“Well that’s wonderful, I beat everybody by two shots.”

Sean Martin reports on Tim Jackson's record-breaking play to become the oldest U.S. Amateur medalist at 50, despite a one-shot penalty for slow play.

The only thing that upset Jackson was a slow-play penalty that he received after the round. “I’m not real happy about it, let’s put it that way,” Jackson said. His group was warned at three of the four timing checkpoints (the fourth, ninth and 13th holes).

When it was confirmed that Jackson, who’d finished earlier in the day, was the medalist, he replied: “Well that’s wonderful, I beat everybody by two shots.”

How can you be a jerk about it when you are warned at three of four stations?

You Can't Say Bomb On An Airplane!

Seems U.S. Amateur champion Danny Lee didn't have the best showing at the Eisenhower Trophy, earning an oer-the-top dressing down from Peter Williams who is never shy about making a fuss, and then made some sort of brilliant comment overheard by airport security. Not his best week.

Van Sickle Words Hard For The Sonny

More importantly, while the SI golf writer loops for son Mike in the U.S. Amateur, he's able to deliver a solid metaphor for Dave Shedloski, but I'm not sure about the matching outfits.

Van Sickle, ranked 14th in the Golfweek Scratch Players World Amateur Rankings – and sixth among Americans – won both the Pennsylvania Open and the Pennsylvania Amateur, making him just the second man to turn the double in one year, joining Jay Sigel, who won back-to-back U.S. Amateur crowns in 1982-83. A resident of Wexford, Pa., Van Sickle also became the first amateur to win consecutive state open titles and just the third to successfully defend.

He wasn’t shabby on the national stage, either. Van Sickle birdied the final hole at the Southern Amateur at Lake Nona Country Club in Orlando to force a playoff before losing on the first extra hole to 2007 Walker Cupper Kyle Stanley of Gig Harbor, Wash. He also finished third at the Porter Cup at Niagara Falls Country Club.

Iwas fighting my swing a little bit," said Mike, 21, who enters his senior year at Marquette University. "I guess I ran out of gas."

"He was like Kenny Perry at the tail end of his hot streak," said Gary, 54, who for nearly 12 years has been a senior writer covering the PGA Tour for Sports Illustrated. "He played real well for a month or two, but it ended sort of as the Amateur began. Just no way to explain that."

“I thought the pace of play was horrible"

Alistair Tait isn't too wild about the Curtis Cup pace.

Put Carol Semple Thompson in charge of golf. The game would get a lot quicker if she was chief executive of the royal & ancient game.

The U.S. Curtis Cup captain was as fed up with the turgid pace of play for the afternoon four-balls as most in the crowd of 5,800.

The last match on the course, the contest that pitted Alison Walshe and Stacy Lewis against Liz Bennett and Florentyna Parker, took five hours and 22 minutes to complete.

By the time the match got to the 18th, the only one of the three four-ball contests to go the distance, most of the crowd had gone home. Semple Thompson might have high-tailed it out of the Auld Grey Toon too if not for her responsibilities as U.S. captain.

“I thought the pace of play was horrible,” Thompson said.

Beth Ann Baldry reports on the U.S. taking the lead in the matches, as does John Huggan, who has issues with the pacing and manners displayed.

One other noticeable feature of the first two days – quite apart from the disgracefully slow pace of play – has been an apparent inability to count, with players on both sides equally culpable. On day one, the Scottish duo of Watson and Michelle Thomson lay five to six feet from the cup on the Road Hole. Their opponents, Stacy Lewis and Alison Walshe, were four feet away after three shots. Clearly, a concession was the obvious course of action for the young Scots. Not a bit of it. Only after Watson had missed did they belatedly abandon a cause the equivalent of that faced by the Light Brigade.

A similar thing happened yesterday at the 9th hole. After three-putting from not very far away for a bogey, Watson and Thomson asked Lewis to putt from three feet when the Americans had two for the hole. And, just to show that the arithmetically challenged can be found on both sides of the Atlantic, Booth managed to lag her putt stiff from no more than four feet on the 16th green when she and partner Breanne Loucks had two to win their foursomes match against Kimberly Kim and Jennie Lee.

Western Am Moving...Sort Of

Phil Kosin has the details at Chicagoland Golf.

Kuehne Win Confirms Golf Digest's Ability to Rank Wall Street Golfers

They were criticized for lumping Trip Kuehne in with America's richest, whitest men who get their company to pay for a NetJets fractional share, but with his U.S. Mid-Amateur win, look for Golf Digest to consider ending its week-long Local Knowledge blog sabbatical by noting this historic rankings validation.

Golfweek's Ron Balicki reports on the win but fails to give us Kuehne's final Adidas-Taylor Made logo count. Looks like he has a hat-shirt-glove-bag-irons-driver-ball deal.

Oh and what's with that trophy? 

Men's Mid-Am Final Set

Trip Kuehne vs. Dan Whitaker, reports Craig Smith from Bandon.

“Barb has always stood out as someone who epitomizes all that is good about the game of golf."

I make a point to read as many press releases as possible so that I can remain thoroughly jaded. Imagine my pleasant surprise at the Oregon Golf Association's announcement that Barb Trammell had been hired as their CEO.

You may recall that Trammell was the highly respected LPGA official fired early into the Biven regime for placing tournament rules over marketing priorities.  

The OGA release features the usual nonsense and stiff quotes from the parties involved, but what caught my eye were the two endorsements Trammell received in the official release.

David Fay, Executive Director of the USGA commented, “Barb has always stood out as someone who epitomizes all that is good about the game of golf.  She emanates class and integrity, and believes that the golf business, championship operations and the application of the Rules of Golf should be administered with the highest level of excellence.  I am particularly pleased that the OGA will be able to benefit from her wisdom and talent.”

Former LPGA Commissioner Ty Votaw, who worked with Trammell from 1999 to 2005, stated that Trammell is “a consummate professional who is respected throughout the golf industry.  The LPGA was extremely fortunate to have Barb Trammell working for it and I feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to work for so many years with a person of such integrity and talents.”

There's something you don't see every day. The Executive Director of the USGA and a high ranking PGA Tour official endorsing a regional golf association hiring.

Their comments would seem to speak to the esteem others in executive circles have held for Trammell's work. And perhaps it's a statement about what other higher-ups think of Bivens' decision to fire her.

Multiple Mid-Am Medalists

Ron Balicki reports from Bandon Dunes on the chosen, uh, six...