Currently happily plowing through sports scribe extraordinaire Dan Jenkins’ latest romp, Stick A Fork in Me where a griseled College Athletic Director looks back on all the crazy and colorful experiences he had coaching college football and navigating University politics as an AD.  There’s a hilarious bit about a golfer who met his maker after hitting a ball into the drink by the eighteenth green and then jumping in after it: “that’s when his foot got tangled with other clubs lying on the bottom, having suffered the same punishment for betraying their owners.  Dub couldn’t pull himself loose and drowned while his playing partners were lining their putts on the green. Nobody knew he drowned until his straw hat floated to the top of the pond.”

Drinking Arnold Palmers and their booze infused cousin,  a John Daly, have been 19th hole libations for decades but Dixie Southern Vodka, a Charleston, South Carolina based craft distiller is upping the ante on golfer tipples.   Their smooth sipping product is 6x distilled from non-GMO American corn before the remaining impurities are purged in their TerraPURE process.  Along with plain, it also comes in all-natural mint and black pepper flavors.  Try their  Clubhouse Cooler which is  vying to move up the golf cocktail leaderboard and find its way into the mix at Masters parties. But with the Phoenix Open, aka  the  Greatest Show on Grass, upon upon us, why wait till then to give this drink a whirl?

The Clubhouse Cooler
 
1 bottle Dixie Mint Vodka
4 cups of lemonade
4 cups water
1 cup sugar
3 large tea bags (or 12 individual) for iced tea (or purchase your choice of pre-made sweet tea)
Fresh mint sprigs
8 lemon slices
 
Directions: Bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Remove from the heat and add in tea bags. Let tea bags steep for 5 minutes then remove. Stir in one cup of sugar until dissolved. Pour tea, lemonade, and Dixie Mint Vodka into preferred punch serving bowl. Add additional 3 quarts of water and stir together. Muddle handful of mint leaves in a separate bowl and add to punch ingredients. Cover and chill until cool. Fill mason jars with ice and pour in tea. Garnish with mint sprig and lemon slice.
 
 

The Biebs face planted against the glass courtesy  of a laughing Chris Pronger in the Celebrity Shootout is instantly up there with a an airborne Bobby Orr for best hockey pic ever.  Speaking of Bobby, he had a little fun when Bieber couldn't close the deal on a pair of penalty shots against former L.A. King goalie Jamie Storr.

Meanwhile  at Torrey Pines big names Brandt Snedeker and Keegan Bradley are battling out at the top of the leaderboard at the Farmers with plenty of other players in contention.  We're pulling for Patrick Rodgers to rise to the occasion  and earn his first PGA Tour victory.