Udder Stuff

Sorry, readers, but what a week....  This alien life form that has seized control of my chest and sinuses is a fierce mother, and yesterday's travel was no picnic.  But you could have had it worse, you could have been the unfortunate soul stuck in middle seat next to me on Flight 1642....

I'm going to throw some stuff at you relatively quickly (in fact, I already have a post up), and hope it all makes sense....

Do You Have It In Green? - A pressing issue this week is that Jordan Spieth's green jacket doesn'tr fit him so well:

The green jacket is the most sought-after attire in sports. And yet, owning that magnificent garb doesn't prevent its wearers from committing a fashion faux pas. Just

ask Jordan Spieth. 

Speaking with the Associated Press' Doug Ferguson, the three-time major winner admitted he doesn't know his jacket size. An issue that reared its head following his 2015 Masters triumph. 

“I never got it tailored, so it’s huge,” Spieth said to Ferguson. “I never trusted anybody, never wanted anyone to go do it. I didn’t give them my size originally. I wore the one off the green that day, and I never gave it back to them to tailor or anything."

These kids today.... Given the control freaks at the club, you'd think they'd measure everyone in the field before balls are in the air....  But as I understand things, they grab a member's jacket in the approximate size for the ceremony, though it's never been clear to me when they get their own to take on tour for the next year.

One of the games old hands adds this recollection:

OK, but from 1963 (when he won his first) until 1998, how many different jacket sizes might Jack have needed?  And, at the risk of ruining my appetite, that jacket that was way too big for '63 Jack had to have been a tent....

Golf and Technology, an Awkward Fit - A couple of items to hopefully amuse, first a really puzzling decision from Far Hills, NJ:

The USGA issued a decision Wednesday that expands the possibilities of how technology is used in competition. 

Responding directly to Arccos, the GPS-based stat-tracking platform, the USGA ruled that Arccos Caddie—a feature in the company's Arccos 360 App for smart phones that uses stored data to give strategy recommendations to a golfer on the tee based on your past performance—is permitted during competition, as long as it stays on Tournament Mode and only discerns information with yardage, just as the USGA ruled on distance-measuring devices with Rule 14-3.

"Based on the information provided and our understanding that the Arccos 360 is incapable of gauging or measuring any parameter other than distance, use of the Arccos Caddie application in conjunction with the Arccos 360 application, as submitted, has been evaluated and it has been determined that the use of the Arccos Caddie application is permitted under the Rules of Golf when a Committee establishes a Local Rule permitting the use of distance measuring devices (see Decision 14-3/0.5). However, please note that in the absence of such a Local Rule, use of the Arccos System during a stipulated round is contrary to Rule 14-3."

Is this wise?  My sense is that they've limited it's capabilities sufficiently as to make it useless, but also complicated things greatly.  I can't imagine that the people using such an app care whether it's legal or not (and I'm OK with that), but they also won't understand what features cross the line.... Yet there's a headline that says Arccos Caddie is kosher.

Confused by the term Jailbreak Technology?  Welcome to the club, but here's a somewhat interesting backgrounder from an interview by gearhead Dave Dusek:

David Dusek: What got you and your team thinking about adding posts to the inside of a driver and connecting the crown and sole? 

Alan Hocknell: Well, it certainly did not start out as something that provided an obvious

ball-speed advantage. It was a completely different thing. 

We had the Big Bertha Alpha driver (in 2013), which had a gravity core in the center of the head. The gravity core sat vertically inside a carbon tube that was connected to the crown and sole. We didn’t have any other drivers that had that kind of internal structure, and in that form it did not provide a ball-speed advantage. It was just there to house the gravity core.

But in computer models, we did notice that it did something a little different, in terms of the way the head did or did not flex. It had an extra stiffness in the middle. We could have ignored it and said to ourselves, “Well that’s interesting, but let’s move on,” but we do have a group of people who are looking, full time, at things we don’t understand. We put this on their list, then used computer systems to manipulate it a little bit.

That new "Yo, Gear Guy!" column that we've feature before has an this interesting header:

Yo, Gear Guy! What's the biggest difference between a modern driver and one from 2012?

Get that?  A 2012 driver is no longer considered modern..... Tough crowd, though in the body of the piece the actual question was far more sensibly constructed:

Gerry A Cassel Jr on Facebook: What are the biggest differences between a driver from 2012 and today? Do the updates really justify spending the big bucks to upgrade?

Who doesn't ask this ate every demo day at their club?

Yes, the improved designs and technologies in today's new drivers do for many players justify an upgrade. While some might argue that since COR and ballspeed limits, which are regulated by the USGA, were maxed out years ago, there's no real reason to upgrade, I'd strongly disagree. Modern drivers offer a variety of new technologies including vastly improved clubface designs, aerodynamics, custom tuning options, and multiple clubhead options (some like Ping have three variations of the G400 that provide significantly different performance), that weren't available five or six years ago. My recommendation is to see the proof for yourself by taking your old gamer to a custom fitting studio and putting it up against the latest and greatest. Though it's possible you'll come away feeling OK with your current club, it's much more likely you'll see improvements in distance, dispersion, and consistency that convince you to make an upgrade.

I am not now have I ever been a gearhead, but that answer troubles me slightly...  My superficial understanding is that most of the recent changes have involved reduction of spin.  While that's mostly a good thing, there's a fundamental trade-off between lower spin and forgiveness of the clubs... 

Perhaps I'm emotionally scarred from my own recent experience.  The last couple of times I've hit drivers on a launch monitor I've been unable to get the ball airborne and to draw it, and I'm not exaggerating...  the problem with fittings is that the guy that shows up for a half-hour on the monitor might not be the guy you're used to seeing....  Now a demo that you can take out a few times on your regular track, so you can see where you hit it on No. 7, I like that much more.

There's a few other interesting themes in this week's column, most notable to me being the lead item on grip size....  seems to be a feature with some staying power.

One last amusing technological note, this one from Down Under:

Tom Colella was employed by an Australian water management company called Aroona Alliance in 2016 when he ran into a problem. He wanted to skip work to play golf, but his company tracked his location using GPS on his PDA device, which he was mandated to carry. So Colella put his electrical knowledge to the test, according to nakedsecurity.sophos.com.

He took an empty bag of Australian chips called Twisties and placed his PDA in the empty foil bag. By doing so, Colella had made a DIY Faraday cage, a device that blocks electromagnetic current. As long as his PDA was in the bag, his employer couldn't track his location, and he could play golf whenever he wanted.

But the inventive Aussie abused this loophole, playing as many as 140 rounds when he was supposed to be working. The abuse led to his downfall. Eventually, the company caught on, and called Colella into a meeting where his ruse was unveiled and he was fired.

Isn't his real mistake getting greedy?  But I do hope we was smart enough to not post his scores....

Architecture Week -  At Golf Channel, of course....  I haven't been watching, but Shack has embedded a few of their videos....  I especially like this one of Geoff, Charlie Rymer, Gary Williams and Matt Ginella discussing how it all went bad when Tour players started designing courses...

Of course it's a complete hot mess, because who has always designed golf courses?  The best players around, from Old Tom and Willie Park to James Braid and C.B. Macdonald.....

I'm also reminded of the story of Bill Coore looking for work and being told to pair up with a Tour player......Coore picked a good one for sure, and guys like Geoff Ogilvy will do as well, as opposed to those for whom it's clearly just a business opportunity.  No question that ties to real estate developments plays a role, but perhaps my biggest surprise is that the name Trent Jones isn't uttered.

Also enjoy Geoff and Matt Ginella's Dream 18's..... Silly fun, though I could almost get the sense that Matt liked Pebble Beach.  

Before I go, Golf Digest has a gallery of best new courses, including this obvious choice with a fun back story:

This is the fifth course that the design firm of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw has done for resort maven Mike Keiser, and the first not close to an ocean. No matter. It’s still on a thousand acres of rolling sand hills in Central Wisconsin, and Coore and Crenshaw were carte blanche to route their course. (Rumor has it Coore routed a hole outside the property line and Keiser reluctantly bought that additional parcel.) Given the name, many conclude Sand Valley is a combination of Nebraska’s Sand Hills Golf Club and New Jersey’s Pine Valley. But Sand Valley has its own personality, with some dual fairways, mammoth sand spits, enormous greens and even a hidden putting surface.

Now aren't you glad they expanded that airport?  It looks pretty spectacular....