Taming the beast of tournament golf

Golf Things Considered column by John Rogers
JSpencerRogers@msn.com  

Tournament golf is no more like casual golf than bowling. That’s a slight exaggeration, but it’s what I tell my junior golfers when helping them prepare for competition. It might be a better analogy to say that playing tournament golf is like playing golf with someone else’s body. Either way, the point remains that competing in golf tournaments is a completely different beast from playing the weekly match with the usual foursome. Read more

On the campaign trail with Bill Bolling

Story by Chris Graham

Bill Bolling has learned to live life on the go.

“I will not leave here tonight without my Polish-sausage sandwich and my candy apple,” said Bolling, the Republican Party lieutenant-governor nominee, standing at the front gate of the Rockbridge County Fair in Lexington Wednesday night.

So he has eating on the fly down pat. He also has adjusted his sleep patterns to the schedule of a candidate who is on the road six and even seven days a week. Read more

Are you ready for some foosball? Worldwide audience to get a glimpse of Staunton tournament via ‘SportsCenter’

Story by Chris Graham

There is a regional foosball tournament going on in Staunton this weekend, so naturally, ESPN has a crew on location ready to beam the results to viewers worldwide.

No, really. They do.

“There’s a regional foosball tournament going on, so we decided, why not come here?” ESPN bureau producer Tony Florkowski told The Augusta Free Press during a break in the work that he is leading to get a remote “SportsCenter” studio set up in the heart of the Queen City. Read more

Abortion and votes: How will issue affect ‘05 governor’s race?

Story by Chris Graham

Tim Kaine and Jerry Kilgore are still feeling their way around the abortion-rights issue.

They both might be well advised to find a path and stick to it – because the pending political battle involving John Roberts’ nomination to the United States Supreme Court promises to keep the issue in the limelight into the fall. Read more

The Valley media market

Story by Chris Graham

Another attempt by another publisher to add to the Central Shenandoah Valley media-market offerings has breathed its last breath.

“Our board of directors has examined all of the aspects of our operation since we began in mid-March and has determined that the costs of delivery, news gathering and printing far exceed our reasonable expectation to recover in sales,” Western Virginia Today publisher Jerry Clark wrote in a notice to readers last week, announcing the decision of the paper’s management to cease operations. Read more

Going to great lengths

Golf Things Considered column by John Rogers
JSpencerRogers@msn.com  

Let’s face it, there are guys out there who would trade their firstborn to hit the tee ball 30 yards farther. For some golfers, success is measured not by the number of strokes, but by the number of yards. It doesn’t matter if the ball plugged in the greenside bunker as long as I can tell my buddies later that I hit my driver 300 yards to get there. Read more

Kaine ties donations to silence on investigation

A mailer sent out by Democratic Party gubernatorial nominee Tim Kaine last month implies that Republican Party rival Jerry Kilgore held off on launching a state investigation into a pharmaceutical company’s actions regarding its alleged overbilling of the federal Medicaid system during his term as Virginia’s attorney general because the company was once headed up by a political sugar daddy. Read more