News
Golf architect found guilty of smuggling illegal wildlife items, faces up to five years in prison
Golf architect, Keith Foster, admitted on Wednesday that his now-closed business, The Outpost, had been illegally smuggling items made from exotic and endangered animals.
Foster’s shop, located in Middleburg, Va, had been selling the likes of crocodile skin wallets, giant sea turtle shells, blades made of sawfish, mounted brown owls and ostrich feather dusters. The 66-year-old confessed to the infringements, and as well as his shop having been closed down, he also agreed to forfeit $275,000 as well as 175 wildlife products.
Foster, whose famous course designs include The Quarry in San Antonio, Dark Horse GC in Auburn, Shepherd’s Crook in Zion and Coral Canyon in St. George, made no secret of the illegal items that he was selling, openly promoting them on both the shop’s website and Instagram account.
According to court records, Foster told the agent of his sawfish blades “In truth, I shouldn’t be bringing those in..I’m the only fool in the States that probably wants to risk it,” per a Washington Post report.
Foster also disclosed to the agent that his method of deviance involved hiding the illegal products in falsely labeled shipping containers when sending them back from abroad.
An employee of The Outpost, Lauren Rhodes, told the undercover agent according to a search warrant that the shop “only ever had one thing caught, which I think is pretty good.” But ultimately the shop was raided by the authorities and closed several months ago.
The golf architect pleaded guilty to violating the Lacey Act, a 1900 federal law that prohibits trafficking in illegal wildlife. He is set to be sentenced on March 8, 2019, and faces a maximum of five years behind bars.
(h/t Ethan Zimman on Twitter)
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Equipment
Did Rory McIlroy inspire Shane Lowry’s putter switch?
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article.
The timing of Lowry’s putter changeup was curious: Was he just using a Spider putter because he was paired with McIlroy, who’s been using a Spider Tour X head throughout 2024? Was Lowry just being festive because it’s the Zurich Classic, and he wanted to match his teammate? Did McIlroy let Lowry try his putter, and he liked it so much he actually switched into it?
Well, as it turns out, McIlroy’s only influence was inspiring Lowry to make more putts.
When asked if McIlroy had an influence on the putter switch, Lowry had this to say: “No, it’s actually a different putter than what he uses. Maybe there was more pressure there because I needed to hole some more putts if we wanted to win,” he said with a laugh.
To Lowry’s point, McIlroy plays the Tour X model, whereas Lowry switched into the Tour Z model, which has a sleeker shape in comparison, and the two sole weights of the club are more towards the face.
Lowry’s Spider Tour Z has a white True Path Alignment channel on the crown of his putter, which is reminiscent of Lowry’s former 2-ball designs, thus helping to provide a comfort factor despite the departure from his norm. Instead of a double-bend hosel, which Lowry used in his 2-ball putters, his new Spider Tour Z is designed with a short slant neck.
“I’ve been struggling on the greens, and I just needed something with a fresh look,” Lowry told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship. “It has a different neck on it, as well, so it moves a bit differently, but it’s similar. It has a white line on the back of it [like my 2-ball], and it’s a mallet style. So it’s not too drastic of a change.
“I just picked it up on the putting green and I liked the look of it, so I was like, ‘Let’s give it a go.’”
Read the rest of the piece over at PGATour.com.
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Equipment
Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter
Tommy Fleetwood has been attached to his Odyssey White Hot Pro #3 putter for years now. However, this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, we did spot him testing a new putter that is very different, yet somewhat similar, to his current gamer.
This new putter is a TaylorMade Spider Tour X head but with a brand new neck we haven’t seen on a Spider before. A flow neck is attached to the Spider head and gives the putter about a 1/2 shaft offset. This style neck will usually increase the toe hang of the putter and we can guess it gets the putter close to his White Hot Pro #3.
Another interesting design is that lack of TaylorMade’s True Path alignment on the top of the putter. Instead of the large white center stripe, Tommy’s Spider just has a very short white site line milled into it. As with his Odyssey, Tommy seems to be a fan of soft inserts and this Spider prototype looks to have the TPU Pure Roll insert with 45° grooves for immediate topspin and less hopping and skidding.
The sole is interesting as well in that the rear weights don’t look to be interchangeable and are recessed deep into the ports. This setup could be used to push the CG forward in the putter for a more blade-like feel during the stroke, like TaylorMade did with the Spider X Proto Scottie Scheffler tested out.
Tommy’s putter is finished off with an older Super Stroke Mid Slim 2.0 grip in blue and white. The Mid Slim was designed to fit in between the Ultra Slim 1.0 and the Slim 3.0 that was a popular grip on tour.
- Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship
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Equipment
Rickie Fowler’s new putter: Standard-length Odyssey Jailbird 380 in custom orange
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article.
…The Jailbird craze hasn’t really slowed down in 2024, either. According to Odyssey rep Joe Toulon, there are about 18-20 Jailbird putter users on the PGA TOUR.
Most recently, Akshay Bhatia won the 2024 Valero Texas Open using a broomstick-style Odyssey Jailbird 380 putter and Webb Simpson is switching into a replica of that putter at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.
Now, Fowler, who essentially started the whole Jailbird craze, is making a significant change to his putter setup.
Fowler, who has had a couple weeks off since the 2024 RBC Heritage, started experimenting with a new, custom-orange Jailbird 380 head that’s equipped with a standard 35-inch putter build, rather than his previous 38-inch counter-balanced setup.
According to Fowler, while he still likes the look and forgiveness of his Jailbird putter head, he’s looking to re-incorporate more feel into his hands during the putting stroke.
He told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Championship that the 38-inch counterbalanced setup “served its purpose” by helping him to neutralize his hands during the stroke, but now it’s time to try the standard-length putter with a standard-size SuperStroke Pistol Tour grip to help with his feel and speed control.
Although Fowler was also spotted testing standard-length mallets from L.A.B. Golf and Axis1 on Tuesday, he confirmed that the custom Odyssey Jailbird 380 is the putter he’ll use this week at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.
Head over to PGATour.com for the full article.
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Pingback: Golf club forced to close after pigs attack golfers – GolfWRX
Speedy
Dec 24, 2018 at 1:07 pm
Golf chum.
Cruella Daville
Dec 24, 2018 at 9:40 am
Whatever, we’re not talking about White Rhino horns here. Dude got screwed, but he knew he was playing with fire.
Mario
Dec 24, 2018 at 1:13 am
I heard that the straw that broke the camels back was the Dalmatian Puppy coats that he was smuggling.
joro
Dec 21, 2018 at 1:48 pm
Never heard of da bum
Jamie
Dec 21, 2018 at 10:56 am
Death penalty? Start with yourselves for suggesting such. 5 years and never working in golf architecture again will suffice.
Rich Douglas
Dec 20, 2018 at 9:54 pm
Jerk.
Dave
Dec 20, 2018 at 8:24 pm
I’ve played Dark Horse a couple times. It demonstrated to me that this guy is a mean person. Just kidding.
FiftyOneFifty
Dec 20, 2018 at 7:53 pm
I’ll take 2 sawfish jawbones, a sea turtle shell, couple elephant tusks, a rhino horn, and top it off with some lion mane fur. Cause ya know, I need that stuff, for my collections..
Jose Pinatas
Dec 20, 2018 at 7:48 pm
WTF…..
A. Ward
Dec 20, 2018 at 7:02 pm
Humanity will be judged by how we treat animals. This is shameful and he deserves jail time. We will never shop there again.
Mower
Dec 20, 2018 at 8:59 pm
Can’t believe this d-bag! If he has any tiger fur, he needs to be put down… like six feet down.
Terry, this is not a Game
Dec 20, 2018 at 5:38 pm
5 years? Too bad it’s not the death penalty. Scumbag
David Lehmann
Dec 21, 2018 at 12:05 pm
DeathPenalty. Don’t even get that for Killing unborn Humans!!