Golf Central

How & when did your relationship begin with Dubai Sports City?
I’ve been coming to Dubai since 1994. I’ve always had a special affinity with the city as it has grown. I’ve also been pretty successful here in the Dubai Desert Classic. When I saw the plans for Dubai Sports City, I knew that this was going to be a great project. We met with Khalid, Bala and the team and agreed a way forward. Initially, we were involved with this project in partnership with Nicklaus Design. But we are very much a stand alone business now and as a result of that restructuring we took over this project in the very early planning stages. Being able to design a golf course in Dubai – you know, that’s pretty special. And obviously this whole project at Dubai Sports City is incredibly exciting – I mean, I think it’s fair to say there is nothing else like it in the world ...

Anytime any of you are feeling a bit down, depressed or worthless out there on the golf course this year, consider this: Tiger Woods - the greatest player the world has ever seen by aeons - miles, sucks. That's right, Tiger sucks ... in his own words. Here are some of Tiger's quotes, verbatim*, during the week in which he crushed a world-class ensemble at Torrey Pines en route to matching Arnold Palmer with 62 wins on the all-time PGA Tour list with an 8-shot victory at the Buick Invitational. To wit ...:

1. "It was pretty embarrassing. I hit a terrible tee shot over to the right ..."
2. "Whether it was 5-wood, 3-wood or driver, I didn't drive it very good at all ..."
3. "Yesterday was terrible. I drove it like a dog ..."
4. "I just have to hit the ball better than I'm hitting it right now ..."
5. "I hit a low left ball or a spinny high right. Kind of hard to aim when you've got both of those things going ..."
6. "Five was just a terrible shot."
7. "I chickened out on it because I was hitting a big hook ..."
8. "I was trying to hit a kind of low cut, to be honest with you, I hit it off the toe and hit a draw."
9. "I've gotten some pretty good breaks ..."
10. "It would have probably gone six, seven feet by, but it had a train wreck and went in."

* Quotes taken out of context of course! We're journalists, we're expected to do that, but keep in mind that Tiger won in record fashion, despite the fact that by his words you might think he missed the cut. Interview transcripts courtesy of ASAP transcripts, the service which took the Biro out of the hands of old-school golf scribes and turned some of them into superstars.

On this day in 1923, Jack Burke Jr was born in Houston, Texas, and went on to a lifetime in golf that included not only two major championships, but also an introspective but joyous and often misunderstood love of the game.

That's because Jack Burke Jr always considered the game of golf "a game". He loved the passion and feel of it, and having grown up in windy Texas, Burke was a "feel" player. He was also, to use an IGWT catchphrase, "criminally underrated" in the game's history: Burke's only misfortune in the annals of golf is to have been at his best in the mid-1950s, in between names like Hogan and Palmer ...

Tiger Woods’ decimation of Torrey Pines South this weekend - his sixth Buick Invitational triumph - has already made June’s US Open headline material in the American sports-pages. The South Course will also stage the US Open, which is notoriously one of golf’s toughest tests with unrivalled numbers of high scores and players missing cuts. Modifications will be made but the problem with making it tighter, longer and faster, is that the competition is effectively shortened.
 
Former British Open champion, Justin Leonard, tied for fourth but 11 shots back, conceded there were two tournaments going on and summed up his season’s objectives, “I'm going to try to win the tournament that Tiger Woods isn't playing in."

But the best quote about Torrey Pines' US Open future came from our very favourite quote master and quote mangler, Fred Couples, who said: "What he's going to do is screw up the U.S. Open for everybody."

Couples, who doesn't really have a bad bone in his body, really meant that had Woods scored higher at the Buick, then the USGA might bring the course set-up back into the field's range. "They may have to regroup a little. He's just that much better," said Couples.

Common knowledge really. You want to win a golf tournament, go see Tiger. If you want a golf quote, no matter how bizarre, go see Freddie.

Rule 1.1 of Murphy’s Law stipulates that if there is one person you definitely don’t want to bump into, you’ll be sure to do exactly that. For Tiger Woods, that man is the free-talking Rory Sabbatini, who last year claimed that Woods was “as beatable as ever”.
 
But it was the South African’s recent conduct at the Target World Challenge last month that really irked the world number one. Sabbatini withdrew from the event hosted by Woods, citing personal reasons, then drove his courtesy car to the airport and left it there for someone to find. As if those chaps at Avis don’t have a tough enough job on their hands. And didn’t Woods know it.
 
But despite Sabbatini donating his £86,000 last place fee to the “United Through Reading” military programme, their relationship remains frostier than a Slush Puppy at an Inuit’s Christmas do.
 
And so, as luck conspired to have them pass each other in the media centre, not a word, look or grunt was acknowledged. Later Woods admitted their relationship “is what it is,” while Sabbatini insisted, “there is no animosity." Of course not Rory. Now go and apologise to those rental car chaps.

Mind you, we proposed fisticuffs at dawn after Rory was within striking range after the first round. How the memory goes fuzzy ...