Redemption
Nager New USGA President
Phil Mickelson’s Distractions
First things first:
We celebrate the resilience of American
Kyle Stanley, who squandered a nine-shot,
final-round lead in San Diego last week only
to bounce back from eight strokes behind
Sunday to win in Phoenix.
And we applaud the staying power of
Scotland’s Paul Lawrie, who 13 years after a
playoff victory in the Open Championship is
winning again with regularity, this time in Qatar.
But alas, there are the disturbing
developments in South America.
So many right-minded people in golf’s
power corridors saw the 2016 Olympics in
Brazil as a way to spread the good word
globally about our sport.
The price: Getting into bed with the
notoriously political and historically corrupt
International Olympic Committee. Add to that
the need to keep an eye on local real-estate
barons, who claim they own the deed to the
land selected for the course. Worse, there are
growing concerns that land is toxic.
Friday came the news from Rio de Janeiro
that there will be a month delay for the much-awaited choice of course architect. The Post
has since learned that most of the high-profile
design candidates are scratching-their-heads
clueless at the postponement.
There’s an old saying: If you lie down with
dogs, you wake up with fleas.
Which leaves golf-in-the-Olympics
proponents with two choices: They can risk
being naive and hope everything works out.
Or they can Fear The Itch.
Finally this: Is it just me or has the 16th
hole hype at TPC Scottsdale gotten a little
cliched and a teensy bit over-the-top?
