'Tis a pity that I jumped the gun in using Fade to White as a post title, as we're experiencing snowmageddon in the New York Area. It's not supposed to stop until tomorrow, with more in the forecast for Sunday. No reason not yo watch the festivities from Riviera later, but let's look at who is making a fool of themselves news in our little corner of the world:
- The Herald Scotland (via Shackelford) informs us that a certain Donald J. Trump has withdrawn his permit for the second course to be built in Aberdeenshire:
The US businessman lodged plans in October for the second course at his resort in Menie, Aberdeenshire, to be named the MacLeod course. Aberdeenshire Council confirmed the application - which was never fully completed - has now been withdrawn.
I'm not sure where this leaves his plans for the hotel, but the completed links will be something of an orphan without the hotel and will certainly complicate his plans to attract a major tournament (Open Championship or, as seems more likely, a Scottish Open, to the course (which I understand to be the greatest in the world.... he couldn't say it if it weren't true).
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| I want that turbine gone, and that one and.... He just doesn't appreciate that it's for the children. |
- At Golfweek, James Achenbach provides an update on players' options in dealing with the ban on anchored putting which will take effect January 1, 2016. As for a certain Aussie he provides us this feedback from a Scotty Cameron rep:
“He will continue to anchor his putter as long as he can,” Moser said, “but he will experiment on the side with other methods. In 2016, no matter what technique he chooses, he will go out there and make putts and beat the other guys much of the time – just like he does now.”
No surprise there, as Scott had exhausted all other options before finding a method to turn himself into an average putter. Combined with his superior ball striking, that's a successful combo.
Langer, the two-time Masters champion, said he was looking closely at two putting methods, one named after himself and the other named after Matt Kuchar. With his method, Langer used his right hand to clamp the putter grip against his left forearm. With the Kuchar method, the putter grip rested against the left forearm although the hands were unified in a conventional grip.
Now Langer is an interesting though somewhat irrelevant case. In the first instance, he'll be 58 1/2 when the ban kicks in, an age where Champions Tour careers tend to fade. But more importantly, Langer has survived more cases of the yips than I've had head colds and is in the enviable position of reverting to a putting style named after himself. Not your average guy who anchors...
- Jeff Rude's Hate to be Rude column has much to unpack. He leads with Tom Watson's pick of Raymond Floyd as his second Assistant Captain (Andy North was the first). Rude is a fan, as we'll allow him to explain:
It’s another message that Watson means business and is serious about winning after the U.S. has lost seven of the past nine meetings against Europe. The choice of a tough hombre from yesteryear doesn’t surprise, either. Watson likes tough guys, closers and often has said you can tell a lot about a competitor by the person’s eyes. He says he’ll factor that into his three picks.
Someday perhaps someone will explain the importance of assistants, what Shackelford calls a cart driver. Floyd is an intense man and is not a fan of the losing thing by all accounts. The only question this perhaps raises is that given the unusual age gap between Watson and his team, might he have been better served picking one assistant closer in age to his players. Probably not an important factor, though typically the Captain is still hanging around the Tour seeing the players under consideration for Captain's picks with his own eyes. Get ready for way too many insufferable stories about The Stare™.
Also per Rude, Cheyenne Woods' first professional win has generated a reaction from those noted golf experts, the Vegas bookmakers:
In fact, just to show how quickly things can change, the Bovada Sportsbook has come up with creative bet propositions regarding uncle and niece. As for who will have more 2014 wins, Tiger is listed at 1-6 odds and Cheyenne 7-2. As for who will have more top 10s or win a major first in 2014, Tiger is 1-10 and Cheyenne 11-2.
One punter’s opinion: Take the uncle across the board.
One last item from Rude. He speculates that San Francisco's Harding Park is the most likely venue to which the WGC Match Play will be moved. Wouldn't surprise me, although they are also in need of a sponsor, who might have some say in the matter. Per Rude:
And that would be a welcome change for players because the event would be held on a better golf course and in less of a remote location.
According to Wikipedia, there are 17,672 golf course in the U.S., which means that there are at least 17, 600 better courses than the Monstrosity at Dove Mountain. Harding is overrated, but in a good golf town and not bad to look at, so it could be far worse. But Rude doesn't even mention the snow...
- TV/DVR Alert: The ladies are playing their Australian Open this week at Victoria Golf Club, one of the great Melbourne area sand belt golf courses. Well worth a look, as Shackelford reminds us today, linking to this 2011 post that goes into greater detail about its merits. Lots of wonderful pictures from his visit to play in a charity event hosted by Geoff Ogilvy. The restoration was supervised by Mike Clayton, a former professional and Ogilvy's design partner. If you're snowbound you could do worse.
- Luke Kerr-Dineen introduces us to Chip Koch, the latest master of trick shots. Here's a couple of examples:
Chip also does great things with milk, as we saw
here.
- Michael Bamberger posts a wonderful profile of Los Angeles' Rancho Park, one of the busiest golf courses on the planet, a muni's muni if you will. The best bit:
I toured Rancho for the first time on a recent Saturday. (The nonresident green fee was $48, walking.) In the parking lot, I saw a young guy hop out of his truck, zip oranges into his golf bag, slide into his spikes and march off to the clubhouse. (Such an echt display of pre-round enthusiasm.) In the restaurant/pro shop, a man in a nearby booth ate breakfast with his bag beside him, headcovers on all 14 of his companions. A waitress arranged for my rental set, an interesting assortment of lost treasures: Ping Eye 2s, Titleists likely from another century, Stratas, a Zebra putter. On the driving range, there was a middle-aged man loading up his face with sunblock and his mouth with chew. All the while, over loudspeakers, the starter announced the batters off his ever-changing lineup card: Aiello, Shapiro, Chu. The American tapestry.
It's an over-played muni now, but it's also where Arnold Palmer won three Los Angeles Opens. This, however, was my favorite bit:
A plaque on the 18th at Rancho commemorates a 12 that Arnold Palmer himself once made there. (That he came to the unveiling tells you loads about the man.)
Maggot, give up a day at your fancy schmantzy private clubs and go play Rancho Park and file a reader's review!
- Weird (quasi) golf item of the day. From the paper of record, a story of an imitator who took the imitating way too far:
The head of college counseling at the elite Horace Mann School is a Tiger Woods-impersonating bully who threatened to use his powerful connections to ruin a Manhattan hospital nurse after she dumped him, sources told The Post. Oxelson is accused of texting Delanois nude pictures of herself on Feb. 3 with the messages, “Good luck loser” and “Can’t wait for folks to see this one,” according to a criminal complaint.
Since you'll ask, draw your own conclusions as to how close the resemblance is:
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| It's strange that the story broke on a Thursday but the accompanying photo was clearly taken on a Sunday. |
- Anybody for some geeky golf architecture talk? I thought so.... Shackelford posts his appearance on Morning Drive to discuss three of the holes at Riviera here. Someday Al and I will figure out why I can't embed the video, or better yet I'll move off Blogger. He discusses two of the Par 3's (Nos. 4 and 6) and of course the famed 10th. Speaking of Riviera (which is on the TV as I type), they've paired Jordan Spieth with Freddie Couples, a nice touch I think. By the way, Shackelford literally wrote the book on George Thomas and Riviera.
And as long as we all have our pocket protectors in place, let's revisit our brief Pebble discussion.
Alex Miceli reports on the new tenth tee that we were all over earlier. Remember that you heard it here first. But he does post this great photo of the ninth green from the 1961 U.S. Amateur:
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| The ninth green at Pebble Beach during the 1961 U.S. Amateur. The subsequently abandoned 10th tee box is visible on the right. |
Class, before we move on to what I really wanted to discuss, does anyone remember (and to me the term remember does not involve Google) who won that particular Amateur? Answer at the bottom of the post.
Of greater interest in Miceli's piece are these comments about the 14th and 17th greens:
The 14th has only about half of the green that can handle a hole location. The plan is to rebuild the back left of the green to keep balls from rolling off the green and recapturing a hole location on the back right of the green.
On the 17th, the middle part of the green will be widened and the front will be flattened, but the overall size will not change dramatically.
“It’s not the original design by any stretch because it was really flat," Harper said. “Bunkers were flat. We like the fact that from the tee box, when you're back on the back tee, you've got some visuals that allow you to see contour, and that's what we've done over time with some of the bunkering. But way back when, it was flat as a pancake, and that's not the way that hole should look and feel.”
I had previously heard that an entirely new green was to be built on No. 14. They now appear to be going another direction, which may adequately address the issues.
But the changes to 17 green leave me perplexed: This was Shackelford's
take in a Golf Digest article shortly after the 2010 Open:
Even more telling was player disdain for the green at the 208-yard 17th, which played as the toughest hole all week and averaged 3.487. The hourglass-shaped surface has become harder to hit with each U.S. Open, even though contestants have shifted from 1- and 2-irons in 1972, to 4- and 5-irons this year. Just 18.6 percent of 2010 U.S. Open tee shots hit the green in regulation, with a measly seven GIRs (8 percent of the field) during Sunday's final round. No player in the final four groups hit the green, and to put the 17th's average of 18.6 percent in perspective, the next hardest green to hit was the 202-yard par-3 12th, at 35.8 percent.
The relevant data is that only 7 players hit the green with the back pin placement in the fourth round, and I'd be dying to know how many were actually on the back tier and how many (my guess is none) actually hit the green on their first bounce. Not only did none of the players in the late groups hit the green, as near as I could tell from the TV coverage, none of them were trying to hit it. They were all deliberately under-clubbing and dumping their tee shots into the front bunker.
Wanna cut through the clutter and understand the issue in a nanosecond? Take a gander at these photos posted by Geoff before the 2010 Open:
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| The 17th green in 1929, above, and in 2010, below. The back section of the green has shrunk to a fraction of its original size. |
Guys, this should be fairly simple. Under U.S. Open conditions, the best players in the world cannot stop their tee shots on the back portion of this green. How is that a fair test of golf skill?
Quiz Answer: That would be one Jack William Nicklaus. Thanks for playing.
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