Fake Tiger Woods Putter?

Anytime someone takes the time and effort to link to this site, I'm extremely appreciative. Well, at least that's what I used to think.

Recently, I came across an eBay listing that linked to the Tiger Woods Scotty Cameron Putter post. To my astonishment, it appears that Grouchy Golf is being used to help sell a fake Tiger Woods Scotty Cameron Putter!

See it for yourself, if it's still available. It's an eBay auction entitled "Scotty Cameron Tiger Woods Red Circle Newport 2 Pro T."

From what I can tell, it's just a dinged-up Scotty Cameron Newport Two Pro Platinum not worth more than a C-note that's been doctored up to look like Tiger's Newport 2 303 GSS. The putter face and the bottom of the putter are the dead giveaways. While this technically may not be a counterfeit Scotty Cameron, it is grossly misleading at best with the seller claiming that "This club is the same club that Tiger Woods used on tour." To those in the know, it is obviously not the Cameron putter model that is in the hands of the world's #1.

It is such a blatant fake that it is laugh-out-loud, rolling-on-the-floor hilarious. It kinda reminds me of those cheesecocks who modified their Pontiac Fieros with cheap-looking fiberglass body panels to make them look like Ferrari Testarossas. Who are these people kidding?! If you're going to copy a Ferrari, at least get the color right. To my knowledge, Ferrari has never produced a car in Puke beige. Can you imagine if this guy tried to pawn this POS off as a bona fide Testarossa? I hope that no one would be fooled into buying it, just like I hope that no one would be fooled into buying that fake Tiger Woods putter.

Pine Valley Golf Club

The Crump Cup

Pine Valley is a very difficult course to gain access to, however, they admit the public once a year to view the final day of the Crump Cup championship. They allow you to walk the course unescorted. The great thing is that there are normally only a handful of matches of the course and you are allowed to walk wherever you want and I generally choose to walk the holes ahead of the match and can usually do so in quiet isolation. I don’t have any pictures of the course to share because they don’t allow you to bring a camera. You are also not allowed in the pro shop or clubhouse. Nevertheless, it may be the only way some of us will ever see the course.


A Reader's Impression of Pine Valley

I am waiting until I play the course to provide my personal impressions of the experience but I would like to share with you the experience of a reader who wrote to me after playing the course a couple of weeks ago. His passion and excitement are reflected in his writing. I can’t wait to play.

"I just returned from a memorable East Coast Swing, albeit short - it was indeed sweet. I now can just sum up all of the top 100 questers in the world like yourself by stating it all ends at Pine Valley. I have now played about 30 top 100's (depending on which year’s list) and Pine Valley definitely stands alone. That includes all of the top 25's that I have seen. It is golf's Holy Grail. It is a Mecca of perfection from A to Z. It is simply the best experience on this planet. Experiencing it ranks number four in my lifetime achievements, behind my wedding and the birth of my two sons. It is not just the course, but the whole package. If you could ever dream up how does it right, just blueprint everything about the place. Starting with the property itself, continuing to clubhouse, the cottages, and the simplicity of what a true great golf experience should be. It has it all. I had the privilege of a Saturday night dinner (that was exceptional yet simple - New York strip med. rare, a fine Bordeaux, incredible pie for dessert) followed by Port and Cuban cigars on the terrace. I was the first to stay overnight in my room in the new cottage building.

Perfection again with a simple room designed only for a comfortable night's sleep (A members mattress company provided the beds and it is so comfortable - many members order them for their own houses). The room only includes a flat screen television and an incredible overhead shower. No locks on any doors, no telephones, nothing written anywhere re. rules, etc. So we awake to breakfast (a small buffet that appeases a simple early a.m. appetite) and then golf. A perfect driving range, large and immaculate, of course with Pro V-1s. Before our early a.m. tee off, I noticed the course workers dragging the fairways to remove the morning dew and dry the fairways. Wow. Have not seen that at Riviera, LACC or anywhere for that matter. Then 18 different holes of absolute perfection. Waste areas, waste areas, waste areas. Perfect fairways, perfect rough, perfect greens. A layout and routing unmatched by any course in the world. With due respect to Old Tom, H.S., C.B., Dr. Mackenzie, Tillie, Raynor and Thomas.........Mr. Crump is the greatest golf architect that ever lived. Pine Valley is all he needed.

The caddies there are as great and colorful as any lot at St. Andrews or Augusta. On the course they even address members by first names and nicknames. It is not about the pomp at Pine Valley, it is about the golf and the nirvana like experience. The only yardage markers you see are codes on a few sprinkler heads.....for the caddies. Wow. No smoking on the golf course. Yes! No rakes on the golf course. Brilliant! After playing many of the holes you may have heard about or seen pictures of in books, magazines, the Golf Atlas on the web, etc., you come to the 13th tee and finish with best of the best. What a string of six finishing holes. Awesome.

I love the fact that there are only 350 members. A perfect amount. And women are not allowed to set foot on the property until Sundays after 1:00 p.m. Annika herself who wanted to play there this year was resigned to only that brief window of time. Love it! Tiger has never seen the course, albeit he has been invited. Trevino played there for the first time last year. I feel blessed, and as if my life is complete having had the whole Pine Valley experience. Passing thru the gates one gets the feeling of achieving a physical and spiritual wholeness. It is truly AWESOME.

If you can, save it for last. Play it after 99 others. Then go to heaven. "

Ryder Cup: American Golf Wake-Up Call

The 2006 Ryder Cup concluded this weekend as most expected. The European team delivered a complete shellacking to the American team. While the Europeans were favored, it wasn't even close.

Aside from being one of the most lopsided contests in the history of the Ryder Cup, the recent results highlight the problem with the future of professional American golf. On the ladie's side, the American stock looks healthy with the likes of Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel and Michelle Wie. However, the young talent on the male side has been paltry for a number of years. Sure, there's Tiger, Phil and Furyk. But after that, the talent drops off a cliff. As Johnny Miller puts it, "Seven of the top 30 in the world are Americans. That's unfathomable," he said. "I can't believe the state of the game in America. ... It's like you've got 12 guys - three of them are firing a 50-millimeter cannon and nine guys are shooting BB guns. The bottom line is, the U.S. has got to step it up."

Quite simply, there have just been a striking number of American male golf phenoms who never panned out. What ever happened to Ty Tryon and David Gossett Jr.? The other "young guns," namely Charles Howell III and Sean O'Hair, are good, but not exactly lighting it up. Outside of Tiger Woods, how many U.S. Amateur champs of the last decade are finding success on the PGA Tour? Ryan Moore is at least on the PGA Tour, but it remains to be seen whether he can ascend into the upper echelons. It's like the American golfer factory exhausted all of it's parts and craftmanship on Tiger Woods and then closed up shop.

So, are there any quick fixes for American golf's Y chromosome woes? I'd love to hear some ideas. Short of cloning Tiger Woods, I sure don't see any. As for the Ryder Cup, can we go back to how it was prior to 1979 when it was a contest between America and only the Brits?

Michelle Wie in PGA Tour Events? I'm all for it!

Last week, Michelle Wie made her sixth attempt to make the cut in a PGA Tour event at the 84 Lumber Classic. Like all of her previous attempts, she came up short. With each passing failure, more and more people are calling for an end to her exercise in futility.

However, I remain one of the few who wants to see Michelle continue to play in PGA Tour events. For one, I couldn't give a rat's arse about these tournaments if she didn't enter. The John Deere Classic and the 84 Lumber Classic? These tournaments are anything but classic. Take away Michelle Wie and these events wouldn't even register in my consciousness. At a minimum, these events aren't any less interesting without Wie.

Second, it's not like Michelle is forcing herself into these tournaments. She is invited to play via a sponsor's exemption. Sponsors pay the big bucks and in return are allowed to give several spots in the field to whomever they want. If they choose to give a spot to Wie or Dora the Explorer, it's their prerogative. You can't blame Wie for accepting an invite. Heck, I'd accept any and all invites that were sent my way. If people don't want Wie in these events, they should take issue with the sponsors. But, since these "minor" events are the only ones that would invite Wie, who cares?

But the primary reason that I want Michelle to play in PGA Tour events is that they are tremendous money-making opportunities. Every time she tees it up against the men, bookies are accepting proposition bets on whether she will make the cut. At the 84 Lumber, my bookie was offering a money line of -800 on Wie missing the cut. In other words, you win $100 if you are willing to lay $800.

Sounds like long odds, right? But not long enough if you consider the real odds. The golf course at Nemacolin Woodlands stretches over 7,500-yards and hosts a strong field. Michelle Wie had an ice cube chance in hell of making the cut. But those are the same chances for any woman. According to Robert Allenby, "...if Annika Sorenstam can't make the cut at [the 2003] Colonial, on the course that plays shortest on tour, then no chick in the world is going to make the cut on this tour."

If you could lay $800 to win $100 that the sun would rise tomorrow, you'd take it all day, correct? Well that's about the same bet as Wie missing the cut at the 84 Lumber. If you do the math, that's a 12.5% return over 2 days! By my calculations, that's an effective annual rate of over 200,000,000,000% (please correct me if I'm wrong)! I challenge you to find a better investment.

So, if you like easy money, you should support Wie's desire to play in PGA Tour events. The next time that she does, get yourself to Vegas or a local Ladbrokes and bet that she'll miss the cut. While you're at it, betting that Wie won't win a major next year is another sure bet. There's money for the taking!

A Postcard That We Can All Relate

There's a cool site that I visit on occasion called PostSecret.

The premise is simple: people send anonymous postcards to the site's owner confessing their dirty little secrets. Sometimes depressing, sometimes humorous, it's an intriguing and somewhat voyeuristic look into people's lives.

I had been contemplating sending a postcard until I noticed that someone had already sent in a similar confession:



Initially, I thought that it may have been sent by Vijay Singh, but I ruled him out because he couldn't possibly cheat each and every time. Michael Bamberger would never allow that to happen.

In reality, it could have been sent by any of us weekend warriors. I can't think of a round where I didn't either pick up a gimmie putt, improved my lie, tapped down a spike mark, or took an improper relief. It's not that I intentionally cheat, it's that it takes too much effort to follow all the rules. Is it just me? What would you write on your postcard.

Happy Labor Day. I'm Out Golfing!

Well, I'm taking a break from labor this week, and that means this site as well. In the meantime, here are a few things to check out:

The Ryder Cup is just around the corner. Get the latest info at the Ryder Cup Diary.

Also, I've updated my post of Darren Clarke's Swingvision Shank with the video. Although rare, even pros launch the dreaded hosel rocket. Even rarer is to capture such an event in slow motion! This video really is a must see!



Hit 'em straight and see you next week.