Got My Shirt!
The Tavistock Cup Tournament is played on March 16th and 17th this year, 2009. It is a competition between the golf touring professionals who are residents and members of Isleworth and Lake Nona Country Clubs/Golf Communities in Orlando, Florida.
According to the Tavistock Cup literature, it’s a “bona fide World Golf and Country Club Championship. An officially sanctioned PGA Tour event….” showcasing many of the best American and International golfers on tour. ”The golf professional members at Isleworth and Lake Nona have racked up more than 700 worldwide victories and 53 Major Championships.”
According to me, it’s a spectacular golf event! One of the best!!! It’s the most open setting of any tournament I’ve ever been to. There are ropes, but they are there only to keep you a few feet away from players as they make their shots. The volunteers managing the ropes follow each group of players as they tee off, and they stay only a few feet behind the last player throughout the hole. The gallery is afforded the opportunity to see the players, up close and personal, as if they were playing their rounds for fun on their own or neighbor’s course. The players are dead serious about winning, of course, but they still joke, tease and have fun; and spectators can get a really different view of these unbelievably talented athletes.
So who’s playing this year? Here’s the roster from the Tavistock Cup Website:
2009 - Lake Nona
| Ben Curtis Chris DiMarco Ernie Els Retief Goosen Trevor Immelman |
Graeme McDowell Mark McNulty Ian Poulter Justin Rose Henrik Stenson |
2009 - Isleworth
| Robert Allenby Stuart Appleby Daniel Chopra Darren Clarke John Cook |
J.B. Holmes Charles Howell III NickO ‘Hern Mark O’Meara Tiger Woods |
The tickets, by the way, are some of the most sought after in golf because you can’t buy them! The gallery is limited to approximately 4,000 invited guests, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have been invited every year since the tournament started in 2004.
The major stipulation for spectators is to follow the dress code: You must wear either Isleworth Red or Lake Nona Blue to show your support for your team. So, my 2009 Team Shirt arrived today, and I’m ready. I’ll let you know how it goes!
If you want to watch it on TV there is live Golf Channel Coverage from Noon until 5PM on Monday, with a re-airing @ 6:30PM and 10PM; and live coverage on Tuesday, from Noon until 5PM with a re-airing @ 7:30PM.
To see more about the Tavistock Cup Tournament, go to
Stephanie Kossnar
I Learned Something New Today!
Of course I learn new things every day about all kinds of topics, but this is different. I thought I knew whatever I needed to know about the PGA Tour - not that I thought that there was nothing else I needed to know - but that I thought I’d been around long enough to have been exposed to most of what I would consider “common knowledge” about the PGA Tour.
But it keeps life interesting to know there is always the possibility that one can learn something new even about those things we’ve become complacent about. Not complacent out of laziness or boredom, but because our consistent exposure to a field of information is likely to give us the idea, over time, that we’ve been exposed to those items that have importance. It’s always fun, too, to be reminded that we should keep paying attention so we don’t miss “important” things to add to our body of knowledge.
Well, back to what I learned today. The PGA Tour has something called “Lifetime Membership” or as Davis Love III called it, a “lifetime exemption,” in a Golf.com article from Jan. 9 about having earned it after winning the Disney World Tournament at the end of last year. Once a golfer has achieved 20 victories and has been an active member on the PGA Tour for 15 years, the golfer becomes a Life Member of the PGA Tour. What I thought was that having a Lifetime Membership (or a lifetime exemption) allowed you to play on the PGA Tour from then on without having to qualify each year by being one of the top 125 money winners.
Not true - that’s what I learned!
It’s much more complicated than that. In fact it’s too complicated to go into the whole thing here. But a couple of the more salient facts are:
According to Andy Pazder, the Tour’s senior vice president of tournament administration (as reported in the PGA Tour Notebook), the lifetime tournament exemption is effective only as long as (1) the player maintains a proper scoring average (three strokes above the field average for the tournaments he plays), and (2) competes in at least one PGA Tour event each calendar year. In addition, (3) if a golfer doesn’t have his tournament card, his Lifetime Membership doesn’t guarantee he’ll receive an exemption to a tournament. The Tour matches exempt status with its priority ranking system, and Lifetime Member is #17 on the priority ranking system list. So after all the other 16 are given an opportunity to play, there may be no more openings for the Lifetime Member. For a complete listing of the priority ranking system see:
http://www.golfblogger.com/index.php/golf/comments/pga_tour_tournament_exemption_system/
A few noteworthy items about the Lifetime Membership are:
- Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson are the only other players under 50 years old who are members.
- Tiger Woods has 2 more years to go even though he’s already won more than enough tournaments.
- If one loses his exemption, he can regain it again by meeting the scoring requirement in a subsequent year.
So, this is what I learned today… have you learned anything new today?
Stephanie Kossnar
Welcome!
Here we are on our new website. This is truly exciting! All my good intentions of keeping up our “old” website seemed to go by the wayside with excuses of work travel and health issues. But now, I have a slicker, easier way of keeping you up-to-date with what we’re up to and how our Swing One™ Swing Training Device is doing. In addition, the site is interactive — you can easily comment on any of the pages here, ask questions and post messages.
Let’s talk! Let’s share! Let’s have fun! Welcome to all those who want to learn how to use the Swing One™ trainer, how to refine their teaching skills with the trainer, who want help with their golf swings, want to discuss swings, or want to share golf swing ideas. This site is actually for you. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
Stephanie Kossnar
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