Just got an email from Neil Oxman, frequent caddie for Tom Watson and Philadelphia-based political consultant, reminding me that tonight (June 14) at 9 p.m., the Golf Channel debuts its documentary on the late, great Bruce Edwards, Caddie for Life.

 

Based on John Feinstein’s book of the same name, the documentary chronicles the life of Oxman’s good friend and Watson’s longtime, loyal caddie, who died in 2004 of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

 

Below is the PR release from the Golf Channel:

 

 

Golf Channel’s ÔCaddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story’ Goes Beyond the Game

Documentary provides platform to raise ALS awareness

 

ORLANDO, Fla. (June 9, 2010) – The June 14 premiere of the Golf Channel documentary, Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story, not only will recall the inspirational life of one of golf’s pioneers, but also will shed light on the disease that tragically took his life and how his family and closest friends continue to fight for a cure.

 

Based on The New York Times best-selling book by John Feinstein, Caddy for Life is an amazing and emotional remembrance of the extraordinary relationship between one of history’s greatest golfers, Tom Watson, and his longtime friend and caddy, Bruce Edwards.  It also recounts Edwards’ battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, until his untimely and tragic death in 2004.

 

Watson and Feinstein were inspired to tell their stories to remember a great man, but they knew that participating in the documentary also would provide a great platform to raise awareness for a disease that afflicts one in 100,000 people every year – and one that has no cure.

 

"This gives me the bully pulpit to speak about ALS," said Watson when interviewed about the documentary.  "It took his (Edwards’) life, and still is taking people’s lives.  We need to continue this battle and make sure we’re doing everything we can to slow this deadly disease down."

 

Says Feinstein, "A lot of people aren’t aware of the story and we can educate them about ALS.  If we are able to raise awareness and funds for research, then the documentary has done a major thing."

 

As part of the Caddy for Life documentary project, Golf Channel has donated $25,000 to The Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins.  The Packard Center is the world’s leader in aggressive, collaborative ALS research. The Bruce Edwards Foundation donates 100 percent of its proceeds to the Packard Center, aiming to provide more tomorrows to today’s ALS patients.

 

Caddy For Life:  The Bruce Edwards Story premieres June 14 at 9 p.m. ET on Golf Channel.

Plenty of golf fans know that Merion GC has hosted four U.S. Opens, but now comes semi-official word that two of those Opens rank among the very best.

 

At least so says Sports Illustrated in its preview issue for the upcoming 110^th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach GL.  In the view of an esteemed panel of SI editors and writers, which included Philadelphia-based senior writer Michael Bamberger, Merion GC hosted two of the Top 10 Opens in history.

 

No. 10 on SI’s list was the 1971 Open, in which Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus, the two best players in the game at the time, finished regulation tied for the lead.

 

On the first tee of the 18-hole playoff, Trevino remembered that his daughter had left a rubber snake in his bag.  He proceeded to pull out the snake and toss it  and Nicklaus’ direction, amusing the Golden Bear. Trevino, however, went on to shoot 68, winning by three shots.

 

Trevino also went on to win the Canadian and the British Opens over the next three weeks.

 

No. 4 on the SI list was the famous 1950 Open at Merion, which saw Ben Hogan, 16 months removed from a near-fatal head-on collision with a bus, with his legs heavily wrapped, limped his way to the second of his four Open titles.

 

It was the ’50 Open, of course, that was immortalized in the Hy Peskin photo of Hogan lacing a 1-iron into the 72^nd green, setting up a par that led to a three-man 18-hole playoff with Lloyd Mangrum and Philadelphia’s George Fazio.

 

If you’re wondering which Open SI ranked as the No. 1 Open of all time, it was the 1913 Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., where 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet whipped the Tiger and Phil of their day, Brits Ted Ray and Harry Vardon.

 

The most memorable Open in recent history, 2008 at Torrey Pines, in which Tiger Woods, wincing from  broken leg, prevailed in a playoff over Rocco Mediate, was ranked No. 3.

Count Terry Tumolo, longtime general manager at Commonwealth National GC, as among those who believe the private club side of golf is beginning to climb out of the doldrums.

 

"I would say we are recovering," Tumolo, a former board member of the Philadelphia chapter of the Club Managers Association of America with a big-picture sense of the club scene.  "At times I would almost call it vibrant."

 

Tumolo’s optimism, however, does come with a measure of caution.  "It’s fragile," he said the upturn.  "This could all blow up and the positive momentum that a lot of us are enjoying could stall, if there is another dip in the economy or a world event."

 

At Commonwealth National, which is one of several clubs in the area that offer corporate memberships, it’s that side of their business that is slower to recover.

 

"It’s tough to depend on that segment of the market to energize your club," said Tumolo.  Instead, he said, it is the "core golfers" who had been forced to drop their memberships in the past year or two, who are beginning to return to the club.  ÔA lot of those folks are either back or motivated to get back," said Tumolo.

 

Surprisingly, perhaps, Tumolo believes junior golf is driving at least part of the recovery at Commonwealth National and at other clubs with junior programs.

 

"We didn’t lose one member to attrition – not one – whose kids play golf," he said.  "Families are joining so their kids can play.  And we’ve had a bug surge in female junior golf."

 

Even with these encouraging signs, Tumolo is also quick to point out that many clubs have decreased or altogether dropped their initiation fees and that only a handful of clubs currently have waiting lists, even among top-tier clubs.

 

"Those clubs with $70,000, $80,000, $90,000 initiation fees, there’s no market for that right now," said Tumolo.

If you’re not still battling a severe case of Tiger Fatigue, let me recommend a new book I just finished.

 

It’s called Unplayable: An Inside Account of Tiger’s Most Tumultuous Season, and I think most any golf addict or Tiger-ophile will find it to be something of a page-turner.

 

Author Robert Lusetich, golf columnist for FoxSports.com, spent the entire 2009 season tailing Tiger; the result is a mother lode of insights into life on the PGA Tour, the World No. 1 golfer and the small, tight circle of intimates that constitutes Team Tiger.

 

Of course, when he pitched the book to Simon and Schuster, Lusetich had no idea about the whole other secret life Tiger was living in the shadows.  He sold the publisher on a book about Tiger’s incredible return from knee surgery to repair a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, enabling him to resume his quest of surpassing Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major titles.

 

Like virtually all other Tiger-watchers in the media, and most of Tiger’s inner circle, Lusetich was oblivious to the infidelities.

 

Indeed, having journeyed to his native Australia, where Tiger won the Australian Masters in November, Lusetich was at home in Los Angeles, putting the finishing touches on his manuscript, when the news broke of that fateful car crash in the wee hours after Thanksgiving that changed everything.

 

As shocking and unseemly as the revelations about Tiger’s "other life" have been, Lusetich did not completely rethink and rewrite the narrative of the book.  He still told the tale of Tiger’s ’09, only with a new final chapter entitled, "The Reckoning."

 

Like most members of the media, Lusetich, who is a colleague and pal of mine, was embarrassed to have to admit that he knew nothing of Tiger’s secret life, nor had he ever seen anything that gave him reason to be suspicious. 

 

"My view of Woods – admittedly from observations made at the distance of press conferences or media scrums after rounds but also interspersed with the occasional brief off-the-record conversation – was that even though he is flawed, he is essentially a good guy," writes Lusetich.

 

Tiger did not cooperate with the book.  Lusetich did seek his cooperation through agent Mark Steinberg, but "Steiny," as Tiger calls him, said, "No."

 

Lusetich has no idea if Steinberg, who routinely rejects similar requests out of hand, ever bothered to discuss the matter with Tiger.  Lusetich now can’t help but wonder if Steinberg perhaps had concerns about what a book of this type might eventually turn up.

 

Official cooperation or not, Lusetich duly notes that over the course of 2009, Tiger was both "kind and generous with me."

 

What I especially enjoyed about Unplayable were some of the details about Tiger’s relationships, with caddie Steve Williams and other players, that Lusetich picked up over the course of the year. A few examples:

 

On Phil Mickelson:

 

-- ...(Steve) Williams confirmed what most inside golf’s highest circles long knew: Woods didn’t like Mickelson.

 

-- After Williams got in hot water for calling Mickelson a "prick" during a trip home to New Zealand, swing coach Butch Harmon, who had been fired by Tiger years before and now works for Mickelson, remarked that golf was a game of "honor" and said he didn’t believe Williams’ comments reflected Tiger’s feelings about Mickelson.

 

Writes Lusetich:

 

Harmon’s nose presumably grew after making that last remark.  He, perhaps more than anyone, knew that Woods had had worse – much worse – to say about Mickelson, who Woods considered to be a phony whose public and private personas didn’t exactly gel.

 

 

On the Masters:

 

After shooting a lackluster 70 in the third round, Tiger was furious, and he headed straight to practice tee at Augusta National, trailed by his small entourage.  First, he chewed out his caddie, Williams, who slipped away to find a sandwich, leaving swing coach Hank Haney alone with Tiger.

 

Writes Lusetich:

 

Haney, however, remained and bore the brunt of a tirade.  "Tiger was just livid and Hank had to sit there and take it," said Williams.

 

Witnessed by a handful writers, Lusetich writes, The incident led to stories that angered the admittedly thin-skinned Haney.  Haney would over the next week send text messages to several writers admonishing them for stories suggesting he was on thin ice with Woods.

 

On Hank Haney:

 

Among top swing gurus, the long knives were often out for Haney.

 

Writes Lusetich:

 

"My philosophy as a teacher," Haney writes, "is to teach my students to become their own best teacher by getting them to understand the flight of the golf ball and how it relates to the swing, with emphasis on swing the golf club on their own correct swing plane."

 

Innocuous enough, except that virtually every swing guru in golf believed Haney’s ideas were wrong.  (Butch) Harmon became the chief antagonist, telling anyone who’d listen that Woods was ruining his career, though he was hardly alone in that belief.

 

A Tour winner, a disciple of 1980s swing guru Jimmy Ballard, told me that Haney had cost Woods countless majors and "should be strung up for what he’s done to the kid.

 

On Tiger’s awareness of fans around him:

 

Writes Lusetich:

 

One of the misconceptions about him was that he was robotic on the golf course.   The image served him, se he perpetuated it, but it was a myth.  Woods knew precisely what was happening around him and was extremely observant.  When an Asian man with a very effeminate voice called his name several times from outside the ropes at a tournament, I’d assumed Woods was too far away to have heard.  Later, I discovered that he’d not only heard him but described him perfectly.

 

On Tiger’s sexcapades:

 

None of Tiger’s infidelities shocked Lusetich any more than the one that occurred at during the Buick Open, which he won thanks to shooting 63-65 on Friday and Saturday.  As it happened, the whole thing was going on while Lusetich and Tiger were staying just a few doors apart in the same Marriott Courtyard in Flint, Mich.

 

Writes Lusetich:

 

The sometimes pornographic actor, Joslyn James, whose real name is Veronica Daniels, alleged that she had been having a three-year affair with Woods.  Perhaps that was true, perhaps it wasn’t.  But after reading text messages she said were from Woods, I had no doubt that she’d spent Thursday night a few doors down from my room in that Flint Courtyard.

 

Woods was indeed in room 201, as her text messages alleged.  He’d flown her in, as he often did with women during tournament weeks, for a brief rendezvous, most of them lasting two or three nights.  James said Woods warned her he needed to get up at 4:15 a.m. for the following day’s round, yet she said after they’d had sex earlier in the evening, he’d had trouble falling asleep and called her back to his room for another tryst just a few hours before he had to wake up.  She estimated that he’d had perhaps two hours of sleep by the time the unsuspecting Williams drove their car to the hotel’s side entrance.

 

On Fartgate:

 

Contrary to YouTube legend, it was CBS golf analyst/jokester David Feherty, not Tiger, who launched the fart heard millions of times on the internet.  Lusetich knows because he was out on the course at the Buick Open, standing under a shade tree with Feherty, when the whole thing went down.

 

Writes Lusetich:

 

Feherty then gave me the news that he’d eaten beans for lunch and his stomach was grumbling.  "I’ve got one locked and loaded in the chamber," he said, like a proud parent.  Feherty and Woods had long engaged in farting contests on the course...

 

Feherty sensed that it was his moment to pounce.  While Woods bent over to stretch, Feherty launched a sick-sounding fart from nearby, so long and loud that both Woods and Williams immediately looked over to him and began laughing.  Unfortunately, Feherty had forgotten to turn his microphone off...

 

The reckoning:

 

In the days and weeks after Tiger’s car crash that brought his world crashing down around him, Lusetich was busily trying to piece together the story that was being kept largely under wraps by IMG, the golfer’s management group.  Where was Tiger?  Why wouldn’t he talk to the cops?

 

Writes Lusetich:

 

Woods, meanwhile, sank to his lowest ebb.  His wife, whose financial security had been sweetened in the immediate wake of the scandal in a desperate attempt to keep her from leaving then and there, was devastated by his betrayal.  She consulted divorce lawyers and didn’t want him under the same room.  All of her husband’s golf trophies, which had filled the family home, were removed.

 

Woods moved into another home at Isleworth and changed his phone number.  He was in "the fetal position," according to none source, and didn’t want to talk to anyone.  Long-standing friends, including Charles Barkley and Mark O’Meara, publicly lamented the fact that they could not reach Woods.  Steinberg drew much fire from many of Woods’s friends who were unable to get through to him.  "He became very reclusive, he was depressed, devastated, and most of all, I think, embarrassed," said a source close to Woods.

 

On what might have motivated Tiger to cheat:

 

There is some speculation among Tiger’s circle that, unable to control his sex addiction, he essentially self-destructed, almost deliberately allowing himself to get caught.

 

Writes Lusetich:

 

But the friend also offered another view, one echoed by others I’d spoken with about Woods’s marriage: that it was never the idyllic union it seemed.

 

"He was a late bloomer.  Even when he was at Stanford, he was kind of nerdy.  Then suddenly his body changed and he matured into this confident guy and he made up for lost time.  What I’ve always wondered is, Did he get married too early?  I think he just got caught up in the idea of getting married.  I think he jumped into it too soon."

 

 

Today, MyPhillyGolf launched what I hope will become a popular new feature: Why I Play Where I Play.

 

It is intended to be an occasional essay whose purpose is obvious from the title.  Let me be the first to admit that I totally appropriated the idea from Esquire magazine, which years ago had a similar feature called, "Why I Live Where I Live," featuring essays by some of my favorite writers.

 

To get "Why Play Where I Play" started, I cast out a line to several well-traveled golfing friends.  Steve Shaffer, a semi-retired lawyer and hopeless golf addict, was the first to take the bait.  He dubbed himself The Vagabond Golfer.

 

There are many reasons to favor a certain golf course or courses.  Quality, conditioning, price, proximity, the status of the club or course, difficulty (or ease) of the course, friendly staff and tasty hotdogs are only a few.  For some golfers, "Why I Play Where I Play" no doubt boils down to force or habit or lack of curiosity about what else is out there.  You might have different ideas of your own.

 

While I will seek out "Why I Play Where I Play" columns from golfers I think you might enjoy reading about, the feature will only reach its full potential if ordinary readers of MyPhillyGolf also get into the spirit.  Half the fun of being a golfer is talking about golf and golf courses.

 

All it takes is 500 or so words.  If you can write, terrific.  If you’ve got a good story to tell but you’re not so confident of your writing skills, I can help you with a little editing and ghostwriting.

 

One of my biggest goals for MyPhillyGolf is to help create sort of a virtual golf community in cyberspace.  "Why I Play Where I Play" can help.

 

If you’re game, drop me an  email.

If you ever want to check out how well the local club pros can play, a good place to start would be the Haverford Trust Company Golf Classic, June 1 at Sunnybrook Golf Club in Plymouth Meeting.

 

What makes the Haverford a big deal?  It’s the biggest paycheck the club pros play for all year -- $42,500 this year for first place.

 

By virtue of the prize money alone, the Haverford qualifies as one of three majors for the Philadelphia Section PGA.  The others are the Philadelphia Open Championship in July, a prestigious event run by the Golf Association of Philadelphia, and the three-day, season-ending Section Championship in late September.

 

The Haverford, of course, is mostly, if not all, all about the hard, cold cash.   That’s the way Haverford Trust founder and vice chairman George Connell wanted it when he began the tournament 14 years ago, in 1997.

 

Connell’s idea was to create a tournament in which, say, a young assistant pro could make more money in one day playing golf than he could all year working in a pro shop.

 

Past winners include a Who’s Who of local club pros, including George Forster, head pro at Radnor Valley CC, in 2008; Dave Quinn, head pro at Links Golf Club, in 2001 and 2005; and Dave Roberts, assistant pro at Cedarbrook CC, in 2002.

 

Last year, Travis Deibert, an assistant pro at Commonwealth National GC, won in a play-off against Brian Kelly, head pro at Bucknell GC, collecting $40,000.  What made Deibert’s victory all the more compelling is that he was soon to be married.

 

For golf fans, the Haverford is spectator-friendly.  You can walk the course and follow your favorite pro, or you can do like most people and hang around at the 18^th green, watching guys come away with high hopes or busted dreams.

For as long as I have looked at old photos and news reels from an earlier era of golf, I’ve wondered about the difference between those old hickory-shafted clubs of yesteryear and the high-tech armaments have enjoy today.  Now I have a pretty good idea.

 

On Sunday, to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the 1910 U.S. Open at the Philadelphia Cricket Club’s St. Martin’s course, the club invited members and a handful of guests to play nine holes using authentic equipment from back in the day.

 

Nobody had to rummage through attics or yard sales to come up with the equipment.   It turns out there are companies that rent out the stuff, like Play Hickory in San Diego, which shipped the Cricket Club two crates full of bags, clubs and modern day versions of the old Bramble ball.

 

To make day feel even more authentic, quite a few of the 50 or so members participating went to the trouble to dress up in the garb of the day.

 

How did the old clubs play?  Not nearly as bad as I expected.

 

My feather-light canvas bag came with six clubs:  a brassie, a small-headed fairway wood with about 15 degrees of loft; a long iron with the loft of a 2 or 3 iron; a mid-iron with the loft of about a 6-iron; a mashie niblick, which approximated an 8-iron; a niblick, which was sort of combination PW and SW; and a simple heel-shafted putter.

 

None of the clubs had anything like the heft of today’s equipment, and the grips were simple wraps of leather.  The ball, which had convex dimples, felt like any harder rubber ball.

 

From my first swipe of a tee shot with the brassie, it was obvious this was going to take some getting used to.  The hickory shaft had the whip of, say, today’s senior shafts, only without the consistency.  But the more noticeable difference was the torque.  You could actually feel the club head twisting during the downswing.

 

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long to get a feel for the clubs and adapt my swing.  The key was maintaining an even tempo. 

 

On my first tee shot, I teed the ball too low and hit a bit of a worm-burner foozle.  On my next tee shot, I over-compensated and hit a shallow pop-up.  But by three holes into the nine, the brassie and I were on the same page -- I was nailing tee shots.

 

Of course, "nailing" is a relative term.  I don’t think my best effort went more than 200 yards, even when the shot felt solid.

 

Come to think of it, the short irons took more getting used to.   No shot with the niblick seemed to fly true or consistently, and I never quite got the feel for distances.

 

I came away with two double-bogeys, four bogeys and three pars.  The highlight of the round was definitely the 30-footer I snaked in from the fringe.  I’d definitely do it again.