Go Fish: Former Top Tennis Pro Trying Gateway Tour

Douglas Robson reports on Marty Fish, former top-10 tennis player, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist who reached as high as No. 7 in the world, has played a couple of Gateway tour events this fall.

State Of The Game Podcast 31: David Eger

A lot about David Eger was learned in his recent Golf Digest My Shot, but we decided to have the Champions Tour player and former USGA/PGA Tour executive on to talk about a variety of subjects. Yes, the Tiger drop at the Masters is revisited, as are the usual State of The Game issues. Eger is one of the more interesting figures in the game and certainly a player who has the experience and knowlege to back up his opinions. I think you'll enjoy hearing from him.

As always, you can listen and subscribe via iTunes, download the MP3, download prior episodes here or hit the play button below:

Video & Roundup: Lyle's Emotional Return

From Martin Blake's account of Jarrod Lyle's return to golf:

And tear up he did. "It was nice to get out there and see everybody that I love standing around the tee, and even people that I've never met before,'' he said later. "The crowd at the first tee was something that I wasn't expecting. To hear Lusi (his infant daughter) call out 'Daddy' ... I turned around and thought 'I'd better give her one last cuddle'. That was the end of me once that happened. I was an absolute mess. I hit that first tee shot with tears through my eyes. Normally I would've backed off but I thought 'I just want to get it over with'.''

Bruce Matthews in the Herald Sun includes many photos and video.

Brent Read in The Australian documents Lyle's return and reports the first tee moment proved emotional for his playing partners.

Even his playing partners were battling to contain their emotions.

"It hit me harder than I thought it might," said Geoff Ogilvy.

"I felt myself wanting to look away. I didn't really know how it was going to be. Two years ago the Presidents Cup first tee, the atmosphere was incredible.

"This was more moving. Everyone feels like they're part of the whole story."

The story only got better from there. Lyle walked off the first with par and then lashed another drive down the fairway at the 2nd. Among the gallery was jockey Glen Boss, who has become friends with Lyle during his fight with cancer. Lyle made a beeline for the hoop to shake hands.

And Matt Murnane in the Sydney Morning Herald:

On the second hole, a former world No.1 and three-time major winner was getting set to drive and the layout of this course means he have right of way.

There were 28 people in the gallery following the legendary Vijay Singh.

Why so many? Oh sorry, go on...

Too many to count had their eyes fixed on Lyle.

The Victorian two-putted for a par, picked up his ball and raised it to his supporters.
As he headed to the second, a fan with impeccable timing summed it up nicely: "Welcome back, Jarrod."

Welcome back indeed.

Golf Channel, which resumes coverage tonight at 9 pm ET, has posted the entire video of Lyle's first tee shot and it's definitely worth a couple of minutes of your time:

Update on 2013-11-14 17:36 by Geoff

**Lyle's post-round interview:

Sergio Believes The Days Of Fried Chicken Jokes Are Behind Him

Shane O'Donoghue got Sergio for a one-on-one to talk about the state of all things Garcia and to find out what exactly he learned from uttering a racially insensitive joke at Wentworth last May, which subsequently led to embarrassing remarks from European Tour Commish George O'Grady.

"I didn't mean it in a bad way. When I was driving back to the hotel, I started thinking about it," Garcia told Shane O'Donoghue.

Nice to know the dead silence in the room took that long to sink in! Oh, and it's still Steve Sands' fault.

"Obviously, I didn't expect that question at all and you try to be funny and it comes out the wrong way I guess," he added.

And Mr. Contrite:

"It was horrible, but what's done is done. Everybody knows how I feel about it, so I think they should be fine with it and if not, it's kind of their problem," he said.

"The most important thing is learning from all those things.

"I'm making sure that all those experiences make you stronger, a better person and things like that. I think that I've learned from those things and I just need to keep getting better at it, and hopefully keep making people happy."

If you have sixty seconds or so of your life to never to enjoy again:

Video: Euro Tour's Finest Play From The 22nd Floor

Another entertaining European Tour promo video, this time for the Atlantis in Dubai and the season ending points race. Nice surprise cameo too.

Update on 2013-11-12 05:33 by Geoff

**You may recall there was some tremendous First World complaining about the European Tour mandating players start two of three "Race To Dubai" events. Ernie Els even WD'd from this week in supposed protest.

Steve Elling explains part of the ire, justified in this instance I'd say:

Bigger cracks emerged at the second event in the series, the lucrative HSBC Champions in Shanghai. The co-sanctioned, 78-man event event is not run by the European Tour, which has little sway over the composition of the field. As a result, 10 of the top 40 on the Race to Dubai points list did not find a place on the tee sheet, including Ryder Cup player Nicolas Colsaerts, Thorbjorn Olesen, Rafael Cabrera-Bello and Shane Lowry.
In theory, a points race represents a season-long meritocracy. But if all three of Dubai’s lead-in events have fields of 78 players or fewer, it crimps the opportunity for top players in the points list to participate. In reality, designating co-sanctioned events as Finals Series stops meant even fewer spots were available to European Tour regulars.

It felt like a closed shop.

At the co-sanctioned BMW Masters, 14 players from the China Golf Association were included in the field. At the HSBC, because of the tournament format, Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald played, while players having better 2013 seasons were benched. In points, both players were outside the crucial top 60, the number required to land a spot in the Dubai finale.

Six of the 78 players at HSBC were from China, including two ranked outside the top 800 in the world. One of them failed to break 80 in three of his four rounds and finished a whopping 59 shots off the lead. Ouch.

Same Day: Spieth Plays Pine Valley & Augusta National

Fine tuning the game for his TBD 2013-14 PGA Tour debut, Jordan Spieth put up a sweet 67 at Pine Valley, then played a late nine at Augusta National according to tweets by his playing partner and Dallas-based performance coach Cameron McCormick.

Pine Valley is in fall color mode...

75 blows at PV today. @JordanSpieth only beat me by 8. Easy to see why this course is #1 in the world. pic.twitter.com/0rD3QCZv9f

— Cameron McCormick (@CMcCormickGolf) October 15, 2013

And confirmation of the incredible same day PVGC/ANGC combo.

@davepr12 yep both PV and ANGC same day. Both firsts.

— Cameron McCormick (@CMcCormickGolf) October 16, 2013