Golfing News & Blog Articles

Tony Webeck with a remembrance of the former Australian Open champion Bob Shearer, who passed away at age 73 Saturday.

Born and raised in Melbourne, Shearer shot to prominence by winning the 1969 Australian Amateur and then joined the professional ranks the following year. 

In his playing career that stretched across four decades, Shearer amassed 27 professional wins including the 1983 Australian PGA Championship at Royal Melbourne Golf Club and the 1982 Australian Open at The Australian Golf Club in Sydney, defeating Americans Jack Nicklaus and Payne Stewart by four strokes. 

Shearer won twice on the European Tour in the 1975 season (Madrid Open and Piccadilly Medal) and in 1982 won the Tallahassee Open on the PGA Tour and lost in a playoff to Ed Sneed at the Houston Open that same year. 

And his friend Mike Clayton filed a wonderful collection of memories about Bob’s life. A teaser:

The USGA billed it as a major championship announcement and the hyperbole matched the depth of the news announced Friday.

The U.S. Women’s Open purse goes to $10 million, world class venues like Riviera and Interlachen were added, Pinehurst will host another back-to-back men’s/women’s Open, and a presenting sponsor (ProMedica) is announced.

I cover it all and analyze at The Quadrilateral. Everyone can read a preview here. (More here on The Quad and plans for 2002, including increased women’s major coverage.)

Here is the official press release:

USGA Significantly Elevates U.S. Women’s Open with Addition of its First-Ever Presenting Partner – ProMedica  

The Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga takes pro golfers to task for taking Saudi Arabia’s money at the PIFSIFSIA/Bonesaw/Saudi Golf League group get together next month. Full disclosure: Svrluga’s former colleague at the Post, Jamal Khashoggi, was lured to his death and reportedly sliced into pieces and disposed of by a squad working for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. At least in the CIA’s assessment.

Thanks to all who shared this and who wondered if the players will see it—or care—but this about LIV Golf Investments’ Greg Norman and the Public Investment Fund will put Svrluga on the Shark’s bad list:

Here’s Norman, in a November interview with Golf Digest within days of his announcement, immediately trying to distance the PIF from the brutalities inflicted by bin Salman.

“[The PIF is] obviously a commercial operation,” Norman said. “They’re very autonomous. They make investment decisions all around the world. They’ve invested in major U.S. corporations because of commercial reasons. They invested in LIV Golf Investments for a commercial opportunity. They’re passionate about the game of golf.”

He’s a self-serving snake-oil salesman but worse. Don’t trust him.

Just as their strategic partners have done, the Tour Formerly Known As European will be granting releases to the Asian Tour’s PIFSIPSIA next month, reports The Guardian’s Ewan Murray.

Filling the field of the Saudi-backed event, formerly a European Tour event that was the brainchild of Chief Keith Pelley and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, appears to be quite easy. Especially when tours are rolling over so easily. There was a Telegraph report of possible repercussions after players tee it up.

Murray writes:

By the Monday deadline, between 30 and 40 members of the tour had requested releases to play in the Asian Tour-run event near Jeddah, from 3 February. It is sponsored by the Saudi public investment fund and carries huge appearance fees.

Despite speculation of potential bans for European players who compete in the Saudi International, dismissed by some as little more than a cash grab, it is understood they should be informed this week that releases will be granted with conditions relating to future commitments to DP World Tour tournaments. Should those conditions not be met there is scope for disciplinary action, but player power has seemingly won the day.

As we inch closer to a decision based on the Distance Insights Study, just about any decision will lead to from Carlsbad even as they stare at record profits, give little back to the charitable side of the game and account for maybe 10% over the overall golf “business”.

So with that inevitable sobbing to come, perhaps as soon as May, the January 4th launches by Taylormade and Callaway—with their partners at the independent media operations hoping they’ll buy ads—will be good to file away for safe keeping.

Traditionally when any form of rulemaking is discussed to keep certain skills and courses relevant, the manufacturers claim they’ve maxed out the technology. When they want your $600, the technology is breakthrough, stealth, AI infused and almost guaranteed to add distance and lower spin.

The various golf publications peddled it all as usual. There was this from a Taylormade engineer to keep in mind as they phase out Titanium for the next great innovation, speaking to Golf Digest’s Mike Stachura.

THE DEEP DIVE: The titanium face driver, the golf industry’s staple since the mid-1990s, has run its course. So says TaylorMade’s team of engineers who in fits and starts over the past 20 years have been pursuing something they say is not merely entirely different from titanium, but of course, fundamentally better. As Tomo Bystedt, TaylorMade’s senior director of product creation, puts it, referencing the famous “S Curve” for innovation, “We knew the S curve for Ti was ending and the S Curve for carbon-composite faces was beginning.”

It’s a little more complicated than George Crump and friends building a course in the pine barrens and you are more than free to admit this makes no sense, but Josh Sens has the lowdown on golf’s first significant decentralized autonomous organization.

LinksDAO sold more than 9,000 NFTs in and initial offering for $11 million in Ethereum. The “grand experiment” is the vision of Mike Dudas, a Stanford start-up entrepreneur hoping to buy a course and create a community of members. Initial buyers of the NFT’s merely bought the right to buy into the next purchase.

Sens writes for Golf.com:

Nor will the money raised by the NFT sales be put toward buying a course. It will be used instead to fund other DAO operations, including course scouting, acquisition planning, marketing, legal compliance, community development and more.

Dudas concedes that there is a still a way to go.

After intense, last-minute negotiations, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia has been named title sponsor of the Saudi International. Terms of the deal were not announced.

More alarming for the PGA Tour and European Tour should be the continued addition of players to February’s field. Besides now having commitments from five of the world top 10, they’ve added Tony Finau, Patrick Reed, Matthew Wolff, Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman and Lucas Herbert. The allure of the Asian Tour!

The gold rush and late adds seem to be fueled by the PGA Tour’s “stand” against the existential threat, which included creating the widely-mocked PIP and granting of releases with meager consequences for players passing on the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. It’s a far cry from last summer when players were supposedly going to face membership expulsion for jumping ship. But the Saudis went out and got themselves some Asian Tour co-sanctioning and the snowball is picking up speed.

As Rex Hoggard notes here in the best possible light, the Tour was “slow” to grand competing event releases. If that’s the best they’ve got in their arsenal, it’s going to be a long year at the Global Home.

The PIF has assembled an impressive field at this point and sets up the potential for some fascinating names finding their way into the AT&T Pebble Beach field. As in, half the Champions Tour, all Korn Ferry grads, and definitely some Beljan’s and Uresti’s. Shoot, at this pace they may be the headliners!