When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Rex Hoggard with the story of Sammy, the androgenous squirrel who Davis Love rescued from death by golf cart and who, mercifully, will be handing the furry friend over to Jack Hanna at the world famous Columbus Zoo for rehab. Love had bonded with the squirrel earlier in the day.
Just not yet...
Sammy was spotted resting on Tiger Woods’ shoulder. “Lindsey (Vonn) loves him,” Love said.
Love joked that he was going to take Sammy to the Columbus Zoo and give him to Jack Hanna, but it seems U.S. captain Fred Couples wants to keep him around for a little while longer.
“Freddie (Couples) wanted me to bring him to the press center but Sammy has already gotten enough press today,” Love smiled.
AP's extensive day one notes opens with Sammy's story and ends with this quote from Captain Couples.
U.S. captain Fred Couples didn't know what to make of Sammy.
"I carry a rabbit's foot around," he said. "I don't know about a live squirrel."
There are several shots of Sammy in this GolfChannel.com gallery.
And courtesy of PGA Tour Entertainment, the telecast moment when Lindsay Vonn put Sammy on Tiger's shoulder.
USA assistant cart driver Davis Love adopted a squirrel on day one of the Presidents Cup. The squirrel has since been placed on Tiger Woods' shoulder, so we have that video to look forward to.
**JD Cuban's classic shot of Love.
squirrel meets davis love III at the 2013 presidents cup. #golfdigest #golfdigestmag http://t.co/7XdSaB5eY5
— J.D. Cuban (@jd_cubes) October 4, 2013
**Davis Love releases Sammy back to the wild of Muirfield Village, and Tweets the photo.
Chris Condon captured a shot for the ages backstage before the Presidents Cup opening ceremony. (Full gallery here.) If they weren't in matching suits you'd swear Annie Leibovitz had spent days orchestrating the Rat Packish shot for a Vanity Fair shoot. Again, that is, if they weren't in matching suits.
But I feel like something is missing...as in, thought bubbles. Keep it clean please.
Nothing instills disdain for a golf team event like a gargantuan, bombastic and breathtakingly dull opening ceremony. So judging by what Golf Channel showed us from downtown Columbus during their Live From coverage, this one lived up to the tradition once The Harmony Project unleashed a thoroughly cheery rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine" to a reel of past Presidents Cup highlights.
Just as John Lennon would have imagined it.
Commissioner Moonbeam reportedly induced several fainters to lose consciousness when he took the stage sporting a substantial notebook before giving emcee Dan Hicks a masculine-but-meaningless finger point as if to say, I've heard you impersonate me, and I'm about to give you more material. The notebook also suggested a Moonbeam marathon, but after going through all of the past presidents who have supported the Cup with nary a boo--though Golf Channel did cut ridiculously fast to the Obama tape--The Harmony Project capped off a perfectly painful evening by singing a song entirely inappropriate for the setting. (Not that they selected it.)
The Presidents Cup matches--described by Hicks as one of the most anticipated on the calendar (no one laughed!)--have been subject to many declarations of doom should the International team not win or keep things competitive. Or maybe I've just been watching too much of the "Live From" this week.
Either way, let me make a few things clear about this week:
(A) The Internationals could not score a point this year and there will be a 2015 Presidents Cup, and one in 2017 and one in 2019 and...you get the idea.
(B) The golf should be outstanding to watch on a fun, beautifully-conditioned course which NBC will showcase better than CBS does during the Memorial. You'll get to see the front nine and Muirfield playing firmer and faster. (Paul B. Latshaw and crew deserve the credit on the conditioning, which he talked about on Golf Channel this week.)
(C) You will need to turn down the volume during the annoying attempts to make the Presidents Cup something more than it is: a nice exhibition.
(D) Fred Couples will give interviews and you'll have no idea what he's just said.
There is an intriguing element to the opening day Thursday, besides the Presidents Cup's huge advantage over the Ryder Cup in not trying to sandwich all of the play into three days: the decision to kick off with the four-ball instead of foursomes.
In analyzing the teams, pundits are now saying four-balls is the format the USA is no good at, yet in the Ryder Cup it's a strength. I'm still trying to figure out that year-by-year reversal.
Either way, Jeff Rude explains why this may get things off to a less deflating start thanks to the format switch that should benefit an International squad still apparently not reeling from Vijay Singh's absense.
The whole thing comes down to who makes the putts since the deregulation of equipment has everyone pretty much striking the ball the same, and Will Gray looks to stats to reveal that the Americans hold a huge edge.
John Strege breaks down the pairings and they played out pretty much as expected.
And finally, The Presidents Cup broadcast schedule:
Golf Channel Airtimes (Eastern):
Thursday 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. (Live) / 8 p.m.-2 a.m. (Replay)
Friday 1-6 p.m. (Live) / 8 p.m.-1 a.m. (Replay)
Saturday 8 p.m.-2 a.m. (NBC Replay)
Sunday 8 p.m.-2 a.m. (NBC Replay)
NBC Airtimes (Eastern):
Saturday 8 a.m.-6 p.m. (Live)
Sunday Noon-6 p.m. (Live)
Greg Norman wonders forlornly if he didn't get a third chance to lose the Presidents Cup because he walked away from a Rolex deal.
Nick Price wonders forlornly about his native Zimbabwe.
I think we've got an upgrade in the Presidents Cup captaincy!
On the eve of the "must win" matches (oy...it's not going away!), Barry Havenga profiles Price and his assistant captains Mark McNulty and Tony Johnstone, who all hail from the deteriorating country.
Accompanying this chaos has been the dismantling of one of the finest golf environments ever seen. In the 1960s and '70s, even amid political upheaval from minority rule that caused the United States to impose trade sanctions on Rhodesia, the country was a golf Camelot. Located along the northeast border of South Africa, it featured brilliant weather, a large number of courses with affordable fees and active junior programs that would, for a few golden years, produce a disproportionate number of the world's finest players.
Three-time major champion Price, now 56, as well as his assistant captains, Mark McNulty, 59, and Tony Johnstone, 57, were products of this time. So were Denis Watson and renowned instructor David Leadbetter. "The weather was so good that you were outdoors 365 days a year, so we played everything," recalls Price. "My brother [Tim] bought a bag of clubs, not a set, a bag, completely mixed clubs. People say there wasn't hickory around in 1965 -- there was in Rhodesia! We didn't have access to new equipment because of sanctions, so we made the most of everything we had."
Calling on one of the more brilliant operational ploys in sports venue management history, the PGA Tour will again call on Kenny G to begin ushering fans off of the Muirfield Village property following Sunday's Presidents Cup play but before the Closing Ceremony.
In other words, he's been brought in to give the players and dignitaries time to make their nineteenth wardrobe change of the week.
Used to great property-clearing effect at The Players in 2007, G will lean upon his indecipherably different renditions of Songbird, My Heart Will Go On and close his set with smooth jazz-infused rendition of the Ohio State fight song Battle Cry.
Kenny G to perform in The Presidents Cup Fan Experience prior to Closing Ceremony
DUBLIN, Ohio (October 1, 2013) – The long, anticipated wait is over and The Presidents Cup week officially began this morning with gates opening to the public at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. While there is much to do, see and celebrate over the next six days, tournament officials are pleased to unveil plans for Closing Ceremony on Sunday, October 6. In addition to marking the official close of the event, fans will be treated to a performance by Grammy-Award-winning saxophonist Kenny G prior to the introduction of the teams.
The Kenny G performance and Closing Ceremony will be held in The Presidents Cup Fan Experience, which offers fans and local residents a place to enjoy food and beverages, entertainment, shopping and a variety of interactive displays throughout tournament week. The Presidents Cup Fan Experience is located on approximately 3 acres just outside the main gates at Muirfield Village Golf Club and is open to the public, with no ticket required. Parking is free at the Columbus Zoo and Gardens with a free shuttle to the Fan Experience.
Even though it was just time for some new blood in Greg Norman parlance, the Great White Shark has opened up about not getting the "real reason" from sparring partner Tim Finchem over being replaced as Presidents Cup Captain. The Shark calls it "extremely disappointing."
Robert Lusetich documents all of the whinging, which includes a conspiratorial angle related to the living icon's watch deal.
Norman, who was sponsored by Rolex, became public enemy No. 1 when he departed for Omega. Not just because he left but because Rolex believes he has used his contacts to usher Omega into golf, a sport that had largely been Rolex domain.
You know, sometimes I just feel so detached from the First World. Go on...
Rolex remains the official timekeeper of the PGA Tour and the Presidents Cup.
Last summer, after Omega replaced Rolex as the official timekeeper of the Ryder Cup at Medinah, Norman was told he wasn’t needed to play in the pro-am for the Senior British Open at Turnberry — where he won one of his two majors, in 1986 — and was asked to leave the room at a Rolex-sponsored press conference.
“Look, I know that Rolex is a corporate partner of the PGA Tour and there’s been some speculation I’ve heard that that was the reason why (he was replaced),” he said.
“If that’s right, then all I can say is that it’s really pathetic.
“The other sad part about it is that nobody has reached out to me or any of my past team and asked us what we thought would be good changes to make, or ideas we might have had about the Presidents Cup.
“We were just completely cut off."
Jordan Spieth's first professional team competition will be analyzed to death, as it should for the impressive upstart and captain's pick.
But as Sean Martin notes, the International squad has a 21-year-old phenom in Hideki Matsuyama who has great finishes in the Masters and Open Championship on his resume and is every bit as talented.
Matsuyama's performance at some of the game's biggest tournaments confirms Maruyama's assessment. Matsuyama occasionally wears a logo depicting a cartoon penguin with half of an egg shell atop its head. It's the logo of the Tohoku Fukushi golf team; the head coach, Yasuhiko Abe, selected it because of penguins' patience and perseverance in trying conditions. He wants his team to display similar fortitude. Abe is a short, stocky man with a crew-cut haircut; he coached baseball before becoming Tohoku Fukushi's golf coach. He calls Matsuyama a “fighter” and a “bulldog.”
Said International Team Captain Nick Price, “He’s obviously got big-game temperament, no doubt. Playing the way he did at the U.S. Open and British Open as a rookie was simply amazing.”
Matsuyama will be tested in another big arena this week. He's the only player at the Presidents Cup who hasn’t previously completed at Muirfield Village.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
