While you were playing GOLF... Your Brand was being hijacked

Todays marketing tips centers on the Search Engine and URLS. BP recently purchased many domain names, and consequently caught a great deal of heat on the popular media, having to do with "GULF," "OIL SPILL", etc... Regardless of what you think of BPs other corporate communications (or lack thereof) during this period, the buying of URLs that "tell your message" (or almost as important, keep your competitors or adversaries from telling theirs) works, plain and simple.

Take the time today. Explore your business terms that are important to your brand and market perceptions---do you control these? Do you control the search terms if people head to GOOGLE or Bing and do a search?

If you need help in doing this, we can help. Define and dominate your search terms!

Todd Hunnicutt

REAL INTERNET SALES

THE SEO EXPERTS

Ultimate springtime golf fitness tips for "real" golfers

By Tim McDonald,
National Golf Editor

For those of you unfortunate enough to live in the North, you must be salivating at the thought of the spring golf season.

Hold on, Tiger. You ain't the man you used to be. You can't just jump up and go straight to the golf course after a long winter of sloth and mold.

Now, you will find any number of charlatans willing to sell you their total golf fitness regimens. These sleazoids always assume you're a golfer interested in a cleaner, healthier way of living and golfing. I've seen you out on the course, and I know that's not the sort of thing you're "into."

So here is my total golf fitness regimen for the "real" golfer:

• For God's sake, you have to strengthen your core! This involves eating really hard food, like jawbreakers. Eat a bag of those and have your neighbor punch you in the gut to see if your core is all it can be.

Options: Month-old fudge, Purina Dog Chow, pine bark.

• You also have to really work your obliques, I mean really work the hell out of them. Here's the perfect exercise for that. Lie flat on your back with knees bent slightly wider than your hips. If you have really fat hips, you're either going to have to really stretch your knees like in a cartoon, like The Elastic Man from India, or just skip this exercise. In fact, if you have really fat hips, just skip playing golf, nobody wants to see you out on the course.

Now, you slim-hipped people reach your hands to the ceiling like you're crying out for the Lord Jesus Christ to spare you from your miserable existence. You can hold light hand-weights, or not. What do I care? Lift your head and chest toward the ceiling and rotate to reach both hands just outside of your fat, right knee. Repeat on the left side. Now, take a breather. Ask Christ for forgiveness.

• Breathing exercises: Breathing properly and deeply is critical, especially for those tense moments on the course when normally you would start crying.
This deep-breathing exercise involves attending your local adult movie house, or calling up one of those sites on your Internet browser. Follow your instincts. It's either that or follow mine, and then you're looking at jail time.
• Horizontal abduction/adduction: I can't give you much help here, because I always get "horizontal" confused with "vertical," and I have no idea what adduction is. Who came up with that word, anyway? It's a stupid word and should be eliminated from the English language, if it's even English.

• Standing hip rotation: Don't do this. It makes you look like a girl.

• Alcohol fitness: How many times have you lost $2 Nassaus because while you were getting hamboned, your playing partners were just holding up that bottle of Jack Black pretending to drink?

Well, no need to waste good liquor. You can still drink and maintain your competitive edge. You just need to build up a tolerance. Stand upright in a dark closet, with a wide stance, and suck it down. Keep drinking until your wife leaves you.

• Aerobics: Ha! Don't make me laugh. This is golf!

• Putting: Don't bother to practice putting. Putting in golf is overrated. I play golf maybe 200 times a year and I've yet to meet anyone who can putt. You either make it or you don't. If you miss, just keep putting until the ball goes in the hole. Simple.

• Seniors: As we age, our bodies react differently, so seniors must prepare for golf differently than young punks. An important thing to remember is that there is an inverse relationship of increased ear hair to laughably short drives off the tee.

So keep those ear hairs trim and neat. If you're proud of your thick mane of ear hair, don't sweat it. If you're short off the tee, you're probably small in other areas, and I think you know what I'm talking about.

• Excuses: A healthy psychological outlook is a must for Better Golf. If you can convince yourself that the snap hook you hit into the weeds over there is not your doing at all, you'll retain the confidence needed to excel in the game.

The first time you smack one of your all-too-typical lousy shots, turn to your playing partner and snarl," "Will you stop that!" Look at him, looking all hurt and everything. Who would have thought golf fitness could be so much fun?

• Torque development in the downswing: This is so important, I can barely contain myself. This is vital to any golfer who has ever wanted to improve his score. You could even say it is absolutely critical in terms of reaching your full potential as a golfer and knowing what it is to be truly human.

• Alignment and posture: Face the target squarely and stand erect, with your rump jutting out slightly. Feels a little silly, doesn't it? Can you think of another situation in life where you would position yourself in such an odd manner? I can't.

ODDS ON HASSELBERG ACES: WAY MORE THAN A MILLION TO 1

According to Golf Digest, the odds on a PGA Tour player making a hole in one are roughly 3,000 to 1, the odds on a low-handicapper making an ace about 5,000 to 1 and the odds on an average player dunking his tee shot more like 12,000 to 1.

OK, but what are the odds on a father and daughter playing in the same threesome both making 1's in a span of five holes? The best guess would probably be somewhere in the range of 35 million to 1.

As statistically improbable as it sounds, that's what Dana Hasselberg and her father, Glen, did on March 20 during a round at Angel Park in Las Vegas.

"We had our Minnesota gang of Dwight Lundeen (Becker), David Lundeen (Little Falls), Greg Johnson (Delano), Gary 'Shooter' Fredrickson (Becker), Dan Johnson (Hopkins), along with Dana and me," Glen reported on his return. "We played the Mountain Course in the morning followed by the Palmer Course in the afternoon."

The group lost one of its number when Fredrickson had to leave after nine holes in the afternoon to catch a plane. That left the Lundeen brothers and Greg Johnson in the first threesome, with Dan Johnson and the Hasselberg father-daughter combo in the second.

On the 13th hole, which was playing 114 yards according to a laser measurement, Dana knocked the ball into the cup with a pitching wedge.

"Much cheering," noted the proud father.

Dana is a 3.5-handicapper, and she's had a lot of success in golf. At Staples-Motley High School, where her father was the head coach, she played on two state championship teams, a state runner-up and another team that finished third in her six varsity seasons. She also played four years of college golf, the first year and a half at Bradley and the last two and a half at Bemidji State.

All of that notwithstanding, this was the first hole in one for the 26-year-old.

Four holes later, at No. 17, a 174-yard par-3, the Lundeen-Lundeen-Johnson group waved up the Hasselberg-Hasselberg-Johnson threesome, and Glen, using a 7-wood, didn't bother with the formality of landing his ball and letting it roll into the cup. He landed it in the cup on the fly!

"Six witnesses," Hasselberg pointed out. "You can't beat that. To have the other group all standing there on the green watching the shot, that was priceless."

Another aspect of the hole in one that Hasselberg enjoyed was the fact that this was his 10th, which means that he is now tied in that category with his neighbor, Bill Israelson.

"So Izzy doesn't have that to hold over me anymore," Glen said, giving a clue to the nature of their relationship, in which both parties spent large percentages of their days trying to think of new and imaginative ways to needle each other.

Hasselberg, who is the MGA Northwest Region Vice-President just turned 59 this week (he was born on March 26, 1949, which was a Saturday) and sports a 6.4 handicap, isn't sure but he has probably used nine different clubs to make his 10 aces, beginning with a driver.

"I made the first one on the old 10th hole at Bemidji Town & County, which was a par-4," he said. "And I don't remember making any two of them with the same club, except for a 6-iron. I think I made two with that club."

In 1999, Golf Digest reported that an insurance company had put the odds on a pro making an ace at 1 in 3,756 to one. And or an amateur: 1 in 12,750. The same issue had the odds of an amateur making two holes in one in the same round at 9,222,500 to 1.

But a year later, the magazine commissioned Francis Scheid, Ph.D., the retired chairman of the Boston University math department, to re-calculate the odds.

Among other things, he determined that the odds on one player making two aces in the same round were 67 million to 1.

He said nothing, at least not that Golf Digest reported, about the odds on a father and daughter both accomplishing the feat in the same round.

"I really do wonder what the odds are," Glen said. "It sure was fun. As much as I enjoyed making one myself, it was even more special -- way more special, I'd have to say -- that Dana got her first one."

Concordia Ranked #24 in National Poll

Mar. 05– The Concordia women's golf team moved up one spot to #24 in the most recent Golf World/NGCA Division II Coaches' Poll. It is the first poll of the spring season as the Golden Bears look ahead to the official start of the second part of the 2007-08 season.

Concordia made a spring trip to Orlando, Fla where they competed with #14 Upper Iowa in exhibition action. The Peacocks are the only other ranked women's golf team in the Northern Sun.

The Golden Bears swing into competition March 28-29 when they head to the Augustana Invite. Augustana is ranked #20 in the national poll.

Rask Named to Hogan Award Watch List

Minnesota senior Clayton Rask, college golf’s 10th-ranked player according to the latest Golfweek national rankings, has been named to the 2008 Ben Hogan Award Watch List, the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) announced.

The most prestigious award in men’s college golf, the Hogan Award is presented annually to the top men’s NCAA Division I, II or III, NAIA or junior college golfer, taking into account all collegiate and amateur competitions during the last 12 months.

One of just two members of the watch list from the Big Ten, Rask is coming off a tremendous fall that saw the Otsego, Minn., product average a team-best 71.33 strokes per round and tied for medalist honors at both the Windon Memorial Classic (206/-7) and The Prestige at PGA WEST (208/-8), while posting two of the top 54-hole scores in Minnesota golf history.

Rask’s hot play actually began during the summer with a victory at the Minnesota Golf Champions and runner-up finishes at both the Minnesota Players’ Championship and the Minnesota State Amateur Championship.

Semifinalists the 2008 Ben Hogan Award will be announced on April 16. Three finalists will then be named on May 7. The trio of finalists will be invited to Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, for the 2008 Ben Hogan Award presentation on May 18. Former U.S. Open winner Ken Venturi will be the keynote speaker.

HOGAN AWARD WATCH LIST
Clayton Rask, Minnesota
Jonas Blixt, Florida State
Ryan Brehm, Michigan State
Kevin Chappell, UCLA
Jonas Enander Hedin, Charlotte
Harris English, Georgia
Derek Fathauer, Louisville
Rickie Fowler, Oklahoma State
Rob Grube, Stanford
Chesson Hadley, Georgia Tech
Seung-su Han, UNLV
Brian Harman, Georgia
Mark Harrell, Alabama
Billy Horschel, Florida
Lucas Lee, UCLA
Jamie Lovemark, Southern California
Webb Simpson, Wake Forest
Joel Sjoholm, Georgia State
Kyle Stanley, Clemson
Michael Thompson, Alabama
Jarin Todd, Sonoma State
Cameron Tringale, Georgia Tech
Drew Weaver, Virginia Tech
Stefan Wiedergruen, Charlotte

COLLEGE WOMEN'S RANKINGS VIRTUALLY UNCHANGED FROM NOVEMBER

Through no fault of her own, Samantha Sommers is down two places in the latest batch of Golfweek/Sagarin rankings for NCAA Division I women's golf.

Sommers and the University of Minnesota team haven't played in nearly three months, and she was No. 369 among the more than 1,500 Division I women golfers who were listed at the end of the fall portion of the schedule. But the Gopher freshman -- and three-time state high school champion -- from St. Cloud Apollo is No. 371 in the current rankings.

Basically, though, the new rankings, which are dated Feb. 10, are unchanged from the end of the fall.

Olivia Lansing, a Drake sophomore from Mounds Park Academy, is second among players with Minnesota connections, at 404. Lansing and her team are playing this week, at the Baja Invitational, but those results won't be reflected in the rankings until next week.

NCAA Division I Women's Rankings

Golfweek/Sagarin (based on head-to-head competition)

Rank Name (Prev. Rank) High School College Rating (not scoring avg.)

371. Samantha Sommers, (369), St. Cloud Apollo -- Minnesota -- 76.64

404. Olivia Lansing (400), Mounds Park Academy -- Drake -- 76.00

449. Christine Herzog (449), Detroit Lakes -- Minnesota -- 77.44

480. Katie Detlefsen (478), Minnehaha Academy -- Central Fla. -- 77.64

496. Jeana Dahl (495), Fargo South -- Wisconsin -- 77.77

516. Sydney Liles (514), Phoenix (Desert Vista) -- Minnesota -- 77.99

574. Young Na Lee (572), Tamuning, Guam -- Minnesota --78.50

582. Hillary Gerster (576), Andover -- South Dakota State -- 78.53

623. Mary Narzisi (623), Omaha (Martin) -- Minnesota -- 78.91

635. Becky Quinby (636), Benilde-St. Margaret's -- Iowa -- 79.09

833. Paige Bromen (833), Stillwater -- Minnesota -- 80.60

868. Alyssa Williamson (869), Bemidji -- Montana -- 80.87

976. Holly Opatz (978), Bloom. Kennedy -- So. Dakota State -- 81.96

1040. Lauren Huhnerkoch (1040), Burnsville -- Rutgers -- 82.56

1046. Brittany Williamson (1045), Bemidji -- Montana -- 82.63

1131. Kelly Godwin (1132), Centennial -- Drake -- 83.50

1358. Maviann Schuler (1355), Breckenridge -- No. Dakota State -- 88.82

1416. Alyssa Klein (1413), Luverne -- NDSU -- 93.26

Supplemental list, for players who haven't played enough tournaments

89.* Katie Myos, Faribault -- Toledo -- 81.10

107.* Emily Brand, Alexandria -- Minnesota -- 82.08

183.* Chelsey Gannon, Eden Prairie -- Drake -- 87.89

240.* Kim Larson, Pequot Lakes -- NDSU -- 101.78

Golfstat.com Rankings

(These rankings are based on scores, and include some Division II and III players.)

Rank Name High School College Scoring avg. Relative to par

162. Rachael Schmidt Elk River Upper Iowa 75.75 +5.839

STILES WINS, SCHULTZ TIES FOR 5TH IN NEW ZEALAND

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand -- Darron Stiles' putter went south on him in the middle of the round, but he managed to make a 7-footer on the last hole to claim the victory in the rain-plagued HSBC New Zealand PGA.

He birdied five of the first six holes at Clearwater Country Club to build a four-stroke lead in Sunday's final round, then started missing short putts, beginning with a little one for par at the ninth and then another little one for par at the 10th. However, he didn't make any bogeys -- or birdies, either -- on the back nine, and the not exactly ho-hum, two-putt par at the last hole gave him a 4-under 68 and a 36-hole total of 134.

That was just good enough to win the tournament, which was co-sponsored by the Nationwide and Australasian tours. Unfortunately, no one from either of the tours could provide anything resembling decent weather on Friday or Saturday, and as a result the event had to be reduced to 36 holes.

David Smail, who was attempting to become the first New Zealander to win this tournament since it became a part of the Nationwide Tour in 2002, finished one stroke behind at 135 after closing with a the best round of the day, a 66. The 2007 New Zealand PGA player of the year had six birdies and no bogeys in the first 15 holes. He then bogeyed No. 16, but got that one back with a birdie at No. 18.

Rick Price shot 69 to slip in at 136, which gave him third place alone. Adam Crawford'posted a 68 for an overall 137, and he finished fourth.

David Schultz, the former Birchmont and Pine to Palm champion from Fargo, was in position to tie Price for third until he made a double bogey 6 at the 17th hole. That bumped his Sunday score to 71, giving him an aggregate of 138 and a tie for fifth place.

It was a disappointing finish for Schultz, who turned professional in 2006 and won the North Dakota Open shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, he earned his first check in three Nationwide tournaments this year, and the approximately $22,200 that he made (24,509.30 in Australian dollars) should put him in the top 25 on the money list. The top 25 on the Nationwide list at year's end will graduate to the PGA Tour.

The 34-year-old Stiles (born June 1, 1973, which was a Friday), a veteran of both the PGA and Nationwide tours, shot a 66 in Thursday's first round, and that was the only round that counted during the first three days. Rain flooded Clearwater on Friday, and on Saturday, although play was begun, more rain forced everyone off the course after a couple of hours.

The rain also wiped out the scores for the holes that were played Saturday, which was a good thing for Stiles. He was 2 over through five holes. On Sunday, he was six better after five holes than he had been the day before on the way to his fifth Nationwide victory. The victory is not official, because the tournament was only 36 holes. The $117,000 he won, on the other hand, is official.

Bronson La'Cassie, who completed a distinguished college career at the University of Minnesota last spring, was also in the field. The four-time all-American from Brisbane, Australia -- who won the Australasian qualifying school by 10 strokes in December -- shot 70-71--141 and tied for 28th. That was worth approximately $4,100 (4,516.23 in Australian dollars).

NATIONWIDE/AUSTRALASIAN TOURS

HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship

At Clearwater Resort

Par 72, 7,137 yards

Final results

(Tournament shortened to 36 holes because of rain)

1. Darron Stiles $117,000 66-68--134

2. David Smail 65,900 69-66--135

3. Rick Price 43,760 67-69--136

4. Adam Crawford 31,100 69-68--137

T5. David Schultz 22,215 67-71--138

T5. Kris Blanks 22,215 68-70--138

T5. Sebastian Fernandez 22,215 69-69--138

T5. D.A. Points 22,215 66-72--138

T28. Bronson La'Cassie 4,100 70-71--141

T98. Michael Campbell 0 70-77--147