For alliterative reasons, they really should have waited a couple of days.... But seemingly everyone has donned their rose-colored glasses and the zeitgeist is wistfully nostalgic.
Just not sure how to order these items....
The Talented Mr. Ridley - OK, Fred won't actually make an appearance, but the subject is again the hope that Augusta National will save us from ourselves. Shack posts on this with a John Wood excerpt from this weeks Tour Confidential:
When we talk bifurcation and a Masters ball, incredulous golfers always ask, "but how could it ever work?" This, despite living in a country that put men on the moon nearlyfive decades ago and solving to all but the most basic problems.
Nonetheless, I understand the concerns with multiple manufacturers and the propensity for cheating in today's sports. So I give you John Wood, caddie for Matt Kuchar, keen observer of the game and regular contributor to Golf.com's weekly roundtable.
The gang was kicking around Tiger's distance comments and as most of us bifurcation talkers are prone to do, looked toward Augusta, Georgia for guidance. Here's how Wood thinks it would work:
I’ve been saying this about Augusta for years. "Gentleman, you are cordially invited to participate in the Masters Invitational for the year ____. Under a new Invitational requirement, we have forwarded our specifications for a legal golf ball for our tournament to your equipment companies. Should they like to design a ball for you under these specifications, we would be more than pleased for you to play it. If they choose not to, we will provide you with three options of a ball meeting our requirements. One will launch high, one will launch low, and one will launch in the middle of those two. We wish you the best of luck." The long ball, for lack of a better word, is sexy...to the USGA, to the R&A, to the PGA Tour...and to be honest, it sells tickets, so they aren’t about to do anything about it. Last year, the statistics say the driving distance leader on the PGA Tour averaged 317 yards. That sounds out of control. But anyone who has spent any time at all out here knows that, weather depending, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau and countless others hit their driver 330-plus every time they bring it out of the bag. That’s the truth that statistics don’t show. When Tiger was one of the longest on Tour, averaging around 300 yards per drive, he was way out front, AND he was using a 43-inch steel-shafted driver and what was known to be one of the softest and spinniest balls on Tour. So, yes, hopefully Tiger’s words now will have some impact on the future.
OK, as interesting as it is, it hardly touches the surface of how this could work, much less whether the club has the will to take this on. It's interesting that he sees them offering a ball, but allowing the manufacturers to also develop a ball conforming to their specs.
Not only is the development of a golf ball a lengthy process, but the players have adapted their equipment and even their swings to the modern ball. No doubt the folks that run The Masters believe they have created the preeminent golf tournament on the planet, confirmed by the USGA's obsession with their TV ratings.... Are they prepared, and do we even want them to put this all at risk because the governing bodies don't govern?
It wasn't that long ago that Lee Trevino boycotted the Masters..... Is it inconceivable that DJ or Brooks would say that, under such circumstances, that The Masters is now a throwback event, like the World Hickory Championship. In fact, might Sandy Lyle show up with his hickories and do well?
Worst Appeal to Authority Evah - This is a bit of a throwaway, though there is a serious point involved. But I'm only human, and when one of our favorite pinatas ventures into the field of play, I can't resist:
Legendary caddie Steve Williams has spoken out about the use of detailed yardage books saying the information they contain is removing an element of skill from the game.
During his guest appearance on Episode 32 of The iSeekGolf Podcast, the New Zealander said yardage books with comprehensive information on greens' slopes, which have become commonplace on major professional golf tours, should not be allowed.
“There’s no doubt that a lot of the information that’s getting provided now is taking a lot of the skill and the art and the natural gift [out] of playing the game,” Williams told The iSeekGolf Podcast.
“I’m totally against greens reading books. I think it’s a skill of the game not to have a book provided that absolutely gives you a detailed description of the green and if you read the book accurately, you know exactly how far your putt’s going to break.”
I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether the phrase "legendary caddie" is an oxymoron....
But this highlights an issue of increasing importance, namely that many of the recent technological breakthroughs are seemingly outside the ability of the governing organizations to control. Think of launch monitors and Trackman..... There's also the distinction that's always been maintained between factual information and advice.
On the flip side, it's easy to dismiss the thoughts of Stevie Williams because...well, aren't there cameras he should be breaking?
Tech Match Play - This is the most interesting item on this subject, but you'll have to trust me that it's not just Laz Versalles' lede:
I vividly remember being a teenager watching the 1987 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club on television with my dad. The ever-stoic Scott Simpson made a slew of late birdies to dash the title hopes of my boyhood heroes Tom Watson and Seve Ballesteros. Simpson hit a feathery 9-iron from 125 yards into the 16th and I said to my dad, “I can do that.” My dad just laughed and shook his head.
“Son, this is not the Rich Acres Par-3,” he said. “This is the U.S. Open.” I went right back at him. “I know,”I said, “but I can do that. My 9 iron goes 125 yards.”
Hmmm....that name rings a bell.... here's a slightly modified version of the Sports Illustrated cover from that week:
Amazingly, I think that's the first time I've posted that on the blog...
Here's the premise of his post, which comes from equipment-centric GolfWRX:
Somewhere between my father’s 1987 dismissal of the crucible that was the Rich AcresPar-3 and Koepka’s brutish dismantling of Erin Hills, golf has become a wildly different game. But is it a better game? Is it more entertaining to watch? Does the technology that facilitates the game for the masses belittle the game’s rich history? Most importantly, is today’s game more fun to play? I set off on a crusade to find out.
Short of buying a silver DeLorean and traveling back in time to 1987, my best bet was to try and piece together the clubs I played as a teenager and pit them against my current set to see how they would match up. A Match of The Ages if you will; Teenage Me vs. Middle-Aged Me. The artistry of the late 20th century versus the power of the early 21st century. This was going to be fun.
My next excerpt requires a spoiler alert, but you really do want to read the whole thing... It's a Readers Digest abridged version of The Match, with a shot-by-shot accounting of the match. Here's the takeaway to be discussed below:
Middle-Aged Me may have won the match 5 & 4, but Teenage Me definitely won the fun 10 & 8. A big part of that fun was getting reacquainted with a game I hadn’t played in awhile. A game that was less about distance and more about shapes and trajectories. A game light on predictability and loaded with variety where a good drive didn’t mean wedges into every green. I saw the golf course as the architect had intended it to be seen, which let me appreciate more of its features. I’m not denying the element of novelty, but playing with my old teenage clubs — despite shooting 86 — was nothing short of inspiring. And to emphatically answer my original question; yes, it was a lot more fun.
10 & 8? That's really gonna piss off Tiger....
But this is interesting, because he's making us (and especially me) challenge a long-held assumption, to wit, that the equipment improvements have been an unquestioned positive for our game.
The thinking has been that the game is so challenging, that making it easier make sit more fun and will bring folks to our game. But, and shame on us all for not realizing this, there's something that's been lost in the process. Shotmaking has been diminished as a skill, even at the hack level. The folks that play hickories have been trying to tell us this for ages, but we've been too caught up in Jailbreak technology and the like....
Food for thought for all of us....
A Scribe's Tail of Woe - By now you've seen this in the sporting press:
Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but the sure did nail it....
But it turns out that there's a golf connection, via Alan Shipnuck:
This sordid tale begins in the spring of 2014. After years in the wilderness, Michelle Wie was suddenly resurgent, winning for the first time in four seasons and running off a string of high finishes. Her handlers at IMG have always fussed over her like overbearing parents, but I sold them on a big feature. I spent time with Wie at her home base in South Florida and a tournament in Atlantic City and then, in early June, turned in a long story that charted her growth from an overwhelmed teen phenom into a stylish, self-possessed young woman who had finally made peace with her place in the golf world. The story was slotted into the June 30, 2014, issue (as with every SI, it would go to press a week ahead of the issue date). That magazine had plenty of pages to spare because both the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals had been lopsided series that wrapped up earlier that month. Then, on June 22, Wie went out and won the U.S. Women's Open on an iconic course, Pinehurst No. 2. It was the breakthrough we had been waiting on for more than a decade, and the biggest story in women's golf in forever.
Alan went to his mailbox that week expecting that this would be the cover:
Here's Alan's coda:
Well, with Reiter using the bully pulpit of Internet fame to continue hazing me, I could think of only way to get some closure from this lingering trauma. On Thursday afternoon I begged Stone and various other editors to recreate the Wie cover that never was. At long last, here it is.
Bite me, Reiter.
So much for the high road.....
Step Right Up and Greet the Mets... - For the record, San Diego's Petco Stadium got there first.... But still seems like fun:
On assignment for my strange and fantastic job, I found myself heading to Queens for the opening of Stadiumlinks at Citi Field for a golf match against Mr. Met.
How many a side does Mr. met give you?
Mr. Met drops his head like Tiger.... But he seems to have the trash-talking thing down:
Scenes From Chubbyland - John Huggan scores some time with the Chubster, and first brings us up to date on his divorce from Lee Westwood:
It went public just before the Open Championship in July. After more than 24 years together, it was announced that 10-time European Ryder Cup player Lee Westwoodwould no longer use International Sports Management founder and agent Andrew (Chubby) Chandler to handle his business affairs. And now, after four months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the formal split between these former close friends is complete.
“Lee and I concluded the legal stuff this week,” Chandler says. “Everything that has to be signed has now been signed. A short statement is all that will be said publicly about that. There is a confidentiality agreement in place. Now we all start again.”
Understandably, long-held emotional ties may take a little longer to heal. Speaking exclusively to Golf World, Chandler expressed some sadness at what has come to pass. Westwood, the 23-time European Tour winner who is now represented by IMG, wasn’t saying as much, but it is understood that the relationship between the two men is all but non-existent, or “less than zero” as one figure close to the situation put it.
That's really quite sad, given how close they were. This is the extent of what Chubby will say about the exodus of clients:
Looking ahead, Chandler is determined not to repeat any mistakes of the past. “I didn’t realize until all this happened how drawn I was to Lee and Darren [Clarke],” said Chandler, Westwood and Clarke being two of the original clients he took on when starting his company in the early 1990s. “Even though it never showed and they are great mates, there was always a little bit of competition for my time. I now have dinner with a bigger variety of people. I got so close with Lee and Darren that it was Where are we having dinner? every night. Without realizing, I was neglecting some of my other clients. I should have been eating with more of them more often. But that has changed now. The dynamic has changed.”
I'm going way out on a limb to suggest that more dinners is not the answer for Chubby.... Joking aside, this may explain why Rory and Danny Willett left, but leaves the Westwood divorce shrouded in mystery.
But Chubby continues to scheme, including this new format that smells like a misfire to me:
By way of example, next year’s European Challenge Tour is expected to feature an event that Chandler has a hand in in which par will be every player’s “friend.” In a bid to finally win the seemingly never-ending battle with slow play, every competitor will be banned from putting for par. As soon as a birdie has not been achieved, it will be ball-in-pocket and on to the next hole.
“It won’t just be that par doesn’t count. The players will be banned from putting out once they haven’t made a birdie,” Chandler says. “That way they will all be round in three hours. We will have two points for a birdie, five for an eagle and eight for an albatross. That’s been done before. But no putting for par, which counts as zero. So you can’t knock it out of a bunker to four-feet and putt for par. Not allowed. And that’s where things will speed up.”
Players will also get double points if they hole-out from off the green, and all points will double on the last three holes. “Everybody is in with a chance right to the end,” Chandler says. “That might all turn out wrong. But it could also be really exciting. We’ll see. We’re not changing the game that much. We’re just making it quicker and getting rid of the dull bits. No one really gives a bleep about eight-footers for par.”
It's nothing more than a whacked-out modified Stableford, but bogey-avoidance is a useful skill out there....
I'm very much a "Try anything" adherent, but do we really want to exclude exciting recovery shots from our game?
Time to get on with you day, not to mention my own....
No comments:
Post a Comment