The Early Tee

Major golf connects society. Four times a year, the best men around the globe congregate for tradition, trophies, and large sums of money. Take a minute and mark your calendar for these weekends in 2022:

Tis the season, and you can't avoid it. Love them or hate them, New Year's resolutions are upon us.  Historians can track resolution-like activity to ancient Babylonians almost 4000 years ago. Akitu was a 12-day religious ceremony to mark the new year that traditionally took place when crops were planted. The Babylonians would also crown or reaffirm their king and promise to their gods that like good Babylonians, they'd pay back any debts this year. It's the last action that's looked at as the first New Year's resolutions.

2021 was full of family moments. We recently watched Tiger return again. This time, he debuted with his son at the year's only event to feature major champions teamed with parents, children and siblings. Jon Rahm, Rickie Fowler, and Jordan Spieth all welcomed new babies in 2021. However, the most under-celebrated, recent, family-friendly moment came to us just down the road from “The Cradle” of American golf.  Here is the story and today's Early Tee from Stick & Hack.

A joke and an FYI to get you through your day.

At 6ft 7in, Phil Blackmar was the tallest touring pro until Craig Smith appeared in 2005. He played the PGA Tour from 1985-2000, winning three tournaments. In 2007 Blackmar turned 50 and moved to the Champions Tour, where he has won once. He also worked as a golf commentator and was in a Pro-Am event with our friend and host of The Stick & Hack Show, Adam Grubb.  So who is the tallest golfer ever? 

After a few failed attempts to formalize in the first half of the 19th century, the Gullane Golf Club was established in 1882. The historic plot has hosted numerous amateur championships in its time and is also a frequent spot for Open Championship qualifiers.  Liam Nicholson has been a Greenskeeper at Gullane for over 15 years, and he recently added to the list of notable events in Gullane Golf Club lore.

A joke and a life FYI to kick off your weekend.

The controversial Ping Eye2 clubs, which had square, u-shaped grooves compared to the v-shaped grooves that were the norm, were at the center of a major feud some thirty years ago. Here is the story.

Moe Norman, a biopic on the former Canadian professional golfer, will be co-produced by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and his wife, actress Janet Gretzky, and will begin shooting in the summer of 2022.

A joke and an FYI to get you into your weekend from Stick & Hack!

For folks deep in the golf podcast, golf social media, or PGA Tour universe, Geno Bonnalie is a familiar name. He's a professional caddie who's not shy to take an interview and share some insight from the life of a Tour caddie, and he loops for low-key, fan-favorite, Joel Dahmen. However, one of the most fascinating pieces of Geno trivia is the World Record he used to hold, and by “used to” we mean as recently as this past weekend. 

Just over twenty miles from downtown Jacksonville, Florida is the little seaside town of Ponte Vedra. Once a quasi-unknown resort getaway for the elite, Ponte Vedra is now still a desirable resort getaway town, but it's no longer quasi-unknown and is home to the headquarters of both the Association of Tennis Professionals for the Americas and the PGA Tour. 

Next time you're getting your teeth cleaned, thank the dentistry world for the golf tees in your bag.  First, we have to go way back to the olden days of hitting off dirt. Back in the day (we're talking Old Tom Morris time), golfers would take pinches of sand or dirt and make little mounds on the tee-box to place their ball on. It was messy and inconsistent, but for years, it was the way.  A couple of early tee designs involved iron or metal stakes with some rubber cup or brush attached for the ball to sit on. They worked, but metal can be expensive and eventually damage your golf club.  The tees you're using today most closely resemble the Reddy Tee created by William Lowell Sr., a dentist in New Jersey

After the recent Match, it's not like people will stop talking about Brooks and Bryson. We'll still hear “Brooksie” at times, and when there's not a ton going on or one of these two does something, someone in the golf world will bring “the rivalry” back up. We're still not completely sure what this “rivalry” was all about, but at least we got some decent post-Thanksgiving entertainment out of it. 

John Daly typically behaved on the course during his professional career, but one time the round was just moving too slow for the two-time major winner. After a rough front nine, Daly decided to slug a few drinks at the turn, and it made him play even better down the stretch...

Not all holes or moments in golf history involve sensational shots or championships. Ben Hogan stamped his name in First Coast golf history by making an 8-over-par 11 on a par 3 at Hyde Park in the 1947 Jacksonville Open.

A joke and an FYI to get you into your weekend from Stick & Hack

“Hello world.”  Golfers all over the world, and thanks to YouTube golfers of all ages, think about Tiger's announcement when he turned pro when they hear those two words. A decorated amateur, there was no doubt Tiger would play and win tournaments for years to come.  Not all golfers have such an introduction to the PGA Tour. The overwhelming majority of Tour pros aren't former Amateur champions and Walker Cup participants. With so much focus on the first page of the leaderboard, we often lose sight of the grind it takes to simply tee it up at that level. 

A joke and an FYI to get you through your weekend.

Perched on the remote Drummond Island, this 18-holer in Michigan is so far removed from the beaten track you have to take a ferry or board a plane to play there. The runway on the intimate island's airport even crosses paths with the fairways in two places. Stay in one of the resort's lodge-style cabins to immerse yourself in a Midwest golfing paradise.

The 1931 U.S. Open at Inverness Club is known for the marathon 72-hole playoff won by Billy Burke (left) after 72 extra holes. But Burke's feat is historically significant because it was the first U.S. Open won with steel shafts.

Arnold Palmer purchased a used twin-prop Aero Commander in 1962, becoming the first pro golfer to fly from tournament to tournament. In 1966, he began flying jets across the world with two copilots and an observer, later setting a world record for his jet's weight category when he circumnavigated the globe in 57 hours, 25 minutes, and 42 seconds in 1976.

In a wild sequence on Saturday at the https://www.thespiritgolf.com/ (Spirit International Amateur Championship), Sam Bennett found shortly after he teed off that he was carrying one club over the maximum of 14, was hit with the two-stroke penalty, then recovered and won. And how did the rogue club end up in Bennett's bag at the international team and individual event?

A joke and a fyi to get you into your weekend from Stick & Hack.

In 2019, a maintenance team was doing routine work on one of Tetney Golf Club's water hazards when they stumbled upon something out of the ordinary. Tetney is located in eastern England, and it isn't the longest course around. However, its parkland-style layout and multitude of water hazards make it a challenge.  The team came across a mound of gravel too big and intentional-looking to be at the bottom of a pond by chance. A big pile of pebbles is nothing to call the news stations about, but someone did alert archaeologists, and what they found inside was certainly worth the call.

Imagine you wait your entire life to have the lead heading into the final round of a professional golf tournament. Take it a step further. Your spouse is there. Your kids are there. You have prepared and trained since you were young for this moment.  Now imagine, you woke up the morning of that final round with the lead, and you got locked inside your hotel bathroom. 

If you ask most people where they're heading for a golf vacation, you get the usual suspects: Myrtle Beach, Jacksonville, Scottsdale, Scotland, etc. real hotbeds for golf getaways.  Do yourself a favor, add Middletown Springs, Vermont to your list. Just over the state line from New York, Middletown Springs is home to Honey Pond Farm. Here's why...

The golf season just ended, and the Tour wasted little time turning the calendar and starting up again. However, unlike last year, we have no fall majors, and it's a long way to the Masters. Still, Tour pros aren't the only golfers eagerly awaiting April, Azaleas, and Augusta National.

A joke and an FYI for your Halloween weekend!

Augusta National is the course of every golfer's dreams and a trip to see The Masters live is seen as the golden ticket in golf. Several luxury facilities already provide top class hospitality during the week of The Masters, but Berckmans Place is that one place that only the "Master's Elite" get to experience.

Hugh Brown is a whisker shy of 100 years old. He plays three times a week at the Indooroopilly Golf Club in Australia, and his group of senior Sticks and older Hacks are known as the “Old and Bold” group. Given his age, Hugh blasts his driver on every hole. He's usually not a threat to hit into the group ahead. Still, that's exactly what happened on the Blue course's par three 5th hole. The 147 meter (remember, Australia) par-three is slightly downhill. Hugh hit his tee shot, and as he came up to the green, he saw the group ahead of him gesticulating wildly.

Twenty-eight players competed in the 1896 Open – most of the professionals were originally from Britain. But among the entries were John Shippen, an African-American, and Oscar Bunn, a full-blooded Shinnecock Indian. What hap­pened when the other professionals discovered that Shippen and Bunn were to play is undocumented, but before his death, Shippen recalled it in this fashion: "The other pros in the Open held a meeting and said they would refuse to play if Bunn and I were allowed in the championship."

Frank Beard had been the leading money winner on the tour in 1969, and played in the Ryder Cups teams of '69 and '71. Off the course he was a brooding, intense character who found solace in a bottle.

A joke and an FYI to get you into your weekend.

For most golfers, the choice of transportation is binary when playing; walk or take a cart, and that choice remained static for most of the game's history. However, depending on where you are these days, golf has a whole host of creative alternatives for cruising around the course with your clubs. 

Sir Michael Caine is a treasure to the silver screen. From the original Italian Job to his modern portrayal of Batman's Alfred in The Dark Knight series, Caine's south London accent is unmistakable and incredibly alluring.  Now, depending on where you get your gossip, you may have seen headlines alluding to Caine going the way of Gene Hackman and retiring from acting. As is often the case with rumors, this was news to Sir Michael and the legend issued a statement (AKA, he Tweeted). He has not retired from acting, and he reiterated that many people were aware of that.

A joke and the FYI to take you into your weekend.

A 64 in a high school golf match should be good enough to win but in fact it was good enough for second and 7 shots off the lead. This story was brought to our attention by Member #63, Rob White from North Carolina whose home course was the site of this amazing feet in golf. 

Among the first women ever to get seriously involved with course design were the leading British amateur Molly Gourlay, who worked with Tom Simpson on a number of projects, and her American colleague Marion Hollins, the brains behind the development of Cypress Point in California. Hollins, it is claimed, convinced Alister MacKenzie to build the famous par-three sixteenth at Cypress Point by teeing up a ball and proving that the carry was achievable. 

About seven miles away in Weymouth, the New England Wildlife Center has treated over 120,000 animals at its wildlife veterinary hospital since opening in 1983.  Last week, a greenskeeper from South Shore Country Club walked into the New England Wildlife Center holding a squirrel. Turns out, the greenskeeper was doing work nearby when someone's tee-shot on number five went rogue and knocked the furry friend out of a tree.

With another win yesterday (on the Champions Tour), Phil Mickelson continues to impress and delight golf fans all over the world. As the oldest Major Champion, and a bona fide superstar for nearly 30 years on Tour, it is easy to forget certain things about his career. Here are a few fun facts about Lefty:

A joke and a fact to get you into your weekend from Stick & Hack!

Veterans of the Early Tee know we love a good hole-in-one story. It's one of those phenomena in sports that transcends skill level. A hack's skulled wedge from 110-yards can skip it across the water, get a lucky bump coming up on the green and score an ace just as easily as his stick partner's perfectly struck knockdown gap wedge. The scorecard doesn't care. The clubs and the ball definitely don't care, and the post-round drinks couldn't care less. The score is the same no matter where or when it happens - one. Here is a hole in one story you won't forget.

Alejandro del Rey is a Spanish golfer on the European Challenge Tour, the developmental Tour for Europeans similar to the PGA's Korn Ferry Tour. A recent Arizona State grad, the Spanish Sun Devil recently went lower than any pro before.

Sports betting has seen explosive growth in the last few years, and golf hasn't missed out on the party. The PGA Tour even signed a deal with PointsBet to serve as the official sportsbook for the quickly evolving realm of golf gambling.  However, wagers on the golf course are nothing new. From common games involving Nassaus, skins, greenis, and the like, to special traditions among friends and family, these challenges are the juice that keeps many golfers coming back for more. And as we recently witnessed through the emotional release by both sides after the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, it's the friendly wagers for pride or pints that often mean the most.

Start a story with, “John Daly…” and you'll most certainly have everyone's attention.  Maybe it's the outrageous golf outfits, or perhaps people connect with his physique and penchant for ripping heaters and crushing Coors on the course. Maybe you ran into JD while he had his RV parked at the Hooters down the street from Augusta National one year (and maybe he signed a body part?).  Whatever the circumstances, legions of golf fans worship Daly like a modern living god that represents the everyman on Tour. Since he crashed the PGA at Crooked Stick in ‘91 and walked away a winner, the golf world has been enamored with the enigma of John Daly.  However, there's a piece to that 1991 PGA Championship story that many don't know and many others just need reminding of from time to time.

A joke and an FYI for your weekend!

Maurice Flitcroft had golfing ambitions well above his ability and came to notoriety in 1976 when, posing as a professional golfer, he managed to obtain a place to play in the qualifying round of The Open Championship—despite his previous experience amounting only to some hacking around on playing fields near his home. Flitcroft recalled, "I was looking to find fame and fortune but only achieved one of the two".

It was the legendary Scotsman, Andrew Kirkaldy, who first saw the greatness in John Henry Taylor. After losing a challenge match to Taylor in 1891, Kirkaldy went back to St Andrews and predicted that the young Englishman who just defeated him would win many Open Championships. “You'll see more of Taylor,” he said. “And then you'll know why he beat me, and why he will beat all the best of the day.” Here is his story.

A life and death scare on a golf course in the words of Tony Aarte as told to TodaysGolfer.  "I play golf on the Magnolia Landing course near my house in Fort Myers, Florida two or three times every week. The incident happened on the 4th hole. I'd hit my shot onto the green and instead of riding in the cart around the lake; I grabbed my putter and took a shortcut across the beach area. I had walked this route 20 or 30 times in the previous six months with no issues, but on this occasion, I heard a big splash. I quickly turned around and then even more swiftly jumped in the air. The course's biggest alligator was right there." Hear the rest of this crazy golf tail...

Golf fans seem to remember everything about the Ryder Cup. We remember Langer's putt in 1991, the shirts in 1999, and the miraculous comeback in 2012. But here's a few Ryder Cup records and facts you might not know.