6 months ago coming out of the gym I stopped for a veggie-burrito & water - the guy told me that “you should never drink water with food - it’ll make you fat” and I was completely blown away by the misconception that water could ever be anything but helpful in your body.
Usually when athletes are called goats, it isn’t a good thing.
But in this case it is very fitting. Tiger Woods and Roger Federer are not just the best players of our time but they are solidifying themselves as the Greatest Of All Time and easily the most dominant players in any sport.
Both are currently on amazing streaks. This past weekend Tiger captured his 7th straight PGA tour victory while Federer claimed his 3rd consecutive Grand Slam title – without losing a single set in the process.
So who is the most dominant in their sport? It is a tough call but without taking anything away from Tiger, Federer is an amazing talent but because of his shy and reserved natured and because Tennis isn’t as popular in North America as it is over seas, we rarely hear much about him and we don’t see him doing TV commercials. Keep in mind too, Tiger has the luxury of playing whenever he wants to while Federer keeps playing year round.
When Tiger was voted the 2006 AP Athlete of the Year, he stated,
“What [Federer] has done in tennis, I think, is far greater than what I’ve done in golf.”
Regardless, what is great is how both players are good friends who continually drive each other to get better.
Who do you think is more dominant?
Par 5 - 5 Questions with Danny Fritz - Director of Golf Properties, IMG Canada
GL - You were the former COO of the CJGA where you had the unique opportunity to shape the future of Canadian golf. Over the last few years we have seen some great young Canadian talent emerge and have some great success on the international scene. What role does the CJGA play in that?
DF – The Canadian Junior Golf Association has been in existence for almost 15 years and its goal is to give Canadian junior golfers an opportunity to develop their competitive skills. It does that through six different stages of a young golfer’s development, starting as early as the age of five, right up to competition at an international level. CJGA alumni include some of Canada’s best young pro prospects including Derek Gillespie, James Lepp and Chris Baryla.
GL - You joined IMG in March 2006, what attracted to you IMG?
DF – IMG is the best in the world at what they do and the company’s presence in golf is unmatched. I had worked quite closely with IMG over the years in my role with CJGA, and I was excited about the chance to expand my experience in the industry specifically in TV and media, two areas that IMG specializes in. It is an ideal scenario because I am still quite closely involved in the CJGA because of the work they do with IMG.
GL - This past year IMG made the decision to drop many ‘team’ athletes and represent more individual athletes, with golfers amongst the most prominent. What can we expect to see from IMG Golf? The representation of more golfers, more events, possibly television programming?
DF - It’s interesting to note that IMG was in fact founded on golf so it really is the foundation of the company’s success. From representing the majority of the world’s top professional golfers, to owning or producing golf events, to even being very involved in golf course design, golf is an important part of every facet of IMG’s businesses. A big part of the reason to move away from some of the team sports was a strategy to focus on our company’s biggest strengths, and that includes individual sports like golf and tennis. With that being said, IMG is aggressively growing those core strengths so I think it’s fair to say that you will see IMG expand its interests in golf in the future.
GL - The Telus Skins game has been a very popular event the last few years. What can we expect from the event this year and are there other events we should keep an eye out for?
DF -This year marks the 15th Anniversary for the TELUS Skins Game, an event that is considered by the players to be the best Skins Game in the world. Every year IMG Canada works to keep the event fresh with a creative theme, location and player talent. Last year’s event in Banff, Alberta was easily the most successful in the event’s history, so it will be difficult to top, but that’s half the fun of this event; trying to always make this year’s event more entertaining than the last. We are also working on two or three different golf events that we hope to announce in the coming months so it makes for a very busy schedule all year round.
GL - Most people reading this would love to have your job. Do you get to play much golf now that you are sitting in the Ivory Tower?
DF – I don’t necessarily get to play as much golf, but I am literally always around the game which is obviously very rewarding. You probably won’t find many people who will say they’re just as happy being at work as they would be on the golf course, but I’m lucky enough to say that I’m one of them!
GL – Thanks Danny!
For our local readers, Oasis Indoor Golf is running their indoor golf simulator league starting February 1, 2007. It sounds like a good time. The details are below:
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This year’s event will be starting on Thursday, February 1st at the Oasis Indoor Golf Center’s state-of-the-art Golf Simulators in Markham, Ontario. Registration will be CLOSED on Monday, January 29th at 9pm.The cost for this event is only $300. This price includes entry into all events, 9- holes of golf every week for 10 weeks, complimentary snack & soft drink for each player and a chance to win some great prizes.
All prizes will be an awarded at the Dinner & Awards Night on Friday, April 29, 2007 at the Oasis Indoor Golf Center.
To help us properly plan for this event, please pre-register by calling the Oasis Front desk at (905) 415-4653 or send us an email at info@oasisindoorgolf.ca. . Golf attire is required. Collared shirts and slacks. No steel spikes are allowed on the course.
Courses:
Pinehurst No. 2
Bay Hill Club & Lodge more…
Apart from the sixteen major storms that have hit Vancouver the past two months, ripping old growth timber from its roots, there has been a similar tempest blowing at the Marine Drive Golf Club. Thirty-six female members have failed for the second time to gain equal status to the club’s men-only Bullpen lounge.
The recent ruling by the B.C. Court of Appeals, and before that the B.C. Supreme Court, found the club’s facilities are not public on any reasonable interpretation and therefore it has not violated any discrimination codes against women. While women are permitted access to the club’s newly redecorated mixed lounge with a better view, they cannot enter the one preserve left for men only.
Rose-Mary Basham, the Vancouver lawyer handling the appeal for the complainants, plans to take the issue to the Supreme Court of Canada. Brian Butters, president of the club, says the issue is finished after two court rulings on the club’s behalf.
On the surface this appears to be a petty squabble, rooted in a lifestyle where members gather socially behind the stately gates of privilege and what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse.
Basham thinks otherwise. She is a golfer at the sister Point Grey Golf Club, where she broke a 75-year tradition in 1994 by becoming a one of the club’s first fully paying female members when she challenged the Point Grey club’s by-laws so she could play on Saturdays. She learned in her research that the club’s founders had already provided the rights to full-play membership for women but that no other female up to that point had taken advantage of the opportunity.
Basham is self-described five-eighths Chinese, with a mix of Filipino and Irish. She says she is not a crusading feminist. “I got involved because if the (Marine Drive) club can discriminate over gender they will have an unfettered right to discriminate against any member on the basis of race, age, and religion.”
Butters says there is no discrimination. Over the past two years he has led a renovation effort at the club to increase the size and service in the women’s lounge along with providing a better west-facing view of the 18th hole. “The men gave up much of their view.”
Butters, elected by the membership to serve a third term as president, says the issue was little more than “room envy.”
Butters claims the complaints come from 15% of the total female membership of approximately 225 women. Further, he has full support from other women members who have on “multiple occasions overwhelmingly supported gender-specific lounges.”
This begs the question: Why would women who are offended by club policy and who complain of harassment continue to support an organization that prides itself on its male-only policy?
“I really don’t know,” Butters responds. “Some have left the club. If anyone else is unhappy I wish they would leave too.”
Basham is still on the fight card and has started the next appeal. “Allowing discrimination of any kind sends a message that it’s okay to segregate,” Basham says. “This is not just about men and women in a private social club. This is about law.”
Butters chaffs at her accusations. “No amount of fear-mongering or alarmist rhetoric by the complainants or their legal counsel is likely to change that point of view.”
There is an apocryphal story from Scotland that says golf was originally an acronym for “gentlemen only, ladies forbidden”. In southwest Vancouver golf lives on in the Bullpen.
This is a day late and a little off topic but I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t wish a Happy 65th to Muhammad Ali.
Ali was before my time but my father is a big boxing fan and got me watching the sport and appreciating “The Sweet Science” of boxing. No one was bigger in, and out of the ring than Ali. At a time when racial tensions ran high, here was a man not afraid to stand up for what he believed. What modern day athlete would sacrifice 3 years out of their career (in their prime) to stand up for their beliefs?
For a long time The Champ was possibly the most recognized face on the planet…and this was in a time when there was no world wide web. This isn’t because he was a world-class boxer, this is because he was larger than life.
Ihave never claimed to be a writer so I won’t go on. if you don’t know much about Ali, please spend some time reading about the man…he is fascinating. In the meantime, please check out this story but one of my favorite sports writers, Stephen Brunt (you are still my favourite Dad).
“Muhammad Ali was a simple kid, a beautiful athlete, an original talent. Funny, quick, cruel and brave. A silent saint.”
The rest of the story is HERE. Happy Birthday Champ!
Once again Hamilton, Ontario councillors are debating whether to sell the city owned golf courses to developers. What I don’t understand is why governments continually look to sell profitable, publicly owned proerties. The Ontario government did it with Highway 407 and now Hamilton wants to do it to their golf courses.
Golf Courses, when run correctly, can be very profitable ventures. That money can then be used to help fund other city-run projects and programs and keep taxes reasonable.
I hope saner heads prevail at city council and that King’s Forest and Chedoke remain owned and operated by the City of Hamilton.
Maybe it was the midnight parties where scantily clad women posed in photo-shoots in the driveway. It could have been the blacked-out windows that aroused suspicion among residents living in metro Atlanta’s most exclusive suburb. Eventually neighbors’ complaints led to the arrest of Lisa Ann Taylor, 42, on charges of prostitution, racketeering and drug offenses. Also arrested was Taylor’s business partner, Nicole Alaine Probert, 30, who uses the names Naughty Nikki and Brigit Foxxx, according to her arrest warrant.
The arrests shocked many in the gated Sugarloaf community, site of the PGA’s Bell South Classic since 1997 and home to many of the area’s wealthiest executives, pro sports figures and leading entertainers in the area’s hip-hop music scene.
Taylor’s mansion at 2800 Sugarloaf Club Drive is located near the golf course’s Stables Hole #9, a par-four 465-yard dogleg. Apparently she kept a neat lawn and a low profile, a curious attribute for a curvaceous beauty also known as Melissa Wolf, star of several X-rated films. Her website boasts she was not only a Penthouse Pet of the Month in 1985 but The Most Publicized Pet. With her full-frontal photo spread across the pages of the on-line press and Internet blogs, Taylor could well add to her credentials.
Mortgage and maintenance of Taylor’s residence – assessed at $1,091,700 – can be pretty steep for all but high profiled athletes. Taylor, in a court filing, listed her gross annual income around $140,000 and somehow managed to make ends meet by allegedly charging her clients $10,000 for weekend sex. She openly advertised on her website for people seeking prostitutes. The investigators admit to monitoring the website over a five-week period to build their case against Taylor and her patrons, many of them hoping their aliases won’t betray them.
The Sugarloaf course, designed by golf great Greg Norman, has since distinguished itself in PGA play as a lead-up to the Masters held a week later in Marietta, Georgia. The tees on the 9th demand precision drives down a fairway bordered by trees on the left and a creek cutting along the right edge of a hardwood forest. There is no evidence to date whether any golfers looking for lost balls ever sought relief in the madam’s residence.
Both women have made bail and the mansion now has a lien on it, but the incident will no doubt be a topic of conversation during this summer’s 2007 Bell South Classic. The players and gallery might discuss Phil Mickelson’s back to back wins the past two years or they could be talking about the trial and sentencing of the two women. It’s a good possibility that when players choose their driver for the 9th they might just smile and pick a fairway wood.
I am very please to announce?The Illogical Golf Blog will add yet another writer to our fine roster.? I am thrilled to introduce you to Michael Shandrick?
Michael is an accomplished writer?who’s work has included everything from?essays and poetry to novels to screenplays and stageplays.? Please put your golf gloves together and help me in welcoming Michael to the team.