Why Josh Duhamel won’t play golf with Mark Wahlberg — Let’s all play golf like Mark Wahlberg! “Before we started the movie this time around, I was all excited to play golf with Mark, get some rounds in, but he is up way too early,” Duhamel said in a recent interview with Men’s Journal. “And he plays ‘power rounds’ of golf, which means he is running from one shot to the next. That is what he does for cardio. Then on top of that, he works a full day. The dude is a beast.”

Global Golf Post — A worthy golf publication. If you haven’t seen it, check them out!

Opinion: Death watch: How much longer can golf survive? — We’ve come across too many articles like this lately, and most originating from Oregon-based writers, it seems. What is it with Oregon and golf? Most of it seems to be a hostility toward the Rules of Golf, which are likely misunderstood. Anyway, golf IS hard, and people who pen nasty opinions toward it, like Mr. Notte, might be less miserable if they just took up snooker… oh wait, too many rules in snooker. Think us harsh? An excerpt: “There is no second coming of Tiger Woods. There is no burgeoning generation of children longing to play a four-hour game filled with nitpicky, self-policing rules. There is no city in the U.S. willing to trade density and tax ratables for divots and rough. If golf has little to offer this country but televised shots of manicured greens and galleries and living rooms of cranky, aging diehards, then it should prepare to take a seat beside horse racing among U.S. sports antiques.”

Golf has the worst rule in all of sports, but it’s not the one you’re thinking of — The rules debate continues. Not to sound too curmudgeonly, but we think this aggressive assault on the Rules of Golf seems consistent with other cultural declines of civility dominating the headlines of late. Let golf serve as a bulwark against… nah, nevermind all that noise, let’s just go play some golf! The author makes our point: “Signing your scorecard is considered one of those virtuous tenets of golf, a sport obsessed with its own sense of honor and fair play. It’s also a task that’s been made completely obsolete at the professional level, when every shot is tallied in real-time with distance and proximity to the green along with, at some tournaments, velocity, launch angle and whatever other stats that can be accrued from a dude holding a laser. Why is golf still relying on a playing partner’s penciled-in numbers? That’s not the way the score is kept during the round, so why is it gospel after it? This isn’t 1950.”

Phones are changing everything, including golf on the course — We’ve seen this at our local driving range… “Go to any PGA Tour stop driving range, and you’re sure to see caddies, golfers and instructors huddled around an iPhone breaking down the mechanics of a player’s swing. I’ve even seen caddies on their bellies shooting a player’s putting stroke for evaluation later on.”

Golf museum director to discuss how presidents played the game — The first president to play was William Howard Taft. Only three presidents since Taft (Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter) didn’t play golf at all. Woodrow Wilson logged more than 1,000 rounds while in office. He rarely broke 100. Calvin Coolidge usually required double-digit shots on each hole. Before Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio, he was club champion at Campobello Island Golf Club. That’s nearly in Maine!