We'll get back to the distance stuff, as folks are playing their assigned roles perfectly. But I need a break from it, and I'm guessing you might as well.
Time Passages - New-to-me Golf Digest writer Derek Duncan takes a look at how two iconic golf courses have changed over the years:
THE EVOLUTION OF PEBBLE BEACH AND RIVIERA: A FASCINATING LOOK AT HOW TWO CLASSICS HAVE CHANGED
Which, of course, just happen to be hosting the PGA gang the next two weekends. If you can take your eyes off the XFL, that is...
First, The Riv:
The Riviera that George Thomas and William “Billy” Bell built was distinguished by openness, comparatively shallow bunkers with fingered and scalloped matted-grass edges and a rugged dry-wash barranca that slashed through the east and southeastern sections of the site. Decades of sand-splashing and modern remodel work have created steep, flashed bunker faces with crisp lines that now, in most cases, can only be entered and exited on the low side, and the once ominous looking barranca, and the property in general, feels more like a garden than the austere, arid West.
Which looked like this:
 |
| The 18th green as seen in 1951's Hogan biopic, Follow the Sun. |
Of course, you'll scan those two photos and be hard-pressed to identify anything that's different.... Though the 18th is one of those holes that the TV viewer would be unrecognizable with the grandstands and spectators on the hill above the green.
With Pebble there's no need to explain, the photos tell the story. First, the 7th green Of Chandler Egan for that 1929 U.S. Amateur:
Versus the modern iteration:
But I'm inclined to call BS on this:
Recreating Pebble Beach’s exotic coastal dunescape of the late 1920s might be visually spectacular but it’s hardly practical, and that look only existed for a few years before being altered again during the Great Depression. And no amount of architectural tinkering can make Pebble Beach more popular than it already is. People travel there for the course’s history, to play golf along the cliffs and for the overall emotional experience, so much so that perpetually full tee sheets have encouraged the resort to raise green fees to $575.
Hardly practical, why? Have you been to Pinehurst lately? And I can't resist this bit:
Pebble Beach morphed several times in its early years and achieved an artistic apotheosis when Chandler Egan lengthened the course, shifted greens and made other significant alterations prior to the 1929 U.S. Amateur. These included the creation of “imitation dunes,” swaths of unkempt sand surrounding a number of oceanside holes like the fourth, sixth, seventh, 10th and 17th. Photos from this time period are powerful reminders of how much the course is now defined by thick rough and small greens.
A seaside golf course choked with deep rough.... Yanno, it doesn't have to be that way.
In The Eye of The Beholder - Bob Harig has this primer on the Premier Golf League that my sophisticated readers will not need for its intended purpose. But this 'graph intrigued me:
Said an agent who wished not to be identified: "How can an organization negotiate hundreds of millions of dollars of TV contracts and someone like Tiger or Rory goes out and has the same chance of making the same money as some guy who has come off the Korn Ferry Tour? There is no arbitration panel. And no judge would say that is a fair economic model."
Distilled to its essence, this makes the case that Tiger is underpaid. To which I can only respond, No s**t, Sherlock. How could it possibly be otherwise?
But that agent's statement needs to be rebutted as well, because it elides the nature of the modern Tour, which protects its own ( perhaps too much at times). Yes, in a full field event, Tiger isn't guaranteed more than that Tour rabbit that Monday qualified. But Tiger will get Thursday-Friday tee times in the middle of the morning and afternoon waves, while Mr. Rabbit will be sweeping the dew...
More importantly, the WGCs and playoffs are all structured to reward those in the highest echelons of the game. In fact, this was Bob Harig's prior graph:
Then take Jordan Spieth, who had an off year but still is considered a headliner. He won just over $2.1 million. Compare that to the 90th player on the money list, Adam Schenk. This is in no way meant to pick on Schenk, but most golf fans likely do not know who he is. He's anonymous, mostly. An excellent golfer, obviously. But he probably doesn't sell any tickets and had nothing to do with the television contract. He made $1.25 million.
How was Jordan able to make $2.1 million large playing so poorly? Because his prior level of play exempted him into the WGCs and Invitationals, easy money grabs. In fact, we just happen to have this item on the former Golden Boy:
But mediocre can only keep you afloat for so long, and now that his results from 2017 have disappeared from the algorithm, he’s slipped to No. 55. That’s a big deal—“50”might be just a number, but it’s significant because of everything you lose. Put simply, being outside the top 50 means you miss out on some of the biggest tournaments on the calendar, and that makes the journey back to the top 50 that much harder.
It’s a big deal primarily because of the World Golf Championship events and their reduced fields. At the Dell Match Play, of course, the simple equation is that the top 64 make the field, but at the other WGCs, only the top 50 are guaranteed a place before different criteria set in. I have defended the OWGR vociferously in the past, but if there’s an area of slight imbalance, it’s at the WGCs. Compare a tournament like the WGC-Mexico from 2019 to this year’s Farmers Insurance Open, and you can see that the points available for the same finishing position are higher at the WGC by a factor of 1.5 to 2, roughly, depending on the spot. That’s due to the adjustment for the strength of field—specifically how many top 50 are competing. I’m not even saying that adjustment is wrong or unfair, but it’s also a fact that there were just 72 people in the Mexico field, and the usual 156 at the Farmers. By the sheer volume of players competing, it would seem harder to win (or finish 10th, or 25th) at the Farmers, but the points are higher at the WGC.
Of course Tiger feels he's underpaid.... First, I've yet to meet a man that thought he was overpaid. But also, no compensation system could possibly capture his unique place in the game.... and yes, that obviously creates an opening for these PGL guys.
But, as Harig Notes, it's not really that big an opening:
The Tiger factor
Getting Woods, of course, would seem to be the holy grail for the Premier Golf League. But is it? Woods is 44. When this league begins -- in two years at the earliest -- he will be 46. Is he going to play 18 tournaments in addition to the major championships? No chance. He played 14 last year and might play a total of 18 in 2020.
Sure, the Premier Golf League could lower its number of tournaments. And Woods could be given equity stake in one of the franchises and be guaranteed huge sums of money at a time in his career when official prize money would be waning. And after he gets PGA Tour victory No. 83 to break Sam Snead's record, is there a reason for him to stick around?
Tiger seems more and more a potential poison pill for these guys. And Phil as well.... Their relevance as players has a very short shelf life, but any initiative that doesn't include them will seem superficially unrealistic.
We Are The World - The Euros are playing their mixed event this week, so its an apt time for this to be floated:
Female golfers could be the biggest beneficiaries of an ambitious scheme torevolutionise the sport’s World Cup, with plans afoot to boost prize money and introduce mixed-gender teams. Detailed talks about the World Cup, a biennial event that does not resonate deeply within the sport, have been ongoing for several months. The plan would boost the competition’s purse from $7m to upwards of $10m, with female golfers entering the fold seen as commercially beneficial.
A bigger prize fund would, of course, be welcomed by male participants, but it would make a more significant impact on the women’s game as players look to close the pay gap to members of the PGA Tour in particular.
It's a zombie event, that I'm not sure I even knew was still alive, so go for it....
Phil In Phull - Shall we at last get to the reactions to the Distance Insights report? Of course, you'll have guessed from my header who will be prominently featured. First, he had these comments:
Phil Mickelson read the USGA and R&A’s distance report that was released Tuesday and took his share of jabs at golf’s governing bodies during his pre-tournament press conference on the eve of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Mickelson’s biggest beef with the report, which expressed concern for distance gains becoming “unsustainable,“ was his opposition to what he perceives as punishing athletes for getting better.
“I don’t think that we have had massive equipment changes. We have just had athletes that have been able to take advantage of the equipment more so than in the past. And I hate to see that discouraged,” Mickelson said. “You look at what Bryson (DeChambeau) has done getting in the gym, getting after it, lifting weights, and hitting bombs, and now he’s – now you’re talking about trying to roll it back because he’s made himself a better athlete. So, I don’t know if I agree with that. But I also don’t really understand the whole scope of how it affects the game and how it affects agronomy and golf courses and so forth, so I’m not sure I’m the best one to really comment on it. I just know from the small little bubble of the PGA Tour, I hate seeing the athletes be punished or discouraged from continuing to work and get better.”
Does it matter the source of the distance increases? I think he's wrong, not that conditioning and launch monitors aren't factors, but don't we have to accommodate the changes in distance regardless of the cause?
But his campaign to make friends and influence people continues:
“I struggle with some of our governing bodies,” Mickelson said. “I struggle with it because we’re the only sport, we’re the only professional sport in the world that is governed by a group of amateurs, and that leads to some questionable directions that we go down. I wish that we had people that are involved in the sport professionally to be in charge a little bit more.”
Say what? I'm sorry Phil, I'm unfamiliar with Roger Goodell's NFL career... Perhaps you could phil me in.
And if we're playing stupid games, perhaps you could identify another professional sport where the players bring their own balls?
On a related subject:
Pressed on why he wouldn’t accept the exemption, which the USGA has granted throughout the years to the likes of Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, “I just won’t,” Mickelson responded.
“They have never been an organization that likes to give out exemptions, special exemptions,” said Mickelson, who turns 50 on June 16, Tuesday of U.S. Open week. “I don’t want a special exemption. I think I’ll get in the tournament. If I get in, I deserve to be there. If I don’t, I don’t. I don’t want a sympathy spot. If I am good enough to make it and qualify, then I need to earn my spot there.”
OK, we can interpret this in one of two diametrically opposed ways. On the surface, it seems to be a proud athlete expressing confidence in his capabilities, wanting to earn his way in.
But this is Phil, and he always reminds us that he's the smartest guy in the room. So, perhaps after his antics at Shinny and comments above, he knows an exemption isn't in the cards. Better to break up with the girl before she breaks up with you.
It's not like there aren't others that think as Phil does, I'm just put off by his nonsense and baggage. Remember, in the aftermath of that Shinny incident, he hid behind Amy's skirt.... We remember, Phil.
You know who thinks like Phil on this subject? After initially releasing an anodyne non-statement statement, the PGA Tour has this:
However, asked specifically if the Tour considers increasing distance gains a “problem,” a spokesman for the circuit offered a slightly less sanitized version: “The PGA Tour willcontinue to work with the USGA and the R&A in monitoring trends. At this point, we feel today’s game is more exciting than ever for our fans and the integrity of the competitions are intact – we still see a diverse set of winners on the PGA Tour and our examination of the data reveals that the skills involved in winning a PGA Tour event remain largely unchanged. But we are carefully reviewing the findings in the Distance Insights Report and we will collaborate with all of our industry partners, including the USGA and the R&A, on the next steps in the process.”
It's worth unpacking the second statement. Where the report sees longer drives as the “wrong direction” for the game, the Tour continues to see a direct correlation between 300-plus-yard drives and a “more exciting” game.
Well, once a fellow has Lived Under Par™...
And nowhere do they live further under par than Phoenix:
Sunday’s final round of the PGA Tour Phoenix Open averaged a 1.75 rating and 2.87 million viewers on CBS, marking the tournament’s smallest final round audience since 2011 (2.70M). Webb Simpson’s playoff win, which ended shortly before the Super Bowl began, declined 30% in ratings and viewership from both last year and 2018 (2.5, 4.08M).
Third round action on Saturday averaged a 1.45 and 2.19 million, down 16% in both measures from last year (1.7, 2.60M) and down 30% and 34% respectively from 2018 (2.1, 3.30M).
Let's see, ratings in the tank and a rival league trying to steal your top players. Yup, must be a more exciting game....
The two organizations seem on a collision course, no? The Distance Insights Report didn't completely ignore the effects on the amateur game, but it mostly focused on the "Unsustainable" status of the elite game. Nowhere is golf more elite than on Jay Monahan's Tour, and they just said, "Thanks, we're good."
I'll also remind you that there' no reason that the PGA Tour has to adhere to USGA rules, it's just been convenient for the Tour to have them to blame. Forget the Premier League, this seems to be the battle for the soul of our game. As the kids like to say, Developing....
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