Golf Central

On this day in 1934, Sir Michael Bonallack - one of the most influential figures in British and world golf of the last 50 years - was born in Chigwell, Essex.

A great amateur golfer during the height of professional golf's growth, Bonallack is most recently, Bonallack is remembered for guiding the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews through its recent heyday from 1984-99 as club secretary.

Now, to our younger American visitors who may have been turned on to golf only in the Tiger Woods era, the Secretary of the R&A doesn't take dictation or answer phones: The Secretary is the chief executive of the governing body of golf in nearly all of the world except the United States. That makes the boss of the R&A "in theory" the No. 1 man in the world of golf - but though he might take the moral high ground, he probably loses the argument to Tiger Woods, PGA Tour chief Tim Finchem, or the president of the USGA. ...

Henrik Stenson, the mega-talented Viking from Gothenburg, has joined our IGWT Hall of Heroes. (Someday we'll make a new section on the site for guys like these, tentatively titled "Golfers We Like For Some Reason".)

A couple of weeks ago, we told you what a Man with a capital M Stenson was for logging something like 45,000 air miles over the winter period. Not only that, the Swede is a nice guy and a rising star - a few victories away from that dreaded "best player to not win a major tag".

But earlier this month, Stenson showed how cool Swedes can be when he turned up at Torrey Pines Golf Course - the site of the US Open in June - for a pay-to-play round. That's right, a big-name Tour star paid his own greens fees, all in the name of a scouting mission on the course while he was in California for Tiger's Target World Challenge.

“It was one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been,” Stenson said. “Stunning views.”

This comment makes one of your IGWT editors proud indeed. Stenson had to pay for his green fees (he got a break though by paying the San Diego residents' rate of $42 instead of the full fee of more than $182), however, which makes some of us wonder how a Swede got to pay the residents' rate while some of us who have lived in Southern California most of our lives never got to play the San Diego residents rate at Torrey Pines. (!)

Bloody Tour perks. But never mind, we still like Stenson's smooth move. Stenson, who says he hasn't paid a greens fee in 10 years, even warmed up by paying for a bucket of municipal-course range balls, black stripes and all, just like one of the plebs. Said Stenson: "The balls were going nowhere. It took a couple of swings to realise this is not down to me. ... they were limited-flight balls."

Once on the course, Stenson found himself paired with a local couple who had only started playing golf five months earlier. The woman's name was Pamela Anderson (not that one, though!) and her boyfriend's name was Jesse ... "I think," said Stenson.

So, you're a hacker who has only been playing five months and you turn up at the muni, and get paired with a guy who averages almost 300 yards off the tee, is ranked 16th in the world, and was on the 2006 European Ryder Cup team.

The story made us wonder what would happen if you rang Torrey Pines - one of the few courses on the US Open that's open to the public - and requested a starting time in the name of "Woods, Eldrick."

Like we said, we really like Henrik Stenson. Anybody who can say they've played Torrey Pines with Pamela Anderson is OK in our books.

You're from Inverness, Scotland. It's freezing cold up there. But you're a professional golfer, one of a handful of tour pros who come from such northerly latitudes (a few other Scots, the Swedes, an Icelander or two and a few reindeer are the others).

So what do you do for the winter? Make like the birds, and get a job down south!

That's exactly what Murray Urquhart, who is the only touring pro to hail from Scotland's home of the Loch Ness Monster, did earlier this month.

Urquhart, 34, was one of 250 entrants from 20 countries to head down to South Africa to try to qualify for the Sunshine Tour at Johannesburg Country Club. And he made it easily, firing rounds of 72-72-71-69 to finish in a tie for 12th and get his card.

He may only be ranked No. 1250 in the end of year Official World Golf Rankings, but for Urquhart, who looks (quite) a bit like a '70s Jack Nicklaus with his blonde fringe and big reverse-C finish and power fade, the only way is up.

He's bounced on and off the European Tour, Challenge Tour and Tartan Tours in his 10-year career, but Urquhart figures to go down to South Africa, playing competitive golf for a couple of months in the sunshine, and have his game ready for Europe in the spring.

Sound plan. Urquhart, who writes a column for the Press and Journal, north Scotland's daily newspaper, admits conditions are not ideal in Inverness this time of year: "There's very little chance to do anything other than hit balls on the range back home in Scotland. It's a bit nasty right now."

On this day in 1975, in Cypress (Orange County, California), Eldrick "Tiger" Woods was born  to Earl and Kultida Woods. The world of golf - and sport overall for that matter - have never been the same since.

How time flies! ... And while we're not in the habit of stepping out on limbs here around In Golf We Trust, we'll say this with with dead-solid certainty: Treasure him while you can folks, because Eldrick "Tiger" Woods is the best golfer most of us will ever see in our lifetimes and he's square in the middle of his prime. Happy 32nd, Tiger ...

The South Africans may be running out of patience with one of their favourite native sons, Ernie Els.

Mike Willis, a columnist for South Africa's biggest news organisation Independent News & Media, wrote recently in a story headlined "Why Ernie Will Never Be Better Than Tiger" that Els' career arc was beginning, disappointingly, to resemble that of Greg Norman - another formidable talent who never quite reached the peaks.

Willis congratulates the Big Easy for his three majors, but then harps on the failures - nine seconds and thirds in majors - and suggests that Els, like Norman, may be spending too much time on outside interests rather than his golf.

Wow. It's not the nicest thing to say about a genuinely nice sportsman who is one of South Africa's great representatives. "They earn their millions on the back of our emotional engagement ... if they dash us onto the rocks too often, we turn sour."

Willis concludes by saying: "Revealingly, Tiger's website is focused entirely on golf. No chardonnay's or cabernet's for him."

By the way, Mike, chardonnays and cabernets do not require apostrophes. But anyway, we're hoping for Els to win another big one this year and stick it right back in his critics' pockets.

For the full story, visit our friends at Cape Town's Saturday Argus.