On his website, Phil Mickelson last blogged on October 26 from China. He writes:
Greetings from Singapore, where this week we play the Barclays Singapore Open. It’s hot here again as it usually is this time of year, but Sentosa Golf Club is a wonderful venue and we have some of the best players in the world the entered, including Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington, so it figures to be another great week.
Next week I’m playing the HSBC Champions in Shanghai, which is now a World Golf Championship event. I’m convinced that’s a great thing for our tours. It gives us one of the strongest possible fields in the fastest growing and potentially largest market. With golf becoming an Olympic sport, with China’s commitment to the Olympics and to golf, I believe the exposure of the world’s best players competing in Shanghai will drive the game in that country and throughout Asia. . .
A lot has been said about my work with Dave Stockton prior to the Tour Championship and I’m so glad we had that time together. Dave was a great putter, and talking with him reinforced what I knew to be true about putting and the short game. It reaffirmed what I talked about in my short game DVD, the need for a scientific understanding as well as an artistic approach for short game success.
In the DVD I talk about training my eyes for alignment, the importance of putter face alignment, the importance of reading the green properly. But to make putts in competition or away from the practice green you must develop solid fundamentals and practice properly but you also have to have feel and creativity to bring that short game out. That was the combination that I was lacking as the season wore on, and that I realized again with Dave. . .
I’m also excited about the release Tuesday of the companion book to the DVD, Phil Mickelson: Secrets to the Short Game. Guy Yocum and T.R. Reinman did a fine job on the writing and Golf Digest photographers Dom Furore and J.D. Cuban did in still photos what Terry Jastrow did in the video, which was a big success, too.
My thanks to go to them and to Golf Digest for the great support they lent to the video and the book and, as always to you for your interest and support.On his website, Ernie Els wrote in his "weekly diary" December 7. He writes:
Although it's a pretty quiet time of the year golf wise, there's quite a lot to report from my first week back in South Africa. We flew from America last week and stopped off in Stellenbosch to visit the guys at the winery and see how things are in the Big Easy Restaurant, which opened last year. It's really buzzing, which was great to see. And our wines are doing extremely well, having picked up quite a few more international awards in 2009.
I also took the opportunity to meet up with Hannes van Niekerk, the CEO of the Ernie Els & Fancourt Foundation, to talk about what's been happening and to go through our future plans. Most importantly there is a change in the structure of the Foundation from 2010, which will allow us to expand our reach and help more kids. It's an exciting new phase and we're looking forward to helping change these kids' lives.
After all that I had a nice quiet weekend at the house down by the ocean in Herold's Bay. It was really good to be back. And there are exciting developments just down the road at Oubaai (pictured above). This was our first signature golf course in South Africa when it opened for play in 2004 and now there's a fantastic new Hyatt Regency Hotel & Spa ready for its grand opening next week.
Also at Oubaai is the upcoming opening of the South African Golf Hall of Fame, which will feature a library, lots of memorabilia, a Hall of Fame locker room, golf shop and putting green. I'm proud to be one of the 23 golfers inducted to this new Hall of Fame.
Anyway, back to this week's events. We flew up to Mpumalanga on Monday so that I have plenty of time to work on my game in the build-up to this week's Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek. I love this tournament and the golf course that it's played on. It has to be one of the most spectacular courses in the world, right on the edge of the Kruger National Park with the wildlife all around. It is pretty amazing. We have a house on the golf course, with lots of friends here and the family are staying, too, which makes it a great week all round.
As many of you will know, this is one of Johann Rupert's events; he's a great friend of mine and he does a great job looking after us all. I've won the Alfred Dunhill three times in all - 1995, 1999 and 2006 - although only the most recent of those was at Leopard Creek. That was pretty special, though. It was December 2005 and I was playing only my second tournament after coming back from ACL knee surgery in the summer of that year.
Obviously this year it is a significant week for other reasons. For one thing it's the first tournament in the 2010 Race to Dubai. And, as I was saying in last week's report, the rules on grooves have changed for the new season and in effect we're turning back the clock with irons that generate a lot less backspin. It's quite a big change at the top level of the game and it'll make a real difference, especially with shots out of the rough; you know, the players are not going to be able to spin the ball anything like we have done in recent years. So driving the ball in the fairway is going to be a bigger deal - no bad thing, to be honest.
Obviously I'm looking forward to the week. I'll write some more again next Monday and tell you all about it.
Bye for now.In late November, several PGA Tour and Champions Tour players traveled to Iraq to visit with American troops. Tim Simpson, of the Champions Tour, wrote in the PGA Tour's Player Blog on November 26. He writes:
Last Friday, we all flew to Washington and joined each other at Walter Reid Hospital for an amazing afternoon with our wounded warriors, returning troops from Iraq and Afghanistan that have lost limbs. They hit balls on a makeshift driving range. We then visited a number of soldiers in their rooms. Their courage and desire to get back into battle as soon as possible was both amazing as well as humbling. It was a day that none of us will soon forget.
On Friday night, we boarded a plane for the 12-hour flight to Kuwait. After we landed, we were transported to our accommodations at Camp Arifjan. We all found it very hard to sleep with the eight-hour time change! We left the base early Sunday morning, then had lunch and did a clinic at Ali Air Base while on our way to our final destination of Camp Buehring.
We spent the rest of the day and evening with the troops and then were thoroughly entertained by county singer Matt Snook. Matt is a friend of Tom Watson's and is a great guy. We arrived back at Camp Arifjan at 11:30 that night and had to leave at 4 a.m. We were all exhausted but excited to meet more of the incredible young men and women that are fighting for our country.
We then boarded a C-130 transport plane and flew to Baghdad for our next stop, Camp Sather. While in flight, the reality of war hits us all as we were required to wear body armor and helmets. We hit the ground running, signing autographs and taking pictures, then held a clinic. Our group then went to one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, the Al-Faw Palace, where we met with General Anderson for a briefing, followed by a great dinner at the residence of General Odierno.
General Odierno is a four-star general and a hulk of a man at 6-foot-6. There were at least six to eight other generals in attendance at the dinner, so the room was full of stars from some of our most powerful leaders. All of them could not have been nicer and more supportive of our trip.
After dinner we held another clinic, where we hit balls into the lake behind General O's home. All the generals hit balls, then were thoroughly entertained by long-ball hitters Wilson and Boever as they tried to hit the Al Faw palace some 400 yards away. The evening concluded with a concert from Snook, or "Snook Dog," as we now call him. We all had a great time, especially General Odierno. Exhausted, we retired to our quarters for some much-needed rest.
Tuesday began with a briefing at General O's office, then we flew to the first of three bases that day on Black Hawk helicopters. The first forward operating base we visited was Hammer, where we ate lunch and did a clinic in the desert. We said our goodbyes to the soldiers there and boarded the Black Hawks for Base Carver. We did another clinic that culminated with a challenge by the base commander to Dan Boever that he couldn't hit a ball over the tower that measures incoming mortar fire. To our astonishment, he did it and set off an alert that we had "incoming" fire, much to the pleasure of the commander.
We boarded the choppers for base Cache South well after dark. We did another clinic there, much to the delight of the troops. When we were done we boarded the Black Hawks back to our base in Baghdad, all thoroughly exhausted and ready for bed.
The thing that continues to impress us all is the dedication of our young troops to fulfill their missions, and the joy that they derive from our coming over and letting them know that we support them all. They are amazing young men and women. Today we will hit several more bases visiting our incredible forces, so it is time to say goodbye for now.
May God bless all of our troops and our country on this day.And, finally, the following is the first installment of Rickie Fowler's "video blog."
Of the four, Fowler's obviously provides the most personal insight. Where Mickelson's reads like a testimonial/advertisement for his short-game DVD, where Els reads like a well-crafted public relations message meant to show how nice of a guy he is, Fowlers is humanizing. Tim Simpson's piece is well-written and it clearly tells the story of his travels to Iraq, with the exception of the final pargraph we don't really gain an insight into Simpson -- other than the respectable nature of his travel.
While Fowler's "video blog" is obviously tailored towards young people, I see no reason why other Tour players couldn't use this medium to present their respective personalities (code word for older guys). Maybe Fowler's blog and general use of social media is too tailored for younger generations, but, then again, Rickie is only 20-years-old.
Sure, not every Tour player has either the interest in or the character capacity to have themselves and their family so exposed to the public, but, for those that do, the video blog is the ultimate social media means to provide visibility to fans.
For the Tour players with an interest in video blogging, the PGA Tour could provide a support staff to facilitate it.
However, a humanizing, written blog entry has similar capacitites. But, I searched throughout the Internet and couldn't find an easy access to any. I couldn't actually find Simpson's piece anywhere on PGATour.com, I google searched "PGA Tour players blog" and it was an early result.
On a side note, I found a blog that Ty Votaw, PGA Tour Executive VP of Communications and International Affairs, kept during golf's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.
On another side note, I've been looking at the existing PGA Tour online video content. I'll be discussing it next week and making recommendations for it going forward. The best work that I've seen so far is the "In the bag" section. The clip is excellent; if anything almost too well produced. Here's the most recent installment.
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