Exciting Days Ahead for the Ladies of the LPGA Tour

On the heels of a windswept week in the Arizona desert, the ladies of the LPGA tour head off to the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, CA.

It's their season's first major, The Kraft Nabisco Championship, a tournament steeped in history, and one of the longest continuously running major tournaments. ~ 2009 defending champion Lorena Ochoa is undoubtedly hoping for a repeat plunge into Champions Lake, but she'll face serious competition from over 100 of the world's best, all of them hoping to get wet on Sunday.

In a world where golf media is undergoing rapid and radical transformation the LPGA is now active on Facebook and Twitter and has their own channel on Youtube. They've even made the forward thinking decision to credential select bloggers to cover LPGA events. At the same time their reorganized media department has done an amazing job with their own site, providing much more engaging, accessible, interactive content that allows fans to get to know more about the players. Opening up tournament coverage to popular, well written golf blogs - of which there are quite a few - will raise the profile of their organization and drive traffic to their now excellent site.

And speaking of digital media, 2007 U.S. Women's Open champion Cristie Kerr will be launching her new website, CristieKerrGolf.com later this week. The site that will be the new home of her award-winning foundation, Birdies for Breast Cancer and will also serve as a social space for connecting with fans and sharing some of her on and off course interests. Cristie recently spoke to Mike Spellman of suburban Chicago's Daily Herald about her life on tour and her many activities and interests.

But the LPGA ladies their sites set on the Kraft Nabisco Tournament and Rancho Mirage, where the historic Dinah Shore course is ready and the waters of Champion's lake await the 2009 winner.

A Weekend with the Frustrated Golfers of Twitterville

I continue to to be amazed by the number of golfers using Twitter...and by how many new golfers are joining each day.

To capture golf conversations... and sometimes, get bits of fresh, yet to be broken golf news... I often simply enter the word "golf" into Twitter's search window, and peruse the resulting stream of "tweets", each containing the word golf. At one point during the afternoon today there were 10 - 12 new golf tweets... per minute!

And what's trending in golf these days? Well it's early in the season in many places, and it seems lots of folks are having "issues" with their games:














If it's any consolation @caitlinbb, my round was worse than that.

Then there are those Twitterers who actually question the earthly orgins of our cherished game.



Space aliens? That sort of makes sense, doesn't it?

Of Surreal Winds, Cristie Kerr Eagles & Suspended Play

A devilish desert wind became a big part of the story yesterday, during the first round of the J Golf Phoenix LPGA International Presented by Mirassou Winery.

It started out strong... then only got stronger as the day progressed. It buffeted the players as they set up their shots and occasionally stung the eyes of the audience, with biting desert sand. It even got to where the scoreboards had to be put down, having become a hazard in their own right.

The tournament is taking place at Papago the historic, City of Phoenix course, that's just been totally restored.

When I was in Phoenix, just a couple weeks ago, there wasn't even a discernible breeze. Just a hot sun, cool dry air and a cobalt blue sky. Area resident Cristie Kerr, and a several other LPGA players, played a practice round in Scottsdale in those calm conditions before their trip to Mexico. Obviously they're needing to call upon a rather different skill set this week.

Cristie herself summoned those skills yesterday in a gritty up-and-down round that included eagles on both of the back nine par 5s, finishing with a 4-iron shot that landed 5 feet from the 18th hole. An eagle putt then moved her to within one shot of the lead with a 3-under 69. Inbee Park and Jiyai Shin share second with Cristie as does Suzann Petterson, who described the windy conditions as "surreal". In-Kyung Kim finished the turbulent day in the lead with a 3-under 69.

Ultimately, first-round play was suspended when darkness fell on the desert, with several players still on the course. It resumed this morning on a far calmer course.
The forecast is calling for winds to remain at 10-15 mph today which will certainly be a welcome relief to the ladies battling on the newly refurbished fairways of Papago.

Despite its Quicksand, Richter Park Gets High Marks

When they say "you want to avoid the sand", at Richter Park golf course, they're not just talking about the recently refurbished bunkers. They're also warning you to stay away from the Quicksand.

"Now there's a hazard that's unique in American golf," golf writer Jay Flemma reminded me. "...a hazard that could actually be hazardous to your health." Jay came up to Danbury this past weekend to play an early season round at Richter, and he gave it high marks, despite the threatening sediment that borders the 15th and 16th fairways.

In addition to writing about golf on his own, often provocative blog, A Walk in the Park, Jay, an entertainment lawyer by day, writes for www.golfobserver.com and is an associate editor for Cybergolf.com. His work has also appeared on the thegolfchannel.com and other high profile sites.

Jay is completely passionate about golf, and he's a student of golf course architecture, so his observations on my home course were most enlightening. I've played Richter regularly for the the past two seasons yet Jay was able to point out features features and idiosyncrasies I'd overlooked or simply stopped noticing. When Mr. Flemma described the multifaceted par 5 7th, I was aware, for the first time, of the variety of shots required to avoid a bogey.... or a triple bogey, my specialty on that particular hole. He also pointed out the deceptively sloping fairways and surprisingly elevated green, the result of the course's setting in our Southwestern CT hills.

Jay Flemma's full review of Richter, including the Quicksand story, and a couple of pithy comments contribute by yours truly, can be found on A Walk in the Park. When you read it I'm pretty sure you'll want to consider a trip to my idylic little corner of the world.

GoDaddy Golfer Anna Rawson's Brand-Identity Crisis

I don't know about you, but to me it seems Anna Rawson has a bit of a brand-indenty crisis going on.

On the one hand she seems to be targeting the discerning, luxury market, with an elegant, high fashion image; her flash-laden website has a classy couture vibe and in tournaments she projects a conservatively sophisticated look, often wearing the type of wide brimmed visors or hats that you see on society matrons at country club lunches.

Even when Anna's in short shorts and spike heels she manages to look amazingly aristocratic, rather than...bootylicious, for lack of a better word. But you know what I mean, right? It's not only her ultra-long, ultra-slim body build and patrician features either. it's her personal style and demeanor as well. I've got to admit I never found "hot" pictures of Anna Rawson to be "hot". Beautiful? Yes. Elegant? yes. Hot? no. And I assumed that was the brand identity she saw for herself and wished to cultivate. I assumed that was the Anna Rawson image.

So I was surprised by her decision, announced yesterday in Phoenix, to become a GoDaddy Girl. To me the GoDaddy image seems the antithesis of the Anna Rawson image.

She joins three other GoDaddy Girls... Nascar champion Danica Patrick, Wrestler/Model/Actress, Candace Michelle, and Poker star Vanessa Russo... all beautiful, accomplished women, but decidedly not high fashion, elegant or aristocratic. To me, they are the quintessential GoDaddy Girls, and Anna simply is not.

I think it's great for Bob Parsons and his brand and I imagine it's calculated on his part to reach the "classy, moneyed golf demographic". However, I'm not sure how it will pan out for Anna. Might not luxury sponsors find her tainted by her association with the bawdy GoDaddy brand and the controversial Mr. Parons? At the same time will her sophisticated personal style ever really resonate with mass marketers?

I can imagine potential sponsors on both side asking; Is she a high brow, high fashion, muse to the champagne sipping, luxury market? Or a low brow, uber-sexy, good old girl for the beer swilling masses?

I think both images have great marketing value but I'm not sure one can combine them successfully.

In this era of sparse sponsorship dollars perhaps the GoDaddy offer was too sweet to resist... or perhaps Anna and her handlers surmised that she could, in fact, appeal to the two different markets.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out going forward.

The Golf Chick is Back & Her Choice is Cristie Kerr

I'm happy to note that a certain little yellow chick is back in the blogosphere after a hiatus that seemed much too long.

I'm talking of course, about The Golf Chick, and I'm quite sure that anyone who's been reading golf blogs for more than a year is has truly missed her humor and insight over these last several months.

When I first entered the golf blogging fray over two years ago I was immediately inspired by Kristen (that's the chick's name)... her ability to find fascinating golf stories...and recount them in a particularly spirited style.

So when I saw she was posting again I was ...well...really happy. Yesterday she wrote about playing a golf video game, which I'm assuming was the new Tiger Woods'09. Kristen had chosen Cristie Kerr as her player, which didn't surprise me at all. The Golf Chick has written on several ocassions of her admiration for the fabulous Ms.Cristie.

But the funny part...and with the Golf Chick there's always a funny part... came when a fellow player proposed she different pro for her character. A pro by the name of ...Natalie Goobless. Of course the humor of this "mispronunciation" wasn't lost on Kristen and in the end she had a good laugh...and invented helped popularize the word "goobs".

A voice like The Golf Chick's is one you don't find too often. Please join me in welcoming her back.

Another Day - Another Sergio Garcia Post

As you may have noticed, I don't normally do two-in-a-row postings. Generally, I like to keep it eclectic around here.

Though my topic is always golf, I try to change it up a little each day. If I do something serious on a Monday, I like to go light on Tuesday. If I do fashion on Wednesday I might profile a pro on Thursday. Like that, because most people I know like variety. So it's rare that you see the same topic or the samd company or the same person featured here two days in a row.

Today, however I just couldn't resist a second-in-a-row Sergio feature. One of my readers... the always astute Charles Boyer... though clearly not a Sergio fan himself, was kind enough to bring yet another Sergio Garcia promotion to my attention. And this one's really fun. It revolves around the Players Championship where Mr. Garcia will defend his title in May, and lets fans vote to choose a second round outfit for the swarthy Spainiard.

The promotion is called Dress Sergio and it's being put on by the PGA Tour. In addition the dressing the (arguably) adorable El Nino, there are lots of great prizes to be won too, so head over to the PGA Tour site, pick a lucky outfit and help dress Sergio.

BTW, I happen to know a couple/few ladies who wouldn't mind undressing him, but I don't think there's a promotion for that.

Golfsmith Invites You to Win With Sergio Garcia

Beautiful Kristen Bentz, the Talented Blonde retail expert I refer to regularly on these pages, tweeted me a quick heads-up on Friday afternoon.

She... like me... is a big fan of a certain sexy Spaniard by the name of Sergio, and she wanted to make sure I (and you) knew about Golfsmith's current promotion. It's a pretty provocative one; You buy one of the new TaylorMade drivers, and if Sergio Garcia wins the Masters, that driver is free.

It just so happens Sergio is my pick to win this year... and while I'm not currently in the market for a new driver, I know a man who is. To be honest, this particular man is always in the the market for a new driver, but currently he's eying the TaylorMade R7 limited driver. Naturally, he's not in agreement with me about Sergio's chances but thus far we've not found a similar promotion with Tiger so I think he's going to go for it and as a result he'll probably be joining my El Nino fan club come early April.

My Quest to Play Morefar - Follow it on Cocktail Match

Today was the first day of spring, and though the trees are still bare and the earth still hard and drab, there's that intangible touch of promise in the air.

That's what makes early spring golf so different from the late fall game.

In November we tend to play with melancholy... and a touch of resignation, while March golf is full of hope and lightheartedness. More than ever... in this spring of 2009... that transient patch of on-course optimism is something to be savored.

I played nine holes at beautiful Richter Park a few days ago, and that couple of hours, on the still dormant course, went a long way towards keeping my spirits high. It got me through a particularly disturbing week, where collective public outrage and tumult, over the now iconic AIG bonuses, reached a fever pitch.

Of all the duplicitous companies and financial institutions we've become acquainted with over the past several months, AIG seems to have risen to the top, symbolising... more that any other... the hubris, greed, recklessness and treachery that has so severely undermined trust... that has dashed so many dreams... and that has plunged the world economy into chaos.

The irony is that from the beautiful lakeside 12th hole at Richter Park, one can quite clearly see, across the water, a sparkling piece of the AIG ledgend. Mysterious Morefar. Yes, I know, I've written about Morefar before. On a couple of occasions, and I've got to admit I'm slightly intrigued with the course. OK I'm downright obsessed with it, and to that end I've started a blog at Cocktail Match where I'll be chronicling my quest to play the storied course.

You can read the first installment now, including re-posts of my past Morefar pieces. The fabulous Krista Escamilla introduces the series in her awesome One Shot Entertainment News Update. The story will undoubtedly have elements of mystery and suspense, as everything about the course is quite clandestine, and my past attempts to approach it have been met with thinly veiled hostility. I don't know what kind of twists and turns the story will take, but it's bound to be revealing and I'm hoping the final chapter will be written after a satisfying round at Morefar.

Sterios

Golf Digest's Final Four - The Stepford Husbands

I can't be the only one who noticed this. Or the only one who found it a bit...amusing/interesting/disturbing.

Here's the thing; Golf Digest received an astounding 73,581 entries in their U.S. Open contest. The entries, each one featuring a six word essay, poured in from all over the country. So I was quite surprised this morning when the finalists were announced...and I could barely... tell them... apart.

Don't get me wrong...they all seemed very nice, and each of their essays was clever, if somewhat insular. Individually, each man was an excellent candidate. It's just that... out of 73,581 entries, you'd think there'd be a smidge more diversity..wouldn't you?

Golf has always had a reputation as a game for white, middle-class, middle-aged men.

These finalists certainly do nothing to disprove that.

A Golf Girl's March Madness Fantasy

OK, while basketball is clearly not a specialty of mine, I can't resist a challenge...and I do come from a basketball state. Or so they tell me.

Anyway as part of the InGameNow Bloggers Fantasy League, I'm in good company. And, I think I've got a pretty good team. To see if you agree check in at the March Madness Blogger Contest at the start of the tournament.

Swing Easy, Hit Hard - Tempo for your Golf Swing

Balance and rhythm...timing and speed, these are all components of tempo and as any professional golfer will tell you, tempo is key for a good golf swing.

Have you ever rushed your swing and lost your balance? I have...many times... and there went solid contact and decent ball flight.

I worked hard on tempo last season and I'd like to think it would never be a problem for me again, but that's not realistic. Even players who have been playing at the highest level have to continually work on tempo. Each tiny adjustment you make to your swing can throw you off and you've got to work to get back into the swing of things - To help with that process, we've now got Tempo in Motion.

It's a great concept that allows you to download rhythmic clips of music that are designed to work with your particular swing. Tempo tunes rock your game!

It sounds like an awesome idea and I'm looking forward to using it help ME get swinging in these next couple of weeks.

Ladies Link Fore Golf Gets LPGA Designation

The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) recently designated Ladies Links Fore Golf the official online amateur golf community of the LPGA.

Another Golf Apparel Tip from the Talented Blonde

Apparel analyst Kristen Bentz has an uncanny eye for consumer trends. And once she spots them she knows the next step. For that reason Kristen can often be found on Fox Business News, and has appeared on CNBC, Fox News, and Fortune’s Wall Street Week.

Kristen creates ultra engaging podcasts and some of the most entertaining finance videos anywhere, and she's always the first to let me know when something is ruminating with the major golf apparel manufacturers. This morning she tweeted me a link to her story on a global golf licensing deal involving PVH/Calvin Klein, and Europe's Premium Golf Brands.

The deal bodes well for CK stock and Talented surmises that despite global recession there are plenty of passionate golfers out there who just aren't willing to give up the game...or the fashions.

One pro golfer did give up on golf apparel recently, if only for one strategic shot. Yes, I'm referring to the Stenson striptease, which fellow blogger Daniel Dudley speculated may have been an attempt to get clothing sponsorship ... from none other then Calvin Klein.

Golf Girl's Monday Meanderings

The amazing wave of new golf blogs continues. So much so that the reconstruction of my lost link list, is still not done. My goal (I assure you) is to have it up by week's end.

In the meantime however, there's one new golf blog that's so cute and so light-hearted I just had to give it a quick shout out. It's called Tales of a Golf Gal, and it's a slice-of-life chronicle by a preppy southerner, a recreational golfer who, I gather, is a wedding planner by trade.

The short pictorial posts are quick and easy to read. They're personal tales...you'll find no rehashing of televised tournaments, or analysis of the latest Nike driver here. I love the design too, with it's textured pages and argyle background, it's a refreshing break from the sterile templates that tend to dominate the golf blog world. It definitely made me want to redesign (or just design) this blog.

For a spirited start to your golf blog reading this week check out Tales of a Golf Gal.

At Cristie Kerr's House... it's all About Mr. Bailey

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Cristie Kerr may be an LPGA Champion, and a fierce competitor on the golf course, but when it comes to a certain caramel-colored, miniature Shar Pei, she's a bit of a pushover.

I've spent the past couple of days in Scottsdale, AZ working with Cristie on several exciting projects. In addition to a busy LPGA schedule, Cristie is planning events for her foundation, Birdies for Breast Cancer, and getting ready to launch a new website.

At Cristie's new site, CristieKerrGolf you'll be able to find out about her life on tour... and her upcoming charity projects... but it'll also be an interactive, social space where she'll be sharing her many off-course interests. The site is scheduled to launch at the end of this Month.

I'm pretty sure Baily will make regular appearances too, because, as I indicated, the sweet, spunky Shar Pei is a big part of Cristie's world.

I'll keep you posted on the impending launch.

The Golf Girl Gets Away From Winter

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I'm in the AZ desert for a couple of days. CT seems very far away.

Mass Customization for Spring Golf Range Wear

You're going to hate me for this, but here's another awesome way to waste spend an hour... or three.

Mass Customization is all the rage these days, as is DIY, and when the two come together, expect a monumental time suck. You've just got to hope it results in something pretty. Or cute, or sexy or cool. Like this hoodie I... designed... and the Puma shoes I "cooked" up to go with it. They're perfect for damp, chilly Spring days at the driving range, where I've been spending a fair amount of time lately.

The sweatshirt is from Champion, and you can create your own at their Hoodie Remix site. One creation will actually be produced by Champion too.












For the shoes you'll need to go to PUMA's amazing Mongolian Shoe BBQ. There you'll be able to choose from three shoe models to customize in myriad ways. Then you just place an order. For your own unique design.

OK, I won't keep you any longer because I'm guessing the urge to DIY, and Mass Customize, is getting pretty overwhelming round about now.

Women on Course - Enjoy The Golf Lifestyle Together

“Golf is more than a game, it’s a lifestyle.”

That's the tagline for Women on Course, a series of unique national networking events, and an online golf club...for gals.

I've been curious about Women on Course for a while now, as I often encounter their green and orange logo in my meanderings across the golf blogosphere. Each time I do I'm intrigued by the images of attractive women playing golf or sipping wine. Golf and wine being two of my favorite things in world, I felt like this might very well be an organization for me. So when I found out there was an event in Boston I made sure I cleared my calendar. And I wasn't disappointed.

It was last Friday evening, and it was a happy hour at Fleming's, an outstanding Boston steakhouse where they serve 100 different wines by the glass. There I met Donna Hoffman the founder of Women on Course and she gave me an overview of the organization.

Donna is very attractive and has a fun, friendly attitude that makes her the perfect hostess at an event like this. She began by telling me she how surprised she had been a couple of years ago when she began playing golf with her husband...and found she really liked it.

As she began to fall in love with the golf lifestyle Donna, a television producer, thought she might develop a show around it. That was in 2005 and what started as a golf lifestyle television pilot has grown into a series of popular golf-related networking events in 16 major U.S cities.

The happy hours feature guest speakers (ours was a presentations called Master the Wine List by Brian Deshler, one of Fleming's ultra knowledgable sommeliers) contests, food and wine along with unbeatable networking opportunities. The golf events include golf clinics by a certified pros, club fittings and golf activities to suit all skill levels. As Donna puts it, “Rather than focus on the time and commitment it takes to achieve a low handicap, we highlight the business and social benefits of the game. Many of the women who attend an event, are already using golf for business and they might not even swing a club.”

Both formats are ultra-inclusive and provide women with a comfortable environment to become acquainted with the benefits of golf, as well as connect them with others who share a passion for the game.

Currently less then 25% of all golfers are women, and many who try to get into the game, are soon discouraged, and ultimately quit. Women on Course aims to increase the number starting, and decrease the number quitting, by helping women connect with golf resources... and each other.

My first event was awesome. I just became a member, and I look forward to future events. I also hope to work with Donna to expand Women on Course and allow more potential golf gals to participate. I'll keep you posted. Tell me this doesn't look fun:

Boston Weekend - Golf Expo Stories - Gina Cigar

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Meredith Marie Dreyer is fun, flirty and fashionable. She loves golf... and golfers... and spends lots of time on golf courses.

She also knows how to clip and light a cigar with exceptional flair. That's part of what she does for Gina Cigar, an innovative Boston based company, run by Gina Rogers, another attractive Bostonian.

The company offers an unique way to personalize a charity or corporate golf tournament. A way that involves fun, friendly cigar girls like Meredith, and premium Gina cigars.

The girls participated in over 100 charity and corporate golf events in 2008, on some of the best golf courses in New England. Their events involved celebrity athletes from The New England Patriots and the Boston Bruins as well as actors like Matt Damon and Denis Leary. The professionalism of their team and the quality of their events have garnered them recognition as one New England's best ways to enhance a golf tournament.

Gina's website has all the deets, so check it out if you're looking for a way to make your tournament more fun... and more fruitful. And the Gina girls are social media savvy too. They've got their own blog, Golf Girls of New England. I can certainly relate to that title.

I met Meridith and Gina at The Boston Golf Expo where we spent the day on Friday. Gina Cigar was among the many local and national companies offering the latest in golf equipment, apparel, accessories and services. I'll be featuring more of what I discovered at the Boston Golf Expo over the coming days.

I also look forward to telling you about Women on Course, a women's golf networking organization that really gets it right. I joined them on Friday night for a superlative Happy Hour event at Flemings.

It was only 48 hours...and it was still rather wintery...but my Boston weekend definitely revolved around golf. I guess that's why they call me I call myself the Golf Girl.

The Boston Golf Expo - Women in the Spotlight

New England is still buried beneath a blanket of snow... but I'm up in Boston for some golf. Not the outdoor variety but the kind that takes place in... an expo center.

The Boston Golf Expo is New England's largest golf show, and this year women are in the spotlight. The Ladies Golf Experience focuses on products and equipment along with special instruction geared specifically for the female player.

I'll be at the Expo today and tomorrow and I'll be posting on it here and with some live video on Qik. I'll be talking to Karen Palacios-Jansen the beautiful, LPGA teacher of the year, who I've written about here, more than once.

I'll also be attending an event with Women on Course the awesome networking and lifestyle association that welcomes women to golf and invites them to enjoy all the benefits the golf lifestyle has to offer. The emphasis is on inclusivity and fun. The Women's Golf Market Study recently undertaken by Golf Datatech, showed a clear need to make the game more accessible and welcoming to the female player, so organizations like Women of Course are right on the mark.

So, despite the remaining snow, I'm looking forward to a couple of golf-centric days...and I just heard it's supposed to get up to 50˚ in Boston today.

Design Your Own Golf Course With Line Golfer

Don't ask me how I stumbled upon this little...diversion... but I wish I hadn't.

It's a game, and in the best of circumstance games can entertain you, while decimating all your good intentions to get lots of work done. Normally I avoid games for just that reason; I don't want to find myself missing an important deadline while gobbling up the current Pac-Man record.

Be it the seductive lure of a first person shooter or the nastolgia of an arcade classic, most of the time I just stay away from games in my on-line meanderings.

But this one intrigued me. "Design and play your own golf course!" said the blinking banner for a game called Line Golfer. How could I resist that, right?

2 hours, and at least a dozen attempts later, I have neither designed a decent course, nor played a decent round on one of he monstrosities I did manage to come up with. I'm really frustrated and what I want to know is: can anyone have a satisfying experience with Line Golfer. Would Pete Dye or Tom Fazio or ...Tiger Woods be able to do anything remotely impressive with it? I think not but then I think, maybe it's me. It reminded me of using an old-school etch-a-scetch. I kept coming up with drawings that looked...obscene. They looked like the art work I used to see on the bathroom door at the hangout next to our high school.

If anyone's not afraid of waisting an hour or three on a frustrating game. Stop by Line Golfer and let me know what you come up with.

PGA Ladies Day Knee Socks May Set a Spring Trend

The ladies were in short white skirts and argyle knee-highs, while the guys sported pink trimmed caddy bibs. One of these looks may become a trend this spring the other almost surely won't.

The outfits were worn today at the PGA Tour Wives Classic, an annual nine-hole scramble played by the wives and girl friends of tour pros. The ladies looked great and the guys... well, they helped out as caddies, though it seems couple of them were nearly fired when shots went astray. Golf can be lots of fun when it's not taken too seriously and it sounds like lightness was the order of the day at PGA National today.

The event which was planned and organized by the "GWAGs", netted nearly $100,000 for charity. And the girls looked so good it may just inspire a new trend in Fairway fashion.













*Photo: Wilfredo Lee/AP

Golf Girl to Play AIG's Mysterious Morefar this Spring

I begin every weekday with a mocha latte and Bloomberg News.

Needless to say my days have had quite a few inauspicious beginnings of late, and this morning was definitely one of them. Accelerating declines and deteriorating economic conditions were front and center, and traders were panicking.

As the malaise continues, the most prominent financial headlines on this turbulent day feature news that AIG is back for more government bailout money. It seems they're still too big to fail, and it seems they're still on the verge of failing. This after already grabbing hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money throughout the fall and winter.

This news brought me back to a post I wrote last fall on the mysterious golf course known as Morefar. Just ten minutes from my house, on a winding country road, the course has a definite allure, heighten by the fact that the grounds are supposedly dotted with dozens of... titillating... sculptures.

You'll never find the full story on Morefar anywhere. The few articles I've found, online and off, indicate the sculpture strewn course is no longer owned by American International Group, but by a shadowy seeming entity called Starr International, however, much of what I've read indicates that funding for the course may still be linked to AIG, and what is a fact is that neither you nor I can ever play the course, no matter how nicely we ask.

It's snowing quite heavily here today, and golf in the region is still a month or two away, but as I sip my latte and watch the continued carnage on Bloomberg, I'm feeling a heightened resolve to play the curious course come Spring. Anyone else who might be interested please let me know. I'll set up the flight and foursomes and... we'll just do it. After all I think we kind of own the place.

Sterios

*Photos c/o GolfClubAtlas.Com

Armchair Golf Blog Entertains and Keeps it Real

Behind most independent golf blogs you'll find a person...most often just one person...who's passionate about golf and loves to write.

If both ingredients aren't there, the blog won't last. It'll sputter along in a series of sporadic posts... ever less frequent... till it it stops, leaving a last post to mark the end of an effort.

To write every day, even about a subject you love, requires a drive and dedication... and even that doesn't, in itself, engage an audience. What does is something more intangible; a combination of the right voice, the right stories and, as cliched as it sounds, Je ne sais quoi.

The Armchair Golfer, Neil Sagebiel, has the intangibles... in just the right quantities...which is why his Armchair Golf Blog always comes up as one of the top independent golf blogs. He's got a large and loyal following that...I'm guessing... appreciates the fact that he's consistent and always on-topic, has a sense of humor that entertains without offending and covers golf in a way that appeals to beginners and purists alike. This, I know from experience, is not easy to do.

If, by some chance, you haven't read Neil's blog, definitely do. You'll undoubtedly become a regular, and right now there's an added incentive to pay a visit; Mr. Armchair is giving away an autographed copy of the hardcover edition of "Follow the Roar", the amazing book by Bob Smiley.

Here in New England, with an impending snow storm on the way, Armchair Golf sounds just about perfect to me.