Various | 
Written by BigRed
Steve Williams has somewhat of a history with respect to losing control on and off the golf course. He once took an expensive camera from a spectator and hurled it into a water hazard after the camera’s owner allegedly took a picture during Woods’ backswing.
It is also widely known that Williams and Phil Mickelson are not best buddies. However, it came as somewhat of a surprise shock when Williams said: “I wouldn’t call Mickelson a great player, ‘cause I hate the prick”, according to the Guardian newspaper of Britain. Williams, who is enjoying a lot of spare time while his boss is recuperating from knee surgery, made the statement in front of 250 people during a charity golf event in New Zealand.
Williams later added that he has no respect for Phil Mickelson and retold a story from the 2002 US Open at Bethpage that included Mickelson’s breasts (“Hey Phil, nice tits…”).
A number of newspapers were quick to classify Williams’ comment as yet another milestone in the far-from-perfect relationship between golf superstars Woods and Mickelson. However, it became clear that Tiger Woods does in no way tolerate the remark by saying that he was “disappointed” by the comment. Tiger is good friends with his caddie and acted as William’s best man at his wedding. He is also known for being very harsh on employees who have dissappointed him.
Phil Mickelson immediately issued a statement through his management company and called the various remarks “inappropriate” and “grossly inaccurate”.
Steve Williams caddies for Tiger since 1999 and is New Zealand’s most popular and best paid athlete. He is also involved in professional speedway racing and has started a foundation for junior golfers in his native New Zealand.
Please use the comment function to let us know what you think about Steve Williams and his recent remark on Phil Mickelson. Do you think that Tiger would be well advised to fire (or at least fine) his caddie?
Various | Written by BigRed
…to all our readers in the US and Canada. Enjoy the turkey and the time with your family but do not forget to practice your golf game. By the way: Phil will be playing in the LG Skins Game at Indian Wells this weekend: TV times are 1pm - 3pm ET (Saturday) and 3.30pm - 6pm ET (Sunday) on ABC.
Various | Written by BigRed
I am sure that some of you have already tried the latest tool released on www.pgatour.com, the PGA Tour Shot Tracker. The concept of the application is that you can follow every shot of a single player or a group of players through graphical illustrations of each hole they play. Every shot is depicted by a yellow line and as usual the PGA Tour gives you a ton of stats for it (e.g. length of shot, distance to the hole, position of the ball etc.).
The tool is still in BETA (i.e. they are still testing and fixing bugs), but I have to say that even at this early point in time I am pretty disappointed with it:
- The tool is quite slow and certainly not in real-time, i.e. there is a significant delay between a shot being played and it showing up in shot tracker. The official PGA Tour Leaderboard is a lot faster than the new application.
- I noticed quite a few funny bugs during the time I was watching it: First they said that Vijay holed out from the fairway, later they changed it to 2 ft from the hole. The same happened with Ernie Els: At first he was over the green in two on a Par-5, a few minutes later they added a penalty shot and birdie became bogey…
- So far so good, but what about Phil’s second hole at TPC Boston - did he actually hit it only 126 yards off the tee? That’d be a case of beer at my Golf Club.
Various | Written by BigRed
As we learned yesterday, world number one Tiger Woods will be out for the remainder of the 2008 season to undergo reconstructive surgery on his left knee. Despite winning his 3rd US Open and 14th major tournament in a 19-hole play-off against Rocco Mediate just a few days ago, Tiger obviously was in pain as we saw him using his golf club as a cane several times.
What does this mean for Phil Mickelson? With Tiger unable to tee it up in 2008 Phil will be favourite in every tournament he plays in for at least the rest of this season. Looking at Tiger’s incredible winning percentage (5 out of 7 this year), there will be quite a few tournaments looking for a new champion. Will Phil be able to take advantage and add to his record of 34 PGA Tour titles? Especially with respect to the upcoming British Open at Royal Birkdale in July I am very optimistic. This is probably the best chance ever for Phil to finally get his hands on the Claret Jug.
Last but not least: The Ryder Cup. Without Tiger Woods the US team will be looking to Phil Mickelson for leadership and scoring. Given his anything but perfect history in this event: Will he be able to deliver? I think that the loss of Tiger Woods will - as strange as it may sound at first - make the US team a lot stronger. In the past everybody did solely rely on Tiger to make something happen and there usually wasn’t a good team chemistry. Without Tiger this will definitely change and the US will blend together like the Europeans have already done for decades. Add that to the obvious talent of the American golfers (Mickelson, Cink, Furyk etc.) and they will be hard to beat.
Please feel free to share your thoughts on this question through the comment function.
