On Thursday, PGA Tour veteran Dudley Hart will take an important step in what has been a trying journey. For the first time since undergoing spinal fusion surgery in June 2009, the 43-year-old pro will compete in a Tour event when he tees it up at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
Hart discussed the ups and downs of his lengthy rehabilitation with me recently, and my "Voices" column in the Feb. 6 issue of Golf World tells his story while highlighting just how difficult it is for an elite golfer to rebound from a lumbar spinal fusion.
A new physical therapy regimen has Hart feeling cautiously optimistic about his comeback prospects. Here's hoping the two-time Tour winner is successful in his quest.
Over the past three decades, filmmakers have continued to display an appetite for golf movies, despite their mixed box-office results. In Golf World's recent Arts issue, my feature on golf movies explores Hollywood's relationship with the game and how it has evolved in recent years.
Although films such as "Caddyshack," "Happy Gilmore" and "Tin Cup" achieved commercial success by treating the game less than seriously, more recent golf dramas such as "The Legend of Bagger Vance," "The Greatest Game Ever Played" and "Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius" have been tougher sells. But despite the fact that increasingly bottom-line driven Hollywood studios have shied away from golf movies lately, independent filmmakers' passion for the genre has kept it alive, as the 2011 releases "Seven Days in Utopia" and "Golf in the Kingdom" demonstrate.
The article reveals the stories behind these two new golf movies and shares perspectives from a few Hollywood notables - including "Tin Cup" co-writer/director Ron Shelton and "The Greatest Game Ever Played" screenwriter/producer Mark Frost - on the joys and challenges of making golf movies.
Earlier this month, Golf World published my "Voices" column reviewing the new golf movie "Seven Days in Utopia." The film, which premiered nationwide over Labor Day weekend, stars Robert Duvall as Johnny Crawford, an old rancher and former tour pro who offers golf and life lessons to a PGA Tour hopeful who's stranded in rural Utopia, Texas. Lucas Black, a 28-year-old actor known as one of Hollywood's best golfers, plays Crawford's protege, Luke Chisolm.
"Seven Days" also features PGA Tour player K.J. Choi in a significant role as T.K. Oh, a four-time Masters champion. Stewart Cink, Rickie Fowler and Rich Beem also make cameos as themselves.
Although the film is entertaining for golf enthusiasts and seeks to communicate a noble message, I felt the story fell a club short of a thumbs up. Although it hasn't been a blockbuster, "Seven Days" has garnered a following, especially in Texas, and remains open in select theatres.
Last Wednesday, just three days after winning the Greenbrier Classic, Scott Stallings spoke to me about his first PGA Tour victory. Despite earning more than $1 million and earning invitations to numerous prestigious tournaments, Stallings said the best part about winning was having well-known pros such as Steve Stricker, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Stewart Cink and Zach Johnson congratulate him after he arrived in Akron for last week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
I wrote a follow-up column on the life-changing implications of Stallings' victory for yesterday's New Hampshire Sunday News. I also discussed Stallings on the New England Golf Radio Show, a weekly program on WGAM The Game, New Hampshire's ESPN Radio affiliate.
Last Sunday's Boston Globe Magazine featured my article on golf school getaways as part of its spring travel guide. The article profiles three of the nation's leading golf academies - The Annika Academy outside Orlando, the Academy at La Cantera in San Antonio and the Hank Haney Golf Academy at Lake of Isles, adjacent to Connecticut's Foxwoods Resort & Casino. It also relates the story of one Massachusetts woman whose trip to golf school was a life-changing experience.
The Boston Globe Magazine is distributed weekly as an insert to the Boston Globe's Sunday edition, which has a circulation of more than 485,000 readers.
Since retiring from competitive golf in 2008, Annika Sorenstam has devoted herself to myriad business interests (including an Orlando golf academy) and starting a family with her husband, Mike McGee. But few may realize her dedication to the cause of children's health and wellness, for which she has advocated passionately through the Annika Foundation, a nonprofit endeavor on which the Hall of Fame golfer spends close to half her time these days.
I recently spoke with Sorenstam about her work to reduce childhood obesity in America and wrote a "Voices" column for Golf World magazine about her activism. Golf World, which debuted its "Voices" section in January as part of a magazine redesign, added me to its masthead as a contributing writer when it unveiled its new look. A freelance writer for the magazine since 2008, I join a stable of contributing writers that includes noted sports journalist and author John Feinstein and Pulitzer Prize-winner Dave Anderson, a longtime sports columnist for the New York Times.
One of my first Golf World projects of 2011, an examination of the Rules of Golf, was the lead feature in a special rules issue published in early March. The article explores the history of the rules, how they've evolved and the debate they've fueled recently in the wake of high-profile infractions on the pro tours and disqualifications precipitated by TV viewers who report rules violations they spot on golf telecasts.
In the Oct. 4 edition of Golf World, I interview Antony Scanlon, who will oversee golf's return to the Olympics at the 2016 Summer Games at Rio de Janeiro. A longtime Olympic organizer who has worked for the International Olympic Committee since 2004, Scanlon will become the director of the International Golf Federation on Nov. 1.
A 46-year-old Australian, Scanlon is a passionate 12-handicapper who grew up outside Sydney and learned the game from his uncle, a golf professional. In the interview, Scanlon talks about progress toward selection of an Olympic golf venue in Rio and discusses the impact he expects the Olympic tournament will have on the growth of golf worldwide, especially in developing nations.
In this week's issue of Golf World, I catch up with former LPGA player Cathy Gerring, a three-time winner whose career was cut short after she was badly burned in a 1992 cooking-fuel mishap inside a tournament hospitality tent. During an hourlong interview, Gerring was very open about her struggles since the accident, which included becoming addicted to painkillers in 2000 as she attempted an LPGA comeback. Clean since going through rehab in 2005, Gerring now serves on the board of a halfway house for women in her native Fort Wayne, Ind., and offers support to others in recovery. "If I have a choice between playing golf and helping somebody turn their life around, it's a no-brainer for me," she says in the article.
Last month, my byline debuted in two national publications, the 2010 Masters Journal and Seton Hall Magazine.
In the Masters Journal, the official program of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club, my article "Honored To Be Invited" chronicles the experience of the Masters' honorary invitees. Each year, the Masters invites past major champions who are not in the tournament field to participate in pre-tournament activities such as practice rounds and the well-known Wednesday Par 3 Contest.
In the article, noted pros such as Jerry Pate, Ian Baker-Finch and Andy North reflect on what being an honorary invitee means to them. Discussing his annual participation in the Par 3 Contest, 1991 British Open champ Baker-Finch says it best: "I tell people all the time it's my favorite day of the year."
In addition to its distribution at the Masters, the Masters Journal is available in bookstores and on newsstands across the country.
In the Winter/Spring 2010 issue of Seton Hall Magazine, my article "The Simple Power of 'Thank You' profiles Daniel Kocsis, a university alumnus who teaches middle-school English in Manchester, N.H. For more than a decade, Kocsis has had his students write letters of thanks to veterans each Veterans Day. The article discusses the rewards both students and veterans derive from this simple exercise while highlighting Kocsis, a humble but engaging character who is an avid marathoner and a church cantor who has sung the national anthem at Fenway Park.
When Phil Mickelson rolled in a birdie on the 18th hole to seal victory at the Masters on Sunday, I couldn't help but think that things were right with the world.
Throughout the tournament, commentators occasionally talked about how much Tiger Woods "has been through" the last five months, since his Thanksgiving weekend smashup led to revelations of rampant infidelity. At no point did I hear anyone talk about what Woods "put himself through" with his tawdry behavior.
And amid all the Woods comeback hype, precious little was said about what his rival Mickelson has been through over the past year. His wife, Amy, was diagnosed with breast cancer last May, while his mother, Mary, was diagnosed with the same disease last July. Appearing happy and healthy, both women were on hand at Augusta National to share in Phil's third Masters title, but no doubt recent months have been especially trying for the Mickelson clan.
The hand of fate appeared to be toying with Mickelson early in the final round when a loose impediment dropped into his putting line mid-stroke on the second green, sending his putt off line. And with a series of wild drives mid-round, it looked like Lefty might shoot himself out of contention.
But with some magic recoveries, Mickelson hung near the top of the leaderboard, and with a stellar back nine - highlighted by his gutsy swipe from the woods on No. 13, which set up a birdie - he added a third green jacket to his closet, joining Jimmy Demaret, Nick Faldo, Gary Player and Sam Snead as three-time Masters champions.
Although Mickelson might wear his shirts a little too tight and his hair a smidgen shaggy, he's hard not to like. His gallery acknowledgements and devotion to family seem sincere, and his emotion upon winning came across as authentic.
Woods, meanwhile, did himself no favors in the court of public opinion on Sunday. Frustrated with his swing struggles throughout the day, his temper was on display more than once. Afterward, when CBS announcer Peter Kostis asked a question alluding to his on-course demeanor, which Woods has promised to improve, Woods gave an annoyed response, claiming that people are making too much of the issue.
Woods deserves props for his scintillating eagle from the fairway on No. 7 and for hanging in the championship chase until a sloppy three-putt on 14. But you have to question his decision to don sunglasses between shots for the first time in his career. CBS apologist Jim Nantz claimed they were to keep the Augusta pollen out of his eyes, but the shades send the message that even after the revelations of the past five months, Woods still has something to hide.
A few other Masters tidbits: Fifty-year-old Fred Couples' spirited front-nine run made for good viewing, as did Anthony Kim's final-nine flourish. With his birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie stretch on Nos. 13-16, which vaulted him to a solo third-place finish, the 24-year-old signaled he will be a force in future Masters. Runner-up Lee Westwood, who posted his third consecutive top-3 finish in a major, was the picture of class in his post-round interview with Bill Macatee. And I was pulling for K.J. Choi, who was looking like the potential winner until bogeys on 13 and 14 derailed his bid. Choi played all four rounds with Woods, who could learn a thing or two from the Korean's calm comportment.
