http://halphillips.net Great Golf and Travel Writing Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:47:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Settle down, people. Thank you. Let's get started, shall we? Good morning, and welcome to this year's Pre-Super Bowl meeting of the Bert Bell Memorial Support Group. Yes, it's been a long season in many respects but we're almost there! [Half-hearted applause] With each other's help, we can survive another NFL season with our families and psyches in tact. My name is Rudy, and I'll be your enabler this morning. I can see we have ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/further-afield/1330/one-week-to-restore-the-nfls-competitive-morality So, I've got a question: Following a week when one team lost 24-2, and another ended abruptly under new playoff OT rules, what happens when an NFL playoff game goes into overtime and, under these new rules, an opening possession results in a safety? We were informed, as OT loomed in Denver on Sunday, that the only thing that could end the playoff game without both teams getting the chance to possess the ball was a ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/further-afield/1323/the-nfls-new-rules-re-playoff-ot-safety-first [The Harold Herald, the blog prototype I launched in the early 1990s, was nothing if not political, though the coverage wasn't always traditional, nor was it my own.  Mark Sullivan, a fellow alum/refugee from the Enterprise-Sun newsroom, was a frequent contributor. Today he's a skilled and prolific blogger in his own right. His HH essay below, marking the passing of Richard Nixon, was always a favorite of mine.] By MARK SULLIVAN Dave was in a triumphant mood ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/further-afield/1317/hh-flashback-nixon-amp-dave-remembered   There is little agreement on whether and/or how collegiate athletes should be paid. Honestly, what revenue could college golfers, for example, possibly generate and ultimately demand? They and their teams are essentially loss leaders, like all varsity athletics had been their first 100 years and continue to be at  colleges and universities with less athletic ambitions but the gall to charge students upwards of $50,000 per annum to attend. The only universal recognition is that ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/golf/personalities/1307/pay-college-athletes-maybe-on-a-per-antic-basis [See below, as promised, an archival excerpt from The Harold Herald, the world's first blog, which I invented in the early 1990s. Yeah, I did. One of the things that made the HH special, and thereby transcend the as-yet-created blog genre, was the fact that we attracted scads of talented contributors. Dave Rose was one of these, and here we reprint one of my favorite bits, first published circa 1995.] By DR. DAVID ROSE BOSTON, Mass. ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/further-afield/1296/hh-flashback-misery-can-neither-be-created-nor-destroyed When he commissioned design of Beau Desert Golf Club, some 100 years ago, the Marquess of Anglesey lived in the ancient Hall at Beaudesert, a splendid country manor dating back to 1289 (when it was occupied by the noble Trumwyns of Cannock). Known in 13th century Latin deeds as Bellum Desertum, “beautiful wild place”, the estate was later inhabited by all manner of British peerage; indeed, the place is cited by name in Sir Walter ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/golf/1286/baronets-amp-collieries-golfing-a-beautiful-wild-place Herbert Fowler is one of those architects whose name, curiously, isn’t readily attached to the many great golf courses he laid out and/or substantially retooled. Cruden Bay? That’s a Fowler. Royal North Devon? Fowler’s fingerprints can be found all over this west country masterpiece. Indeed, his renovation of the Old Tom Morris original (a.k.a. Westward Ho!) fairly well accounts for the superb course we know today. This lack of name recognition begins to explain why a ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/golf/1276/fowlers-beau-desert-a-typically-hidden-heathland-gem About 25 years ago, as part of an avant-garde film series at college, I saw this great Louis Brunuel movie called The Exterminating Angel. Well, it wasn’t exactly “great”, now that I think back on it, but it was surreal enough to have made a lasting impression. In it some 12 to 15 members of Franco’s upper crust gather in a stylish Castilian villa. The first 40 minutes or so depict these men and women ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/further-afield/1269/spanish-avant-garde-cinema-speaks-to-travel-hell   For reasons I’ve never quite understood, I’ve maintained an odd recollection of and attachment to the 1969 film, If it’s Tuesday, This Must be Belgium. It was on TV when I was a kid, but no more than any other junkie films that populated the late-night film archives of local Boston affiliates. Why would I fixate this film? For a while I assumed it was the presence of a youngish, sneaky hot Suzanne Pleshette, and ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/further-afield/1259/mcshane-deserves-a-bust-in-rogues-gallery Little known fact: I invented the blog. Managed to do it proto-style, in print, and achieve a level of virality before the Internet even existed. A pretty neat trick, if you think about it. Should’ve made me famous, or rich at the very least. Instead, all I got was this lousy Wordpress account. In 1992, I moved to Maine from my native Massachusetts, and as a way of keeping up with friends and family, I started ... ]]> http://halphillips.net/golf/further-afield/1250/who-pioneered-the-blog-i-did-no-really