More Nicklaus and St. Andrews; Off to Ireland; Weeks on Shaughnessy; Gary Evans on Monty

Interesting week for golf, though I don't really think it is coming from the PGA Tour this weekend. Who, after all, really cares about the St. Jude Classic. No one that I know of and worse, it looks like Justin Leonard is running away with it.
In other news, I played the beast in Maple this morning, called Eagles Nest -- a tough Doug Carrick track. Playing in a match with three pros from 7,450, I managed to post a good score, hold my own and par the finishing 485 yard 18th to halve our match.
Secondly, I'm confirmed on a trip to Ireland starting in Dublin in September. Any of my readers particularly fond of any course over there? The plan is to play in the Dublin area (including the K Club, which will hold next year's Ryder Cup), head north and tackle County Down and Portrush. Suggestions for anything else?

Other stories that are out there:

• The Scotsman continues to discuss the controversy around the decision of St. Andrews not to honour Jack Nicklaus, who has twice won at the Old Course. Why Bobby Jones and not Jack? No one seems to know
• Worth reading Score editor Bob Weeks' story about Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club, the course that will host the Canadian Open in a few months. As previously mentioned, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir, Fred Funk and Chris DiMarco all showed up to play a corporate outing a couple of weeks ago and said nice things about the course. That said, there were all being paid.....
• Apparently Darren Clarke's wife is still struggling in her battle with cancer, needing sudden surgery this weekend. Clarke withdrew from the tournament this weekend in the BMW Championship at Wentworth to be with her. I like Clarke and hope his family can make it through this difficult fight.
• Golfobserver's Frank Hannigan has an interesting column on the "bullshit" surrounding the PGA Tour's discussion of Tiger Woods' cut streak that ended recently. Hannigan points out that a few dozen of the events in the streak came from non-cut events like the matchplay. In other words, there was no cut to make, but the tournaments were counted anyway. Now that's just silly.
• European Tour player Gary Evans will not let the issue of Colin Montgomerie's moving ball die. He brought it up again this week, adding some pretty harsh commentary. Worth a read.