Charleston's Kelly from 95sx does her epic golf groupie best! Enjoying the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island.
Friday, 10 August 2012
Thursday, 9 August 2012
What if you could turn back time? What if you could go back to 1991, when an unknown 9th alternate won the PGA Championship?
When John Daly teed off this morning wearing his Attababe slacks by Loudmouth, the number of volunteer marshals dressed in their Carolina Blue and quite modest by comparison golf shirts out numbered the fans in the bleachers 3-1. Those on hand gave polite applause at Daly's introduction and again after his tee shot found the center of the fairway.
Yet no one expected much more excitement from the former PGA and Open Champion than his pants.
Daly had won the 1991 PGA in Cinderella fashion and three years later the (British) Open, after which his life turned a corner and wandered down a dark alley of divorce, heavy drinking and other missteps.
The hole marshal standing next to me had asked the same question I'd been asked at least 3 times this week, "Does Daly have a permanent exemption?" The answer I gave him, "he doesn't have an exemption, rather as past champion he has "qualified" already."
Daly's first birdie was witnessed by only a handful of patrons, but by the time John Daly made his second birdie of the day on the par 5 number 7 a pretty good sized crowd had formed. Those on hand to see his ball find the cup on number 11 for an eagle 3, were equal in number to those who followed Tiger Woods tee off on number 10.
By the end of the day, the crowd was chanting his name and for just a moment along this Carolina beach it was 1991 all over again.
Daly will start his second round on Thursday afternoon at 1:30 on the 10th tee with David Toms and Shaun Micheel. The forecast calls for hit and miss thundershowers and wind building to 13 mph by the afternoon tee time.
Can John Daly post a 67 to match his second round at The PGA Championship in 1991? One can only ask what if he does?
When John Daly teed off this morning wearing his Attababe slacks by Loudmouth, the number of volunteer marshals dressed in their Carolina Blue and quite modest by comparison golf shirts out numbered the fans in the bleachers 3-1. Those on hand gave polite applause at Daly's introduction and again after his tee shot found the center of the fairway.
Yet no one expected much more excitement from the former PGA and Open Champion than his pants.
Daly had won the 1991 PGA in Cinderella fashion and three years later the (British) Open, after which his life turned a corner and wandered down a dark alley of divorce, heavy drinking and other missteps.
The hole marshal standing next to me had asked the same question I'd been asked at least 3 times this week, "Does Daly have a permanent exemption?" The answer I gave him, "he doesn't have an exemption, rather as past champion he has "qualified" already."
Daly's first birdie was witnessed by only a handful of patrons, but by the time John Daly made his second birdie of the day on the par 5 number 7 a pretty good sized crowd had formed. Those on hand to see his ball find the cup on number 11 for an eagle 3, were equal in number to those who followed Tiger Woods tee off on number 10.
By the end of the day, the crowd was chanting his name and for just a moment along this Carolina beach it was 1991 all over again.
Daly will start his second round on Thursday afternoon at 1:30 on the 10th tee with David Toms and Shaun Micheel. The forecast calls for hit and miss thundershowers and wind building to 13 mph by the afternoon tee time.
Can John Daly post a 67 to match his second round at The PGA Championship in 1991? One can only ask what if he does?
This morning the 2012 PGA Championship will get underway at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island.
Besides the professional golfers and the 30,000 daily spectators, hundreds of golf writers will have descended on Kiawah to tell the story. Part of this story is The Ocean Course, of which much will be said as each writer gives his or her thoughts in detail of what the course is all about.
But The Ocean Course is not so much what it is, but rather what it is not.
Forget the comparison to Scottish links style courses, forget what you heard or read, the only thing The Ocean Course has in common with the famed courses across the pond is that there are 18 holes and that you start at number one.
This is not Carnoustie or Royal Birkdale names synonymous with pot bunkers, cold misty rain and screaming winds along the sea. The Ocean Course is void of pot bunkers; rather the entire course is surrounded by massive waste bunkers, which allows a player to "ground" his club, which is assuming one can find his ball which to strike at with said club, as the sand and sea oats tend to "swallow" errant shots.
The entire course is one big sand dune, and therefore The Ocean Course is in a state of continual change. Everything is moving. The dunes move and greens move and the fairways move. It is not unheard of to find sand where the day before there was grass.
Walking along the ocean side of the driving range this morning there are noticeable areas of sand incursion. Those guys with leaf blowers in the distance are not blowing leaves they are battling the sand.
Most courses left uncared for would still look like golf courses in a dozen years, The Ocean Course would simply vanish, covered over by the sand.
The sand will be the lasting image of the 2012 PGA Championship and patrons would be well advised to wear flops rather than golf shoes. This is a place where the wind relentlessly whips the sand to a powdery fluffy un-walkable mass of beach.
The wind, it builds through out the afternoon, pushing sand across the shore, sand that gets into your shoes, your golf bag and into that ham and cheese sandwich you brought from home.
There are no road holes, or stone bridges, there are no stones, or rocky over looks, just sand.
The Ocean Course is without the familiar spectator fleet offshore, those watching from home will not see video of gleaning white million dollar yachts anchored as a backdrop to the 18th hole, a standard at Hilton Head's Heritage Golf Classic. The gentle slope of Kiawah'sNorth Beach
This weekend will have rain like a links course, but it is a hot, humid, smothering rain and with it lightning that will send fans and officials running for cover.
The Ocean Course has a sound all its own, the sound is of the constant ocean breeze rushing across the sea oats and dunes of theSouth Carolina
The Ocean Course has been robbed of those sounds most familiar to golf fans, the sounds of song birds, and of a gentle wind caressing the Georgia Pines indigenous toAugusta
Those who have been to August know how the cheers rise up from Amen Corner, but along the Ocean Course much of the gallery roar will be diminished and muffled by the dunes and the ocean. And there are no song birds only laughing gulls whose voices are carried away on the wind.
And just because it is along the ocean doesn't mean it is likePebble Beach California
At mid day, on Kiawah Island you can’t see down the coast for more than a half of a mile, for the salt spray lifts into the air and rolls inland atop of the heat that ripples across the beach in shimmering waves that make objects fade, and disappear into the mist.
The Ocean Course does not haveAugusta Cyprus
There are no afternoon shadows for golf commentators to discuss on live television, while Tiger Woods paces back and forth across a green.
WhereAugusta
Unlike links courses ofScotland
And it is best not to try and "fish" out a water ball, since that floating log is not a log at all, but a 9 foot alligator nick-named Elvis. And Elvis has relatives, no less than a counted 14 floating silently in the marsh along the road to the patron entrance, which explains why there are no fences surrounding the course as none are needed with “Clan Elvis” on duty.
This is not St. Andrew's Old Course, were a shot is frequently played from the fairway one over, as here sand, water or tidal marsh divide every fairway. There is no US Open deep rough, if you miss a fairway you are in the sand, water or tidal marsh.
It is not Pebble Beach which is a do able 6,828 yards or Augusta National which has be stretched to 7,435 yards in recent years, The Ocean Course totals out at an un-godly 7,676 yards.
While the fairways and greens are a magnificent emerald green, this is not Augusta, the grass is not Bent or even Bermuda it is “Paspalum” with a touch of common crab grass both which thrive in the hot humid South and along the coast where the salt air penetrates everything. The grass is spongy and has a good bit of bounce, bounce that reacts to spin in unpredictable ways.
The air is warm and moist and the idea of playing in this weather is neither, appealing or fascinating. This is not the Bethpage Black where the wind whips and then subsides, thus backing away from a shot because the wind picked up is futile as the wind will only continue to build.
We describe the air along the southern barrier islands with words, like thick, and heavy, we say it is so thick you can cut it with a knife, we explain that the humid air smothers the fairways in dew each morning. But the air in fact is hot and thin, and golf balls tend to sink rather than sail as they do in colder air.
In the evening the wind shifts, settles and dies, and for long periods there is no wind, not a breath and the humidity hangs in the air much the way the Spanish moss hangs dripping from the Live Oak trees that surround gracious mansions with spacious southern verandas, where lemonade and sweet tea is served up like fireflies on a moonless night.
And overnight the dampness collects on the greens and the fairways, on the railings of the Ocean Course Club House and anything else that is left outside will become soaked with dew by daybreak.
Towels will be in abundance in the morning hours. The grounds crew will pull garden hoses down the fairways to break up the dew. And the dampness will give way again to the summer heat.
The Ocean Course is not a tourist “drive by” golf course likePebble Beach St. Andrews . The only road to the course is goes through not one but two security gates which means this will likely be the only time many will see the Ocean Course up close and yet it is a public course open to anyone who is willing to lay down the greens fee in excess of $250.00
August, along the barrier islands ofSouth Carolina
ThePGA Championship will be won by understanding this slow rhythm, by embracing the wind and the heat of August in the South. Feel the warmth, accept the humidity, wind and the sand and breath in all in, relax and the course will be yours, challenge it, rush headlong into it and you will spend your day in frustration.
On Sunday in the fading light of a summer's evening along this windswept South Carolina beach, long after the echoes of the crowds have departed and the pros have all gone home racing into the skies in their private jets, the Ocean Course will remain in the haze, and salt spray and in the dunes there is nothing but the wind and the sound of the Ocean Course at work, moving, forever changing and waiting.
Besides the professional golfers and the 30,000 daily spectators, hundreds of golf writers will have descended on Kiawah to tell the story. Part of this story is The Ocean Course, of which much will be said as each writer gives his or her thoughts in detail of what the course is all about.
But The Ocean Course is not so much what it is, but rather what it is not.
Forget the comparison to Scottish links style courses, forget what you heard or read, the only thing The Ocean Course has in common with the famed courses across the pond is that there are 18 holes and that you start at number one.
This is not Carnoustie or Royal Birkdale names synonymous with pot bunkers, cold misty rain and screaming winds along the sea. The Ocean Course is void of pot bunkers; rather the entire course is surrounded by massive waste bunkers, which allows a player to "ground" his club, which is assuming one can find his ball which to strike at with said club, as the sand and sea oats tend to "swallow" errant shots.
The entire course is one big sand dune, and therefore The Ocean Course is in a state of continual change. Everything is moving. The dunes move and greens move and the fairways move. It is not unheard of to find sand where the day before there was grass.
Walking along the ocean side of the driving range this morning there are noticeable areas of sand incursion. Those guys with leaf blowers in the distance are not blowing leaves they are battling the sand.
Most courses left uncared for would still look like golf courses in a dozen years, The Ocean Course would simply vanish, covered over by the sand.
The sand will be the lasting image of the 2012 PGA Championship and patrons would be well advised to wear flops rather than golf shoes. This is a place where the wind relentlessly whips the sand to a powdery fluffy un-walkable mass of beach.
The wind, it builds through out the afternoon, pushing sand across the shore, sand that gets into your shoes, your golf bag and into that ham and cheese sandwich you brought from home.
There are no road holes, or stone bridges, there are no stones, or rocky over looks, just sand.
The Ocean Course is without the familiar spectator fleet offshore, those watching from home will not see video of gleaning white million dollar yachts anchored as a backdrop to the 18th hole, a standard at Hilton Head's Heritage Golf Classic. The gentle slope of Kiawah's
This weekend will have rain like a links course, but it is a hot, humid, smothering rain and with it lightning that will send fans and officials running for cover.
The Ocean Course has a sound all its own, the sound is of the constant ocean breeze rushing across the sea oats and dunes of the
The Ocean Course has been robbed of those sounds most familiar to golf fans, the sounds of song birds, and of a gentle wind caressing the Georgia Pines indigenous to
Those who have been to August know how the cheers rise up from Amen Corner, but along the Ocean Course much of the gallery roar will be diminished and muffled by the dunes and the ocean. And there are no song birds only laughing gulls whose voices are carried away on the wind.
And just because it is along the ocean doesn't mean it is like
At mid day, on Kiawah Island you can’t see down the coast for more than a half of a mile, for the salt spray lifts into the air and rolls inland atop of the heat that ripples across the beach in shimmering waves that make objects fade, and disappear into the mist.
The Ocean Course does not have
There are no afternoon shadows for golf commentators to discuss on live television, while Tiger Woods paces back and forth across a green.
Where
Unlike links courses of
And it is best not to try and "fish" out a water ball, since that floating log is not a log at all, but a 9 foot alligator nick-named Elvis. And Elvis has relatives, no less than a counted 14 floating silently in the marsh along the road to the patron entrance, which explains why there are no fences surrounding the course as none are needed with “Clan Elvis” on duty.
This is not St. Andrew's Old Course, were a shot is frequently played from the fairway one over, as here sand, water or tidal marsh divide every fairway. There is no US Open deep rough, if you miss a fairway you are in the sand, water or tidal marsh.
It is not Pebble Beach which is a do able 6,828 yards or Augusta National which has be stretched to 7,435 yards in recent years, The Ocean Course totals out at an un-godly 7,676 yards.
While the fairways and greens are a magnificent emerald green, this is not Augusta, the grass is not Bent or even Bermuda it is “Paspalum” with a touch of common crab grass both which thrive in the hot humid South and along the coast where the salt air penetrates everything. The grass is spongy and has a good bit of bounce, bounce that reacts to spin in unpredictable ways.
The air is warm and moist and the idea of playing in this weather is neither, appealing or fascinating. This is not the Bethpage Black where the wind whips and then subsides, thus backing away from a shot because the wind picked up is futile as the wind will only continue to build.
We describe the air along the southern barrier islands with words, like thick, and heavy, we say it is so thick you can cut it with a knife, we explain that the humid air smothers the fairways in dew each morning. But the air in fact is hot and thin, and golf balls tend to sink rather than sail as they do in colder air.
In the evening the wind shifts, settles and dies, and for long periods there is no wind, not a breath and the humidity hangs in the air much the way the Spanish moss hangs dripping from the Live Oak trees that surround gracious mansions with spacious southern verandas, where lemonade and sweet tea is served up like fireflies on a moonless night.
And overnight the dampness collects on the greens and the fairways, on the railings of the Ocean Course Club House and anything else that is left outside will become soaked with dew by daybreak.
Towels will be in abundance in the morning hours. The grounds crew will pull garden hoses down the fairways to break up the dew. And the dampness will give way again to the summer heat.
The Ocean Course is not a tourist “drive by” golf course like
August, along the barrier islands of
The
On Sunday in the fading light of a summer's evening along this windswept South Carolina beach, long after the echoes of the crowds have departed and the pros have all gone home racing into the skies in their private jets, the Ocean Course will remain in the haze, and salt spray and in the dunes there is nothing but the wind and the sound of the Ocean Course at work, moving, forever changing and waiting.
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
The idea was to get a photo of Tiger Woods' 155 foot yacht "Privacy"which is moored at a 75' "T-Head" at the Bohicket Marina. The docks are just a well hit driver away from the entrance to Kiawah Island, and the 2012 PGA Championship, so it was just a quick trip around the corner.
With the sun rapidly heading over the horizon on Monday evening the lighting was off and the angles were all bad so I started making plans for a sunrise visit when the unexpected happened. Working her way down the dock was a 20 something with a cell phone plastered to her ear walked up.
It was pretty comical watching her try to figure out how to open the "makeshift" gate, explaining to whoever she was talking that the gate was locked. Eventually she got the unlocked gate to open, walked down the ramp and reportedly disappeared into Privacy.
Cedar Posts won't make any conclusions, but you can draw your own. I will say that, she did fit the profile, hotter than train smoke, with a good sized helping of skank.
With the sun rapidly heading over the horizon on Monday evening the lighting was off and the angles were all bad so I started making plans for a sunrise visit when the unexpected happened. Working her way down the dock was a 20 something with a cell phone plastered to her ear walked up.
It was pretty comical watching her try to figure out how to open the "makeshift" gate, explaining to whoever she was talking that the gate was locked. Eventually she got the unlocked gate to open, walked down the ramp and reportedly disappeared into Privacy.
Cedar Posts won't make any conclusions, but you can draw your own. I will say that, she did fit the profile, hotter than train smoke, with a good sized helping of skank.
Thursday, 2 August 2012
The home at 7127 The Greens in Charlotte's Piper Glen development, was once a prime venue for golf patrons during the PGA Senior Tour's Paine Webber and Home Depot Invitationals.
Charlotte Fire Department Captain Rob Brisby says the home suffered “significant damage” in a two-alarm fire Thursday night.
911 Dispatchers received the first of several 911 calls around 9:15 PM.
Engine 24 was first in and reported visiable heavy smoke and fire. In all 52 firefighters were called out to the scene. Traffic was shut down on Rea Road leaving some motorists exploring Piper Glen's dead end streets in frustration. Interestingly enough fire investigation team was still working the fire ground well onto the afternoon. Neighbors in the area reported several nearby lightning strikes in the hours before the fire. Alhough there has been no official word as to the cause of the fire from CFD.
Brisley said the fire caused an estimated $300,000 in damage.
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