The musings will be more random than usual today, so reader beware....
Speaking Well of the Departed - John Feinstein with the hagiology:
In the spring of 1995, I was sitting in the player dining area at Atlanta Country Club during the week of the now defunct BellSouth Classic. There were four players sitting at the table and the subject was Johnny Miller, who was about to work his first U.S. Openas a broadcaster in June, NBC having won the rights to the championship from ABC.
“It’s a disgrace they’re going to let that guy do the Open,” said one player—a solid veteran who had never won on the the PGA Tour, but had steadily kept his card for years. “I mean, the U.S. Open and he’ll be sitting there in the booth calling people chokers.”
Another player, someone who had won on tour several times, chimed in. “He sits there and acts like he knows everything. I mean, what did Johnny Miller ever do in golf that allows him to criticize us?”
At that point, I couldn’t resist. “Um, he did win two majors and 25 times on tour—including last year at Pebble Beach when he was spending a lot more time in the booth than on the golf course,” I said. “I mean, whatever you think of his broadcasting, he’s a Hall of Fame player.”
They all looked at me for a moment as if I had said purses on the tour should be cut by 50 percent. Then the guy who had asked what Miller had ever done in golf said: “Twenty-five times? Really?”
Ironic, that. I'm playing Whippoorwill this afternoon, and the last time I was there he was hitting next to me on the range. No, not Johnny, Bryant. But it's so out of character for players to not know their history.... Not!
But Johnny, love him or hate him, broke the mold:
What really set Miller apart, though, was how different he was from virtually every ex-player who has ever set foot in a booth or put on a headset. The late Dave Marr, who was ABC’s lead analyst for many years, once pointed out that golf analysts were there to “gild the rose, make everyone look good.”
Miller was there to point out the good, the bad and the ugly—from the point of view of someone who had been great, bad and occasionally ugly, as he often noted on the air.
That's an important point, and one that's been lost over time.... The use of the C-Word is also misunderstood, but it was good to have someone acknowledge the elephant in the corner. It ended up over-used,as these things will, but he really was the first that didn't sound like a company man... And he had one other indispensable virtue, he wasn't Sir Nick.
Doug Ferguson recounts what was perhaps Johnny's most famous call:
Miller was in the NBC Sports booth at Doral in 2004 when he watched Craig Parry hitanother beautiful shot to the green. Miller said what he saw. That was his job.
He just didn't say it like other golf analysts.
''The last time you see that swing is in a pro-am with a guy who's about a 15-handicap,'' Miller said. ''It's just over the top, cups it at the bottom and hits it unbelievably good. It doesn't look ... if Ben Hogan saw that, he'd puke.''
Puke is just such a harsh-sounding word.... Shack's got some video on the subject here, most notably a Jaime Diaz tribute.
We'll make a brief surgical strike into Alan Shipnuck's mailbag for his hot Johnny take:
Are we going to miss Johnny more than we would like to admit?? No other commentator even stirs discussion. Does he go down as the best ever? #AskAlan -Jesse (@Jshamp_724)
Speak for yourself, man: I’m already mourning his absence and he’s not even gone yet! Yes, Johnny has a few irritating verbal ticks (“That’s pressure”; “He might hole this”) and doesn’t do a good job hiding his considerable ego but, as you say, he’s by far the biggest presence the 18th hole tower has every seen. For many telecasts he is as big a star, or bigger, than any of the players. He’s definitely the best ever.
I agree, though it's also a function of how low the bar was set....
The misty remembrances are fine, but props to Alex Myers who links to a couple of old Johnny-infused slideshows from the Wabac Machine. First, the more conventional favorite Johnnyisms:
'Chunk and run'
Background: When a player has a bad lie, but plenty of green to work with, Miller characterizes the shot as a 'chunk-and-run' approximately 97 percent of the time. As is the case with many of these terms, Miller also likes to get confirmation from on-course analyst Roger Maltbie.
How he uses it in a sentence: "This is just a chunk-and-run, right, Rog?"
That's good fun, covering his "green light specials" and "trap draw" and "fairway metals", each inevitably ending with "Right, Rog".
But this is the keeper:
11 AMAZING ACCOMPLISHMENTS JOHNNY MILLER PROBABLY WASN'T THAT IMPRESSED BY
Are we talking golf accomplishments?
Bobby Jones' Grand Slam As An Amateur in 1930"Let's see him do it with money on the line."
Heh. And this:
Ben Hogan's 1950 U.S. Open Win"Coming back from that car crash took guts, but he was really limping home on that Sunday back nine!"
But these are perhaps even funnier:
The Sistine Chapel's Ceiling“Michelangelo was great, but he took four years! How is he on deadline?”
Good point.
The Miracle On The Hudson“Sully saved everyone on board, but he ruined all their luggage!”
Good fun, Alex.
Yeah, We Know - Tiger was at Pebble for a charity event, and got talking:
Woods went on to say that fatigue was a big factor that week at Le Golf National.
“It was just a cumulative effect of the entire season,” Woods said. “I was tired because I hadn’t trained for it. I hadn’t trained this entire comeback to play this much golf and on top of that deal with the heat and the fatigue and the loss of weight.”
We saw.... Which leads nicely into a discussion of his 2019 schedule, though he doesn't fill in any of the blanks:
As for the actual schedule, Woods has his Thanksgiving weekend match with Phil Mickelson in Las Vegas next month and the Hero World Challenge in December. Now he’s just starting to piece the rest of it together.
“I’m still figuring that out,” Woods said. “Flying out here yesterday trying to look at the schedule, it’s the first time I’ve taken a look at it. I’ve been so focused on getting through the playoffs and the Ryder Cup that I just took a look at the schedule and saw how packed it is.”
He knows he’ll be in Australia for the President’s Cup at the end of it, where he’s serving as U.S. team captain and most likely playing as well.
“God I hope so,” said Woods, who noted that he’s ninth in the points standings right now. “I’d be asking for a captain’s pick. …. I really hope to be a playing captain, I really do.”
It's a bit early to be looking at the points list, no? Oh, what the heck....
So early, that we're getting mixed signals on his captaincy. But given the absence of a certain name, it's never too early to ask about his thoughts on a Captain's pick for Patrick....
And, as just occurred to me, the event is scheduled for December 9-15, 2019, which would seem to conflict with his Hero World Challenge dates. Is he taking one for the team?
Peace In Our Time? - Alex Myers with the social media update:
THIS WEEK IN DUSTIN JOHNSON-PAULINA GRETZKY PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
They’re back! On Instagram!
Apparently, Paris has nothing on Kid Rock when it comes to romance. Paulina didn’t give DJ a re-gram and he’s still scrubbed clean on her page, but this is a big step. Good to see.
Baby steps, kids. What's the over-under for how many weeks (or is it days) until DJ effs it up again?
Cash is King - Jessica Marksbury gets an agent to open up about the average Tour pros cash flow. And the winner is....
His Hat – $250,000–$500,000
“The front of the hat is your No. 1 real estate. On the high end, this deal generally includes other inventory—bag, equipment—as well. If you’re a Top 30 player, you’re definitely making seven figures on this. For a Top 10 guy, you’re looking north of $3 million and getting close to eight figures for the most marketable players in the world. For this deal, a player will be obligated to, on average, commit to giving a company three to four appearance/promotional daysper year.”
That's a lot of scratch being left on the table by Duf and Ollie Schniederjams....
This to me is equally interesting:
Caddie’s Cut:Share of winnings: 6 percent for a made cut; 8 percent for a top 10; 10 percent for a win.Annual average (at 7 percent): $140,000 Weekly travel stipend: $1,500-$3,000 Average annual total: $192,000
Agent’s Cut:10 to 20 percent of non-tournament earnings.Annual average: $105,000
Accountant’s Cut:Yearly fee of $25-40K, or hourly billing.Annual average: $32,000
Coach’s Cut:1 to 3 percent of tournament winnings.Annual average: $40,000
Trainer’s Cut:1 to 3 percent of tournament winnings.Annual average: $40,000
Travel Expenses$3,000–$5,000 per week (non-majors, notinternational) for hotels/homes, food, flights.Annual average: $130,000
PGA Tour Membership FeesAnnual average: $300
Locker Room Attendant/Valet TipsAnnual average: $5,000
Disability InsuranceAnnual average: $10,000
It costs a bundle out there, though I don't think that membership fee is a big problem....
Alan In Full - Not a great week of Q&A, but there's always nuggets of interest:
Why is it so hard for Americans to simply accept a champion team is better than a team of champions? It’s been a fortnight since the Ryder Cup flogging & my timeline is still full of “what went wrong?” -@Luke_Elvy
Because the U.S. team didn’t simply lose, it crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. It seemed inexplicable that so many decorated Americans could play so pitifully all at the same time, and then the leaks about the palace intrigue began, offering some insight (but nothing definitive) about the dysfunction that sabotaged the team. High-profile failure + Kardashian-level melodrama = enduring interest.
Pretty much. I'm not sure it rises to the level of palace intrigue, it's more men behaving badly... The enduring interest will wane, but enjoy a resurgence in the weeks leading up to December 9-15, 2019.
#AskAlan If you could swap out two Hall of Famers for two better ones – which four would it be? -Oskar (@tallboy199)
Ken Schofield is outta there — sorry, I don’t think being a competent bureaucrat is enough to warrant a spot in the Hall. And while I love his swag as much as everyone else does, I’m evicting Fred Couples, too. With a mere 15 wins and only one major, he lowered the bar so much that just about every really-good-but-not-quite-great player now can’t be kept out of the Hall. Who to put in is much tougher, if I only get two choices. You gotta start with (Champagne) Tony Lema, who in 1964 won an Open at the Old Course by a whopping five strokes. (From 1963-66 he finished in the top-10 in eight of the 15 majors he played.) Lema won 11 other Tour events before dying in a plane accident in 1966 at the age of 32, just as he was entering his prime. No doubt he would have piled up a bunch more victories. Throw in his larger-than-life persona and he would be a credit to the Hall. I’m gonna burn my second choice on Butch Harmon. He’s done so much for the game. In every other sport the managers and coaches are revered figures. It’s bizarre that golf’s Hall of Fame so consistently overlooks the men and women who preside over the swings of the game’s greatest players.
Ken is just too easy to pick on, and it's hard to post a good score with such a low degree of difficulty. But of greater import, is Butch even the first Harmon that should be enshrined? I'm thinking Dad was the more interesting and deserving choice.
Are we really ready for a new season ? #AskAlan -@ScottGman2
I know it’s trendy to bag on the short off-season but what are we supposed to watch on the weekend…football? Gross.
No, we play golf, followed by a world-class nap.
Over/under on number of viewers for Tiger v. Phil? -Ian (@Scottishgolfpro)
The prevailing sentiment is that this made-for-TV spectacle is going to be a turkey but, again, what else are you gonna watch on Black Friday? I think sheer boredom and desperation will compel people to watch, to say nothing of FOMO, what remains the most powerful force in the universe. I don’t really know how to quantify the size of the audience but I am positive there is a lunatic-fringe of golf fans who are going to watch.
Yeah, but I'd still take the under.... To the best of my knowledge they haven't finalized the price point, but if they play as they did in France I could envision some whoop-ass blowback.
If you’re hosting your own PGA Tour event where do you hold it, how many in the field, what’s the format and who isn’t invited? -@MarkTownsendNCG
All four courses at Bandon Dunes. Fifty two-person mixed teams each featuring one PGA Tour and one LPGA player, with the teams picked by me based entirely on the players’ personalities/good cheer. First round will be better-ball; second-round shall be alternate shot. The final round (because four days can be rather excessive) with be a madcap worst-ball scramble.
True confession, I've never actually played a worse-ball scramble. It sounds like fun, though it seems like you could be out there for a while...
Have a good one and I'll catch you tomorrow morning.
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