John Holmes's blog

No one has been releasing more compelling new equipment and marketing it more aggressively this year than Callaway and TaylorMade. So maybe what happened on Tuesday was inevitable.

As you might suspect, Mondays are usually hectic travel days for professional golfers. And when I'm home, warm and dry, I get a kick out of following all their various travails via social media.

Today seemed like a pretty typical Monday, judging by some of the tweets that rolled by throughout the day. Here are some examples:

Most of the golfers I know wanted to put the thought of getting swallowed up by a sinkhole out of their minds as quickly as possible after that guy in Illinois plunged into an 18-foot deep sinkhole in the middle of a fairway a few weeks ago.

With so many big college basketball games in such a short period of time these days, it's a little difficult to keep up with exactly who's beating whom.

One of the biggest upsets of the NCAA tournament so far was Friday's loss by vaunted Georgetown to upstart Florida Gulf Coast. One newspaper's proofreader clearly had his eye on the little white ball instead of the big orange one, though, as the headline above shows.

Callaway Golf is embracing the generation of distance off the tee like at no time in the company's history. The new RAZR Fit Xtreme and X Hot drivers are providing a big leap forward from previous models, and the company is actively marketing its new roster of staff players, which includes some of the PGA Tour's biggest bombers.

The latest development in Callaway's drive for distance is the HEX Chrome+ ball, which delivers high ball velocity for maximum distance at mid to high clubhead speeds, especially with the driver.

As you might expect, Arnold Palmer had a busy day on Thursday.

He oversaw the first round of his Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, where the strongest field on the PGA Tour so far this season has gathered.

He taped a promo for the Golf Channel. He signed autographs for fans. He spent some time with sponsors like Ketel One. He even gave Graeme McDowell a 1-iron out on the range.

And, oh yeah, he had dinner with Kate Upton.

Just as the PGA Championship traditionally boasts the strongest field of the year, the Senior PGA Championship almost always earns the same honor on the senior circuit. And judging by the preliminary field list released today, that'll be true again this year.

Already in the field are eight major champions, three past Senior PGA champions, five Ryder Cup captains and four Hall of Fame members. They'll descend on beautiful Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis for the 74th edition of the senior game's oldest and most prestigious championship on May 21-26.

Now this is getting ridiculous.

A 12-year-old Chinese boy will become the youngest player to compete in a European Tour event in May after he qualified for the Volvo China Open this week.
 
Ye Wocheng finished third in one of the tournament’s four 36-hole regional qualifiers. He carded a 4-under 68 Wednesday despite three-putting his last two holes at the Wolong Valley Country Club, and had a 2-over 74 on Tuesday to finish three shots behind Jin Daxing and Li Xinyang with a two-round total of 142

You couldn't blame the golfers on the range Tuesday at Bay Hill for not keeping their eyes on the ball. That's because a huge, somewhat scary-looking remote-controlled flying camera was zipping around over their heads.

In recent years, we've enjoyed seeing Nike Golf's ''apparel scripts'' – the outfits the Swoosh staff players wear in the majors. This year, Oakley is jumping into the preview game, showing us what reigning Masters champion Bubba Watson will don during his return to Augusta National.

The photo above shows Watson's wardrobe for Thursday through Sunday, running from left to right.