John Huggan of The Scotsman has a Christmas wish list for golf.

I read the Scotsman’s golf clumns to get a perspective from somethere other than the United States. In this one, US golf takes a real beating. Huggan suggests a World Tour minus the US; accuses the US Open of being “tedious”; calls for a drought in the US (be careful there; we grow a substantial portion of the world’s food supply) to make our courses more interesting and tells us to ditch the golf carts.

In that last, at least, I agree with him.

I’m sure that everyone out there is SO THRILLED by The Golf Channel’s “Big Break” shows that you can’t wait for the next golf based reality show. Not to worry. It’s coming.

The Golf Channel is currently seeking participants for its newest brainchild: a reality show in which inventors will showcase their new golf products.

Actually, this sounds like it could be a whole lot better than The Big Break—a show which I find so insufferable that I cringe even when I see a commercial for it. It could be especially fun if some of the participants were zany mad scientist types.

You can get information on the new show here.

“It’s not a pleasant thing to shoot 79, but I deserved every stroke.”

- Tom Watson, after shooting a 79 on the final day of the Senior PGA Championship

I’ve speculated that The Masters would be the first tournament to go to a standardized ball, but it seems that the Ohio Golf Association will beat them to the punch.

GolfWeek is reporting that the Ohio Golf Association will use a standardized ball in the Ohio Champions Tournament this August. Golfweek reports that

Although OGA executive director Jim Popa is quick to point out that the tournament ball “is not a short ball, but rather a uniform ball,” it doesn’t take much imagination to understand what the OGA is doing.

Alan Fadel, a former PGA Tour player who has been a reinstated amateur for almost 20 years, is chairman of the OGA ball committee.

“We haven’t chosen the exact ball yet,” Fadel said, “but we are leaning to one that optimizes (distance efficiency off the tee) between 100 and 105 miles per hour (driver swing speed). The ball is not going to benefit somebody at 120 (mph) the way the current ball does. We are trying to achieve a little more equality, that’s all. The guy who swings 120 will still hit it farther than most of the other players, but not quite so far.

I have to say that I’m conflicted over this standardized ball thing. On the one hand, it does seem that the ability to fine tune the ball has given an oversized advantage to the big hitters. But on the other, I wonder if they should be penalized just because they’re good enough to take advantage of that technology.

It still seems to me that the thing to do is to narrow the fairways or let the rough grow deeper. I’ve read that four inch rough will just about force every player to try to get the ball in the fairway. The lie, otherwise, is too risky.

But this thing with the ball bears watching.

This isn’t anything like Ben Hogan’s “secret.” In fact, George Archer’s secret doesn’t have anything to do with golf.  You see, the Master’s Champion (who passed away in 2005) was unable to read. The problem went undiagnosed throughout his life, but likely was dyslexia and a non verbal learning disability.

In a heartbreaking article in Golf for Women, his wife tells of the efforts that they went through to both hide, and cope with, his problem. She read the mail and the contracts, filled out the tournament entry forms, paid all the bills, read the road maps and the local rules sheets. Archer avoided endorsemetns because he was afraid that he might have to read something; he apparently was worried that some fan would ask him to personalize an autograph.

I know a thing or two about coping with a handicap. With a “profound” hearing loss since birth, I have developed numerous defensive strategies for coping in the hearing world. Most people never realize that anything is wrong, since I have become a master lipreader (although my school-for-the-deaf-manufactured speech does apparently sound a little odd to most—but people always tell me they just thought it was a regional accent). And my life has gotten a lot easier since I’ve been married. My wife orders for me in noisy restaurants, makes phone calls and generally runs interference whenever possible.

I’m not an emotional guy (just ask my wife. It’s her biggest complaint), but the Archer story got me. You should give it a read.