Late Week Laments

Did you catch the rain at Riviera yesterday?  That moisture is presumably headed to the Wasatch, where they've already had some 36" since I headed home....  But I'm not bitter.

Lucy, Unchained - Unshackled, at the very least....  This comes as absolutely no surprise, in the midst of our governing bodies complete meltdown:

The verdict is in: The USGA has determined that Lucy Li breached its rules, but she is allowed to retain her amateur status. 

The USGA issued Li a one-time warning Thursday, an outcome the organization says is consistent with its general practice for players who unknowingly breach Rule 6-2 for the first time and take appropriate remedial measures. 

In early January, the 16-year-old appeared in an Apple Watch “Close Your Rings” advertising campaign. The USGA immediately opened an investigation into whether or not she had violated her amateur status. 

Rule 6-2 states that “an amateur golfer of golf skill or reputation must not use that skill or reputation to obtain payment, compensation, personal benefit or any financial gain, directly or indirectly, for (i) promoting, advertising or selling anything, or (ii) allowing his name or likeness to be used by a third party for the promotion, advertisement or sale of anything.” 

Thomas Pagel, the USGA’s senior managing director of governance, told Golfweek on Thursday the committee poured over decades of cases and in every instance in which an amateur unknowingly broke the rule, received no compensation and took steps to rectify the situation, the player received only a warning.

Translated into colloquial English, it approximates "Who ya gonna beleive, me or your lyin' eyes?"

 I'm guessing that Shack is not a fan:

The message from Lucy Li’s case is clear. Take free stuff. Use your skill as a golfer to be a billboard. Just be famous and likable enough and the governing bodies of golf won’t revoke your status. 

In a sad statement about the weakened state of amateur golf, Lucy Li gets to retain her

status despite starring in an Apple Watch ad while wearing scripted Nike apparel. Following a six-week investigation, the USGA determined that Li unknowingly violated amateur status rules after an elaborately produced piece was filmed following a call from “a casting agent for an acting assignment to promote Apple Watch.” 

The Li family and the USGA would like us to believe the ad happened without compensation, without guarantee it would ever run or without knowledge that such an appearance might not look so kosher. 

At worst, it may be the most blatant violation of amateur status since Tony Romo’s Skechers Go Golf ad ran last weekend.

Egads!  And every time they explain themselves, the violate the first rule of holes:

The USGA said in a statement that Romo is in the clear because “everyone knows him first as a professional football player and his fame and fortune is not derived from golf.” But he is adding to his fortune on the back of his likeness as a golfer who competes in U.S. Open qualifying as an excellent amateur.

That makes perfect sense, as long as he's being paid to promote Sketchers football cleats....

But bear with me, for the very best is yet to come....  Shack often uses his blog to promote his items in Golfweek, but it's also a venue in which length is unlimited.  In his post, he copies-and-pastes the entire USGA press release on the matter, wherein we find our comedy gold:

Late last year, Ms. Li was engaged by a casting agent for an acting assignment to promote the Apple Watch. At that time, the nature of her participation was not defined and she was given no indication that she would appear as a golfer. While on this

assignment, Ms. Li was filmed engaging in a variety of recreational activities, one of which was golf. The casting agent informed her that her appearance in any final advertisement was not guaranteed, nor did they know how she would be featured. 

Ms. Li first became aware of the final content of the advertisement, which featured her as a golfer, on Jan. 2. She was notified by the USGA of a pending review into her Amateur Status on Jan. 3. At that time, Apple immediately took down the advertisement in all its forms. On Jan. 11, USGA notified Ms. Li she had breached the Rules of Amateur Status.

Ya got that kids?  It's a master class in how to avoid the rules governing amateur status....  She answered a general casting call for cute-as-a-button teenage girls, was filmed in a  variety of actions, and some astute marketing genius got the idea that she'd make a credible golfer....  

Back to Golfweek for Geoff's coda:

While society has accepted the blurring of all lines between those who play to compete and those who play to be paid, caving in this situation will have repercussions in other rule-making areas. 

In taking a soft stance on “amateurs” starring as pitch-people, the USGA and R&A have further weakened their place in the game. Already damaged by glitches in the new rules rollout, they undoubtedly believed taking a hard stance on Li would add even more disdain for their efforts. 

Yet if the rulemakers can only hand out scoldings for blatant violations, their credibility eventually ceases to exist. 

Furthermore, if different interpretations of rules apply to different people, at what point do they cease to have any authority at all?

And they've been so competent in discharging their other responsibilities.... It's become very difficult to care about anything emanating from Far Hills Liberty Corner.... 

A Righteous Fisking - Alex Myers subjects Kooch to a circa-1999 Fisking, which is good fun, though Alex might have missed a tasty morsel:

"We had a great week": And by all accounts they did. Kuchar won for the first time in more than four years and referred to Ortiz as his "good luck charm." Ortiz told

Golf.com's Michael Bamberger, “Matt is a good person and a great player. He treated me very well. I am only disappointed by how it all finished.” The looper has sought and been denied what he thinks is fair, $50,000 (he was reportedly offered $15,000 later, but turned it down). Ortiz acknowledges he never expected the 10 percent payday for a win a typical PGA Tour caddie receives, since it's believed regular tour caddies assume larger responsibilities and financial risk being with the player throughout the year. Meanwhile, Kuchar took home another $1.3 million payday for winning the Sony Open in January, but it's hard to put a price on the damage this incident has done to what had been a sterling reputation among golf fans.

Who is this "we" you speak of....  You had a great week, your first great week in four years.

"We had an agreement": Both Kuchar and Ortiz have confirmed this, albeit with slightly different pay structures. Ortiz told Golf.com's Michael Bamberger the two agreed on $3,000 plus an unspecified amount of his winnings. Kuchar says it was a layered structure beginning with $1,000 for a missed cut, $2,000 for a made cut, $3,000 for a top 20 and $4,000 for a top 10. What the caddie would receive for a win was not discussed. "The extra $1,000 was, 'Thank you — it was a great week.' Those were the terms. He was in agreement with those terms," Kuchar said. "That’s where I struggle. I don’t know what happened. Someone must have said, 'You need much more.'" In any event, Kuchar appears to have technically fulfilled his financial obligation here. At least, that's what a lawyer would argue.

Actually, as I understand Matt's case, he did not meet the terms of his agreement.  Three grand plus four for the top twenty is seven grand, and Matt Handed him five in the famous envelope.   And that's without an assumed larger bones for the W....

Alex does have this, which is along the lines where I'm heading:

"Making $5,000 is a great week": The full quote Kuchar gave to Golf.com is, “For a guy who makes $200 a day, a $5,000 week is a really big week.” With no context, it's

impossible to argue that point. It's likely Ortiz has never made that much money in a week and that he'll never make that much money in a week again. Not many people do. That's the equivalent of making $260,000 a year. But is getting less than what you think you deserve a great week? If you're a waiter and you get the biggest tip of your life after serving a celebrity, but realize it wasn't close to the normal 20 percent you get from customers, are you still happy? 

(Kuchar never suggested making $5,000 is a lot for someone in Mexico, but others have. Dave Marr on his Thursday show on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio repeated the fact Ortiz made as much in a week as the median annual income in Mexico. Marr insisted Kuchar will "come out clean" from this incident, and the four callers I heard during my morning commute agreed. Where the tournament was played and where Ortiz is from is irrelevant. What matters is what he deserved. While most people agree with Ortiz that he didn't merit the normal 10 percent, keep in mind the caddie's intake was less than half of ONE percent.)

To be fair, it was $5K PLUS the flag from the 18th hole..... Fair is fair.

But this bit from yesterday came back to my thoughts later:

Kuchar described a local caddie he had in Mexico City some years ago named Santiago and how he has dinner with him whenever he returns to Mexico City. “I had hoped to have that same kind of relationship with David,” Kuchar said, “but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”

So, what you're saying is that some of your best friends are Mexican?  Good to know...

But Matt, Golf.com has up a helpful tutorial, of which you might want to avail yourself:

The Etiquetteist: What’s the right amount to tip a caddie?

I'm sure the timing was merely coincidental....

Eamon en Fuego -  Eamon Lynch was quite harsh on those players that took the Kingdom's thirty pieces of silver, about which criticism I had some disagreements.  He's back with more vitriol, but in the instant case I have no qualms:

Every golfer who competed in the Saudi International left town with his reputation stained, but none moreso than the mercurial Spaniard, who was disqualified for “serious misconduct” after damaging five putting greens in a fit of pique. His antics were unsurprising for longtime viewers of the Sergio Show. 

Twenty years ago at Wentworth in England, Garcia reacted to a lousy shot by ripping off his shoe and flinging it into the gallery. After missing a putt at Doral in 2007, he retrieved his ball then spit into the cup, a snotty gesture of contempt toward the competitors unfortunate enough to be playing behind him. 

Those are but two snowflakes in a blizzard of boorish behavior. 

There’s a club tossed into a lake, fans flipped off, microphones obliterated, his whirling dervish slashing in the bunker the day before his DQ in Saudi —all set to a whiny soundtrack that blames poor results on everyone from Tiger Woods to Carnoustie’s bunker rakers.

Anyone but me catch the unintentional irony?  What if he had thrown his show in Saudi Arabia?

For those literate in general Arab culture, the specific throwing of one's shoes at another person is a clear sign of abhorrence for that individual, which transcends an even more violent act, e.g. serious physical assault (throwing shoes is also known to be a deep offense in Thai culture). One could equate this to spitting on someone in a number of other cultures. The shoe is considered dirty because it touches the ground and foot. Striking a person with it denotes that person's even dirtier level. It is even improper to show the sole of one's shoe when seated and crossing legs. In mosques, shoes are removed before entry. Thus, a pattern arises and the concept of the shoe is embedded into a set of cultural values with historical anecdotes that serve as powerful references to meaning. The recent incident in Iraq, where a journalist threw his two shoes at President Bush, is one example. More of these examples can be accessed here, an article published in the Telegraph.

That's amusing and Sergio wore a short dress and had it coming...  actually I'm quite surprised that the magical, nothing-but-net loogie, but Eamon really needs to move on:

Perhaps European Tour CEO Keith Pelley was aware of the personal situation Garcia faces and opted for compassion when he declared the matter closed. That’s the generous interpretation. And the cynical reading? That he gave a break to a tormented guy who unwittingly diverted scrutiny away from those who have much more to apologize for in this sorry Saudi Arabian affair.

Eamon, unless you can document a history of being critical of the Kingdom before the Kashoggi story broke, this is really getting old.

Back At The Riv -  If every governing body in our game set as their objective to undermine their authority, what would they have done differently since the start of the year?

Yet again I am compelled to cite Robert Conquest's third law of politics:

The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

Now it's the PGA Tour's moment in the sun..... err, maybe spotlight would be more apt:

Q. Finally, you nullified the scores that were posted for the few players that were out earlier this morning, first time in more than five years since it's happened on the PGA TOUR. What was the decision for that?

MARK RUSSELL: We don't do that very often, but if I had it to do over again, we would have delayed the starting times. We tee off at sunrise. We have to because here a lot of times we don't finish, we have to use all the available daylight we have. We teed off at sunrise and I was on the first tee with the players and it was very marginal, thinking in my mind this is going to get better every minute. They teed off, we had their balls under control, but the visual never got better. The cloud cover's so thick that you just couldn't see.

So once we did suspend play, the committee got together and just decided that we need to nullify these scores because the visual, it never got where you could see where your ball went, barely see the flagstick. And like I say, under normal circumstances it would get better every minute. It never did. As a matter of fact, it got worse, so we decided to nullify the scores. That's not a common thing, but the committee does have the discretion to do that. We felt in this situation that's the thing to do.

Why do they start so early?  Because they play so damn slow.... slowly.  That sound you hear is my mother spinning in her graver over her son forgetting the difference between adjectives and adverbs.

I did watch a few minutes, but unfortunately I forget the name of the player that lost his tee ball on No. 1 because it was so foggy no one had a clue where to look.  Fortunately, he had only three minutes to do so, so we've got that going for us....

If you missed it, do catch this routine par made by a certain lefty on No. 10.  Had it counted, it might qualify as the most Phil thing ever....

But I have a thought about this screen shot:

Who knew you could #LiveUnderPar by making a par.... Noted.

These Guys Are Not So Good - Submitted for your approval is Ben DeArmond, my new favorite Web.com player.  His day started with these good wishes:

Alas, he bogeyed his first hole, but that sometimes helps a guy settle down.  He calmly makes his way to the second tee, this daunting tee shot:

According to the Web.com leaderboard’s play-by-play tracking, DeArmond hit his first tee shot out of play. That’s understandable; check out the visuals on this beast of a hole (the nines appear to have been flipped this week):

Apparently left is OB, so one needs to be careful of that.....  Ben was careful.....oh so very careful:

He re-teed, and hit that one out of play too. And again. And again. And again. And again. In all, DeArmond hit six tee balls out of play. He re-teed a final time, now hitting 13, and found the fairway. Two shots later, he was on the fringe, where he made it up-and-down (with a one-putt, technically!) for a 17. 

Any golfer will tell you (this writer, who recently notched a double-digit hole in competition, certainly included) that they know the feeling of helplessness that follows a few bad swings in a row. But stroke play is unforgiving, and Florida golf is penal, and the more I look at that tee shot the more I can only imagine woods or water.

Not just a 17, but a one-putt 17.

Of course we love our colorful scorecards:

I think the absence of a photo was a good call....  You don't want to be recognized at the airport Friday afternoon.

Have a great weekend.