In the Rough

For the 2008 Ryder Cup this year the course will be the Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky, the course opened in 1986 after been designed by Jack Nicklaus on the 486 Acres of Kentucky land available.

The brainchild of Valhalla Golf Course was Dwight Gahm and his three sons, who in 1981 decided to look at a course that could become a force on the PGA Tour. Dwight Gahm himself was a major businessman so finance wasn’t going to be a problem and with the funds available to him he commissioned Jack Nicklaus to design the course.

In 1992 Valhalla was awarded the 1996 PGA Championship and after agreeing this the PGA bought 25% of Valhalla Golf Club in 1993. The PGA after the PGA Championship assumed 50% of Valhalla and agreed to host the PGA Championship for 2000. The following two years enabled the PGA to maintain 100% of Valhalla Golf Club.

Due to the size of Valhalla Golf Club it is possible for at least 20,000 people to gather around the 18th, which for the Ryder Cup will be very useful.

Below is the Scorecard for the Ryder Cup Players and Valhalla Golf Club host of the 2008 Ryder Cup.

After a long hard day at work yesterday I decided to go to the local driving range and get rid of a bit of frustration I had. Golf and the driving range is usually the place I go when I need to clear my head or just to hit some golf balls. Now i know im not the only one that does this because our local range on a Monday evening is full of people with the Monday Blues.

Last night though i bumped into an old friend who i used to play golf with but hadn’t seen with a golf club in his hands for nearly six months due to his last “disastrous round” (his words not mine, although i did beat him by about 6 shots).

After the last round we played together he was saying his eyes were getting increasingly worse and the strain of playing golf was making things harder for him.

He mentioned laser eye treatment but it was more as a half hearted comment (i thought). Last night though his swing was a lot more fluid and he was striking the ball very well, after a brief catch up he mentioned that he was missing golf that much (he used to play twice a week) he decided to get laser eye surgery and after a bit of rest he was back playing in no time.

To my annoyance he is not only seeing better generally (his squinting has stopped), he is hitting a golf ball well. After the last 18 months of me beating him we have decided to play again next sunday and i must admit im a little worried after seeing him hitting the ball so well last night.

On last nights performance and from speaking to my friend Laser Eye Surgery could really help your golf performance should you be struggling.

Paul Azinger has said he will be in contact with World Number One Golfer Tiger Woods over the three days of the Ryder Cup in Valhalla.

The World number one is out of the Ryder Cup tournament after knee reconstructive surgery earlier on in the year however his advice and suggestions could prove very helpful for Azinger as he tries to win back the Ryder Cup for the United States Of America.

Azinger has this to say “I’m going to have an open phone line to him during the event as I am kind of curious to know how he feels as the event unfolds”

He also praised Tiger Woods by saying “He is really intelligent and he’s a great golf mind, so I’m looking forward to talking to Tiger.”

The US team have lost three straight ryder cups and are going into the event at Valhalla as underdogs as Europe seem to have the strongest team.

US Ryder Cup Captain Paul Azinger has picked Chad Campbell, Steve Stricker, JB Holmes and Hunter Mahan have been given the four US wildcard picks.

The four of them failed to make the automatic spots but have been given the nod by Paul Azinger for the match against the Europeans at Valhalla.

US Ryder Cup Captain Paul Azinger is set to pick his four wildcard picks for the 2008 Ryder Cup at Valhalla this afternoon.

Azinger has a couple of Ryder Cup veterans to pick from who didn’t make it into the automatic places. Steve Stricker, Zach Johnson and Scott Verplank are all hoping for wildcard picks along side JB Holmes, Hunter Mahan, Sean O’Hair and Woody Austin.

The four wildcard picks will be playing along side the eight players who have already qualified in Phil Mickelson, Stewart Cink, Kenny Perry, Anthony Kim, Ben Curtis, Justin Leonard, Boo Weekly and Jim Furyk.