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Originally Posted 05/16/2010
The Raptor has now played about 25 rounds of
golf at WWGC since the season began around March 15th and it's
been mostly famine with no feast to speak of. Today was a
perfect spring day and the course has begun to dry up a bit after
some hard rain during the week. The logistics of developing a play
group have taken up a life of it's own and it's through the
patience of the members of The Raptor's roster that a series of
successful weekend matches have resulted.
Generally the roster is initiated the week
before the actual play date when The Raptor queries the members to
see who is interested in playing the following week. In some cases
roster members are locked in and play every week regardless of
their calendar or weather conditions. Obviously, these individuals
have no life In other cases, roster members have conflicts
that preclude them from joining in the play date.
The Saturday matches were not too difficult
to prepare for as WWGC had a club Scramble and no scheduling was
necessary. However, the roster for Sunday was a super
challenge. For starters, five regulars were elsewhere and
the left The Raptor with very little wiggle room in order to field
a roster of 12 players in three groups...that is the
key...foursomes provide the best platform for conducting matches.
As of Saturday at 2:00PM The Raptor had 13
players counted with no apparent way to get to 16 bodies.
So, a decision was made to contact the last individual who had
placed a reservation and cancel his appearance...this was very
difficult to do. By 5:00, The Raptor had released the pairings and
thought the matter was closed. However, at 6:30 an
individual who had been queried earlier in the day to play, called
The Raptor, throwing his hat in the ring. The Raptor was
forced to deny him a slot in Sunday's match, even though he had
gotten clearance from the tower to fly.
The Raptor woke early Sunday as he always
does full of nervous energy particularly worried about who may not
show etc. Unfortunately, The Raptor noted a text message
which was the worst possible news...a member could not attend due
to a prior unrecalled commitment. Now The Raptor was pissed
since I had denied two potential players a slot. However, I
was able to contact one of the ousted players and he agreed to sit
in and fill the group to 12 players. As a result, a good
time was had by all.
Originally Posted 04/05/10
Well...it's Masters Week at last and most
folks are keen on tuning into hear Tiger Woods...at his upcoming
2:00 PM News Conference which should be...interesting but not
fascinating. The Masters Committeemen who handle media
relations have promised to control the questions to a narrow range
of topics which is OK with me. The Raptor personally hates
it when the golfers get brought up before the press. Who can
forget Arnold Palmer crying at the 1994 US Open at Oakmont or more
recently Brandt Snedicker weeping into his golf towel when he
pulled the chocker at Augusta National which handed the Green
Jacket to Trevor Immelman...ouch!
It's difficult to predict who is going to win
this thing...last year it was the hard charging, hard smokin,
hulking Angel Cabrarra while the previously mentioned Immelman
stumbled into the winners circle in 2008 with Zack Johnson (and
his dopey sunglasses) taking home the top prize in 2007.
The Raptor still is conflicted over one
important issue and that is...can The Masters really be considered
a "major"?...ok it's a popular tournament and it has been
contested since the 1930's. The winners have traditionally
been the cream of golf's top players. The Raptor's dilemma
is the restrictive invitation process and the heartbreak that can
go with that process.
Consider yesterday at the Shell Houston
Open...Vaughn Taylor had shot a valiant closing round of 68 which
included an awesome birdie three at the difficult 18th hole...the
eventual winner, Anthony Kim made a convenient bogey at 18 during
regulation play to let Taylor into a playoff which ended when
Taylor made bogey in the playoff at the 18th hole.
Taylor had a human interest story line here
since he was not qualified to play in the tournament and a win in
Houston would have gotten him through the gates at Augusta.
It should be noted that Taylor is a resident of Augusta Georgia
and had "dreamed" of playing in the Masters. The look on
Taylor's face was one of massive disappointment and its too bad he
couldn't have qualified some other way, but there is always next
year.
The golf majors originally were the British
and American Opens and Amateurs and when Bobby Jones won his
bundle of 13 majors he was considered the "grand champion"...The
Master's wasn't even considered a major until after World War II
so the winners while certainly due respect can pad their "majors"
total ala Jack Nicklaus by the sole fact that they are the only
participant in the tournament who has a chance to win the event!
This should be an interesting week...
Originally Posted 03/11/10
Tiger Woods was in the news again!!!...today
it's been announced that his team has hired a former Press
Secretary to President George W. Bush, Ari Fleischer to act as his
spokesman. The hot flash off Google also stated that Woods
is planning a comeback at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March
25th, 2010! This is great news!
Originally Posted 03/05/10
Tiger Woods was in the news
again...well...his caddie, Steve Williams is the newsmaker this
time...Williams, who resides in New Zealand this time of year, was
recently interviewed on TV and stated emphatically that he didn't
pay attention to what Woods was doing once the golf was over.
Steve said that he new "nothing" about Tiger's activities and also
mentioned that he was friends with Tiger's wife Elin and also knew
the kids...
OK...The Raptor will give Steve the high road
here. He has had a great run as Tiger's looper. It's
usual custom to give the caddie an annual stipend plus a
percentage of the players winnings...say 6% for finishing plus a
4% bonus for a win. Just tabulating the wins which number in
the 70's, Williams could very well have earned in excess of
$7,000,000.00 for his ten year stint. Tiger's winning
percentage is about 30 to 35%. So in the course of 10 years
he probably has played in about 200 golf tournaments and Williams
probably has earned another $2,000,000.00 from those events.
So...Williams could very well be earning
$1,000,000.00 per year to caddie. That's hot!...There is a
lot to the job though...especially with Woods as your player.
The Raptor has caddied a few times and had a great time performing
the tasks. Several of these caddie jobs were in the Erie
Charity Classic. It was a great way to get inside the ropes while
avoiding the embarrassing shots.
It's possible that Williams is telling the
truth...He could very well report for work in the morning and
check out once the day is done. He probably lives a nice
life and could very well have his own stable of skanks. It's
common for the player and caddie to only associate on the course.
This makes it easier to dump the caddie when necessary. Just
ask Mike "Fluff" Cowan who was Tiger's caddie before Williams took
the bag. Fluff is a colorful character of a man and it was
believed that Tiger didn't appreciate that Fluff was becoming
famous as a result of the notoriety. So Tiger dumped him and
now Fluff is toting Jim Furyk's bag. Kind of a let down from
the monetary standpoint but still not bad as Furyk has won some
tournaments including the 2003 US Open.
It's also interesting that Jack Niclaus and
other observers feel Tiger may be poised to make a comeback...The
Raptor sure hopes so...I can only take so much of Ian Poulter's
shenanigans.
Originally Posted 02/21/10
The Raptor has always been a big fan of Tiger
Woods. Woods burst on the golf scene in the early 1990's and
The Raptor felt at that time as he watched Tiger win three USGA
Juniors and three USGA Amateurs that he was awesome. So much
so that The Raptor registered a potential website domain name
"tigersarmy" in anticipation of the Tiger barrage which
was soon to come...
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Tiger...in his most
famous pose...yeah! |
Woods had a news conference on Friday which
has come under scrutiny by most news personages as being
"incomplete"...that's how Jon Feinstien summed it up on
The Golf Channel on Saturday. So where does Feinstein feel
that Tiger came up short...
First, Feinstein feels that if Tiger wants to
apologize...he can't place a "but" in the apology.
This centers around his request "not to harass my wife and
kids". So what is Feinstein (and other media types)
saying here...The Raptor took it to mean that Tiger can apologize
and that's it - the media can go photograph his wife and kids
because Tiger is a "public person" - that's awful!
Second, Woods stated that he is going to
change his ways - become more people friendly etc. So just
about everyone who hates Tiger (Dan Jenkins...Tom Watson...Jon
Feinstein...Mike Lupica) believes that for Tiger to be sincere
about this...Tiger can't throw clubs any more...he can't swear on
the golf course...he has to sign more autographs...grant more
interviews...and support more charities not associated with the
Tiger Woods Foundation. In addition, Woods has to start supporting
small market tournaments that supported him during his first
season...
Is that it...according to Jason Whitlock of
the Kansas City Newspaper, this may be a perfect time for Woods to
pull a "Barry Sanders" and retire from the public spotlight..
Give up that dream of winning 19 professional majors. which would
make him the "greatest golfer of all time"...just thumb
his nose at the whole thing. Well...if people like Jon
Feinstein are make these demands on Woods maybe he should give it
up. After all, he can't remain a public person
forever. Eventually he will have to be concerned about the
kids and his business interests and his mother etc. Every
professional athlete has to do it and Wood's will be no exception.
As a sidebar, read what Dan Jenkins wrote in
Golf Digest...
"Friends have been asking me why I haven't written
my take on "the Tiger Woods deal," so here it comes.
First, let me just say that I'm still having
trouble getting past the video games and Fruit Loops. That's if
I'm to believe the report that Tiger was so distraught after
his indoor athleticism became public---and turned into what some
people call a Shakespearean tragedy---that he crawled into deep,
lonely hiding and occupied his time playing video games and eating
Fruit Loops.
Maybe it is
true, and that's why Tiger's agent, Mark Steinberg of IMG, said to
the media at one point, "Give the kid a break." Kid?
Tiger Woods was a month away from 34 years of
age when his debutantes began turning up in the news. He was a
grown man with a wife and two children. Well, we supposed he had a
wife, but that was before we learned she was only an ornament.
Kid?
Kids flew B-17s in daylight bombing raids over
Germany in World War II. Kids fought in Korea and Vietnam. Kids
are serving today in Iraq and Afghanistan so Tiger Woods can live
in a world where he can win 14 majors and match that number, the
last time I counted, with 14 casting couches, most of them
reserved for blondes.
Now excuse me a moment while I try to envision Ben
Hogan, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus playing video games and
eating Fruit Loops while they try to deal with a career problem.
Of course, Hogan, Palmer, and Nicklaus never set themselves up to
become future statues in Central Park. They never pretended to be
the All-American Daddy-Pop Father of the Year Who Also Wins Golf
Tournaments. They never sold themselves as the greatest Family
Values brand ever, and conquered the marketplace with it,
shamelessly scooping up hundreds of millions of dollars while
saying, "My family will always come first."
They were never what Tiger allowed himself to
become from the start: spoiled, pampered, hidden, guarded,
orchestrated, and entitled.
I'll tell you what Hogan, Palmer, Nicklaus were at
their peak. They were every bit as popular as Tiger, they endured
similar demands on their time, but they handled it courteously,
often with ease and enjoyment.
They were accessible, likeable,
knowable, conversant, as gracious in loss as they were in victory,
and, above all, amazingly helpful to those of us in the print
lodge who covered them.
That was their
brand. All the things Tiger never was.
As for Tiger's brand, boy, did that take a hit. For
all of the Tiger idolaters out there, it must have been like
finding out that ice cream sundaes give you gonorrhea.
Never in my knowledge of history has any famous
personality---in sports, show biz, or politics---ever fallen so
far so fast. Tiger Woods is graveyard dead, as the Southern
expression goes.
Life as Tiger has known it is over. His reputation
is ruined, possibly forever. His name that once meant mastery
over competitive golf now invokes cringes, giggles and all the
internet jokes you want to pass along.
Sure, he can come back and even win again, if he
man's up, but if he does he will only be a hero to the "you-da-man"
and "get-in-the-hole" crowd. And I can't imagine him coming back
as a "humbled man." That wouldn't be the owner of a yacht
insultingly named "Privacy," the guy that the press has slobbered
over for these past 12 years.
I covered Tiger winning his 14 professional majors,
but I can't say I know him. I knew the smile he put on for TV. I
knew the orchestrated remarks he granted us in his press room
interviews. I knew the air he punched when another outrageous putt
went in the cup. That's it.
I once made an effort to get to know the old
silicone collector. Tried to arrange dinners with him for a
little Q-and-A, on or off the record, his choice.
But the closest I ever got was this word from his
agent: "We have nothing to gain."
Now it's too late…I'm busy."
Unlike Dan Jenkins, The Raptor feels Tiger doesn't owe him
anything. He is the best - there is no doubt in my
mind. I've lived through Palmer, Nicklaus and Watson.
Unfortunately I missed Bobby Jones, Byron Nelson and Ben
Hogan. Look at that pose again...how many times has Wood's
pulled the impossible? Hole in one on 16 at Phoenix...hole
outs, chip ins, clutch putts in near darkness, If this is
it...The Raptor will miss it but he won't be sad. Tigers
Army will continue to march!
Originally Posted 01/03/10
The Raptor has been feverishly attempting to
nail down the major local golf stories of 2010 and at this point,
there is only innuendo and hearsay to state. It seems there
has been a member transition process going on at two private
clubs. The first, Lake View CC which is located in North
East, Pennsylvania has apparently lost three prominent members to
the Kahkwa Club.
According to anonymous sources, the three
LVCC members partnered with five Lake Shore members to obtain a
special rate on the initiation fee. At one time this
initiation was in excess of $30,000.00 but was lowered to
$10,000.00 per man for this "Gang of Eight". The
Gang members will put up $4,000.00 to join and then put up
$3,000.00 per year in 2011 and 2012 respectively.
The member counts at the private clubs
continue to lurch backwards with both Lake View and Lake Shore
hovering at a head count between 180 to 200 members.
Meanwhile, the Lawrence Park Golf Club membership is hovering at
about 325 members. While the roster at Kahkwa is difficult
to determine, The Raptor feels that there are about 325 to 350
members there as well.
The Whispering Woods roster will probably
start 2010 with 125 to 150 members. The member fee is
scheduled to be set at $2,000.00 for a single and $2850.00 for a
family. There will be special rates in play for driving
range usage which equate to about a 25% discount from the
advertised price.
The Raptor submits for you approval some
selected pictures of Whispering Woods Golf Club for the fall of
2009 - enjoy!
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