Before, during and after the tournament, American golf fans became the big story about the 41st edition of the Ryder Cup – perhaps even bigger than the victory by the team they supported – because of their behavior. Pete Willett, brother of 2016 Masters champion Danny Willett, took a broadsided swipe at American golf fans in a column written in the National Club Golfer before the competition commenced. He called them a “baying mob of imbeciles” and put his support behind the European squad.

On September 10, 1929, a man was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania that would not only change the sport of golf, but the lives of everyone who was lucky enough to cross his path. Arnold Palmer is undoubtedly one of the greatest golfers to ever walk this earth, but to limit our image of ‘The King’ to his sporting accomplishments is to sell short his accomplishments as a person. Arnie was as great an ambassador for the game as there ever was and his death will leave a hole that can never be filled.

Legendary golfer Arnold Palmer has died, reminding us yet again that the great ones in sports cannot live forever. Mortality does, indeed, have a time limit. Earlier this year, we mourned the loss of boxer Muhammad Ali and hockey player Gordie Howe, two individuals who helped make their sports great, both with what they did as athletes, but more important what they did as people. Now we are feeling that aching feeling again following the passing of Arnold Palmer, who died on Sunday at age 87. Maybe he made his mark on golf, but he stitched his way into fabric of all of sports.

In most sports, everything that occurs during the season is a stepping stone, building to an exciting, grand and often lucrative finish. A championship. A way to crown the best team or individual, not just of any given weekend, but of the entire long and hard-fought season. However, for much of the history of golf, this pinnacle of achievement was lacking. Of course, the Majors were then and still remain the most important tournaments in the sport and it is unlikely that any other competition will be able to change that. But in the past, once the majors had come and gone, the golf season just petered out. Little recognition was given to the player who had performed the best day-after-day, week-after-week. Well, in 2007 that all changed.

Imagine being paid to write about golf! Dave Perkins covered the sport in his 40 years as a sports writer, a good chunk of that with the Toronto Star. Perkins, whom I had the privilege of working beside occasionally during my 21 years with the Toronto Sun, covered 58 golf majors, 10 Ryder and/or Presidents Cups, and countless tournaments of one sort or another in the sport. He also had opportunities to play some of the best courses in the world and interview the best of the best from numerous eras.

We’ve all heard it before; Titleist is the #1 ball in golf and for good reason. Both the Pro V1 and Pro V1x are excellent products and have a history of success on Tour. This does not mean however, that there are no viable alternatives for golfers who want to expand their horizons and perhaps save a little money in the process. Today we look at some substitutes to both of Titleist’s most popular offerings and explore which manufacturers are making a ball that is similar or perhaps even better than these perennial favorites.

When the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour stopped off recently at Whistle Bear in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, New Zealand-born horse trainer Tony O’Sullivan had a chance to meet fellow Kiwi Lydia Ko. O’Sullivan, who has been living in Canada full-time since 2004, is a club member at Whistle Bear. He wanted to take his daughter, Mackenzie, to the Pro-Am event at the club to meet the competitors and to talk to Ko. “There was no one there and Lydia took the time to talk to us for 10 minutes,” he told me. “We didn’t talk about golf. We talked about New Zealand and how beautiful it is. It was awesome. She’s a really, really nice person. People say ‘Lydia Ko is unbelievable to watch. She’s so relaxed and nice.’ And she is. It was pretty cool. Not just because she’s a sports star, but she’s genuinely a good person; she genuinely wanted to talk to you.”

We all want to be like the golfers we see on TV, smashing the ball down the fairway then spinning an iron to within feet of the pin. While many of us may never be able to compete with Tour pros in terms of skill, we can at least play the same equipment. But should we? The golf balls used by professional golfers have been engineered to the specifications required by those competing at elite levels. For the average golfer, playing these balls might not only provide little benefit, but may actually hinder performance. So, how do you know exactly what ball you should be playing? Well, there are a few key factors to consider when shopping for the perfect golf ball.

Superstar hockey agent Don Meehan loves to golf, he just wishes he had more time to do it. As the pre-eminent representative for many of the National Hockey League star players, including Steven Stamkos, P.K. Subban, Drew Doughty, Erik Karlsson, Phil Kessel, Zach Parise and Corey Perry, to name a few of them, the Canadian-based agent who frequently travels to various parts of the world to do business is simply too busy to regularly get out on the course.