Tuesday Tastings

As I tee up my morning post, it's crazy the stuff that I left unblogged due to the higher order craziness of the weekend.  We're in the midst of back-to-back storms, 23 inches in the last 48 hours, and two more days of the white stuff.  So, since you're not my highest priority in the moment....

Alice At Rest - Profoundly sad and shocking to hear of the passing of Alice Dye, an estimable, interesting and beloved member of the golf family.  Ron Whitten has the must read remembrance, but it starts with quite the punch, a thought I immediately had as well:

My friend Alice Dye died on Feb. 1, three weeks short of her 92nd birthday, a death I’m taking hard because I know how much she loved her husband, Pete, the Hall of Fame golf architect now battling dementia, and because I fear her departure will somehow hasten his.

But tell us about Alice, Ron:

Pete and Alice were a couple for the ages. Alice was Bacall to Pete’s Bogart, Hepburn to his Tracy, Nancy to his Ronald, Ethel to his Fred. 

It’s no insult to Pete Dye to say that Alice was literally his better half. She was the more

successful competitive golfer, with a supple swing well past parallel later rivaled only by John Daly. She was a Curtis Cupper at age 42, for crying out loud. 

She was a better politician than Pete when it came to dealing with owners and regulators, more polished in presentations and communications. As a golf architect, she was the more knowledgeable of the two, teaching Pete how to read contour maps and handling most of his drawings. In the field, she edited Pete’s designs expertly, making them easier for mortals to play and tougher for the one percent who dread counting strokes for a living on Pete Dye designs.

You'll be wanting more:

In 1983, Alice was accepted as the first female member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, over the backroom grumbling of a few intransigent fuddy-duds. In 1997, when she was elected the first female president of the Society, Pete, who’d served his one-year term as ASGCA president in 1988, stood up and shouted, “You know, this is the second time she’s done this.”

They were the first couple of golf.... It was an obviously loving marriage lived in the public eye, and they collectively nurtured quite a trove of architectural talent.   

And it never occurred to me that Alice might go first.  Pray for Pete.

Can't We All Just Get Along - It's been a tough few weeks for your humble blogger on the litigation front.  First, Vijay gets paid handsomely to go away so the Tour doesn't have to allow him to poke around in Nurse Ratched's dirty laundry.  Now we lose a promising intellectual property lawsuit on emotionally unsatisfactory terms:

PXG and TaylorMade jointly announced Friday that the companies have reached a

settlement in their patent disputes. 

Neither company released details of the settlement. 

“As a golf equipment innovator, PXG will continue to pursue research and development and obtain patents for our novel club designs in the iron-technology space,” Bob Parsons, PXG’s CEO, said in a release. “We will not hesitate to assert those patents in the future.”

OK, that's nice.  But who won?

Parsons Xtreme Golf (PXG) and TaylorMade Golf Company jointly announced today that they have reached a settlement of the pending patent litigation and related patent disputes between the parties. Under the terms of the agreement, each company will have specified rights to make club products under patent cross-licenses.

Huh?   That Parsons guy doesn't seem like the sharing kind....  But maybe this a smart move, to keep the spoils among themselves, and box the other guys out.  Think of it like the government's settlement with the cigarette industry...

They are the only two using the process and, as this makes clear, it's a virtually identical process:

First released in 2015, the original PXG 0311 irons are hollow with thermoplastic elastomer injected into the empty chamber behind the hitting area. The company says the TPE increases the durability of the thin face while enhancing feel and sound. PXG irons also have tungsten in the toe to lower the center of gravity and shift it to the center of the face. The company’s new 0311 GEN2 irons are designed in the same way. 

TaylorMade’s P790 irons are hollow, then filled a proprietary material the company calls SpeedFoam. They also have tungsten added to the toe.

I have been quite happy with my P790's, and happy as well to not have paid Parsons' price.  

It had the makings of an entertaining and interesting case, one neither party could fail to prosecute aggressively.  Also, Parsons seemed likely to keep things lively.  I think my judgement was sound, but one never sees the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Treaty coming.

Timing Is Everything - This is your daily chickens-coming-home-to-roost item, as this was noted when the event was announced initially.  Lost in all the fawning over the women's amateur event to take place at Augusta National, is that they couldn't have picked a worse week if they tried.

The Augusta National Women's Amateur is held the same week as the ANA Inspiration, an LPGA major.  While that might seem inconsequential, the ANA reminds one of a certain men's major.  It's the first major of the season, is always played at the same venue and, of note here, it supports the amateur game by inviting top amateur players to compete.  See where this is going?

World No. 1 Jennifer Kupcho initially turned down Augusta National. Her Wake Forest team had a two-day event scheduled in Georgia, and the NCAA champ felt it was unfair to add a non-college event to her docket. 

“I think originally my brother was like ‘Why wouldn’t you want to play at Augusta? Seriously? Are you insane?’ ” said Kupcho of older brother Steven, a touring pro who surely echoed the thoughts of many. 

But Kupcho, who earned her LPGA card at Q-Series last fall and chose to defer to finish out her senior year at Wake, was thinking long-term too. When she finally gets to the LPGA this spring, Kupcho didn’t want to be completely worn out. 

Then the two-day college event got canceled. Kupcho told the folks at Augusta that she’d changed her mind. She wanted in. 

Three days later, Kupcho got invited to the ANA Inspiration. 

Another tough decision ensued as the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur and ANA Inspiration are both held the first week in April. 

It’s not easy choosing between a longtime dream (an LPGA major) and what seemed the impossible dream (women competing at Augusta National). 

Kupcho decided to stick with the ANWA (she couldn’t possibly tell Augusta no twice), but four players ranked inside the top 11 chose the desert over Augusta green.

Sigh.  The grand poobas of ANGC decide to make their hallowed grounds accessible  to the young ladies, and we do so want this to be a happy story.  But they can only do it on a date that denies some of the other ladies a similar bucket list opportunity.

Our governing organizations haven't exactly been covering themselves in glory lately, have they?

More Rules Stuff - Because, yanno, the new rules have been such a huge hit....  But can anyone critique Branden Grace's drop technique:

Hmmm....Perhaps we should consult the USGA, who offers this guidance:

New Rule: Players continue to drop a ball when taking relief, but the dropping procedure is changed in several ways as detailed in Rule 14.3: 

• How a ball may be dropped is simplified; the only requirement is that the ball be let go from knee height so that it falls through the air and does not touch any part of the player’s body or equipment before it hits the ground.

Better yet, how about if a player performs a Colin Kaepernick tribute and then drops from knee height?  You really should try to get out more, guys, because you're making profession golfers look like the Vienna Boys Choir.

But wait, The Forecaddie has more:

The Man Out Front started noticing how much players were peeking at their books

before putts while playing the still-new greens at Torrey Pines North. During Waste Management Phoenix Open play, players were regularly seen consulting the books before putting, like it was 2018. 

What gives? 

Players and caddies consulted say it’s simple: The modifications made after the USGA and R&A’s six-week feedback period deadened the initial effort to force players to use their own judgment. 

“I think they’re just as effective,” said Adam Scott. “I’ve never used the color chart, but now it’s in the book that they sell. Now I’ve got everything in one place. It’s ridiculous how simple it is to understand, what is serious break and what is not. And they’re incredibly accurate, I have to say.”

Which brings to remind the third of Robert Conquest's Three Laws 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.

I'm not exactly sure who those enemies are, but they've obviously been working nights and weekends.

 Gonna leave you good folks there, and hopefully see you tomorrow.  Unless, you know, we get a huge dumping of fresh powder....