9 golfers who could have been stars in other sports!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
I once read that Rod Laver, legendary Australian tennis star, said that Jack Nicklaus could have been a world-class tennis star if he had not decided to pursue golf!
For example, there have been many multi-sport athletes, Deon Sanders and Bo Jackson, who excelled at both baseball and football at the highest level.
I was fortunate to work with a gentleman named Bob Cunningham in my days of running the Canadian Golf Academy. Bob won the Grey Cup (Canada’s version of the Super Bowl) and won a Canadian PGA Championship. Not too many people can say that!
Bleacher Report brings us PGA Tour players who would have been stars in other sports.
The PGA Tour is full of golfers who enjoy playing other sports when they’re not preparing for the next major championship or FedEx Cup event.
Some, such as Jack Nicklaus, were happy to unwind with their athletic hobbies during their downtime. Others, such as Anthony Kim, seem to have been torn between their current profession and other sports that captured their interest from a young age.
From Dustin Johnson dunking basketballs and Sergio Garcia taking penalties, to Hale Irwin lettering in football and Rickie Fowler jumping dunes in motocross, this list features an array of PGA regulars who not only embraced other sports, but also were potentially good enough to have gone pro in them.
With that in mind, let’s dive in and posit on alternate realities where some of our golfing icons may have been heroes in other sports.
David Cannon/Getty Images
According to Ernie Els’ official website, the South African was a promising multi-sport athlete in his youth:
“As a youngster, he was outstanding in cricket, rugby and tennis. At the age of 13 he won a significant regional tennis event, the Eastern Transvaal Junior Championships.”
Relatively early on, though, Els (obviously) switched over to golf. Just one year after that tennis triumph, he won the World Junior Golf Championship in San Diego by defeating a young Phil Mickelson, among others.
Els began competing against professional golfers at age 16 and eventually turned pro in 1989. The rest—70 victories, including four major championships—is history.
Could the South African have gone pro in a sport other than golf? It’s difficult to tell, considering he was so young at the time, but his early success gives us reason to believe.
To see the other 8 PGA Tour players that could have played another sport, check out the slide show below.
Is Bobby Jones’ 1930 Grand Slam Victories Overrated?
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
When Bobby Jones won the 1930 Grand Slam, a ticker-tape parade was held in his honor on Wall Street!
It was a feat no one else had accomplished at that time! With the advent of the modern Grand Slam in 1960 (said to be attributed to Arnold Palmer with a metaphor about a Grand Slam in baseball, which drove in 4 runs), this has been the goal of every professional golfer ever since! Tiger Woods won 4 Majors with 3 in 2000 and the Masters in 2001 to complete the Tiger Slam.
All things being equal, does Bobby Jones’ feat still compare to the modern equivalent?
As Jordan Spieth was making his run at a third consecutive major last week at St. Andrews, the comparisons to Bobby Jones’ 1930 single-season “Grand Slam” inevitably commenced.
For those who enjoy romanticizing history, this comparison may have seemed warranted.
But by delving into Jones’ 1930 wins a little deeper, one will quickly realize that any comparison between a modern-day professional Grand Slam and the four tournaments Jones won in 1930 is almost laughable.
By 1930, golf had already evolved into a professional game.
Amateurs won three out of the four U.S. Opens played between 1913 and 1916.
But between 1919 (the event was not held in 1917 or 1918 due to World War I) and 1930, Jones was the only amateur to win the U.S. Open.
In fact, only four other amateurs even cracked the top 10 at a U.S. Open during that time frame. After Jones’ 1930 U.S. Open victory, only one other amateur—Johnny Goodman—would ever win a U.S. Open.
Jones was also the only amateur to win the British Open between 1920 and 1930, although Roger Wethered came close in 1921 when he tied for the 72-hole lead and lost to Jock Hutchison in a playoff.
Aside from Jones and Wethered, only three other amateurs cracked the top 10 at the British Open in the decade leading up to Jones’ Grand Slam run in 1930.
Any way you slice it, the era’s top golfers, other than Jones, were almost exclusively professionals.
With Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen clearly leading the way.
Jones’ 1930 Grand Slam consisted of wins at the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Open and British Amateur.
The Masters had not yet been formed, and Jones was not eligible to compete in the PGA Championship, as this event was only open to professionals.
This meant that Jones only needed to compete against a superior field of professional golfers at two out of those four Grand Slam events. In addition, Hagen and Sarazendidn’t even make the trip over to England for the 1930 British Open at Royal Liverpool.
So, essentially, Jones only competed against the other two top players of that generation at one of his four Grand Slam events, the 1930 U.S. Open, which he won at Interlachen Country Club.
As an amateur, events such as the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur would have been extremely important to Jones, but these would not have been even remotely close to the toughest fields Jones could have competed in during the 1930 season.
It would have been far more difficult for Jones to win the U.S. Open, the British Open and events such as the Western Open (which many considered to be another major during that era) and the North and South Open (another event attended by virtually every top professional of that era).
Wins at those four events would have come against professional fields that were significantly stronger than those he faced off against at the U.S. and British Amateurs.
While the general public of the time may have still held more respect for gentlemen amateur golfers than the so-called traveling gamblers that made up the professional ranks, there is no question that the professional golfers were far superior to the amateurs throughout most of the 1920s and certainly by 1930.
As such, Jones’ 1930 Grand Slam cannot even really be compared to a modern-day professional Grand Slam, as any modern-day Grand Slam would involve beating all of the top golfers on the planet at four straight majors.
10 Players who could still be picked for the Presidents Cup!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
I always look forward to the Presidents Cup with much anticipation.
Because as a former South African and a Canadian Citizen, I always pull for the “Rest of the World.” They have not been very successful in recent years, but this year may be different. The American team is strong, with Major Champions Jordan Spieth and Zach Johnson heading a powerful contingent. However, close behind are Jason Day and Louis Oosthuizen, who has been strong in the Majors. Looks like an interesting battle. Tough choices for the Captain’s Picks after the PGA Championship! Bleacher Report has put together a list of players who can still make the US Team if they have a strong showing in the next few months!
The 2015 Presidents Cup is exactly 75 days away starting on Thursday, October 8, but the date is about all that’s set in stone when it comes to the United States’ plan of duplicating its 2013 triumph over the international team.
Though the process is nearing its end, there are still months of FedEx Cup points to sort out before the top 10 Americans in the standings can be determined.
Tour players have been collecting those points since the BMW Championship in 2013 and will continue to fight for pole position through the 2015 Deutsche Bank Championship (September 4-7).
Immediately after that event, U.S. captain Jay Haas and his assistants Fred Couples and Davis Love III will have a total of two captain’s picks to make on September 8 to finalize the squad.
But who’s most likely to be on Hass’ short list in two months’ time? Which players are on the cusp of breaking into the top 10 after two years of diligently compiling FedEx Cup points for a shot at international glory?
Billy Horschel is right on the bubble!
Well, guys like J.B. Holmes, Brandt Snedeker and Robert Streb are all poised to crack that list, but they could hardly be considered “under the radar.” So far this season, Snedeker has eight top-10 finishes, while Streb has seven, and Holmes has five (not to mention each of them has also won an event this season and featured in the top 10 of last week’s British Open).
Charlie Hoffman needs to step up his game in the next few weeks!
But others have been playing well—just not quite so prominently.
Let’s take a look at 10 surprising players who have been putting in the work behind the scenes over the last two years and quietly inching their way into contention for the 2015 U.S Presidents Cup team.
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Betting on golf is a perfectly legal endeavor in Great Britain, and the odds for the 2015 British Open Championship might surprise you.
For instance, according to the bookmakers, Tiger Woods is more of a favorite to win than Jason Day, Bubba Watson, Sergio Garcia, Martin Kaymer, and Matt Kuchar! That was certainly a huge surprise to me! Thanks to bleacherreport.com for this very enlightening article!
Ladbrokes betting stores are as common in Britain as convenience stores in the USA!
The 2015 British Open is set to begin early Thursday morning, and the expectations for favorites and sleepers alike are boundless as predictions are made for the year’s third major.
The Open Championship at the Old Course of St. Andrews is an event unlike any other in the world, as the sport returns to its esteemed home at one of the most tradition-rich courses on the planet. Playing there tends to bring out the best in some of the top golfers, as seven of the last eight winners there already had a major on their resume.
Let’s take a closer look at the most notable favorites and sleepers and what can be expected from them.
Favorite: Jordan Spieth
It’s safe to say expectations haven’t been this high for an American at St. Andrews since the heyday of Tiger Woods. With the chance to win the elusive Grand Slam in 2015, the 21-year-old phenom Jordan Spieth is a massive favorite.
Even if Rory McIlroy hadn’t injured his ankle and withdrawn from the tournament, Spieth still would have been the center of attention at St. Andrews. And as if winning the first two majors of the year (including the Masters in historic fashion) wasn’t enough, he also was one of just a few Open contenders to play in the John Deere Classic last weekend.
Spieth won the event in a playoff.
There’s one obvious shortcoming for Spieth in that he hasn’t played the iconic course in an Open, but he’s heeding the advice of some experienced vets, as ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski reported:
The Old Course typically rewards good ball-strikers who also excel on the greens, and that’s exactly the type of golfer Spieth is proving to be this year. He ranks third on strokes gained from tee to green while hitting 63 percent of his fairways and ranking as the eighth-best putter on tour.
Spieth is absolutely locked in with his putter, and two weeks of working on his game in between the U.S. Open and John Deere Classic didn’t keep him from continuing his winning streak. Nothing less than a week near the top of the leaderboard and a Sunday in the final pairing should be expected from the young American.
Favorite: Rickie Fowler
Spieth isn’t the only young American star who has entered St. Andrews coming off an impressive win and near the top of the list of favorites.
Joining him is Rickie Fowler, who unlike Spieth, is searching for the first major of his career after numerous near-misses. But like his fellow American, Fowler won a big tournament Sunday, taking the Scottish Open over a heap of British Open contenders.
He may not be on a winning streak like Spieth, but Fowler is still getting results stemming from his title at The Players, per ESPN Stats & Info:
Fowler might actually have an advantage over Spieth in the tee box, at least in 2015, as he’s hitting the ball an average of 294 yards per drive and ranks 27th in total driving. But his inconsistent putting could elude him in another major, as he’s giving up minus-.067 strokes on the greens—which ranks 126th.
The California native will need to get his flat stick in order if he wants to be around the top of the leaderboard come Sunday. Without that, he’ll flirt with the cut line.
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Rivalries have been around since Cain and Able. The rivalry is what competition thrives on.
The strongest survives! The gladiators in the arena of sports. Whether it be baseball, football, basketball, tennis, or chess, rivalries make us watch. Who watched chess until Boris Spassky played Bobby Fisher? What a great rivalry! What great trash talk!
They incite heavy interest and emotion amongst the fans.
They give the media and television networks appealing storylines to pursue from a promotional standpoint.
And whether the rivalries actually exist in the minds of the athletes or it is simply a matter of the participants knowing that a particular game or match is receiving more attention than usual, the on-field competition tends to reach a whole new level when rivals face off against one another.
Rivalries are easy to identify and become emotionally involved in when it comes to team sports.
North Carolina and Duke face off against one another at least twice per year on the hardwood.
The Red Sox and Yankees play numerous games against one another during the course of the season.
Ohio St. vs. Michigan is an event that rivals few others each and every autumn.
But what about golf?
There have obviously been a number of truly great players whose reign at the top happened to coincide with the careers of other great players.
But has rivalries in golf ever truly existed in professional golf?
In the last decade, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods have become fierce rivals!
The answer to that question may surprise you.
Let’s take a closer look at what many consider to be the greatest rivalries in the history of golf.
The top 5 PGA Tour golfers with the shortest tempers!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Losing your temper on the golf course is never pretty, and it never accomplishes a thing!
But I have seen my fair share of club throwers and club breakers, and on almost every occasion, the player feels slightly embarrassed after the deed, even if he/she doesn’t act that way! Here is a slideshow of PGA Tour golfers who fit this category. Henrik Stenson was the one who really surprised me. He always seems so cool, calm, and collected. I liked his toss, though.
If you play golf, you’ve almost certainly teed it up with one guy or gal who frequently becomes unglued. And here’s the thing: Your games of golf don’t matter.
Imagine if that person was, say, missing out on a few hundred grand thanks to a missed putt or losing out on the prospect of collecting a paycheck for the week entirely.
Such is the situation for the PGA Tour’s best. Thus, in a high-stakes, high-tension environment, sometimes these guys needs to let off a little steam in the form or, say, a torrent of expletives or a club tossed with abandon.
Here are five of the PGA Tour’s finest who need to spend some time in timeout.
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
The USGA has taken criticism from every angle.
Golf Pros, Press, General Public, and bloggers and posters like myself. But when you look at the USGA’s intent, they were only doing what they thought was right. And how many times in our lives have we thought we were doing something with honorable intentions, only to have it blow up in our face? Here is a great story from Michael Fitzpatrick of bleacherreport.com, who is on the USGA side. Maybe!
Chambers Bay certainly turned out to be a spectacularly beautiful location!
The USGA has long been the target of fierce criticism within the world of golf.
It has been accused of being too conservative and not progressing with technology and a changing culture.
It has been accused of being too rigid in its devotion to what many view as antiquated rules of the game.
The USGA has often attempted to roll back golfing technology that makes it easier for amateur players (who make up 99 percent of the golfing public in America) to enjoy the game, such as new golf ball technology and anchored putters. This has put the organization at odds with the PGA of America more than a few times over the past several decades.
In essence, the USGA is viewed by many as an organization that has been set in its outdated ways for far too long.
While there is certainly some credence to this unflattering public image the USGA has obtained, the organization has attempted to alter its behaviors in recent years. Yet these attempts have more often than not yielded even further criticism from players, fans and the media.
For example, the USGA had long been criticized for creating U.S. Open courses that were difficult to the point of being almost unfair.
Pundits claim was that it was over the top to have rough so thick that players were in effect receiving a penalty of at least one stroke for missing a fairway by just a few inches.
So, in 2006, the USGA tried introducing graduated rough at Winged Foot. At which time the organization promptly had the acusation of going soft on the best players in the world at an event that is meant to be the toughest test in all of golf.
In recent years the USGA has also tried to stray from its cookie-cutter U.S. Open course selection process (very long, traditional, northern golf courses).
The USGA took the Open back to Merion in 2013, which was a track many believed could never host an Open again due to its inability to stretch the course beyond 7,000 yards.
Merion with their familiar Basket instead of a flag was a stern test despite its length!
The USGA then took the 2014 Open back to Pinehurst, which had no rough at all and had been pursuing a center-row irrigation system to preserve water and operating costs.
Merion was widely regarded as a success in 2013, as was Pinehurst in 2014.
The USGA once again tried to push the envelope by selecting Chambers Bay for the 2015 U.S. Open.
Not a lot of water is needed to sustain Chambers Bay.
The greens are comprise of the exact same type of grass used throughout the rest of the course (fescue).
No expensive man-made water hazards were included in the construction process.
The bunkering consists of a mixture of sand and the natural soil, which is why you may have seen players removing stones from bunkers without being penalized last week.
Chambers Bay was chosen as much to showcase a working example of a sustainable, affordable golf course built on top of what was essentially wasteland. And it was chosen to challenge the best players in the world.
While Merion and Pinehurst were huge successes, Chambers Bay was clearly a poor decision by the USGA.
The main criteria through which to measure a good golf course vs. a bad course is quite simple—a good course rewards good shots and penalizes bad ones.
Unfortunately the exact opposite occurred last week at Chambers Bay.
Top 10 Most Stunning Courses in America – #2 is my Favorite!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
I personally think all golf courses are picturesque!
Even little dog tracks in Smalltown, USA, are picturesque to the people who play them. I ever played the first golf course in South Downs Country Club, just outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. I thought it was the most beautiful place in the world! Ben Alberstadt of bleacherreport.com gives us his ideas on what his top 10 most stunning courses are. I’m sure he won’t have all my top 10, and I’m sure I won’t have your top 10. So, create YOUR top 10 and send them to me below in the comments section.
There are few golf courses in the world as breathtaking as Pebble Beach!
What makes for a picturesque golf course? While the answer may be subjective, here’s the definition from Merriam-Webster:
a: resembling a picture; suggesting a painted scene b: charming or quaint in appearance
We’ll stick with idea that these courses present many views worthy of commemorating in a picture.
Admittedly heavy on courses played on the PGA Tour as well as top-ranked courses on national lists, this ranking lays out one version of the most picturesque courses in the United States.
Have any thoughts on what locations ought to make the list? Let us know in the comments.
Who is the next Jordan Spieth – Five Players catch the eye!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Picking who the next “Great” will be on the world stage is like trying to pick the Triple Crown winner before the Kentucky Derby.
Almost impossible! Tiger Woods had greatness written all over him when he came to the PGA Tour and Jack Nicklaus because both of them had had outstanding amateur careers and already dominated their peers. But no one could have predicted the meteoric rise of Jordan Spieth.
Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods came onto the PGA Tour with glowing credentials. Who is going to follow?
Are there any other golfers on the horizon who are ready to break out and have stellar careers? Ben Alberstadt of bleacherreport.com has his eye on 5 candidates. Here they are.
Following Jordan Spieth’s breakthrough success, which included his first PGA Tour win at 19 and his first major at 21 (his second major at 21 as well), it seems natural to ask, “Who will be the next to break through?”
The tour has seen a rash of first-time winners in recent years. This season alone has given us Ben Martin, Robert Streb, Nick Taylor, Brooks Koepka, James Hahn, Alex Cejka and Fabian Gomez.
No golfer is likely to match Spieth’s prodigious success in his brief tour career, and indeed, all the golfers on this list are older than the 21-year-old Texan. Still, several exciting players are on the cusp of raising a trophy on tour, and we’ll likely see a name added to the list above.
Five candidates stand out. Who are they? Read on to find out.
Tiger determined to get back on top – Yes but is the mind willing?
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
There is nothing I would like to see more than Tiger Woods come back to form and start winning tournaments again.
It was so much fun for golf fans around the world to watch him compete. And pull out amazing shots when he needed to. I don’t think Chambers Bay is the right course for Tiger to make his comeback. But the British Open at St. Andrews will be my prediction of Tigers’ return to the winner’s circle. Time will tell! Thanks to BBC Sports for this honest interview with Woods.
Fourteen-time major champion Tiger Woods is “devoted” to the game of golf and determined to overcome his season’s “struggles” at the US Open at Chambers Bay.
The world number 195 – his lowest ever ranking – shot his worst career round of 85 last month at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio having made significant swing changes with coach Chris Como.
Woods won his last major at the US Open seven years ago and the 39-year-old will need to contend with the many “variables” of the Chambers Bay course.
Favorite: Jordan Spieth
The USGA has taken criticism from every angle. 
