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MI Golf Holidays

MI Golf Holidays / Events

Events

Upcoming Events

21

Feb
Thu

Inside Golf World Podcast: Lessons Learned As The Masters Looms

By Ryan Herrington As the PGA Tour closes out the West Coast portion of its season at Dove Mountain outside Tucson with the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, it gives us at Golf World a natural chance to break down what's happened thus far in 2013. In this week's edition of the Inside Golf World podcast, senior writer Tim Rosaforte and executive editor Ron Sirak debate the various storylines that have stood out to date--most notably victories by top talents Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and the continued emergence of Brandt Snedeker after claiming last year's FedEx Cup title--and discuss what they potentially mean as the tour heads east with four stops in Florida during the next month. As the run-up to the Masters begins in earnest, Rosaforte and Sirak also offer their early faves to succeed at Augusta. Listen to the podcast Follow @GWCampusInsider !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

21

Feb
Thu

Gear On Tour: WGC Accenture Match Play

A glimpse of what players are using this week at The Golf Club at Dove Mountain in Marana, Arizona

20

Feb
Wed

Discussing golf's impact: A conversation with Steve Mona

By Brendan MohlerAt the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando last month, we met up with Steve Mona, CEO of the World Golf Foundation, to discuss golf's impact and the role of the WGF in growing the game. Previously the CEO of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, Mona took over at the World Golf Foundation in 2008. The facts and figures he cites, particularly regarding charitable giving and the game's economic impact, speak to his belief that golf contributes more to society than many people realize."Golf is often perceived as a cottage industry, a little recreational pursuit for a small number of people. However, almost 10% of Americans play golf - which is certainly not an insignificant amount -- but the perception is that the game is a niche industry," Mona said. "Our objective is to change that perception and show people that the golf industry is considerably sized and makes a substantial contribution to our country's economy."One of the main efforts of the World Golf Foundation is to promote golf as a vehicle to raise money for charity. How effective has the game been in that regard?On an annual basis, golf generates about $3.9 billion for charity. Professional events generate only about $150 million of the $3.9 billion, with the rest coming from events held at everyday golf facilities. A small amount of that money stays in the game and benefits The First Tee or local high school golf teams, for example, but the overwhelming majority of money raised through golf benefits causes outside the game.There are about 15,000 golf facilities in the country and about 12,000 of them conduct charity events every year. There are about 150,000 charity events that take place and about 12 million people participate annually. The average event generates $26,000 for charity. Typically the golf course operators make their course available for either no charge or a reduced charge so that more money can be raised. How does golf's charitable impact compare to that of other sports?Of the four major team sports in the United States (hockey, football, baseball and basketball), golf generates more than all of them combined. However, the perception is that those are huge sports generating a huge amount of money for charity, and they do, but golf's charitable giving eclipses all four of those combined. Growing the game is a top priority for golf's biggest organizations, including the World Golf Foundation, which has played a major role in the creation and development of The First Tee. How has that program evolved since its creation? The First Tee, originally announced in Central Park in 1997, was designed to bring young people to the game who otherwise wouldn't have a chance to play. As more young people started playing, they outgrew the small, inner-city golf courses, so we created a lot of public-private partnerships to bring golf to those areas. The First Tee now uses golf as a platform to teach life skills. As of the end of 2011, we had reached almost 5 million kids. Our goal by 2017 is to reach 10 million, and we're confident we can achieve that because of the rate at which the First Tee has expanded. We currently have 205 chapters in local areas around the country and also a few abroad. The core values of The First Tee are things that, once learned through golf, you carry throughout the rest of your life. We're really creating the next generation of leaders in our country through golf, and using the game as a catalyst for kids to learn life and leadership skills. It's not just about swinging a club, or learning to chip and putt. In what ways can The First Tee continue to grow and reach more young people?The biggest area for growth is with The First Tee's national schools program, which promotes golf as part of the physical education curriculum in elementary schools. There are about 500 elementary schools now offering golf as part of their PE curriculum.Traditionally, golf has never been a sport that elementary school students are exposed to because of equipment, time constraints and other issues. But with SNAG (link) (Starting New At Golf), equipment and the efforts of The First Tee, golf is now being offered at grade schools around the country and kids are getting exposure to the game. Snag equipment really helps kids replicate the swing and learn to make contact with the ball, so when they make the transition to normal equipment, they've already learned how to swing the club properly. Our view is, with respect to both The First Tee and it's grade school program, not all those kids are going to end up being lifelong golfers. But hopefully they will all have a good impression of golf because they were exposed to it and understand it. Golf's charitable impact is certainly one of the game's strengths, but do you have any goals set to increase the amount of charitable dollars the game raises?Golf has been proven to be a good vehicle for charitable fundraising, so I think that over the next five years charities will continue to use the game to raise money. Also, I think the facilities will continue to make themselves available to host these events and that individuals will be willing to pay to play 18 holes of golf, especially knowing that their money is going to charity. In 2005, charitable giving through the golf industry was $3.5 billion, so in a span of 6 years, that number has gone up by $400 million. By 2015 I expect that number to be north of $4 billion. Golf's impact on the economy in 2011 was $68.8 billion, and that was when we were still coming out of the recession and certain components of the golf industry were really depressed. So we're actually looking for that number to grow. But still, the impact is close to $70 billion, and almost 2 million Americans are employed in the golf industry. For those people, golf is more than a game; it's their livelihood.  a href="https://twitter.com/brendanmohler" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false" data-lang="en">Follow @Brendan Mohler !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

20

Feb
Wed

More tour success, new models for SuperStroke

By John Strege Those who watched the Northern Trust Open on Sunday might have noticed the white over-sized grips that Charlie Beljan and Fredrik Jacobson had on their putters. Beljan finished second (losing in...

20

Feb
Wed

Tips For Her: Three keys for better bunker play

Editor's note: Each week, Megan Padua, a teaching professional at Maidstone Club (East Hampton, N.Y.) and Belfair Plantation (Bluffton, S.C.), and one of Golf Digest's Best Young Teachers, offers tips and advice for women golfers....

19

Feb
Tue

R&A golf ball engineer job: 'Just part of our governance role'

By Mike StachuraThe discussion of a golf ball rollback got another injection of adrenaline when the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews placed a job advertisement seeking a "golf ball engineer," but the R&A's...

19

Feb
Tue

Tiger talks about his round with Obama, WGC Match Play

By JIm Moriarty MARANA, Ariz. -- It's not often Tiger Woods can get a kick out of winning $15, but when the guy you're splitting the pot with is the President of the United States, a Hamilton ($10) and a Lincoln ($5) take on new meaning, even if Hamilton only made it as far as Secretary of the Treasury. Barack Obama isn't the first POTUS Woods has played golf with -- that distinction belongs to Bill Clinton -- but he's the first President who still had the nuclear codes handy. Related: Photos of Obama playing golf Woods is famous for giving out nicknames to close, and sometimes not so close, associates. Did he come up with one for the President? "Partner," replied a smiling Woods. And how, exactly, does one go about giving the needle to the most powerful man on the planet? "Easily," Woods replied, well, easily. "Playing with the President was pretty cool. He's just a wonderful person to be around. And we won. Woods will compete for the first time since winning at Torrey Pines."He's a pretty good athlete," Woods continued. "We all know he played a lot of hoops. I kind of forgot he's a lefty, but to see him out there hitting shots, he hit it well. And we didn't play under the easiest conditions. It was blowing harder than this (Tuesday at Dove Mountain) and it was a little bit cooler than this. He's got amazing touch. He can certainly chip and putt. If he ever spent -- after these four years -- spent more time playing the game of golf, I'm sure he could get to where he's a pretty good stick." Butch Harmon, one of Woods' former teachers, spent the day before Woods played with Obama giving the President golf lessons. "It was just a nice day," said Harmon. "It was his (the President's) vacation and I'm going to leave it at that." So, in just three days, Woods will go from playing with the man who authorized the mission to get Osama bin Laden to a head-to-head battle with Charles Howell III. About the only thing those two golfers have in common is that they're both skinny. "Well, I lived with the guy in Orlando," said Woods of his first round opponent in the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship. "You'd see him out there on the range and the putting green just grinding away. His work ethic has never changed, never waned. I admire guys who put in that kind of work. It's not easy to do." Related: Our WGC-Accenture Match Play picks & more Outside of his appearance before various members of the Secret Service, this is Woods' first outing since winning at Torrey Pines. "The first week, I didn't touch a club and just got away from it," said the three-time winner of the Match Play. "And the second week I started hitting balls, chipping and putting. Then the past week, I started playing quite a bit, got my playing feel and all that done." Follow @GWMoriarty(Photo: Getty Images) !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

19

Feb
Tue

Poulter's latest: A putter cover, the Azalea Jacket

By John Strege IJP Design, Ian Poulter's apparel company, once again will be offering colorful limited-edition putter covers commemorating each of the four major championships, the first of which is the Azalea Jacket. It...

19

Feb
Tue

The Grind: Riviera's riveting finish, Obama & Tiger tee it up & match play picks

By Alex Myers Welcome to another edition of The Grind, where we'd like to take this time to issue a public service announcement: If you were listed in our PGA Tour "Sleepers To Watch in 2013" feature, watch your back. Literally. First, Blake Adams went down with a hip injury and now Spencer Levin's bum wrist will keep him out the rest of the regular season. Move over, "Madden Cover jinx." With a World Golf Championship event next up, most of the guys on the list have this week off. But that just means they should be extra careful when doing chores around the house. . . WE'RE BUYING John Merrick. Nice job by the former UCLA Bruin. Merrick won his first PGA Tour title right down the road from where he went to school and he timed it perfectly with us celebrating a provocative pic while he was an undergrad. Considering Merrick still has his first paycheck as a professional golfer (A $3,200 one for finishing T-3 at a Hooters Tour event) framed in his bedroom, we're pretty sure he'll save some memorabilia from this win. He'll have plenty of money to save as well, since his latest check has just a few more zeros in it. Merrick came through in the clutch before celebrating with Mr. Clutch, Jerry West.Barack Obama. Like his politics or not, if you are reading this, you probably like golf. And if that's the case, you have to like the fact that the president likes the game so much. After a day of working with Butch and Claude Harmon at The Floridian, Obama teed it up with Tiger Woods for the first time on Sunday. Not a bad weekend. Daniela Holmqvist. I don't care if spider experts weighed in and said the situation for the LET rookie bitten by a Black Widow wasn't as dangerous as originally believed, the point is that she believed she was in danger, acted by cutting out the venom with a tee, and then played on and shot a respectable 74. Kinda makes that time you played through a blister on your hand seem a little less impressive, right? WE'RE SELLING Brandt Snedeker. Sore ribs? What, from laughing all the way to the bank? In any matter, the hottest player in the world won't be in the field this week (he would have been a No. 1 seed). It's bad news for his fans, but great news for everyone else in the field who now has a chance to win. Riviera's 10th hole. Look, I'm not disputing it's a great hole, but I think that back-right pin position is a little ridiculous. No matter what players did off the tee, it was nearly impossible to play their approaches toward the hole and actually have the ball stay on the putting surface. There's a phrase for this, but I guess you only hear it about holes that aren't so famous: "Tricked up." Fredrik Jacobson's pressure putting. Hey, the Swede had a great tournament and came close to his second PGA Tour win. His four-footer to get into a playoff, however, came about as close as the average tour player came to voting for the First Golfer this past fall. The 38-year-old's middle name is "Ulf." Perhaps we should make that the term for missing a short putt that badly, as in, what a poorly-timed ulf or he really ulfed that up. ON TAP The PGA Tour heads to Arizona for the WGC Match Play. Last year, Hunter Mahan knocked off Rory McIlroy to keep him from taking over the top spot in the world rankings. The young lad from Northern Ireland would never recover. Wait, never mind. . . Related: A side-by-side look at Rory and Tiger Random tournament fact: This is the only official tour event in which match play is the format. OK, so you probably knew that already. WEEKLY FANTASY PICKS With no opposite-field event going on this week, and with Yahoo!'s inability to figure out a way to award points for match play, most fantasy golf leagues are dormant this week. That doesn't mean you shouldn't fill out a match-play bracket and wager a few bucks with co-workers, though. Here's our stab at a final four: Keegan Bradley, Jason Dufner, Graeme McDowell, and Luke Donald, with G-Mac topping Dufsanity in the championship match. Of course, our gut is to go with Woods, but in this event above all, going with your gut probably isn't the wisest move. Plus, he might have to face noted Tiger tamer Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano in the second round. . . RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK -- Phil Mickelson's kids will imitate him falling on the rocks if his family goes to the beach during their vacation: 2-to-1 odds Related: Golf's Most Provocative Photos -- TV viewers will hear the phrase "the vagaries of match play" ad nauseum: LOCK -- The phrase "tearing up my bracket" will be said/written even more: Also a LOCK CELEBRITY/ATHLETE WE'D LIKE TO PLAY GOLF WITH Chris Paul. As a Wake Forest alum, Sunday was quite a roller coaster ride. First, I had to suffer through 2004 classmate Bill Haas' letdown at Riviera, but CP3's NBA All-Star Game MVP performance made me extremely proud to be a Demon Deacon once again. It seems the only thing the Clippers' point guard likes doing as much as picking apart opposing defenses is playing/watching golf. Chris, I know you're busy leading a historically-pathetic franchise to its best season ever, but I'll gladly save you a summer tee time. STAT OF THE WEEK Fred Couples played in his 31st Northern Trust Open and found his way on the leader board for much of the first two days. Just think, he's played in the same tournament 31 times. Crazy. I don't think I've even eaten at the same Chili's that many times. OK, so that's a lie. . . VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK In this week's edition of "How out of touch with the youngsters can a 30-year-old be?" I admit that I still don't understand the "Harlem Shake" phenomenon. That being said, here's the Villanova men's golf team doing it -- whatever "it" is: THIS AND THAT Bernhard Langer won his 15th event on the Champions Tour. He better learn how to putt without anchoring because the 55-year-old looks like he has another decade of dominating the old guys in him. . . . There was a kangaroo delay during the Women's Australian Open. It's too bad the LPGA doesn't always have this excuse for why its rounds take so long. . . . I attended a wedding reception over the weekend at which the bride and groom were introduced by coming up through the floor encased in a glass box (left). It's good to see the phrase "coming over the top" can still apply to more than the golf swing. RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER Did Obama and Tiger drink Arnold Palmers at the turn? After a good start to the season, why did Dustin Johnson change putters? Is Paulina Gretzky just an Odyssey spy working undercover? Did we really just go an entire column without referring to a picture of an attractive female? -- Alex Myers is a contributing editor for GolfDigest.com. Feel free to email him and please follow him on Twitter since he has self-esteem issues.

19

Feb
Tue

John Merrick, a Bruin who bared it all

By Alex Myers John Merrick's first PGA Tour win came on familiar terrain at Riviera, down the road from where he played his college golf at UCLA. But as he posed for pictures at the trophy presentation, we couldn't help but recall a much different photo shoot he was a part of nearly a decade ago. Merrick was a member of the UCLA men's golf team photographed in the nude by Joe McNally as part of a feature on "The New Athlete Golfer" in the June 2004 issue of Golf Digest. Merrick is pictured fourth from the left. According to Golf World's Campus Insider Ryan Herrington, UCLA's golf coach at the time, O.D. Vincent, was reprimanded by school officials, but did not get fired. A similar photo was taken by the Bethany College golf team in 2011, earning those players a suspension and causing McNally to reflect on his 2004 photo shoot with Merrick and Co. Related: Golf's most provocative photos The image is just part of our look at some of golf's most provoctive photos through the years. Our jumping off point was last week's Golf World cover, which featured David Feherty with his pants around his ankles. Merrick's win just made the timing that much better. Follow @AlexMyers3 !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");