{"id":894,"date":"2011-08-21T16:12:39","date_gmt":"2011-08-21T23:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveltattler.com\/?p=894"},"modified":"2011-09-20T04:06:25","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T11:06:25","slug":"legendary-broadcaster-at-crystal-mountain-resort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/courses-and-travel\/894\/legendary-broadcaster-at-crystal-mountain-resort","title":{"rendered":"LEGENDARY BROADCASTER AT CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN RESORT"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span>The Michigan Economic Development Corporation\u2019s Travel Michigan Bureau, the division responsible for the \u201cPure Michigan\u201d Michigan.org national campaign, has reached beyond the border to bring international travel<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Michael Patrick Shiels with Crystal Mountain President Jim MacInnes and golf broadcasting legend Ben Wright.<\/p><\/div>\n

reporters in this summer. Parisian Thomas Bourdeau, who writes for magazines in France and Luxembourg, recently visited Saugatuck, Holland and South Haven, in southwest Michigan. Earlier this summer, James Mason, from London, visited Lansing, Detroit, and Petoskey in between trips to Portugal and Japan.<\/p>\n

Emmy Award-winning television commentator and author Ben Wright is in Michigan this week. The Englishman, who served as CBS Sports television golf commentator for 25 years, working The Masters Tournament, PGA Championship, Pebble Beach, and other big time telecasts alongside Jim Nantz, Gary McCord, and Pat Summerall, is staying at Crystal Mountain Resort, in Thompsonville, where he\u2019s hosted the successful \u201cBen Wright Invitational Tournament\u201d for the past six years. The event, created by Crystal\u2019s director of golf Brad Dean and marketing VP Rick Schmitt, even includes a contest during which players bounce 9-iron shots off a port-a-john, just as Kevin Costner did in a scene with Wright in the motion picture \u201cTin Cup.\u201d The two-round tournament is played over Crystal\u2019s woodsy Mountain Ridge and Betsie Valley courses.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI love Michigan,\u201d said Wright, who has made many friends in the Great Lakes State, including me. We\u2019ve traveled together – Ireland, Hawaii, Pinehurst, Orlando and beyond – working on projects for ESPN, The Golf Channel, and collaborating on his autobiography, \u201cGood Bounces and Bad Lies,\u201d<\/em> Wright\u2019s personal account of his amazing career hobnobbing at great resorts and cocktail parties with professional golfers and celebrities and his worldwide travel memories. The book was a rollicking, honest look into that fast-paced show business lifestyle. <\/span><\/p>\n

A book review in the Washington Times<\/em> provided a compliment no writer could ever hope for: our writing compared to that of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald! Yes, our names next to those literary giants we admired and emulated! What a rush!<\/span><\/p>\n

In the interest of disclosure, I have to reveal the context in which the comparison was made within the Washington Times<\/em> review article. Reporter Tom Knott wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026 Wright stuck his foot in his mouth, as people do on occasion, only he refuses to remove the foot from his mouth unless it is to have another drink. Wright does not qualify as desperate. Desperate is the ghostwriter, somebody by the name of Michael Shiels. Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Shiels\/Wright. American literature approaches the end of the century on a curious note\u2026 <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Obviously Knott\u2019s article was tart and sarcastic. But find another pair of writers who have had their work compared Hemingway and Fitzgerald! Thank you, Tom Knott! <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at <\/span>MPSbigshow@aol.com<\/span><\/a> or via <\/span>www.TravelTattler.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"

Crystal Mountain Resort's Cottages at Water's Edge are adjacent to both the spa and the gentle water park. <\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation\u2019s Travel Michigan Bureau, the division responsible for the \u201cPure Michigan\u201d Michigan.org national campaign, has reached… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courses-and-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2011\/08\/CrystalBenWright08-049.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","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=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":913,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}