On this day in 1899 ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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

"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

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)