Golf Channel Big Break Dominican Republic relying on Giuliani for support

Andrew Giuliani (credit)

Golf Channel is relying on the popularity of Andrew Giuliani (son of former NYC Mayor Rudy) and eleven other former "players you know and love—or hate" offering up the biggest prize in Big Break history in order to stir up interest and a continued following in the 14th season of the reality show.

Twelve former contestants will get a second chance tonight at The Big Break: Reunion, Revenge, Redemption, this time set in the Dominican Republic. The premise is that teams compete against each other in order for one golfer, male or female, to reign supreme, get exemptions and win prize money.

Sure the prizes and the idea of Big Break are interesting but can't Golf Channel come up with a slew of new contestants or are fans more interested in watching a show that rivals Jersey Shore?

  

The winning team at the conclusion of the 10-episode series will share the $100,000 cash prize, with $50,000 going to the most valuable player (MVP), who will be crowned Big Break Dominican Republic Champion and a sponsor’s exemption to either the 2011 Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open on the PGA TOUR or the 2011 Kia Classic presented by J Golf on the LPGA Tour.

In addition to the tournament exemptions and the cash prize, the Big Break champion also will receive an Adams Golf endorsement contract, which includes $10,000 in cash; a $10,000 shopping spree at Dick’s Sporting Goods and an all-expenses paid return trip for two to Casa de Campo Resort in La Romana, Dominican Republic – host site for the series.  Each member of the winning team also will receive a four-night getaway to the all-inclusive Iberostar Bavaro in the Dominican Republic, courtesy of Funjet Vacations.

Here are the cast of characters for Big Break Dominican Republic season 14:

Andrew Giuliani (24, New York, N.Y.) – Son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (you see how he got this gig), Andrew is an aspiring professional attempting to make a name in golf.  A contestant on Big Break Disney Golf in 2009, Giuliani was eliminated on the eighth episode of the series and developed an on-camera rivalry with fellow competitor Blake Moore, also a competitor and teammate on Big Break Dominican Republic.

David Mobley (45, Charlotte, N.C.) — A dominant force on the Long Drive circuit for the past 15 years, David Mobley competed on Big Break Michigan in 2008, teamed with Long Drive champion Sally Dee.  On paper, the team appeared to be the favorites, but they were eliminated in the series’ eighth episode, and Mobley became known as one of the biggest villains in Big Break history.

Blake Moore (26, Denver, Colo.) – A feisty competitor with a tenacity for perfection, Moore was a competitor on Big Break Disney Golf in 2009.  He was eliminated in the seventh episode of the series, when his temper got the best of him.  His experience on the series was a wake-up call.  Moore has since made changes to improve himself on and off the golf course.

Anthony Rodriguez (37, San Antonio, Texas) – Once hailed to become the next Latin star on the PGA TOUR, Rodriguez competed in Big Break Mesquite in 2006.  The third contestant eliminated on the series, Rodriguez faced enormous criticism from blogs and chat rooms for his temper and poor sportsmanship.  He lost sponsors and his confidence, and ultimately quit the game he loves to return to San Antonio to support his family.  Now at peace with his experience on Big Break, Rodriguez is taking full advantage of his second chance at redemption.

Brian Skatell (37, Greensburg, Penn.) – A very confident player, Skatell is a self-described perfectionist and prides himself on his meticulous work ethic.  A contestant on Big Break Prince Edward Island in 2008, Skatell survived more than halfway through the series, an achievement considering Skatell had a lengthy hospital stay six months prior, undergoing exploratory surgery that caused him to be more than 30 pounds underweight when the series was filmed.  He believes he has more to prove on his return to Big Break Dominican Republic. 

William “Football” Thompson (24, Bracey, Va.) – A fan favorite from Big Break Prince Edward Island, Thompson is the definition of country, and he knows it.  Equally at home hunting deer as much as hunting birdies on the golf course, his friends call him “Football.”  Thompson was the second contestant eliminated on Big Break Prince Edward Island.  On this go-around, he plans to give everything he has to keep his dream alive of teeing it up on the PGA TOUR.

Lori Atsedes (46, Orlando, Fla.) – Atsedes is proud of everything she has accomplished in her long career.  She has 26 professional tour wins, is the all-time career money leader on the Duramed FUTURES Tour and was a five-year member of the LPGA Tour.  When it comes to her experience as a contestant on Big Break Ka’anapali in 2008, however, the topic of conversation often centered around her on-camera feud with Christina Lecuyer, which overshadowed her play on the course.  It left her with a feeling of unfinished business.

 Sara Brown (24, Tucson, Ariz.) – Like the rest of the contestants on Big Break Dominican Republic, Brown has unfinished business.  Unlike many of her fellow competitors, Brown’s Big Break experience is still fresh in her mind.  She competed on the most recent season of Big Break – Big Break Sandals Resorts – finishing in the top three.

Christina Lecuyer (27, Conway, Ark.) – When Big Break fans last saw Lecuyer in 2008, she was a first-year professional that found herself in the finals of her first LPGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, and was a contestant on Big Break Ka’anapali.  Fast forward to 2010, and the wear and tear of traveling finally got the best of her.  She quit playing golf full time.  On Big Break Dominican Republic, she will test herself to see if her dream of playing on the LPGA Tour is still alive.

Brenda McLarnon (27, Charleston, S.C.) – A competitor on Big Break Prince Edward Island, McLarnon was 100 percent into golf.  The Ireland native was a four-year competitor on the Duramed FUTURES Tour and lived out of her car, paycheck-to-paycheck, while trying to achieve her goal of playing on the LPGA Tour.  Then she fell in love.  Engaged to be married just four days before the season premiere, McLarnon’s goals and off the golf course have changed, but the dream to play on the LPGA Tour rages on.

Blair O’Neal (29, Scottsdale, Ariz.) – Prior to her appearance on Big Break Prince Edward Island, O’Neal was better known for her modeling career than her golf game.  She also was in the middle of an extended leave from golf.  She finished runner-up on the series, and the golf world took notice.  Since then, she has hosted shows for Golf Channel, including InFuze My Game on GolfChannel.com and the premiere episode of Donald J. Trump’s Fabulous World of Golf.  Now, she is back to playing full time on the Cactus Tour.  She is more focused than ever and has some unfinished business on Big Break Dominican Republic.

Elena Robles (26, Redondo Beach, Calif.) – The first competitor eliminated on Big Break Sandals Resorts, Robles is excited for her second opportunity on Big Break Dominican Republic.  Her experience on the series, albeit brief, was another chapter in the story about how she has returned to the game after quitting in 2008, citing burnout.

            Filmed on location in June at the world-famous Casa de Campo Resort, Big Break Dominican Republic will unfold on two Pete Dye-designed courses at Casa de Campo: the Teeth of the Dog and Dye Fore.  Teeth of the Dog is the number-one-ranked course in the Caribbean and 42^nd in the world by Golf Magazine.  Dye Fore is a picturesque and challenging course overlooking the Caribbean Sea that measures more than 7,700 yards.

For more information about Big Break Dominican Republic, visit www.GolfChannel.com/Big-Break-Dominican-Republic.

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Did PGA Tour Championship or Fed Ex Cup mean more to Jim Furyk?

A dejected Luke Donald concluded that the double bogey on the 15th hole on Saturday was why he lost out on a $10 million Fed Ex Cup prize to Jim Furyk. Furyk, on the other hand, was busy trying to lift both the PGA Tour Championship and Fed Ex Cup trophies, while trying to decide which meant more to him.

Pointing to the Fed Ex Cup Furyk said,

"They both mean a lot, to be honest with you, but this one is a season. ... I focused all week on trying to win this one (pointing to THE TOUR Championship trophy) and hoped this one (the FedExCup) could come true."

Perhaps Furyk now has another trophy in his sights, namely the Jack Nicklaus Trophy as the PGA Tour's Player of the Year.

Jim Furyk is now moving on to the 2010 Ryder Cup and, if 2008 Ryder Cup action is any indication of how he'll perform, I suspect Team USA will be taking home the trophy once again!

Here is last year's picture of Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods with their respective Tour Championship and Fed Ex Cup trophies. Doesn't this take you back to a time before all of the Tiger Woods drama?

From PGA Tour Championship to Ryder Cup to Caddyshack, Golfers Quotes before FedEx Cup

From defending Tour Championship golfer Phil Mickelson to first-time Ryder Cup nominee Matt Kuchar, PGA Tour players had plenty to say going into this week's golf tournament with an eye on winning the $10 million prize and FedEx Cup bragging rights.

 

Here are a few golf quotes from Mickelson, Kuchar, Hoffman, Casey, Johnson and a long-winded Steve Stricker.

 

Q. Several things could happen this week. If you win you'd be the No. 1 player in the world, you'd be the only guy ever to successfully defend this championship, probably be Player of the Year, and yet still all of the stars would have to align correctly in order for you to win the FedExCup. Do you think that's right, or is there another tweaking in the system that needs to be made so that those kinds of year-long things matter more than these last four events?

PHIL MICKELSON: I haven't played well in the first three FedExCup events, and so you have to have some value to those events. And you can't have it all just be -- just come down to one event. I guess you could, but I haven't played well enough in the first three events. If I had played halfway decent, I would be in a position to control my own destiny. I started out third or fourth, started out in good position, but because of my play, I am where I'm at.

 

And then Mickelson regaled golf reporters with a little known fact about Caddyshack...

Q. I was talking to Corey Monday about the 30th anniversary of Caddyshack, and he picked you as the guy on his team this year that knew more about Caddyshack than anything else, that kept you guys going. Can you talk about why that movie has endured so much, and would you put your Caddyshack knowledge against anybody out here?

PHIL MICKELSON: No, there's guys that know more useless information than I do (laughter) --

 

Q. That's not what he said.

PHIL MICKELSON: But I will share with you a little tidbit about that movie that not many people know about, and the gentleman who created that movie, who wrote it and who I believe produced it and put it all together ended up killing himself before the movie was ever released, about a month before, because the critics had beaten it up so bad, and he was so overcome by this that he ended up taking his own life and not being able to enjoy the success that this movie has had, and I think that's too bad.

 

Q. If you were to win $10 million, what would you do with it?

MATT KUCHAR: I really don't know. I'd hope I could turn it into a lot more. That would probably be my thought. But there's nothing really that I need. There's nothing that I really want.

 

CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Ironically I haven't really thought about winning the FedExCup much this year. I really wasn't in contention to be here until a couple weeks ago when I won. I'm approaching it like any other tournament, trying to get the win, and obviously all the accolades will come along with that.

 

Q. What are the goods and bads of the FedExCup? What are the highs and lows and the up and downsides of it?

PAUL CASEY: I haven't really thought about it too much. Is the system perfect? Probably not. I don't know. I mean, certainly when we had the situation when Padraig Harrington missed the TOUR Championship, even though he was a double major champion. He was actually Player of the Year if I remember correctly. That wasn't right. But it's changed since then, I think, hasn't it? I don't know.

I'm sure FedEx would love to have had the defending champion of this event and defending champion of the FedExCup, both of them in the field. We've got Phil -- what is Phil? 10th or something? But without Tiger and Phil, it's going to be disappointing to FedEx. I don't know. I don't know how to -- the highs and lows?

I haven't really fallen afoul of the system, and as far as I'm concerned, it's an opportunity to obviously made an awful lot of money. So from my angle, it's all positives.

 

Q. When you look at your career going forward, has being the No. 1 player in the world ever been a specific goal?

DUSTIN JOHNSON: No, I don't set goals like that. Obviously if I win enough golf tournaments, if I play well the next year or so, it could be a possibility. But as far as my goal being the best player in the world, it's not one of my goals. You know, most of my goals are short-term goals, and I just try to give myself the opportunity to be there.

 

Q. You mentioned that your resurgence has sort of mirrored the history of the FedExCup. It's got enough age on it now that we can pretty much have a report card. What is your assessment at this point of the FedExCup and its history? Success? Not a success? And what are the best and worst things about it?

STEVE STRICKER: I think it's been a success. I think it's done what it was set out to do, and that's to gain more interest in our sport during a time period where our interests kind of went away a little bit because of the start of football season and college and the NFL. And I think we still get a lot of media, we still get a lot of exposure because of the FedExCup, and it gains -- we have some interest later into the season, where at the PGA it usually stops. So I think in that regard, it's good. And it's been good for the players. We're playing -- who can complain about playing for the type of money that we're playing for?

 

So all that said, I think it's been a good thing. But on the other hand, I think the point system quite isn't right yet, and I think we're going to address that again at the end of the year. No matter what point system we come up with, I think you're going to have issues or circumstances that are going to jump out and not seem quite right. And we've had it -- you know, even the last couple years. I think if we can keep tweaking it where it's a little bit -- I don't know what the correct word is, but to represent more of a guy who plays well all year long, but he still needs to play well in the FedExCup to win it all.

Right now every shot doesn't matter. You could finish 120-something on the list and still win the FedExCup. I think we need to do a little bit better job of having a guy who plays well all year long, still kind of staying in there towards the end, but give a guy a chance maybe further down the list if he wins a couple of these playoff events that he could actually win it all. I think it's a fine line there no matter what you do.

 

Q. One quick follow-up. If you ask any fan who's going to show up today, as much as they like the FedExCup and enjoy this event, none of them are going to put it on par with a major. Do the players feel the same way? Where does this rank? How many FedExCups equal a major?

STEVE STRICKER: Oh, I don't know. I don't think it's looked at as important as a major yet. Maybe some day it will if we continue on with it. I know if you ask any one of these 30 players here if they want to win it, I guarantee the answer is yes. Obviously there's a lot of money at stake. But it signifies that you played well, and I think that's the bottom line. I think it would be a feather in anybody's cap to hoist that FedExCup Trophy at the end of it all. It's something more for us to play for. There's, like I say, a lot to play for, and I think it adds excitement for us and fans alike.

 

 

Read the complete Tour Championship transcripts.

 

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