Golf for a cause

Mark your calendar's from August 29th through September 1st with a big green smiley face. Put down your gardening tools, and take out your golf tools, and tool-on over to one of over 3000 golf courses throughout our great country, and tee it up for those that can't.

Fighter pilot Captain Dan Rooney...shares like many of you, the love of golf, but he has channeled that love into a grander vision that includes giving back to his country..."Noonan" (the Captain's call sign), thought about his comrades that could not be with him on the golf course, and last year started something big...

...over $1 million dollars big.

He started Patriot Golf Day to benefit The Rooney Fallen Heroes Foundation.

Last year golf courses around our United States of America raised their greens fees by $1. That dollar was earmarked for families of fallen US soldiers killed or wounded throughout our current military operations. This year will be the same...and with your help, even greater results.

This year Captain Rooney will be going back for his third Tour of Duty.

We owe it to him and his foundation to take a couple tours around the golf course. Captain, thank you for your service.

Thanks for reading. Keep it in the short-grass,

JFB

An essay...is it in you?

A smattering of journals I've read over the past weekend (Portfolio, Golf, Money) has an opportunistic advertisement that is open to US citizens over the age of 18. The ad is a contest sponsored by Golf Digest, NBC Sports, and The USGA. The contest gives you the opportunity to write a 100 word essay describing your lust for the sport of golf, and how it involves the ability to break 100...

...At Torrey Pines.

...Gulp.

Yes, this years' site of the US Open.
The chosen essayist will be given the opportunity to find their little white ball in course-condition rough...just like the pros!

Read the contest rules, because you have until Jan 29th to submit, and judges are looking for a certain winning formula from your essay.

So sharpen those yellow pencils and get writing! Don't put to much pressure on yourself, 'cause unlike the pencils at your golf course...

...this one has an eraser.

Good luck!

JFB

While leaving on golf vacations, the issue of golf carts and the rest of the golf equipment becomes quite bothersome. The best solution would be to get all this and more on lease from the local stores there. You will be able to get baseball as well as tennis and lacrosse equipment on rent from there.

How to increase your carbon footprint

You've heard the expression: "even a blind squirrel finds a nut"? Well from that, one could surmise that maybe the furry little critter embroidered on the fronts of thousands of golf caps at this weekend's US Open at Oakmont is blind. I mean...he's got a golf ball in his paws...not a nut.

After reading the June edition of Golf Digest, I now know that this squirrel is not blind.

Documenting a tree removal program that ultimately disemboweled 5000+ hardwoods from Terra fir ma (in the middle of the night, no less), author Ron Whitten portrays Oakmont C.C. in a fairer light, now that the trees are gone, harking back to the day when course architect H.C. Fownes wanted to have a world class course to emulate the same vistas of his Scottish homeland. I suppose if you look at it from that perspective...they succeeded, and Whitten is correct.

But if you speak to the thousands of natures little creatures...native purple finches, northern cardinals, orchard orioles...they all left with the trees, and probably aren't very cordial: "Damn Chester...how long were we in Florida?...I feel the need to lighten my load...there's the super's car, and he left the top down! Banzai!!!!!".

Did Oakmont replace the trees with birdhouses to maintain the lost ones they removed? I didn't notice any from the pictures I've been seeing. Maybe they will after the tournament.

Folks have been tongue-in-cheek lobbying to replace the Oakmont squirrel with a more appropriate one...like a chainsaw, or instead of a logo...a motto: "I got your carbon footprint right here".

But I think the squirrel is appropriate, and I hope he stays. After all, he found a golf ball...not a nut.

Judging from the tree-less Oakmont, isn't that appropriate?!

Thanks for reading. Keep it in the short-grass,

JFB