Late-Week Laments

How's your fifth of four week going so far?

Day One - I watched about two hours of the coverage on a tape delay basis, of course missing the important stuff.  No doubt the course was as firm as we've seen it in recent years, making it fun to watch the guys plot their way around it:

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Canadian rookie Mackenzie Hughes played bogey-free in his debut at The Players Championship and shot 5-under 67 to share the 

Co-leader Mackenzie Hughes

lead with William McGirt after an opening round that showed anew that the TPC Sawgrass has surprises around every corner. 

No one knows better than Adam Scott, the 2004 champion who had a one-shot lead going into par-3 17th hole. 

First, he watched Masters champion Sergio Garcia salvage his poor round by making a hole-in-one at the infamous island green. Scott followed by spinning a shot off the bank and into the water for a double bogey, and he compounded that with another double bogey. 

"I played some good golf out there and unfortunately not on the last two," Scott said after settling for a 70. "It happens."

Given how calm it was, there did seem to be a lot of balls finding the agua.  I saw the opening part of Sergio's round, and he seemed like he was still enjoying his Magical Mystery Tour, and who can blame him for that?

This bit was soooo Phil:

Phil Mickelson didn't get in a practice round this week and still shot 70. Jordan Spieth opened with a 73, including a double bogey on the first hole (his 10th) when he became so frustrated by a poorly raked bunker that he took a picture of it.

OK, this seems like golfing malpractice.  There's one completely new hole, all the greens were re-grassed and many of the contours were softened, but you wouldn't want to get a look at that before you have a pencil in your pocket, wouldja?

 But is this header intended literally or figuratively?

Mini-tour survivor William McGirt won’t get “too big for my britches”

I'm gonna go with the latter...

As I've noted previously, McGirt is one of Employee No. 2's faves, along with Lumpy, Charley Hoffman and Shane Lowry.  Can anyone identify the common thread?  I'll give you a hint....  ShopRite won't be running a Twitter poll to get any of these guys into an event.

Video of Sergio's ace is here.

Lastly, playing the role of Grayson Murray at this morning's performance:

Jordan Spieth didn't like what he saw, so he decided to document it. 

Playing the par-4 1st hole — his 10th of the day — of the opening round of the Players Championship on Thursday, Spieth's approach shot found the green-side bunker. But he didn't like his lie, and he thought it was due to a sloppy rake job. He took out a phone and snapped a picture of it. Spieth blasted out to 46 feet away and three-putted for a double-bogey.

The most surprising thing is that we don't get more of this from the lads, as who among us wouldn't run a little hot under the collar.  But guess what, we've got another use for Shot Tracker:

According to the PGA Tour's Shot Tracker, only four players — David Lingmerth, Cody Gribble, Zac Blair and Jhonattan Vegas — were in the same (massive) bunker before Spieth was Thursday. And, according to Shot Tracker, Gribble and Blair were the closest to where Spieth was. Let the investigation begin!

 Did they dust the rake for prints?  I'm guessing this will cause an awkward moment or two, but more likely for Greller than Jordan himself.

Day Two - Jeff Ritter speaks to an analyst about the TaylorMade sale, and fills in some, but not close to all, of the background:

Some observers have said that the sale price of $425 million seemed low. Would you agree?

It’s an impossible statement to make unless you know the profitability, or unprofitability, of TaylorMade as it exists today. That’s just spit-balling. If you compare its valuation to Callaway or Acushnet, it’s much lower. But it’s hard to read between the lines without a balance sheet. We have nothing beyond Adidas’ aspiration to get this deal done.

He's correct as far as he goes, he just doesn't add a lot to what we know.  He seems curiously disinterested in how the deferred piece of the transaction is structured, which is one of the larger unknowns.

I can't find it now, but there was an item yesterday in which an analyst described it as a $200 million deal, with very little upside to the seller.  I can't represent that this guy knew of which he spoke, but given the time it took them to find a buyer it smells about right.

GOLF.com: What would a private equity firm like KPS typically look to do with a company like TaylorMade?

Alexander: That’s a good question. Since none of us on the outside have a peek at the books, we can’t be certain of what TaylorMade’s profitability is. It’s now doing less than a 1 billion a year in Euros, but it has all the infrastructure built for a larger enterprise. Winding down that infrastructure is extremely expensive. A private equity firm would look to cut expenses as fast as it can and bring that business to profitability. It’s a tough trick to grow your business while simultaneously shrinking infrastructure. That’s what the equity firm is trying to do. [ED NOTE: TaylorMade-adidas Golf’s net sales were 1.34 billion Euros in 2012; 1.28 billion Euros in 2013; 913 million Euros in 2014; 902 million Euros in 2015; and 892 million Euros in 2016.]

Notice a trend?  This is an awkward fit, as I'll try to explain.  The first question one would ask is whether that sales trend line represents a declining market or a loss of market share, but in this case it's probably a bit of both, not a great answer.

Now PE firms can do well with legacy businesses, though this one is going to challenge them.  The way they succeed with such business is to hack away at the cost structure, and thereby create strong cash flow...  especially since such businesses aren't typically highly price competitive.

But TaylorMade is dependent upon both a high level of R&D and unusually high selling expenses, in this case endorsement contracts.  In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a competing brand more dependent on their player contracts than TM....  I just can't see a lot of cash flow from this business or where it's created in the future.  

See what you think of this answer:

What kind of value do superstars like McIlroy and Woods add to an equipment company’s bottom line?

If you look at what [TaylorMade] is doing, it’s like they’re in a blackjack game and they’re doubling down, specifically with the contracts with Rory and Tiger. Those are expensive commitments. Those have to pay off, or you’re going to have significant operating problems going forward. 

If Tiger Woods gets his health back and becomes competitive, he’ll bring eyeballs to the television. If Rory starts winning, he’ll bring eyeballs. Golf is going through what I might call a “NASCAR-ization.” Tiger is playing TaylorMade clubs, wearing Nike clothes and using a Bridgestone ball. The whole industry is heading this direction. If Tiger wins, who gets the credit? If you look at Rory, the apparel deal is $200 million, the club deal is $100 million. I don’t think anybody knows if these deals are worth it, but it seems to me that when you start bifurcating it has to be less worth it. It certainly can’t be better!

Again, true enough, but look at that photo above and tell me how TaylorMade benefits when the guys are wearing swooshes?  Can Rory really add $10 million annually to TaylorMade's results?  Tiger's contract is presumed to be far more contingent, based upon the number of events he plays.  

There's little doubt that Rory's contract wouldn't have happened without the buyer's approval, let's see how they manage their player portfolio after the transaction closes....

Easy Blogging -  Shack does to AccuWeather that which I usually do to him...

As you know, he's not a fan of moving the PGA Championship to May, mostly for agronomic reasons.  But he generates a cheap post based upon the hypothetical, "What if we were playing the PG this week?"

Get where he's going with this?  And, of course, all things must be filtered through you-know-who?

I don't particularly need a SoCal boy to remind me of the lousy Spring we've had, how about you?

I'm in agreement, as it's more the agronomic concerns that are troubling.  But I'd be happy to have them move it in Olympic years.  If we have to go to Kiawah, far better to do it in May than August.

The "M-Word, A Continuing Series - A nothing kind of item, which I'll proceed to over-interpret:

Niall Horan’s golf jones has been pretty well documented (and disdained by teen girls, who would prefer the pop star spend more time in the studio and on stage), but here’s how he explains it. 

“I’m a bit of an anorak,” Horan said in an interview that appeared in the June issue of Irish Golfer Magazine. 

Presumably by anorak he did not mean a hooded waterproof jacket, but the British slang word that the Oxford Dictionaries defines as “a studious or obsessive person with unfashionable and largely solitary interests.” 

“I’m obsessed with it, to be honest,” Horan said. “I watch an awful lot of golf on the TV, too, and I love all the stats and when they break down the swings. I can tell you who’s top in greens in regulation, driving distance and stuff like that. I find it all very interesting. 

“I’ve got into it more over the past four or five years and appreciate it more. When I was on the road with One Direction it allowed me to escape the hotel for a few hours and relax. Harry [Styles] and I used to play a fair bit.”

OK, I know this guy isn't typical, having above-average disposable income and famous friends.  But the obsession with our game is very real, and Millennials are far from immune....

And that's exactly why my eyes involuntarily roll when I hear that we need to play music and make golf take less time to appeal to this generation.  They seem to be catching the same bug as you and I....  well, those that aren't living in their parents' basement.

A Pro's Pro - I'm sure this happens more than we realize:

A golfer attempting to play his way to the 117th U.S. Open shot a 55-over 127 at his local qualifier at Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Silver Lakes in Glencoe, Ala., on Wednesday. But what made the score particularly interesting was the fact that the player had signed up as a professional. A 1.4 handicap is required of amateurs, but you can also sign up as a pro, which is what Clifton McDonald of Meridian, Miss., did. He shot 68 on the front nine and finished with a 127. 

Former Georgia player Lee McCoy, who qualified for the 2015 Open, played in the same local qualifier. He posted a tweet with McDonald's scorecard, which set off a social media storm. (McCoy advanced to the sectional qualifier.)

Hey, looks like he found something at the turn, and took nine strokes off his back nine score.  I'm going with swing juice....

Here's McCoy's tweet:

I'm pleasantly surprised that McCoy qualified for sectionals, as that can't have been a quick round of golf.

Golf Is A Carrier - A touching though difficult story heads Golf.com's homepage this morning, about Landon Michelson.  You're not likely to know the name, but he had fifteen minutes of fame:

Forgive the long excerpts, but here's the background:

Michelson's story is a reminder of the democratic beauty of the U.S. Open's qualifying format, and of the fact that competitive golf's greatest drama often resides far away from

the action on the big Tour. Landon, a 22-year-old Rice graduate, had just battled his way to a berth in the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, one of the few survivors from the 10,127 applicants who started the grueling test. 

Or so he thought. 

"I did a few interviews, and then as I walked back over to join my caddie, Chris, someone looking at the scoreboard on their phone, turned to me and said, "You shot 70? Great round!" 

"Chris looked at him. And looked at me. And looked at the phone. And then we looked at each other and looked at the phone again and together had this sudden realization: holy s---." 

Michelson hadn't shot 70. In fact, he'd shot 71, matching his 71 from the morning round. But one of his playing partners had written "4" instead of "5" for Michelson's score on the 11th hole, and Landon, who'd abandoned his own scorekeeping out of superstition and nerves, hadn't paid close enough attention to correct him.

WWJD?  Never mind, what would you or I do?  Please Lord, never test me in this manner....

The young man passed this test with flying colors, though wasn't prepared for what followed.  

Please read of his struggles and retain the name in the hope that we can root for his success in the future.  In the midst of our recent rules fiascoes, I'll simply remind that the player's responsibility for his own scorecard is what separates us from the animals....  and, while there are innocent victims at times, we need to preserve that aspect of our game.