Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
“If there’s one truism in sports, it’s that records are made to be broken. Golf is no exception.”
That was the lead in a story in my on-line golf magazine, Links, which prompted me to decide whether I agree or not.
A fun exercise for me because I love golf, which occupies a lot of my time in retirement.
One thing is clear: The records below will not be touched by me because I am not a pro golfer, preferring to play what I label “recreational golf.”
At the same time, one of my friends, commenting on this issue said he found it hard to believe that various records would not be broken, thus echoing the first line in the Links article – “records are made to be broken.”
Here is the list in the Links story written by Joe Passov, who contends these records are untouchable:
10. Bobby Jones’s calendar-year Grand Slam
9. Jin Young Ko plays 114 consecutive bogey-free holes on the LPGA Tour
8. Tiger Woods’s 142 consecutive cuts made
7. Tiger Woods winning the 2000 U.S. Open by 15 shots
6. Kathy Whitworth’s 88 LPGA Tour victories
5. Tiger Woods’s 683 weeks ranked as World No. 1
4. Jack Nicklaus’s 18 major championships
3. Jack Nicklaus’s top-3 finishes in majors
2. Byron Nelson’s 18 PGA Tour victories in a single season
1. Byron Nelson’s 11 consecutive PGA Tour victories
Hard to disagree with Passov’s contentions, though I suspect someone, someplace, will shoot a 57…a record to be broken.
Who knows about others?
