|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Remembering the 1996 PGA at Valhalla
Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle will answer your questions every Thursday during the golf season. Click here to send him a question. As a millennium major site, Valhalla Golf Club pales in comparison with Augusta National, Pebble Beach and St. Andrews. It's like adding Pauly Shore to the Three Tenors. In defense of Valhalla (sort of), some exciting stuff happened during the 1996 PGA Championship. Things you probably forgot about. Such as:
Meanwhile, this week's mail:
When will Tiger Woods start to use his ever-heightening influence to become the sort of social liaison to the masses Earl Woods so emphatically babbles about? To the best of my knowledge Tiger has yet to make any sort of social stance in public, but takes every possible opportunity to take the conservative high-road and build on his wealth. With his educational background (albeit brief) I would expect more from someone in his position. I find Woods -- as well as Michael Jordan -- to be nothing more than sell-out cash cows with no political or social substance. Quite depressing, really. Social liaison? Take a public stance? You haven't been following professional golf for very long, have you, Jared? A tour player's idea of taking a stand is when he complains because he got a Regal instead of a LeSabre as his courtesy car for the week.
With Greg Norman, are we looking at a great champion who has fought too many wars and is about to fade out of sight? As long as he tees it up, I still want to believe he has a major left in him. Maybe I've taken too many punches. Just maybe? Are there any others in your cult, Todd? Actually, Norman's return from hip surgery was impressive at the International. Having someone tell him he's never going to win again or never going to win another major is the kind of challenge that appeals to the competitive Shark. Being an underdog might be just the incentive that gets him to focus on golf and make one last run at a few championships. As I recall, he was in the race at Valhalla at the 1996 PGA Championship. He could be an interesting dark horse next week ... if you believe in miracles. Todd, say hi to Wally, the Beaver and Eldridge for me, will ya?
I don't want to sound like some liberal wacko, but don't you think Opens should be played on courses the public can actually play? St. Andrews is accessible to the teeming masses, and that is a good thing. The greens fees are less than Pebble Beach's $350 price tag. Fight golf elitism! Open the Open to the public. Thank you for supporting middle-class golf. Every British Open rota course is available for public golf on a pre-arranged basis. In two years, the U.S. Open goes to Bethpage Black, a public course on Long Island. And it was on Pinehurst No. 2 last year, a resort course. Personally, I'd like to see the Open go to a 5,800-yard muni that's filled with divots, has no grass on its tees, has shaggy greens running about 6.2 on the stimpmeter and bunkers filled with 70 percent dirt, 30 percent gravel. That would produce a true National Open champion.
If GVS took his 1 handicap to the following courses, set up for tournament play, what would he shoot? A) Any Buy.com Tour course. B) PGA Tour stop. C) Augusta National. Two, if Tom Lehman played my local goat ranch, sight unseen, under normal conditions with crappy tees and bare greens, what would he shoot? Kevin, on a good day GVS would shoot: A) 75; B) 77; C) 86 (with 44 putts). On a bad day, I shudder to think; spectators should definitely wear helmets. Lehman shoots no worse than 66 on your goat track, hitting irons into all four par-5s and making several birdies on the par-4s with wedges (assuming he had a decent yardage book). Then we order beers -- and, of course, we make him buy.
John Daly vs. Ian Baker-Finch in match play: Who wins? How long does the match take? Who's the first to get his ball through the windmill and up the clown's nose? I don't know, Larry. Maybe you should stick with pulling the wings off insects.
Click here to send your golf question to Gary Van Sickle.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
