Tuesday Trifles

Just a few items, some of which we didn't find time to get to yesterday....

You Say You Want A Revolution - The folks in Ponte Vedra Beach have you covered:

The Players Championship is already the premier PGA Tour event, but the Tour brass are still trying everything they can to raise its profile even higher. Next year, that effort will take the form of self-described “revolutionary” live-streaming coverage. 

While that description might be a bit dramatic, the streaming plan the Tour has in store for the 2020 event is unquestionably impressive. During next year’s tournament, viewers will be able to watch every single shot from every single player in the field live online across all four rounds, via PGA Tour Live. 

That means, if you so choose, you can watch every single tee shot hit at TPC Sawgrass’ island-green, par-3 17th hole, including every ball that finds the bottom of the pond (you can also see if any balls end up on the 17th’s OTHER island green). 

All in all, the new wall-to-wall streaming coverage will feature an estimated 32,000 shots live online. It’s an incredible feat, and it seems to be the first time truly comprehensive, live coverage has been offered at a professional golf event.

I think we can all agree that "revolutionary" is the key word they're going for here, though it's that "self-described" that perhaps should draw our eyes.  if the coverage did, in fact, choose that adjective, then it meets my definition of revolutionary....

They go on in house-organ mode with this:

It’s mind-bending to imagine the coordination and technological lift, not to mention human effort, required to pull of the plan. And we don’t yet know the details about how it will work for fans on PGA Tour Live. If it’s a success, though, you can already picture the idea spreading far and wide and eventually becoming the norm at all PGA Tour events.

And yet, my mind remains stubbornly unbent, except as to the lack of even the pretense of journalistic standards at Golf Magazine.  Because when I'm in the mood for PGA Tour press releases, I can cut out the middle man and go straight to the source.

And yet, I just have to ask, what is so notable about this human effort?  We have cameras, we have cameramen, and we've long known that they're running all day....  That's how we have video when that Tour rabbit makes an ace early Thursday morning.  Which is great, you know, and as a highly-respected golf blogger, I should probably be watching all 32,000 of those shots just in case.

But, as for it being revolutionary, Geoff rains on their parade with the fact that, at best, it's evolutionary:

In conjunction with NBC Sports Gold, the tour will roll out the first attempt at the 2020 Players, just weeks prior to the Masters, where a slightly tape-delayed on-demand debuted in 2019 with mostly great success (things were rough at the start and some shots never were captured).

Growing pains and all that.... But who, praytell, is the audience for this?  I'm guessing shut-ins and incels, though Geoff struggles for applications:

The technology and concept is undoubtedly exciting, but it does the raise the question":

how people will watch golf going forward. Given the length of a round, the number of variables involved and the slow nature of the sport, the act of sitting down to watch one or two groups go about their round, minus announcing and other storytelling elements, seems like a big ask. Perhaps those who have fantasy pool or waging implications at stake will pay for the privilege, as will family and friends of players.

The technology seems far more compelling in the Presidents Cup or WGC Dell Match Play, where such formats make you want to follow the mini-dramas within a match. But even then, you need announcing and other production elements to make for compelling viewing.

I'd come at it from a different perspective....  Where is there demand above and beyond that which the linear broadcast (and I do love that term of art) can show?  I'll grant Geoff the Match Play, at least Wednesday through Friday where there's 32 matches.  But the Prez Cup?  With all of four matches on the golf course?  Good luck with that.

It's great that the technology exists and perhaps demand will catch up to it, what with folks so determined to Live Under Par™.

What Happens In Vegas... - Just a couple of leftovers from the Shriner's, including this impassioned case for the winner:

Why not Na? 

Shortly after Kevin Na won Sunday’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, a few folks

on social media wondered if he had a case to make the U.S. Presidents Cup team as one of four captain’s picks at Tiger Woods’ disposal. 

It didn’t go well. A quick scan of numerous comment sections showed scores of respondents were repulsed by the query or laughed off the suggestion.

Repulsed?  Perhaps that's a sign you're spending too much time on Twitter?  I think there's a case to be made, so how about we allow Steve DiMeglio to make it:

All in all, a bit harsh. This isn’t to say Na should be one of the four discretionary selections Woods will make Nov. 4. This is to say he has to be in Tiger’s head.

After winning just once in his first 369 starts – he won in Las Vegas in 2011 – Na has won three of his last 30 starts on the PGA Tour. He’s ranked No. 24 in the world, ahead of many of the names being considered. 

And only three players have won multiple titles on the PGA Tour this calendar year – world No. 1 Brooks Koepka, world No. 2 Rory McIlroy and, wait for it, Na.

The argument against is also obvious, that those wins were in decidedly second tier events (as well as on the easiest of golf courses).  That said, I caught a discussion on Golf Channel on Sunday in which Tony Finau was described as a lock for the team.  We just happen to have this Finau item from Vegas:

Tony Finau's third-round 62 put the big-hitting Utah native into contention at the

Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. But even if he doesn't go on to win, Finau accomplished a PGA Tour first at TPC Summerlin that is worth acknowledging. 

Finau, despite carding seven birdies and an eagle on Saturday, actually lost 1.507 strokes/putting relative to the field. And in doing so, Finau became the first player in PGA Tour Shotlink history to card a 62 or lower while also losing strokes putting. That's how hard that is to accomplish! (Kudos to the PGA Tour's Sean Martin for digging up that amazing stat.)

For some reason the Tour's website isn't showing any statistics (or I'm missing them somehow), but Finau is a terrible putter.  I merely point this out because a year ago we sent a group of players that couldn't find a fairway with GPS to France, where we all knew the course would be set up to require that skill.  If only we had a task force to sort through these complicated issues....

Bio Kim, It Never Gets Old - I'm interested to see what Joel Beall can do with this ambitious header:

We're asking the wrong question when it comes to Bio Kim's three-year suspension

So, Joel, what's the wrong question?

Perhaps then instead of focusing on the length of Kim’s ban, the question needs reframing. Chiefly, could the Korean Tour’s decision serve as a siren song for increased public action? 

As a preface, Kim’s actions against South Korea’s cultural backdrop, in which manners and obedience are paramount, are part of the equation. That ideology carries over to the Korean Tour, where a player can face discipline “When reckless behavior damages a member’s dignity.” 

Yet, according to E.J. Sohn, editor-in-chief and director of GolfDigest Korea, though Kim’s actions were widely panned in the country, public opinion on the ruling is divided.

“Many people expected a punishment of not participating in the next tournament or the rest of the season before the decision,” Sohn said. “It’s shocking.”

It was pretty harsh, for sure.  But i was expecting Joel to make the case about incentives, but he muddies the alters unnecessarily with this:

It should be noted that golf, like all professional sports, has long operated outside societal norms. Bad behavior is chalked up to the heat of battle, the fiery passion that draws us to the spectacle. 

This makes it easy to forget that, at its core, golf is a business, and that courses double as office space for tour pros. Taken through that prism, consider what would happen if you brazenly flipped off a co-worker at your office. At most companies, there’s a good chance you’d be sent packing. Destroy your cubicle or launch your computer monitor in disgust, ditto.

Sigh!  Bio Kim didn't flip off a co-worker, he flipped off a fan that was behaving as badly as he did...  And, by the way, sports are different than your office cubicle, and we should allow for the venting of frustration.

The point he is trying to make, at least I think so, is that failing to penalize such behavior leads inevitably to Sergio.  He's the poster child for golfers behaving badly, and in coddling him we get more of same.  Yes, it's sometimes hard to know where to draw the line, but that shouldn't obscure the nature f the world we've created out there.  As I first head in quite another context, law firm compensation to be specific, that which gets rewarded gets repeated.  

These Crazy Kids - I'm not overly worried about the future of our game, though perhaps I should be:

How many elite junior players have broken golf’s golden rules in competition? More than you might think. 

GOLF.com recently completed its Anonymous Junior Golfer Survey, polling 64

competitive junior boys and girls players ages 12-18 from four different regions of the country (the entire survey will be published on GOLF.com later this week). The golfers were asked for their opinions on their own games, the sport’s biggest debates, slow play, their aspirations and more. 

They were also asked about cheating, with 20 percent of them admitting that they have knowingly broken a rule in a tournament and not reported it. One respondent said that he or she had “put a club firmly on the rough to get a better lie.” 

The juniors were also asked if they had ever confronted or reported another player for breaking a rule. Sixty-nine percent said they had.

But I had been reliably informed that golf is a game for gentlemen....  Apparently Vijay and Patrick Reed were unavailable for comment.

As for that slow play teaser in the excerpt above, there's actually a silver lining:

Some of the most interesting results surrounded pace of play. For example, 86 percent of the juniors polled answered “yes” when asked if there is a pace-of-play problem in competitive junior golf circles, yet only 3 percent of them considered themselves to be slow players. The other 97 percent said they didn’t consider themselves slow. Additionally, almost half of those polled (44 percent) said they or someone they were playing against had been penalized for slow play. That’s a huge number when contrasted with the PGA Tour, where slow play penalties are rare. 

Slow play in golf is a topic that’s been around forever and won’t go away soon. The stigma has a trickle down effect that can influence younger generations — If my favorite pro is taking this long to hit a shot, why can’t I? — which won’t do the game any favors in bucking the trend.

Wow, I'm actually encouraged if they're penalizing the kids...  Maybe there's hope for this generation yet...  What, OK, that's crazy talk for sure.

Fazio In Full -  If you asked me to name my least favorite course architect, Tom Fazio is the name you'd hear.  Now, that may not be a fair assessment of the man's portfolio, though I'm reluctant to consider being fair to folks.  Once you start down that path it never ends.

The man sat for a Golfworld interview, so perhaps we should give him a hearing.  First, most aren't familiar with Uncle George:

“I got my first opportunity in the business working for my uncle, George Fazio, who was a tournament golfer in the World War II era. In the 1950 US Open, he tied Ben Hogan and Lloyd Mangrum but lost in an 18-hole play-off. I always thought if my uncle had won that tournament, his status as a player would have been greater, he would have competed more frequently and my life would have been significantly different.”

“Instead, he focused on the next stage of his career, which became golf course operations then the design business. My father was George’s oldest brother. He had no sons of his own and so he took me under his wing.”

That was Hogan's remarkable comeback win after the the bus collision, as well as the source of perhaps the most famous golf photo ever.

But this is an odd comment, at least to me:

"I’ve always liked the idea of Tour players designing courses. It brands the course designer’s name, which is good for my business because I have an established reputation. I’m not so sure about whether it’s good news for younger up-and-coming designers, though.”

“In a tough economy with fewer projects, who’s going to get the business – the ex Tour Pro or the unknown designer? But this is not a new scenario. In the 1970s, during the golf course boom, you had the likes of Don January and Gardner Dickinson designing courses. So it’s nothing new.”

Bill Coore was famously told by a potential client to do the same, though to me it depends entirely on the player involved.  Guys like Ben Crenshaw and Geoff Ogilvy have always shown an interest in and knowledge of the field, but less so for most of the guys out there.  t's interesting and a bit off-putting that he focuses on the branding issues, as opposed to what the players bring to the design process.

But then our Spidey Sense starts to tingle, as Mr. F. starts settling scores:

”In many ways, there’s a lot of ‘BS’ in course architecture. Everybody has an opinion and many want to find meaning that simply isn’t there. The reality is that while you’re trying to pioneer golf holes into the land, others are thinking you had a philosophy before you even arrived.”

“At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the end result. Where’s the 1st tee, what’s the course record, and how great do I feel when I leave?”

Pioneer?  Isn't that the poker tell?  Bill Coore or Tom Doak would speak of finding their routing in the land, where landforms and features define the location of greens, tees and the like.  Not our heroic Faz...he'll make the land subservient to his will.

This also seems pretty rich:

”One of the idiosyncrasies of our business is that, if it’s old, people like it better than if it’s new.  Prestwick is one of my favourites to play. You’re playing blind holes, hitting over this and across that.” 

“It’s a bizarre experience but people love it. It’s the same with the Old Course. You hit your ball where your caddie tells you and it ends up in a bunker. Totally unfair. If these were new courses, people would hate them. You couldn’t like them if you tried.”

Tom, if your Old Course caddie gave you a line that put you in a bunker, perhaps he's played one of your courses?  Because most of us end up in those bunkers ony when we miss our caddie's line.

But seriously, I'm highly skeptical that Tom Fazio reveres Prestwick, as his design work seems to be a specific repudiation thereof.  Prestwick and the Old Course are what happens when golf is played in natural settings, the land defining the playing corridors.  Fazio's courses are the polar opposite, as this bit about his signature design makes clear:

”Back in the late 1980s, I was pitching for a big design job in Las Vegas. During the interview, a question came up that I had never been asked before. “What makes a great golf course?” The person grilling me was a very smart guy – an English major who had studied course architecture and who possessed an IQ that was off the charts.”

“I wasn’t really sure I knew the answer, but somehow the words came out. “What have Pebble Beach and Cypress Point got? The ocean, crashing waves and the beauty of Carmel Bay.”

“Pinehurst has rolling hills, tall pines and awesome sandy turf. Pine Valley has dramatic elevation changes, sand slopes and a variety of vegetation. It’s all about the environment.”

“Eventually, I plucked up the courage to say, ‘The problem with your site in Las Vegas is that there’s simply no environment.’ The interviewer looked at me and said, “So why don’t we build an environment and put a golf course in it?”

“When I blurted out, “Do you have any idea of how much that would cost?” he pointed his finger at me and said, “That’s not your job. My job is to pay for it, your job is to design, think and create. I’m paying for it so let’s never talk about money, OK?”

“The interviewer was Steve Wynn, the famous casino owner and entrepreneur. And the golf course we were discussing would eventually become Shadow Creek.”

The fact that Steve Wynn's question about what makes a great golf course stumped Fazio is perhaps the least surprising bit in this interview.  And notice that which is missing from his answer, any reference to actual architectural design.

OK, I'm glad we gave him a hearing....  We shan't need to do that again anytime soon.