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Summer in Australia for a golfer is a fantastic time. This past summer presented great events led by the Presidents Cup in November at Royal Melbourne and rounded out last month by the Women’s Australian Open at the same incredible venue.
During the past three months I’ve spent quite a lot of time on the road at tournaments and checking out plenty of courses – some to satisfy my own curiosity and others for stories to appear in this magazine at some stage.
With all the travel comes plenty of time waiting in airport lounges. Here are some of the things that have occupied my head space while twiddling thumbs in transit.
EXCESS BAGGAGE HURTS
I have been travelling with Qantas on a regular basis, as a golfer, for 15 years. You may or may not know but these days it doesn’t matter how much your combined weight is, as soon as you check in more than one piece of luggage you need to cough up $30 ($20 if you pre-pay online). Economy passengers are now allowed just one piece of check-in luggage so if you want to go on a golf holiday with your clubs, and not pay the excess, figure on wearing the same clothes for the whole trip.
It’s even worse if you fly international with Qantas as it charges $150 per extra piece.
Travelling golfers, you have been warned. Has the time come where we need to seriously consider leaving our clubs at home and hiring? For me that’s not an option, I’ll have to look at … changing carriers.
TOO MANY SIGNS
Golf was meant to be a pleasant, relaxing game. The one thing I really dislike on a course is a barrage of signage telling me not to do this and that.
I can appreciate that some public access courses need to have some signs, for example, directing cart traffic.
But one course I saw recently had more signs scattered around the course than golfers. One one hole I counted six signs within 30 metres of the green – four telling me which way to drive the cart, one telling me “don’t park here” and another instructing me to “park here”. I felt like I was on a highway, not a golf course.
WELCOME BACK THE ‘TACHE
What started as high-profile support of the Movember charity by Geoff Ogilvy, has evolved into a permanent fixture on the face of the 2006 US Open champion.
Ogilvy’s mo has been a talking point since he returned to the PGA Tour still sporting the hairy top lip. Can he become the first player with moustache to win the Masters since Craig ‘The Walrus’ Stadler did it back in 1982?
Surely a Masters win by Ogilvy would mark a return of the great sporting Aussie ‘stache. It would sit alongside the wonderful mo’s worn by Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, John Newcombe and Bob Shearer. I will, however, stop short of saying it is in the Merv Hughes class.
OBSOLETE BUNKERS
I played a course over the summer that had spent a small fortune rebuilding some holes and adding plenty of fairway bunkers to the layout.
While these bunkers looked impressive and certainly intimidated you while standing on the tee, it didn’t take long to realise that only really wayward shots would end up in one of these bunkers.
This club, and many others I have seen in recent years, has a practice of allowing rough to grow around nearly all fairway bunkers. This not only narrows the fairways but it affectively takes these bunkers out of play because the only balls going in them are those that fly in and are well wide of the middle of the fairway.
Personally, I think cutting the fairways a little wider and trimming them right to the edge of the bunkers increases the strategy required to avoid the sand and make a good score. That’s how they do it in the Melbourne Sandbelt and if it works there …
UGLY AUTOGRAPH HUNTERS
Here’s a spray for the two blokes I spotted elbowing kids aside as they surged forward to get an autograph from Tiger Woods at the Australian Open. You know who you are because I told you ‘Mr black Royal Sydney shirt’ and your blond-haired mate in the red Emirates cap to let the kids you were towering over to get closer.
With so many people crowding around I couldn’t tell whether you got his autograph or not consider this … it takes a real low life scumbag to bully past starry-eyed kids to grab a signature just to sell on eBay. I wish I knew your names so I could give you the public shaming you deserve.
MORE PLAYERS ON COURSE
I would be interested to hear any feedback from clubs, but there seemed to be lots of people playing golf over summer. Nearly every course I went to from November through the start of February had good numbers of players out and about. Even my local driving range had a queue of people waiting for hitting bays to become vacant.
We can only hope this trend continues.
Do you agree or disagree with any of Brendan’s rant? What experiences have you had? Let me know your thoughts via email on golf@golfaustralia.com.au or by leaving a comment below.
For daily golf news, Tour player retweets and comment updates, follow me on Twitter at brendanjames2.