Unfreaking believable.

It’s the only way to describe the ending of the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday March 16. With Bart Bryant putting the pressure on by finishing at nine under par, Tiger needed a birdie at the last to win the tournament. His approach left him twenty feet from the cup—a distance he had not holed from all week.

There was no way he was going to make that sliding, downhill shot. But he did. Of course.

While I still hold by my prediction that he won’t win the Masters, it’s becoming harder to believe it. With the way things are going for Tiger right now, anything is possible—even an undefeated season.

Was the putt a herald of destiny?

Cobra UFI Irons The UFI in Cobra’s new UFi Irons stands for ultimate forgiveness. Cobra has designed these using multiple materials: a Metal Matrix face incert, a polymer topline, a tungsten heel and toe weight, and steel alloy body. Cobra says that the combination of these materials results in Cobra’s highest Moment of Inertia and lowest Center of Gravity ever. That makes off center shots go further, and helps golfers to get the ball in the air more easily.

The Sports Economist links to a bit of research that reveals that:

Since 1947, English football teams wearing red shirts have been champions more often than expected on the basis of the proportion of clubs playing in red. To investigate whether this indicates an enhancement of long-term performance in red-wearing teams, we analysed the relative league positions of teams wearing different hues. Across all league divisions, red teams had the best home record, with significant differences in both percentage of maximum points achieved and mean position in the home league table. The effects were not due simply to a difference between teams playing in a colour and those playing in a predominantly white uniform, as the latter performed better than teams in yellow hues. No significant differences were found for performance in matches away from home, when teams commonly do not wear their “home” colours.

Hmmm. Red shirts result in more wins.

Tiger has known that for years.

The Never Search for Golf DVD looks really useful for those who love to love to mix golf with travel. It’s a computerized reference and map to all of the 18,000+ golf courses across the United States, and includes detailed information on each. The DVD also includes driving ranges, golf stores and information on 9,000 golf instructors. According to the website, if you have a GPS attachment for your computer, it also can give you directions to the courses.

This is one I’d love to have.

In 1923, Popular Mechanics apparently published an article on contests between archers and golfers on the course.

From the Modern Mechanix Blog

Silver Spoon With Flag Top And Sliding Ball

Ridiculous Golf Item of the Week

When Bobby Jones had his unparalleled year in 1930, he won the four biggest tournaments of his day: The US Amateur, the US Open, the British Amateur and the British Open Championship. It was a shocking achievement that made Jones a sports hero on a par with Babe Ruth—greater even, for the Babe never got a ticker tape parade in New York.

People struggled for words to describe the event. Atlanta Journal sports writer O.B. Keeler, Jones’ unofficial biographer and publicist, dubbed it the “Grand Slam,” borrowing not from baseball, but from a bridge term.

It must be remembered that, at that time, tournament golf was as much an amateur’s game as a pro’s. Walter Hagen may have been the only man at the time making a full time living playing tournament golf (as opposed to working as a club pro) .

So in 1960, after having won the Masters and US Open, Arnold Palmer was asked about Jones’ achievement by Pittsburgh sports writer Bob Drum on the plane flight to England where Palmer was to play in the Open Championship. Drum apparently lamented the fact that Palmer could not match Jones’ achievement because golf now was a pro’s game and not an amateur’s. No one would ever win the Amateur and Open national championships again.

Palmer then speculated that in the age of the professional, a more realistic Grand Slam would be the Masters, the US Open, the Open Championship (British Open) and the PGA Championship.

Palmer lost on the Old Course by a single stroke to Australia’s Kel Nagle.

But the dream had been indelibly etched into the mind of the golfing public.