Midweek Musings

And what a strange midweek it is, as only the Almighty can keep our Commissioner Ratched from holding an event.

With devastating floods in West Virginia causing the cancellation of the PGA Tour’s 2016 Greenbrier Classic, the golf world will shift its focus to the U.S. Women’s Open and Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open. 

Faced with six hours of lost time, CBS will show two recent Greenbrier’s while Golf Channel will also dig into the archives for “classic” Greenbrier coverage.

Even a C.B. Macdonald fanboy such as your humble blogger can resist "classic" Greenbrier coverage....  Yanno, unless they pull out those Big Break episodes with our old buddy A.C.  So, what should you watch?

The Ladies? - Fate can be a cruel mistress, but it's given the ladies a surprisingly clear stage for the week.  Here's the skinny from Geoff on the expansive coverage:

The U.S. Women’s Open is once again played the week before The Open, with Fox Sports 1 carrying ten hours of early round coverage, before moving to Fox for the weekend’s eight hours. Thursday and Friday coverage will be helmved by Shane O’Donoghue with analysts Juli Inkster and Brad Faxon, who turn the anchor chair over to Joe Buck, Inkster and Paul Azinger on the weekend. 

Rounding out the team are Faxon, Scott McCarron, Steve Flesch, Holly Sonders, and if someone’s ball moves on a green, David Fay will provide rules analysis.

If one thought that Joe Buck's announcing voice was ill-suited to cover DJ and JD, how will it mesh with Lydia and Brooke?   The question answers itself.... But it's an interesting choice of venue by the USGA:

The Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed Cordevalle, now a Rosewood property, is set at the base of oak-dotted hills and offers no shortage of risk-reward holes. Also count on hearing about the endurance test of walking the hilly back nine layout in San Martin’s summer heat.

And there is that Lydia-Brooke-Lexi pairing to follow....

Randall Mell must be a fan of this blog, because he plays a drum on which I've been beating repeatedly, though he actually takes the time to include data:

Thompson leads the LPGA in driving distance at 284.2 yards per drive. Henderson is 12th, averaging 268.1 yards per drive. While Ko is just 117th in driving distance at 248.4 yards per drive, she leads the tour in money winnings ($1,816,738), scoring (69.08), rounds in the 60s (30) and putts per greens in regulation.

That is so hard to do on a regular basis, and serves as a testament to how extraordinary the rest of her game is.... 

Ron Sirak gives his take on the enigma that is Michelle Wie:

But she is now winless in 50 LPGA starts since Pinehurst with 14 missed cuts and five

WDs. One explanation for Wie’s inconsistency can be found in her health, where she’s had extremely bad luck. She’s had problems with her wrist, her back, her hips and her ankles. She also has multiple food allergies, which has complicated matters. 

“It’s been a struggle this year,” Wie said. “But I still have half a year left and I’m just trying to get some confidence. I feel pretty good at the moment. I’m happy to come in here pain free.” 

Wie remains a huge fan-favorite and is probably the woman who has moved the needle the most for women’s golf since Nancy Lopez almost 40 years ago. A winning Wie is good for golf.

That last bit certainly was true, though I think a high level of Michelle fatigue has set in.  her win at Pinehurst was certainly popular, but she is quite the delicate flower....

The Scottish Highlands -  The Scottish Open returns to Castle Stuart, the Inverness links built by Gil Hanse with developer Mark Parsinen.  The latter had previously developed Kingsbarns just outside St. Andrews, and more famously played Cypress Point with yours truly back in the 1980's.... Strangely, I've never received a single Christmas card from the guy...

It seems hard to remember, but the Scottish Open was played for years at Loch Lomond, a perfectly delightful Tom Weiskopf parkland course....the key word being parkland, when Scotland, as you might have heard, is known for its links.  Oh, and the following week they play this little event called The Open Championship on a links....

Employee No. 2 and I played Castle Stuart for the first time last August, and the account of that spectacular day along with many photos can be found here.  It's quite the spectacular piece of land, not just that it's perched atop the Moray Firth, but it's naturally tiered to allow all holes to have water views.... Geoff posted this video that gives one a sense of the natural beauty:

For the record, as spectacular as the bluebird days was, no doubt the highlight was and remains Elsie's banoffee pie....Just sayin'!

Shack had this on the field and coverage:

The Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open picked up Patrick Reed, J.B. Holmes and Steve Stricker after the Greenbrier cancellation, who join Henrik Stenson, Phil Mickelson, Branden Grace, Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Matthew Fitzpatrick to headline the final preparation prior to The Open at Troon. 

Once again, Golf Channel and NBC split the telecast, with expanded network coverage this year that will see NBC showing more weekend hours of golf from Castle Stuart Golf Links on top of eight-hour windows Thursday and Friday.

It's simply the perfect venue for this event.  As much as it make sense for the players to acclimate to the demands of links golf, there is a risk.  If the weather turns nasty (which, of course, it almost never does in Scotland), it can beat the players up before the Open.  Castle Stuart, with its extremely wide playing corridors and large greens, should remain playable in all but the harshest conditions.

Set your DVR for this linksy goodness....you can thank me later.

One last item as relates to their ProAm......

Equations, rather than numbers, on pin flags? We can think of a few players (and golf writers) who would play to the wrong green were they to have no other direction. But we digress. 

The Scottish Open will be using these during its pro-am on Wednesday, as a way of promoting the learning of maths, as the Brits refer to mathematics:

As they say, maths is hard....are hard?  So, apparently, is grammar.

Today In Olympic WD's - Forget Zika and threats of civil unrest, today's installment in this recurring series is Finchian:

“The reason for my decision is not my concern about the Zika virus. It is truly a business decision,” de Jonge said in a statement to GolfChannel.com. “It would have been a great honor to play for my country.”

“I am truly disappointed, but my current position on the FedEx Cup points list does not allow me the luxury to skip the John Deere Classic or the Travelers Championship,” de Jonge said. “I must finish in the top 125 to gain entry into our FedEx Cup Playoffs. This has to be a priority for me and my family.”

Got that?  The men's Olympic competition is on August 11th-14th, the same dates as the John Deere.  Olympic golf we're told is critical to the future of the game, but Timmy won't give up his DeMoine tour stop.... Shack goes into rant mode on the schedule here, though a brolley might be a wise precaution....

Christine Brennan tackles the issue of whether golf belongs in the Olympics here:

Have you heard any swimmers say they aren’t going to Rio because of Zika? Soccer players? Rowers? 

Of course not. 

The reason is simple: for them, and the vast majority of athletes who will qualify for August’s Rio Games, an Olympic gold medal is the end all and be all in their sport. There is nothing greater for a runner or gymnast or fencer than reaching the Games after putting in four years (or more) of excruciating effort, clinging to a lifelong dream of perhaps winning a medal, maybe even gold.

My rule of thumb has always been that if the Olympics will not be the highest achievement in that sport, there needs to be a damn good reason for including it....  for instance, The Dream Team was one such reason.  But see how this hits you:

It’s an excuse that is helping to expose the tremendous mistake the International Olympic Committee made seven years ago by bringing back golf to the Olympics, allowing a sport already overflowing with international events to take a precious Olympic berth that originally had belonged to softball. 

Remember softball? What its leaders and athletes wouldn’t give to be preparing for the Rio Olympics right now. Eight nations fielding teams of athletes, all of them women, all of them of child-bearing age, just like Day and McIlroy. Do you think they would be complaining about Zika? Or security or crime, other issues that are hinted at by the pro golfers?

Softball?  Really?  I expected her to tell us that she has binders full of women of child-bearing age....

She's not wrong, it's just that the crime syndicate masquerading as the IOC gets the benefit of low expectations....  I blame the brain-dead leaders of our sport for not having the the foresight to understand that having golf in the Olympics is only a positive if it puts on a good show.  Instead, they've arranged that we'll confirm to a world of non-golfers that our game has the entertainment value of watching paint dry....

Try to console yourselves, but Andy Sullivan is also opting out:

NUNEATON golfer Andy Sullivan has added his name to the ever-growing list of golfers unwilling to participate in the Rio Olympics. 

Sullivan, who is the world number 40, has admitted he will not be heading over to South America this summer – even if he qualifies for the event – saying health – as well other targets – come first.

And he certainly has his reasons:

"You have to look at where it is being held, there is a dangerous virus going round, plus the security is said to be not water tight, they are all reasons why I just cannot go. It is a dangerous place to go and when you run the rule over the risk, it is not one I will be taking." 

Sullivan is not the only golfer declaring himself unavailable if selected for the Olympics this summer.

A couple of quick reactions....to that first comment, shouldn't it be "raw sewage tight"?  We kid because we love.... 

As for that last bit, he's far from the first to decline, though to my knowledge he's the first to decline who was never at risk of, you know, being invited....

Everything Old Is New Again - Picture the USGA, flush with cash from a controversial new TV contract, making decisions that leave it's core audience baffled as to their actions....

I know, but the subject at hand is 2007 and the controversial subject is Walter Driver's stewardship of the organization, and our tour guide is of course Shackelford:

Proponents of Driver say he has single-handedly shaken the USGA out of a slumber

induced by the influx of cash the USGA fell into when it reconfigured its television rights contracts in 1994. They say he has tried to inject into a bloated USGA some badly needed business principles (the title of Driver's speech at the USGA's annual meeting in San Francisco last February was "The USGA As An Organization And A Business"). Detractors, many of whom see the USGA as a charitable organization first, say Driver has imposed his will on its culture and that his administration has disenfranchised everyone from Golf House staffers (those who work at USGA headquarters in Far Hills, N.J.) to equipment manufacturers to the organization's once-revered past presidents.

"I would say his effort to instill a new level of business-like procedure at the USGA has been important," says Reg Murphy, USGA president in 1994-95 and the man who authored the association's lucrative TV move from long-time partner ABC to NBC in 1994. "He's tried to create a more business-like organization. There are people who resist that idea, by the way, that the USGA ought to operate like a business."

No punches pulled with that title, eh?  Here's how Geoff frames the issue:

Still, we would like to better understand the culture that focuses so much effort on the high-risk business of running up Stimpmeter speeds or adding tees to U.S. Open courses or policing innocent pro golfers, better known as: ABTB (Anything But The Ball). 

So I was advised to go back and read Chris Millard's 2007 Golf World cover story onUSGA President Walter Driver,. Ironically, the story preceded the U.S. Open at Oakmont. The story resonates on many levels, from understanding the USGA's focus to how much behind the scenes debate occurs. 

Sadly, we know Driver has continued to influence the organization via the nominating committee, with his crowning achievement the naming of pal Diana Murphy as president to continue the corporate prioritization of the USGA's approach.

I'm guessing that Diana and Walter were drinking buddies?

It's amusing that Geoff was advised to exhume this article, since he's quoted in it several times....  While I'm a little hesitant to tie it to the rules fiasco at Oakmont, it's a great read for those interested in how we got where we are on equipment and the ball, including the Battles of COR and ODS.