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Catch the best while you can
Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle will answer your questions every Thursday during the golf season. Click here to send him a question. LOUISVILLE -- Get ready for major-championship withdrawal. After the PGA, it's eight months until the Masters. And with apologies to the Presidents Cup, which is fun to watch but lacks significance, there's not much left to look forward to the rest of this year in terms of big-time golf. So let's enjoy these last few gatherings of the world's best players while we can. Mail call:
Thanks for your compliment. Flattery will almost always get you in the Mailbag, Al. Lancaster is the only player to shoot 29 for nine holes in the U.S. Open, and he's done it twice. He can definitely make birdies. I think John Huston is also a brilliant player who, for whatever reasons, doesn't fulfill his potential. I can't believe he doesn't win a couple times every year. Glasson is a terrific athlete whose body keeps falling apart on him. He's done an amazing job adjusting to a bad back, bad knees, a torn forearm muscle and more, and still being competitive. He just hasn't been healthy to play in enough events to make the PGA, but he has the grit to win again on tour.
Following the British Open, U.S. Amateur champ David Gossett turned professional. Although he has only played in a couple of tournaments, he clearly has looked outclassed on the PGA Tour. Do you think he made a mistake turning pro? And does he have the game to eventually compete on tour? I thought he turned pro awfully early. It's my understanding that the University of Texas is the babe capital of the world. What's the rush to get in a grinding lifestyle of Hiltons and Marriotts and John Deere Classics? On the other hand, he knows his chosen profession, and staying in college may have been hindering his progress, in his mind. Sergio García and Woods made the leap from amateur to professional look easy. It's not. Most good college players don't make it to the PGA Tour for five or six years. Even David Duval had to spend a year's apprenticeship on the Nike Tour. Gossett has the game to play on tour if he keeps improving. He'll get there, sooner or later.
For as many years as I can remember, the most an amateur golfer can accept for doing well in a tournament is $500 worth of merchandise. That used to get you a complete set of the best clubs made, with money left over. Now you can get a driver -- if you wait for a sale. Do you think the maximum amount an amateur golfer can receive should be raised? Absolutely, as long as it's in merchandise. What's the big deal? I have real problems with the USGA's definition of amateur status, since it allows former professional tour players to regain amateur status. It's like being reinstated as a virgin. A guy who's on a college golf scholarship -- getting $20,000 or so in tuition and board, plus balls and gloves and bags and expense-paid travel and free tournament golf -- is an amateur, but if I win a TV set worth $502 in an outing, I'm not an amateur? That's unfair and ridiculous. Let's bump up the max to at least $1,000 -- or even $2,000, what's the difference? -- and let us amateurs at least win a set of new clubs.
I tend to take a long time over shots and would like a preshot routine to help me speed up my shot process. Any suggestions on which players to watch on tour or how I can develop such a routine? As Fuzzy Zoeller says, "Miss it faster." Try John Huston. He never even takes a practice swing. The longer the preshot routine, the more time you have to think. That can be bad. Try to take just one quick practice swing, step up to the ball, align the clubface to the target and pull the trigger. What's the big deal?
What's the big deal with Tiger on the cover of Time? Tiger's swing change is yesterday's news and the article didn't provide anything that the most cursory readers didn't know (well, maybe the term kaizen doesn't appear in many sports columns). Is Time trying to cash in on Tiger's prominence, but can't come up with an original take on his success? This just in, Joe. Time discovers Tiger Woods seven years after the rest of the world. Of course the magazine is cashing in. Besides, it needed a break from its usual cover fodder -- stories about angels and how great Al Gore is.
Between committing to play in the Dubai Classic (for a ridiculous sum of money) to being merely a token spokesman for the causes he claims to stand for, how fair is it to say that Tiger Woods has sold out? He is Corporate America's b----. I don't see him turning down a nickel any time soon. American Express just called, Sean. They want you to be the company's new spokesman for $3 million a year. You gonna turn them down or are you gonna sell out? Thought so. It's called capitalism, baby. Let's not single out Woods for selling out -- although I'm surprised, given the huge amounts of money he already has, that he continues to ink new deals to make money he'll never spend --when every other tour player does the same, albeit for considerably lesser amounts. Of course, if Tiger starts switching hats during a winner's press conference like one of those NASCAR drivers, then we'll all jump him.
Click here to send your golf question to Gary Van Sickle.
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