This and That

Just a few miscellaneous items to throw at you today.

British Pathé - As if bloggers had any more time to waste, British Pathé has put its archive of 85,000 newsreels up on YouTube, and there's many devoted to golf.  Shackelford went for the highbrow stuff, the golfer with no arms and the like.

Their main channel page is here, including most watched videos such as the Hindenburg disaster and the ten-stone baby teased with chocolate.  The golf search listing is here, heavy on Open Championships and British Amateurs.

Picking virtually at random, here's a newsreel from the 1927 Open Championship at the Old Course.   Lots of brolleys sold that week, as you can readily see.  Bobby Jones was the big draw that week, winning his second Open by six shots:

And her's a longer one from the 1952 Open at Royal Lytham & St. Anne, featuring Henry Cotton and Bobby Locke:



Good stuff.

Non-Schedule Update - He's now apparently ahead of schedule, though of course there's still no schedule.

Tiger in happier times, with the last of his Claret Jugs.

 But Matt Newman informs us that Golf Channel is now pointing for Tiger to return in time for the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, more familiarly known as Hoylake, in mid-July.  No doubt Tiger has great memories of the place, winning his last Open there in 2006.  But he's most unlikely to recognize the place, as it was as hard-baked as you'll ever find it that summer, so much so that Tiger hit one driver in 72 holes (and that was a mistake).

Open Championship weather being what it is, I've thought a return there would be unlikely and perhaps ill-advised.

And since we're sort of talking Hoylake, Allister Tait filed this report on the Open venue:

The world’s elite will find very little change when they turn up for the 143rd running of the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool. The R&A has added just 54 yards to the course Tiger Woods tamed in 2006.

The biggest change comes at the par-4 seventh hole. It measures 480 yards, 27 yards longer than it played in 2006. “It will be a formidable par four,” R&A chief executive Peter Dawson said

So, no Peter Dawson "Treatment" for this venerable club, hosting it's elenth Open Championship.  The only substantial change, as previously reported here, is this:

The only other significant course change comes at the par-4 first hole. The green has been reshaped and rebunkered. 

“It’s the hardest opening hole on the Open rota,” Dawson said.

Not necessarily the most competitive category, though I would think that the first at Royal St. Georges would be the holder of that dubious honor.

 Hard To Conclude It's Helping Him- Sometimes good ideas don't get their due when conveyed by imperfect messengers.  And if the subject is golf, it's hard to think of a less perfect messenger than David Duval, a man whose pact with the devil lapses when he was still a young man.  John Strege reports on Duval's unique practice routine:

He walks his rounds at home, carrying a nine-club set specially made that doesn't necessarily coincide with the complete set he uses in competition.

“I’m carrying a limited set of clubs,” he said, “so I have the challenge of having to hit golf shots.”

Strege consults Jason Guss, who in 2013 was named Michigan Golf Instructor of the year, who had this to say:

Guss said further that there’s a lesson there for the recreational golfer, too. Think having to hit a shot calling for an 8-iron when your options are a 7 or 9-iron. He cited a drill he often uses “especially with a high school kid who’s not a great bunker player,” he said. “I take the sand wedge away from them and hand them a 5-iron and say figure out how to do it with a 5-iron. Once you put the sand wedge back in their hands, it’s like cheating.”

I think that's a great idea, as well as playing from different tees occasionally.   Also try playing without a driver for a change, just to work on the long game.

Do You Know Me? - Anyone remember this guy?

That's Matt Griesser, of course, but you all knew that.  Still not sure who the dude is...see if this helps.

Those commercials were just brilliant, and I thought FootJoy discontinued them far too early.  Griesser had some interesting comments in this interview:

What was the audition for Sign Boy like?

There were 300 guys up for the part. I just came in and started riffing on [David] Duval and making fun of how he wasn't looking at the ball. They told me later they knew when I started breaking apart guys' swings and their quirks that I was right for the part.

Which players were the best actors?

Justin Leonard, Jesper Parnevik, Ernie Els, Lumpy [Tim Herron] and Peter Jacobsen, of course, were all great. Adam Scott got it as well as anybody because he figured out, like a lot of guys, that the ads could show a side of their personality they might not show on the course. (See video below.) We heard it got to the point that when they signed their deals, some players had it written in the contract to be in a Sign Boy ad.

Sign Boy and Lumpy?  It doesn't get any better than that.

Drive Here Often? -  Golf Digest has a Luke Kerr-Dineen feature story on TopGolf, a driving range that's...well, as the title makes clear, not your father's driving range:

It's 4 p.m. on a typical Thursday in February, and the TopGolf Austin driving range is packed.

All of its more than 100 hitting bays are full. If you want to hit balls today, put your name on the nearly two-hour wait list and head to the bar. 

Most people aren't used to waiting to hit balls on a range, but for the people of Austin, a few hours spent in line for one of the city's hottest social spots is expected. 

Here golfers don't simply bash balls into the distance. They aim at various targets around the range. Hit into one and you're automatically assigned points that appear on the television screen at your bay. The farther the target and the closer you hit to its center, the more points you get. Think darts. 

Add loud Top-40 music, a menu that wouldn't seem out of place in a New York City gastropub, a sleek design, and out pops TopGolf—a self-styled "sports-entertainment facility" that's ascending through the golf industry unlike anything in recent history.

 Jerry Tarde has a sidebar titled Better Than a Therapist, in which he describes it as follows:

No. 1 on Golf Digest's Hot List this year is not a counterbalanced putter or even an adjustable driver. It's a nightclub-meets-bowling-alley masquerading as a driving range called TopGolf and coming to a metro area near you. So far there are 10 of them worldwide with 2.2 million visitors in 2013, averaging up to 70,000 hits a day at some locations and 2½ hours for the average time spent. That's a lot of Coors Light. And by the way, 52 percent of customers don't call themselves golfers, but there they are in the flesh, beating balls with embedded microchips at lighted targets and having their results recorded on computer screens at each hitting bay, sometimes with live music playing in the background.

TopGolf is reportedly the most popular bar in Austin.  It's actually somewhat encouraging to see folks figuring out how to make golf fun, especially for non-golfers.  I don't imagine we'll see too many converts, but there's certainly no harm done.

Swan Song - I blogged briefly about Rick Reilly a while ago, whose retiring from ESPN.  Shackelford links to his most recent column, a nostalgic look back with several golf references:

Charles Barkley was the best quote. Howard Cosell was the biggest jerk. Mark Grace was the most approachable. Barry Bonds the least. Dale Murphy was the kindest soul. Allen Iverson had the largest heart. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had the most brains. John Daly the least.

And this:

Enjoy your heroes, but don't envy them.

The exceptions: Jack Nicklaus, the Williams sisters, Derek Jeter.

And in non-golf notes there's this:

You'd never dream you can get bored with swimsuit models until you have to sit through dinner with them.

Hope you're paying attention, Maggot.