Dean Wilson
The PGA Tour season ended the last week of October with the Tour Championship. Only 27 players in the field of Champions from the 2006 season played. Hawaii's Dean Wilson was one of them. When the season begins in January of 2007 with the Mercedes Benz Championship, Wilson will be there too. Some of the winners chose not to play at the Tour Championship, for health or family reasons, including Tiger Woods who said he just wanted to get away from the game for a while. The no shows at what are supposed to be the most exclusive events makes some people wonder whether the Fed Ex Cup and it's ten million dollar prize will actually reverse the trend and attract the big names to the season ending events. When you've got millions in your account already, family and health take the front seat.
Mark Rolfing makes a very good point in his "State of the Game" talk to the Friends of Hawaii Charities Tee Off breakfast at the beginning of November. Rolfing said the "Aloha Season", which includes two season opening events on the PGA Tour, Champions Tour and LPGA Tour, is "fragile". Rolfing says the State of Hawaii needs to put together a coalition of influential people who can impress upon the powers that be in professional golf how important the "Aloha Season" is to us. I hope he means influential people with a large amount of money or options to negotiate with.
Mark Rolfing - "The Golf Channel", NBC golf commentator
Like Rolfing, I would also like to know who decided it would be a good idea to have the Wendy's Champions Skins game played on the same weekend as the Sony Open in Hawaii. The move was very short sighted.
With all due respect to Mr. Rolfing, without the cash, I don't think any number of "influential people" can persuade the professional tours to continue to come to Hawaii.
We've got four major events on Oahu. The traffic and urban sprawl isn't exactly attractive. The thrill of coming to Hawaii for the professional golfers on all the Tours wears thin after a couple of trips here. They can fight through traffic in any Mainland destination that isn't as tiring to get to.
Rolfing points out the Tours have to pay more to stage events in Hawaii. In addition to that negative, Rolfing says, the Tours have 25 to 30 percent fewer potential sponsors here than on the mainland.
But if you dig a little deeper, there is what I call the 'arrogance factor' holding Hawaii back from really making a strong commitment to the Tours.
Some people in higher places seem to think simply "allowing" these events to be staged in Hawaii is reward enough for the Tours. After all, Hawaii is a tropical paradise with the safety of still being within the United States.
I find that extremely short sighted. We will lose prestigious events to other states and countries if we continue to think that way. We're seeing it already with the PGA Grand Slam of Golf. It has nothing to do with how beautiful Hawaii is and the friendly people here. The entire planet, from North Korea to Bulgaria and the smallest islands in between, are building multi million and billion dollar resorts in gorgeous settings to attract the professional golf tours to their locales. These new entities are also willing to pay huge sums of money to guarantee the best possible purse for the players.
In his State of the Game, Rolfing points out we don't even have a sponsor for the Turtle Bay Championship, the first full field champions tour event. Isn't Hawaii enjoying one of the best economic booms since the 1980's? Is all of the money being made in Hawaii, leaving Hawaii? Is that why none of the "local" companies are willing to put up some of their profits to keep Hawaii profitable by sponsoring a Champions Tour event?
Turtle Bay Resort Palmer Course - Home of the Champions Tour Turtle Bay Championship/LPGA SBS Open
The PGA Grand Slam of Golf is being wooed by people in Bermuda. People there are willing to pay out 3 million dollars for the event. The State of Hawaii saved the PGA Grand Slam of Golf for one more year last year. Another 500 thousand dollars was added to the one million dollar purse. That's hardly enough. Not when you consider how many people around the world will see Hawaii on their television set. We couldn't buy that kind of advertising for that price.
One and a half million dollars. It sounds like a lot of money. It's not. Michelle Wie earns a million just to show up at the Japan Tour Casio World Open.
Michelle Wie
Who knows how much Tiger Woods gets now for appearance fees. Winning the PGA Grand Slam of Golf doesn't even pay a million to the winner.
Unfortunately, the privileged few in Hawaii, the "influential people", like to keep themselves insulated from the middle class. They treat themselves and their buddies like "rock stars" and promoters staging "concerts" with "backstage" passes reserved for themselves. Just as golf as an industry needs to open up to the middle class, so do these called upon movers and shakers in Hawaii when it comes to getting support to make the "Aloha Season" stay.
Mark Rolfing is quoted in an article published in the Honolulu Advertiser written by Ann Miller who was at the Friends of Hawaii Charities kick off breakfast. Rolfing said "We have more clout collectively than individually." adding "The push should start with the host organizations and whatever group of influential people we can get". I believe there are a lot of people who'd like to get involved but can't because they are kept out of the process for political and social reasons.
When the first "We are the World" release was produced and performers from around the world went to Los Angeles to participate in the singing of this song, the slogan then was: "Leave your ego at the door".
I'd like to see a whole lot of ego left at a whole lot of doors in the golf business in Hawaii. A lot of courses paid dearly when the Japanese bubble burst and they didn't have a kama'aina market share to count on. Seems we are doomed to learn that lesson all over again. This time the business people seem to think Hawaii will be spared another economic disaster because travelers are afraid of going to foreign countries where they may encounter a terrorist strike.
Did anyone ever think the "49'er's" wouldn't be the San Francisco 49'er's? How's that for sticker shock.
We often hear how much money the golf industry in Hawaii generates. The World Golf Village in St. John's County has added 3.25 billion dollars to the northeast Florida counties of Clay, Duval, Flagler, Putnam and St. Johns from 1995 to 2005. The World Golf Hall of Fame officials wanted to demonstrate its value. An independent agency, a department within the University of Florida, conducted did the study.
The World Golf Hall of Fame has seven new inductees including Larry Nelson and Vijay Singh. Nelson learned the game during his tour of duty in the Vietnam war and Singh taught in the rain forest of Borneo to make a living while learning the game.
Nelson won three majors including the U.S. Open at Oakmont and the only American to go 5 and 0 in the Ryder Cup. They were inducted with former Masters and PGA Champion Henry Picard, Marilynn Smith, one of the 13 founders of the LPGA, and IMG Founder Mark McCormack who reshaped sports management with Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods.
Poipu - Home of the PGA Grand Slam of Golf
Tiger Woods played in November. He skipped the season ending Tour Championship. Woods took six weeks off to get ready for the last events of the year and the beginning of next year. Woods played at the HSBC in Shanghai China, a combined European/Asian Tour event. There were thousands in the galleries, the condition of the golf course was spectacular, the players were treated like princes and the purse was 5 million dollars. Woods came in second after an on and off four rounds of golf including a course record 64. The next week he was scheduled for a tournament in Japan and on his way home he stopped off to play in Hawaii in Poipu at the PGA Grand Slam of Golf.
In December, Woods hosts his fundraiser, the Target World Challenge before going home for the holidays.
Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods is launching his own golf course design company to build golf courses around the world. Woods says his goal is to provide a unique collection of amazing courses all over the world that represent what he loves about the game. Jack Nicklaus first began his work as a course architect with Pete Dye in the mid 1960's but didn't design his own course until Glen Abbey outside Toronto in 1976.
Kapalua Plantation Course, Kapalua, Maui
The Mercedes Benz Championship at Kapalua kicks off the official 2007 PGA Tour season. Only the winners of the events from 2006 get to stay at Kapalua and play at the Plantation course. This year, it's a first for Hawaii residents. We have a Hawaii born and raised PGA Tour winner who'll be in the field at Kapalua. Hawaii's David Ishii won on the PGA Tour but that was before the Mercedes Benz Championship began in the 1990's.
We'll see plenty of action in Hawaii. The Sony Open in Hawaii, where Michelle Wie will attempt to make the cut in a PGA Tour event, starts off the 2007 PGA Tour season.
The following week, the Mastercard Championship at Hualalai is the Champions Tour equivalent of the Mercedes Benz Championship at Kapalua. Former Hawaii resident Scott Simpson will be playing this year after his victory at the Champions Tour AT&T Pro Am. The Champions Tour full field event begins that Tour's season at the Turtle Bay Championship.
Hopefully Annika Sorenstam will make the trip to Hawaii this year
After the men leave the islands, the women come to play. The LPGA begins two local events on the North Shore of Oahu. The first is the SBS Open at Turtle Bay followed by The Fields Open at Ko Olina on the West Side of Oahu. Last year, Michelle Wie opted out of the SBS but played in the Inaugural Fields event. Before my deadline, the Wie camp had not yet published her 2007 schedule but she was headed to the Casio World Open in Japan where she made the cut last year.
Get your tickets for all of these events coming to Hawaii. It's the way we can show the Tours how much we appreciate the chance to see great golf in action. The Sony Open in Hawaii tickets are available at all First Hawaiian Bank branches and while supplies last, you'll get a Sony Open in Hawaii visor, autograph pen, and dining certificates for Sergio's Italian Restaurant with the purchase of a Season Badge. Some restrictions apply and all the money is for charities in Hawaii.
"The Golf Club" radio show will be broadcasting live from these season opening events. You can listen in on Saturday morning either on the Internet at www.radiogolfclub.com or on one of four local radio stations. On Oahu, it's KUMU AM 1500, on Kauai it's KTOH FM 99.9, on Maui it's KONI FM 104.7 and on the Big Island, in Hilo, it's KPUA AM. If you're on the Kona side of the Big Island, you'll be able to pick up the KONI FM 104.7. If you're the 18th caller, you can win a dozen Titleist golf balls!
David Ishii at the Pearl Country Club
I'll also take the remote equipment to broadcast "The Golf Club" radio show from the Pearl Open at the Pearl County Club. That's the first major event of the local 2007 golf season. Every year, we get a chance to catch up with David Ishii, Greg Meyer and the great Hawaii amateur and professional players plus those who come to Hawaii from around the world to play in what's become one of the biggest purse local golf events in the islands.
There is another reason it's important to get a feel for competition at the Pearl Country Club. Pearl Country Club is where a number of qualifying events have been held over the years. One big chance in 2007: qualifying for the Sony Open in Hawaii 2007 will be held at the Makaha Resort Golf Club. 16 year old Ayaka Kaneko will be there trying to get into the 2007 Sony Open in Hawaii.
The Turtle Bay Resort Palmer and Fazio courses are always very busy with professional events, both national and local, plus the many special events like "The Golf Channel" "Big Break" series or it's Keiki "Drive, Chip, Putt" contests and high school tournaments. Now Director of Golf Matt Hall is pulling together the Turtle Bay Resort caddie program.
Hall is organizing a pool of caddies, mainly high school and college players who have time to be caddies on the weekends. The caddies have to pass the caddie program taught by the Western Golf Association. Most people don't have a chance to experience the game of golf with a caddie. It's only a five dollar fee added on to the price of the round. The gratuity to the caddie is completely up to you and the only money the caddie earns.
Players at a recent competition at the Turtle Bay Resort were some of the first to feel the crack down on handicaps. The people who don't report their handicap correctly in tournament play. It's one thing not to be truthful with your friends. It's quite another to cheat in a tournament. The Tournament committee at Turtle Bay took the time to check to see if the handicaps reported on the entry forms were accurate by also checking other sources including 808golf.com. Some of the players found their names bumped out of the B flight and up into the A flight with a two stroke penalty . Some people didn't think the punishment for cheating was severe enough. I think it's a start.
Congratulations to all the players at the 2006 Turtle Bay Amateur. Moanalua's Tadd Fujikawa managed to hold off the 54 other Championship flight players.
Tadd Fujikawa, Turtle Bay Amateur Champion
He finished the second day on the Fazio course at seven under par 65, scoring a two day total of 134. That broke the two day record Matt Kodama set.
A flight winner Rodney Doo
B flight winner Stephen Gil
C flight winner Hal Takehashi
By the way, if you are ever playing in a charity event with a foursome and there's a hole in one prize, you may want to decide what will happen to the money if someone on your foursome makes a hole in one. In Texas, a golfer made 50 thousand dollars with a hole in one. His teammate is now suing him. The winner wants to use the money to jumpstart his dream of pursuing a professional career as a golfer. His teammate wants the money donated to the Firefighters Association. The men in the group didn't talk about what to do with the money before the round.
2006 Bridgestone Pro Scratch Championship at Pearl Country Club
Turtle Bay Golf's Kellan Anderson along with his amateur partner Troy Higashiyama held onto their first round lead after a windy final round in a best ball of two format with a tournament record 23-under par score of 58-63-121. In second place at five-shots back were defending champions Kevin Hayashi of Mauna Kea Resort and amateur partner Elton Tanaka (64-62-126). There were two teams tied for third place at 128 - Dan Nishimoto / Shannon Sibayan (60-68) and Andrew Feldmann / Eric Sonnenberg (61-67).
Kaanapali Golf has a new logo. They didn't give up the whale completely. The old logo was the cute happy whale. The new logo is the fluke, or the tail, of the whale as you'd see it rising out of the water.
Kaanapali
This is also the month Kaanapali North is reopening. The North course is one of only two courses in Hawaii designed by Robert Trent Jones Senior. The other Trent Jones Senior course is the Mauna Kea. Over the past few months, Robin Nelson has been working on bringing the North course back to what it looked like after it was first opened, before all the houses were built and some changes were made and the flora took over.
Dean Wilson grew up in Hawaii, learned the game of golf and saw what David Ishii did with his skills. Wilson worked his way up, gaining experience on the Japan Tour and today, after a lot of hard work and not much recognition, Wilson is 20th on the money list on the PGA Tour.
Dean Wilson
PGA Tour broadcaster Bob Bubka, who is a frequent guest on my radio show called "The Golf Club", says Wilson is only just beginning with his win at the International. Bubka says Wilson just needed the confidence of winning on the PGA Tour to fill out his tool chest. Earlier this year, former Hawaii resident and rules official with the USGA Chuck Larson predicted Wilson would be a winner this year. Congratulations Chuck, you nailed it. Bubka says we'll be seeing a lot more victories for Wilson in the coming years.
Maybe even a place on the Ryder Cup.
The 2008 Ryder Cup captain has been chosen and the captain has spoken. The man the PGA of America tapped is Paul Azinger. He's won the Sony Open in Hawaii. Azinger took the job after making some changes. Azinger convinced the PGA of America to give him four captain picks instead of two and change the way the other eight are guaranteed players. Its all going to be based on money and the majors.
Azinger said he'll be blamed if he doesn't bring home the Cup, so he'd like the credit if it does. Under the new system, one point will be awarded for every thousand dollars a players earns in the 2007 majors and in regular PGA Tour event in 2008. Two points will be given for every 1000 earned at an '08 Major. What about tournaments held opposite Majors? Half point per thousand earned in those events. The Ryder Cup will be played at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville.
TPC Canyons
Dean Wilson lives in Las Vegas when he isn't on the road. He practices at the TPC Canyons. We took a virtual tour of the TPC Canyons in October with Sales and Marketing manager Joe Massanova. If you are visiting Hawaii's ninth island as we call "Sin City" in Hawaii, you should try the Marriott at Summerlin. It's surrounded by four golf courses including the TPC Canyons.
TPC Canyons
Now for some ideas for holiday gifts for your golfer.
There are a couple of books I'd like to suggest. One was written with the help of our very own golf travel co host Michael Patrick Shiels. When Shiels is on the road, he joins us in the Club house to tell us what it's like on the golf courses he's visiting around the world. He checked in last from Portugal where he was visiting Oitavos Golf at the Quinta da Marinha within the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park. It will be home to the Open de Portugal on the PGA European T our for the next several years. The course was designed by Arthur Hills. Because of the rare flora and fauna in the park, many areas are off limits to people and machines. The Quinta da Marinha Oitavos course is the second in the world to be recognized as a certified signature sanctuary-gold.
If you're interested in finding out about Portugese culture and the country, this is the course to include in your trip to Portugal.
Back to the gift possibilities.
Michael Patrick Shiels worked with PGA Golf professional Michael Kernicki to write "Golf's Short Game for Dummies". Even though it's a "For Dummies" book, its packed full of information for golfers of every handicap.
Two other books, both by Tom Wishon, are invaluable tools for the golfer you love before another set of golf clubs is paid for. The first book, The Search for the Perfect Golf Club, made it to the Best Sellers list. Wishon's second book, the Search for the Perfect Driver is just out and a valuable tool that could save you thousands.
For the head game, I suggest any book by Dr. Robert Winters. He works with David Leadbetter at ChampionsGate in Florida.
If you don't think a book is what would make your golfer happy, the best present I can imagine for a golfer is a box of golf balls. It may sound silly but it's the hottest prize I've got to give away on my radio show. As soon as I say "the 18th caller wins a dozen Titleist Pro V golf balls", the phone lines light up like a Christmas tree. Golfers always need golf balls.
If you've got non golfers, friends and family here or on the mainland, check out the "Hula Girl" Kona coffee. Some stores even carry the "Hula Girl" pancake mixes.
I hope your holiday season is the best. Keep it simple. Avoid expectations. It's kind of like playing a round of golf. Take what comes and have fun.
Amateur golfer Ernie Payne took 23 years and nearly twenty thousand English pounds but he has accomplished his wish to play all 578 courses in Scotland. The last stroke was at the Kingsbarns Golf Links near St. Andrews. Now 60 year old, Payne says a small number of courses have closed since he started but he also discovered 15 courses the Tourism Agency of Scotland didn't even know about. He managed to play Scotland's most expensive course, Loch Lomond, when the course waived the fee. His favorite of the 546 courses registered with the Scottish Golf Union? The last one he played, Loch Lomond.
Some of Scotland great courses have been told it's time to move inland or face seeing their courses sink into the sea. A golf course consultant with HR Wallingford warns in 50 years, a substantial number of Scotland's course will be 9 or 12 holes if they don't move inland because of the rising sea levels and coastal erosion caused by the melting of the polar ice caps.
Until next time, thank you for your Mana and may you hit the sweet spot every time.
Aloha,
Danielle Tucker
