{"id":2265,"date":"2018-07-17T17:11:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T00:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=2265"},"modified":"2018-07-15T17:18:40","modified_gmt":"2018-07-16T00:18:40","slug":"francesco-molinari-continues-his-world-class-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/personalities\/2265\/francesco-molinari-continues-his-world-class-career","title":{"rendered":"Francesco Molinari Continues His World-Class Career"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Molinari

Molinari drew cheers from the Irish fans in the stands<\/p><\/div>\n

A celebrity traveler from Italy will be coming to Pure Michigan next June to play some golf and I am looking forward to seeing him again. Stay with me on this one\u2026<\/p>\n

On the first Sunday in July, in Maryland, European golf star Francesco Molinari, of Turin, won the PGA Tour event hosted by Tiger Woods. Molinari became only the second Italian-born golfer to win on the American tour and the first since Toney Penna, of Milan, won the Atlanta Open in 1947.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope a lot of guys back home were watching tonight,\u201d said Molinari after tapping in the winning putt at what would have been midnight<\/span><\/span> in fabulous Italian cities such as Rome, Florence, and Venice.<\/p>\n

Italy is known for many marvelous places, cuisine, architecture and history \u2013 and it consistently ranks at the top in terms of vacationer satisfaction. It is not known, though, for turning out golf stars – other than Penna and Constantino Rocca, of Bergamo, who nearly won the 1995 British Open in a playoff until John Daly, a most unlikely and unkempt American, beat him at historic, stoic St. Andrews.<\/p>\n

Molinari\u2019s win means he will be coming to Michigan next summer. The event he won in Maryland was sponsored by Quicken Loans, the company Detroiter Dan Gilbert founded. Quicken Loans and the PGA Tour will move the event to Detroit Golf Club in June of 2019, which means Molinari will be here to defend his title, along with the CBS Sports national broadcast team. \u201cThis tournament comes your way next year and I am looking forward to it,\u201d CBS superstar sportscaster Jim Nantz told me moments after anchoring this year\u2019s telecast.<\/p>\n

Michigan hasn\u2019t had the CBS golf crew or a PGA Tour event since 2009 when the Buick Open was moved from Warwick Hills Country Club in Grand Blanc to the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.<\/p>\n

\"Molinari

Molinari autographed the shirt of an excited Irish spectator<\/p><\/div>\n

During a visit to Dublin, Ireland, in June of 2013, I was paired, as a journalist, with Molinari in the pro-am tournament at the European Tour\u2019s Irish Open at Carton House Resort. I found him to be a quiet, mellow fellow \u2013 and he found me to be the opposite. I was in Ireland to have some fun \u2013 whether it was on the golf course or in the pubs. I wore red plaid pants, a red shirt, and red, white and blue golf shoes. We played side by side, and whenever Molinari would sink a little putt, I loudly and lavishly pronounced his name gesturing to him and beckoning the Irish spectators to shower him with applause. (They did it, even while toting pints of Guinness.) The golf star stared at me as if I were crazy \u2013 but eventually couldn\u2019t help but shake his head and smile. His smile turned to a grin when a few holes later, he heard a fan in the bleachers behind the tee singing out his name. Molinari paused and looked up into the stands only to discover it was his playing partner \u2013 me \u2013 who had snuck up there before my turn on the tee to incite the crowds!<\/p>\n

Later I lifted the gallery rope to invite a spectator onto the green to try to make a putt in my place and to meet Molinari \u2013 which of course thrilled the fan but bemused the Italian.<\/p>\n

We parted that day as \u201cpaisans\u201d and he suggested to me that if he came to America to play he wanted to listen to my morning radio program. \u201cIt must be some show,\u201d he supposed with a final chuckle. He\u2019ll get the chance to hear it \u2013 and be on the air with me – when the world traveling golfer journeys to Detroit and we reconnect next June. Perhaps I will even diplomatically welcome the Italian to Michigan with some \u201chome cooking:\u201d a box of cannolis from Spagnuolo\u2019s Italian Restaurant in Okemos!<\/p>\n

Contact Travel Writer Michael Patrick Shiels at MShiels@aol.com<\/span><\/a> His radio program may be heard weekday mornings on 92.1 FM. His latest book is \u201cI Call Him Mr. President \u2013 Stories of Fishing, Golf and Life with my Friend George H.W. Bush\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A celebrity traveler from Italy will be coming to Pure Michigan next June to play some golf and I am… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[94915,3718,2834,1749,976752,998844,1019764],"class_list":["post-2265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personalities","tag-golf-2","tag-food","tag-michigan","tag-italy","tag-italian","tag-okemos","tag-francesco-molinari"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2018\/07\/image2.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2270,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions\/2270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}