While I've had the vast Unplayable Lies organization committed to bringing you wall-to-wall U.S. Open qualifying coverage, I've been at this long enough to know that other stories might need attention, and kept a few key reportorial resources available. Here's a few items you might have missed while keeping your eyes trained on the shell with the marble.
Pinehurst No. 9 - "Not so fast," I hear you screaming, "famed Pinehurst Resort has only eight courses." Not so fast, yourself, as we're now at nine and counting:
Pinehurst Resort has added a ninth course to its collection with the purchase of the National
Golf Club.
The National, a Jack Nicklaus design, once was the setting for the first stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School. It opened in 1989 and is the only Nicklaus design in the Pinehurst area.
“We’re very excited to add this ninth course to our offering and look forward to welcoming National’s members to the Pinehurst Resort & Country Club family,” Jay Biggs, a senior vice president of operations for Pinehurst, said in a statement. “The golf course presents a challenging test in a beautiful setting that complements our eight other courses.”
Phakakta Phil - Insider Trading Edition - The ebb and flow of this story has been quite interesting, with today's movement pointing towards a stalled SEC/FBI investigation. From Reuters:
 |
| Carl Icahn during a recent television appearance. |
Even if Icahn did leak information about his plans regarding Clorox, he may not necessarily have violated the law. Prosecutors would have to show he had breached a fiduciary or confidentiality duty by disclosing material, nonpublic information that was later traded on.
"A true quirk of insider trading rules is that the person who creates the information that's material and confidential has the freedom to use that for themselves and to authorize others to use it," said James Cox, a professor of securities law at Duke University.
"That’s part of our capitalistic spirit, that people who create the ideas should be able to exploit them,” he said, noting that this could complicate a potential government case.The regulations also raise the issue of who Icahn would have a duty to in his investing role, said Reed Brodsky, an expert in white-collar crime at Gibson Dunn.
Shackelford doesn't often link to the Zero Hedge guys, but the linked piece includes speculation that the leaked story will preclude wiretapping the suspects, often necessary to develop an insider trading case, especially one where none of the parties have clear fiduciary obligations to the company.
In a scathing New York Post editorial, Charles Gasparino had this to say:
More than five years after the financial crisis — a scandal that netted no major culprits but imposed vast hardship on the American people — here’s what our federal watchdogs think might be a crime: Three years ago, after investor Carl Icahn bought a stake in Clorox but before he announced he wanted to take the company over, investigators spotted some unusual buying activity.
At issue is whether Icahn tipped a friend, well-known sports better Billy Walters, who may have tipped Mickelson. All three men have said they did nothing wrong.More important: The facts as described appear perfectly legal, according to every securities attorney I spoke to.
The insider-trading laws are mostly company-specific — they deal with “misappropriating” or stealing information from a public company or its shareholders and then trading on it.
I'm not blown away by the logic of the linkage to the 2008 financial crisis, but if they don't have a case then have two chisel-jawed mugs with earpieces meeting Phil at his office seems like a somewhat thuggish move.
There's one more theory floating around, that the investigation was political payback. John Hinderaker at the conservative Powerline blog recounts some background:
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Icahn said that Obama “would be a terrible president,” because “I don’t think Obama really understands economics.” That turned out to be an understatement. While Icahn has expressed disenchantment with Republicans more recently, his contributions have historically tilted heavily toward Republicans.
In 2013, Billy Walters contributed $100,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP super pac.
And in January 2013, Mickelson complained about high federal and state taxes, and suggested that he may need to move out of California because of high tax rates there. This was viewed as a public relations blunder, and the golfer later apologized. (For what? Beats me.) But he is nevertheless remembered by many as an outspoken critic of excessive taxation.
Hinderaker is not a conspiracy nut, but after watching this administration for six years it's not a stretch. I would still consider it unlikely, just because it seems out of proportion to any potential benefit. But I do think it's worth acknowledging as a possibility, but more importantly as a warning to Phil that any expectations he has of fair treatment would be very naive, as we live in a world where the process can become the punishment.
Lastly, the funniest line I've heard yet came from comedian Seth MacFarlane, overheard as I traversed our kitchen this morning to refill my coffee. According to MacFarlane, the investigation of a professional golfer for insider trading in Clorox stock, has to be the whitest collar crime on record.
Phakakta Phil - Golf Edition - A few weeks ago we heard that Phil had wanted to play No. 2, but they simply were too busy. That story was somewhat misunderstood, as it wasn't that they couldn't get him on the course, it was more that he couldn't spend 20 minutes on each green charting them with Bones, as the Resort's tee sheet was full. Now that the course is closed to Resort and member play, Phil has had a chance to give it a look see, and here are his comments:
Anyone notice the portly guy in the wide-brim hat? That would be short-game guru Dave Peltz. A good call, as Phil's chipping and putting have been simply dreadful this year.
How bad could he be, I hear you asking... well he's ranked 106th in strokes gained putting and 49th in scrambling, which is basically the case for him in the Open. Most staggering of all, his make percentage on putts of 3-5 feet is only 82%, good for 165th place on Tour. Needless to say, he'll need to improve on those numbers to have a chance.
These Guys Are Good - Many of you might be surprised to hear that, despite the barrels of ink used in the coverage of Jordan Spieth's career, to date he has only one win. That came at last year's John Deere Classic, and was facilitated by this holed bunker shot:
Per Luke Kerr-Dineen:
At the 2014 John Deere Classic media day on Monday, Spieth took to the same bunker to try and recreate the shot. The result was, well, as expected. He implies in the caption it was his first attempt. . .
Shack thinks that's CNN's Shane O'Donahue with the "game-show contestant" reaction, so by now this has undoubtedly gone viral.
Mike Davis, Unplugged - Sports Illustrated's Mike Bamberger has an interesting discussion with the USGA's Executive Director Mike Davis that can be watched here. Davis is an interesting man, whose set-ups of the U.S. Open course have revitalized that championship. He has many interesting things to say, and displays an authoritative knowledge of golf history. I thought I had him once, but he quickly corrected a bad date (by all of one year) without prompting.
He gives David Fay credit for originating the concept of back-to-back Opens at Pinehurst, but with an amusing irony alert. The reason why Pinehurst was believed capable of hosting the event related to its Bermuda rough, but of course there is no longer a single square inch of that Bermuda rough.
Well worth your time, and I thought he handled the issue of the prize discrepancy between the men and women with great thoughtfulness.
Whither The Elk - Golf's very own Donald Sterling has been MIA for a while now, sure to turn up on milk cartons any day now. There's an old saying (frequently cited on the golf course this past weekend) that one incident is an anecdote, two are data and there constitutes a trend. So we need one more Elk citing for a trend, as first Eamon Lynch posts this at golf.com:
Where have you gone Steve Elkington? Twitter turns its lonely eyes to you.
Any golf fan who has ever questioned the capacity of PGA Tour executives to effect changeshould consider this fact: Steve Elkington, the 1995 PGA champion and frequent controversialist, has tweeted almost 16,000 times since joining Twitter, but virtually nothing since a widely-condemned homophobic comment about gay footballer Michael Sam more than three months ago.
Lynch continues:
Since Elkington wasn’t quieted by previous Twitter-inspired controversies—a slur about “Pakis” in England and a boneheaded joke about a fatal helicopter crash onto a Scottish bar that killed 10 people, to single out but two snowflakes in a blizzard—we can reasonably assume that he isn’t given to periods of hushed reflection when his views are criticized.
Which raises the question of whether the PGA Tour has enjoined Elkington to silence on social media. Elkington told one writer that he was quickly instructed by the Tour to delete the offending tweet about Sam, in which he cracked that Sam was leading the “handbag throw” at the NFL combine. And when an absolute authority issues an order to hit ‘delete’—or even a friendly suggestion to pipe down—one would be best advised to consider it favorably, no?
Here we go again....what is the efficacy of PGA Tour disciplinary actions if they happen in the woods and no one is around to hear them. If those tweets were racist (and how could they not be?) and worthy of suspension, doesn't the paying public have a right to know that? And way more importantly, wouldn't the action provide more of a deterrance factor, which should after all be the point.
I could have saved my outrage, as Lynch and I are singing from the same hymnal:
Such sanctions are entirely within the remit of the Tour, and its members have gladly signed up for it. But if the executives in Ponte Vedra were appalled by Elkington’s widely publicized comment and believed his steady stream of ill-tempered Twitter rants were bringing the Tour into disrepute, wouldn’t a public rebuke have made more sense? It would have signaled that the Tour was prepared to act against inflammatory idiocy in its ranks.
But that’s not how the Tour conducts its disciplinary affairs, which is why l’affair Elk leaves an uncomfortable aftertaste.
Good on Eamon for biting the hand that sort of feeds him, which many golf writers seem loathe to risk. But Eamon and I are merely the set-up, for this truly disturbing bit of news from Luke Kerr-Dineen:
If Steve Elkington was keeping a low profile after his controversial Twitter feed got him in hot water earlier this year that appears as if it's going to change. The former PGA Championship winner is ready to resurface as he roles out a new gig: television host.
Elkington's show will air on the Nebraska-based network RFD-TV starting in July,according to Golf World, and will focus on golf courses across North America. The show will also feature instruction from Elkington, Mike Maves and Jackie Burke. Maves and Burke co-founded with Elkington the website SecretInTheDirt.com.
First, a tip of the hat for the great url. Wish I'd have thought to grab it. Secondly, it might be OK if they stay strictly on topic, though I've never heard of Elk being one of those guys like Geoff Ogilvy with an interest in course design.
Their mission sounds laudable, so we'll have to wish them well. But I do strongly recommend a 30-second delay, as Mr. Elkington does not come equipped with a filter as original equipment.
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