Divot Mix

"Long drives, if it be not the most deadly, is certainly the most dashing and fascinating part of the game; and of all the others the principal difficulty of the Golfer to acquire, and his chief delight when he can manage it." -- H.B. Farnie, 1857

Attracting a star-filled field

For the organizers of PGA Tour events, getting a great field is the first step to success, but some events face scheduling obstacles that call for extraordinary measures. Next month's 84 Lumber Classic is one of those events, being sandwiched between the Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills Country Club in Detroit, Mich., and the American Express Championship in Ireland.

For such tournaments, getting a group of "A list" pros is often more about the perks than it is about the prize money. Now, according to The Associated Press, Joe Hardy, founder and owner of the 84 Lumber chain that sponsors the event, has taken the art of providing perks to a new level.

For any professional golfer eligible to play in the American Express, Hardy has offered a free trip to Ireland for the tournament, in a customized, first-class-only, 747. And they can bring their wife or girlfriend, caddy and three guests.

Tournament director Eric Mehl said, "He wanted to make a statement about how serious he was," Mehl said. "He also wanted to offset our tour date situation. We could have easily had a Nationwide or Hooters tour field, being between the Ryder Cup and the American Express. We took a negative and turned it into a positive."

The trip is estimated to be worth as much as $40,000. For the rest of the story, visit http://www.pittsburghlive.com.

Vickers joins call for distance rollback

The list of people in the golf industry calling for a rollback of the distance standard for golf balls has just gained another member.

Jack Vickers, the president and founder of Castle Pines Golf Club and host of The International tournament, says he's in favor of cutting back the distance that golf balls travel on the PGA Tour.

He said, "All you have to do is go, 'look, start right here, we are the longest venue on the Tour.' Granted, we are at altitude, but (the players) are hitting 7- and 8-irons here where they used to hit 3- and 4-irons. So they have literally taken the 2, 3, 4 and 5 irons out of the game.

"I think it's a catastrophe that we have taken the game of golf away from all the great golf courses. They have nowhere to go. They can't expand them, can't lengthen them. So if you want to be technical about it on a true test, 95 percent of them are eliminated," Vickers added. "I could probably stretch (Castle Pines) to 10,000 yards ... but so what? That isn't the answer and it doesn't make any sense to me.''

Golf ball manufacturers, Vickers said, don't necessarily like what he has to say, "yet they are still going to have the business whether the ball goes farther or shorter. And we are not talking about the everyday club member or public links player, we are talking about championship golf." For more on his comments, visit, http://www.pga.com/news

Pinehurst says, "Play Like The Pros"

With the U.S. Open set to arrive in Pinehurst N.C., next June, the Pinehurst Resort is offering golfers a chance to put themselves in the shoes of their favorite pro.

The Championship package includes having the player's name announced on the first tee, a caddie wearing their name and the paparazzi waiting to get it all on film.

They'll wear the logo, and a special tag that show's they're a player and get treated like royalty including having their name on a scoreboard.

All this and more is available until May 28, 2005 - just two weeks before the U.S. Open Championship returns.

"We're one of only three U.S. Open sites you can play," said Don Padgett, president of Pinehurst Resort.  "We wanted to offer our guests an opportunity to feel part of the excitement, and get their one moment of fame.  When the Open airs on national TV, they'll remember the same shots, the same lie, and capture that spirit of golf that makes Pinehurst special."

Packages are based on availability. Contact (800) 487-4653, http://www.pinehurst.com/reservations/champion.asp.

ARS looks for nematodes' biological soft spots

Scientists at the Agricultural Research Service are looking for ways to use a nematode's own biology against itself. At the agency's Nematology Laboratory, the genes and proteins, susceptibility to toxins--and even the cholesterol--of the microscopic worms is being probed, in hope of finding a way to prevent the annual loss of $10 billion caused by nematodes.

The focus is on basic processes such as locomotion, egg hatch, growth and development and molecules that help maintain cell health and structure.

Physiologist Edward Masler, molecular biologist Andrea Skantar and plant pathologists Lynn Carta and Susan Meyer are exploring whether heat-shock proteins represent a chink in the worms' armor. As part of these studies, Skantar was the first to report HSP-90 in soybean cyst nematodes. This protein regulates other proteins that control normal cell development and metabolism, and it appears to govern adaptation to environmental extremes in many organisms.

Masler's work led to the discovery in cyst nematodes of HSP-70, which helps them respond to stress, and to the first description of the actin gene in the worms. Actin is a protein active in muscular contraction, cellular movement and cell shape maintenance. The researchers seek to design actin-control agents specific to nematodes but harmless to other organisms.

Carta evaluated the nematode-killing properties of toxins found in Bacillus thuringiensis , a common bacterium that poses no threat to humans but targets nematodes' gut. She found four toxins that damaged at least two nematode species.

Meanwhile, ARS zoologist David Chitwood of the Nematology Laboratory and researchers from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, seek to learn exactly how disruption of sterol metabolism actually kills nematodes. Sterols are chemical compounds found in cells. The most common of these is cholesterol.

More on this research is available in the August issue of Agricultural Research magazine.