I count fourteen open browser windows.... with tomorrow a travel day to open Unplayable Lies Western HQ, let's have at it.
Tiger Scat - First it was Rickie...then Brad Faron Faxon. Now add Patrick Reed, who played a practice round with the Big Cat:
“He had pep in his step. He was in high spirits. I was shocked how fluid his swing was and how far the ball was going. He had some speed behind it. He’s always been a little longer than me, but some of those drives today, he got it out there. He was hitting the stinger here and there, hitting bunker shots, hitting balls out of the rough … there just wasn’t any hesitation in his body to hit those shots. That’s key. If he stays healthy, we’ll see Tiger again.”
Hmmmm...if I were Tiger, I'd be trying to dampen expectations. Reed also had this:
“It will take time for him to get back to his normal ways,” Reed said. “A year ago he seemed like he came back a little early. This time I think he gave himself a little bit more
Is synchronized chipping now an Olympic sport? time and built himself up more. From what I saw from him today, as long as his body holds up, I don’t see anything holding him back. His putting stroke looked good, his chipping looked solid, he was hitting it long and both ways. He seemed to have command not only of his swing but his body.“With what I saw today, he’s going to be rusty. That’s going to happen to anybody. There are going to be some great stretches, some not so great stretches. But he’ll figure it out somehow. And when he does, I can’t wait to see it.”
By "both ways" I assume him to mean that he's missing it both left and right, which would mean that he's really back....
Bob Harig focuses on a question I received on the course on Saturday, Tiger's eligibility... It's mostly a non-issue, with the exception of the WGC's.
Although Woods has not finished among the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings or money earnings since 2013 -- the basic barometer for exempt status -- he should have few worries about playing a full schedule, if he chooses.
For 2018, Woods is exempt based on his 2013 Players Championship victory, which comes with a five-year exemption. Once that expires, his Lifetime Member exemption would kick in, which gives exempt status to a player who has at least 20 PGA Tour victories. Davis Love III and Vijay Singh are using that exemption in 2018.
As for the majors, three of those allow former champions to peg it... as for that fourth, the U.S. Open, Tiger benefits from the rub of the green:
The biggest issue will come at the U.S. Open, where Woods is exempt through only the 2018 tournament at Shinnecock Hills, based on the 10-year exemption he received for winning at Torrey Pines in 2008. Barring qualifying in some other way (world rankings, FedEx Cup), Woods would, in theory, need to go through sectional qualifying.
That 2019 Open happens to be at a place called Pebble Beach, where Tiger played OK in 2000. As for Winged Foot in 2020, that's three comebacks into the future, so I'll defer on that.
Tiger will be paired with It golfer Justin Thomas for the first two days, so we'll get a quick measure of how far he's hitting it. Alex Myers does his usual prop bet summary here, though they mostly make my head hurt....
But the weird column of the week belongs to Mike Bamberger, riffing on Brokeback Mountain of all things:
So Tiger Woods is playing in yet another return-to-competition event this week. The event happens to be his own, the Hero World Challenge in Albany, the Bahamas. If it sounds familiar it may be because this website and Golf Channel and most anywhere else you go in golf — actual, virtual and in between — has been murmuring about this homecoming for nearly two months.
And also because Woods had another of his return-to-competition events at this same tournament, one year ago. It’s a continuing series. The Bill Murray movie that should come to mind now is not the Gone With the Wind of golf movies, Caddyshack. It’s Groundhog Day, about a day in the life of a man who is destined to wake up at 6 a.m. to Sonny and Cher’s "I Got You, Babe" every day, for eternity, no matter what he does to his clock radio. We golf people cannot quit this Tiger Woods. We will continue to gather for these reunions until somebody is kind enough to pull the plug for us, or Tiger Woods shoots 280 over four days at a U.S. Open. The chances of that ever happening again are remote, but you can’t say they don’t exist.
I've been as hard on Tiger as anyone, but there's no need to apologize for tuning in this weekend. Interestingly, Mike doesn't even hint that some might watch just to catch the next train wreck.... And what else are folks supposed to watch.... The Giants?
Gear Stuff - This was one of the items I didn't get to yesterday was Dave Dusek's year-in-gear feature:
Ten years from now, when golfers recall 2017 and start talking about equipment, theycan say it was the year ultra-premium equipment became a legitimate – and widely coveted – part of the industry.
“PXG has livened the ultra-premium market again, and all the other guys are (upset) because that used to be their golfers,” said Tom Olsavsky, Cobra’s vice president of research and development. “So now they are saying, ‘We can do that as good as (PXG) can,’ and we’re seeing them offer expensive irons and expensive drivers. Fifteen years ago that was the after-market business, and they made tons of money because it was a better product and people were willing to pay for it.”
It's not just PXG:
In 2017, Callaway released the Epic and Epic Pro irons priced at $2,000 for an eight-club set, as well as the Epic Star driver, which retails for $700 and was previously available only in Japan. Xxio brought the $850 Prime driver to the U.S. market and said there was plenty of demand for it, while Titleist re-released the C16 iron set for $2,700 and debuted the J.P. Harrington line of custom-fit wedges for $500 each.
The one day delay was fortuitous, because today comes word of news on the legal front:
The rancor between PXG and TaylorMade over golf club patents continues, only now legal accusations are being fired from both sides.
In documents filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona two weeks ago, TaylorMade is now accusing PXG of violating patents.
According to the documents, TaylorMade details how PXG is violating seven TaylorMade patents in irons and woods. The 189-page counterclaim not only denies that TaylorMade is infringing any of the PXG patents, but also asks the court to prevent PXG from selling most of its current products, including all the PXG 0311 irons (0311, 0311T, 0311XF, 0311X) and PXG woods, including the 0811 drivers and 0341 fairway woods for violations of patents granted to TaylorMade between 2007 and 2016.
From inception, this seemed a battle to the death between Bob Parsons and TM. While none of us has the technical knowledge to assess the various claims, this seems ominous:
PXG subsequently has brought in new lawyers for its case and its original lawyers withdrew in October. The new PXG lawyers include Brian Lacorte, an intellectual property lawyer with the Ballard Spahr firm based in Phoenix.
So the guys that convinced you to start the war have taken a powder? All I know for sure is that lots of lawyers will do well off of this....
Old Pics - I had never heard of David Poulton, but fortunately Alex Myers had:
Arguably golf's most famous -- and most beautiful -- hole, it might surprise many to know that Augusta National's 12th wasn't always so pristine. David Poulton, a European-based head pro whose Twitter feed is a gold mine of old photos, shared this throwback pic of the iconic par 3 from 65 years ago. And it looks juuuuust a bit different.
Wow, how about that attractive fence separating The National from Augusta Country Club? And who is it with one foot in the water?
Poulton also posted this great photo of 7th at Pebble presumably from the Chandler Egan rennovation:
Don't you love that wild, unkempt look? Great stuff....
A Worthy Mission Gone Astray - A few years ago I took a crack at the Necessary Golf Bookshelf, those books that any self-respecting golfer should read. Now comes Josh Sens with this version thereof:
14 books every self-respecting golfer should read
But you'll agree that respect and this entry are mutually exclusive:
7. My Life In & Out of the Rough: The Truth Behind All That Bull**** You Think You Know About Me
By John Daly with Glen Waggoner
The truth? You can't handle the truth. Well, actually you can, because, sordid as it is, Long John keeps the storytelling brisk and the details entertaining. The gambling. The addiction. The multiple divorces. He even gives the down and dirty on some of the very good golf he's played.
Josh, what are you thinking? The man is a disgrace.... These two need to be discussed together:
6. Golf in the Kingdom
By Michael Murphy
Depending on whom you ask, this 1971 novel about a young traveler's encounters in the Scottish Highlands with the golf pro-cum-mystic Shivas Irons is a either a rollicking tale imbued with deep spiritual meaning, or a bunch of New Age blather with a whiskey kick. We're not taking sides, except to say that it's a must-read if you want to take part in the grillroom debate.
By Michael Bamberger
Less than midway through his life's journey, Michael Bamberger quits his job as a newspaper sportswriter and lights out across the pond on a voyage of discovery that doubles as an inquiry into the game. Along the way, he caddies for a talented oddball, plays some of the world's oldest courses and absorbs the wisdom of a Scottish sage. It's the sort of trip you wish you'd made when you were younger. Thanks to Bamberger's lyrical prose, you'll feel as if you did. [Full disclosure: Bamberger is now a senior writer for Sports Illustrated and GOLF.com contributor.]
I'm very happy to see Mikey Bams' book on the list, the second half of which is what Golf in the Kingdom should have been. Instead it was impenetrable and tedious, and recommended only for insomniacs and those on Death Row.
There are some good suggestions here, but mostly absent is any reference to the history of the game before Francis Ouimet. I usually add Tommy's Honor and The Spirit of St. Andrews to such lists, and of course remove Leslie Nielson....
Orphan.com - That sound you hear are heads exploding over the nefarious Koch Brothers' involvement in the purchase of Time, Inc. Schadenfreudalicious, for sure.... But some poor souls got left behind, including one of interest to us:
“Time has publicly reported that they have some assets that are currently for sale, theTime U.K., Golf magazine, Sunset and Essence. And we’re going to allow Time Inc. during this — before the close period — to go for it and consummate those transactions, and we think that they’ll have those done by the end of the calendar year,” Meredith’s chief operating officer Thomas Harty said.
Perhaps the biggest significance is that presumably Sports Illustrated and Golf Magazine will no longer be joined at the hip, so we may see some retrenchment at the latter....
Rollback Thoughts - I linked to the Tour Confidential panel yesterday on Tiger, but they also had some interesting comments on the discussion of rolling back the ball and the economics of longer courses:
Bamberger: I couldn't judge the hurt-the-economics-of-golf question. The modern ball has made Tour golf, for me, less interesting and more of a slog. At my level (92-shooter!) the longer ball with space-age equipment has made the game more enjoyable but at the expense of beauty. I'm in favor of a ball for them and a ball for us. I think a softer ball that curves more is a better test of golfing skill at the highest level.
Ritter: Totally agree. I've never hit the ball farther than I do today, and that's certainly a blast. But the pros are decimating classic courses. The ball isn't the lone culprit, but it's certainly a factor. I see no harm in a ball for the Tour pros, and one for the rest of us.
Wood: I 100 percent agree with Michael. There's no reason to change the ball for the everyday player. (By the way, if you're a 10 handicap or more, you'll shoot the same score with a decent range ball that you would with one from a $60 per-dozen price tag, speaking of economics.) I can only comment on the competitive aspect of the balls. Shrink the allowable head size of a driver and roll back the ball a bit for the best of the best, and I think the game at that level gets more interesting as well as preserves classic courses for major championships.
Shipnuck: I've been taking shrapnel for a very long time over my contention that Tour courses need to be 9K yards, but Gil Hanse recently endorsed that number and Brandel just offered 8,500 as the number, so he's coming around, too. Of course it's a ridiculous idea — a course that long would require obscene amounts of water and land and time to play. So if we're talking economics, the modern game has become too expensive to maintain.
Well argued, but certainly nothing too shocking there.... I know I'm a broken record on this, but it's the reduced spin as well as the longer distance that's changed the game....
But this story from Josh Sens is just plain sad:
Sens: Like Michael, I couldn't give you a detailed dollar breakdown. But sure, bigger courses require bigger budgets for the most part, especially given the costly expectations so many people have of what a golf course "should" look like. A few years ago, during the worst of the drought out here in California, Pasatiempo, the great Mackenzie course in Santa Cruz, was required by the municipality to cut back on water use. As a result, the course was browned out in a number of areas where you weren't supposed to hit the ball anyway. The fairways were firm. The greens were perfect. The course was playing very much as it was designed to play, but it was not emerald green, and so, a lot of golfers complained. The grousing was loud and persistent enough that Pasatiempo management offered a rebate on greens fees as an apology. That spoke volumes. More realistic than rolling back equipment would be a continued effort to educate golfers about what's good for the game they love.
To quote Jean Paul Sartre, Hell is other people. Specifically those people...
You won't see me tomorrow, and after that is up in the air. But there's no snow in Utah, so I'm guessing that we'll dissect Tiger's return together.
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