Big shout out to Golf.com for these gems – 

Separated at Birth: Pro Golfers and Their Celebrity Look-Alikes

Some of these comparisons are spot on (Lefty – EMILIO; Faldo – Luke Skywalker), some are ruthlessly spot on (Furyk – Mr. Burns of Simpsons; Louis Oousthuizen – Shrek), and a couple are just freaking spectacular (Nick Watney – Gary Busey!!) Here are a couple snapshots of what’s about to be the highlight of your day:

Golfers and Their Celebrity Doppelgängers

Please don’t ask me how I stumbled upon this today, but it turns out that 

Paulina Gretzky has a “99” tattoo honoring her father

, Wayne Gretzky. No big deal right? I mean, The Great One is the reason she’s famous, and what better way to pay tribute to her father than to have his number “retired” on her body.

Wait… the tattoo is on her bikini line? As if Dustin Johnson, her betrothed, didn’t have enough trouble with the Gretzky intimidation factor. DJ habitually goes nuts at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, winning it in 2009 and 2010, and finishing top 7 on two separate occasions. But in 2013, he was paired with The Great One as his amateur partner, and it didn’t go well. DJ self destructed in similar fashion to Happy Gilmore in the 1996 Pepsi Pro-Am.

Johnson shot 73-69-74 to miss the cut, which we immediately attributed to Mr. Gretzky’s presence.

Apparently golfing with your slampiece's dad is intimidating. 

So not only does The Great One’s intimidation factor influence DJ’s golf game, he now has to look at that “99” every time he and Paulina…. Well…. I’m guessing all he thinks when sees that is Wayne cupping his hands saying, “JACKASS!”

Paulina Gretzky Has Tattoo Honoring The Great One In An Odd Location

Thursday January 9, 2014 – Sunday January 12, 2014


Purse: $5,600,000
Winner’s Share: $1,008,000 + You Get Lei’d + A Trophy That Looks Like a Giant Shoehorn
FedEx Cup Points: 500

Watching Zach Johnson and Dustin Johnson play together last week offered a unique glimpse into how differently two Tour players, on opposite ends of the length spectrum, make their way around the same track. Dustin was outpacing his long-lost Johnson brother by 80 to 100 yards at a time off the tee, only to often find himself putting first once on the green. The difference between Kapalua’s Plantation Course and Waialae Country Club, the site of this weeks’ Sony Open, mimics the difference between the “brothers” Johnson’s respective games. Ironically, Zach emerged victorious on a course one would think better suited for DJ.

Kapalua’s wide fairways, severe elevation changes, and relatively modern design are nowhere to be found on Waialae’s classic Seth Raynor layout, which plays to a modest (at least by Tour standards) 7,088 yards. A refreshing change from the “bomb & gouge” tracks so prevalent throughout the year, the premium is instead on accuracy and being able to flight the ball through the trade winds. By all accounts Tour players seem to enjoy this course and the consensus suggests it’s an underrated track (although that could be skewed with the players sampled being, by and large, those who enjoy and/or are well-suited to this type of test; surely the bomber contingent has a different view and thus quite a few stay away).

At No Laying Up, our first glance at any scorecard is to answer two questions: 1) How gettable are the par-5’s? and 2) Are there any even remotely reachable par-4’s? Judging by this standard, Waialae disappoints as it features just two par-5’s and only one par-4 that is close to the realm of being gettable (#10 plays downwind 350 yards but the green is well-guarded). This disappointment is quickly washed away by the fact it’s unlikely ANYONE in the field will be forced to lay up on either par-5 – they’re the easiest set of par-5’s on Tour (#9 is 510 yards – that’s a long par-4). Interestingly, #1 and #13 were formerly par-5’s until John Huston waged war on the bird sanctuary here back in ’98 (causing them to Huston-proof the course – more on that later).

These days, the first hole is one of the most bossy opening holes on Tour, a 488 yard par-4 incorporating elements of the road hole at St. Andrews – it’s a STRONG start. May we suggest PGATour.com put a live feed of this hole for the week and and dub it, “The Snuff Film?” Overall, not a typical No Laying Up style track, but there is fun to be had. It just all comes down to how hard the wind blows.

A walk over to the range belies the real problem at Waialae – it’s only 250 yards deep, an affront to range rats everywhere. It’s shocking that Vijay even bothers to show up for this event – do you know how much time he is forced to spend with his family because the range just isn’t adequate?!? A few years back they finally hung nets from the palm trees but that’s a losing battle (talk to the BigCat about the nets Augusta used to have before they went HAM on the new practice facility, much to the membership’s chagrin. Dude used to revel in spraying bombs over the nets onto Washington Road).

Russell Henley burst onto the scene birdieing the final five holes to win his first PGA Tour event and establish the second-lowest 72-hole scoring mark in Tour history with a -24, 256. Henley basically had the most insane putting week on the PGA Tour last year, with a ridiculous 3.042 strokes gained putting, meaning he picked up 12 shots versus the field on the greens alone! Combine that kind of magic-wand waving with his best ball-striking week of the year (83% GIR), and it’s one tasty recipe for cashing winner’s checks. Oh yeah, dude played the par-4’s in an incredible 17-under par.

The Sony Open is the first event in 2014 to feature a 

, which kinda gives the feel of this week being Caddie Day at the Bushwood Country Club pool following the posh exclusivity of the Hyundai. Even so, there are still several top names playing this week, as well as some NLU favorites.

: Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, Zach Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Jason Dufner

NLU Comedic Favorites (aka Bushwood caddies):

 John Daly, Mike Weir, Frank Lickliter II, Guan Tianglang, Paul Goydos

Chucky Triple Sticks: (20/1). His finishes the last 9 years are as follows (most recent listed first): T3, T2, T68, T5, 4, T69, T2, T53, T3. Enough said.

Tim Clark: (20/1). He’s finished 2nd in his last two appearances here, and in the top 25 his only two other appearances.

Jimmy Walker: (30/1). The last full-field winner on tour (hello reach-around schedule!) has to be riding a nice wave of confidence in here (pun most definitely intended). Waialae seems to suit him – lot of made cuts and a few top-20 finishes here.

Sabo: (50/1) Is good value this week. He’s got a good track record here (multiple runner-up finishes and slew of top-30’s) and seems to have his game trending in the right direction with a nice showing at Mayakoba and strong end to 2013. The risk of Sabo not having his head screwed on straight is a little easier to stomach with 50/1 value.

DubP: (100/1) Pat Perez has a great record here and gained some early-season momentum on the reach-around schedule. Strong early-season player.

Chris Stroud (60/1), Roberto Castro (60/1), Chris Kirk (25/1)

Think standard, nondescript early 1990’s event – pretty much a bunch of retired white men milling about, relatively sparsely attended (under 50,000). Bottom-line: the Tommy Bahama clique will be out in full force, with the Golf Channel schwaldo’s following suit. Golf Channel will play up the Hawaiian vibe with music, surfer backgrounds and Waikiki Beach jokes. Even if you don’t like golf, just tune in for a televised respite from the shitty weather that’s making you SAD right now. Overall, there’s some good stuff going on here but it’s too basic to be overly hilarious.

With a Japanese title sponsor and a well-known rep as a Japanese tourist destination, this tourney holds some allure in the Far-Eastern golf sphere. Seeing only two Asians (Aoki & Choi), therefore, among a relatively impressive list of past champions is somewhat surprising. However, that may change in the coming years as it looks like this event is carving out an increasingly outsized niche in an area of the world where golf is coming on strong. If I’m the tournament organizer, I’m playing this angle up as much as possible (Finchy should be helping) and marketing this as a premier early season Pan-Pacific ball-striking fiesta and cultural celebration.

This year’s field includes eight Japanese, seven Koreans, and two Chinese amateurs (16 year old Liu Yan-Wei finally gives Guan Tianlang a playmate, and an 

 one at that – this isn’t his first rodeo). KJ Choi has menaced this course in the past and Hideki Matsuyama’s primed to get some serious air-time this week (we’ll see if he can figure this course out). Was disappointed to see our boy Aphibarnrat notably absent this week, though, but it’s somewhat understandable. Seeing him navigate these narrow fairways would be akin to seeing Shamu languishing in captivity at SeaWorld; just downright depressing—cant’ put restrictor plates on the big guy. Additionally, we’re curious to see if Ryo Ishikawa can continue his strong reach-around start – his game is starting to show some real promise for the first time in a couple years.

Lastly, look for Briny Baird to assert himself here. His game is similar to that of many of the Japanese players on tour and he wears that dumb PF Chang’s hat so he’s got some Chinese influence as well. Only concern here is whether Briny’s game will be sharp enough; those third-degree burns he suffered on the 18th hole at Sea Island have precluded him from practicing lately. To be honest, he’s lucky to even be out of the St. Simons Regional Hospital burn unit in time for this event.

Little known fact: The 1998 United Airlines Hawaiian Open was won by John Huston. Dude went 28 deep, causing uproar among environmentalists and local homeowners over the sheer number of birds slaughtered during that year’s event. The negative publicity caused United to pull out and Sony signed on, but with a caveat: the membership redesigned the course during the off-season (the next year Jeff Sluman emerged as champion with a heavily toned-down winning score of -9. Coincidence? You be the judge). The Oahu avian population rebounded nicely post 1998 atrocities, for those who are wondering.

This event is essentially the PGA Tour’s spin-off of the popular TLC show “Little People, Big World,” with the illustrious lineage of little ass dudes who have won this event: the aforementioned Sluman, Paul Goydos, Mark Wilson, Corey Pavin (Back-to-back winner, Tom Emansky style! Shortly thereafter he tried to rename it the Rat Family Open), Brad Faxon, David Toms, and Russell Henley among others. It would seem that Tim Clark and Mike Weir are PRIMED to win this thing. How did Ian Woosnam not get an invite?

Finally, and really most importantly, shame on the organizers for refusing to extend a sponsor’s exemption to Tadd Fujikawa. What the hell is that about? If you’re not going to give this guy a spot then don’t have exemptions. I thought it was written into the by-laws that he gets a spot in even numbered years. Hell, in ’12 he rose above mascot status and nabbed a top-20!

As you’ll find out over the course of this year, NLU is BULLISH as hell on Hideki Matsuyama and his Big Sleazy-like tempo (#1 scoring average on Tour last year in the seven US PGA recognized events he played, which is mind boggling because three of those tournaments were majors, one was a WGC, and the other two were on tough old-school tracks (Sedgwick and Glen Abbey.) However, he’s played this event three years in a row and has MC’d proceedings each time. Keep him keister-stashed for another event. (update: he WMD’d due to some back issue).

VIDEO of Sony Open goodness from years past

On our way out we leave you with this – the Waialae logo is EERILY similar to that of Wu Tang Clan (not to be confused with the Charlie Wi Tang Clan). The Wu may have a legitimate copyright infringement beef on their hands.

Sony Open in Hawaii

Murder should never be a light topic. But when wanted fugitive 

Benson Kyle Lloyd of Jasper, GA, was nabbed by police

 in a PGA Superstore range stall, let’s hope he was at least hitting driver. The article from the Woodstock, GA daily paper suggests Lloyd was dumb for showing such a carelessness on a Wednesday afternoon. I disagree. The PGA Superstore seems like a great place to hide out and kill time if you keep a hat on and your head down. Have to wonder how long he was in the store – chances are it was at least two hours- nobody 

 leaves that place in under two hours, it just doesn’t happen.

Judging by the mug shot and cold blooded murder charges, we should all be glad the Cherokee County police are cleaning up the North Georgia area and keeping The PGA Superstore ‘Crack House’ safe for all of us.

“Enjoy the jail cell pal” – couldn’t have said it better ourselves, Webb.

Murder Suspect Caught Pounding Balls in PGA Superstore

Plantation Course at Kapalua – Kapalua, Maui, HI

The Plantation Course at Kapalua is perhaps the most unique golf course that is played on the PGA Tour circuit. While that may sound like praise, it is one of the least popular courses amongst the tour players. In fact, in the tour players voted it as their 

. A golf course was simply not meant to be built on this piece of land. It contains dramatic views of the ocean, drastic elevation changes, and the widest fairways you will ever see. It plays over 7,400 yards, and oddly to a par 73. You’ll see some 400 yard drives, and some 130 yard 6 irons if the winds cooperate. Some of the distances between holes are so large that the players must ride in cars to get from green to tee box.

 This tournament famously consists only of PGA Tour winners from the 2013 season. Considering that, you would think it would be very strong field, but considering that Tiger and Phil skip it on an annual basis, the pool of A-listers within the 30 man field is a bit shallow. The names in this field are sometimes a painful reminder of some of the names who won tournaments in 2013 (Derek Ernst, Woody Austin, Scott Brown). This field is best compared to whatever Callaway’s best golf ball is: It’s good, it’s just that nobody plays it.

Derek Ernst & Woody Austin – How many times have we seen these two duel over the years?

Dustin Johnson won the 2013 event on a Tuesday after 3 days of insane wind and rain delays. The tournament was as bizarre as the course is, with 36 holes played on Monday, and the shortened event concluded on Tuesday with Johnson’s 4 shot win over Steve Stricker.

It’s impossible to pick a breakout candidate for this event considering the criteria for getting into the field, but look for Harris English to have a dramatic outbreak in 2014. He’s already won this season, following his win in Memphis in June. He looks primed for a huge year, and could threaten to make the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

The golf course alone is reason to watch this tournament, especially if you’re stuck in as much snow as I currently am in Chicago. The setting is magnificent, and the style of golf to be played is completely unique. The drives will be monstrous, the winds will blow, and players will be forced to use creativity and feel more than the precision and calculation that you see on typical U.S. PGA Tour courses.

These days with the wrap-around schedule and Golf Channel picking up more and more coverage from warm locales around the glove, it doesn’t stick out quite as much, but it’s still a sore thumb. Getting home from work, it’s dark, shitty outside, and you haven’t touched your sticks in a month and half you flip on the tv and it’s golf porn from Hawaii. It’s shock value. It works. To a large extent, this is what the entire West Coast Swing is about – it’s like an antidepressant for Seasonal Affective Disorder. You flip it on and it warms your soul.

The five years or so after the tournament moved from SoCal to Maui were the golden years. With Mercedes bankrolling the event, it was one of the premier stops on tour and had a certain aura about it. You didn’t hear quite as much bitching about the layout, the resort hadn’t gone through bankruptcy proceedings yet (Lehman Bros. went HAM on renovations in ’07), and year after year the winners were straight-up thoroughbreds: Duval, BigCat, Furyk, Sergio, and Els those first five years in Hawaii. It was all downhill after that: Stu Appleby won three years in a row (’04-’06), Tiger stopped making the trip in ’05, and then the bottom fell out in ’08 when Daniel Chopra won and singlehandedly prompted Mercedes to drop their title sponsorship (just kidding, but that had to be a factor, right?).

Rebranded as the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, the tournament still commands a pretty bossy field save for the top four or five guys. After nine straight years of foreign winners, this event has gotten increasingly xenophobic, to the point where 26/30 players in the field this week are Americans. And outside of Adam Scott, it’s hard to imagine one of those four foreigners winning the even this year (Bae, Blixt, and Laird are all respectable players, but let’s be serious).

In my opinion, the real intrigue w/ this event always lies in sitting back and reflecting on how the hell some of these guys won last year. Unfortunately this year, most of the guys in the field are the real deal. However, Woody Austin should pick up the slack in that department.

Scott Brown absolutely menaced the Fall Series!

Don’t really like any odds this week. Field is too small, nobody I like to bet on has a decent track record here, DJ is banged up AGAIN this time his neck, ZERO VALUE. Adam Scott is trending like CRAZY and if you look past his last few appearances here actually has a decent record on this track.

Kuchar is about to shut it down for four weeks after the sony and just chill out on the big island and skip four of the best events of the year?

Writing

Golfers and Their Celebrity Doppelgängers

Paulina Gretzky Has Tattoo Honoring The Great One In An Odd Location

Sony Open in Hawaii

Murder Suspect Caught Pounding Balls in PGA Superstore

Hyundai Tournament of Champions

It's Hammer Time