John Holmes's blog

Wow, what a Sunday – on the golf course and the football field. Unless, of course, you started the day in the lead.

Are you for the proposed ban on anchoring the putting stroke, or are you opposed?

Since the USGA and R&A announced their plans for the anchoring ban in late November, we've heard every possible opinion from every type of golfer. But with so many competing arguments flying through the air, it's been difficult to get a handle on whether the golfing public as a whole is for or against the proposal.

Is the honeymoon over already?

On Friday, Rory McIlroy reverted back to his old Scotty Cameron putter for the second round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship – after playing only one competitive round with his new Nike flat stick.

McIlroy, who was unveiled as Nike's newest brand ambassador in a big news conference on Monday, took 31 putts with his new Nike Method 006 putter on Thursday. On Friday, he went back to his trusty Titleist Scotty Cameron Studio Select Newport GSS – even though he kept it under a Nike putter cover.

Well, some of us might have imaginary girlfriends, but Dustin Johnson has the real thing.

Some eagle-eyed golf observers noticed Paulina Gretzky patrolling the grounds during the Hyundai Tournament of Champions two weeks ago, while others said they had seen the Great One's daughter out with Johnson in the evenings at Kapalua. There was no official proof, however, until Johnson himself tweeted out the photo posted above late yesterday.

The PGA Merchandise Show – where thousands of golf companies big and small gather in Orlando for the world's largest golf trade show – is next week, and we are routinely inundated with press releases in these days just beforehand. But one we got Thursday stands out above all the others.

The PGA Tour stop this week is the Humana Challenge, which is being hosted by PGA West and La Quinta Resort & Club, a pair of exclusive golf complexes that dominate the eastern half of the Coachella Valley.

College football season might be over, but its spirit lives on at Callaway Golf.

The folks at Callaway were inspired by the helmet stickers that some teams award players who make big plays – the most famous have to be those buckeyes that seem to overwhelm the headgear of every Ohio State player from the star quarterback down to the third-string left guard. So they've adapted the idea for golf – and have created special "bomb" patches that they’re adding to the bags of their staff players.

The European Tour’s powerful Tournament Committee meets Tuesday evening at the HSBC Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, and could select the 2014 European Ryder Cup captain at that get-together. With that possibility looming, the world of European golf was overflowing with Ryder Cup chatter.

It’s not clear how much input that Rory McIlroy has, but he capped off the weekend by voicing his opinion in favor of Paul McGinley.

So what did you do on Sunday? 2011 U.S. Amateur champion Kelly Kraft stacked this tower of golf balls.

Seems pretty cool to me, but someone wasn’t too impressed.

After Kraft tweeted out the photo of his dimpled skyscraper, he got a reply from Kevin Tway, the son of former PGA Champion Bob Tway and quite a golfer in his own right.

"u must be real bored haha," tweeted Tway.

"No big deal," responded Kraft, who clearly doesn't know a big deal when he sees one.

The temperature is dropping like a rock across much of the country this weekend, so I thought it was the perfect time to tell you about a new golf course being built on the north coast of Iceland.