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MI Golf Holidays

Events

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06

Feb
Wed

Celebrities to watch this week at Pebble Beach

By Brendan MohlerThe AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am starts Thursday, which means the usual array of celebrities teeing it up alongside the pros.  No surprise that the likes of Bill Murray, Carson Daly, Ray Romano and Kenny G are playing, a few of whom have even had some success in past years (Murray won with D.A. Points in 2010; Daly finished fifth with Jason Allred in 2005). Despite the barrage of duck hooks and power slices sure to plague many celebrities, their presence will produce some laughs. It's hard to take Nick Faldo seriously when he breaks down Bill Murray's swing: (Not bad considering the outfit.)Aside from actors and musicians, a few NFL stars and coaches will be making appearances, including recent Super Bowl runner-up Jim Harbaugh, whose San Francisco 49ers lost to his brother John's Ravens, 34-31. One of Harbaugh's foes, Bill Belichick, will be playing in his second consecutive Pebble Beach pro-am after finishing third with Ricky Barnes last year. Here's hoping Belichick shows up in anything other than a cut-off hoodie.Aaron Rodgers and Tony Romo, two quarterbacks whose seasons ended well before they hoped are in the field. If the Cowboys and Packers were squaring off, Rodgers would surely have the upper hand. But golf is the great equalizer, and Romo gets the nod here only because his swing looks nice and he's played in a few U.S. Open qualifiers (Tiger has also allowed Romo to be his partner, which must be good for something). (Romo's swing can be seen at the :16 mark).If Romo's lucky, he'll knock in all the short ones. He's known for botching easy plays, and he's playing alongside 19-year-old Jordan Spieth, who will surely be battling some nerves. And finally, flamethrowers Justin Verlander and Matt Cain are in the field. Their respective teams (Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants) squared off in last year's World Series, which Cain's Giants won in only four games. Verlander will be out for revenge on Matt Cain, who also happened to throw a perfect game last season. However, Verlander has a firm grasp on the crown for hottest girlfriend award as my colleague and author of The Grind, Alex Myers, pointed out. Speaking of hot girlfriends, Dustin Johnson is playing alongside his new squeeze's father, also known as "The Great One." Wayne's daughter, Paulina Gretzky, is a fashion model and Instagram star, and has been posting a lot of photos of her and Dustin's off-the-course escapades. Dustin won at Pebble in '09 and '10, but didn't have the distraction of playing with his girlfriend's father. Hoopla aside, there must be a favorite among all these amateur hackers. I'm going with Skip McGee, the head of Global Investment Banking at Barclays and a 15 handicap, simply because he's paired with Phil Mickelson. Not only did Phil narrowly miss shooting the first 59 since Stuart Appleby in 2010, but he also seems to be in love with his driver. And we all know true love is hard to find. Skip, you lucked out. Follow @BrendanMohlerGW !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");

06

Feb
Wed

Tips For Her: Creating the perfect divot

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.By...

05

Feb
Tue

The Grind: Phil Mickelson's second career, DJ's distractions, and Pebble predictions

It was a good week for Phil Mickelson -- and for his sponsors.Welcome to another edition of The Grind, where unlike the Super Bowl, we promise to never leave you in the dark. Speaking of lights out, how about the play of Phil Mickelson at the Waste Management Phoenix Open? Of course, he was also the talk of the golf world early last season before doing his best impression of a typical small-market baseball team and disappearing for most of the spring/summer. But for now, we'll focus on the positives. . . WE'RE BUYING Phil Mickelson as a pitchman. Forget about the incredible on-course display he put on at TPC Scottsdale, how about the performances he put on hocking his new Callaway driver? Lefty kissed the club at one point, referred to his newest toy as a "dream" and turned his post-round interviews into commercials for the equipment giant. It worked, with the company's SVP of marketing, Harrry Arnett, reporting the "Biggest traffic weekend in our history & most drivers we've ever sold in 1 day on Saturday...beaten on Sunday" on Twitter. The guy could probably sell you subscriptions to 10 magazines you don't want if he showed up on your doorstep. TPC Scottsdale's 16h hole. Padraig Harrington punted footballs into the stands, caddies risked bodily harm trying to win footraces, and James Hahn performed a rendition of the "Gangnam Style" dance that would even have impressed its creator, South Korean entertainer Psy. What will the most raucous crowd in golf provide for an encore? It's a shame we have to wait 12 months to find out. Scott Piercy. Phil's near-59 is so last Thursday. How about Scotty P.'s 61? The 34-year-old's 10 birdie performance forced NBC to show a little of his final round. However, this isn't a fluke. Piercy played in last year's Tour Championship to cap a season in which he finished in the top 25 in half of the 28 events he entered, while earning his second PGA Tour title at the RBC Canadian Open. WE'RE SELLING Lipouts. We get it, lipouts are part of the game. But that doesn't mean we can't complain about them. And not just when they happen to Hall of Famers trying to make history. Those late-round rim outs are just as painful to us hacks trying to break 80/90/100. Lipouts are the ultimate on-course dagger. "Morning Drive" dramatics. After two years, the Golf Channel's daily morning show packed up and moved down the hallway to another studio. The nice, new digs are reason to celebrate, but why the crew had to act like they were turning off the lights at Cheers for the last time is beyond me. Vijay Singh. Does deer-antler spray even work? It sounds like some sort of hocus-pocus remedy "doctors" from the 13th century would have prescribed. Regardless, it contains one of the PGA Tour's banned substances. Sorry, Vijay, you deserve to be punished for breaking the rules. I mean, without rules, we're no better than animals. You know, like deer. . . ON TAP The PGA Tour heads back to California for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. The tournament rotates among Pebble Beach GL (Is the "GL" for "glorious"? Because it should be), Spyglass Hill GC and Monterey Peninsula CC the first three days before Sunday's final round at Pebble. Random tournament fact: Last year, Phil Mickelson and Jim "Bones" Mackay set an unofficial record for the most talking/strategizing between a player and caddie on their way to a big win, capped by a final-round 64. Our favorite moment? When the two discussed at length on the 18th hole whether a 3-wood would fly farther than a driver with a certain amount of tailwind. WEEKLY YAHOO! FANTASY LINEUP Well, you've got to go with Bill Murray, a winner with D.A. Points in 2011, of course, and I'm hearing that Ray Romano has really been working on his short game. Oh, we're not making picks for the big pro-am? Let's try again then: Starters -- (A-List): Phil Mickelson. We learned our lesson early last season when Mickelson won here and then nearly won again the next week at Riviera, before not doing much the rest of the year. When Lefty is hot, you ride him. And if he falters, we always have Mr. Bridesmaid, Brandt Snedeker to fall back on. (B-List): Dustin Johnson. Potential Paulina Gretzky distractions (above) aside, DJ has two wins, a T-5 and a T-7 in five appearances in this event. Not too shabby. Kind of like his recent string of Instagram pics featuring his girlfriend. . . (B-List): Bo Van Pelt. If we keep picking him to win, he has to eventually. Right? (C-List): Ryan Moore. Moore doesn't have a great track record here (two top 20s in four attempts), but he's coming off a great week in which he wielded his new TaylorMade sticks to a solo fourth at TPC Scottsdale. Bench -- Brandt Snedeker, Hunter Mahan, Aaron Baddeley and Rickie Fowler. Related: The best baseball player golfers Pro-Am Note: Matt Cain and Justin Verlander, the two starters of the 2012 MLB All-Star game are both participating. Cain also tossed a perfect game in 2012 and his Giants nipped Verlander's Tigers in the World Series, but it's the Detroit flamethrower who has been linked to supermodel Kate Upton (left, as if you needed to be told who Kate Upton is). We'll call it a push. RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK -- Microphones will pick up Phil Mickelson discussing the wind in terms of knots: 1-to-5 odds Related: What Phil and "Bones" are really saying -- Win or lose, Bill Murray will dance: LOCK. -- Paulina Gretzky will find her way into this column again in 2013: Also a LOCK. VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK Could it be anything other than James Hahn's "Gangnam Style" dance following a birdie on TPC Scottsdale's 16th hole on Sunday? The rookie's extended version of the move earned him a lot of new fans, or at least, a few more people who have actually heard of him now. Enjoy: PHOTO OF THE WEEK This is a picture of Sergio Garcia's girlfriend, Nicole Horrex, following him during last week's Dubai Desert Classic. Sergio may claim to be cursed by the golf gods, but we're finding it hard to be sympathetic. CELEBRITY/ATHLETE WE'D LIKE TO PLAY GOLF WITH Related: A look at some golf-crazed celebrities Anyone not named Ray Lewis. The Baltimore Ravens linebacker has to be the most tiresome figure in all of sports. At least I won't ever have to see or hear this guy again with him retiring following his team's Super Bowl win. Oh wait, now he's a lock to be hired as a football analyst for an exorbitant amount of money? Isn't it great when good things happen to good people? OBVIOUS QUOTE OF THE WEEK "I feel like I keep running into Hall of Famers," said Brandt Snedeker after finishing runner-up for a second-straight week. Gee, do you think? Then again, we can't blame him for being a little deflated. After all, he shot 64-66-65-65 and lost by FOUR shots. THIS AND THAT Karrie Webb won the Australian Masters for a Tiger-like eighth time. . . . The new $8.5 million event in South Africa has already been postponed. What a shocker. . . . I took a trip to Atlantic City, aka Dagger City, this weekend and miraculously managed to leave ahead. Yes, those chips (left) are proof of my "big" winnings. No, I'm not one of the Tropicana's high rollers. RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER Why can't you gamble on sports when you're in Atlantic City? Beyonce was great, but will we ever see a Super Bowl halftime show "wardrobe malfunction" again? Tiger and Phil just won in back-to-back weeks. Do we really have to wait another two-plus months for the Masters? -- 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.

05

Feb
Tue

Turn As Much As You Can

Don't let your arms take over.

05

Feb
Tue

Golf Should Get Moving On Slow Play

There's no better time than now to deal with the plague that is slow play.

04

Feb
Mon

Vibram Fivefingers: A golf shoe like no other

By John Strege Who's to say anymore what a golf shoe ought to look like? Convention has been discarded. Function has replaced form. There might be no more unusual looking golf shoes than those...

04

Feb
Mon

SkyGolf introduces SkyCaddie Sport Series

By John Strege SkyGolf has expanded its universe of rangefinders with the introduction of the SkyCaddie Sport Series, featuring four offerings, each under $200 and designed to appeal to a greater variety of golfers....

04

Feb
Mon

Golf World Monday: Caddie races, pro and con

By Dave Shedloski From the February 4 issue on Golf World Monday: It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. The latest wrinkle to the alternate entertainment lineup at the Waste Management Phoenix Open is the caddie races at the par-3 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale, the "stadium" hole surrounded by grandstands that seat more than 20,000 boisterous fans. Photo by Getty ImagesCaddies race from tee to green, a distance up to 162 yards, a decent jaunt, especially with clubs on their backs. We think they're fun to watch, frankly. Whether it's Kenny Harms sliding head first into the green or Brent Henley body-checking older brother Kip after stumbling and falling head over heels, the races are something completely different. Even players Y.E. Yang and Kyle Stanley got into the spirit yesterday. Hey, we're for just about anything that brings more paying customers to golf, so we have no problem with caddies adding to the festivities with wind sprints. But that spill Brent Henley took could have resulted in a serious injury or damage to the clubs belonging to Robert Garrigus. Related: Phil Mickelson dominates at TPC Scottsdale Just something to think about. Perhaps next year the loopers should at least put down the clubs before leaving the starting blocks. Less risk to life, limb and graphite. Follow @DaveShedloski !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");

04

Feb
Mon

Traumatic Brain Injuries Create A Dreaded Bond

Few people can understand what golfer Dana Quigley is going through as his son contends with a traumatic brain injury. Writer Craig Dolch is one of them.

04

Feb
Mon

PGA Tour Fans

We take a look at the fans who come out to support their favorite player