MIKE SMALL WILL ATTEND PPNC MEDIA DAY TODAY IN HERSHEY PA.

Three time Professional Players National Championship winner and University
of Illinois mens golf coach Mike Small, is the defending champion at the PPNC
and will speak to the media today in Hershey PA.

THE GOG BLOG..tips the golf visor today in the direction of Mike Small, who
no doubt will be a great guest of honor as defending champion of the PPNC.

Small does this coming off of being named Mens Big Ten Coach of the year,
and while getting his squad of the 11th ranked Fighting Illini ready for the
NCAA Regional and NCAA Championship. Small will also play in several
PGA Tour events this summer, including the John Deere Classic in the Quad
Cities (Silvis Illinois). He will defend his Illinois PGA section title this August
at Medinah.

In spite of how well he plays, his day job as coach at Illinois puts him a
position to help shape student athletes as they move forward in life, on and
off the course. From what we see, he is doing a great job of that too. Keep
up the good work coach.

RIP SEVE BALLESTEROS...5 time major champion Seve Ballesteros passed
away of brain cancer at age 54 late Friday night. What many people remember
Seve for is his gamesmanship at the Ryder Cup. Those of us media types will
never forget quotes like Seve describing a 4 putt green. "I miss, I miss, I miss,
I make". Priceless.

Ballesteros made a par from parking lot once, that led to a BBC announcer
talking about Seve getting "Up and Down" from a car park.

The day after the last Western Open at Butler National, there was a special
event the next day and several media types were invited. So of course I went,
excited about a chance to play Butler. With the U.S. Open in town at Medinah
that week the pros were still in town.

I went out to warm up on the putting green, there was another person putting
on the far side of the green. I hit my first putt a long one that lipped out on a
hole over 60 feet away. The second putt went dead center into the cup.

At that point the other person putting looked over at me and said, "you keep
putting like that you can come join us out on tour". I looked over and was
shocked to see Seve Ballesteros applauding my putting. He showed my talent
with the wand more respect than the guys in my regular foursome ever do.

For that I say, Thanks Seve. I hope your playing the best of all courses now.

PUTTING OUT...Last week this column spent some time, poking fun at a
rumor of Callaway readying a bid to buy Titleist. Well that seems to be all it
is. Sources tell the Gog Blog that rumor was dreamed up by some folks
trying to raise up the sinking price of Callaway stock.

Before Callaway attempts to buy Titleist at a figure that could be as high as
1.2 billion dollars. Maybe they should get their own house in order first,
word is the folks paying Lefty and Ernie the big bucks to wear the logo
lost 20-30 million in the first quarter of 2011.

THE GOG BLOG SPEAKS OUT..is the opinion of The Gog Blog Guy, Rory
Spears. Not the Golfers on Golf radio foursome that includes Ed
Stevenson, Mike Munro and Bill Berger. Rory Spears can be reached on
Twitter @GogBlogGuy or Facebook.