Golf News

Photo The East Orange Golf Course, which few city residents play, is being overhauled. It runs through the affluent Short Hills section of Millburn, 10 miles away. Credit Hilary Swift/The New York Times SHORT HILLS, N.J. â€" In taking office early last year, the mayor of East Orange inherited all the problems known to gritty New Jersey cities like his, from a deficit and blight to unemployment and crime. But he had one additional difficulty not shared by most of his mayoral peers. A golf course. Not just any golf course, either, but a course in the rarefied Short Hills section of Millburn, 10 miles and a world removed from the urban streets just outside East Orange City Hall. A course that few of the city’s residents ever see, much less play. The East Orange Golf Course, which stretches more...

Woods said it was the first time since the Masters in April that he's turned a bad round into a good one. "That's what scoring is all about," Woods said. "I made a lot of key putts today. I ran them by the hole but I made all the comebacks, and overall I felt like I hit the ball well enough to turn it around. It was nice to actually turn it around." Woods is the host of the Quicken Loans National, which he won in 2009 and 2012 at Congressional in Maryland. The last of his 79 PGA Tour victories was nearly two years ago, and he has plummeted to 266th in the world. Woods got up-and-down from a greenside bunker for birdie on the par-5 eighth. He made a 9-footer on 10 and a 7-footer on 11. He hit his approach to tap-in range on 12, the most difficult hole on the course, and ended the run with a 12-footer on 13. He two-putted for par on the final five holes. The 68 was only his sixth round under 70 this year. He has had three scores of 80 or h...

By STEVE DOUGLAS, AP Sports Writer TURNBERRY, Scotland (AP) â€" Donald Trump turned a brief trip to a golf tournament in Scotland into an extension of his presidential campaign trail when he attended the Women's British Open at his plush Turnberry resort on Thursday. The first round of one of the high-profile events in women's golf wound up being a mere sideshow from the moment the Republican arrived at the course with family members in his private helicopter, declaring "the world has asked me to be here." Questions to Trump were restricted to golf and his future plans for Turnberry, the world's media had been warned. It didn't turn out that way. Wearing a red hat emblazoned with his campaign slogan "Make America Great Again," the billionaire celebrity businessman spoke of how we would "get along very well" with Russian President Vladimir Putin and make the U.S military "so strong that nobody would me...

Billy Hurley III said Tuesday he would not withdraw from the Quicken Loans National golf tournament this week in Gainesville, Va., even though his father â€" a retired policeman â€" had been missing for the last nine days. Hurley hopes his dad will see a TV screen somewhere with his son playing on it and decide to come home. “I’m just hoping that there’s a story â€" that maybe he goes to pgatour.com to check my tee time or check my scores â€" and sees this and understands that, Dad, we love you and we want you to come home,” said Hurley, breaking the news in a brief statement to the media at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. Tom Boswell is a Washington Post sports columnist. View Archive “Maybe, you know, a bartender who served him dinner sees this story on Golf Central or whatever and we can get a hit on his location.” Hurley’s father, a policeman for more than 25 years and a golf pro for more than 30 years, was described by his son as “not ...

All Times EDT PGA TOUR QUICKEN LOANS NATIONAL Site: Gainesville, Virginia. Schedule: Thursday-Sunday. Course: Robert Trent Jones Golf Club (7,385 yards, par 71). Purse: $6.7 million. Winner's share: $1,206,000. Television: Golf Channel (Thursday, 2:30-6:30 p.m., 9:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m.; Friday, 2-6 a.m., 2:30-6:30 p.m., 9:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m.; Saturday, 4-6 p.m., 1-2:30 p.m., 9:30 p.m.-2 a.m.; Sunday, 1-2:30 p.m., 10 p.m.-3 a.m.) and CBS (Saturday, 3-6 p.m.; Sunday, 3-6:30 p.m.). Last year: Justin Rose won at Congressional in Bethesda, Maryland, beating Shawn Stefani with a par on the first hole of a playoff. Last week: Jason Day won the Canadian Open for his second victory of the year, birdieing the final three holes to beat Bubba Watson by a stroke. David Hearn was third in his unsuccessful bid to become the first Canadian winner in 61 years. Notes: Tournament host Tiger Woods won in 2009 and 2012 at Congressional. He missed the cut in the British Open two weeks ago in his last start. ....

I previously wrote about The Golf Channel case in my article The Fifth Circuit Slices The Golf Channel Into The Pond. In a nutshell, Ponzi schemer Alan Stanford a/k/a Sir Scam-A-Lot contracted to purchase $5.9 million in advertising from The Golf Channel in connection with a golf tournament that he was hosting, for the purpose of attracting more high net worth suckers into his scheme. Later, after Stanford’s pyramid had collapsed and a Receiver was appointed to clean up his gigantic mess, the Receiver sought to have The Golf Channel disgorge the $5.9 million on the grounds that the advertising provided to Stanford did not have any “utility to creditors”, and thus was a fraudulent transfer. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit initially agreed with the Receiver, in an Opinion that drew significant criticism as not being protective of innocent commercial service providers, which The Golf Channel certainly was. But on The Golf Channel’s Motion for Rehearing, the Fif...

Richard Heathcote/Getty Images In late-breaking news from the dark world of golf-course poop capers, a Norwegian golf club continues its fight against a habitual cup-defacer who has used the course's holes as toilets. According to a story published by  Rogalands Avis ' Frode Olsen (h/t Golf News Net ), Stavanger Golf Club in Stavanger , Norway, has been beset by an unknown, pants-dropping menace for the last decade. As the story goes, the club began finding feces in cups around the course in 2005. The bombing of said cups has since continued in earnest despite added security measures, including the installation of flood lights around some of the perpetrator's preferred greens. Nothing definite is known about the monster behind these heinous movements, but there are some compelling theories. "We know it is a...

Watson birdied the final four holes for a 69. Day birdied three of the first seven holes, he but dropped strokes on Nos. 8 and 9. Playing a group ahead of Watson and Hearn, Day parred the first six holes on the back nine, then birdied the par-5 16th and par-4 17th to take a one-stroke lead. Hearn, two strokes ahead of Day and Watson entering the round, had a 72 to finish third at 15 under. Pat Fletcher, born in England, was the last Canadian winner in 1954 at Point Grey in Vancouver, British Columbia. Carl Keffer is the only Canadian-born champion, winning in 1909 and 1914. Albert Murray, a Canadian also born in England, won in 1908 and 1913. Hearn birdied the first two holes, but he gave back the strokes with bogeys on Nos. 3 and 7. He also bogeyed the par-3 12th, birdied the par-5 13th and closed with five pars. Two-time winner Jim Furyk was fourth at 14 under after a 69. Stewart Cink and Tom Hoge followed at 13 under, each shooting 66.

HAFRSFJORD, Norway, July 24 (UPI) -- The groundskeeper of a Norwegian golf course said a mystery pooper targeting course holes must be a man "because the poos are too massive to be from a woman." Kenneth Tennfjord, groundskeeper at the Stavanger Golf Club, said he has been finding human feces and toilet paper in course holes since 2005. "He has a couple of favorite holes," Tennfjord told the Rogaland Avis newspaper. "And we know it is a man because the poos are too massive to be from a woman." "He poos only on weekdays. On weekends I have never found poo on the golf course," Tennfjord said. He said the fecal discoveries are usually accompanied by used toilet paper. Steinar Floisvik, managing director of the club, said the mystery pooper used to arrive via bicycle. "In the early morning dew we observed bicycle tracks on the course. Footsteps showed that he had done his business, and the bicycle tracks disapp...

If it takes a village to raise a child . . . It takes a golf foundation to promote, support and target the growth of the game for youth, special needs and physically-challenged golfers. And the Connecticut Section PGA has it, in the form of its Golf Foundation. The tax-exempt nonprofit organization is operating as strong as ever as it turns 20 this year. "It's about helping people improve their lives through golf . . . it's that simple,'' PGA Life Member Gary Reynolds said of the 501 (c)(3) charitable organization. The Foundation's primary objectives have been the support of youth golf programs and activities as well as helping fund community programs and initiatives that serve Special Olympians and physically-challenged golfers. "We believe that golf makes a difference in the lives of so many people,'' Reynolds said. "We see it every day at our jobs. We don't save lives, but we try to help create happi...

Trump's penchant for grandiose valuation appears most pronounced when he appraises his most valuable courses. The Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, Scotland, is worth more than $50 million even though it had golf-related revenue of $4.3 million last year, according to the filing. Trump Jupiter had $12.4 million in revenue, the Bedminster club had $16.1 million, Trump Westchester brought in $9.4 million and the Washington-area club generated revenue of about $14 million. Mar-a-Lago generated $15.6 million in revenue, and the Colts Neck club produced $6.6 million in revenue. The Turnberry, Scotland, club generated $20.4 million. Trump's course valuations range from roughly 2.5 times annual revenue for Turnberry to 8 times for Colts Neck, with an average of roughly 4 times revenue. The courses also look overvalued by other measures. Trump paid a reported $13 million for t...

Tiger Woods’ slide continued last week at the Open Championship, where he missed the cut and dropped outside the top 250 in the world.   In an interview with Omnisport, a Europe-based sports news service, Gary Player called Woods’ decline “sad” and said that the game needs Woods to spread the game globally.  “We need Tiger Woods. Why? He’s a man of color. We need a black champion,” Player said, according to the report. “Go to Africa, where we’ve got all these young black kids used to seeing a white guy as the champion. Now they’re getting inspired; they’re sitting in front of their TV sets. It inspires them; it gets them interested in golf. “Asia wants to see a man of color. So there are many reasons besides being so charismatic. I don’t know if anybody in the world today can play like Tiger Woods did.” Woods’ missed cut at St. Andrews was his third in his last four majors, and he needs high finishes in his next two starts â€" the Quicken...

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland â€" Golf, like boxing and tennis and track and all other individual sports, relies on the power of its stars. It’s an inevitable thing, really. In team sports like baseball or football, fandom builds from countless things. Geography. History. Team colors. A Dodgers fan, a Bears fan, a Spurs fan might be rooting for the team of her father or favorite teacher or the first team she ever saw in person or any other reason. But in golf, like those other individual sports, a player must give you a reason to care. There are thousands of professional golfers around the world and all of them have honed their skills to the level of magic. When compared to our own meager games, all of them can crush long drives and hit precise iron shots and make the golf ball hop gently out of the sand. Follow any medium-level professional for 18 holes and you will see something remarkable. The larger game of golf thrives when a few of them â€" and usually one in particular...

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland â€" Golf, like boxing and tennis and track and all other individual sports, relies on the power of its stars. It’s an inevitable thing, really. In team sports like baseball or football, fandom builds from countless things. Geography. History. Team colors. A Dodgers fan, a Bears fan, a Spurs fan might be rooting for the team of her father or favorite teacher or the first team she ever saw in person or any other reason. But in golf, like those other individual sports, a player must give you a reason to care. There are thousands of professional golfers around the world and all of them have honed their skills to the level of magic. When compared to our own meager games, all of them can crush long drives and hit precise iron shots and make the golf ball hop gently out of the sand. Follow any medium-level professional for 18 holes and you will see something remarkable. The larger game of golf thrives when a few of them â€" and usually one in particular...

Sometimes in sports â€" and certainly in life â€" we don’t always get what we want. Take the 144th British Open as the latest case in point: What everyone wanted Monday at St. Andrews was Jordan Spieth winning the Claret Jug to become only the second player in the history of golf to win the Masters, US Open and British in the same year. Everyone except Zach Johnson, his family and loved ones. Spieth going to Whistling Straits next month to play the PGA Championship with a chance to become the first player ever to win a calendar-year Grand Slam would have set the sport of golf on fire. There would be a buzz in golf we haven’t felt since before Tiger Woods’ SUV met that fire hydrant in 2009. Zach Johnson celebrates his British Open victory. Photo: Getty Images But don’t blame Johnson for seizing his moment on Monday, getting himself into the playoff and winning his first British Open to go along with his 2007 Masters victory. Johnson is no more to ...

Photo Jordan Spieth after finishing the 18th hole during the final round of the British Open. Credit Gerry Penny/European Pressphoto Agency ST. ANDREWS, Scotland â€" The bespectacled, white-haired journalist from The Surrey Advertiser, on hand to chronicle his 37th consecutive British Open, cocked his head and asked Jordan Spieth a question that cut through the crosswinds during the tournament as deftly as did one of Spieth’s crisp iron shots on the Old Course: When did golf become so youthful? Down the stretch of Monday’s finale, the usual cast of leading men was nowhere to be seen. Tiger Woods, a 14-time major winner, failed to make the cut. Phil Mickelson, who has not won since the 2013 British Open, teed off early and put together a quiet three-under-par 69 to finish tied for 20th, eig...