PADSTOW, CORWALL - Unless you are well versed in the countless links gems of the British Isles, or are an avid reader of GolfEurope.com, where architect Tom Doak listed St. Enodoc among his top five “undiscovered” links, you’ve probably never heard much about St. Enodoc. In fact, it’s hard to believe many golfers outside of the U.K. have heard a great deal about any of the courses in England’s rural Southwest. But St. Enodoc, part of England’s Atlantic Links cooperative, has all the makings of a fine, 19th century gem. It has the coastal scenery playing over the “Doom ...

Golf blogger B Tuck here, back again with another popular installment of airport thoughts, where before I officially vacate the time zone, I shed a few notable observations over a cup of Joe. - If you have an Oregon golf or business trip on the horizon - and especially if you’ll be in fashionable Portland - don’t buy any clothes until you get here. Not only is there no sales tax on anything (including food, it feels like I’m back in Europe again where the price you see on the tag and the menu is what’s on the bill), there’s ...

If you’re anything like me, that means 90% of your liquid intake consists of coffee and beer. That said, after two weeks in Oregon, driving everywhere from Bend to Eugene to Bandon and now in Portland, I can’t say I’ve had the same beer or cup of joe twice. They say Oregon is the nation’s capital of microbreweries like Deschutes, Widmere, Steelhead, and plenty others. There is “Terminal Gravity", which sounds more like a Six Flags roller coaster than a beer, but has a tremendous following nonetheless. I even hear there is a “Tuck’s Brewery", as to which I’ll most ...

The Bandon Dunes Resort succeeds mightily in what it’s trying to be: modern, comfortable hotel and resort facilities but golf courses at their most elemental: fast, firm and subject to mother nature on remote, barren coastline. It’s fairways are among the widest I’ve ever seen, and the greens are enormous (in my mind, only the Old Course in St. Andrews’ are bigger). After six rounds in three days, 80-foot putts and Texas wedges from 30 yards off the green seem all too commonplace. But after walking 108 holes on its firm dunes in 72 hours, there was no sweeter sight ...

Pay attention to the weatherman over the last week, and you would be led to believe Tuesday would be a golf washout at Bandon Dunes. I’d been checking the weather about three times a day over the last week, and Tuesday looked to be the worst day: rain all day with highs topping out in the mid 40s. It’s hard to really look forward to the sound of your alarm clock in the morning when you’re anticipating that kind of punishment - even on the finest of links. So what happens? Well, by the time we woke up, the rain’s ...

Golf course architect David McLay Kidd is one hot tamale. He’s a relative up-and-comer and I’m not horribly versed in his works, which include Bandon Dunes down the road and Fancourt in South Africa. But I do know any designer who lands the St. Andrews No. 7 project has more street cred than that internet fighting sensation Kimbo Slice. I had the opportunity to get a sneak preview of one of Kidd’s newest courses slated to open this summer: Tetherow Golf Club in Bend, Oregon. Bend is a little city in the central Oregon desert that has experienced an incredible ...

After just a few days in Oregon driving between Portland, Sisters and Bend, I feel like I’ve already visited three different golf destinations - and I haven’t even been to Bandon Dunes on the Pacific coast yet. Courses twenty minutes apart from each other are in their own micro climates. If I’m driving tomorrow and a left turn runs me smack dab into a flock of penguins camped out around an oasis of palm trees, I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. I’ve already seen roadside sheep and llamas. I was especially surprised to discover Oregon even has a desert climate ...

For golfers coming to the Grand Strand who want to spend as little time as possible in the car without being in the epicenter of Myrtle Beach, there are two options I would suggest over the rest: Pawleys Island or Little River. Little River is about a half hour’s drive north of Myrtle Beach, just past North Myrtle Beach below the North Carolina State line. Here’s what’s great about Little River: the land rolls a little more than just about everywhere else. There are great natural elevation changes of up to 50 feet, and the Intracoastal Waterway offers some fantastic ...

Trevor Immelman is a slowpoke golfer and not very animated on the course. His blowout of the field today didn’t make for very compelling television (had I known, our group definitely would have played an extra nine this afternoon instead of rushing home to watch). It’s hard to really get behind a major champion who shot a final-round 3-over with no real threats. My opinion of the guy changed at the press conference. I love a guy with a self-deprecating sense of humor. “I hadn’t been looking at the leaderboard all day, but I figured I must have been doing ...

Trevor Immelman may be cruising his way to a green jacket, but he’s doing so going 45 in a 65 in the left lane with his blinker on. Immelman and Brandt Snedeker teed off at 2:30 pm. It’s 7:00 now and they just barely teed off the 17th, they are nearly two holes behind the group ahead, Paul Casey and Steve Flesch. Have they been put on the clock? I think Jim Nantz is getting sleepy. At the very least, he’s texting his agent demanding overtime comp. Now it looks like my local news is going to be bumped. When ...

Brandt Snedeker just drained a prayer on 12. Immelman is looking at bogey but will still hold a three shot lead going into 13 at the Masters. We counted Snedeker out yesterday as he bogeyed Amen Corner, then he rallied in furious fashion. There is no quit in this guy. If he can get two or three more birdies like he did yesterday, he could mount the comeback everyone thought Tiger Woods was ripe for. Woods’ miss on 13 probably sealed his fate. Now it’s him versus Snedeker and Flesch for second. Can someone tell me what happened to Paul ...

WorldGolf.com has been featuring a piece highlighting the advances of Martha Burk’s crusade against the members of Augusta National for too long without a counterpoint. William K. Wolfrum, WorldGolf’s resident liberal who is up to pick any fight against The Man, wrote a feature on the infamous feminist Burk and her organization shed some light on just how deep they continue to go after Augusta National and the corporations that support it. The Women on Wall Street organization is hitting Augusta’s members where it hurts: in the checkbook. According to Burk, they’ve won lawsuits totaling up $70-80 million versus ...

It doesn’t take a genius to see that Tiger Woods is really grinding out there at the Masters this afternoon. His good shots aren’t good enough. His bad shots, judging by his facial expressions, seem catastrophic. He can’t make any putts, and it’s going to be hard to stick any shots that close in this wind (unless of course you’re leader Trevor Immelman, who is throwing darts). Woods failed to birdie both par 5s on the front nine. He probably needed both to have a shot at contending for the Green Jacket. Looking at how intense he is, and the ...

After Brandt Snedeker’s third consecutive bogey on the 13th hole, I pronounced him toast, banishing him to the land of Masters pretenders with Justin Rose and Ian Poulter. His bounce back, notching two consecutive birdies on 14 and 15, followed by an even more impressive 3 on 18 has him in the final group going into Sunday. This turnaround was nothing short of remarkable. Snedeker is a true master at damage control. If golf doesn’t work out for him, I’m sure he’d make a fine CEO at Bear Sterns. Who thought he had it in him? He has this goofy, ...

Las Vegas-based sports talk DJ Papa Joe Chevalier invited me onto his drive time radio show Friday afternoon to elaborate on a Friday morning blog that caught his eye. Papa Joe calls the Masters an “anachronism", which is beyond any WorldGolf.com writers’ vocab (probably other than know-it-all Ph.D. Kiel Christanson). For the layman, that means “out of its place in time". Of course, once I got into the discussion there were few five-syllable words tossed around…Papa Joe and I talked about all the things the Masters & Augusta National can get away with that other institutions can’t, like how can ...