There’s no question that, at least back home and as far as the PGA Tour is concerned, the 2007 golf season is winding down. But that doesn’t meany there’s nothing to blog about, as this post will make crystal clear.

First off, Dean Barnett over at Hugh Hewitt has a couple of cool links associated with golf course design, including how Jack Nicklaus is proving that just because you were a great and creative golfer, well, that doesn’t necessarily make you an equally great and creative golf course designer. Here Barnett lumps Nicklaus into the Robert Trent Jones/Rees Jones school of course design:

Jones family members haven’t been the only architects guilty of committing affronts to golf history and ignoring the imperative that the game be fun. Perhaps the most serious offender has been Jack Nicklaus, arguably the greatest golfer ever. Nicklaus has had a hand in designing 207 courses. While some of his courses are picturesque, few are fun unless you’re able to play golf as well as Jack Nicklaus. On many of his courses, the average player will lose half a dozen balls a round, many of them having found a watery grave in one of the man-made water-hazards of which Nicklaus is so fond. As a player, Nicklaus probably wouldn’t even notice many of the water hazards that litter his courses. But the typical golfer does.

Worse still, Nicklaus the architect has often violated the most fundamental precept of golf course design: Put a golf course where nature intended there to be one. Let the shape of the land dictate the shape of the course. People began playing golf at St. Andrews because the terrain cried out for it. Five hundred years ago, eager proto-golfers had limited ability to alter what nature had done. The tools of the game were adapted to the challenges of the terrain.

Barnett’s column is one worth reading.

…And then there’s this story about an ESPN reporter trying to find the truth behind a woman’s claim to have 17 hole – count ’em, 17! hole in ones since she started playing golf only five years ago!

…And speaking of frauds, yes, Michelle Wie is still out there trying to play decent competitive golf and failing miserably. And this latest result following yet another lackluster year from the one-time “golden girl of golf” isn’t likely to help. How bad was Wie’s year (my boldings)?

Wie, a Stanford freshman who celebrated her 18th birthday Thursday, played her eighth and final LPGA event at Samsung. She ended her season with a 76.7 scoring average, broke par only twice, failed to record a single round in the 60s, and made only three cuts.

Jeesh…a performance like that wouldn’t even have gotten her the Goodboys Invitational championship. Can we all agree that it’s time for her teacher David Leadbetter and her parents to back off and let her take some time off? She’s only digging herself a deeper hole.