Ultimate springtime golf fitness tips for "real" golfers

By Tim McDonald,
National Golf Editor

For those of you unfortunate enough to live in the North, you must be salivating at the thought of the spring golf season.

Hold on, Tiger. You ain't the man you used to be. You can't just jump up and go straight to the golf course after a long winter of sloth and mold.

Now, you will find any number of charlatans willing to sell you their total golf fitness regimens. These sleazoids always assume you're a golfer interested in a cleaner, healthier way of living and golfing. I've seen you out on the course, and I know that's not the sort of thing you're "into."

So here is my total golf fitness regimen for the "real" golfer:

• For God's sake, you have to strengthen your core! This involves eating really hard food, like jawbreakers. Eat a bag of those and have your neighbor punch you in the gut to see if your core is all it can be.

Options: Month-old fudge, Purina Dog Chow, pine bark.

• You also have to really work your obliques, I mean really work the hell out of them. Here's the perfect exercise for that. Lie flat on your back with knees bent slightly wider than your hips. If you have really fat hips, you're either going to have to really stretch your knees like in a cartoon, like The Elastic Man from India, or just skip this exercise. In fact, if you have really fat hips, just skip playing golf, nobody wants to see you out on the course.

Now, you slim-hipped people reach your hands to the ceiling like you're crying out for the Lord Jesus Christ to spare you from your miserable existence. You can hold light hand-weights, or not. What do I care? Lift your head and chest toward the ceiling and rotate to reach both hands just outside of your fat, right knee. Repeat on the left side. Now, take a breather. Ask Christ for forgiveness.

• Breathing exercises: Breathing properly and deeply is critical, especially for those tense moments on the course when normally you would start crying.
This deep-breathing exercise involves attending your local adult movie house, or calling up one of those sites on your Internet browser. Follow your instincts. It's either that or follow mine, and then you're looking at jail time.
• Horizontal abduction/adduction: I can't give you much help here, because I always get "horizontal" confused with "vertical," and I have no idea what adduction is. Who came up with that word, anyway? It's a stupid word and should be eliminated from the English language, if it's even English.

• Standing hip rotation: Don't do this. It makes you look like a girl.

• Alcohol fitness: How many times have you lost $2 Nassaus because while you were getting hamboned, your playing partners were just holding up that bottle of Jack Black pretending to drink?

Well, no need to waste good liquor. You can still drink and maintain your competitive edge. You just need to build up a tolerance. Stand upright in a dark closet, with a wide stance, and suck it down. Keep drinking until your wife leaves you.

• Aerobics: Ha! Don't make me laugh. This is golf!

• Putting: Don't bother to practice putting. Putting in golf is overrated. I play golf maybe 200 times a year and I've yet to meet anyone who can putt. You either make it or you don't. If you miss, just keep putting until the ball goes in the hole. Simple.

• Seniors: As we age, our bodies react differently, so seniors must prepare for golf differently than young punks. An important thing to remember is that there is an inverse relationship of increased ear hair to laughably short drives off the tee.

So keep those ear hairs trim and neat. If you're proud of your thick mane of ear hair, don't sweat it. If you're short off the tee, you're probably small in other areas, and I think you know what I'm talking about.

• Excuses: A healthy psychological outlook is a must for Better Golf. If you can convince yourself that the snap hook you hit into the weeds over there is not your doing at all, you'll retain the confidence needed to excel in the game.

The first time you smack one of your all-too-typical lousy shots, turn to your playing partner and snarl," "Will you stop that!" Look at him, looking all hurt and everything. Who would have thought golf fitness could be so much fun?

• Torque development in the downswing: This is so important, I can barely contain myself. This is vital to any golfer who has ever wanted to improve his score. You could even say it is absolutely critical in terms of reaching your full potential as a golfer and knowing what it is to be truly human.

• Alignment and posture: Face the target squarely and stand erect, with your rump jutting out slightly. Feels a little silly, doesn't it? Can you think of another situation in life where you would position yourself in such an odd manner? I can't.

Sifford to be Honored MGWA National Awards Dinner

Charlie Sifford, the first African-American to play the PGA Tour and the first black golfer to be enshrined at the World Golf Hall of Fame, will be recognized for his career achievements by the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association at their 57th National Awards Dinner on Monday, June 23, 2008 at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, N.Y. Sifford will receive the Gold Tee Award, the MGWA's highest honor.
Sifford is credited with breaking down golf's "Caucasian only" rule more than four decades ago. In 1961, at age 39, he earned his PGA player card. Sifford had won the United Golf Association's National Negro Open six times, including five consecutive titles from 1952-56, and in 1967 he became the first African-American to win a Tour event when he shot a 64 in the final round of the Greater Hartford Open. His only other PGA Tour victory came at the 1969 Los Angeles Open. In 1975, Sifford, one of the original members of the Champions Tour, captured the PGA Seniors' championship. In 1980, he also registered a win at the Suntree Classic in Melbourne, Australia.
Tiger Woods said of Sifford: "The pain, suffering and sacrifice experienced by Mr. Sifford in being a lonely pioneer for black golfers on the PGA Tour will never be forgotten by me. His success and personal conduct will provide a blueprint and inspiration for myself and other aspiring black tour players."

Sifford joins a group of distinguished individuals who have received the Gold Tee Award. The list includes Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Patty Berg, Nancy Lopez, Annika Sorenstam, Bob Hope and President Gerald R. Ford.

The MGWA's National Awards Dinner is the largest (and longest running) golf dinner held annually in the U.S. All of golf's governing bodies actively support the dinner - the USGA, PGA of America, LPGA, PGA Tour and Champions Tour - and some 700 industry leaders and local golfers attend. Proceeds from the dinner are distributed to the Metropolitan (New York) area caddie scholarship programs and the MGA Foundation. More than $900,000 has been raised over the years for charitable endeavors.

For advance table and ticket sales reservations or additional information, call Ann Rold at 914/347-4653

Abbondandolo Continues Dominance at Lacrosse Homes Invitational

Junior Co-Captain Leads Saints Coming in Tied for Second

April 2, 2008

Loudonville, N.Y. - Junior co-captain Dan Abbondandolo fired a pair of 73 rounds finishing in second individually at the Lacrosse Homes Collegiate Invitational held over the weekend in Graysonville, Md. As a team, the Saints finished 16th in a highly competitive 19 team field.

Abbondandolo, who won the Lonnie Barton Memorial Invitational three weeks earlier in Savannah, Ga. with a two round total of 143, nearly matched that performance shooting an impressive 146 for the two days in Maryland. Loyola's Michael Mulieri edged Abbondandolo to capture the individual crown finishing two strokes better at 144.

Freshman Don DeNyse III who had an equally impressive fall campaign, was the Saints other notable competitor, coming in a tie for 19th place overall with rounds of 74 and 79 respectively.

For the weekend, Siena shot a two round score of 636. Longwood University won the event, firing a score of 598, narrowly edging second place Liberty by just two strokes.

The Saints return to action the weekend of April 12 for the two-day Lafayette Spring Invitational in Center Valley, Pa.

Team Results 1.) Longwood 598 2.) Liberty 600 3.) UNC-Greensboro 602 4.) Loyola 609 5.) James Madison 614 6.) Army 617 7.) Georgetown 619 8.) Cornell 622 9.) Navy 624 10.) St. Bonaventure 625 11.) Towson 626 T12.) Boston College 628 T12.) Rutgers 628 T14.) Yale 632 T14.) Brown 632 16.) SIENA 636 17.) St. Joseph's 642 18.) Drexel 644 19.) Long Island 657

Siena Competitors T2.) Dan Abbondandolo 73-73 (146) T19.) Don DeNyse III 74-79 (153) T73.) James Gifford 82-81 (163) 95.) Chris Haggerty 91-83 (174) 99.) Matt Lentner 99-104 (203)

Pair of BIG EAST Golfers Claim Individual Titles

Louisville senior Derek Fathauer and St. John’s senior Keegan Bradley both posted the low individual scores at their respective tournaments last week. Fathauer won the General Jim Hackler Championship with a 217. Bradley tied for first at the Palmas Del Mar Intercollegiate in Puerto Rico with a 211.

Daddy’s Little Phenoms

Gillian Laub

WINNERS Ginger and Robbi Howard with a few of their trophies.

By PAT JORDAN

Published: March 2, 2008

Robert Howard is a doting father, a cheerleader kind of dad. He records for posterity his two daughters’ every achievement, every nuance of their lives, as he has done since they were 3 and 4, on film, on paper, on his computer. He punctuates each achievement, no matter how mundane, with exhortations: “Congratulations, Howard sisters! Excellent work, girls! Great job, girls!” Robert is proud of his daughters, but one overwhelming worry shadows his pride: he is waiting anxiously for them to grow. Robert is 6-foot-4. His wife, Gianna, however, is 5-foot-5. His daughters, Ginger, 13, and Robbi, 12, are not much over 5 feet. An average height for girls their age, but the Howard sisters are not average girls.

The sisters have their own Web site, gingerandrobbi.com, where fans can find everything they might want to know about them: their birth dates, their height, their interests (art, reading, educational computer games), their favorite sports equipment (Nike, Titleist, Callaway), their television appearances (“The Morning Show,” “The George Michael Sports Machine,” Comcast’s “SportsNet,” “Amazing Kids: Unbelievable Talents”). There are also, of course, the various photos of them smiling at a camera while holding up a trophy or swinging a golf club taller than they are. They differ mostly in the number of their trophies (83 for Ginger, 62 for Robbi); their amateur rankings for girls under 18 (No. 101 for Ginger, No. 288 for Robbi); the fact that Ginger plays right-handed and Robbi left-handed; and the events they have won. ESPN.com called Ginger “one of the best child golfers in the world,” and their coach at the David Leadbetter school at IMG Academies in Bradenton,

Fla., says that only a few golfers their age in the world are as talented as the Howard sisters.

Their father presents them as the Venus and Serena Williams of golf. In fact, he is so assured of their future greatness (he calls the process of getting there “the Journey”) that he says: “I’ll make their dreams come true. Lately, I’ve had my wife step up to do interviews and stuff to show that she’s part of the Journey, so to speak.” Gianna, for her part, says: “Their talent is so tremendous; we don’t take it lightly. My daughters have big dreams that they will become famous. Ginger loves to sing and dance. She might want to be an actress. They can use golf to open doors for other things they want to do, like Venus and Serena.”

Ginger sums up the Journey more succinctly. “We’re going to be superstars and everyone is going to notice,” she says. While Robert waits for the world to notice his daughters — their easygoing personalities, their beauty, their golf games — he promotes them incessantly. He does so even in their presence, talking about them as if they were not there. Ginger just smiles. Robbi rolls her eyes.

What the Howard sisters have in common with the Williams sisters is that both sets of siblings play country-club sports where professional success has been rare for African-Americans. What they don’t have in common is that Venus and Serena were always big girls, bigger and stronger than most girls their age. They became stars when their tennis proficiency caught up to their size and strength. The Howard sisters have to hope their size and strength catch up to their golf proficiency.

Robert is positive that his daughters will grow into their talent. He points to their shoe size — 9 1/2 for Ginger, 10 for Robbi — as proof. “I’m tall,” he says. “Ginger and Robbi have my genes. I mean, I’m taller than Scott!” He is referring to Scott Thompson, the coach, father and caddie of Alexis Thompson, the 13-year-old girl from South Florida who last year became the youngest golfer ever to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open. Alexis is 5-foot-8, a big-boned, big-shouldered girl with long legs. Her size and strength help her drive the ball 260 yards. The Howard sisters hit 220- and 230-yard drives. When they play with older girls and women, they look like “petite little girls,” says Jay Goble, their coach at Leadbetter. “Sometimes they act like little kids too.” Alexis is often taller than her adult playing partners. One pro in her 20s says, “I would have had no idea Alexis was 13 if I hadn’t been told.” Ginger has had the opposite experience. She says that her older opponents “think I’m just a little kid until I show them how good I am.”

At the end of the first week in January, the Howards left their gated community in Bradenton at 6 a.m., stopped by McDonald’s for breakfast, then began a four-hour trip across the state to Jacksonville for a golf tournament. While Ginger and Robbi and their 5-year-old brother Robert Jr., or R. J., sat in the back seat of the family’s Expedition and watched cartoons on a small overhead TV, Robert talked about their trip with enthusiasm: the exclusive golf club they were going to, T.P.C. at Sawgrass, where Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino once played and where the sisters had an 11:33 tee time. The two-day event they would play in, which was part of the Future Collegians World Tour for girls up to the age of 18 and which started tomorrow. The restaurant they would eat at that night, Barbara Jean’s, his favorite in the Jacksonville area. The hotel they would stay in, all five in one room.

By noon, Robert was caddying for Ginger and Robbi, a baggy blue satin sweatsuit over his long johns. A third girl practiced with them, tall and slim and with her own hired caddie. Gianna drove alongside the fairways, bundled up in the golf cart with R. J. on her lap. Ginger and Robbi listened attentively whenever their father gave them advice, standing in that knock-kneed, coltish way of girls not yet fully grown. When one hit a good shot, he couldn’t contain himself: “I love it, baby!” When one hit a bad shot: “Don’t worry, baby, it was the wind.”

Ginger played a neat, precise, mistake-free game, but without flair. Her drives were short, but landed right in the middle of the fairway. She didn’t miss putts she was supposed to make. Robbi had a big, powerful game that was erratic. She drove one shot farther than either Ginger or the tall girl had, but into the rough, behind a tree. Her shoulders slumped. “Look at that drive!” Robert said. “Don’t worry. It’ll come.”

Skip to next paragraph

Enlarge This Image

Gillian Laub

LITTLE GIRLS, BIG DRIVE Robert Howard and his would-be junior golf stars.

The New York Times
Sports Magazine

Go to Complete Coverage »

Enlarge This Image

Gillian Laub

AIMING AT GREATNESS Ginger and Robbi at a practice session in Bradenton, Fla. If their size and strength catch up to their skills, they may well become champions — not to mention stars on the Disney Channel.

Many of the teenagers who make it into the U.S. Women’s Open began playing golf as young as 5, like the Howard sisters, because it’s the perfect sport for very young girls. They often take instruction better than young boys: boys want to do it their way, but girls want to do it right. Golf is a stationary sport of technique that can be learned, rather than a more instinctive physical sport like basketball. Most sports benefit from speed, strength and dexterity, which only peak with a mature body. But golf requires first and foremost a diligence to form.

Goble says the Howard sisters are “more technically proficient” than any young golfers their age that he has ever seen. “They don’t have a real weakness,” he adds. “I just monitor their technique until they grow into their bodies. But their real strength is their competitiveness. Ginger is always charged up. And Robbi is even more fiery.”

One pro says of girl golfers: “The beauty of being 12 is you don’t know fear, so what do you have to lose? These young girls play golf seven days a week, seven hours a day. These girls are home-schooled. Golf is their life.” But Diane Lang, who is 53 and a former senior amateur champion, acknowledges the risk that comes with that focus. “These girls get younger and younger every year,” she says. “In my day, I was lucky to have an instructor. These girls have trainers, psychologists, short-game coaches, long-game coaches. They lift weights, get muscles and hit the ball farther. They’re fearless. But if they don’t make it, what do they have to fall back on?”

Of course, if they do make it, they can earn more money at an earlier age than athletes in just about any other sport. By her midteens, Michelle Wie, for example, had already secured endorsement deals for millions of dollars and regularly received appearance bonus money to play in men’s events — before she ever won a significant tournament. And she still hasn’t won one; in fact, golf fans wonder if money hasn’t destroyed her competitive drive.

During the practice round at Sawgrass, the tall girl showed neither Ginger’s precision nor Robbi’s power. She played dejectedly, walking to her ball with a disheartened slouch. Afterward, her father told me: “It was intimidating. I’ve heard of them before. They were players.” He shook his head. The tall girl and her father were from Minnesota, where she was a 15-year-old sophomore in high school and one of the top amateur golfers in her state. “The older sister is the most consistent girl golfer I ever saw,” the father continued. “And she didn’t even have her game face on today. Both the girls are very sweet. They complimented my daughter on her good shots.” Of their father, he said: “He’s certainly not an Earl Woods golf father. I mean, he’s not a slave driver. But you can tell. They all have a purpose.”

I first MET the Howards late last summer at their home, a Mediterranean-style house in the gated golf community of Heritage Harbor. The houses were all so similar that even on my third visit, I still drove past it before recognizing their S.U.V. in the driveway. Robert likes the safety of this community: his daughters never have to pass through the guarded gates that keep the world out. “I want to keep my girls confined,” he says, “so this thing won’t blow up.” He monitors his girls’ phone calls. When Robbi received an obscene call one night that woke her up, Robert grabbed the phone and snapped, “Who’s this? Who’s this?”

On my first visit, Gianna opened the door and the two girls came running down the stairs, giggling. They stood in the family room off the kitchen, as if at attention. Ginger had a big, wide-eyed, eager-to-please grin on her face. Robbi gave me a little sly, sideways smile. Ginger is the gregarious one, Robert says; Robbi is the shy one. Ginger has what Goble describes as “a phenomenal short game” of chip shots and putts. “She’s consistent,” he says. “She grinds out pars that could be disastrous for other girls. Robbi has the big, explosive game. She can get hot and either have a great round or blow the whole thing.”

The girls took me to see their rooms, with their black long-haired dachshund, Putter, hopping up the stairs after us. Ginger had a “Girls Rule” sign on her wall and a few of her golf trophies on a shelf. “The rest are in the garage,” she said. It seemed like a typical girl’s room, all bright pastel colors and stuffed animals. Robbi’s room was similar, only more spare. We went back downstairs and sat in the family room. Gianna was in the kitchen while I chatted with her daughters.

Their favorite golfer is Tiger Woods. “Because he knows how to finish,” Ginger said. She wants to be a famous golfer, too, she said. Giggling, she leaned forward, her face in her hands, and added, “And then a star on the Disney Channel.”

Skip to next paragraph

The New York Times
Sports Magazine

Go to Complete Coverage »

Robbi said, “I want to be a veterinarian.”

I asked Ginger who her best friend was. She spent a long moment, thinking. Finally, her face brightened, and she said: “Robbi! Because she’s perfect. She always tells me the truth. She’s really honest. When I dance for her, she’ll say, ‘That wasn’t very good.’ ”

Robbi said: “I’m her audience. She makes me laugh.”

School for the sisters is the kitchen table where their mother teaches them. Home-schooling seems to be a recent trend for young female golfers. It’s a way for their parents to make sure they have enough time for golf. A round takes up to five hours to play, so kids who go to school and get out of class at, say, 3 p.m. don’t have enough time to practice and do their homework.

“I get up at 6:30 in the morning,” Ginger said. “I make my bed, do the dishes, walk Putter; then we do schoolwork with my mom at 8 o’clock until noon. I like being home-schooled because my mom understands us.” She put her hands over her face and giggled. “Robbi is a better student than me.”

Robbi ran through their schedule. “In the afternoon we go to IMG to practice,” she said. After that, it’s the International Performance Institute, which is part of IMG, by 5:30. “We lift weights, run, do core body work with a medicine ball and stretch until 6:30. Then we go home to watch TV. Mostly the Disney Channel, the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.” I mentioned a hit TV show for older viewers. The two girls looked at me as if confused. Gianna called out, “They don’t know what that is.”

I asked them if they missed having friends. “Oh, we have friends,” Ginger said. “We text-message them all the time.” Their friends are mostly other young girl golfers from Korea, Japan and Europe and train at IMG. I asked if they would rather be famous celebrities like Michelle Wie or great golfers like Morgan Pressel, who qualified for the women’s Open when she was 13 a few years ago. Robbi asked, “Can we be both?” I said no. Robbi thought long and hard. Then she said, “A great golfer.”

Just then Robert arrived home. His daughters rushed to hug him. Robert, 43, is a big, handsome man with a pencil-thin moustache and a fondness for gold jewelry. Robert says Ginger has his outgoing, striving personality and is “an extrovert like me, very focused.” Both he and Ginger say Robbi is more like Gianna in her innately comforting personality. Robert is of Irish, Native American, African-American and West Indian ancestry. Gianna’s is Russian, French-Canadian, Native American and African-American. Gianna describes their children as “multicultural.”

Robert sat down on a sofa in the living room and talked about his life while his son stared at me with big brown eyes. Robert was born into a lower-middle-class family in Philadelphia. “Golf didn’t come up much in my neck of the woods,” he said, but there was a bus driver named Billy Johnson, who taught tennis to underprivileged kids, which eventually helped Robert get a partial tennis scholarship to Temple University. (Robert still plays tennis today against younger, faster opponents.)

Robert’s father supported him and his five siblings as a steelworker. Gianna, who is 40, came from a similar family of eight siblings. Her father worked as a die cutter and sign painter. Both Robert and Gianna were raised as devout Catholics, just as they are raising their children: on the living-room wall there were two large photographs of Ginger and Robbi in their white First Communion dresses. He made a gesture with his hand to indicate his house and smiled. “When I met my wife, she didn’t expect to live like this.”

Gianna went to Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia and became a nurse. Now she is a night nurse at IMG (she tends to the students in the dorms there). Robert got his business degree from Temple. After they married and had their daughters, they moved to Maryland. By that time Robert was working for PepsiCo and, like a good corporate executive, had taken up golf as a way to advance his career. “You sweat too much in tennis,” he said. One day, Gianna asked him to baby-sit for their daughters. Robbi, the youngest, was 4. On a lark, he took them to a driving range to hit a few balls. The rest is Howard sisters history.

“I had a video camera,” Robert said, “and I filmed the girls so Gianna would know I did something productive with them. A golf pro was there. He came over to me and said, ‘How long have the girls been playing golf?’ I said, ‘Oh, about 15 minutes.’ He said they had nice swings, so we started playing golf for fun, as a family thing — just hitting balls, not playing 18 holes or anything. Then I entered them in their first tournament. We were the last twosome after nine holes. Robbi shot a 32 and Ginger a 33. I had no idea what the other girls’ scores were until I saw that the next-lowest score was 48. That’s when I thought, Let’s see how far this thing will go. So I eventually bought them two sets of $750 golf clubs that we had to cut down.” They also joined the Tantallon Country Club, in Fort Washington, Md., which he described as “not an exclusive country club.”

Skip to next paragraph

The New York Times
Sports Magazine

Go to Complete Coverage »

After a couple of years of successful tournaments, Robert figured that maybe golf would pay for his daughters’ college educations. But the more events his girls played in, the more he realized how good they were and how golf might lead to something even grander than scholarships. By the time Ginger was 8, parents of other girls were pulling their daughters from tournaments that Ginger had entered. So Robert began withholding her name until the last minute; otherwise Ginger would have been competing against only 4 girls instead of 15. Before long, Ginger was “playing up” in age groups, regularly beating girls as old as 14. Soon tournament organizers were asking Robert if he’d let Ginger compete against boys “to level the playing field,” Robert said. “She told me, ‘Daddy, I can beat the boys, too.’ But I didn’t think it was right. So I never let her play against the boys.”

Robert started the girls’ Web site around 2003. It caught the attention of sports-television producers immediately. It was the perfect storyline for TV, the two little sisters who were the Venus and Serena of golf. Robert liked that comparison. “I mentioned it to the pro at Tantallon,” Robert said, “but he didn’t understand the comparison. I explained to him how their father, Richard Williams, pushed the P.R. thing. His daughters hadn’t even competed yet, and he was telling the world they’d be No. 1 and No. 2. It was a pretty bold statement. Obviously he knew something we didn’t.” Robert noticed that by relentlessly hyping his daughters, Williams made them famous before they had ever won an important junior tennis event. In fact, Williams kept his daughters out of important junior events so they couldn’t lose and thereby lessen the hype.

Robert began to formulate his own career plan for his daughters. He noticed that most of their best opponents came from warm climates. So he left what he calls “30 feet of snow in Maryland” and moved the family to Jacksonville, and then to Bradenton, where the girls could be close to specialized instruction at Leadbetter. (Robert now works for Goodwill Industries: “director of transportation,” he says. “I love that title.”) While his daughters competed and he waited for them to grow, Robert studied the career paths of other famous sports prodigies. Eventually, he came up with what he calls the Howard Model, which is based on the experiences of fathers like Richard Williams, B. J. Wie, Scott Thompson and Earl Woods and of Morgan Pressel’s grandfather, Herb Krickstein.

If anyone is Robert’s idol, it is Richard Williams. He spoke of trying to get a few words with Richard as if it were like getting an audience with the pope. “I wish I could talk to him,” he said. “I talked to him only once. I told him I had two daughters who could be the Venus and Serena of golf. I gave him my card, but nothing happened. You know, I applaud what Richard has done, but I’m one of those people who find their own path. I have no one to turn to for advice. This is uncharted water for us. We’re taking it one step at a time.”

The Howard Model is centered on Robert being a cheerleader for his daughters rather than a critic. When Ginger competed recently on a golf course with exceptionally long fairways, she told her father, “Daddy, they’re soooo long!” He comforted her, saying, “Baby, when you figure it out — the wind, the clubs, the green — you’ll be just fine.” Ginger can be easily rattled, sometimes by older playing partners who trash-talk her. “They can be ruthless,” Robert said. “I went to the officials to stop it. Sometimes, during a tournament, Ginger feels pressured if I follow her around. So Gianna always follows her, and I follow Robbi to give her more encouragement.

Skip to next paragraph

The New York Times
Sports Magazine

Go to Complete Coverage »

“I want my daughters to have the qualities of champions,” Robert continued. “Passion. Drive. They must want to do it. And have fun. My philosophy, which my kids understand, is that they play the best of the best so they’ll know who they are. Earn what you get. It’s O.K. to be on TV and all, but you have to prove your worth, too.”

While his daughters are proving their worth, Robert still must keep them in the public eye. That public image is very important to him. “The nature of girls’ golf,” he said, “is that people are concerned with the way the girls’ hair is done, how well they behave, the demeanor they have. I want my girls to remain beautiful on the golf course, to have etiquette, to avoid people stereotyping them against the norm. The public wants them to have etiquette, to be well dressed, not to wear too-tight shorts. The bottom line is: We are Catholics. We’re here for a purpose.”

That “purpose” might be considered a great burden for Robert and Gianna. It can cost them between $25,000 and $40,000 a year per child for the golf clubs, the lessons, the travel to tournaments. “Our sacrifices are an investment,” Robert said. “We live life small. We don’t chase dollars. Yet I don’t have the financial means of other parents. For us to survive this long is a blessing. I just hope I can run into someone who can help these girls out, because their parents are working class.”

Robert has a dream that one day he’ll find a benefactor for his daughters — like the rapper 50 Cent. “He bought part of a flavored-water company,” Robert said, “then it sold to Coke for $4 billion. Now what would it take for my girls to get recognized by him to help them out? It would be a dream come true for someone to say I was doing the right thing with my girls and they want to help us out. But if it’s gonna happen, it’ll happen. God does not put you in a situation you can’t handle. I’m at peace with that.”

Gianna came downstairs to get ready for work. I followed her into the kitchen to talk to her about home-schooling. In order to home-school the girls, the Howards follow a standardized curriculum from an educational company. Gianna sets a goal for her daughters: they must finish four hours of schoolwork each day. If they don’t finish before they play golf, they must finish at night or on the weekend. Every so often, they see a certified teacher who tests the girls. Robert says they are above-average students.

When I asked Gianna if there is any downside to home-schooling, like a diminished social life, she said: “I appreciate that they don’t have much socialization now. What they were getting in school was not that good. Parents give their kids too much freedom today. We don’t allow much freedom. Their friendships are monitored. Our girls are not typical girls. They’re a couple of years behind other girls in terms of clothes, activities, boyfriends. Oh, they have crushes, you know, on those teen TV stars.” She smiled at me. “The ones who live in L.A. I say, that’s good. The farther away, the better. They can put up all the posters they want to in their rooms. But they have no real boyfriends. My girls are their true age. They’re virtuous girls.”

It’s easy for the Howards to keep their girls their “true age” at home, but not so easy when they are on the golf course playing alongside girls who talk about “inappropriate things,” as Robert put it. “There are situations when the other girls are talking about boys and sex and using bad language. It blows Ginger’s mind, because she doesn’t know how to handle it. She has tunnel vision on the course, and if you throw anything new at her, it throws her off track. At first we didn’t know why Ginger was playing so badly sometimes, until she came to us and said, ‘Daddy, those girls are using bad language.’ Before a tournament, I used to have to go talk to the girls she was playing with. I told them, I don’t mean any disrespect, but my daughter’s only 12 and I’d prefer you didn’t talk to her on the course.”

Skip to next paragraph

The New York Times
Sports Magazine

Go to Complete Coverage »

Gianna fully embraces their vigilant parenting. “We believe it’s our purpose in life to guide our children,” she said. “We let the kids know that their talent is a blessing from God and it can be taken from them at any moment. That fear is instilled in them so that when they become famous, they’ll use it to help people in some way, like charity work. Not like other celebrities who use their money for drugs and alcohol. We want our daughters to do something in the world that will make a difference.”

I got up to leave. Then I heard the girls giggling upstairs. It dawned on me, suddenly, that it was the second day of the U.S. Women’s Open and the sisters had not been watching it on television. I asked Robert why. “They’re doing their homework or something else they want to do,” he said. “They have other priorities.”

Six months later, in January, I joined the Howard family for dinner at Barbara Jean’s after the sisters’ practice round at Sawgrass. The restaurant was crowded, mostly with families. Children of all ages ran about. We stood off to one side, at the end of the bar, and waited for a table. R. J. wanted a lemonade. When I handed it to him, he gave me a big smile and a high five. I asked Robbi if she and Ginger had gone to the recent Hannah Montana concert in South Florida. Her mouth made a perfect O as she replied, “Nooo!” and tossed a head fake at her mother. Gianna didn’t think the girls were old enough to go to such a concert (nor were the tickets cheap).

After dinner, in the dark parking lot, Gianna and the children said goodbye and climbed into the Expedition. Robert locked the S.U.V. with his remote, then stayed behind with me to answer one last question. I wanted to know why he goes through this: the early-morning drives across the state to save money ($144, plus tax, on this trip); the almost pathological vigilance. It has to be a little exhausting for Robert to keep up the Journey, to cheerlead his daughters, to always try to pump everyone up and keep them happy. When Ginger wanted a piano for Christmas and Robert couldn’t afford one, he spent days haunting music stores until he found a discounted floor model.

“It’s all about family,” Robert said. “It’s fun. The idea is, it’s for them. It’s not about self. My parents worked hard to give me a nice path, college and all, and I want to hand the same thing down to my kids. I love my family.”

Two days later, Robert e-mailed me with the results of the girls’ tournament. “Ginger came from behind by 3 strokes to capture the T.P.C. at Sawgrass event,” he wrote. “She shot a final round 1 over 73. Robbi played well also and shot a final round 81. She finished 13th out of 27 girls. . . . Ginger was so excited, as you would imagine. She now gets her picture taken and it will be hung on the wall of champions at IMG for all to see. What a way to end the weekend.” .

Pound Ridge on Track for July Opening

Pound Ridge Golf, New York's only Pete Dye-designed golf course, finalized its construction in November 2007 and is gearing up for a July 2008 unveiling. The high-end daily-fee track, which will attract golfers from metro-New York and beyond, was crafted by Dye's trusted construction manager of nearly 20 years, Michael Langkau.

Located in Westchester County, Pound Ridge has been carved out of 172 acres of rocky cliffs, streams and wooded hills. Pete entrusts his projects to be executed by shapers, the "artists" who operate the bulldozers which result in the ultimate course. "Mike has done a wonderful job at Pound Ridge Golf Club and I am very proud of his work," said the noted architect.

Langkau has played a key role in 16 Dye courses throughout the country, including such notable projects as Blackwolf Run in Kohler, Wisc.; the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C.; the Pete Dye Golf Club in Bridgeport, W.V.; Crooked Stick in Indianapolis; Collecton River Plantation in Bluffton, S.C.; Brickyard Crossing, Indianapolis,; Whistling Straits in Haven, Wisc.; Big Fish Golf Club in Hayward, Wisc.; and the River Course at Virginia Tech, Radford, Va. "Everything that I know about golf course construction I know either directly or indirectly because of Pete," said Langkau.

A talented shaper takes Pete's drawings and turns them into reality. The interaction between the two is vital in the creation and implementation of a design. "In my early years I was fortunate to work with Pete on a daily basis. I feel that gives me an advantage to understand the subtle hand gestures and language that a new shaper, who has a limited exposure to Pete, can't possibly understand," Langkau explains.

Since March 2006 Langkau has been excavating the Pound Ridge site and shaping the tees, greens and fairways, while working in concert with Pete and his co-designer son, Perry Dye. Langkau's skills have been tested at Pound Ridge. "The holes here were the 18 toughest holes to shape in my 20-year career because of the quantity of rock," according to Langkau.

"My favorite par-3 is the 15th hole, where we incorporated many of the natural elements of beauty inherent to the entire property on one hole, including a tremendous and visually intimidating rock backdrop. The fifth hole is my favorite par-4 because this hole puts a real premium on precision and strategy. The 16th hole is my favorite par-5 because its uphill length requires careful thought for the second shot. The 14th hole definitely was the most challenging to build. I think the blasters ran out of dynamite here!"

Originally from Oshkosh, Wisc., Langkau received his career opportunity at the Innis Arden Golf Club in Old Greenwich, Conn., when his employer arranged an interview with the dean of the University of Massachusetts, Stockbridge School of Agriculture. While attending UMass, Langkau interned at Medinah Country Club in Illinois, site of three U.S. Opens and two PGA Championships. Medinah will host the 2012 Ryder Cup. He graduated in 1986 from UMass with an associate degree in Turf Management.

As the crew foreman at Blackwolf Run in 1988, Langkau received his first taste of building a Pete Dye golf course. "Pete came into my life at a time when I needed someone to look up to and he has provided me with a role model, mentor and at times a father figure," he said.

Throughout the late 1980s and '90s, Langkau moved back and forth between Dye projects. When a heavy rain storm created a major setback at the Gauntlet in Southport, N.C. (a P.B. Dye-designed track), Pete sent his trusted shaper to fix the damage that occurred on his son's course.

Between September 1989 and the Ryder Cup in September 1991, Langkau received a crash course in construction and design at Kiawah Island. The commitment that Pete made to build that layout from scratch in preparation for hosting a Ryder Cup two years later was unprecedented. The impending Ryder Cup was of such importance to Pete and his wife Alice that they lived on-site to oversee the work.

Weeks after breaking ground, Hurricane Hugo took aim at Kiawah and Charleston and completely devastated South Carolina. "I arrived a few weeks later and within days Pete gave me my big break, operating heavy equipment. One thing led to another and I started my shaping career there. After we finished the golf course it all came down to the final group on the final hole where Bernard Langer missed 'the putt heard around the world' that would have retained the Cup for the European team. The golf course had only been open for a few months prior, but has since become a landmark in American golf.'

With Pound Ridge opening in 2008, Langkau looks forward to the future honors that he believes the new layout will receive. "When your previous project receives critical acclaim, it gives you a tremendous amount of credibility. I am also very pleased that (developer) Mr. Wang chose to keep Pound Ridge accessible to all golfers, as I enjoy building Dye courses that are available for everyone to play.

"Pete and Perry Dye have spent a lot of time at the Pound Ridge site," Langkau adds. "Pete averages one to two courses per year, so he can oversee the construction on a regular basis. The number of courses that Pete has in the top 100 lists is simply amazing. When you compare the number of courses an architect is credited with against the number of courses he has in the top 100, nobody comes close to Pete."

For more information on this golf project and hundreds of others around the U.S., go to www.golfconstructionnews.com.

2008 Senior Open Can Boast Of Volunteers From All 50 States

Far Hills, N.J. - Ron Diltz and Mike Kelly first became acquainted when their sons began playing high school football in Anchorage, Alaska. They quickly discovered a mutual love for outdoor activities – hunting, fishing and even golf – and their friendship soon extended beyond Friday night games.

Even after Kelly moved back to his native Colorado in 1999, the two remained close. Last year, they went pheasant hunting in North Dakota.

This summer, the get-together will take place a little closer to Kelly’s backyard in Colorado Springs. With the U.S. Senior Open heading to The Broadmoor, Kelly signed up to be a volunteer for the championship. And he thought it would be a neat idea to bring his buddy down from Alaska to share in the activity.

“I sucked him in,” said Kelly. “I only live a couple of miles from [The Broadmoor], so it seemed like the right thing to do.”

Diltz will be one of many individuals making a long trek to Colorado Springs this July to be part of the 3,000-plus volunteer force for the Senior Open (July 31-Aug. 3). In fact, this year’s championship will have volunteers from all 50 states. It’s the first time that a volunteer from every state has participated in the same championship.

Colorado residents understandably make up 78.5 percent of the volunteers, but others have decided to travel considerable distances to help out. Diltz will journey 3,275 miles; Sandra Webb from Kailua Kona, Hawaii has the farthest hike, at 3,309 miles.

The USGA would have a difficult time conducting championships without volunteers' participation. (John Mummert/USGA)

The participation from near and far even had the management company that handles the U.S. Senior Open for the USGA pleasantly surprised.

“It’s very unusual [to have all 50 states represented],” said Jeff Yeager, the volunteer manager for Bruno Event Team. “I would say 40 to 45 states [is normal], but to get over the 45 mark, it’s something of a unique status.”

Part of the lure is this year’s site. The Broadmoor is a world-class resort located in an area where there are plenty of alternative activities when people are not on-site working. Yeager said The Broadmoor, which attracts guests from throughout the world, also solicited volunteers through various means of communication.

“We had started a waiting list of about 100 volunteers, but after looking at a few numbers, we have almost added all 100 of those [people] from our waiting list,” said Yeager. “So it’s been really terrific.”

Some people love being a part of the championship so much that they keep coming back. Arkansas residents Jack Cato and his brother-in-law Bill Foster will be making their fourth consecutive appearance at the Senior Open. They first volunteered at the 2005 event at the NCR Club outside of Dayton, Ohio.

“We’ve made the Senior Open part of our summer vacations so we can get out and see new parts of the country,” said Cato, who is retired. “This will be our first visit to Colorado and I am excited to see the state and the Rocky Mountains.”

In 2005, the two served on the transportation committee. Last year, they were walking scorers. Cato went with Jim Thorpe and R.W. Eaks in the final round. In ’05, Cato said he drove Gil Morgan, Fuzzy Zoeller and Thorpe. He also got to meet Tom Watson. This year, they will be on-course marshals, just like in 2006 at Prairie Dunes in Hutchinson, Kan.

“Especially in transportation, you get to meet a lot of [contestants] because you are right there with them,” said Cato. “When you are working out on the course, you see them but you don’t necessarily get to talk with them.

“But we’ve enjoyed it and it’s been a good experience. We haven’t decided if we are going to do it next year [at Crooked Stick] or not. We’ll probably make that decision after this year’s tournament.”

Of course, having the championship in a smaller market like Colorado Springs, which does not have major sporting events on an annual basis, also adds an element of excitement not found in a major metropolis. The 1999 U.S. Senior Open in Des Moines, Iowa, drew some 50,000 spectators for the final round.

The retired Kelly moved back to Colorado Springs after a working in oil business in California and Alaska in the 1980s.

“You can get lost in places like Denver and Atlanta, but not here,” said Kelly. “An event like this is a pretty big deal for us.”

Just seeing a major golf event in person is a big opportunity for Diltz. Alaska is one state that has never hosted a USGA championship. Outside of the Iditarod dogsled race, the state is devoid of nationally recognized sporting events.

Diltz admitted that his outdoor activities of choice are hunting and fishing. But he does enjoy an occasional round of golf, including an indoor version played on a simulator. Alaska’s outdoor golf season is quite short, so many people play indoors during the harsh winters to keep their swings in rhythm.

“I’m just a weekend hacker,” said Diltz, a sales manager for an office supply company in Anchorage. “But I’m excited … to watch some of my idols. I still don’t know what we will be doing. It probably will be gallery control. No matter what it is, it will be fun.”