So John Daly is going to play with Tiger Woods and take on Phil Mickelson and Retief Goosen in the Battle At The Bridges, which now sports the "Lincoln financial" title. Doesn't really matter who sponsors it -- it'll still be bad, made-for-TV golf. Yawn.

I'm fascinated that the corporate outings story that sprung up in the spring, with IMG putting out rate sheets for players they didn't even manage, has simply fallen off the radar in recent months. With that in mind, there is a comment in a USA Today story this morning that is quite intriguing. It mentions the subject of my post yesterday, in which Vijay Singh, Chris DiMarco, Mike Weir and Fred Funk showed up at Shaughnessy Golf & Country Club. The Royal Canadian Golf Association made it sound like the group were out checking out the golf course, part of the strategy tournament director Bill Paul is using to get someone to show up at the event, with its lousy September date.

Then this from the USA Today:

But it was interesting to note that Chris DiMarco, Fred Funk and Canadian star Mike Weir joined Vijay Singh at a "corporate outing" Monday at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club in Vancouver, site of the Canadian Open in September. Singh is the defending champion.

I didn't know it was a corporate outing. Now that's interesting. I assume it was for Bell Canada, the sponsor of the Canadian Open, but who knows? The RCGA certainly wasn't making that clear.

The whole USA Today story can be found here.

Meanwhile, Ron Whitten discusses Medford Village, a golf course with an interesting history. He also gives a pretty good account of the architect behind it, William Gordon, who once worked for William Flynn, the man behind Merion, and Donald Ross, the creator of Pinehurst No.2, among others.
You can find Whitten's story here. Interesting to note that Whitten doesn't really critique the course. Instead he offers comments on its unique business model and place in history. He also tries to explain why it fell off all the golf ratings lists. Interesting stuff.

In contrast, the Rees Jones designed Foxwoods, reviewed here by Golfweek's Brad Klein, doesn't really sound very appealing, despite an amazing US$75-million price tag. There's a new Rees-pieces course opening in Niagara Falls this fall, and I'm only kind of interested in seeing it. What I've played by Rees left me underwhelmed.