Playing a round of golf
with Tiger Woods didn't come easy -- nor was it cheap.
Two weeks of online bidding
through UltimateBid.com ended April 14 with the four winners each paying $51,000
to play with Woods at his home course of Isleworth in Windermere, Fla.
The total of $204,000 for
the foursome was the largest bid ever on UltimateBid.com, which also auctions
off such things as a day with New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter during spring
training.
The names of the winners
were not released, but spokesman Dan Berger said today that two men were from
New York, one from New Jersey, and one from Pebble Beach.
Two of the winning bids
were placed by their wives as a present, and one man was a previous winner --
he bought a round with Arnold Palmer for his father.
Berger said 44 bids were
offered. One man from Korea thought he had a winner at $50,000 until he was beat
out in the final two minutes of the online auction.
Proceeds from the auction
will go toward the Tiger Woods Foundation.
TIGER ON
A HOT HAMBURG ROOF
Tiger Woods and Colin Montgomerie
will be among those taking part in a unique hole-in-one contest during the Deustche
Bank-SAP Open in Germany next month.
The tee box will be on
the roof of a 100-foot building in Hamburg. The green will be about 135 yards
away, across a busy street in the middle of a shopping district, to another rooftop.
The competition will take
place at 8 p.m. on May 18, after the first round of the European Tour event.
A hole-in-one is worth about $25,000, with about $5,000 for closest to the pin,
which might be anything that lands on the roof.
Woods, defending champion
of the tournament, is fired up.
"I have always dreamed
of playing golf on the rooftops of a big city," he said in a release issued by
the tournament.
Each player will get three
shots. Proceeds will go to "Net Young Future," a group that offers vocational
and Internet training to young people regardless of their socioeconomic background.
CHARITY
WEBB
Karrie Webb was awestruck
upon meeting Christopher Reeve last year during the LPGA's Japan Airlines Big
Apple Classic, and promised herself she would find a way to help the actor find
a cure for paralysis.
The result is the inaugural
Karrie Webb Celebrity Pro-Am at Manhattan Woods in New York on July 10, which
will benefit the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.
Among those who already
have committed to play in the July 10 event are Beth Daniel, Lorie Kane, Meg
Mallon, and Kelly Robbins, along with actor Alec Baldwin. An auction after the
tournament will include a chance to caddie for Webb in the Big Apple Classic
pro-am, and to appear as an extra on the set of a Reeve movie.
The pro-am is as much a
tribute to Kelvin Haller, Webb's coach in Australia who is a quadriplegic, as
it is to Reeve. Haller remains the biggest influence on a career that has seen
Webb soar to the top of women's golf. Haller works with her when Webb goes home,
and analyzes her swing through videos she sends him on the Internet.
Webb recently donated money
to the Reeve foundation in honor of Haller.
"Her generosity is creating
a new tradition, uniting sports and entertainment to benefit our organization,"
Reeve said.
PEBBLE LOGO
Wave good-bye to the wave.
For the past 27 years,
Pebble Beach Golf Links has been identified by a wave and the famous Lone Cypress
tree. Now, the logo is being replaced with a sharper image of a Lone Cypress
in a circle with 1919, the year Pebble Beach was founded.
"The desire was to have
a logo that captured more of the tradition and history of the company," said
Pebble Beach spokesman Mark Verbonich.
The new logo is being marketed
now, and Pebble officials say the conversion will be fully changed over in time
for the U.S. Open in June.
Verbonich said research
for the new logo began more than a year ago, before a group headed by Peter Uerberroth,
Arnold Palmer, Clint Eastwood, and Richard Ferris bought Pebble Beach for $820
million.
INKSTER
ROLLS ON
Juli Inkster's victory
in the Longs Drugs Challenge
marked her fourth straight year with at least one win. Only four other players
have longer streaks on the LPGA Tour.
Karrie Webb and Annika
Sorenstam are on six-year winning streaks, dating to 1995. Rosie Jones also has
at least one victory dating to '95, although she hasn't won this year. And Kelly
Robbins has won every year since 1993, but her last victory was the first event
of 1999 and she hasn't seriously contended since then.
Inkster has said she plans
a full schedule through the Solheim Cup before cutting back to spend more time
with her daughters.
She obviously isn't looking
ahead -- or resting on her laurels. Coming off two majors and earning a spot
in the Hall of Fame, the 39-year-old Inkster shows no signs to slowing down.
"I just don't see why after
I get in the Hall of Fame I shouldn't keep playing good golf," she said. "The
hunger is still there and the desire is still there. The thing with me is, if
I get on a roll I can win a lot."
DIVOTS
Philadelphia Country Club,
where Byron Nelson won the 1939 U.S. Open, has been selected as the site of the
2003 U.S. Women's Amateur. ... Kelli Kuehne will be host of the third annual
"Teeing It Up to Cure Diabetes" tournament May 1 at Stonebridge Country Club
in Dallas. The event has raised nearly $300,000 each of the first two years.
Kuehne is a national spokeswoman for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. ... Book4golf.com,
an Internet-based tee-time reservation company, has announced an exclusive partnership
with The First Tee. Book4golf.com will provide free tee-time reservations to
First Tee facilities across the country.
STAT OF
THE WEEK
Fred Funk has played more
PGA Tour events (328) than anyone since 1990, an average of about 32 tournaments
a year.
FINAL WORD
"Seve seems impossible
to beat." - Colin Montgomerie, losing captain of Britain and Ireland in the inaugural
Ballesteros Trophy. Montgomerie also lost his singles match to Ballesteros, the
European captain.
