There’s a fellow at my club—let’s call him Fred (as that is his name)—who, thanks to an early retirement, has spent the past several winters in Florida. He plays at least three times a week down there. When our club reopens in the spring, his game hasn’t lost a beat. And speaking of “beat,” that’s what he does to the rest of us poor souls who haven’t swung a club all winter.

Not that I am bitter—envious definitely, but not bitter—but despite the fact his game in the spring is at least as good as when he headed south, he does not post a single score during his winter hiatus. Asked why, he always says that it is too confusing and difficult to post in the U.S.

Hang on a sec, Fred. Craig Loughry begs to differ.

Loughry, Golf Canada’s Director of Handicap and Course Rating, points out that scores posted on both sides of the border can be seamlessly linked, thanks to the International Golf Network.

“IGN is really a clearinghouse for all the state, regional and provincial golf associations to help organize all the vendors of the various handicapping systems, including the Golf Canada Score Centre, the USGA’s GHIN system, and all the rest. So when your score is posted in the U.S., it goes through this ‘clearinghouse’ and loops back to your home course in Canada, and vice versa.”

How does it work?

If you are lucky enough to belong to a club in Canada and another in the U.S., you simply post your score at whichever club you are playing. Before you take off, have your records linked by arranging it through your club or you can call your provincial golf association or Golf Canada. They’ll do the rest. It’s just that simple.

But it works just as easily even if you are down south for only a couple of weeks. “You don’t have to be a member at a U.S. club to post your scores while you are in the U.S.,” Loughry says.”You can post as a guest at the course’s handicap terminal as long as they are part of their state association. “

In both cases, Loughry says, “it’s like having your home club handicap terminal wherever you go.”

To make it even easier to post scores (Fred, are you paying attention?), Golf Canada has a pretty slick mobile application. The mobile-friendly app can be found here.

So here’s the message: Post your scores! All your scores! No matter where you play! To learn more, click here.

If you are a member of a club, it is your responsibility to post all your scores. Essentially, you are one of the partners entrusted with the integrity of the handicap system. Consider yourself a foot soldier in the battle against sandbagging. After all, “peer review” is the essence of the handicap system.

If you have a concern with an individual or with the administration of handicapping at your club, you can contact your provincial association. They will look into the situation and rectify it.

In a proactive move, the Golf Association of Ontario (GAO) has initiated random audits of handicaps at a cross-section of its member clubs. The results of these audits are then shared with all GAO member clubs. In extreme cases, offending clubs may have the privilege of issuing handicaps suspended.

As for me, I will be keeping an eye on Fred and his ilk through Golf Canada’s verification tool until our club reopens in the spring. After all, what else do I have to do during our interminable winter?

But, like I said, I’m not bitter.

What does it take to win a PGA TOUR event? In your rookie season? Or any season?

In a typical Canadian understatement, Nick Taylor says all it takes is “getting the ball in the hole.”

If it were only that simple!

Starting four shots back at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi on Sunday, Taylor shot a near-flawless 66 to blow away a mighty impressive group of fellow contenders including 54-hole leader John Rollins, the 2002 RBC Canadian Open champ.

After picking up the trophy and the winner’s cheque of US$720,000 at sundown Sunday, Taylor and his caddie went out for dinner, did their laundry and turned the lights out at 10 p.m. (Yawn.) He probably didn’t sleep (more yawns) until his conference call with the media at 9:30 the next morning where he was grilled about just about everything he did or thought last week. (Even more yawns.)

Well, at least, the Winnipeg-born 26-year-old who learned the game at Ledgeview Golf and Country Club in Abbotsford, B.C., didn’t do the stereotypical Canadian thing and apologize for beating a pretty solid field for his maiden victory.

And, truth be told, he had absolutely nothing to apologize for. Nick Taylor was full value for this victory.

Five years ago, Taylor was the world’s No. 1-ranked amateur. He had won just about everything worth winning at that point: the 2006 Canadian Junior, the 2007 Canadian Amateur, low amateur in the 2009 U.S. Open, and so on.

What did all those accolades get him when he turned pro in 2010? Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Hello, Vancouver Island Tour, PGA TOUR Canada, Web.com Tour… A grim and gritty reality check for even the world’s best golfers. The bottom ranks of pro golf are a relentless filter, a merciless litmus test that many attempt and few survive.

But, to his credit, Nick Taylor didn’t expect anything else. “I was playing professional golf for a living, and it doesn’t get any better than that. I knew I had to earn everything. There were times when I was discouraged, when I doubted myself.” But he persevered. And finally got that ball into the hole, when it mattered, on golf’s greatest stage.

In winning Sunday, Taylor became the first Canadian-born winner on the PGA TOUR since Mike Weir in 2007. (Factual footnote: Calgary’s Stephen Ames, a four-time winner on TOUR, was born in Trinidad and Tobago. While we’re at it, for you trivia buffs, the last Canadian-born winner of the RBC Canadian Open was Karl Keffer of Tottenham, Ont., in 1909 and 1914. Pat Fletcher, who won our Open in 1954, was born in England and moved here as an infant.)

So many promising amateur players never make the successful transition to the pro ranks. (For more, see my previous column, Celebrating the career amateur.)

Based on last week’s snapshot, could Taylor be the exception and, if so, why?

Assuming his innate talent and indefatigable work ethic, there was an unyielding foundation upon which his success was built.

“My team helped me get here. My parents, my wife Andie, my agent [Chris Armstrong of Wasserman Media], Golf Canada … they all helped me every step of the way. My former Team Canada coach Derek Ingram showed up to support me when I was playing in Winnipeg in a PGA TOUR Canada event. I wouldn’t be here without them.”

Years ago, there was a TV commercial for investment house Smith Barney, featuring Oscar-winner John Houseman. The gist was, “We do it the old-fashioned way. We earn it.”

Nick is, no doubt, too young to recall that commercial.

Nevertheless, he gets the message. And, chances are, he will continue to deliver that message to the rest of his PGA TOUR colleagues for years to come. To their collective dismay, we hope.

To listen to a full interview with Nick Taylor following his Sanderson Farms victory, click here.

What would it take to help you make the decision to remain an amateur golfer or turn pro?

For one Hall of Famer, it took a plane crash.

On a miserable December night 60 years ago, a young Marlene Stewart was returning to Toronto from college in Florida. The pilot undershot the runway and the plane careered into a field, shearing off a wing. A terrified Marlene and a friend escaped through the hole created when the wing was torn off. As they ran from the wreck, it burst into flames and exploded. Miraculously, no one was killed although there were some injuries.

“It is true what they say. My life flashed in front of my eyes,” Marlene told me recently. “I had been approached to play on the LPGA and I had played in a couple of events as an amateur. I realized I didn’t want some of the aspects of the LPGA lifestyle. I wanted a real life. I knew I wanted to marry Doug [Streit] and have a family. I got to do that and play all the golf I wanted.”

And, without a doubt, more golf than her opponents wanted her to play. Marlene Stewart Streit always played to win, and usually succeeded.

“Among her many accomplishments are 11 Canadian Ladies’ Open Amateur Championships, nine Canadian Ladies’ Close Amateurs, three Canadian Ladies’ Seniors and three USGA Senior Women’s Championships,” says her Canadian Golf Hall of Fame bio. She was also twice named Canada’s outstanding athlete and is this country’s only member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. (A book about Marlene’s exploits written with Lorne Rubenstein is scheduled for publication next spring.)

The Canadian Hall of Fame and Museum website and those of every provincial golf association list the bios of many outstanding career amateurs. Their accomplishments are extraordinary, but is their kind a dying breed? Are the perceived glamour and wealth of the pro tours luring all our best young golfers to the detriment of the amateur game? Is the grass on that side of the fence (ropes?) truly greener?

“Everyone says, ‘Look at Mike Weir. He made it big on the PGA Tour,’ but what they forget is that he worked harder than anyone, rebuilt his swing, and it still took him half a dozen tries to get through qualifying school,” points out Warren Sye, who counts two Canadian Amateurs and five Ontario Amateurs among his more than 120 tournament wins worldwide. Sye, a member of the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame, admits he was briefly tempted to turn pro after graduating from the University of Houston alongside teammates—and future Tour stars—Fred Couples and Blaine McCallister.

“But I wanted a real life, with a family and a career. When I won the 1988 Ontario Amateur, Gary Cowan took me aside and said, ‘Now you will really start to enjoy this.’ He was talking about playing on international teams and travelling around the world playing for Canada. And he was right. Playing on those teams was fabulous. It was what we all gunned for back then.” In all, Sye would represent Ontario and Canada 11 times internationally, most notably as a member of the victorious World Amateur team in 1986.

Gary Cowan (Canadian Golf Hall of Fame archives)

Cowan, who still shoots his age or better at age 74, says his advice to Sye came naturally. His Hall of Fame resume is breathtaking, to the point where he was named Canada’s Male Amateur of the 20^th Century. The only Canadian to win two U.S. Amateurs, he started his on-course onslaught by winning the Canadian Junior title in 1956. He went on to win the 1961 Canadian Amateur, was low amateur at both the Canadian Open and the Masters (he played in eight Masters in total), and was the medallist at the 1962 World Amateur Team Championship. In international play, he was a fierce competitor, representing Canada 19 times in tournaments from Brazil to Japan.

With a resume like that, wasn’t he ever tempted to turn pro? “It was a different time. There was a temptation to go pro but there just wasn’t the money until Arnie [Arnold Palmer] and TV came along. I had no qualms about having a career and a family. I didn’t want to live out of a suitcase. I have no regrets. I travelled all over the world on international teams. I raised four great children, had a good career in business, and played a lot of golf. “

(Note: Later in life, both Sye and Cowan would give the Senior PGA Tour—now the Champions Tour—a try without much success. Both were reinstated as amateurs.)

Harking back to Sye’s comment about Mike Weir, Stu Hamilton says, “For every one that makes it to the pros, there are maybe a thousand who don’t make it and you never hear of again. They end up giving lessons on a range somewhere or selling golf balls or simply burn out and get out of golf altogether.” That was not the life for Hamilton and it turned out to be a wise decision.

In 1963, he won the Ontario Junior but it wasn’t until 1986, at the age of 41, when he captured his next significant title, the Ontario Amateur. Oh, he came close many times, including six runner-up finishes in the Canadian Amateur, but that wasn’t enough to entice him to go pro.

“I had people early in my career who encouraged me to turn pro but I told myself that if I couldn’t win the Ontario Amateur, the [now defunct] Ontario Open and the Canadian Amateur all in the same year, then I just wasn’t good enough to compete against the pros. Whenever I played in the Canadian Open as an amateur and saw the pros in action, I was in absolute awe. It is a big step up. Aside from there not being a lot of security or money on Tour back then, living out of a suitcase away from my family didn’t appeal to me. I wanted to keep golf as a major part of my life, not my whole life. I wanted balance.”

The “suitcase” reference was a constant with every Hall of Fame amateur I spoke with, as was “balance” and “security.”

“I loved being an amateur and have done that for six decades,” says Gayle (Hitchens) Borthwick. “There is a longevity in amateur golf that doesn’t exist in the pros.” Her well-deserved induction into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame came thanks to a resume bulging with three U.S. Senior Amateur titles, wins in the Canadian Amateur, Mid-Amateur and Senior Amateur, and a lengthy list of international teams. Her life-golf balance was enhanced by the fact that she was a schoolteacher, leaving her summers open for competitive golf.

“There is a huge difference between amateur golf and pro golf,” says Borthwick, who is the daughter and wife of club pros. “You don’t want to waste a lot of years if things don’t work out. It is a job and the pressure is tremendous. It is so grueling, physically and mentally. You have to be committed to that and exclude everything else. Big money means big competition.”

Doug Roxburgh (Golf Canada)

Fellow Hall of Famer Doug Roxburgh understands. At 62, he has just returned from the U.S. Senior Amateur after winning the Canadian Senior Amateur. The four-time Canadian Amateur champ left his accountant’s career in 1999 to join Golf Canada as an advisor on elite player development before retiring in 2011. Understandably, over the years, he frequently has been asked two major questions: Why didn’t you turn pro? Should I stay amateur like you or turn pro?

“I never did seriously consider turning pro back in the early to mid 1970s. And I have no regrets at all. I got to travel just about every year with international teams [including seven World Amateur teams], meet friends, see the world. The pro life isn’t as glamourous as it may look unless you are among the top players. Now it might be a different story. There are many more tours all over and a lot more money. I might give it a try.

“I don’t discourage young players who want to give it a shot but, realistically, they have to hit certain benchmarks. You have to be successful at every level and test yourself against the best in major amateur events, not just at home, but elsewhere.”

Graham Cooke gets asked the same question, to the point where he has worked out what he calls “tags” to determine whether a golfer has the wherewithal to be successful on tour.

“First, you must be able to play to an honest plus-4 handicap or better across the board. Second, you must be able to have bogey-free rounds. You must have consistently low rounds, and you must be able to perform and dedicate yourself 9 to 5 to your game. If you don’t have those tags, then go to college and work on your game against top competition. Then if at some point you think your game is where it should be, maybe that’s the time to try turning pro.”

Graham Cooke (Golf Canada)

Despite being named an honourable mention All-American during his time at Michigan State, Cooke says his game never really rounded into form until later in life when he would win seven Canadian Mid-Amateur titles and then four Canadian Senior crowns. As one of Canada’s most notable golf course architects, he says his decision was the right one. His expertise at playing the game not only impresses clients but allows him to understand the strategy and subtleties of good course design.

Typically, Streit, for whom winning was everything (although she says, “My greatest joy was representing Canada”), is more blunt.

“Now, every good young player wants to turn pro. I always say, ‘Get an education. They can never take that away from you.’ I also say, ‘Don’t get caught up in just having fun. Get a real life!’ Too many players these days are prepared just to make the cut. So you go into Saturday in 60^th spot. What do you expect to finish? 40^th? That’s not acceptable. Your expectation should always be to win. Let your clubs do the talking. If you are good enough, the rest will follow.”

Would, assuming real and lasting professional success, “the rest” she mentions include a place in a Hall of Fame? Possibly. But resumes filled with mediocre finishes on satellite tours aren’t likely to impress voters. They are, more likely, to mean sharing two-star motel rooms with relative strangers when you’re on tour and living with your parents at age 35 when you aren’t. But that doesn’t have to mean a life sentence. Reinstatement as an amateur is always a possibility. And, sometimes, good things are worth the wait.

Like Cooke, Hamilton rediscovered his golf groove in middle age when he would win, among other titles, five Canadian Mid-Amateurs. His emphasis on education (he was a longtime banker) and life-golf balance proved right for him.

“Being a career amateur should always be an option. But turning pro seems to be every good young player’s dream these days. But get your education. Then, if you want, follow your dream and if it doesn’t work out, you have that to fall back on.”

“Here’s the thing,” concludes Sye. “Live your dream if you want but if you can’t beat the amateurs in Canada, how are you going to beat Tour pros?”

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, well, ok, it was circa 1987, Bob Beauchemin and his wife sat in the basement of their townhouse in Brampton, Ont., stuffing envelopes and then licking and placing stamps on them.

Not much remarkable about that except Bob was the president of the Tournament Players Division of the Canadian Professional Golfers Association (which soon was rebranded as the Canadian Tour) and the envelopes were registration forms for the Tour Qualifying School. It was a shoestring operation, to say the very least.

The size of the shoestring varied over the years but, thanks to Bob and his successors as commissioner between then and 2012—Richard Grimm, Jacques Burelle, Rick Janes—there has always been a circuit of some sort for good players to hone their skills. The purses, venues and number of tournaments varied almost year to year, but our homegrown tour hung in there.

The year 2012 was significant as that was when the PGA TOUR acquired the Canadian Tour, which now is known as PGA TOUR Canada. Along with the globally recognized brand came a commitment to consistency as shown in this year’s dozen tournaments with uniform purses of $150,000. The new arrangement also provided Golf Canada with the opportunity to offer exemptions to deserving young pros and amateurs, such as members of Team Canada.

“It the perfect place for young players to see where they stand versus the quality of competition that is out there,” says Bill Paul, Golf Canada’s Chief Championship Officer. “It works as an opportunity for them to test themselves at that level, which helps them determine where their game is and where it has to improve if they want to make it to the PGA TOUR eventually.”

The 2014 schedule wraps up this week in London, Ont., with the PGA TOUR Canada’s TOUR Championship presented by Freedom 55 Financial and conducted by Golf Canada at Sunningdale Golf and Country Club. In addition to serving as title sponsor of the TOUR Championship of Canada, Freedom 55 Financial also sponsors the Freedom 55 Canadian Player of the Week award presented at each PGA TOUR Canada event as well as the season ending Freedom 55 Player of the Year Award.

There is lots at stake for the players who qualified for this week’s championship by being in the top 60 of the season-long Order of Merit. Come Sunday, the top five players on the Order of Merit will earn Web.com Tour status for the following season, with players finishing sixth through 10^th earning an exemption into the final stage and players finishing 11^th through 20^th  into the second stage of Web.com Tour Qualifying School.

And thanks to the presenting sponsor, a division of London-based London Life Insurance Company, there is a lot at stake for the future of golf in and around the largest city in southwestern Ontario.

Golf Canada’s terrific Golf in Schools program is the official charity of this week’s TOUR Championship.

“In establishing a community legacy for the TOUR Championship of Canada presented by Freedom 55 Financial, Golf Canada will invite area golf clubs throughout London and Southwestern Ontario in a campaign to adopt schools to be a part of the Golf in Schools program,” said the press release announcing the initiative

Golf in Schools—which is offered in more than 2,225 elementary and almost 230 high schools across Canada—provides children with a basic introduction to golf through the Canadian school physical education curriculum. The program, which is endorsed by Physical Health and Education Canada, is conducted by Golf Canada in partnership with the PGA of Canada and the provincial golf associations. (More information about the Golf in Schools program including the school adoption program is available by clicking here.)

“We’re excited to promote Golf in Schools,” said Mike Cunneen, Senior Vice-President, Freedom 55 Financial/Wealth and Estate Planning Group. “We got involved in the program because it introduces golf and promotes healthy lifestyle—and hopefully gets more young people involved in the game.”

Paul also pointed out that the recent Canadian Pacific Women’s Open held at London Hunt and Country Club raised more than $1.1 million for the Children’s Health Foundation with funds going towards improving children’s cardiac care at the Children’s Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre.

So, there is no doubt that golf has altered the lives of many in this city and its environs and will continue to do so for years to come.

“Our goal for Sunday is not only to announce the winner and the players who get onto the Web.com Tour but also to announce how many schools have been adopted,” Paul said. “We think it is a great way to leave a lasting impact on the community.”

Bill Paul, Jeff Monday, Mike Cunneen (PGA TOUR/ Claus Andersen)

There’s a hoary old saying: “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” It is, opines Wikipedia, the font of all modern knowledge, “a metaphor for the power of innovation.”

Yet you can innovate your butt off and, if no one knows about your better mousetrap, you are—to quote a biblical passage—“hiding your light under a bushel.”

That’s why golf equipment companies spend millions on marketing their newest mousetraps … er … innovations and not hiding them under the proverbial bushel. The increasing frequency of these new clubs and balls can, understandably, lead the cynical among us to question whether they are really better, or just different.

Sure, they look cool and you know that Tour pro XYZ plays them, but you think that’s only because the company is paying him or her handsomely to use them in competition. And a Tour pro just plays what they are given, cashes the cheque and shuts up, right? What they do has no bearing on what ends up in our golf bags, correct?

To prove that theory wrong, think about this the next time you get into your car. Things like air bags, disc brakes, crushable body structures, independent suspension, radial tires, and significant engine and transmission advancements in your car were developed by brilliant engineers at the automobile companies and then tested by the best drivers on the planet in competition.

It’s the same thing with golf equipment. “There is no way these companies would put millions and millions into research and development and not come out of that process with something better,” says Rick Young, equipment and business analyst for SCOREGolf. “Their biggest spend is on R&D and they work four to five years ahead. Then, when they have a new product, they hand it over to the pros to validate the technology.”

Along with Young and some other Canadian golf writers, I had a chance to witness that first-hand on the Tuesday preceding The Barclays. NIKE was unveiling their new Vapor line of irons in New York City with the help of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. Tech sessions covered every aspect of the new line’s technology. I admit my eyes glazed over when hearing phrases like “Precision Power” and “Modern Muscle.” But I quickly regained focus when Tiger and Mike Taylor, NIKE’s resident club design genius, retraced the development of the irons and Tiger’s role in that process. Trust me, Tiger was integrally involved. And believe me when I tell you the technology behind the new irons is solid. Or don’t trust or believe me. Young, one of the most respected equipment writers in the business, agrees with me. So there.

I use NIKE as an example only because I was witness to this latest demonstration of what all leading golf equipment companies are after. They are after not just your dollars, but your loyalty and your increased enjoyment of the game. They desperately want you to enjoy the game of golf.

“If we don’t have new technology coming out all the time, I guarantee golf would be less popular than it is,” says Young. “Do the new clubs and balls automatically make you better? Not necessarily. That is up to you. Get the right equipment for you and get it custom fitted.”

When Young got into writing about equipment, back about the year 2000, the Titleist Pro V1 had just revolutionized the golf ball world. Standard driver size, which had been around 190 cubic centimetres, had exploded to 340-350cc with Callaway’s Great Big Bertha II, King Cobra and TaylorMade Burner. Wedges were the flavour of the week, with the standard pitching and sand wedges enhanced with versions ranging from 52 to 64 degrees of loft.

Then came the technology explosion.

Less than 15 years later, drivers are limited to 460cc. Woods and irons and balls must have reached their limits.

Nope, says Young.

“We are on the cusp of something dramatic material-wise that will show itself in the next two or three years. I’m sure of it.”

He is also sure that right now, in some lab somewhere, mad boffins in the employ of golf equipment companies are toiling away over those new materials. Bunsen burners are boiling. Electricity crackles across the lab. Sweat drips from their nerdy brows. They haven’t seen the light of day for months.

Suddenly, a cry echoes across the room. (With apologies to the original Frankenstein movie of 1931.)

“Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive… It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!”

“In the name of God!”

“Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!”

Stay tuned!

The first time the LPGA visited the London Hunt and Country Club was in 1993 when Brandie Burton defeated Betsy King on the first playoff hole in what was then called the du Maurier Classic.

Coincidentally, it was the first time I had been there, too, and to say I was impressed was an understatement.

Since then, being impressed when at this historic club has become a theme for anyone fortunate enough to enter the gates. Sure, it is a pleasure to play, but when you are there, as a player or spectator, for a major event, it is even more impressive.

I guess I should put “major” in quotation marks, as next week’s Canadian Pacific Women’s Open is just that, in everything but official status. Our national women’s Open was an LPGA major from 1979 to 2000. Despite the loss of that elite status, it continues to be one of the most prestigious championships on the women’s circuit.

When the LPGA returned to London Hunt in 2006, the atmosphere was fantastic. The aura definitely was that of a major. Crowds of upwards of 20,000 showed up every day to watch Cristie Kerr come from eight shots back starting the final round to edge Angela Stanford by a shot.

Next week’s championship will be the inaugural Canadian Pacific Women’s Open, as the railroad company takes over sponsorship from Canadian National without missing a beat. The US$2.25-million purse is among the largest on the LPGA Tour, matching this week’s Wegman’s LPGA Championship in fact. Tournament Director Brent McLaughlin said in a conference call Monday that not only the purse is exceptional, but so are the course conditions and the spectator experience opportunities.

At 17, LPGA rookie Lydia Ko has won our women’s Open the past two years, as an amateur, no less. She turned pro last October. This teen phenom was on Monday’s conference call as well, and raved about the overall experience, a feeling she says is shared by her colleagues on tour. She enthused over the course, the fans, and the superior tournament operations overall.

One of the most outstanding initiatives of this year’s championship is the Ticket Rally for Heart. For every ticket purchased before tournament week begins on Aug. 17, CP will donate $100 to the event’s official charity, the Children’s Health Foundation, which provides cardiac research and care of children from the London area and across southwestern Ontario.

“Our railroad recently announced our new North American-wide community investment program, CP Has Heart, and the Children’s Health Foundation is our ideal partner to improve children’s heart health,” Canadian Pacific CEO E. Hunter Harrison said in announcing the program.

On Monday, McLaughlin said the amount raised so far is nearing half a million dollars.

With just under a week to go, the goal of $750,000 is still attainable.

Now, that would be “major.”

(You can do your part by ordering your Canadian Pacific Women’s Open tickets before August 18th at www.cpwomensopen.com.)

The editor asked for a column on “par.”

My response?

“My good man, your ‘par’ is a deceitful harlot whose insidious false promises inevitably lead to broken dreams and shattered hopes.” (OK, so I just came up with that now, but that would have set him back on his heels, I bet. In any case, I accepted the assignment.)

Despite what you may think, the word “par” did not originate in golf. It denoted something that was average, acceptable. Eventually, it made its way into golf’s lexicon in the early 20^th Century to denote the arbitrary standard for the number of strokes, based on the length of a hole, that a proficient golfer should take on that hole. It also sounded a death knell for the dominance of match play, particularly in North America.

For the next few decades, although many golf competitions continued to be contested as matches, the concept of aggregate stroke play based on par was making inroads. One of the last professional holdouts was the PGA Championship, being played this week in Kentucky. It was a match-play tournament until 1958, when the commercial and entertainment realities of television pressured it to switch to stroke play.

One of the most significant mementoes of my life in golf is a trophy awarded to the club champion a few years back. It was a titanic struggle, one for the ages. (Did I mention I won?) To recap: Nerves jangling, barely breathing, I started out with two triple bogeys, a sketchy par and a double bogey. My opponent, who had a similar handicap factor to me, went par, bogey, par, par. I finished the round five shots behind my opponent, but I won the trophy on the second extra hole.

No doubt you are shaking your head and saying. “Huh? How does that work?” Easy. It was our club’s match-play championship.

In the match I mentioned, it didn’t matter that I was seven strokes behind my opponent after the first four holes. I was down just three holes, having lost the first two, halved (tied) the third and lost the fourth. (If it was a stroke-play competition, my fate would have been sealed before we made the turn and I would have been hailing the beverage cart.) But in match play, hope springs eternal. By the time we reached the 18^th green, I had won those three back and we were all square. We halved the 19^th and I had a par to his bogey on the 20^th. Despite stumbling badly out of the gate, I had won.

To say my opponent and I were exhausted is an understatement. He was buoyant about being three holes up after four played but decided to play defensively. In contrast, I took some chances that paid off and there I was, looming in his rearview mirror. Down two holes, then just one. Suddenly, short putts that had been conceded earlier in the match were not being conceded. Despite being the best of pals, we became the lockjaw twins. No quarter asked and none given. We were grinding, battling not only the course and our swings, but each other, as well as the many and conflicting emotions swirling around inside our noggins. It was a great match, a draining physical, psychological, emotional, strategic battle. It was “mano a mano,” just the two of us. Old Man Par, that uninvited third wheel, was not welcome.

So you can keep your par and your stroke play. Give me match play anytime.

Dean Ryan concurs. Ryan, a Golf Canada Governor, is a past Golf Canada Rules Chairman and still sits on the organization’s Rules Committee. I caught up with him on the phone as he was arriving at this week’s Canadian Men’s Amateur in Winnipeg after spending a week in Niagara Falls, presiding over the Canadian Junior Boys Championship.

Ryan got my attention when I read his excellent column, Stop The Stroke Play Insanity!, in the latest issue of Ontario Golf News, which coincidentally arrived in my inbox as I was thinking about this piece. (I won’t rehash Ryan’s thoughts, but you should read them here.)

“When golfers first try match play, they are delighted by its simplicity and forgiveness,” he told me. “Most of us are inconsistent golfers and match play takes the pressure off. North America is one of the few places around the world where match play and Stableford are not played frequently. In both formats, you can have a few bad holes and carry on. Not in stroke play.”

In fact, Ryan thinks match play “could be one of the saviours of the game,” not just for the reasons he mentioned above, but because it takes less time to play than stroke play because putts and even holes can be conceded to your opponent without having to grind out every shot. Just pick up and move on to the next tee. But, just like in stroke play, you must post a score for handicap purposes after every match-play round, even if you don’t complete a hole or holes.

Craig Loughry, Golf Canada’s Director of Handicap and Course Rating, explains.

“If in match play, the player is conceded a putt or hole mid-stream, there is a decision to make for score posting. There is a specific decision to help explain this.

“Section 4, Adjusting Hole Scores, says that a player who starts, but does not complete, a hole records for handicap purposes the ‘most likely score.’ This score must not exceed the player’s maximum number under Equitable Stroke Control.

“’Most likely score’ is a judgment that each player must make based on his or her own game. It consists of the number of strokes already taken plus, in the player’s best judgment, the number of strokes needed to complete the hole from that position more than half the time. The player must evaluate each situation based on what the player can reasonably expect to score.

“The grey area is if John has an eight-footer. John is a superior putter, so maybe he makes that putt. Craig, on the other hand, would be lucky to two-putt from there. Go to five feet, three feet, etc. You get the idea. It depends on you—you get to decide what that would be based on your own game, not someone else judging for you. Just like calling a rules violation on yourself.”

Faster rounds, simpler, less intimidating, more forgiving. Could match play, as Ryan suggests, be one of the saviours of golf in these trying times?

Complete information on match, stroke, Stableford and all forms of play is available in the Rules of Golf here.

The Golf Canada Handicap Manual is located online by clicking here.

I’m giving up driving. Cars are too expensive.  Look, I just read that a new Bugatti goes for about $2.5 million. Who can afford that?

And I now realize I will never own my own house. They just cost too much. For example, the newspaper just said there is a condo in Toronto’s trendy Yorkville selling for $12.9 million.

Ridiculous logic, right? Laughable, really. Everyone knows there are much more affordable choices in cars and housing for folks in just about every income bracket. If most Canadians really want to drive a car or own a house, they can probably find a way.

But that same ridiculous, laughable logic is used by those, particularly in the media, who say golf costs too much for the average person. To bolster their phoney hypothesis, they cite the most expensive club memberships, greens fees in the $200 range, sets of clubs costing thousands of dollars. They obviously have an agenda; that being to further the erroneous and irresponsible myth that golf is an elitist sport, too costly for the hoi polloi.

They are wrong. And not just simply wrong. “As wrong as wrong can be,” as my dear old mom used to say.

First, golf club membership fees are not all in the five-figure range and annual dues are not all in excess of $5,000. (Truth be told, those are the rare exceptions.) If membership at one club is your preference, there are many across Canada where the membership/initiation fee is nominal or even waived altogether, and annual dues are well under $2,000. If you’re at the stage in life where you are fortunate enough to be able to play a lot of golf, this may be the best route. For example, if you are retired and play 60 or so rounds a season, that can work out to about 30 bucks a round. Add in the camaraderie, social and golf events, and the other amenities that accompany a membership, and I call that a bargain.

If you prefer to play a variety of courses rather than join just one, there are plenty of choices. Many courses are offering specials so it’s worth checking your local courses’ web sites regularly.

Many municipalities from, literally, coast to coast own courses where the green fee is very affordable. And if you think these are all goat pastures, you’re sorely mistaken.

Vancouver has the Fraserview, Langara and McCleery courses, plus some terrific little pitch-and-putt layouts. Fraserview, for example, is a Tom McBroom redesign with a great practice facility and a real West Coast feel. You can play it for as little as $30 for 18 holes, $21 for seniors, and $15 for juniors. In Newfoundland, the provincial capital of St. John’s has 27 holes in Pippy Park: Captain’s Hill, the original nine-hole course in the park, and Admiral’s Green. The latter is a Graham Cooke design that has hosted the PGA of Canada and both the Canadian Women’s Amateur Championship and Canadian Junior Championship. When I checked today, you could play Admiral’s Green for about $35, with the chance of sighting a whale or an iceberg thrown in for free.

In between those two coastal extremities, there are many other “munis” in centres large and small: Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Hamilton, Woodstock (Ont.), Thunder Bay, Stratford, Mississauga, Kitchener-Waterloo, Windsor (Ont.), Prince Albert (Sask.), Halifax, London, Yorkton (Sask.), Stony Plain (Alta.), Frankford (Ont.)…   the list is long. A lot have hosted provincial and national tournaments, many have historic significance, some are the products of renowned designers.

So now that you have a place to play, how about some implements? At bargain pricing, of course.

Just about every negative media mention takes perverse glee in citing top-level equipment prices: $499 drivers, iron sets for $1,299, $70 for a dozen balls, etc. Again, that is irresponsible headline-seeking misdirection. If you want new clubs, try a chain such as Canadian Tire or Costco where you can get a full set of name-brand clubs, including head covers and bag, for about $250. Used sets are available on Kijiji, ebay.ca or on forums such as torontogolfnuts.com for a fraction of their new price, as are recycled top-notch golf balls.

And don’t worry about having the latest golf apparel. Many courses are relaxing their dress codes and, in any case, outlet stores such as Winners have great golf-appropriate clothing at discounted pricing.

Think golf instruction is just for the pros or for the more affluent golfer? Wrong again. Those same municipal courses often offer group instruction and clinics (sometimes free). So do most public and semi-private courses.  Check out the local library for golf instruction books and DVDs. One great inexpensive solution for beginners is the program offered at www.getgolfready.ca.

If you can afford to drive that Bugatti and live in Yorkville, good for you.  Strangely, the mainstream media don’t assume that financial extreme is the norm.

I sure wish they wouldn’t assume that about golf.

In his book, A Feel For The Game, Ben Crenshaw says, “If Dr. MacKenzie [famed course architect Alister] or Donald Ross or any of the other great architects came back now, I wonder what they would think of … what has been done to their courses. I never knew them, but I’ve studied their lives, their courses and their thoughts on the game.  I think they would take a dim view of it.”

A dim view is exactly what many TV viewers may be taking over the next two weeks as the men’s and women’s U.S. Opens are contested on Pinehurst No. 2, a course that little resembles the one we last saw in 2005. Shades of brown and yellow are interspersed among the green of the hard and (hopefully) dry fairways. Clumps of native grasses punctuate the sprawling sandy waste areas. All that remains intact from 2005 are Donald Ross’s famed and feared domed greens and the closely mown collection areas surrounding them.

Thanks to Crenshaw and design co-conspirator Bill Coore, gone are the wall-to-wall green carpets that masqueraded as fairways and the lush grass roughs that the USGA delighted in growing shin-deep to punish wayward shots. Good for them and golf. Maybe not so good for the uneducated golf fans who think every course should be pristinely green. Pity them, as they are unwitting victims of the “Augusta Syndrome.”

When MacKenzie and Bobby Jones designed Augusta National, permanent site of The Masters, their stated aim was to create an “inland links.” Over the past 80 years or so, Augusta has morphed into something diametrically opposed to that. It does not offer a player multiple options but dictates the line of play; it does not offer a chance to play the linksy “ground game” where long-iron shots can be “stung” down fairways for many more yards than usual; it is groomed and coddled to the nth degree and resembles nothing else in nature. It is contrived, not natural. But it looks great on TV and, as a result, many golfers not only expect that unrelenting green on their screens but also on the courses they play. The result of the Augusta Syndrome has been a massive increase in every sort of input to sustain that unnatural image: Fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, water, manpower, you name it.

Over the years, Pinehurst No. 2 suffered the same unfortunate metamorphosis as Augusta. But someone saw the light and, as Pinehurst President Don Padgett II put it in announcing that Coore and Crenshaw Inc. would be renovating the course: “We are doing this because it is the right thing to do as stewards of this historic course.”

“We’re trying to uncover it, not recover it,” said Coore at the start of the project in 2010. “We’ll bring the strategy back and reinstate its character.” He and Crenshaw spent countless hours studying Ross’s original plans and notes as well as historic photos before commencing the controversial task of recreating a true inland links.

They have succeeded admirably.  The fairways are wider, skirting around those yawning  sandy waste areas, yet 26 acres of turf were removed; the area of maintained rough was reduced some 40 per cent; and single-row irrigation replaced the existing double-row system, reducing the number of sprinkler heads from 1,150 to 450. “We want the grassing lines to be defined by the limit of the irrigation system,” said Bob Farren, Pinehurst’s director of golf course management.

If you can get over the aesthetic contrast (shocking to most North American viewers used to pampered and homogenized PGA Tour venues), then you can appreciate what has been achieved by Crenshaw and Coore in “uncovering” Ross’s masterpiece. Although the green complexes are uniquely Rossian (he once said that they “make possible an infinite variety of nasty short shots that no other form of hazard can call for”), the hard, fast and eminently playable turf is definitely reminiscent of a links. The fact that the sandy areas and sinuous fairways provide shotmaking options was undeniable in the players’ news conferences leading up to the men’s U.S. Open. For example, Bubba Watson said he would lay up on many holes while Phil Mickelson said he would pull the driver out as often as possible.

If you are a golfer of a certain age, you may recall when you played a hole with a driver and 5-iron in the wet spring, 4-iron and a wedge in the dryness of summer, and something else all together in the fall. The rough was wispy and unpredictable. It was a time when creativity and imagination defined a good golf game, not the unrelenting similarity of lush fairways sustained uniformly throughout the season by wall-to-wall irrigation and chemical inputs.

Thanks to the visionary leadership at Pinehurst and the genius of Crenshaw and Coore, we will see a hint of that during the men’s and women’s U.S. Opens over the next couple of weeks. It might not be green, but it is better. Better for golf and better for the environment…so I guess it is “green” after all.

In his book, A Feel For The Game, Ben Crenshaw says, “If Dr. MacKenzie [famed course architect Alister] or Donald Ross or any of the other great architects came back now, I wonder what they would think of … what has been done to their courses. I never knew them, but I’ve studied their lives, their courses and their thoughts on the game.  I think they would take a dim view of it.”

A dim view is exactly what many TV viewers may be taking over the next two weeks as the men’s and women’s U.S. Opens are contested on Pinehurst No. 2, a course that little resembles the one we last saw in 2005. Shades of brown and yellow are interspersed among the green of the hard and (hopefully) dry fairways. Clumps of native grasses punctuate the sprawling sandy waste areas. All that remains intact from 2005 are Donald Ross’s famed and feared domed greens and the closely mown collection areas surrounding them.

Thanks to Crenshaw and design co-conspirator Bill Coore, gone are the wall-to-wall green carpets that masqueraded as fairways and the lush grass roughs that the USGA delighted in growing shin-deep to punish wayward shots. Good for them and golf. Maybe not so good for the uneducated golf fans who think every course should be pristinely green. Pity them, as they are unwitting victims of the “Augusta Syndrome.”

When MacKenzie and Bobby Jones designed Augusta National, permanent site of The Masters, their stated aim was to create an “inland links.” Over the past 80 years or so, Augusta has morphed into something diametrically opposed to that. It does not offer a player multiple options but dictates the line of play; it does not offer a chance to play the linksy “ground game” where long-iron shots can be “stung” down fairways for many more yards than usual; it is groomed and coddled to the nth degree and resembles nothing else in nature. It is contrived, not natural. But it looks great on TV and, as a result, many golfers not only expect that unrelenting green on their screens but also on the courses they play. The result of the Augusta Syndrome has been a massive increase in every sort of input to sustain that unnatural image: Fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, water, manpower, you name it.

Over the years, Pinehurst No. 2 suffered the same unfortunate metamorphosis as Augusta. But someone saw the light and, as Pinehurst President Don Padgett II put it in announcing that Coore and Crenshaw Inc. would be renovating the course: “We are doing this because it is the right thing to do as stewards of this historic course.”

“We’re trying to uncover it, not recover it,” said Coore at the start of the project in 2010. “We’ll bring the strategy back and reinstate its character.” He and Crenshaw spent countless hours studying Ross’s original plans and notes as well as historic photos before commencing the controversial task of recreating a true inland links.

They have succeeded admirably.  The fairways are wider, skirting around those yawning  sandy waste areas, yet 26 acres of turf were removed; the area of maintained rough was reduced some 40 per cent; and single-row irrigation replaced the existing double-row system, reducing the number of sprinkler heads from 1,150 to 450. “We want the grassing lines to be defined by the limit of the irrigation system,” said Bob Farren, Pinehurst’s director of golf course management.

If you can get over the aesthetic contrast (shocking to most North American viewers used to pampered and homogenized PGA Tour venues), then you can appreciate what has been achieved by Crenshaw and Coore in “uncovering” Ross’s masterpiece. Although the green complexes are uniquely Rossian (he once said that they “make possible an infinite variety of nasty short shots that no other form of hazard can call for”), the hard, fast and eminently playable turf is definitely reminiscent of a links. The fact that the sandy areas and sinuous fairways provide shotmaking options was undeniable in the players’ news conferences leading up to the men’s U.S. Open. For example, Bubba Watson said he would lay up on many holes while Phil Mickelson said he would pull the driver out as often as possible.

If you are a golfer of a certain age, you may recall when you played a hole with a driver and 5-iron in the wet spring, 4-iron and a wedge in the dryness of summer, and something else all together in the fall. The rough was wispy and unpredictable. It was a time when creativity and imagination defined a good golf game, not the unrelenting similarity of lush fairways sustained uniformly throughout the season by wall-to-wall irrigation and chemical inputs.

Thanks to the visionary leadership at Pinehurst and the genius of Crenshaw and Coore, we will see a hint of that during the men’s and women’s U.S. Opens over the next couple of weeks. It might not be green, but it is better. Better for golf and better for the environment…so I guess it is “green” after all.