Thursday, September 10, 2020

Thursday Theses

 Geez, we've got a lot to cover...  Maybe that day off yesterday wasn't such a screaming hot idea.

The Heat Is On - I think it's great that both the LPGA and PGA Tour find themselves in the Peoples Republic of Claifornia.  Heaven on Earth, I've been reliably informed:

Hmmmm, when you say major appliances, does that include air conditioning?

 Now in the present circumstances it actually is the heat and not the humidity:

Lydia Ko calls Orlando, Florida, home when she’s not on the road and likens summers there to a complimentary sauna. The dry heat of the desert is different, of course, and she found the initial forecast “kind of frightening.”

“It’s (so) hot that you touch like the door handle of your car,” said Ko, “and it’s kind of on the slight sizzling point.”

Now that she has spent a few days in the desert heat, Ko said that she actually prefers the extreme temps to what she left in Orlando.

Though, to be clear (irony alert), it's not JUST the heat:

“We’re continuing to monitor both the AQI (Air Qualify Index) and the temperature very closely,” said Chief Tour Operations Officer Heather Daly-Donofrio. “While we’re not out there yet, if it becomes clear from our medical team, and we’re also going to be working with the
medical team at Eisenhower Medical, who’s a partner this week at the ANA Inspiration, if the high temperatures and the AQI converge to a point where we feel that’s unhealthy for walking … we have not ruled out carts for players on tournament days.”

Burning eyes and a scratchy throat impacted past champion Stacy Lewis early this week at Mission Hills.

“For me, the smoke itself has been more of an issue than the heat,” she said.
Right now, Thursday’s forecasted high is the lowest of the four rounds at 100 degrees. Saturday and Sunday temps are expected to reach 110 and 113 degrees, respectively.

That photo above is Haight St.in San Francisco at 11:00 a.m.   Far closer to the men's event in the Napa Valley, but you'll get the point.  Oh, and you want want to stock your fantasy team with players evidencing the necessary survival skills:

Nelly Korda, a Florida native, said the same, a mentality that should serve both players well.

It does take work to beat the heat though, and Korda credited a massive headache on Monday to dehydration.

“I actually have a really hard time drinking,” said Korda. “Like I do not drink on the golf course. That’s something that I’ve always done, and I told (my caddie) yesterday on the first hole, I was like, you need to remind me to drink a lot.”

Nelly is one of the young talents out there, but unless she'll have an IV drip on her caddie's cart, she's off my fantasy roster...   I mean, yanno, if I had a fantasy roster.

The place will look different this week for a couple of reasons, the first being seasonal:

David Hay believes LPGA players will quickly figure out the difference between the golf course they traditionally play in April and the course that will be presented to them for the ANA
Inspiration this week.

“You hit in the dark strip (the rough) and the ball is not going to roll,” said Hay, the director of golf operations at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage. “Hit it in the shiny strip (the fairway), and it is going to motor on down there another 20 yards or so.”

Normally covered with cool-weather rye grass in the fairways and rough and rye and poa annua grass on the greens in April, the Dinah Shore Tournament Course will be carpeted in Bermuda grass for the September ANA Inspiration. The Bermuda grass, the base turf for all desert courses in the triple-digit heat of the summer, will play quite different for the world’s top women players than the rye grass of the spring.

“The rough is going to be thicker,” said Josh Taylor, Dinah Shore Tournament course superintendent. “It’s going be tougher to get a club through. I think green-wise, it is going to play completely opposite than they have ever experienced.”

Aim for the shiny bit?  Yeah, who had that on their 2020 bingo card?  Smart of them to hit Palm Springs in the off-season.  The course will look a bit different for other reasons as well:

The seasonal transition of grasses is just one of the changes golfers will face on the Shore Course this week. There will be the higher temperatures of late summer in the desert, but there also will be new bunkers and the absence of more than 100 trees that have been removed from the course, including many towering eucalyptus trees that have been the hallmark of the layout.

“We feel like the changes are going to be very positive for the players in the sense that opening up some of these shots for them in the areas off the fairway is going to be very appealing to the better players,” said Michael Walker, general manager at Mission Hills. “It’s going to play to their recovery strengths.

I just hope that one of the enterprising Golf Channel reporters takes a thermostat into one of those bunkers baking in the sun...repeat after me, "It's a dry heat".

So, what kind of week to we imagine Sophia Popov to be having?  If I'm feeling snarky, and that's the prevailing wind, I'd venture that she's happy in her air conditioning...  Now, like any world class athlete, she must be, well, I'll go with "fuming":

Golf fans around the world became enthralled with the story of Sophia Popov, the 304th-ranked player who became the first major winner of 2020.

It’s the Story of the Year so far in all of golf. And yet, incredibly, she’s not in the 105-player field at this week’s ANA Inspiration.

It’s a complete whiff by the tour. Popov will be the most talked-about player who isn’t at the blistering Dinah Shore Tournament Course, and that includes the defending champion and No. 1-ranked Jin Young Ko.

Why?

Because Ko hasn’t played all year on the LPGA. She’s not top of mind for most fans. Popov, on the other hand, is the new LPGA darling, the Cinderella who catapulted from Symetra Tour status to major champion in the span of seven days. In the weeks following her victory, Popov averaged five to six media interviews per day. She was in demand, and rightly so.

Beth Ann attempts to explain the inexplicable:

Popov, a four-time All-American at USC, isn’t in this week’s field because the criteria for the ANA Inspiration (originally scheduled for April) was set before the LPGA took a 166-day break due to the coronavirus. The winner’s five-year exemption into the ANA was slated to start in 2021.

LPGA commissioner Mike Whan said that there was no changing it.

The simplest answer to this would have been to let Popov start her five-year exemption into the ANA in 2020. She wouldn’t get more years than anyone else. She’d simply be able to start the clock now. That would’ve given Popov and the LPGA the chance to capitalize on the momentum of the moment.

There was plenty of room for Popov in the field. Plenty of players chose to skip this year’s ANA due to COVID-19, including former major winners So Yeon Ryu, Jeong Eun Lee6, Hyo Joo Kim, Shanshan Feng and Ko.

Mike Whan, who seemed a sensible steward of the ladies' tour for many a year, is now making far too many unforced errors.  Doubling down on stupid, as we used to call it.

I mean, the selective inviolability of rules is comical, as this is the man that gave us five majors in a season...  I simply can't imagine that the Saturday night of the Women's Open Championship, with Popov in the lead, wouldn't have him scrambling for a solution if the girl won.  

And while there's a comparable story involving Daniel Berger and the Masters, the Lords of Augusta still have two months to solve that one...  Plus, it's the friggin' Masters, and none of us will complain.  This just makes the LPGA look silly, and you'd think they'd have fixed it readily.

From the ANA comes this exciting news:

Lexi Thompson launches new brand at ANA Inspiration

Ummm.... err....I'll try to be sensitive here (Ed: Why start now?), but brand of what?  Kleenex, because all her events end in tears?

The funniest bit is that this is as close to details as we'll get:

Lexi Thompson took to social media to announce the launch of her own brand. She’ll have her
new “LEXI” logo on her visor and golf bag during this week’s ANA Inspiration.

In the promo video, Thompson teases new projects that are in the works, including “LEXI Golf,” “LEXI Fitness” and “LEXI Skin.”


It's a conglomerate!  In any event, Lexi has new representation and they seem on top of the situation:

Brett Falkoff, Senior Vice President of Golf at GSE, told Golfweek back in June that they planned to market Thompson as a global athlete while also exploring Thompson’s other passions – like health and fitness – that she might want to pursue after golf.

“We want to be able to set her up for a position of success for whenever that might be,” he said.

Success?  Well, as the guy above noted, why start now?  She's the DJ of the women's game, though without the gaudy win total.  As for her recent play?  

Thompson comes into this week’s ANA after a missed cut in the AIG Women’s British Open and a rules controversy in which she was ultimately cleared from the R&A.

Her best finish in 2020 is a tie for seventh at the season-opening Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions. Thompson won the 2014 ANA Inspiration and lost in a playoff in 2017 after receiving a four-stroke penalty mid-round on Sunday.

When she's not the DJ of her tour, she unfortunately chooses to be its Patrick Reed.  And dumb as a rock, quite apparently, another trait shared with DJ.  

Did Someone Mention The Masters? - Another of those effortless segues you've come to expect.  So, golf has been having its moment, with rounds played at record levels, equipment flying off the shelves and relatively strong TV ratings.  

Don't get cocky kid, as golf remains very much a niche sport.  And our niche sport has just been put in its placere by CBS:

For the second time in as many years, the Masters Tournament will conclude earlier than normal.

The schedule change, according to an exchange in CBS’ annual NFL conference call with

reporters on Tuesday, is to accommodate the network’s slate of football broadcasts. It wasn’t an official announcement, but CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus was responding to a question about the potential scheduling conflicts.

“We obviously worked really closely with the NFL, the management of Augusta National, including chairman Fred Ridley, and the folks at the SEC for Saturday,” McManus said in the call.

That Golfweek piece does not mention that highly-appealing match-up of AFC East juggernauts, which comes from our Shack:

The final round sounds as if it’ll have a similar setup to the 2019 Masters when tee times were moved up to get play in before inclement weather. This time, however, the expedited start will be making room for a mash-up of mediocrity between 2019’s 5-11 Miami Dolphins against the 7-9 New York Jets.

What Clifford Roberts might have said to member/NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on that news? Maybe a passive-aggressive Heidi reference? Or a reminder that the Masters only happens once a year? Or…if you’d like to keep wearing that green jacket you’ll move this massive meeting of mediocrity?

Anyway, a 7:30-9 am or so setup, featuring threesomes off split tees, will be used again to accommodate the NFL on CBS based on the below Tweet and confirmation I received of the general window from CBS.

Yes, the Master sis special, and the Jets-Fins isn't, yet many millions more will tune in for the latter...  Business is business.

Carolina On My Mind - A complicated story with multiple moving parts, but the USGA, having solved every governance issue in our game, has announced that Far Hills Liberty Corner isn't big enough for it:

The USGA confirmed the speculated move to Golfweek, citing several reasons why establishing an “HQ2” in the Village of Pinehurst served its mission of championing and advancing the game
of golf.

Chief in the appeal of establishing roots in Pinehurst is the anchor site strategy. The idea that the USGA’s permanent presence there will allow the organization to bring the U.S. Open to Pinehurst more frequently is a major bonus.

“This idea that we’re going to come back here every five or six years for the next 25 years delivers on that clarity around where we’re going,” Craig Annis, Chief Brand Officer for the USGA, told Golfweek.

In announcing its anchor site strategy in a press conference on Wednesday morning, USGA CEO Mike Davis announced that the U.S. Open would be played at Pinehurst No. 2 in 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047.

“U.S. Opens work so well here,” Davis said.

Do they now?  I'll concede that Payne's was a popular win, but Michael Campbell and Martin Kaymer have you pounding your chest?  

The USGA’s museum and library, for one, will remain in Liberty Corner, but given the number of core golfers who travel through the Pinehurst area, there will also be a visitor center and museum experience at HQ2 which will allow putting artifacts on display for a different audience on a rotating basis.

The USGA has for years maintained a rented space in Pinehurst where roughly 15 employees are based. Many of them are involved in U.S. Open preparations. The establishment of a larger HQ2, which will be called Golf House Pinehurst, brings those roles in the fold but also will require an additional 35 roles, from various departments, to relocate to the Pinehurst office. Roughly 310 people are employed by the USGA overall.

Now for the howlers:

At its heart, the USGA is a grassroots organization for golfers. In that sense, a Pinehurst presence serves its mission brilliantly. Roughly a million golfers travel through the Pinehurst area annually. A more permanent, visible presence from the USGA is a natural fit.

Oh yeah, they're of the people.... grass roots, even.  

“It’s a distributive strategy to allow us to get closer to our customers, core golfers, golf fans who we know come to Pinehurst on a regular basis but at the same time keep our roots also firmly planted in New Jersey,” Annis said.

I'm a customer, am I?  Then why am I desperately hoping for a competitor to arise?  Upon further review, I guess the C-word is fair, I just consider myself an unwilling customer.  Come to think ot it, I'm also an unwilling customer of Andrew Cuomo...

Shack has been rendered cranky by this announcement, first by the fact that our governing organization needs to be on the public teet:

The state of North Carolina, of course, incentivized the move last week as House Bill 807 was unanimously approved. It allows for up to $42 million in performance-based state incentives to a “sports championship employer” heading to the Tar Heel State, but the USGA didn’t start out with that idea. State officials wanted the U.S. Open within state borders, wanted the USGA to have a permanent presence and wanted to support the organization’s growth strategy to get there.

“As we started to get deeper into the conversation, it was clear that the state was really focused on two things: research science and innovation and on growing the game within the state,” Annis said. “This is the home of American golf. They are keenly interested in continuing to grow the potential of golf within North Carolina.”

 Well, jobs!  Yeah, but not many of them:

The USGA has for years maintained a rented space in Pinehurst where roughly 15 employees are based. Many of them are involved in U.S. Open preparations. The establishment of a larger HQ2, which will be called Golf House Pinehurst, brings those roles in the fold but also will require an additional 35 roles, from various departments, to relocate to the Pinehurst office. Roughly 310 people are employed by the USGA overall.

The world is calling this fifty new jobs, but isn't it really only 35?  There are those four U.S. Opens:

Great, Fathers Day 2047 will be here before we know it.   Everyone is using the R-word in response to this news:

The shift to a quasi-rota would be significant for the USGA, which has experimented in recent years with a few first-time major sites (Chambers Bay, Erin Hills) to varying levels of success.

Varying levels of success?  Like none and less than none?  

“We really took our cues from the players and from fans, who said, ‘Fewer places, more frequently,’” Annis said. “They want to gain a more intimate knowledge of the course — the players do, and the fans. They want to know what to expect. And they want more clarity around where we’re going and when. And so this is the first important piece.”

Yeah, more like, "What the hell were you guys thinking?"  

Mike Davis does coy about as well as I do tall:

In his press conference, USGA CEO Mike Davis was coy about sharing which courses were being considered as anchor sites (“I would say yes, with no specificity right now on what those sites might be,” he offered.)

It seems likely that multiple-time U.S. Open hosts like Pebble Beach, Shinnecock and Oakmont would be on the shortlist. Perhaps even Winged Foot — which is scheduled to play host to this year’s U.S. Open in a little more than a week’s time — will find itself under consideration.

But while that all remains to be determined, this much is clear: the U.S. Open is headed firmly in a new direction.

“The phrase ‘win-win’ gets thrown around a lot, but that’s just what this was,” Davis said. “This is the beginning of a new era here.”

Because, yanno, those last two Opens at Shinnecock have worked out so well?  Mike should just cut to the chase, and ask for his mulligans now...

I'm a fan of the Coore-Crenshaw restoration of Number 2, and Pinehurst is a special place, so I've no problem with the Open returning there.  But the selection of  a venue for 2047 is just profoundly silly... The only thing sillier is the North Carolina government giving short-term tax breaks for the promise of an Open in the distant future.  Ever hear of present value, guys?

As for rota fever?  Looks like a rota to me:


Now that we have a rota, to whom do we speak to get Torrey Pines removed?

Geoff has a series of other concerns, although I don't have the bandwidth to go too deep into them at this time.  First, he offers a word of caution on the rota bit:

Since we’ve had some idea what was coming—state funded incentives to bring more tournaments and USGA facilities to North Carolina—the main headline for golf fans involves the acceleration of a U.S. Open rota, as noted in the press release below. The positives are obvious: more regular returns to great venues, the downside being the excitement and intrigue that comes from occasional visits to a Merion, Los Angeles Country Club or Bethpage.

 Yes, we do have an appetite for new venues, just not those stupid venues that Mike chose in 2015 and 2017.  But take a look at that rota... timeles classics that have always been on the USGA radar?  Yeah, here's when they first went there (modern era only, no e-mails on that 1892 Open please):

Pebble Beach - 1972

Shinnecock - 1995

Pinehurst No. 2 - 1999

Our timeless rota of classics includes names the USGA couldn't find on a map until only very recently....  

Shack also has this obvious concern:

Is the innovation hub is where they come up with a tournament ball allowing Pinehurst No. 2 to be relevant again for one of those U.S. Opens well into the future?

Chill, Geoff.   We can have a fun pool on the scorecard yardage for No. 2 for that 2047 Open... I'll go with 10, 067 yards.

Geoff's bigger concern is with the USGAs focus on the tired concept of growing the game.  We can all see where that's an obvious interest of a governing body, yet their focus on innovation and technology can appear to be a classic case of regulatory capture.

All sorts of issues involved with the organization's 501(c)(3) status that I'll spare you, but don't you find it interesting what can be done in the midst of a pandemic?  I personally am embracing my struggle session, glad for the realization that protests against lockdowns is a super-spreader event, but protests against racism are in the public interest.  Glad we had this chat...

But Geoff doesn't miss this tip-in:

As a 501(c)3, and also the organization started to run national championships, protect the amateur game and make rules, I continue to struggle with this notion of the USGA moving into the business of growing the business of golf while tabling a decision on distance.

I was going to exit there, but you simply must see these two priceless photos:


They did manage to get all the monkeys to remain still, but there should be coverings for the eyes and ears as well...After all this would seem to be the model, no?


And So It Begins... - How was your off-season?  To me, it kind of dragged, so I'm delighted to have the boys back.  

21 things you need to know about the *new* 2020-21 PGA Tour season

Need?  Not likely...but it'll be a season like any other:

7 numbers to know about the 2020-21 season

50: Total number of events scheduled for the 2020-21 “super season,” the most since 1975.

6: Major championships contested over the span of the 2020-21 season (two U.S. Opens, two Masters, one Open Championship and one PGA Championship).

8: Events slated for the state of California, the most of any state or region on the 2020-21 schedule.

1: Events held on the continent of Asia. The pandemic forced the PGA Tour to move the Zozo Championship to the United States and cancel the WGC-HSBC Champions, leaving only the Olympics in Japan on the schedule.

 2: Masters held at Augusta National — in the span of six months! That almost makes it worth the wait to see Tiger Woods defend his title.

 Hey, I'm old enough to remember when the calendar year was a thing... But did you notice what they slipped in there?  Somehow the Olympics are now a PGA Tour event?  Does that mean FedEx Cup points and all?  Because the event has space for four Americans...  Never mind.

This from their venue preview was my favorite bit, because when one writes for a major golf publication, a basic level of gold knowledge is assumed:

4. Torrey Pines: Speaking of renovations, the finishing touches of a $15 million Robert Trent Jones-led renovation will have just been placed when Torrey Pines welcomes golfers for the 2021 U.S. Open.

Robert Trent Jones died in 2000....  Oh, why do I bother?

Brian Wacker shares the major storylines of the new season:

3. Because of coronavirus, fans haven’t been allowed at tournaments since the Players Championship in March. So when will we see them again? Though it’s not entirely clear, the tour is moving closer to allowing spectators on site. This week, the PGA Tour Champions event in South Dakota will have fans—case numbers are relatively low in the sparsely populated state (though there have been sharp spikes of late) and it figures to be a good test run for the PGA Tour. Also, the tour will reintroduce pro-ams this fall and already has allowed for a small number of sponsor guests at select events in recent weeks. In other words, expect to see fans again sometime in early 2021, if not sooner.

I've enjoyed seeing the golf courses without infrastructure, but of course it can't last.

7. How big will Bryson get? Eventually he’s going to reach a point of diminishing return, but he’s not there yet. If anything, 2019-'20 proved that all his added bulk and increased clubhead speed paid off in a big way. His ultimate goal: Drive it 400 yards (and straight) every week—something that would be an enormous advantage. Improving his wedge play and short game would also help immensely, something he is also keenly aware of.

8. Can Brooks’ body hold up? Like the much-older Woods, Koepka, just 30, was limited by injury in 2019-20. Even when he did play, his performances were rarely feast and mostly famine with just two top 10s, a final-round implosion at the PGA Championship and five missed cuts. Of course if Brooks is reading this it will probably provide all the motivation he’ll need for another big year.

No opinion o the former, but a big "no" on the latter:

Brooks Koepka announced in a Twitter post Wednesday afternoon that he has decided to withdraw from next week’s event at Winged Foot for health-related reasons.

“Unfortunately, I have decided to withdraw from next week’s U.S. Open,” the post said. “I’m looking forward to getting healthy and competing at 100% again very soon.”

I shall release you to get on with your day.  I have an early appointment tomorrow, so I'll likely award myself another day off.  But not to worry, we'll flood the zone next week for the Open. 

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