Planet Golf

Could be classic case of the Twitters- Planet Golf has yet to fully grasp what all the fuss is about regarding Twitter, the microblogging service that requires users to condense their thoughts into 140 characters or less. But while we may quite happily be keeping our heads in the sand, the great and the good of the LPGA tour are, seemingly, intent on embracing the social networking phenomenon.

Carolyn Bivens, LPGA commissioner, last week indicated that she would encourage players to tweet away during competitive rounds and give updates in between shots.

"I'd love it if players Twittered during the middle of a round," she explained. "The new media is very important to the growth of golf and we view it as a positive, and a tool to be used."

Bivens is exploring the possibility with the USGA to find out if Twittering during competition is legal. We suspect the answer they receive requires just two characters. No.

Larrazabal puts foot to pedal

Who said tournament golf takes too long? Pablo Larrazabal proved on Sunday that rounds in the professional game needn't take upwards of five and six hours as he whizzed around the London Club on the final day of the European Open.

Out by himself in the first "pairing" of the day, the Spaniard took just over two hours (122 minutes to be exact) to complete his round, carding a highly respectable 71 to boot.

"I had nothing to lose and it was fun to play that way," Larrazabal, who had bet South Africa's Anton Haig that he could break 70 in less than two hours 15 minutes, said afterwards. "I was eight shots better than yesterday." Larrazabal was clearly too quick for the officials, who had yet to open the scorers hut when he went to sign his card.

And it's not just the single golfer who can keep a brisk pace. Benn Barham and Marc Warren, both hoping to catch a flight home later in the day, played their final round in 141 minutes at the recent Italian Open, shooting 69 and 71 in the process.

Faithlegg makes bold bid to break world record

How on earth do you manage to get over 620 golfers around the same course in just one day? That's the conundrum facing Faithlegg GC in Co Waterford as they attempt to break the world record for the most people playing a single course in 24 hours later this month.

Play will start at 4am Monday, June 22nd and is scheduled to finish shortly before 4am the following morning. Floodlights and hundreds of glow sticks will be deployed to facilitate play in the middle of the night as an army of golfers attempt to break the current record of 623, set in China in 2007.

While all the normal rules of golf apply, the course will be shortened to 6,000 yards to help groups keep up with the required three-and-a-half-hour pace with players being encouraged to leave their drivers at home.

Entries are still being accepted, with the proceeds from the €30 green fee going to the charity First Tee Ireland.

Spare a thought for Baker-Finch

Spare a thought for Ian Baker-Finch. The 1991 British Open champion may have disappeared off the radar since his alarming decline in the early '90s but popped up at the Colonial Invitational on the PGA Tour last week, qualifying as a previous winner.

A first round of two-under par 68 suggested Baker-Finch, who at 48 is still too young to qualify for the seniors circuit, could haul himself from golf's scrap heap and make his first cut on the PGA tour in 15 years.

Unfortunately the wheels came off during Friday's second round and the Australian, who famously drove the ball out of bounds on the first hole at St Andrews, failing to find the widest fairway on the planet, recorded a depressingly familiar score of 78 and missed the cut by six shots.

Golf Slang of the Week

The Salman Rushdie - refers to one of those putts that is impossible to read