Friday, August 26, 2005
Fairway Fashionistas

So, it seems that Ian Poulter is no longer the star dresser on the PGA tour. Don’t get me wrong, he still has amazing trousers, but I was surprised to see that he was rather muted compared to some of the other getups I saw. The USPGA was like a fashion catwalk, with players trying to outdo each other on the course. Every time I turned around there was one outrageous outfit after another. The wildest ensemble by far was Darren Clarke’s black and metallic pink pinstripe pants with matching magenta shirt. People were actually stopping and taking pictures of his outfit. I have to say, he looked sharp. It takes a real man to wear magenta. Rory Sabbatini won the ‘patriotic golfer of the week award’ for his camouflage pants (that he apparently wears once a week). Sergio wins the most improved dresser award for his fetching red shirt with matching Adidas golf shoes, although he still refuses to unbutton the collar. Needless to say, Jesper, Freddy Jacobson, and Richard Johnson were resplendent in their neon J. Lindeberg apparel. I don’t quite get the sweat band halfway up the arm; is it a fashion statement or for tendonitis? Either way, I’m happy that golf has finally become hip. All I can say now is: “Keep wearing those tight pants, guys!”

Clarke's fashion clinic featuring surgical glove.

Words and Pictures by Brynne Ashton

8/26/2005 8:28:17 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

  Thursday, August 25, 2005
Ashes Test

I hereby issue a challenge to all GOLFPUNK online readers eager to find alternative ways to waste those soul-sapping days at work. Visit www.stickcricket.com, play the Ashes game (as England) and see if you can win in less than 11.1 overs. And if you dont believe its possible, heres the evidence....


Any one out there who can prove they can beat this feat gets a set of Lindeberg sweat bands and a sleeve of Srixon Soft Feels. Game on!

Time Wasted/Record Set by Gavin "Busy" Newsham

8/25/2005 5:17:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

  Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Devon knows why they're all so crazy!

We were down at the cradle of golf in Devon recently where we came across some very strange behaviour.
Chatting in the clubhouse we heard about the golf-mad Vicary family who just can’t keep away from the course.
Mother, Sue, is ladies captain and plays to a wicked eight handicap. Son, James won the club championship last week and when we visited their home we found father, Pete, daughter, Kate, and the two dogs glued to the golf on the tele.
Chatting non-stop about golf, however, isn’t the extent of their addiction. In their living room is a telescope that looks down across the links. Whenever one of them is out playing on the course they are constantly being watched in the house – a sort of rural live update feed.
In fact, Sue has even gone so far as to text James on the course to tell him that his stance is shut!!
While we applaud their obsessive love of the great game and welcome them warmly into the GP family we must inform them that they are in flagrant breach of rule 8-1, which prevents a player giving advice to anyone in the competition playing on the course other than their partner.
That’s a two shot penalty family Vicary!

Do you have or know of any weird golfing behaviour? Get in touch. Why? Because we told you to!!

Words by Shaun McGuckian

8/23/2005 5:41:16 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

  Thursday, August 18, 2005
It's getting hot in here, so take off all your......

Introducing another of our transatlantic GolfPunks, it is my pleasure to introduce to you Brynne Ashton. This time reporting from Baltusrol Golf Club, Springfield NJ. They had some golf match there the other day. First I've heard about it!

Well, what more can I say about my week at the PGA Championship in New Jersey other than “Thank God that’s over. I need a drink!”

It took me two days to recuperate after spending seven full days at the tournament, but my feet still aren’t happy .

I thrive on this stuff. I love being in on the action. I love the fact that you can walk alongside the players, and I love being outside, but this week was brutal. The heat index on the course reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was so humid. Luckily, I know how to dress to beat the heat however, the same could not be said for 99% of the crowd. Countless men were so sweaty that they looked as if they had jumped into the pond on the fourth, not to mention the handful of people who passed out and had to be taken away in an ambulance. When anchormen from the Golf Channel start contemplating skinny-dipping you know it’s hot!


Levet's so hot right now!

Even the players could not escape the heat - Tiger and Vijay were dripping before they teed off. The people who I felt sorry were the police officers who followed Tiger, Vijay, and Phil. These poor guys walked 18 holes in full uniform in the dead heat. Talk about devotion to the job. To be able to survive this week took a hardcore golf fan, and I am proud to say that I stuck it out like a true GolfPunk.

Words and Pictures Brynne Ashton

8/18/2005 3:08:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

  Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Scrap of the Month?

Don’t know if you’ve heard about this but it has created mammoth-sized debates at GolfPunk Towers.
Jason Gore, a 31-year-old American pro, won on the Nationwide Tour, with a phenomenal score. But that’s enough of the poet’s corner.
He actually did win on the second play-off hole after finishing tied on 23-under par. That included a brave 63 in the final round and an astonishing- only seven people have ever done this in the universe na-ne-na-ne-nah – 59 in Friday’s second round.
This was mentioned in our spurious discussions but it was not the main point. (We were the other six who shot 59. Did it on the Megadrive when we were 12.) What we were more fascinated with was Gore’s promotion to the main PGA Tour.
Because he’s won three events on the Nationwide Tour – actually he’s won the last three on the bounce- he gains what is known in the States as a ‘battlefield promotion’. This gives him a chance to play on the main tour, have a good week, make a million dollars, win the grand slam next year and retire to Hawaii, which he has just bought. It’s a golfing version of the American Dream.
On the whole we agree with them. What a great idea to promote players but, have they fully exploited this idea? Could there be a relegation battle?
Imagine: At the end of each month the bottom 20 performing players get relegated to the Challenge Tour to be replaced by the Top 20 performing Challenge Tour players. (Or insert similar dramatic style finales here.)
We’ve all seen the exciting finales when it comes to retaining your card at the end of the season, or in that last desperate struggle to make the Ryder Cup teams – Ian Poulter’s 8-under par back nine, in Germany, for example.
What if this was repeated on a month-by-month basis? Could we make the most enthralling game on the planet even more exciting? Could this ruin the sport for hard-working pros?
Let us know what you think.

Words by Shaun McGuckian

8/16/2005 5:09:18 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

  Monday, August 15, 2005
Practice Makes... Well Just Practice

Practice makes perfect, or so we’re told, and never is the adage more widely used than in golf. This is why the practice grounds of golf clubs worldwide are at any time of the day a microcosm of the golf club community (a sweeping statement made solely by my experiences of my own club). A grim menagerie of characters battling with their own demons, all the while secretly hoping the club pro saw that last shot they just ripped down the middle, and missed the series of whiffed drives that preceded it. Whether you are the 18-handicap dentist trying to put 30 lessons worth of tuition into practice, a newcomer haplessly ingraining swing faults, or the one anomalous player who is peppering the 250-yard marker in the distance with an irritating consistency, a strange mood of camaraderie inevitably exists among the assembled crowd. A mutual appreciation of the travails that befall every person who call themselves golfers create a feeling of kinship among us avid practicers, united in the knowledge that each person carries their own burden of mental scarring inflicted by the game. This comradeship transcends each individual’s attempts to gain the attention of the golfing gods. It’s enough to turn you spiritual. Whether to be released from the curse of the duck-hook or to be blessed with a solid short game, us Saturday hackers will continue to serve our penance among the sand-filled divots of the practice ground, praying for absolution.

Amen to that.

Words by Giles Cornwall

8/15/2005 7:23:27 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

  Friday, August 12, 2005
Liam Gallagher wearing J Lindeburg golf shirt

Liam Gallagher wearing J Lindeburg golf shirt

Spotted taking a walk on a street somewhere. Liam Gallagher. Once upon a time everybody looked to this Rock n’ Roll star for fashion, elocution lessons and swagger. It seems, as he takes a stroll kitted out in J Lindeberg, that he’s been taking a few fashion tips from us…or maybe he’s a closet golfer.

Still pretty cool though.

For more info on J. Lindeberg Clothing go to www.jlindeberg.com

Liam Gallagher wearing J Lindeburg golf shirt  


8/12/2005 5:19:47 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

  Thursday, August 11, 2005
On the Dance Floor, the Last Dance.

In the final part of the Golf Girl trilogy we learn amongst other things that it is possible to open a bottle with a putter. Funny what you can pick up at a golf festival! Check out the blog from 07.07.05 for Part 1 and the blog from 05.08.05 for Part two of this tale of one womens impression of life on the inside of a tournament.



Mannie was all business at this point. It was not an easy task to pry the cap off with a putter and we practiced carefully as there was only the one beer. The YES! man got to do the shaking and wastefully sprayed beer everywhere. What a story! Mannie interviewed the YES! man about the technology behind the putters. Intrepid reporter that I am, I didn’t really listen, instead determining whether I wanted to dine with a second tier caddy or head back to Baltimore that night for more martinis on the road.



"...and then pivot the blade under the cap and really commit to it" Putting advice by the Pros

Second story done, Mannie and I were ebullient. What a team. The sun was hoisting the yardarm and I casually mentioned that perhaps there was one more story if only we could find him…


I explained that there was a man I used to know (bibilicaly)… who never would golf with me and I reckoned he would be playing in the Pro-Am this very day. I was trying to sense where in the fields and dales he was, while Mannie referred to the schedule, cleverly. As if by fate my man was just finishing on the 9th green, 50 yards away.


We watched him putt. He had an extremely young cute female caddie with him. Future bunker babe I mused. He one putted and looked happy. He strode off the green to a smattering of applause. Bystanders whispered his name as he passed and as he wandered towards me I made myself plainly obvious.


He saw me with my press pass and my cameraman and actually stopped in his tracks, his mouth open. “What are you doing here?” he asked with wonder. “I’m with GolfPunk. This is my cameraman. Can we have a picture?” He automatically went into pose mode and so a beautiful picture was borne. You’d swear we were daughter and dad, happy. He was whisked off by autograph seekers and I sighed. I had made it to Congressional on my own. I was with the press corps. And I had finally got my man!


The most important lesson I learned at the Booz-Allen Classic Tournament, was the fluency behind really keeping your eyes on the ball. Watching these golf gods close up the stare and pause go together as part of the rhythm of the swing, a note in the song, a step that anticipates the pendulum swinging down, moving back up. I realized the extent of the pause, time almost stands still, then go! You don’t get that inspiration, that momentum for discipline, from watching a video or replay. The next week, back in my civvy golf life, I added yardage and took off strokes. I smiled while at the muni and daydreamed about new golf quests. I stopped and thought, “GolfPunk, GolfPunk, GolfPunk!”



Words and Pictures Dr Morgenthaler

8/11/2005 7:29:46 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 


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