the minimum you should ask for is 9.

Start paying next year
If it is mid-season and you're ready, you should be able to work out a deal to get the rest of the current year for free. A great rule when negotiating ... If the incentive you are asking for doesn't show up on their books, they will be inclined to acquiesce to your request.

THERE'S NO GAMBLING AT BUSHWOOD!: Many country clubs are gambling away their exclusive reputation by offering screaming deals to new members. Some clubs are hurting so bad they can't even afford stick em' for their members grips.

Geese are the shits

2008-12-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

BABY SHITS: The only thing worse than goose shit on the greens is gosling shit on the greens
"Yo G Blaze... You're out"

"Hang on phellas ... let me just use my putter to fling the goose shit out of my line."

It's a hot, sweaty day. You're with some hack acquaintances that have been pressuring you to, "go golfing sometime dude," for over a year now. Finally after offering to pay for your round, you oblige and decide to show them how it's done. Four holes into your round you're chopping on a course you should shoot 10 under at, although the guys you're playing with are so impressed they're practically stroking you off.

It's one thing to play like shit, but at this course you have to walk on it too. What better than some goose shit to make a crappy round even more miserable. It's bad enough that the geese infest the ponds, but they also invest the fairways, feeding on the fertilized grass and hissing at you as you walk by. By the end of the round, the greenish colored shit has worked its way into the crevices of your cleats that even the most violent after round clap won't vanquish. Some of the shit has been on the greens for days and dried out leaving a permanent shit stain. Most of the dung, however, is fresh and crumbles as you try to move it often finding its way into the sight line of your $250 Scotty Cameron.

I once heard a tale that if you run a dog through a course, it will chase the geese out and they will never return. This of course is not true. It will make a flock move to a pond temporary until the coast is clear. Then they will return to the green to drop a long awaited freshy. This is why the Green Blazer Corps is establishing an organization to stop the spread of goose shit. To receive a complementary membership to GAGS (golfers against goose shit), post a comment below and help us put an end to this problem ... before it's too late.

Classic case of good cop/bad cop

2008-12-15T16:30:00.000-08:00

The Green Blazer blazes The Mountaineer weekly. Click to Enlarge

Stina Stern-minded on advice

2008-12-14T20:26:00.001-08:00

Columnist detached from range hack mentality

In this month's Golf Digest, Stina Sternberg tells women golfers to "say no to advice," when approached by swing tip dispensing range hack. It seemed she was making a good point until she states that the babbling range hack would only approach women and would never offer advice to any men. People who have spent enough time on a public practice facility know this is not true.

Range hacks, the talkative ones, will give advice to anyone. They will usually gravitate towards the person who seems most accepting of the advice, but will take what they can get when they can get it. If you've been approached by a know-it-all range hack, you can be guaranteed you weren't his first, probably not even his first of the day.

If you are an obvious beginner, the range hack will take charge of the conversation confidently telling you exactly what you're doing wrong and how to fix it. He will give you the latest drill from, ironically, Golf Digest, and may even show you how it's done. The better you are, the more gingerly he will tread. He will try to initiate an open forum discussing a swing topic, surely tell you what Pelz and Butch said on the matter, and rarely demonstrate it himself.

Range hacks just love to talk about golf ... to anyone man or women. It's safe to say Stina is far removed from the chipping green chop mentality, yet most can agree ... That's a good thing.

The Blazer would be interested in hearing the readers' opinions on the motives behind advice giving on the range, so blaze a comment bros ... >

GREEN BLAZER GOLF SPECIAL REPORT: Piercing the blogosphere

2008-12-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

Months ago, The Green Blazer promised to deliver blog posts every Sunday. That promise was broken a few weeks ago; for that please accept my formal apology.

My absence was, however, not due to lazin and blazin in a dazy haze. The Green Blazer's novel was put on hold following the announcement of a restructuring at Random House Publishing, the publisher backing The Green Blazer origin novel. Distraught and out of sorts, GB set out on a mission. Armed with only golf clubs and a portfolio (not to mention some other roadie essentials), The Blazer scoured the country intending to find a new publisher. The Blazer failed that mission, but the long roadie wasn't all for not. The Green Blazer is proud to announce he is now writing a weekly column in The Mountaineer, a Colorado based daily newspaper. The first piece was published on Tuesday. Click on the image to enlarge:

Tiger, Buick a refreshing divorce

2008-11-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

Just as Tiger was starting to convince us that we need a new Buick, the pair decides to separate in a split that was both "mutual and amicable," as described by a spokesman for GM. The partnership began in 2000 with Tiger starring in numerous Buick commercials and donning the Buick logo on his bag. And as an added bonus, Tiger also won many Buick-sponsored golf tournaments. But let's be honest, the Tiger and Buick were always an odd couple.

Tiger represents golf's new generation. Although he is a far cry from the swashbuckling, collar-popping likes of Camilo Villegas and Anthony Kim, Tiger is the undisputed leader in golf's movement towards shedding its grandpa's game reputation. When Buick brought Tiger on 9 years ago, they were hoping to follow in golf's lead and rid themselves of their own geriatric reputation.

But Tiger's effect on Buick's image wasn't as profound as his effect on golf's image, and GM did nothing to give Tiger a helping hand. Not only did they keep the product line, they further depress their own brand with dismal vehicle names like Lucerne and Enclave. They obviously need more than Tiger's influence to attract new customers,as the company's demographic has hardly changed since 2000. Buick is still best represented by the 60-plus, stuffed-shirt country club man who can be found naked in the locker rooms of Anygreen CC, USA.

GM stands to save $7 million per year by severing ties with Tiger. GM also stands to get a large portion of the $25 billion purposed for the U.S. auto industry bailout plan, assuming the big three will be able to convince congress they need the loans some time in the next few days. The U.S. Treasury, however, will not be bailing Tiger out for the $7 million per year he's losing from GM. In the next few months, bidding wars will likely ensue to see who will be the next company emblem to rest on the shoulder of Steve Williams, the caddie who rests on the shoulder of Tiger. Maybe Nike will snatch it up, or maybe it will be a new branding altogether.

For now, check the time on your Tag Heuer watch, keep the Gatorade flowing, give your scruff a Mach 3 treatment and buy a Buick. GM clearly needs the money more than Tiger.