One of the most prolific designers in the history of golf course architecture, Robert Trent Jones II has in recent years championed the environment and affordable public golf.

Few golf course architecture firms have as much global presence and notoriety as that of Robert Trent Jones II, whose most famous works include Spanish Bay at Pebble Beach, Washington’s upcoming US Open venue Chambers Bay, and several hundred others in more than 40 countries.

Jones, Jr. has never been anything less than brutally outspoken, and three years ago he issued his company’s Green Proclamation, a commitment to design golf courses in an environmentally responsible manner. At the same time he called on his peers to likewise dedicate themselves to these environmental tenets.

For 2012, Jones is back at the podium, and just has released a “Public Golf Proclamation,” comprised of ten tenets to support accessible and affordable public golf and bring our beloved game to more people in more places worldwide.

This proclamation follows on the heels of a recent letter to the New York Times, in which Jones, Jr. wrote, “Golf architects are often called upon to design courses that support upscale real estate developments.  But the game’s roots reach down into the Earth, not up into trophy homes.  Golf first developed 500 years ago as an accessible and affordable sport that brought people together outdoors, rather than separating them.  Many great golf courses serve the public and the environment. The future of our sport lies in embracing the Scottish tradition in which all people are equal as they stand over a white ball.”

Without further ado, here is the test of the company’s proclamation and 10 tenets:

PUBLIC GOLF PROCLAMATION
Our Exclusive Commitment to Inclusiveness

From its earliest origins along the coasts of Scotland golf has fostered community, bringing together disparate peoples to enjoy both competition and camaraderie.  In the modern era, golf courses throughout the world have been very successful when created in conjunction with resort and real estate developments and private clubs.  At Robert Trent Jones II we will continue to design the best possible courses to meet the needs of our many and varied clients.  But we believe that golf should also be easily affordable and accessible to everyone who wishes to play it.

As our founder, Robert Trent Jones, Jr., stated in a letter to the New York Times, “The future of our sport lies in embracing the Scottish tradition in which all people are equal as they stand over the ball.”

We applaud the global efforts of golf organizations, associations, and governing bodies, as well as our golf architecture colleagues worldwide, who have worked to promote public access to affordable, high-quality, environmentally responsible golf. In an effort to foster the communal spirit of the game we offer the following declaration to golfers and prospective golfers of every nation:

We aspire to:
1. Work with municipalities and other government entities to create great golf courses for their citizens through insightful, integrated master plans specific to each community.
2. Assist communities in creating programs and initiatives that make great public courses accessible and affordable to everyone.
3. Advocate for the creation of golf facilities on degraded sites to return unproductive land to productive and sustainable public uses.
4. Always protect and enhance the environment for the good of all.
5. Design courses that require less earth moving, water, fertilizer, and other resources in an effort to keep investment and operating costs—and therefore green fees—reasonable.
6. Create wider strategic routings and sets of shorter “family tees” to encourage children to take up golf and have fun playing it.
7. Advocate for innovative practice facilities where young people and newcomers can learn to love golf, and support programs and organizations that introduce new players to the sport.
8. Design facilities that encourage speed of play, including inventive layouts such as “Learning Courses,” par-three routings, 6-, 9-, and 12-hole loops, and others.
9. Create public courses that are flexible, fun, and challenging to golfers of a wide range of abilities.
10. Encourage golf course owners to support local businesses and take an active role in their communities.

Our team - with PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley - should have been on this Leaderboard

True Story.

Four weeks ago I went to Jackson, Mississippi to play in the Pro-Am of the Viking Classic with one specific mission: to pick PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley as my partner in the pro-am drawing.

Four weeks ago, despite having a breakthrough win and several strong finishes already in his rookie year (way more than can be said for Sergio or many more highly touted prospects), Keegan Bradley was almost entirely unknown among golf fans. If they knew him at all, it was for being the nephew of LPGA star Pat Bradley, rather than for his own surprising accomplishments.
So why did I want him as my pro-am partner?

Because very, very few folks (I can count them on one hand) from Vermont, where I live, have ever played on the PGA Tour, and Bradley played high school golf in the same town I ate dinner in last night, less than 20 minutes from my house, Woodstock, Vermont. I had the good fortune to meet our last local hero, Jeff Julian, before he passed away from Lou Gehrig’s disease, back when he was still a club pro at the Quechee Club and not a PGA Tour player.

Bradley also used to play with my good friend Dave McGrath, who helped coach our local high school team, knows all the people involved with golf locally, grew up in my backyard, and knows all the courses around here, so I figured we would have something to talk about, which is about the best thing you can have going for you in a pro-am. After all, I’ve played with some really famous, Top 10 in the world golfers and we had nothing to say (see my pro-am articles here, here, here, here, and here). I can almost guarantee I would have been the first amateur he got paired with ready to discuss the finer points of the wacky third hole at the John P. Larkin CC in Windsor. I wanted to ask him if he’d ever tried to drive the green.

First, I had to sell all my teammates on the idea that they should skip over much more famous players to let me take Bradley. Being gentlemen, they succumbed to my logic, and I figured we would all have a grand time, and it would be relatively easy to get him in the lottery, since few other teams would be gunning for him like we were.

So what happened?

He withdrew last minute.

It would have been prescient to have played with the now Major Champ a month ago, it would have been a good story to tell, but most of all, it would have been a lot of fun, and we would have been quite possibly the last group of amateurs Keegan Bradley will ever play in a pro-a with who tried to pick him as a partner for a reason other than his Wanamaker Trophy.

Oh well. I still wish him the best of luck on Tour, and many more Majors!

19-time winner Ben Crenshaw does not need his caddie's advice on where to eat barbecue!

When Ben Crenshaw returned to Augusta National after winning the Masters, his traditional honor as defending champion was a choice of what to have served at the pre-tournament Champion’s dinner.

His choice?

Barbecue from the Salt Lick, just outside Austin, TX, where he grew up and played college golf.

I just returned from the Salt Lick where owner Scott Roberts, himself a golf fanatic who has played everywhere from Pebble Beach to the ultra-private Kuki’o in Hawaii, regaled me with stories of shipping his brisket and ribs off to Augusta National, where needless to say, they were not very happy about food being sent in from outside, what with their staff army of chefs and all. No shocker to me that staff treated him very rudely, despite the fact that my many critical accounts, the Salt Lick is the finest barbecue joint in the country.

Celebrity Chef Bobby Flay called the Salt Lick's monster beef ribs "The Best Thing I Ever Ate."

Texans are passionate about BBQ, and trying to pin down the best cue is like trying to prove which is the best golf course – impossible. But the Salt Lick is right up there for sure, and was recently named the best barbecue in the nation by the Travel Channel. Chef and grilling expert Bobby Flay chose their beef ribs as the best thing he ever ate. I have been on a years long quest for great barbecue, and recently, thanks to the launch of my new food column, Great American Bites, for USA Today, I have been on a number of road trips to the hearts of barbecue country: Memphis, Kansas City, Texas, Mississippi, and the Carolinas. I can now safely say that the Salt Lick is currently tied for number one on my personal best list with Oklahoma Joe’s in Kansas City, and ahead of many other famed some places coast to coast.

Austin is the Mecca of Texas-style cue, with several word famous places in and around the city, and it is also famous for golfers. Bizarrely, I’ve recently played with two different Austonians who know a thing or two about golf and both professed their love of barbecue: PGA Tour player Tim Petrovic, and Champions Tour player and US Open champ Tom Kite.

My new theory is that eating barbecue makes you a better golfer, and after all the ribs and brisket I’ve been eating, I sure hope I’m right!

In any case, if you can get to the Salt Lick, I heartily recommend you do, but if not, the good news is that they deliver, and the stuff travels really, really well!

Emeril Lagasse is America's favorite chef - and a hell of a golfer.

Lots of celebrity chefs play golf. In fact, one thing I’ve learned writing regularly on both food and golf is that lots of chefs play, famous or not, and they almost always give the same reason: it is one of the only chances they have to get away from the restaurant, away from their cell phones, and actually outside period, for four to five hours.

Some of the better known golf junkie chefs out there include Todd English, Emmy-winner Ming Tsai, Tom Colicchio, Mario Batali, Bobby Flay and Nobu Matsuhisa – who used to do ads for Callaway.

And then there is the most famous of all the celebrity chefs, the force of nature himself, Emeril Lagasse.

Famous for his trademark exclamation “Bam!” as he spices it up, Emeril is much more than just a chef, he is an entertainer, philanthropist, author and entrepreneur. Best known for his twin New Orleans fine dining flagships Emeril’s and Delmonico, he runs a dozen restaurants from Louisiana to Las Vegas to Bethlehem, PA; he’s churned out more than 20 cookbooks; has a line of cookware and jarred sauces; hosts several television and radio shows; and unlike any other chef ever, he even had a short lived network sitcom.

He also loves golf, and is known for both regularly playing in and helping to cater the Wednesday pro-am at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans. It’s no surprise that this event was voted “Best Pro-Am” by the PGA Tour players themselves, mainly for its incredible food.

“A couple of weeks ago I played in the pro-am at the Viking Classic [Mississippi] – I made two birdies by the way,” Emeril was quick to tell me. “I wish I had more time to play. The appeal to me is that I’m free, don’t need to have my cell phone on for four hours. I can blank out responsibility. I love the game, the beauty.”

“It’s an interesting story how me and a bunch of my chefs got connected with golf. We were on a trip in Hawaii, many years ago, and we had one day before we had to come back to the Mainland, and we had worked our tails off for about four days getting these dinners done. I said ‘Guys, we have one day left, what do you want to do? We can take a helicopter ride, go to the beach, whatever you want to do, we can go ride horses.’ And they said ‘you know chef, we go to all these fabulous places with you, and they all have great golf courses, but we’ve never played golf, why don’t we go golfing?’ So the next morning I get the pro on the phone. We don’t even have shoes or socks, never mind clubs. We go to the pro shop, he’s nice enough to suit us up. I think it took six and a half hours to play one round, and the groundskeeper still probably has our pictures up on the wall because we tore the place up. That’s how the whole golfing thing started, about 15 years go. I came home, I bought clubs, started playing. I didn’t realize when I met my wife that she had taken golf in college. I was like ‘Man, what am I missing here? I didn’t have golf in college, I had ice carving.’”

“Now I have my own golf tournament for scholarships for my alma mater, Johnson & Wales, and every year we put four new students through college based on this endowment I started. It’s in its ninth year now. I’ve played a lot of great TPC courses, a lot of courses in Hawaii, but there is something about the Newport Country Club that is pretty spectacular.” The very private Rhode Island course he calls his favorite is also the venue for his annual charity tournament.

The 2-day tournament is usually in late September (Sept 19-20, 2011) and last year’s 8th annual outing raised over $400,000 for charity. Playing spots begin at $6,000 per twosome and registration is now open.

Trees. Poet Robert Frost loved them, but my guess is Tour pro Kevin Na will not be such a big fan.

Kevin Na made golf history Thursday at the Valero Texas Open when he recorded the highest score on a par-4 in the long and sometimes ugly history of the PGA Tour. Na’s final tally? Sixteen.

But really, who hasn’t been there?

Na first hit his tee shot into an unplayable lie to start things badly.

Done that.

It took him five attempts at ricochets off trees to get out of the woods.

Done that.

But where he really broke new ground was when he hit it off a tree and back into himself for a 2-stroke penalty.

Never done that.

I have to say that I’ve never made a 16, but the only reason is because I would have picked up around 9.

Despite these travails, Na can actually take something away form his rood. The blowup happened on the ninth hole, halfway through, and could have easily left him shaken, but instead he immediately rallied, and fired a stunning -4 on the other 17 holes to leave himself with an 80, not exactly great by Tour standards, but far from the worst in history and far better than one might expect with a 12 over on one hole.

Shooting 80 on a PGA Tour tournament course?

Never done that. And I never will.

Charlie Sheen's latest high-profile challenge is his attempt to save the golf industry.

April 1, 2011 – Dateline: Hollywood, CA

Vowing revenge on Warner Brothers and CBS, recently fired Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen has come up with the perfect counterattack – golf. “Hey, the golf industry’s been hurting ever since the stupid media made that stupid thing out of Tiger Wood’s womanizing,” noted Sheen, who famously lives with two young women known collectively as the Goddesses. “Like me, Tiger got a bum rap. I mean everyone knows I drink Tiger’s blood, not sure what he drinks, maybe Gatorade, but it was clearly working.” After rambling incoherently for several minutes, Sheen returned to the topic at hand. “15 million people each week tuned in to see me crack wise – and that’s not counting Argentina, where my show is called ‘Dos Hombres y Medio’ – hey I bet Angel Cabrera watches it!” After a brief discussion of Argentinean history and politics, and other countries where he is a huge star, including China (好汉两个半), Finland (Kaks ja pool meest) and France (Mon Oncle Charlie), Sheen returned to his idea for Play Golf Instead Day. “So imagine if I told my 15 million fans to skip primetime and play golf instead? Good for golf, bad for CBS. It’s a win-win.” When reminded that CBS airs the Masters, and that an uptick in golf popularity might actually help the network, Sheen responded mysteriously. “Augusta National? I’m in talks to buy that place.”

April Fools!

The 9th hole, like every hole at Las Vegas' Shadow Creek, is a stunner!

As I recently blogged, I think both the game of golf and Lindsay Lohan could really benefit from her taking up the sport with the same passion she once reserved for hard charging partying. Now that Charlie Sheen is out of work, and has a sizable following of fans, I think he too could use golf, and golf could certainly use him. Both celebs could follow in the footsteps of Amy Winehouse, Lawrence Taylor and Ted Nugent, the best known examples of stars using golf as rehab.

So while you will not find Lohan and Sheen putting on the greens of Shadow Creek – not this year at least, there is always hope – next month plenty of stars will come out and take to the fairways for the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational. This tournament has been going on for 10 years, but it used to be held at The Ocean Club on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, which I personally believe is the worst golf resort (or resort period) posing as a luxury property that I have been to on earth (see my post in the last month’s A Position recap of bad golf travel experiences), so the change is very, very welcome.

Readers will know that I absolutely love Shadow Creek, and this Fazio masterpiece remains one of the most impressive pieces of golf architecture ever undertaken on the planet, and is easily the best course in the Vegas area. Next month it will also be star studded, making it a great opportunity for fans of both the game and celebrities. You usually cannot get near heavily fenced and gated Shadow Creek, and from March 31- April 3 you can see it in all its well maintained glory for just $25 a day on Thursday and Friday, $50 on Saturday and Sunday, or $100 for a four day pass. That’s a lot cheaper than a PGA tournament, the course is better than most on Tour, and the players will be having a lot more fun. The “Bring the Kids for Free” deal lets each paying adult bring two kids under 16 at no extra charge.

Most critics consider Shadow Creek to be Tom Fazio's best work.

The first two days are a celebrity-am where groups of amateurs are paired with one of the invited celebrities, while the final two days are the celebrity only tournament. Either way, there will be plenty of photo and autograph opps! The event is co-hosted by the Aria Casino Hotel in Las Vegas’ sparkling new gem, City Center, and tickets are for sale at the Aria Box Office or online through the MJCI.

So far the impressive lineup includes, in addition to His Airness: entertainment world personalities such as Larry David, Maury Povich, Alan Thicke, Spike Lee, Don Cheadle, and Shannon Elizabeth , plus tons of current and former pro athletes from the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL and even soccer, such as Jerome Bettis, Sam Bradford, Brandi Chastain, Richard Dent, Paul O’Neill, Mike Piazza, Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, Drew Brees, Wayne Gretzky, Ken Griffey, Jr., Marcus Allen, Mario Lemieux, Mia Hamm, Boris Becker, and John Smoltz.

Admission is for  good cause: over the years the MJCI has raised more than $5 million for charity, and this year’s recipients are the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Nevada Cancer Institute, James R. Jordan Foundation and  Cats Care, the charity arm of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats, Jordan’s team.

See you in Vegas!

Is Martin Kaymer Number one in the world or Number Two? Find out here.

You hear a lot about the number one player in the world, or the Top 10 golfers in the world, or that some journeyman is currently raked 128th in the world – but what does it all mean?

For decades such mathematic conjuring has been the sole province of the “Official World Golf Ranking,” which is an independent entity whose formula and ensuing rankings are endorsed by all Four Major Championships, the PGA Tour, and the five other tours that combine to form the International Federation of PGA Tours. In short, it is endorsed by the people who run professional golf tournaments at the highest levels.

But the fairly static rankings have raised an eyebrow in recent years, especially when Tiger Woods managed to retain his number one in the world status for over a year after winning his last tournament, and with little other success. One reason for this apparently odd phenomenon is that the results of each tournament are weighted subjectively based on “strength of field,” and the four Majors are weighted even more, and for many years Tiger only played in – and won a lot of – big events, making his ranking strength disproportionate to his actual number of victories (though he had plenty of those too). This gave him a big cushion, big enough so that it took more than a year for the people who kept winning other tournaments, mainly Lee Westwood, and more recently Martin Kaymer, to catch him.

I’m going to interrupt myself for a second and make a shout out to me: I was the first prominent golf journalist in the US to proclaim Martin Kaymer the next big thing, while everyone else was jumping on the various Anthony Kim, Camillo Villegas and Rory McIlroy bandwagons, and not only was I right, but I was right in a huge way. It has taken Kaymer just one year to move from European Tour Rookie of the Year to Major Champion and the number two ranked player in the world. Or according to Sports Illustrated’s new ranking, Number One. I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.

Back to rankings.

Sports Illustrated decided it had enough with the fact that “During 2010, Tiger Woods remained No.1 in the official world golf rankings for a majority of the season without winning a tournament and finishing in the top 10 only twice,” as its press release reads. So, starting today, February 1, 2011, SI’s weekly meeting of its golf writer panel has launched its own ranking system to finally compete with the Official World Golf Rankings – or at least make things even more confusing. While the Official rankings are updated every Monday, SI has opted for Tuesday. This sounds good in theory, but there is one caveat: this is the same group of golf “experts,” who nonsencially declared it easier for a PGA Tour player to shoot 59 than for an LPGA player to win two Majors in one year, which is both clearly wrong and factually wrong.

Still, I like the concept and the competition. The SI release reads: “After last year, we wanted to see what a more up-to-the minute world golf ranking would look like,” said Jim Gorant, Sports Illustrated senior editor. “Our weekly poll will give fans a much clearer picture of which athletes are truly playing the best golf in the world.”

The results are similar but different enough to raise eyebrows in the golf world. For example, while the long established ranking has Tiger third in the world, SI has him tied for tenth – a huge drop. They have different number ones, also real news, and SI dumped Luke Donald from its top 10 in favor of Matt Kuchar and Dustin Johnson, both of whom I am guessing are now fans of the new system. In fact, the only things they agree on are that Phil Mickelson is fourth and Steve Stricker sixth.

Just to give you an idea, in its first week, here is how to the two Top 10 lists compare. Which do you like better?

Official World Golf Rankings as of 2/1/2011

1 Lee Westwood
2 Martin Kaymer
3 Tiger Woods
4 Phil Mickelson
5 Graeme McDowell
6 Paul Casey
7 Steve Stricker
8 Rory McIlroy
9 Jim Furyk
10 Luke Donald

First Ever Sports Illustrated World Golf Rankings as of 2/1/2011

1. Martin Kaymer
2. Graeme McDowell
3 Lee Westwood
4 Phil Mickelson
5 Rory McIlroy
6 Paul Casey
7 Dustin Johnson
8 Jim Furyk
9 Steve Stricker
10 TIE: Matt Kuchar and Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods is trying his luck at the Australian Masters - the last tournament he won.

NEWS UPDATE: After the completion of Round Two, Tiger is 9 strokes off the lead, but with two runaway performances, just 2 strokes off almost everyone aheadd of him.

A year ago Tiger Wood’s perfect world came crashing down when his sex scandal(s) began to break. But just days earlier, he was still the happy champion, donning the Gold Jacket awarded to the winner of the Australian Masters (where he made more in appearance fees than first place prize money).

Since then El Tigre has failed to win once, and skipped a lot of events, but it makes sense for him to return to the place he last won, Melbourne, if not the same course (unlike our Masters, theirs rotates).

Today Tiger opened with what on paper is a very solid 2 under, just four strokes off the lead, but he described the performance as “Probably the highest score I could have shot.”

The proverbial blind squirrel finding a nut - the author's tee shot on Seven. Tiger should make birdie every day.

I still like him in contention and expect him to win – and I should know.

I am without a doubt the only US journalist who played the Victoria Golf Club, site of the Masters, last Friday, as the first competitors like Geoff Oglivy were rolling in and practicing. It is a relatively short course, and a very short course by pro standards (I watched players in practice drive the par-4 first with irons!) but it demands precise placement and precise approach shots. It’s a beautiful club and class act.

This kicks off a multi-part series on my golf travels Down Under, and especially the best of Melbourne, which as I will explain in coming days, is the single best urban golf destination on the planet.

Go Tiger!

Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and Geoff Oglivy are among the pros who will call Victoria's clubhouse home for the next few days.

Troubled but talented actress Lindsay Lohan could use a "Big Break." My suggestion is she take on a new addiction, golf, in lieu of old ones. (No copyright found.)

As a judge decides whether to incarcerate bad girl actress Lindsay Lohan or send her to forced rehab, another suggestion comes to mind. How about golf?

Before you snicker, consider this: you haven’t heard much in the news lately about another bad girl, Amy Winehouse. Winehouse is England’s version of Lohan, only more accomplished – and badder. The hybrid soul/jazz/rock/R&B singer has won five Grammys in six nominations, along with about 20 other major awards and more than 50 nominations worldwide. Just 26, the singer has also surpassed Lohan’s bad girl reputation, appearing visibly drunk at the European MTV awards, getting thrown out of bars and hotels, fighting with her ex-husband who later went to jail, struggling with drug and alcohol abuse and even life threatening illness.

So where’s Winehouse today? On the golf course, if you believe the British papers. In 2009 while on a booze fueled vacation romp in the Caribbean’s St. Lucia (I stayed in the same suite she had at the fantastic, over the top Jade Mountain resort, which I blogged about recently), she reportedly tried the game for the first time at the course at the Sandals resort, loved it, and began taking private lessons. A year later, multiple British and global news sources are reporting that she is actively distracting herself from booze and drugs on the golf course, and celebrity websites are featuring headlines such as “Amy Winehouse Plays Golf to Stay Sober,” and “Hot Mess Amy Winehouse Has a New Addiction: Golf.”

Trading old addictions for new is nothing novel, considering the number of people who give up smoking only to replace it with other oral fixations and gain tons of weight. Winehouse follows in the cocaine riddled footsteps of Hall of Fame NFL linebacker Lawrence Taylor, perhaps the most famous advocate of the golf-as-rehab school of therapy, possibly along with singer Alice Cooper, rumored to have used his very good golf game to help kick the bottle.

So if Lindsay is going away for a length of time, how about to a top immersion golf school in place with no nightlife, like Pinehurst, NC; Reynolds Plantation, GA; or Bandon Dunes, Oregon? It’s a win-win: she needs the help and so does golf.