Friday Fun

I'll explain yesterday's absence and more....just freshen your coffee and buckle in.

The Maggotal Mystery Tour - The artist formerly known as Maggot and the Bride Thereof are decamping to the Left Bank next week, and the farewell tour is under way.  We scheduled a final fourball with them for yesterday morning, and a spirited match it was...

Herself was quite misty-eyed on the eve of this event, noting that she'd be playing for the last time ever (Ever?  Surely not I think) with her good friend Jo, and the heartache of that sentiment was not the slightest bit diminished when she added, "Let's make some money."

When I returned from the range I found that my bag had been removed from Herself's cart and put on Mags', not a problem as he was safely in my top three choices of those with whom I wanted to ride.  But it seems that the ladies wanted a piece of us, and we were happy to oblige to the tune of $1,000 per hole.

There was, I'm saddened to relate, an incident on the first green the details of which I shan't share.   But suffice it to say that the bride, whose adherence to the spirit of the game is typically beyond reproach, failed to live up to the exalted standards she's set for herself.  Payback is a bitch, especially when served at room temperature...

The ladies were en fuego at the outset, both shooting gross 41's on the front side.  Mags and I did well to stay with them in the early going, but BoM's unlikely par on the eighth gave them a one-up lead at the turn.  When you're humble correspondent three-jacked on No. 10 it looked particularly dire for the good guys, but I managed to channel the anger and found some game, and Mags picked me up as needed.  

The Karmic Konvergence occurred on the fifteenth green when after declining the proffered "good-good", our heroine proceeded to run her four-footer three feet by, and after a melodramatic hang-dog look...well, you can fill in the rest.

Final Result:  Maggot/Simpson d. Bride of Maggot/Employee No. 2 3&2.

Bride of Maggot announced her intention to write a check from their joint account for the $2,000 she lost to her husband, with the understanding that he would deposit it into....their joint account.  I await an announcement of intentions regarding payment from Madam.

Given that our 11th hole plays as a Par-5 for the lasses, we got into our usual argument about the number and allocation of strokes, the vehemence of which intensified as the match turned against the ladies.  After completing play I asked two of our professionals to prepare a card for a match between the bride and myself, and that card has its own curiosities.  I'll revisit this issue, but not at this moment as there's too much other news to deal with and I need to address some follow-up questions on the subject.

Today's Trumpalooza - Who needs Ted Bishop when we have Donald Trump?  The gift that keeps giving...

Let's get the easy one out of the way first... when last we visited our hero, the PGA of America had pulled the prestigious PGA Grand Slam of Golf from Trump's LA venue because....well, because the Donald said something controversial and we can't have people havng their own opinions, can we?  Where would that lead?

Now they've also given Trump a PGA Championship for his Bedminster, NJ club, so we're left to conclude that his remarks are outrageous enough to pull a minor event about which no one cares but not so bad that we pull the event that people actually will watch...It's just in that sweet spot...But I digress...Now comes this news:

Due to the timing and logistics needed to stage the PGA Grand Slam of Golf to the

highest standards, we are disappointed that we will not be able to conduct the event this year. This was a memorable year for major championship golf and the PGA of America congratulates Jordan Spieth, Zach Johnson and Jason Day on their impressive wins. We look forward to conducting the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in 2016.

OK, I can well imagine the intense logistical requirements for that 4-player field.  It wouldn't have anything to do with Jordan Spieth or Justin Day having reservations about participating, would it?

Even in the context of silly season events, this one has become quite marginalized... Back when they got Tiger and Phil to play at breathtaking Poipu Bay and it was televised in prime time, they had something going.  But the last decade has been more about Paddy Harrington filling in for Major-winners in Bermuda televised on a weekday afternoon, so good luck in 2016 guys.

That took longer than expected, but the juicier Trump item (but I repeat myself) is this WaPo item on whether Le Donald cheats at golf... I know, if you've seen the swing the question answers itself...

And don't be put off by the placement of this article in the Style Section, this is important stuff about the man who will soon have control of the nuclear keys...or not.  They come up with three guys who have played with the Trumpmeister, former Sports Illustrated editor Mark Mulvoy, Alice Cooper and scribe Rick Reilly, three guys never before found in the same sentence I'd assume.  Anyway, here's Count 1 of the indictment:

One morning in the mid-1990s, Mark Mulvoy was on the sixth hole of Long Island’s

Garden City Golf Club with Donald Trump when the skies opened, and they ducked for cover under a nearby awning. The rain let up a few moments later, and Mulvoy, then the managing editor of Sports Illustrated, returned to the green. When he got there, he found a ball 10 feet from the pin that he didn’t remember seeing before the storm. 

“Who the hell’s ball is this?” he said. 

“That’s me,” the real estate mogul said, according to Mulvoy. 

“Donald, give me a f------ break,” Mulvoy recalls telling him. “You’ve been hacking away in the g------ weeds all day. You do not lie there.” 

“Ahh, the guys I play with cheat all the time,” he recalls Trump replying. “I have to cheat just to keep up with them.” 

It’s a story that the current GOP front-runner hotly denies. “I don’t even know who he is,” Trump said when asked about Mulvoy’s account.“I don’t drop balls, I don’t move balls. I don’t need to.”

That's the ticket...deny the accuser's existence.  But it's the once-great, long living oh his rep Reilly that provokes the best back-and forth in the item...Rick goes first:

As for Trump? “When it comes to cheating, he’s an 11 on a scale of one to 10,” Reilly

said.

Reilly told The Washington Post about an afternoon when Trump wrote down scores he didn’t actually achieve on his scorecard, conceded putts to himself by raking the ball into the hole with his putter rather than striking it properly (“He rakes like my gardener!”), and even called a gimme — something a player might claim for a two-foot putt — on what should have been a chip shot. 

“He took the world’s first gimme chip-in,” Reilly said. At one point, Trump, after taking a number of second shots, told Reilly to “make sure you write that I play my first ball. You don’t get a second ball in life.” In life it may or may not be true that a person gets a second chance; and yet, as Reilly wrote, on holes 1, 13 and 17, Trump did indeed get a second ball.

Now The Donald's reaction is priceless, I'll paraphrase it as. "He's a bad writer, I killed him, it's not cheating if I asked him and did I mention that I never take a second ball?"  But the thing is why dispute it when the victim has this to say?

But Reilly noted something else about playing with Trump that is echoed by others who have played with him: He had an amazing time. Trump played with confidence and bravado, he tipped the caddies, he gave great pointers that helped his comrades with problem swings. So what if he cheats? The guy is a lot of fun! 

“It’s his limo ride, his golf course. The guy paid for lunch — what are you going to do?” Reilly said. “He’s exhausting, but I want to be clear: I really liked him. It was just like being in a crazy carnival for a day. Though I’m not sure it would be so much fun when it starts to count.”

The man is so over-the-top that he's earned immunity from many real-world sins.  Does Trump cheat at golf?  Of course he does, because he can...

And just because this happened to pop up in my other reading, on the subject of cheating in golf do give yourself the pleasure of reading this Byron York masterpiece of the genre Bill's Bad Lie , about the testy relationship between William Jefferson Clinton and....errr...the truth.

Rules Are For the Little Guys - I could use that header every day, couldn't I?  We've ignored the changing of the guard at the Euro Tour, as someone named Keith Pelley has taken over for George O'Grady.  I know, the Euro Tour is in its seven lean years, which unfortunately doesn't keep them from beating us senseless in the Ryder Cup...

So Mr. Pelley has a problem, in that a certain golfer from Northern Ireland has not played the requisite number of events to qualify for their Race to Dubai... No problem , it would seem, as there are sufficient events remaining on the calendar.....not so fast, bud, because these events are below Rory's station in life.  But Dr. Pelley is on the case:

“These are exceptional circumstances and I have taken this situation and the resulting decision very seriously,” Pelley said in a European statement. “I have spent the last two weeks examining every angle and every possible solution, and I have spoken with Rory and his team, as well as independent medical advisers and some prominent players. 

“After reviewing and discussing all the medical reports and recommendations from orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Andrew Adair, physiotherapist Dr. Steve McGregor and our Chief of Medical staff Dr. Roger Hawkes – while at the same time recognising that Rory is a world golfer with global commitments – I am convinced that he could not commit to any further tournament participation without risking further injury and persistent weakness to the ankle in the future. 

“Therefore, after lengthy discussions, I have given him approval to play a minimum of 12 European Tour events this year.”

Wow, it's like Solomon or something...this medical analysis was also provided:

Dr. Roger Hawkes said: “From the evidence presented to me, in my view this is a

potentially serious and significant injury. There is a risk of permanent instability of the ankle which could seriously affect both his golf swing - you need stability in the left ankle during the follow through – and for walking safely on uneven surfaces.

“Although he played again after a few weeks, he will need close attention for about a year. The suggestion of a reduced schedule and, wherever possible, avoiding back-to-back events is, in my opinion, sensible and important to allow adequate healing and reduce the chance of the complications mentioned which could clearly jeopardize his career.”

You mean he won't be playing the last three weeks of the FedEx Cup?  Of course he will..../for $10 million large, the ankle is quite robust... Shack's got a first-class rant at that link above, including links to Golf Channel video of Rors running the dunes at Whistling Straits... But the important thing is that we've exposed Trump as a cheater.  

Where's Feherty? - Day 2 of the story unsurprisingly turns on where he'll land, Martin Kaufmann shares some quotes that perhaps help fill in the why's of the story:

Feherty has made no secret that he had grown bored of his chores with CBS. In a 2014 interview with Golfweek, he said he was more interested in his “Feherty” interview show on Golf Channel. 

“It’s what I wanted is to be able to make my own television and have something that is a little more intellectually stimulating than walking around behind the leaders and making the occasional pithy comment,” Feherty said last year. “It was becoming a problem for me, only having that (CBS job) to do. I felt like I was going nowhere. It’s not that I didn’t like my job; it’s just that I felt like I had more to offer. I want to maintain a footprint in golf, but I want to be with other people to do other things that interest me.”

Kaufmann smells a Fox in Feherty's future:

“He’s such a natural fit at Fox, and they need the legitimacy so bad,” said the TV executive. 

Temperamentally, Feherty would seem to be a better fit with Fox, which is more open to risk-taking and a cheekier tone from its announcers. Fox also has a lighter tournament schedule than those at CBS and NBC. And Fox has been known to spend freely on talent, while NBC recently has been cutting costs.

I still think NBC makes far more sense, though Kaufmann thinks that he's not a fit with NBC producer Tommy Roy.  Though his logic there is that the crew is well-established, though to me they have an age problem as bad as CBS... 

Cam Morfitt comes up with this quote from running-mate Gary McCord:

CBS issued no press release on the matter and Feherty seemed to go into hiding. Initially even Gary McCord couldn’t reach him. Asked for comment, McCord texted me, “I can’t offer anything because I don’t know anything. Can’t find David. I’m hoping it was an alien abduction. That I can understand!”

Though I found this the more interesting bit from Cam's piece:

With Feherty temporarily in no-man’s land, his weekends suddenly free after two decades of roaming the fairways and cracking wise, the reaction on social media was swift and passionate. One tweet called CBS’s decision to let him go quite possibly “the dumbest move in the history of network TV.” That’s saying a lot, considering ABC once passed on CSI.

I'll just remind you of my note from Wednesday that perhaps the marriage between CBS and Feherty might not be quite irreconcilable... To the extent that he's still going to be a golf announcer, doesn't CBS with its two majors (including that highly-rated April event where he doesn't have to shout over McCord), make the most sense?

In the immortal words of Rodney King, can't we all just get along?

Note To Readers - We have a family wedding this weekend, with all sorts of ancillary events requiring your humble blogger's attendance.  In addition, I will shortly be taking possession of my father for the duration, so blogging will be light to nonexistent through the holiday weekend.