Golf News

AUGUSTA, Ga. â€" Rory McIlroy wrote him a letter to inquire about a “couple of practice rounds,” he reportedly beat Sergio Garcia during a tournament round at Augusta National a few years ago and last week Jeff Knox was drafted into the role of Tiger Woods’ playing partner. Knox is an Augusta National member and a noncompeting marker at the Masters when the field has an odd number of players, including last year when he was paired with McIlroy who he beat by a shot. According to various sources, Knox played with Woods on Friday at Augusta National as the former world No. 1 prepared to return to competitive golf. It was Woods’ second scouting trip to the course and was followed a few hours later by an announcement that he would play next week’s Masters. According to the Augusta Chronicle in 2011, Knox holds the club’s course record from the member tees, an 11-under 61 he shot in 2003. McIlroy was so impressed with Knox’s game, and his knowledge of Augusta Nat...

A golf course in Shenyang city, Liaoning province, on July 1, 2012. (Photo: Sun Zhongguo, Imaginechina) BEIJING â€" Ping-pong diplomacy thawed relations between the United States and China in the 1970s, but don't expect golf to smooth still tricky ties between the world's top two economies. Though President Obama enjoys golfing with fellow leaders, his Chinese counterpart will probably steer clear of U.S. fairways during his state visit this September. The ruling Communist Party that President Xi Jinping commands has long been nervous of golf's image in China as an elitist, corrupt pastime. Authorities have taken a tougher stance against a sport that continues to expand in China, attracting U.S. stars to play in multimillion-dollar tournaments and earn millions designing courses. The government has closed almost 70 courses, frozen development nationwide for the past year and started corruption probes into officials who play golf. The National Development and Reform Com...

Tiger Woods is at Augusta National on Friday. Whether he will be there next week is still to be determined. Woods was hitting balls at the tournament practice facility Friday morning, Golf Channel learned. He played 18 holes at Augusta National on Tuesday, according to his agent, and Golfweek reported that Woods shot 74 with five birdies and a number of indifferent chip shots. Golf Channel insider Tim Rosaforte reported that Woods was practicing Thursday with caddie Joe LaCava at his home course, the Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Fla. Woods hasn’t played on Tour since Feb. 5, when he withdrew after 11 holes at the Farmers Insurance Open because of a tight back. That followed a missed cut at the Phoenix Open, where he bungled numerous short shots and carded an 82, his highest score as a pro. Woods announced a week after the Torrey Pines disaster that he was taking an indefinite break from golf, saying that his game wasn’t up to his lofty standards. He skipped the Arnold ...

The cover of this month’s issue of Golf Digest features LPGA tour golfer Lexi Thompson wearing aâ€"golf towel? Cut up shirt? Weird scarf?â€"and not much else. It’s the “Fitness & Power Issue,” which I guess has something to do with side boob. This is silly! If there are Golf Digest subscribers out there who are really that hard up for a glance at the outer portion of a woman’s breast, they can go on the internet, or just read Sports Illustrated . This cover didn’t just come out of nowhere, though. It tracks perfectly with how Golf Digest has been treating its female cover models for the last few years. Last year, the magazine put together a helpful archive of women that have been on the cover since 1969. Up until 2008, there was nothing too scandalous about the way any of the women were dressed or presented. Here’s Lorena Ochoa on the cover in 2008: ...

World No. 9 and third-ranked American golfer Lexi Thompson is on the cover of next month’s issue of Golf Digest â€" the “Fitness & Power” issue â€" which should hit newsstands in the middle of April. Not so coincidentally, May was also the month Paulina Gretzky posed for the cover of  Golf Digest for little reason other than her relationship with Dustin Johnson and her attractiveness. But the magazine’s editor says this is different, and it is. “We’ve come a long way from a year ago when the LPGA condemned our choice of Paulina Gretzky (and Holly Sonders in 2013) as the cover images for Golf Digest ‘s annual fitness issue. Mea culpa, ladies. You can have stunning beauty and the highest level of golf performance at the same time, as demonstrated this year by Lexi, Stacy Lewis, Cheyenne Woods and Michelle Wie: Have you ever seen anyone more fit in evening wear? LPGA players not only...

If you're like us, and have been drooling over the Volkswagen Golf R 400 concept since it was first unveiled in Beijing last year, we've got some potentially good news for you. Dr. Heinz-Jakob Neusser, member of the board of management responsible for development at Volkswagen, told Autoblog that the Golf R 400 will definitely come to the US... if it gets the production green light, anyway. Neusser says that the US market has had a hugely positive reaction to the seventh-generation Golf family. The new hatch won both Motor Trend Car of the Year and North American Car of the Year, and Volkswagen has expanded the Golf range to include a bunch of new variants, including the electric e-Golf and recently released SportWagen. The Golf R 400 would "fit very well into this strategy," says Neusser. The hotter Golfs have been successful, too. When Volkswagen opened the order books for the 2015 Golf R, the yearly allocation for the US sold out in just 11 hours....

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) â€" New York City’s first new golf course in more than 50 years is now open. The Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, which was built on a former landfill in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx, officially opened Wednesday morning. Tee time reservations are now being accepted online. Excited golfers hit balls on the practice green, waiting to tee off for the very first time on the brand new golf course. “I saw the course driving back from the airport last year and said, ‘I can’t wait to get out there,'”  Erwin Watson of Poughkeepsie told CBS2’s Andrea Grymes. Social worker John Saith of Richmond Hill, Queens said he had to be one of the first on the links. “I play a lot of city courses and this is considered a premium course so I wanted to experience what that would be like,” Saith said. The championship caliber course is a collaboration between Donald Trump and course designer, golfing great Jack Nicklaus. It cost...