Tuesday Tastings

A very worthy woman was Mrs. Forman, and a great favorite. There was no fault to be found either with her whisky or her bottled beer and stout any more than with her bread and cheese, while the freshness of her eggs was the subject of universal encomium.

GEORGE LORIMER

We'll get to that story in a moment, but first back to our regularly scheduled programming....

Rio Loco, A Continuing Series - We'll start with this piece in The Financial Times, written by a gent named Jules Boycoff.  here's a snippet:

Nowhere has the transfer of public wealth into private hands been more brazen than in the construction of the Rio 2016 golf course. The Rio Olympics mark the return of golf to the Games after a 112-year hiatus. As was touted in Rio’s original Olympic bid, the metropolis already has two elite golf courses that have staged major tournaments. One of these could have been renovated to meet Olympic standards.

I think Shack actually does a bit of a disservice in focusing on the golf angle in this piece, though in his defense that first sentence in the excerpt above indicates the importance the author himself places on our little game.

Here's a non-golf excerpt to mull over:

The experiences of one community, however, tell a rather different story. Vila Autódromo, a small, working-class favela on the edge of the Olympic Park, has found itself in front of the Olympic steamroller. As Rio stretched westward in the 1990s, Mayor Paes, then a young deputy mayor of Barra da Tijuca, alleged the neighborhood was causing environmental and aesthetic damage, and required demolition. He has since led the charge to expel every last resident of Vila Autódromo. In June 2015, efforts by the police to forcibly evict residents even turned violent. 

Recently the psychological seesaw has verged on psychological warfare. Authorities have cut the favela’s water and electricity. Residents have experienced out-of-the-blue “lightning evictions” carried out by the Municipal Guard. Even the Polícia de Choque (Rio’s heavily armed and armoured shock troops) have played a part, intimidating locals and erecting a wall so obtrusive it would make Donald Trump proud. Meanwhile, on the other side of fence, Rio Mais, the construction consortium building the Olympic Park, cranks away.

The International Olympic Committee is little more than an international crime syndicate masquerading as a sports organization.  It may not challenge FIFA in the level of its corruption, but the key word there is "may".

If London or Sydney choose to host this organization, God Bless them....  I may not like the lack of democratic transparency in the way such decisions are made, but there are functioning municipalities that can meet their citizens basic needs.  But to take this monstrosity to Brazil, a country that can't even manage to treat human waste before it's dumped into the Atlantic Ocean, well, how do we think this is going to play out?

As for our game, it's such an obviously bad fit for this boondoggle that the powers that be should have run away from the opportunity.  Our sport is far too site dependent, requiring construction of a hyper-expensive facility over hundreds of acres for the award of two sets of individual medals?  And that doesn't even address the compromises in the competitive format that render the event about the equal of the Hero World Challenge.... Sheesh!  And we've not yet uttered the "Z" word....

But Fortress Ponte Vedra is on the case:

Olympic officials are taking precautions to prevent golfers and spectators from contracting the disease in Brazil, because the golf competition will take place near standing water hazards, common breeding sites for mosquitoes that transmit the virus. 

There are two manmade ponds on the course, with the larger one coming into play on the second, third and fifth holes, while the smaller is in play only on the 10th.

"We're having discussions about the precautionary steps we feel need to be taken in and around the golf competition, and making plans to implement them to the maximum degree," said Ty Votaw, vice president of the International Golf Federation. 

Votaw said special mosquito repellant might be distributed to fans, and officials plan to create movement in the ponds to eliminate standing water.

And by "special" he means what?  Avon's Skin So Soft?  ABC's news broadcast last night sent a reporter into one of Rio's slums with no running water... they store their potable water in barrels and there was standing water everywhere.  What could go wrong?

And then came this news:

A memo sent out by the PGA Tour Latinoamerica confirmed the Tour has pushed back two events (the Guatemala Open and the Honduras Open) farther into the spring, in an effort to take advantage of drier climates and combative medical measures to fight the spread of the virus.

This N.Y. Times report has much of interest in how the virus was isolated and in the efforts to control the mosquito population, but being that it's the N.Y. Times they couldn't resist copying-and-pasting this from their style book:

The virus now threatens the economies of fragile nations and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. It has opened a new front in the debate in heavily Roman Catholic countries about a woman’s right to birth control and abortion.

Yeah, it's all the fault of the evil Catholic Church.  Because I'm sure the Brazilian government will take care of these unfortunate souls affected by the virus....

Mrs. Foreman's Grill Room -  There's not any real movement on this story, though Shack does vent his spleen a bit:

The shock of potentially losing the historic Mrs. Forman's has taken a few days to wear

off, but the forces are aligning to preserve golf's most historic social gathering spot as a structure. But why stop there? Conversion to a residence when it hasn't been one for nearly 200 years seems shortsighted. 

After the last fight over Musselburgh Links, I've given up trying to understand the inability to grasp the lack of appreciation for Edinburgh historical sites like Musselburgh and Mrs. Forman's. Perhaps it's a matter of branding and marketing, or maybe this traces to the longtime rivalry between St. Andrews and Edinburgh. At this point, nothing should matter but protecting the game's most vital sites of importance. 

Enough people know how vital this area was to the shaping of the sport as we know it today. Therefore, preserving golf's first mid-round snack bar and a historic post-round "19th hole" should supersede any rivalries.

Lots of good links and pictures in Geoff's post, including his slideshow from his last visit to Musselburgh.  But this was my favorite bit from a Golf Club Atlas comments thread:

And finally, courtesy of building architect Mungo Park, relative of Musselburgh's legendary Park clan, here is where you can write to influence the future of "The Cradle of Golf."

Mungo Park lives!  That is so damn cool...Let me explain...

The original Mungo Park was a Scottish explorer of the late 1700's-early 1800's.  In golf history, Mungo Park (one of favorite names ever in the game) was the brother of Willie Park, Sr., winner of the first Open Championship.  Mungo played often with his brother in challenge matches with Old and Young Tom Morris.  In fact, it was during such a match that tragedy befell Young Tom:

On Saturday, 4 September 1875, Tommy and his father played against Musselburgh's Park brothers, Willie and Mungo (not the explorer of the same name) at North Berwick in a match that had been talked about for months. They began play at 11am: in St Andrews that afternoon, Margaret died while giving birth to a stillborn child.

That a current generation of the Park family should have named a child Mungo makes my day (I know, I need to get out more), though the poor guy has to go through life with the name Mungo....

Pelley Patter -  A few days back Rex Hoggard had this profile of new Euro Tour chief Keith Pelley.  I remain generally favorably disposed to the man, though of course there's some self-serving BS through which one needs to wade.  For instance, this:

Pelley explained to The Guardian last year his desire to challenge the status of the PGA Tour and the lucrative purses that set the standard in professional golf: “[The BMW PGA Championship] is €5 million [about $5.5 million]. The other event, in the U.S. that week, is $6.7 million,” he said. “That’s unacceptable. Wentworth needs to be $8 million - $10 million.” 

Closing that cash gap depends largely on Pelley’s ability to convince sponsors his product is comparable to that in the United States on a more regular basis.

And that event in the U.S. was Colonial, a rather minor Tour stop these days.  There's more that could be challenged, most notably his attempt to take on slow play.  Much as we wish him well on that, reality intrudes in that unless you're willing to penalize the players in strokes as opposed to meager sums of money, it's all about nothing...

But this I do like:

Pelley has also broken with the PGA Tour when it comes to player fines, which in the U.S. are strictly confidential with the exception of violations of the circuit’s policy regarding performance-enhancing drugs. 

“We have nothing to hide,” Pelley said. “It is not only a penalty from a monetary perspective, you won’t want to see, and your peers won’t want to see someone be fined. Nobody likes to be highlighted for slow play and I think this is a deterrent for that.”

What a concept...wish I'd thought of that.

Confidentially Cuckoo -  The Tour Confidential round-table has long been a regular read for your humble correspondent and in recent weeks I think its even upped its game as the writers are not just responding to a question in a vacuum, but rather are talking among themselves.  Good stuff, here's an example in response to a question about a potential Ryder Cup in Scottsdale:

Van Sickle: First off, the PGA of America's Ryder Cup is never going to be held on a TPC course, founded by the PGA Tour. And if it was, it should be Sawgrass, which would be a great match play track. Second, it would be way too scorchingly hot for a U.S. Open or PGA in June or August in Scottsdale. If you moved the PGA Championship to February one year, that might be interesting, but where would the WMPO go? So, no. 

Shipnuck: I hate it when you bring logic into these discussions, Vans. 

Morfit: Yes, that was way too cogent for Tour Confidential. Fifteen-yard penalty on Mr. Van Sickle.

Though strangely no one mentioned that that's pretty much why they're taking the RC to Bethpage...  It's Phoenix with a better climate.

But, get a load of this final question:

5. The spectacle that was Super Bowl 50 was yet another reminder of the immense popularity and marketability of the National Football League. What could PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem learn from his NFL counterpart Roger Goodell?

Really?  Where do you think the incoherent FedEx Cup came from?  Haven't we suffered enough?