Click here to listen. How many times have you received a golf gift from someone who has never played the game? Although well intentioned, you secretly think, “that’s another one for the junkbox!” Never fear! Instead of tossing this year’s presents into an attic filled with useless golf accessories, download this week’s show onto your beloved’s iPod and give them an idea of what should really be stuffed into your stocking! In addition to a great list of stocking stuffers from retailers such as Swing Reminders, Thumb Caddy and Fine Tune Golf, we also opine on a few interesting new products from some ...

Click here to listen. Annika Sorenstam’s missed cut at the $1 million dollar ADT Championship resembles the 2008 LPGA season as a whole. As Sorenstam limped through the early rounds, a noticeably hurt Bivens on crutches did the same as she gave her “State of the Tour” address. Both were frustrated by their final tallies. Sorenstam definitely wanted to ace the finals and Bivens wanted to let everyone know that under her jurisdiction the LPGA was just dandy but neither could muster up the drive needed to do so. The new season will show a loss of three tournaments (to 31) as ...

Click here to listen. Phil Mickelson has dropped out of the 2009 Race to Dubai because he said he doesn’t have enough time to dedicate to both the European and PGA Tours. With second-rate performances at the two opening Euro Tour events in China, Mickelson may have felt his chances of making an upward move were slipping deciding instead to get out early and “save face”. Add Sergio Garcia’s leapfrog into second place in the World Rankings and that Tiger Woods may return for the 2009 PGA Tour season and Mickelson is probably more concerned with defending interests here at home than ...

Click here to listen. It has been said that you can tell a good deal about a person by the way he/she plays golf, and former Presidents are no exception. Which of our Commanders, for example, exemplified the integrity of the game and which men have bent the rules in their favor? In his book, “First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers and Cheaters From Taft to Bush", Don Van Natta Jr’s neatly organized categories helped define Presidential proclivities noting that more than just a few in the top job have “improved their lie” during a round. Both Clinton and Nixon made it ...

Click here to listen. The European Tour is sending a message to PGA Tour players, loud and clear, that a new era in golf is beginning with the 2009 season. A new spruced-up tour, in which the European Order of Merit has been replaced with “The Race to Dubai” offers a $10 million pie at the end of the season with another shared purse after the season-ending Dubai World Championship. Phil Mickelson may be defending this week at the first stop on the Euro Tour, the HSBC Champions in Shanghai, but guys like Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas are ready to pounce. Villegas, ...

Click here to listen. China, food for thought? In addition to keeping up with Russia and the U.S.A. with a newly developed missile system, China is also intent upon improving their visibility in the golf world and proving, as Annika Sorenstam said, that the LPGA is becoming a “global tour". Shanshan Feng, the only Chinese player on the LPGA Tour (so far) believes that, “China can become another Korea for golf. I believe so. Maybe not now but in the future.” In order to familiarize China as a golf destination, Feng, in the final round this week, even wore a shirt with ...

In the battle between the tortoise (Morgan) and the hare (Wie), the latest results are in: Morgan Pressel has taken the lead! With her second win on the Tour, Pressel has been making slow and steady progress in order to solidify both her position in the Rolex Rankings and as a serious contender in the LPGA. With a slew of top-ten finishes, a USA team win at the 2007 Solheim Cup and a pairing with Gulbis and Kerr to win the 2007 Wendy’s Three Tour Challenge under her belt, Morgan Pressel is pacing herself to become a long term player and ...

Click here to listen. Sprawling mountain views surrounded Barry and myself as soon as we departed Albuquerque airport for a week-long golf vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The closest we had been to seeing vistas like this was when we travelled through Red Rock Canyon in Nevada over fifteen years ago, as a side trip to Las Vegas. The thin air first caught my attention as I climbed the stairs to our ‘casita’ in the newly opened Encantado Resort, a member of the Auberge family of upscale properties. The ‘room’ in which we stayed had the same effect as the altitude. ...

Click here to listen. Please don’t say that Tiger Woods is becoming an elitist! I always thought that Woods’ upbringing was middle-class Cablinasian , entering the sport at a bit of a disadvantage but now it appears to me as if Tiger Woods is becoming one of them…that is, corporate, blue-blooded American. Even his name, Tiger, seems much more of a terrific marketing ploy than Eldrick, a name in which his father tagged him after being saved by a South Vietnamese soldier during the war. Woods believes, before even building his new golf course in Punta Brava, that it will rival Pebble ...

Click here to listen. Since Anthony Kim is now being heralded as one of the rising young stars of the PGA Tour (and this weekend with a third place finish at the Korea Open), it seems befitting that we spend some time examining the reasons behind his choked down golf grip. The obvious intent is to improve upon basic contact but it’s also a way to establish better control over all of your shots. Kim’s grip even caught the eye of announcer Johnny Miller who made this assessment. “If you grip down, you don’t get the club stuck behind you. Your body ...

Click here to listen. Golf Analyst Johnny Miller maintains that Tiger Woods was not missed at either the Tour Championship or the Ryder Cup. He has even gone so far as to blame Woods for Team USA’s problematic history. I can understand Miller’s Ryder Cup theory as Tiger Woods has rarely been known to be a team player but, taking his idea a step further, would the PGA Tour be better off with, or without Woods? It’s true that some of Miller’s off-the-cuff commentary can be a bit absurd (Mediate “looks like the guy who cleans Tiger’s swimming pool, for example") but ...

Click here to listen. It was hard not to notice the dejected expression in the eyes of Anthony Kim on Saturday after his teammate, Phil Mickelson, blew his putt on the seventeenth hole to lose to Stenson and Wilson. Kim’s outstretched hand failed to find Mickelson’s even though earlier pairings found the team of Kim/Mickelson to be a solid one. Kim’s victory against Garcia on Sunday proved that it was Mickelson who was the taildragger for Team USA. I understand that Phil is interested in obtaining his European Tour card. I say, let’s trade Lefty to Team Europe in 2010 for Justin ...

Click here to listen. The drive up to Turning Stone Resort and Casino in upstate New York was definitely part of the adventure during our only weekend away this summer. There were farms and cows everywhere and both Barry and I felt the history of the area as we passed through the bucolic countryside. Who would have ever imagined such beauty existed outside of the confines of the City? But, once I heard that Turning Stone Resort is one of the top-five tourist destinations in the entire State, I could understand why! The Oneida Indian Nation opened Turning Stone in 1993 and ...

Left with no other options to secure their prodigy an LPGA Tour card, Team Wie has decided that Michelle is taking a crack at Q-School! At her last hurrah, the State Farm Classic, Michelle actually had a chance to strut her stuff and prove to the world that she could place high up on the leaderboard, possibly even win! However, Wie left the trailer without signing her scorecard, earning a DQ and forcing her into the position in which she now stands, that is having to play the first stage of LPGA Q-School next week in California. This may not be such ...

And baby makes FOUR including Tiger Woods, Elin and Sam! Elin is pregnant once again, proving to skeptics that life is great for the world’s number-one golfer sans golf. No pressures of the FedEx Cup (Vijay Singh seems to have this series of events wrapped up anyway), the Ryder Cup (Team USA is going to unify thanks to his respite) or any of the final tournaments of the season which might have commanded his attention. Nope! The knee injury was perfect timing to work on building the nest. Tiger Woods has considered himself an only child despite having a step-family and has ...