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Best of the 1999 Newsletters
Best of 2000 <========= A Moment for Us ==========> Thanks for riding with during 1999. The newsletter has over 1000 readers and most days there were 600 hits on the web site. We have received sponsorship and/or advertising support from All-Pro Services, Buffer Park GC, Eagle Creek GC, Friendswood GC, Golden Eagle Golf, Morningstar GC, Positive Putter, Putting Greens of Indiana, Tovey’s Shoes, The Trophy Club, and the World Golf Tour. Thanks to you all. We're also glad to have Bluff Creek GC and Tournament Promotions of Indiana already lined up as advertisers next year. And we've enjoyed working with DaytonGolf, GolfUS, the IGA, and Ron Kern to bring you area news. Thanks also go to the hundreds (well probably 150) folks who sent in comments for the course directory and other news. Some, like John Coombs, Dave Hoffert, Martin Mahern, "Harry Pudenda", Jim Riley, Mike Schaefer, and Dennis Underwood deserve special thanks for multiple reports. Keep them coming next year guys. <========== Course changes during the year ==========>
Summary: 4 new courses. 3 newly opened to the public. 9 holes added to two courses. 1 course closed. <========== Under Construction this winter ==========>
Summary:
<========== Parks Department ==========> The Indianapolis Department of Parks and Recreation’s budget for 2000 reveals some plans:
<========= Comfort Classic ==========> On Friday, Chi-Chi on the first tee starts talking to a couple of EMTs. A crowd gathers. Somebody says "Ryder Cup" and Chi-Chi explains "I played the Ryder Cup for $5000. That was a lot of money then. $5000 now is tip money. I spend that much at the laundromat." For the record, Rodriguez played in the 1973 Ryder Cup. Local putter maker (and IndyGolf advertiser) Positive Putter gave 8 seniors new putters at the Classic. Mike Malone used it all three days, shooting a -1, -5, and +6. Malone has difficulty reading greens and you sometimes see him down on his belly with his caddy. He uses Paul Runyon’s gravity-feed putting style and the Positive Putter’s design which keeps the blade straight makes it easier for him. http://www.positiveputter.com <========== Odd Moments in Golf ==========> Buffer Park was inundated in August by about 40 deputies, 3 fire trucks, a rubber boat, a dozen news guys, and a helicopter. We were on the 4th tee when 3 cops, guns aimed everywhere, snaked swat-team-style across #9 fairway right toward us. It turned out to be a runaway 16yo kid and a gun scare at the post office that fueled their paranoia. Golf can be exciting even if the tournament leader isn’t losing strokes down the stretch. At the Doral-Ryder a particularly dense opportunist stole about 45 Orlimar Tri-Metal clubs from under a trailer where they had been put during a flash downpour. He then walked up to a golfer and offered the whole works to him for $5 per club. The golfer: Raymond Floyd. The seller: arrested. Barb Trammell, director of tournament operations for the LPGA, watched the State Farm Classic on TV at home. She saw Janice Moodie given a 2-stroke penalty for disturbing a butterfly on her ball while it was in a bunker. She called Tom Meeks, the USGA director of rules and competitions, at home. He called the tournament folks. They radioed the course officials and they rescinded the penalty. It seems the USGA rules committee decided in May that insects are not loose impediments and it will be written that way in next year’s rulebook - but it hasn’t been told to the public or even tournament rules officials yet. But evidently it is in effect already if the right person is watching you golf. Janice ended up 2nd instead of 5th. Northern Illinois University offers a seminar course popularly called Business Golf 101. It doesn’t teach how to golf but how to use golf and a golf outing as a business tool. Eli Lilly among others send employment recruiters to play with students for the class’s final. Just think, if you take the course you might get a job as your company’s official golf schmoozer. Sergio Garcia shot a 42 in May. For 9 holes. Left handed. He plays lefty once in a while to keep the "other-side" muscles worked. Triskaidekaphobia strikes again. The Somerset GC in Fredericksburg, VA now plays holes 1 - 12 and 14 - 19. Quebec is a leader of "pure French" and they have released an official Terminologie du Golf. Ever hit a boguey double on a coude normale 4? See http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/ressources/golf/golf.html The Chocolay Down GC near Marquette, MI is constructing a new par 5 hole of 1007 yards. They want to get the record (by 43 yards) from a Japanese course that now holds it. Chocolay Down already is listed in Guiness for the world’s largest green - 29,000 sq ft. Callaway’s PR department on OJ: "Every time he shows up wearing that hat, our phone rings. He bought it. We didn't give it to him. He's not our spokesman. We can't help it. It's a free country. But we've thought about sending him a whole box of somebody else's hats - like Titleist." North Carolina, the state, put up 370 road signs pointing to Pinehurst for the Open. They hoped to defray the cost of these signs by selling them to the souvenir market after the Open but only 39 were left standing. Despite tamper-proof rivets, 331 signs were stolen. The only culprits caught were 2 guys who had 6 signs in the back of their pickup truck. Neil Bartholomew of Charlton, MA got his first-ever ace on the 13th at Holden Hills CC and his second on the 16th hole of the same round. Same ball on both holes (now retired to his trophy shelf). At the Honda Classic, Paul Azinger had a short put on #6 that ringed the cup and hit him in the foot. A 2-stroke penalty. A woman in Aberdeen, Scotland is suing the Westhill Golf Club after blinding herself in one eye during a tournament. Her 8-iron hit a 4-inch stone under the ball in the tall rough and the ball popped straight up into her face. At the Colonial, John Daly hit one on the 7th that bounced off a tree or two and hit a spectator - his girlfriend’s mother. A company called Coastcast Corp. makes the heads for Callaway, Taylor Made, Cobra and Cleveland Golf. Their sales for the 1st quarter, 1999 were $27M - down from $45M last year’s first quarter. Without even a smile on their face they claim it’s due to "a significant decrease in titanium golf club head volume". We thought club heads were getting smaller again. Jeff Simonson failed to break the record for most holes in 12 hours (467) when his hot-rodded golf cart broke down after 4 hours. The record is held by Eric Freeman at the Glen Head Country Club (NY) in 1997. That’s one hole every 92 seconds. Simonson and 18 other golfers who played a 100-hole marathon did raise $50,000 for the Portland (OR) Rescue Mission. Hershey PA’s Bobby Jones Open saw Bobby Jones win with a +16. All players must be named Bobby Jones. Bobby Jones finished last among the 32 entrants with +45. The Ocean Trails GC in Rancho Palos Verde (southern CA) was due to open July 16th but now has only 17 holes. The 18th green fell down a 150ft cliff into the ocean in June along with about 2 acres of fairway. We’re of course still waiting for the rest of California to follow. The Woburn GC in Bedfordshire, England was closed temporarily while the Army looked for bombs. SLA? PLO? IRA? IGA? Nope. WWII. Eighteen 50-year old bombs were found stashed in a culvert during a small renovation project so they shut down the course and searched for more. Didn’t find any. No one remembers putting them there. Authorities didn’t say how many golf balls they found in the culvert either. It’s finally happened. In Sandusky OH a 41-year old guy was arrested June 10th for DUI after he hit a post, bending a sign and scratching the golf cart he was driving near the putting green. He admits drinking - bought beer at the course - but expected to just pay for the damage, not go to jail and have his license taken. Mills Creek GC, where this happened, is a municipal course and IndyGolf suspects this wouldn’t happen at a privately-owned course. Pfizer withdrew their hole-in-one prize in a Malaysian charity tournament - a year’s worth of Viagra. Insert your own "never up, never in" joke here. Hey, we don’t make this stuff up. Honest. Twelve guys from Iowa toured 9 holes at each of 6 golf courses on June 17th in a 54 hole two-man scramble format. That’s not the silly part. The courses were in, chronologically, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and finally Arkansas. This involved 3 rental cars and a chartered plane. Tee times ranged from 5:30am to 7:05pm. 40 police officers were called out to Okayama Kinryo Country Club in Japan May 18th when an animal now believed to be a leopard cub was seen on the 16th green. After failing to catch it with a net, 10 cage traps were set and baited with chickens June 28th in Milwaukee a charity open for the Foundation for Fighting Blindness had all golfers hitting from the 125yd 7th blindfolded. They could use their best shot or the shot of blind golfer Worth Delton who hit with every foursome at that hole. For one group, Delton hit his first hole-in-one - the only known HIO by a blind golfer. It is true, I swear. A Biggest Bertha striking a Dunlop Titanium Distance ball in the dark WILL make a spark. I’ve seen it. Freddie Hass shot his age (83) in the second round of the Senior PGA Home Depot Invitational Tournament in April. Unfortunately he missed the cut. The US Fish & Wildlife Service has posted a reward for information about the killing of several hundred prairie dogs on the Cedar Ridge GC in Cedar City, UT. The course had about 400 prairie dogs and now there’s just a few. No word whether Carl Spackler is under suspicion. Did you ever 6-putt from 8ft? John Daly did on the 18th at the Memorial’s opening round - just before he withdrew from the tournament. That 10 gave him an 82. Grip it and Lip it. <========== Trivia ==========> The world’s busiest golf course isn’t in Florida or Tokyo. It the 18-hole par 70 municipal Ala Wai GC in downtown Honolulu. 200,000 rounds per year. 550 rounds on an average day. $10 for residents. Played in 6-somes with 6-minute tee times. A lottery for dawn tee times on the back 9 is held every night at midnight. The original Big Bertha was a 42cm German artillery piece made during WWI. It was named after munitions mogul Krupp’s niece. There’s a picture at http://www.worldwar1.com/foto/tww201c.jpg. Contact time between and a golf ball and the clubface is 0.000450 seconds. After 3 rounds the ball is on the clubface about as long as it takes to blink an eye. Spalding alone makes 68,000 golf balls per day. About a billion are made worldwide each year. Enough to completely fill the ravine on Martinsville’s 18th hole. 18 holes of golf while riding in a cart burns 500 calories. If you walk and pull your clubs, it's 725 calories. Carrying your clubs burns 850 calories. Sex burns, as we all know, 110 calories but doesn’t last 4 hours. Julios Boros was the first golfer with a hat endorsement contract. In 1968, he was paid $50 per PGA Tour event to wear the hat of the Amana appliance company. <========== Humor - Just to prove there are no new golf jokes ==========> "My game is so bad I had to have my ball retriever regripped." |
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