Jerry Pate
knows golf. He’s got eight wins on the PGA Tour, including the 1976
U.S. Open, and he’s an accomplished course designer. Throughout the
season, he’ll be stopping by Devil Ball to offer an inside-the-ropes look at the week’s upcoming course. Today: the Old White Course at the Greenbrier Classic.

The Old White was built in 1914 by
Charles Blair MacDonald and Seth Raynor as the original golf course
to the historic Greenbrier resort.  C.B. created a wonderful golf
course that was full of his signature elements — "replicas" of his favorite holes from overseas such as the Biarritz, the Redan,
the Alps, and Eden.  Much of the course had lost its original character,
but a wonderful revitalization by architect Lester George has recently
restored Old White to her former glory.

George’s renovation was beautifully
done, in the engineered-style reminiscent of the hands of C.B.’s
field engineer Seth Raynor.  Many of the bunkers have relatively
straight lines and squared corners.   The top lines of the
bunkers and horizon lines of greens are also crisp.  These lines
are in stark contrast to the movement of the mountainous terrain all
about the golf course.  The contrast makes the golf course stand
out in the landscape, and offers the golfer a clear understanding of
the strategic elements before him.

Many of the bunkers rest perpendicular
to the line of play and dissect the centerlines of the fairways from
alternating sides at offset distances from the tee.  As a result,
players must hit accurate shots, choosing the correct line with the
distance they want to hit their shot.  The par-four seventh has
three fairway bunkers that reach toward the center of the fairway — the
first on the right, the next on the left, and the third on the right
again.  This hazard placement demands a choice of not just the
left or right side of the fairway in order to best attack the pin, but
also adds the element of distance control in the tee shot.  Overpowering
this golf course will not be allowed by this strategic design of CB
MacDonald.

I look forward to watching the players
on this venerable layout.  It will prove, once again, that great
strategic design is timeless and creates an interesting competition
that will be entertaining to watch.

Jerry Pate
has been designing golf courses for more than 30 years. His portfolio
of work includes Old Waverly Golf Club in Mississippi, site of the 1999
United States Women’s Open; Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck
(formerly known as Shadow Isle) in New Jersey; Kiva Dunes on the
Alabama Gulf Coast; and Rancho La Quinta Country Club in California.
See more of his work at www.jerrypategolfdesign.com.     

You gotta love a guy like Carl Pettersson. The winner of this past weekend’s RBC Canadian Open came out and said what we’ve all secretly suspected all along: getting in shape is bad for you.

Pettersson has long been one of the PGA Tour’s almost-there stars, a guy who has the talent to win but not necessarily break away from the pack. He’s also part of a long lineage of portly golf champions, from Craig Stadler to Mark Calcavecchia to John Daly. He’s listed at 5-11, 195 pounds, which seems like someone might be shaving a few strokes off that figure. And to hear him tell it, getting fit was the worst thing that could happen to him. 

In 2008, his game came together, as he won once, made 25 of 29 cuts, and earned a tidy $2.5 million in prize money. And then he did the unthinkable: he decided to lose a little weight and come back even stronger in 2009. 

"I
was thinking: What can I do to get better?" he said over the weekend. "Obviously I was a little
overweight and I thought, well, I’ll get fit. I actually lost 30 pounds
and my game completely left me. I guess the timing of the swing and
everything was thrown out and I really struggled in ’09."

That’s like saying country-fried steak and gravy might be a tad unhealthy. In 2009, Pettersson made only 15 of 29 cuts with but a single top-10, and earned "only" $564,000. But, once off the fitness bandwagon and back on the Krispy Kreme truck, or whatever his poison of choice may be, Pettersson found his game again. He’s already got four top-10 finishes and he’s nearly quadrupled his 2009 earnings.  

He’s also of a much calmer mindset. He was looking at missing the cut on Friday afternoon at the RBC. So to ease his nerves, he headed to the St. George clubhouse. "And
I walked in the locker room and Jay Williamson had all the scenarios
written out, and he’s like, ‘Grab a beer.’ Before you know it I’d had
seven beers (and) made the cut." Two days later, he was the champ.

"I’d love to be fitter," Pettersson said, "but I’m not going to go down that road again."

Hey, whatever works. He’s already a millionaire. And if he can figure a way to teach a gut-momentum golf swing, he’ll be a billionaire.

For a certain generation of golf fans, David Duval is never far from our hearts. For a brief time, it looked like he was poised to become one of the greatest of all time, a player who could go toe-to-toe with Tiger Woods and smile while he did so.

Alas, it wasn’t to be; injuries hampered the former World No. 1′s effectiveness after his 2001 British Open win, and he all but fell off the face of the earth. Every once in awhile he’d resurface, most notably last year when he came within a few strokes of winning the 2009 U.S. Open, but he’d just as quickly sink back into near-obscurity.

Over the weekend, he shot three sub-70 rounds at the RBC Canadian, topped by a Sunday 65. He finished at 8-under, six strokes behind winner Carl Pettersson. If he follows form, he’ll vanish until, oh, February 2011. But hey, a little Duval is better than no Duval at all.

Follow Jay Busbee on Twitter at @jaybusbee.

Alexis Thompson is a 15-year-old pro on the LPGA Tour. Read that sentence again. Does it make your blood boil? Do you start to have visions of an overhyped, over-parented, over-coached youngster making a mockery of the LPGA? OK, hold on. Let me add a little more to the mix:

Alexis Thompson is a 15-year-old pro on the LPGA Tour, and she just tied for second at the Evian Masters.

Changes the game a little bit, doesn’t it? Thompson finished just a single stroke behind Jiyai Shin. And just a few weeks before, she tied for 10th at the U.S. Women’s Open. Impressive, huh?

Thing is, she won’t be at the Ricoh Women’s British Open thanks to a bizarre tumble of rules. She had won exemption into the Open’s final qualifying because she was a Curtis Cup member, but lost that exemption when she turned pro. That’s fairly standard procedure in golf; part of the debate about turning pro is to give up childish things, like exemptions you earned as an amateur.

[Photos: See more of teen golfing sensation Alexis Thompson]

What’s got to be frustrating for Thompson is that she doesn’t even have the opportunity to play her way into the tournament. Why? Because the Ladies Golf Union, the organizing body which oversees the Open, for some insane reason scheduled pre-qualifying the day after the U.S. Women’s Open.  

So here she is, with no exemption into final qualifying and no chance to have played in pre-qualifying. The Ladies Golf Union has flat-out denied Thompson’s petition to play in the qualifying tournament. 

"Exemptions into final qualifying for professionals are not the norm," Shona Malcolm, the LGU’s CEO, told Golfweek’s Sean Martin in an email. "The main circumstances would be medical exemptions or, occasionally and very exceptionally, players of reputation who had previously been long-term participants in, supporters of or winners of the Ricoh Women’s British Open."

Now, it’s obvious why golf officials are being a bit measured in their response to Thompson’s hot start. The last thing anyone wants is a repeat of the Michelle Wie situation, where a kid was hyped to the heavens and didn’t immediately perform. Thompson has done well early on, but there’s no indication it’ll sustain. (None that it won’t, either. Ya never know, do ya?)

So the Thompson camp is going to have to take this one on the chin and move forward. If she keeps playing at this level, this British Open snub is going to be nothing but a faint memory before too much longer. 

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[Editor's note: Welcome to our new TV column, and welcome our new contributor, Jonathan Wall, who will take you through the ins and outs of the weekend in golf TV. Enjoy. And if you've got a better title for this column, hey, fire away! -- JB]

Following up the main act is never easy. Imagine if, say, a local band had to follow The Beatles during their heyday. You know 99 percent of the crowd — save the local band’s groupies and family — came to see one of the greatest bands of all time, so why kid yourself? The odds of the local band playing to a full house, after the main attraction leaves the stage, are zero-to-none.

The RBC Canadian Open, like most tour stops following a major championship, had the honor of trying to keep the competition on a high when most players were mentally drained. That left the event in a precarious position.

Do you push and try and find a way to increase your visibility? Or do you take your lumps and assume your rightful place in golf’s second tier? It’s a tough decision to make.

CBS assumed the task of turning this week’s event into something special. Instead of forcing the issue, the television network was given a gift in the form of a larger-than-life Swede who turned back the clocks and moved the Canadian Open into the relevant category — if only for one week.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I usually have no problem with Peter Kostis’ on-course commentary, until he gave us this gem on Sunday afternoon.

He noted that short hitters had faired well in the past at the Canadian Open, a tournament where precision always beats length.

"The thing about all the leaders — Dean Wilson, [Carl] Peterson, [Jeff] Quinney, Tim Clark — is that they’re all short hitters by PGA Tour standards. That doesn’t mean they’re short, but they’re not in the mold of Tiger Woods or Davis Love or Paul Casey. They don’t bomb it out there."

I don’t mind if Kostis mentions Woods and Love in there, but Casey? Bubba Watson or Dustin Johnson would have made more sense on the list.

A quick look at the tour driving distance has Casey in 27th. So why the mention of the Englishman on the list of tour bombers? He happens to be Casey’s swing instructor. Can you say shameless self-promotion?

More below.

I’m Kind Of A Big Deal

Those of us living outside the Great White North probably overlook the Canadian Open on the tour schedule. CBS did a fantastic job of trying to recreate some of the moments that made the tournament so special over the years.

Old black and white video brought the old tournament to life, as CBS showed clips of Sir Bob Charles‘ 1968 win at St. George’s Golf and Country Club, site of the week’s event. It had been 42 years since the course had hosted the event.

Another fact box during Saturday’s round gave the event even more credibility as a staple on the PGA Tour. The event happens to be the fourth-oldest tour event behind the U.S. Open, British Open and BMW Championship.

As CBS’s Bill Macatee noted, "the event is special to Canadians everywhere. It’s their fifth major and what they consider to be their Open championship."

Humble Pie

Most of Saturday’s third round was plagued by copious amounts of rain, turning the St. George’s course into a tricky track for the final groups.

Dean Wilson was lining up his second shot on the par-5 ninth as the rain continued to fall. A moment later David Feherty was questioning the decision to lay up in the rain with Wilson 240 yards to the front of the green and 270 to the pin.

"I’m sort of surprised here that [Dean Wilson] isn’t taking a leap at this one with 240 to the front and 272 to the hole," Feherty noted. He kept harping on the decision for another couple of seconds.

Wilson hit an iron, knocked his third close and made the birdie putt. At least Feherty had the sense of humor to eat his humble pie and admit he was wrong afterwards.

Where’s My Closeup?

CBS opened Saturday’s coverage with the biggest event on the course, and that was Carl Pettersson‘s near-59 after making the cut on the number. There was only one problem, though: the Swede was already in the clubhouse for the day, rendering the big story to footnote status as the event hit the airwaves.

Pettersson was 10-under over his final nine holes; however, CBS only showed clips of his last four holes. I know these monumental records tend to sneak up one you, but that’s really all you were able to come up with? It would have been great to see where he kick-started his round. Instead, they showed the same four-hole replay countless times, including again on Sunday.

But CBS made up for the footage with probably the camera shot of the weekend, when it did a slo-mo replay of Pettersson’s third shot on the par-5 15th, a shot that appeared to go through the trees before landing close to the pin. The network went back and replayed the shot again, noting this time that the ball managed to go through the leaves without falling off its line. It ended up being the shot of the week for not only Pettersson, but CBS as well. 

Notable and Quotables

• Saturday’s coverage went off the air as Dean Wilson was lining up a potential birdie putt on the 18th (a putt he would eventually make to take a five-shot lead). Couldn’t they wait another 30 seconds to see if he’d make or miss the putt?
• "Caddyshack" was released on the same day that a guy named Carl won a golf tournament … and David Feherty never even mentioned the connection. Carl Spackler would like a word with you, Mr. Feherty.
• "I love BMW’s." That was what Matt Kuchar was overheard saying as he eyed his tee shot on the par-3 16th; the German automaker was giving away a 5 series for a hole-in-one. Sadly, Kuchar never holed the shot. But at least we know what kind of car he enjoys driving.
• Great note by CBS’s Ian Baker-Finch on one of Pettersson’s swing adjustments he made: "Pettersson narrowed his stance after Friday’s second round, and it looks to have made a difference." It made a huge difference, as Pettersson set the 36-hole tour record (127).

Quotes Of The Week

"He’ll want to slap himself upside the head for hitting that one" — David Feherty on Tim Clark’s layup shot that found the rough on the ninth hole on Saturday.

"Do you think they can change their name to The Smurfs?" — David Feherty asking Bill Macatee if TCU (Texas Christian University) would consider changing the school’s mascot.