Golf Empire

…and with whom he golfs.

[Photo courtesy of Pete Souza's slide show of Obama's first 100 Days in office,
Delivering on Change, an Inside Look]

Here is an overview of Haworth Country Club in northern Bergen, New Jersey on April 25. It was a beautiful, warm spring day with very little activity early in the morning. A perfect day for golfing.

This weekend is the annual Verizon Heritage Tournament at Harbour Town Golf Links is the annual “cooldown lap” from the Masters. Many of the big players, like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and others sit this one out. But that does not mean it is not exciting. The biggest story from the weekend was whether or not Boo Weekly, the winner the past two years, would be able to get the trifecta. Unfortuantely, this was not his year as Brian Gay took total control of the tournament, shooting twenty under! The next closest competitor, Luke Donald and Briny Baird were ten strokes back. Ten strokes, now that is impressive. As for the rest of the field and those who didn’t play, the next major will come soon enough! Cheers from South Carolina.

In one of the most memorable Masters to date, Angel Cabrera was able pull out the victory through one of golf’s most prestigious tournaments. Although he is not the best technical player on the tour, Cabrera really made his mark on the game through his clutch putting, especially on the 18th green where he was able to make a difficult putt to stay in contention. To honor his victory, Cabrera’s sponsor PING presented him with a solid gold putter, something that has become a tradition for winners on the tour sponsored by Ping. It was not only fitting because of his great effort, but also because of another Masters Tradition. After winning the tournament, the members at Augusta National request the winner give a club to the museum to commemorate their victory. Naturally Cabrera donated the gold putter.

After his victory, Cabrera traveled back to his hometown of Villa Allende in Argentina and was once again welcomed back as a national hero. This time he was able to show off his brand new green jacket, which he wore proudly. Personally I think the green jacket is one of the coolest traditions in golf and would be so happy to win one one day (just kidding). In a final and completely unrelated note, Angel Cabrera was channeling his inner Tiger this past Sunday by wearing his lucky color shirt. Whereas Tiger is famously known for the Sunday Red, Angel prefers the Sunday Yellow. It appears to be working well for him, as he wore the same color when he won his last tournament, the US Open.

This was during the practice round before this weekend’s tournament. Singh and his buddies were messing around on the 16th hole at Augusta, trying to skip their balls across the water, and his miraculously went in. The video is a little shaky, but this was the best view of the entire shot that I could find. Simply amazing.