A couple of items from Golf Digest’s Local Knowledge caught my eye.

But before going there. A link to some photographs of a house I’d previously seen on an email attachment sent to me by a friend in Wales. Who has sailed first class, or whatever they call it, on the QE 2 but never (I’ll let you into the secret) visited Tiger’s house.

Please note, be a wee bit patient, the photographs can take some time to load.

Now back to Tiger and the billionaire story.

Sam Weinman headlines his blog entry, “Tiger Woods denies being a billionaire, still eligible for discount at Applebee’s”

Sam then says, “So maybe he's not exactly clipping coupons out of the Sunday paper, but Tiger Woods disputed a report that said he was the first athlete to become a billionaire.”

In a previous blog entry John Strege wrote, “Forbes magazine is reporting that Woods' $10 million FedEx Cup bonus put him over the $1 billion mark in earnings (on and off the course), the first athlete to reach that plateau.”

One thing we do know is that it doesn’t look like Tiger subscribes to Forbes. Otherwise he’d have been aware of what was heading his way.

Thinks! Maybe I could get a job as Tiger’s PR guy who follows the media and makes sure Tiger isn’t thrown unexpected curve balls such as this matter of  being a billionaire. 

After all, Tiger’s got a Kiwi caddie.

Naw! No chance, I’m only a half-Kiwi.

I did try to become a fully-fledged Kiwi but they kept calling me, “A bloody Scotsman!”

So I gave up trying.

For the record, “Forbes cited estimates of Woods's earnings from endorsements, tournament winnings, appearance fees and his nascent golf-course design business. Other than tournament winnings, Forbes could only guess at the other income of the famously circumspect Woods, and the business magazine admitted its figures could not be exact.”

And then there was this Local Knowledge news about laid-back Freddie.

“International team captain Greg Norman is a well known vintner, while three of his players, Ernie Els, Mike Weir and Retief Goosen, have their own wine labels.

Now comes word via Napa Valley vintner Mitch Cosentino that U.S. captain Fred Couples has entered the wine fray and has gifted the International team members with magnums of 2006 Couples & Co. Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, etched with the Presidents Cup logo and personalized with the player's names.”

There’s a very interesting interview at the Telegraph online.

Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan is talking to Rory McIlroy “about success, life on the Tour and relationships with Tiger Woods and Colin Montgomerie.”

Here’s my pick of interesting comments.

Vaughan: From what age did you start hitting golf balls?

McIlroy: Two. Dad played, the whole family plays.

Vaughan: When were you scratch?

McIlroy: 13.

And this one about what Rory will buy if he wins the big one at Dubai

Vaughan: So what are you going to spend it on?! Are you still buying Ferraris on the internet?

McIlroy: I've got one already – a gunmetal grey one.

Vaughan: Are you flying private these days?

McIlroy: I bought 25 hours at the start of the year. It helps life. I played a tournament in Munich this year, and the only commercial flight back would have got me home at 1.30 in the morning. As it was, I was through my door at 7.45pm. It makes sense.

Aha! So that’s how some of them do it. They don’t actually buy or lease the plane. They buy hours. Presumably something similar but very much more costlier than when I have to buy an hour’s access at an internet café.

And this interesting insight into why Tiger is soooooo good.

Vaughan: When Tiger was on his practice round at the Open this summer, he spent 20 minutes on just one green, putting. Everyone else was just coming in, chipping on, putting, and off they went. Tiger took 51 putts in the rain.

McIlroy: What he is trying to do is predict every scenario for where his ball finishes on the green. He is trying to get every line of every putt he could possibly have on that green. I mean, do you really need to do that? He doesn't just want to be the best golfer, he wants to be the best at mapping greens. That is his mentality. I'm a little more easy-going.

My thought of the day is for Hogan fans. And especially those who use his Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf and other Hogan material in an effort to improve the mechanics of their golf swing.

But first a link to perfectgolfswingreview. It’s a must-visit web site for any serious student of the golf swing.

Now back to Hogan who I often referred to in my youth. And until very recently was ignorant of the fact that I’d got it wrong with his swing plane idea. So it was with some relief I learned I was not alone in getting it wrong with the message of one of the most well-known golf tuition illustrations ever produced.

This from perfectgolfswingreview’s content covering the above.

“The idea of a swingplane apparently originated when Ben Hogan introduced the idea of a plane of glass extending from the ball to his shoulders in his golf intructional book "Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, which was first published in the late 1950s.

One can see the glass plane resting on Ben Hogan's shoulders. Many golfers have misinterpreted this photo and they have thought that it means that Ben Hogan recommended that a golfer should swing his clubshaft on the plane repesented by the glass plane during the backswing. However, that idea is incorrect and it doesn't represent what Ben Hogan stated in his book. Ben Hogan wasn't referring to the clubshaft when he envisaged this glass plane idea - he was thinking of his left arm. In his book [1], he stated that a golfer should perform a backswing action that would keep the left arm below the glass plane throughout the entire backswing, and he didn't want the left arm to break through the glass pane during the backswing.

In other words, Ben Hogan wanted golfers to avoid a steep left arm movement during the backswing, and he believed that the left arm should get across the shoulder turn angle at the end of the backswing, and that the hands should end up in a position behind the right shoulder. Ben Hogan didn't want golfers to get their hands above the right shoulder and close to the back of the neck as a result of a too-steep arm lifting movement. Ben Hogan stated that one should feel the back of the left forearm brush against the undersurface of the imaginary glass pane in the late backswing as the arms finally reach their end-backswing position.

Many golf instructors have misinterpreted Ben Hogan's glass pane idea to imply that it relates to the clubshaft and some people have even redrawn his diagram to represent their personal idea of the correct swingplane.”

Incidentally I’m using this glass pane idea for pitch shots from 80-yards-in, and it seems to help.

Here’s a link to the full Rory McIlroy interview.

Guid gowfin’ at the weekend.

Slainte

Stan