Sunday Morning Coming Down

Some rare Sunday morning blogging for y'all, as today is the new joint's annual meeting.  We have an odd mixture of items for your consideration, but none of any great significance.

All Things Beef - Coming soon to a golf course near you is Andrew Johnston, d/ba/a Beef.  He's landed himself an actual PGA Tour card through his play in the Web.com Finals, and was among the 36-hole leaders at the British Masters (though a Saturday 73 didn't help his cause).

Alex Myers finds Beef to be the preeminent practitioner of the "Putter Raise" today:

Check out the video if you're so inclined, though I thought it kind of dragged....  But we're very much into the slow season, so perhaps my standards need to adjusted accordingly.

More to my liking is this video of Beef answering questions while riding a mechanical bull.  Because....of course:

His balance looks as bad as mine....

And 'tis the season, so did you ever see Rickie Fowler's old Halloween costume:

I always thought that the funniest part was that he needed the name tag... such is the prominence of our sport.  On that note, I'm guessing that all will know what this costume is:

His parents must be so proud....

Venue Variations - A couple of loosely-related items from the last week provide an interesting juxtaposition, at least in the fever swamps of your humble correspondent's mind.  

The USGA spent most of last summer shooting itself in the foot....  If it wasn't poorly administering ill-drafted rules of the game, it's President was demonstrating the perils of combining an open bar with an open microphone.  Bethany Lang was, unfortunately, unavailable for comment....

Shack picks up on another self-inflicted wound, the award of next summer's U.S. Women's Open to....  Yup, Trump Bedminster.  I'm guessing that by next summer this will be old news, but Christine Brennan makes an impassioned case in U.S.A. Today:

As it works diligently to recover from decades of discrimination against women in its

game, it faces the dreadful reality of holding the world’s most important women’s golf championship, the U.S. Women’s Open, at a course owned by Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, who bragged in a 2005 video tape that he can sexually assault women.

It must be moved. A Trump golf course, no matter how beautiful and centrally located it might be, cannot play host to an event that is the crown jewel of a women’s sport, with competitors from around the world — not after all the awful things Trump has said about minorities, immigrants and women, culminating in the lewd and disgusting video that was made public last Friday.

It doesn’t matter that the U.S. Women’s Open is only nine months away. It doesn’t matter how much planning has already gone into the event. It doesn’t matter how many tickets and sponsorships have been sold and would need to be refunded.

Well, it doesn't matter to HER.... In a perfect world, I'd prefer that our governing bodies stay blissfully ignorant of politics and public comments by the owners of golf courses on which they play.  But 2016 is, you might have noticed, unfolding a manner somewhat less than ideal, and the events of the last week have have, as the kids are wont to say, jumped the shark.

This local guy seconds the motion, though is astute enough to hit on the highest probability outcome:

A selfie with Santa Clause, priceless.

The USGA likely will fall back on logistics now, that moving a major golf tournament is impossible just nine months before it is scheduled to begin on July 13. Without question, it won't be easy. There is a reason, after all, the sites of these major events are chosen so far in advance.

Still: It must find a way. New Jersey is home to several championship-level courses with a history hosting big events. Hamilton Farm is eight miles away from Trump National and has hosted LPGA events before. Canoe Brook, Ridgewood, Plainfield — all great courses, all tournament tested.

The women's Open is unfortunately a loser (financially speaking), and are typically awarded with a wink and a nod that a big-boy Open will follow. which is how they ended up at Casa Trump in the first place.  Moving it will be no easy task at this point, though given the assumed depth of the media's and Hillary campaign's (but I repeat myself) Trump Oppo-Research binder, pressure may only mount in the next three weeks.

But strangely enough, guess who doesn't want to move the event?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Golfweek interviewed a dozen players at the LPGA KEB HanaBank Championship in South Korea, however, and found that’s not the overall sentiment of the tour. 

In fact, it’s not even a locker room topic. 

Only one player interviewed was adamant that the championship be moved. Most felt politics shouldn’t impact what course they play. 

“I say keep it there,” said 2016 Women’s Open champion Brittany Lang. “I don’t think it’s related.” 

Cristie Kerr, the 2007 USWO champion and a friend of Trump’s, feels the Republican presidential nominee should be forgiven. 

“Nobody treats the LPGA better than Donald,” Kerr said.

I have it on authority that we're always supposed to believe the women.....

But sometimes one does have to move or cancel an event, such as for this reason:

“The future of next month's Turkish Airlines Open golf tournament was called into question after rocket attacks in the tourist region of Antalya on Friday… 

“Although the attacks took place some 90 kilometres from Belek, the venue for the European Tour golf tournament, they prompted officials to contact organisers and security consultants to see if they should still go ahead with the November 3-6 event. 

“‘As a matter of priority, we are currently investigating today's incident in the Antalya region with our security consultants and local authorities,’ said a European Tour spokesperson on the sidelines of the ongoing British Masters event at The Grove course near Watford, north of London. ‘We will update further as soon as possible.’”

So, bomb and gouge is just a figure of speech.... 

Se Ri Sayonara - I know she's not Japanese, but we do love those alliterative headers....

The ladies are off playing in South Korea and I know you've been up all night watching live scoring updates....  The lady that started it all, Se Ri Pak, has formally retired and the "Se Ri's Kids" gave her quite the send-off:

One by one they stepped onto the red podium. Wearing black baseball caps emblazoned with “SE RI,” LPGA players offered bouquets of flowers and warm tears for the woman who changed the face of golf. The receiving line, filled with competitors from around the world, even retired ones like Grace Park, stretched down the 18th fairway. 

Generations of Se Ri Pak fans filled the grandstands as moving tributes played on the big screen and the angelic sound of a children’s choir filled the air. 

It was a farewell fit for a queen. 

“I must be the only athlete ever to be sent off with such a moving and beautiful retirement ceremony,” Pak said.

There are precious few athletes that can be said to have changed their game as fundamentally as this lady did, to wit:

There are 34 South Korean players competing full time on the LPGA this season, and among those, 27 have secured an LPGA win. Pak’s historic victory at the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open not only inspired South Koreans to pick up the game, but to slay it. 

“In America, you would say it’s Tiger Woods,” said major winner Hyo Joo Kim. “In Korea, it’s Se Ri Pak.”

It certainly was.... and while I'm not a huge fan of the selfie, even I liked this one (I hope it's a wide-angle lens):

Just think about how difficult it must have been for her to come to the States in the late 1990's...

This LPGA tribute is a bit high fructose, but worth a look in any case:

A Shark Sighting - One of our favorite pinatas has mercifully gone to ground since his ignominious firing by Fox earlier in the year.  But it's a fallow period in our world, so we're grateful for any tip-ins he cares to provide.

First comes news of a stunning "Redirection" of his vast business assets, complete with some first-rate MBA-mumbo-jumbo:

But now Norman is 61. Save for an improbable run at the 2008 British Open, where he finished third, he hasn't been a competitive player in more than a decade. If Great White

Shark Enterprises, with divisions for clothing, wine, and golf course design, depended on Norman's name recognition as a golfer, he knew it would have only a limited shelf life. 

"If I didn't redirect, it was going to die on the vine," Norman said by phone on Tuesday. 

Hence the announcement earlier this month that Norman would be re-branding and transforming his business in 2017. Say goodbye to Great White Shark Enterprises, say hello to the Greg Norman Company.

Well, we all understand that if a shark doesn't keep moving forward redirecting, it dies.... So, do I have this right, we're going to protect the business from its over-reliance on Norman's name recognition as a golfer by renaming it...err....after Greg Norman?  

But wait, there's more.... See what you think of this:

Norman's repositioning of his company from a mostly consumer-facing brand to one that will expand to business-to-business services was an idea that began some 18 months ago, and has involved everything from the influx of new personnel, to a new partnership with Verizon that will revolve around educational technology. But at its core is Norman's desire to transcend the limited world of sports, and an acknowledgment that he, too, won't be around forever.

Nothing says education technology to me like Greg Norman.  As for that last tease, please tell me it isn't so.... and a hat-tip to Shack for doing the work that Americans won't do, in this case following The Shark on Instagram:

Am I just hyper-critical, or does 851 seem to be an unusually precise count?  I'm guessing that that new influx of personnel was to put to work counting palm fronds.

For those new to the blog, this was his wife's sixtieth birthday present:

A match made in heaven for sure...

A Really Bad Case... - Lawyers will tell you that bad cases make bad law, so you'll see that Max Adler isn't going anywhere helpful with this:

Is thinking you’re going to play bad an acceptable reason for withdrawing from an athletic competition? Though Tiger Woods has ceased to be a role model in life, he’s still very much one in sport, and so the likely future Ryder Cup captain’s turnabout at the Safeway Open three days after signing up warrants this specific ethical scrutiny.

 And talk about imputing pure motives to Tiger:

But maybe professionals are exempt from this common standard precisely because

livelihoods are involved. If Tiger Woods suspects he is incapable of “competing against the best players in the world,” it would be wrong of him to deny this opportunity to another professional (in this case, first-alternate Max Homa, whose career could be very much impacted by one hot week). Nevermind Tiger’s supposed obligation to his sponsors to compete when healthy. For the moment, disregard the posters bearing his image used to promote the event. Forget the thousands of disappointed ticketholders whose purchase-decision and travel plans were made primarily (solely?) in hope of seeing Big Cat return. On a purely sporting level, is it OK to cancel?

Yeah, I'm having just the slightest difficulty picturing our Tiger staying up nights worry about Max Homa's playing opportunities. Homa was a collateral beneficiary, but what Tiger did to the event sponsors and patrons was inexcusable.

This is a worthy subject given the scarce commodity that playing slots have become on Tour, but it's more appropriately discussed in the context of sponsors' exemptions to the likes of John Daly and Mike Weir.