Golf News

Patrick Reed is depicted as a win-at-all-costs competitor, accused of cheating and stealing by former college teammates, in a new book excerpt published on Friday. In the excerpt from an upcoming book about young PGA Tour players from author Shane Ryan, the four-time tournament champion is introduced as a child prodigy who would bluntly challenge others’ golf talents upon meeting them and a loner whose sole passion existed toward not only playing the game, but winning every time. The most damning information, however, comes from Reed'€™s time spent at the University of Georgia, during which his teammates were suspicious of his actions. From the excerpt: "œDuring a qualifying round prior to a tournament, according to sources, Reed hit a ball far into the rough. When he approached the spot, he found another ball sitting closer to the fairway, and was preparing to hit it when several of his teammates confronted him. Reed pled ignorance, but the other Georgia players wer...

Seattle police released video of a July 9, 2014 incident in which an officer alleged William Wingate swung a golf club toward her. Wingate was arrested for obstruction and harassment. Seattle police later apologized after receiving an inquiry from former Washington State Rep. Dawn Mason. They released footage of the incident in Jan. 2015. (Seattle Police Department) William Wingate had been standing on a busy Seattle street corner in July, leaning on a golf club he uses as a cane, when a police cruiser pulled up and the officer inside yelled at Wingate to “put that down.” The resulting exchange â€" in which the officer claims that Wingate swung the club at her after she asked him to “shut it down” before she arrested him â€" was captured on the cruiser’s dashboard camera, the footage of which Seattle Police released this week as it apologized for the 2014 incident. The response to that video prompted Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole to announce ...

SEATTLE -- Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole has ordered a review of an officer's conduct in an incident involving an African American man carrying a golf club. The encounter between 70-year-old William Wingate and Police Officer Cynthia Whitlach happened in July. The incident, captured on police dash-cam, shows Wingate's arrest after the officer saw him using a golf club as a cane. Whitlach says Wingate swung the club at her and obstructed justice. Wingate was arrested, jailed, and charged. The charges were later dismissed and police gave him an apology and his golf club back. Read or Share this story: http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/seattle/2015/01/28/golf-club-seattle-police-chief-kathleen-otoole-apology/22501173/

The largest and rowdiest crowd in golf convenes upon TPC Scottsdale on Thursday for the Waste Management Phoenix Open. In addition to a lot of fans, almost every major American golf star is in the Phoenix area this week, including Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. TPC Scottsdale has been renovated by original architect Tom Weiskopf, playing a little tougher with new challenges and changes. However, winning in Phoenix means going deep, so we're recommending players this week who know how to shoot low numbers. Here are our top five picks: Bubba Watson -- Watson faded down the stretch to a T-2 finish here last year and has three top-10 WMPO finishes overall in eight career starts. Looked solid enough at Kapalua. Jordan Spieth -- Spieth's never played at TPC Scottsdale, so this is a bit of a risk. However, Spieth ended 2015 with two consecutive wins against big-name, albeit small, fields. Phil Mickelson -- Mickelson is th...

Golf Channel's Frank Nobilo will join CBS Sports as an analyst for the brand's golf broadcasts in 2015. Nobilo will work select tournaments for CBS, including the Masters and PGA Championship, while he continues in his current role with Golf Channel. “Frank Nobilo is one of the most intelligent and engaging analysts in golf,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said in a statement. “His knowledge of the game and insight as a worldwide champion make him a perfect fit for CBS Sports’ golf coverage.  We are proud to showcase the strongest ensemble of voices in golf.” A 14-time winner worldwide, Nobilo has been an analyst since retiring from competitive play in 2002.

Commentary Updated: January 27, 2015, 6:24 PM ET By ESPN.com Apparently everyone's playing for second this year as ESPN.com senior golf writer Bob Harig picked his second winner in three weeks with Bill Haas' victory on Sunday at the Humana Challenge. We're not saying you can take his picks to the bank, but that's a streak that would even impress the folks in Vegas. In a fresh twist for the 2014-15 season, our golf experts (Matt Barrie, "SportsCenter" anchor; Jonathan Coachman, "SportsCenter" anchor; Michael Collins, ESPN.com senior golf analyst; Bob Harig, ESPN.com senior golf writer; Kevin Maguire, ESPN.com senior golf editor; John Ziomek, "SportsCenter" coordinating producer) will pick one player they think will win that week's PGA Tour event. They will "earn" whatever cash their selection makes that week. Finish first and it's likely a $1 million-plus payout. Miss the cut and it's a ...

Molly Walsh, Free Press Staff Writer 9:04 p.m. EST January 24, 2015 The Green Mountain Disc Golf Club Ice Bowl is coming up Jan. 31. (Photo: Courtesy photo) The motto is no wimps and no whiners. If you want to run through the snow and snap your wrist for a good cause, there's still time to sign up for a Jan. 31 disc golf event in Waterbury Center. The GMDGC Ice Bowl IX will run from 8 a.m. to about 5 p.m., with stops for a chili and corn bread lunch midday and awards and prizes after the afternoon shift. The event benefits the food shelves in Washington County and Lamoille County. Experience playing disc golf is not necessary to enter but a sense of fun and a warm coat help. Some years the benefit takes place in bitter cold or deep snow. Other years it's bare ground or balmy (at least by Vermont winter standards) temperatures. A participant at a previous Ice Bowl in Vermont.   (Photo: Courtesy photo) "It doesn't matter what the temperature or conditions are, the even...

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Pick it up and take a drop. Pick it up and take a drop. Pick it up and take a drop. Pick it up and take a drop. Pick it up and ... noooooooo. Zach Johnson is one of the steadiest, smartest, and more consistent players on the PGA Tour, and has been for almost a decade. But this was not his brightest moment and not the smartest play of his career. Johnson's ball rolled in a rock collection that abuts a water hazard on the Palmer Course at the Humana Challenge. It was the same area and same dilemma that Webb Simpson faced on Thursday. After standing over his ball, addressing it, and making several practice swings at his lie on the rocks, Simpson decided to pick it up and take a drop. Johnson did not, and the result was a spectacular failure. In golf, it's never good when your ball is going backwards. It's especially ugly when it's going backwards and into the water. Johnson would finish with a double bogey on the hole and with an early nominee for worst sho...

Commentary Updated: January 24, 2015, 7:27 AM ET By Bob Harig | ESPN.com LA QUINTA, Calif. -- After arriving in Southern California for his first golf tournament of 2015, Jason Dufner couldn't help himself. There was the staple of West Coast "fine" dining, an In-N-Out Burger, and Dufner indulged. That might not come as a surprise to those who think of the "Dufnering" Dufner who carried a bit of extra weight around the midsection and seemed unfamiliar with an ironing board. But this is a new Dufner -- 20 pounds lighter -- and so the side trip to a fast food restaurant was a form of cheating that was more reward than relapse. "It'll probably be the only one I eat all year," Dufner said. "There's allowances here and there, but I've been clean since that In-N-Out Burger on Sunday." Dufner, 37, has changed his lifestyle, cutting out sugars, alcohol and soda, adding a fitness routine and feeling bet...

The towel on my bag is boring and gross. The towels made Devant Towels are not. They got involved with the caricature artist David O'Keefe to create some pretty fun towels. The one here is called the Big Three, obviously. Check out the Caddy Shack line, it's hilarious.  An app that trains your brain ThinQ is an app that works on your desktop or smart phone and, in the words of its CEO Tim Suzor, is the "Lumosity for sports." It includes a series of games designed to prove the cognitive abilities that are most important for playing good golf. "Coaches usually just tell their students to focus better," Suzor says, "but there's nothing out there that actually trains people to focus better." The games are divided into five different categories -- Awareness, Adaptability, Attention, Intention, and Synchronicity -- and get increasingly more difficult the more you play them. The app costs $7.99 for a month's subscription, or $79.99 for...

The towel on my bag is boring and gross. The towels made Devant Towels are not. They got involved with the caricature artist David O'Keefe to create some pretty fun towels. The one here is called the Big Three, obviously. Check out the Caddy Shack line, it's hilarious.  An app that trains your brain ThinQ is an app that works on your desktop or smart phone and, in the words of its CEO Tim Suzor, is the "Lumosity for sports." It includes a series of games designed to prove the cognitive abilities that are most important for playing good golf. "Coaches usually just tell their students to focus better," Suzor says, "but there's nothing out there that actually trains people to focus better." The games are divided into five different categories -- Awareness, Adaptability, Attention, Intention, and Synchronicity -- and get increasingly more difficult the more you play them. The app costs $7.99 for a month's subscription, or $79.99 for...

Jim Waymer, FLORIDA TODAY 9:54 a.m. EST January 21, 2015 The golf course opened in 1967 and closed after damage from hurricanes in 2004. (Photo: FLORIDA TODAY FILE, 2008) PALM BAY â€" Talk of development on the former Port Malabar Country Club golf course has some neighboring residents teed off â€" again. As they did with a similar plan in 2006, they once again fear flooded yards, gridlocked roads, and hundreds of trees will fall along with their property values. They also worry about the arsenic left behind years ago along the greens, southwest of Port Malabar Boulevard and north of the Melbourne-Tillman Canal. "If this were done, our property values would crater," Louis Meader, who lives on Pinehurst Circle, said Tuesday to a crowd of more than 100 people at Palm Bay Senior Center. The golf course's owner, Palm Bay Greens LLC, held Tuesday's community meeting as a required precursor to applying for a zoning and land use changes that will be needed for th...

Bailey Mosier, the new face of 'Morning Drive,' Golf Channel's flagship program, sounds off on her first few days on set, rookie hazing and the state of her golf game. How have your first few days at Morning Drive been? Exciting! I mean, I was really nervous for the first morning, and then I got out there on the set, and it was really nice that I already new Damon [Hack] and Lauren [Thompson] and Paige [Mackenzie] and Chris [DiMarco] and had a rapport with them, so once I was actually on the set, within 10 minutes of going live, I really didn’t feel nervous at all. So, surprisingly, it was not as intimidating as I would have thought. And everyone had really positive feedback, which is super nice and amazing that everyone’s reached out and been so happy for me. You have a great cast of characters on the show, and there seems to be a lot of good-natured ribbing that goes on. Has there been any rookie hazing that you wish to report? [Laughs] I was expecting...

Terry Koehler believes he has created a set of golf clubs worthy of carrying Ben Hogan’s name. Today, he’ll find out what the golf world thinks. Koehler, president and chief executive officer of the new Ben Hogan Golf Equipment Co., will debut the company’s first set of Hogan irons at the industry’s annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Fla. It marks the return of an iconic brand to the golf equipment market as well as the rebirth of a familiar business in Fort Worth. For 40 years, the Ben Hogan Co. turned out golf clubs in Fort Worth under the watchful eye of the legendary pro golfer, who famously survived a near-fatal auto accident and went on to win nine major golf championships and build a successful golf club manufacturing business. Hogans were among the best-made clubs on the market in the 1970s and 1980s, favored by many pros and good players. But a progression of different owners, starting in 1993, disrupted the company and Hogan clubs eventually disappeared from p...

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Commentary Updated: January 16, 2015, 1:31 PM ET By Bob Harig | ESPN.com BUENOS AIRES -- It isn't every day that you see golf's iconic green jacket outside the gates of Augusta National. In fact, unless it's Bubba Watson showing his off while speeding on a hovercraft or driving his General Lee, you never see it at all. Watson, the reigning Masters champion, is the only person permitted to bring one of the symbols of his victory off the grounds. And in truth, Bubba has been a bit sheepish about wearing it out in public. Augusta National members only wear their green jackets at the club, so this week in Argentina marks a significant departure from protocol. And it speaks to the importance of the Latin America Amateur Championship to the powers that be at the Masters, who helped launch the event that began Thursday as a way of growing the game in this part of the world. Masters and Augusta National chairman Billy Payne was made available for an i...

Rory McIlroy is a Masters away from the career Grand Slam, has been on three winning Ryder Cup teams and has been No. 1 in the world several times. However, McIlroy never enjoyed a hole-in-one in a professional event -- that is, until Friday. At the par-3 15th hole at Abu Dhabi G.C., McIlroy made his first pro ace in the second round of the European Tour's Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. The world No. 1 used a 9-iron -- a 9-iron! -- to sink the 177-yard tee shot. The ace jumped McIlroy from 8 under to 10 under for the tournament, behind clubhouse leader Martin Kaymer, whose 13-under start tied his 36-hole tournament record and improves his career scoring average in this event to just above 68. McIlroy finished the day with 6-under 66 to trail Kaymer by two shots heading into the weekend. It's the second ace on the 15th in as many days, as Miguel Angel Jimenez sank his eighth European Tour ace there on Thursday. Englishman Tom Lewis had a hole-in-on...

Commentary Updated: January 15, 2015, 1:00 PM ET By Bob Harig | ESPN.com BUENOS AIRES -- The bag is filled with clubs specially made, stamped with "Florida Gators" on the side and an alligator head cover atop his driver. Alejandro Tosti's allegiance now is to the University of Florida, but he has returned home this week to Argentina, even if he is miles upon miles removed from his start in the game. Playing in the inaugural Latin America Amateur Championship with all of its top-notch amenities is a long way from the rudimentary clubs Tosti forged out of barbecue utensils and the round piece of deodorant that served as a golf ball. Tosti was 5 years old when he tuned into the 2002 Masters and decided he wanted to play golf. Now he's in a position to play at Augusta National if he was to win this tournament? For just about everyone competing this week, it is beyond his dreams. "It is really good for our region," Tosti said of t...