We're All Gonna Die, Or Some Such Thing

This post comes with a warning label.  caution: Long Rant Ahead.....It started as a typical second tier item for inclusion in a daily post, but it quickly morphed into something way beyond that.  So we'll party like it's 1999 with this righteous Fisking...

It's for good reason that Geoff's place of business is my first destination in the golf blogosphere each morning.  Supporting that praise is this fine compilation of garments of the rendered ilk and teeth thoroughly gnashed.  I may tend towards long and frequent excerpts, so true believers in the doctrine of fair use might be made uncomfortable.

We start with Lauren Silva Laughlin in the venerable Wall Street Journal, who seems the exitable sort:

Golf great Tiger Woods’s fifth Masters championship was met with hopes his stardom would revive the sport, as is often the case with epic athletic comebacks. For the nearly 600-year-old pastime, though, its attempts to lure the younger crowd will continue to suffer from challenges that even the greatest of athletes can’t help overcome. 

Companies closely tied to the game, including Callaway Golf ELY 1.19% and Titleist ownerAcushnet Holdings , GOLF -0.44% have had to find new ways to get people interested in their products. Like other sports, the millennial and younger generations are causing big problems for both the viewership and popularity of sports.

Errr, mostly it was met with amazement at the improbable nature of the comeback and giddiness at the prospect of the drama possible in the near future.

As for these guys, it probably popped up on their phone in a news alert:

And do treat yourself to a second helping of the first sentence in the second graph, for which the venerable WSJ offers us exactly what as proof?  Seems like they sell the same old way they always have, more or less, though I suppose we should give the lady a chance to make her case.

The trouble isn’t that fewer people are watching, but the attention span of the younger viewer is changing how they consume events, according to data from McKinsey. A 2017 study from the consulting group showed a decline in minutes watched, year over year. One unfixable problem is that young viewers rely on social media for moments they miss. Around 60% of millennial sports fans check scores and news on platforms like Twitter, versus only 40% for the preceding group, Generation X. 

Golf’s problems are magnified. Not only does the sport lack the contact and action that lures viewers, but the average PGA Tour watcher in 2016 was 65 years old—2½ decades older than those watching Major League Soccer. That figure represented a five-year jump since 2006, according to Magna Global.

That opening bit seems a rather significant admission against interest, no?  And the data in graph two is to the effect that the kids aren't watching in any case, so who cares about their attention spans.  It's all a conspiracy controlled by the Ritalin Industrial Complex in any event...

She'd no doubt argue that if those precious snowflakes aren't force fed golf now they'll stick to shuffleboard in their retirement years, and there may well be something to that.  But the unfortunate fact is that the nillennials are not exactly killing it at this game of life thing, living in their parents basement and all.  Really, if they're out of the house, it's a home run...

But wait, there's more:

Another problem is that younger generations aren’t playing, so fewer people are interested. The number of people aged 18 to 44 playing golf fell by around one-third in the 10 years to 2015, according to consulting group Pellucid/Edgehill Golf Advisors. And courses are closing: almost 1,800 courses in the 10 years leading up to 2016, a big acceleration in the past several decades.

OK, we'll stipulate to the over-building of golf courses, though the golf industry wasn't the only party to not distinguish themselves in that era.  I was critical early that the reporter didn't see the need to support her premises, but there's sins far worse than that, as per the graphic used as support:

How important is that guy who plays one round a year to the health of the game of golf?  I don't know her data set, but I know that most of the horrendous numbers cited for participation rates use a similarly loose definition of golfer.  Golf is a niche sport and, most importantly, always has been.  There are golf stories that break through, some good (Tiger) and some bad (oddly enough, Tiger again).  

But now comes the big reveal, the real, undeniable reason that golf is totally f*****d, against which resistance is futile:

Sports’ star power is changing, too. The latest sports hero is a 27-year-old, blue-haired electronic gamer named Ninja, a player of the popular videogame “Fortnite.” He recently received his own figurine line and was named in Time’s 2019 list of 100 most influential people.

I don't know, a 43-year old, no-haired father of two seemed to be a pretty big f******n deal a week or so ago.

And this rousing coda:

Looked at another way, the last millennial was born a year before Mr. Woods won his first Masters tournament in 1997, if Pew Research’s age benchmarks are used. When his extramarital scandal hit tabloids, they were rounding out junior high. Mr. Woods could be golf’s savior. More likely, though, in the eyes of a millennial, he’s just another aging putter.

Aging putter?  Are there no editors left at the venerable WSJ?  Was she deliberately going for the phallic reference, or does she not realize that reads to us like fingernails on a chalkboard.  I mean, she coulda gotten away with swinger, a groaner for sure, but this is comically bad.

We're long on three-named writers today, as Sheena Butler-Young of the far-less-venerable Yahoo Sports now approaches the plate, sympathetic in the extreme over the existential angst she feels for our game:

This time, you can call it a comeback. 

After a series of personal missteps and a hard-fought battle with back injuries, Tiger Woods made his triumphant returnto glory on Sunday — nabbing his fifth Masters Tournament title after an 11-year drought.

The excitement over the historic victory seemed nearly palpable across mainstream and social media over the past 24 hours, but somewhere lurking behind it is a burning question: Does this mean golf is back, too?

For reasons that would require a team of Viennese psychiatrists to unpack, I'm reminded of the fact that it was said that Joe DiMaggio could never understand Mrs. Robinson.  After all, he didn't think he had gone anywhere.... Apparently golf was wherever one goes that requires being back from, and I didn't get the memo.

Hope you're sitting down for this one, but here's a guy that thinks the issue is that millennials couldn't possibly take to a game such as ours:

“There are a lot of systemic headwinds for golf that are just not going away — in particular: Millennials are not picking up the game as quickly as Boomers are aging out of it,” explained Powell. “The game needs young people to be playing it to reverse its fortunes. I don’t think a 43-year-old guy winning a golf tournament is going to inspire young people to get out and pick up the game.’

He made it cool once already...  

Similarly, Powell counted a laundry list of reasons why millennials and Gen Z won’t take the baton from their parents and grandparents and carry golf into the future. 

“The values of the game of golf just aren’t [akin] to the way millennials do sport: The rules are complicated. It takes a long time to play. It’s not inclusive. It’s not diverse. Representation of minorities is low. Golf courses smell like a chemical factory to keep them green. I could go [on],” he said, noting millennials and Gen Z aren’t likely to ditch their core values as they age and adopt the sport later.

A chemical factory?  Not even pretending here, are they?  If your core values preclude contact with golfers, a bad crowd for sure, you might want to think about those values.

And this odd graph serves to close the piece, data that seems at odds with the whole point of the thing:

According to data provided by The NPD Group/Retail Tracking Service, golf shoe sales dipped about 2 percent year over year to $233.6 million in 2016 but jumped 8 percent to $251.9 million in 2017. Overall, according to the U.S. Golf Economy Report, the golf industry drove about $84.1 billion in economic activity across the United States in 2016, a 22 percent gain from 2011.

Not  too shabby, eh?  For a dying sport and all....

The trite narrative backed by shoddy journalism is pretty amusing, especially at a place like The Journal.  But I'll leave you with just this serious point....  Why should these folks see golf as the timeless sport it is, going back to Mary Queen of Scots and earlier, when our governing bodies don't? That's the only logical conclusion from the rewrite of the rule book and the dumbing down of the centuries-old terminology of our game....The same folks that are bemoaning the loss of once-a-year golfers think the problem is the complexity of language such as all-square and hazard.....That alone makes me fear for our future.

Back tomorrow with the usual potpourri of items...

Back In The Saddle

I go away for a couple of days and things just go to heck in a hadbasket...

Panning The Globe... - C.T. Pan?  Gotta admit, I didn't see that one coming, though I'm thinking that this is a bit much to put on our DJ:

Dustin Johnson fails spectacularly to rescue the RBC Heritage from Masters fatigue and Tiger's absence

Can anyone explain to me what he's going for here, since this event has long been the week after Augusta and has never had Tiger in the field?

For golf not to devolve again into a tour of the haves and the have-nots, the latter tournaments with fields sans Tiger, it needs the best players in the world to do their part to ward off apathy when Woods is not there to do it for them. 

This was what the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, S.C., was facing. Masters fatigue and Easter weekend double-teamed the tournament, which seemed to effectively counterpunch with the best player in the world rising to the top of the leader board. 

But if the RBC Heritage was a test, Dustin Johnson, World No. 1, failed spectacularly, a week after tying for second at Augusta. Johnson took a one-stroke lead into the final round, was tied for the lead after an indifferent front nine, then played a five-hole back-nine stretch in seven-over par, including consecutive double bogeys. 

Has anyone seen the remote?

I assume he was there only because it's the closest thing to a home game for the native of South Carolina, as the course can't possibly be to his liking...  It's almost reassuring that he ran out of gas, almost as if the disappointment the prior week mattered to him....

Dylan Dethier attempts to quantify the suckage:

68 — Johnson’s Sunday rank in strokes gained tee to green — out of 70. He lost 4.86 shots to the field from tee to green and 5.31 overall. 

1 — Johnson’s weekly rank in strokes gained off the tee. Despite losing 1.49 shots to the field on Sunday, his mighty tee ball had been so ridiculously good the first three days that he still gained 4.68 shots off the tee, better than any other competitor. Our Jonathan Wall notes in this week’s equipment roundup that Johnson has been gaming a new driver shaft. 

3 — Times Johnson has shot 77 or higher when holding the 54-hole lead. No other PGA Tour player has accomplished that feat more than once in the last 15 years, per Justin Ray. Johnson also stumbled at the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and lost a big lead at the 2017 WGC-HSBC Champions.

Gee, and I had been reliably informed that DJ is too stupid to feel pressure....  No really, that was a thing back around that 2010 U.S. Open.

But this was the coda of that first item:

So the tour is on to New Orleans and the two-man team event, the Zurich Classic. The field has Brooks Koepka (teaming with brother Chase), Jon Rahm (with Ryan Palmer) and Bubba Watson (with J.B. Holmes) to elevate it in the absence of Tiger. 

The onus, in the absence of Woods, now falls to them.

Hey, what about the Class of '11?  Or those new rules that were going to make our game millennial-friendly?  Tiger is going to play much less than he used to, so folks better be prepared to deal with it.

But as an aside, the Spieth-Ryan team seems to have been disbanded....  Jordan is losing partners all over the place....

Your Daily Downer - Eamon Lynch has a decidedly dark take on this summer's Open Championship:

Golf nourishes itself with low-hanging narratives, those saccharine, feel-good tales about lives redeemed or neighborhoods rejuvenated thanks to the royal and ancient game. 

Stories of golf as a power for good often hold a seed of truth that eventually reaps an acre of corn. Eighty-seven days from now, folks who peddle this kind of claptrap will have a field day as the 148th Open Championship kicks off at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland. 

The parables are so predictable that they write themselves long before a single shot is struck. 

Golf as a unifying force in a bitterly divided land. 

Major-winning players from differing religious traditions in whose success warring neighbors found common cause. 

The mother of all majors as a richly deserved reward for the good people of this benighted little place who moved beyond conflict and toward reconciliation.

I'm guessing he's built this straw man for the sole purpose of torching him:

Eamon is justifiably distraught over the death of journalist  Lyra McKee, but let's cut right to the chase:

But the Open shouldn’t be a masquerade ball that presents Northern Irish society as something it is not. Much has undeniably improved in the 25 years since I emigrated, but not even the Open can obscure the melancholy reality that Northern Ireland remains a society hostage to those who are, in the memorable words of Belfast songwriter Paul Brady, “still trying to carve tomorrow from a tombstone.”

But perhaps you wouldn't have to emigrate today....

I think it's useful and appropriate to have a reporter such as Eamon remind us that these tribal differences still affect Northern Ireland, despite the far calmer surface.  But perhaps Eamon is instinctively too hard on his countrymen, who have at least moved beyond the war zone that existed when Eamon left.

It's not the role of sports to solve the ills of society, but it's a marker of progress that the event can be held there safely.   And the appearance of this wonderful venue on worldwide television can't help but promote more visitors, which really can't be a bad thing....  Baby steps, Eamon.

Tiger Scat - It's got legs for sure.... Geoff introduces the Masters quad supercut with this screen shot:

Full quad here:

Pretty much guaranteed to make one dizzy....

Jeff Haggar does his usual shot-counting thing, and heads will explode:

For the sixth time, I tracked the number of strokes that CBS televised per player during the Sunday round of the Masters. The telecast began at 9am ET (after tee times were moved earlier to beat the storms) with players grouped in threesomes. I counted a total of 450 televised strokes. The final putt dropped at 2:27 resulting in an average of 1.38 strokes per minute which was slightly less than the rate of the 2018 Masters, but still the third highest of all major tournaments I have tracked since 2014. 

CBS covered 69 of the 70 strokes from winner Tiger Woods (skipping only a tap-in putt on hole #1). Francesco Molinari actually received coverage for 70 shots. His final score of 74 included two penalty strokes, so CBS only bypassed two of his shots (a layup on 15 and his tee shot on 17). Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau were spotlighted for 59 shots each. Those four players accounted for 57% of the televised shots.

But that lay-up on No. 15 was highly significant, so shame on CBS for that.  They've taken some heat for the absence of DJ, who ended up T2, but it took a late surge for him to threaten relevance.  I'm not at all reluctant to criticize CBS, it's just that this is the one time it's hard to make a criticism of the broadcast being overly  Tiger-centric to stick.

 The Tour Confidential panel paid no attention to Hilton Head, but rather led with this:

1. Now that we’ve had time to adjust after the craziness of Tiger Woods winning his 15th major title, let’s take one final look back at Masters week to cover some things we might have missed. TV ratings were off the charts, and Woods’ sponsors like TaylorMade and Bridgestone had plenty to smile about, too, but who most stands to benefit from Woods’ win?

Just spitballin' here, but Nike?  Lots of swooshing in those last two groups....

Michael Bamberger: Sam and Charlie, because they’re in good shape for show-and tell, plus some other things. I’m not pretending to understand the family dynamics, but in some sense Tiger’s work since April/May 2017 (the win was a byproduct) had to be at least in part for them.

Good one, Mike.  I assume that ESPN has another 30 for 30 in the works on show and tell....

Josh Sens: Anyone watching the majors. The most historic hunt in golf is back on.

Dylan Dethier: Nike had a killer week of ad campaigns, starting with the Frank the Headcover mayhem at the start and finishing with that hair-raising commercial post-win. Make that five major champions in a row who have won wearing the swoosh on their shirt.

There's two additional Tiger queries, if you're so inclined, though to me this is where they get a little more interesting:

4. What was the biggest non-Tiger development that came out of the week at Augusta National? 

Bamberger: Broadly, the mystery of golf. Specifically, how did the moment and the promise it represented becoming get bigger than Frankie Molinari’s big, beautiful brain? The tee shot on 12. The first three shots on 15. If someone who has all the best words can enlighten me, I would be most grateful. Yes, his golf was shaky-ish from the start. But he was getting it done. The Masters was his, until it wasn’t.

They're unbeatable, at least until they get beat.... here's a couple more takes:

Sens: We’ve poked some cheeky fun here at the chip on Brooks Koepka’s shoulder. Augusta was further evidence that it might be justified. In this space, and in many other places where predictions were made, Koepka was all but overlooked. Despite his three major wins, there was still the unspoken assumption, I think, that his brute power game lacked the subtly for a place like Augusta. Once again, doubter proved wrong.

Dethier: The list of contenders who just seem to keep winding up atop major leaderboards, at least the last four: Tiger Woods. Francesco Molinari. Dustin Johnson. Brooks Koepka. And Xander Schauffele. That’s your big-game crew right now, with apologies to plenty others.

Don't miss this gallery of Augusta photos using vintage cameras.... So apt for an event won by a vintage golfer:

On the left is Gary Player at his first Masters in 1957, recreated a mere sixty-two years later....

The Camel Sutra - Admittedly a strong contender for my worst pun ever, but Geoff Ogily has an interesting take on the new rules of our game:

I must admit the process didn’t get off to a great start when I saw someone taking a drop from ‘knee height’. I thought it looked ridiculous. “What,” I thought to myself, “is wrong with anywhere above the knee? How does anyone have a problem with that? And what was wrong with what we were all doing before?”

All of which brought me immediately back to the notion that the idea of simplifying rules almost automatically makes them more complicated. That it is what almost always happens when a committee decides something.

There were so many contingencies because a committee was involved. And it seems to me the same thing has happened with this ball-dropping thing. Nobody in the world now knows how to drop the ball properly. So we have a more complex situation than we had on December 31, 2018.

I do think he's onto something here, but it certainly because a source of confusion for your core golfers.... Geoff has many interesting reactions, with which I mostly agree:

Still, some have argued that an aura of suspicion is only going to be encouraged by some

of the new rules. There is, for example, no penalty for kicking or moving your ball accidentally when looking for it in long grass. All you have to do is recreate the lie as well as possible and move on. Okay, but the more cynical observers see this as a licence to create a lie slightly better than the original. That view is disappointing in a game that has always had to trust the participants to do the right thing. 

Moving on, I’m not sure the reduction in time you can search for a ball for five minutes to three minutes is too significant. What was wrong with five minutes? Rounds of golf are not taking five hours because players are allowed to look for balls for five minutes. That has nothing to do with pace of play. So, while I don’t necessarily disagree with three-minute searches, to what end have we made this change?

Yes to the last, especially when you consider the severity of the penalty....

But Geoff seems reluctant to make the killer point, which is that having failed to control equipment and distance, which adds immeasurably to pace of play, they're instead nickel-and-dimed us on lost ball searches and dropping from the knees...

And Geoff, how do you feel about their changes to the language of our game?  But we can't have millennials dealing with complicated terminology such as...well, all-square.

An Existential Crisis - See whatcha think of this header:

Is the Zurich Classic’s team format still fresh in Year 3, or is it already tired?

Seriously?  Two of the Golfworld writers take it on, with decidedly mixed results.  The guy taking to con position argues for...wait for it, match play:

Without match play being brought into the equation, the Zurich Classic team format loses much of its appeal. The fun of the Ryder Cup (and yes, even the Presidents Cup) is the idea of pitting two two-man teams against one another, with every match mattering

and both teams in full-attack mode. Take that away and I’m not so sure watching Anders Albertson and Seth Reeves play alternate shot together in the second round is all that exciting. 

So what’s the answer? I think a 16-team bracket could be very interesting, with each round alternating between fourball and alternate shot. You can keep the 78-80 teams in the field now and have one day of fourball or alt. Shoot stroke play, and the top 16 teams advance and get seeded based off that. I’m basically making the argument for what the WGC-Dell Match Play should be like, but since that’s probably not changing, why not use it for this event?

So, without bring match play into the equation, you'll recommend match play...Mind you, those team events work (under the loosest possible definition in the case of the Prez Cup) because, and try to stay with me here, because they're team match play events.  But like the Dell, this will require an awful lot of golf for our pampered Tour pros....

Mind you, the guy that's Pro-Zurich suggests a worst-ball scramble or giving Tony Romo a sponsor's exemption....  This event may not rock your world, but can we not agree that it would be even worse as just another 72-hole stroke play event?

I'm going to leave you here, but I've got some fun stuff teed up in open tabs for tomorrow.

Midweek Musings - Day Late Edition

I gave myself a day off yesterday, after our flood the zone coverage of Augusta.  Need to pace myself in view of the quick turnaround for Bethpage.

The bride and I will be taking a long weekend to visit friends in Vermont to celebrate her birthday, so no promises about blogging...  You'll do fine watching Hilton Head without my guidance.

Tiger Scat - Folks are running short of adjectives as the search for the meaning thereof....  Golf Magazines writers take another shot at here:

2. If you’re debating the most thrilling shot in golf with your bros, it’s not a debate. The correct answer is the going-for-the-green second shot at Fire Thorn, Augusta’s sublime par-5 15th. Balls launched from the crest of the fairway hang in the air for an eternity. Late on Masters Sunday, there’s more drama in those 3-5 seconds than there is in an entire season of The Bachelor. The nerviest shot in golf is also not a debate: it’s a wedge shot into 15.. — Alan Bastable

True that.  It even looks that way on TV.  The guys all go for it, even from behind the trees on the left side of the fairway, because that wedge in after a lay-up might be the harder shot.  Which makes me wonder whether the members, excluding Jeff Know, have much fun out there.

I brought this ennui with me to the Masters, traditionally the hardest week of the year for reporters to do their job due to the draconian rules of the green coats. But then all heaven

broke loose. Ben Crenshaw ambled into the press building, exuding warmth and good cheer. I had set up some podcast gear on the veranda but it took us 20 minutes to make a 100-yard walk, as Gentle stopped to schmooze with his many friends among the scribes. Then we sat down and chatted for 45 minutes. Crenshaw was funny and unguarded as he spun yarn after yard. Afterward he thanked me for my time. Shortly thereafter Jack Nicklaus his ownself arrived, having previously agreed to a 90-minute sitdown interview. (These days, the standard offer from a B-list player’s agent is one hour for a feature…and that includes the photo shoot.) Big Jack had already had a long day, having awakened before dawn for the ceremonial opening tee shots. But over an hour and a half he was alert and engaged. He told great stories and offered heartfelt thoughts on a wide variety of topics. When the allotted time was up the great man lingered for another half hour, enjoying watching the televised golf and a wide variety of snacks. It was as if he had all the time in the world and was happy to share it.

Why do golf fans love Nicklaus and Crenshaw so much? Their on-course heroics are only part of it. They have given us so much more. They have always let us into their hearts and minds, one conversation at a time. That is how you build an enduring brand. — Alan Shipnuck

You can read for yourself the source of Alan's ennui, but this engaging account is under a header of "building a Brand."  Maybe they're good at it, Alan, because they never thought of themselves as brands.  Perhaps, and I'm just spit-ballin' here, they're just nice guys....

 Jack famously never wanted to be a ceremonial golfer, but he really should have thought about that before winning those six green jackets.

I'm thinking this guy might have been into a different ilk of vapor:

Nike’s scripting for Tiger was basically a throwback homage to his mid-2000s

dominance, and called for the Big Cat to don a TW Vapor Mock polo on each tournament day at Augusta. Though Nike had no way of knowing what would transpire last week, it was certainly a bold move. Why? Because the clothes we wear tacitly communicate so much to those around us. With these ensembles, Tiger was basically saying, “Look at me. I’m the man.” He oozed alpha vibes. Wearing those mocks while everyone else was dressed alike in polos was a pure power play. I mean, did you SEE him at Augusta? He looked like a super hero, while everyone else just looked like … themselves. — Jessica Marksbury

OK, Jess, but I'm expected back on Planet Earth.

You might enjoy this Dylan Dethier take on Tiger's irons into greens on Sunday vs. 22 years prior:

No. 11

1997 (455 yds): Pitching wedge

2019 (505 yds): 7-iron 

I defy you to stand on that new back tee at No. 11 and feel anything but fear. Woods’ take: “On 11 you used to try to hit the ball up against the gallery. Well, now there is literally a forest that is there. The fairway used to be 80 yards wide, that’s no longer the case.”

No. 15

1997 (500 yds): Pitching wedge

2019 (530 yds): 5-iron 

Yes, that’s pitching wedge into a par-5. That’s the sort of thing Tiger Woods used to do all the time. But this year’s 5-iron from 227 was pretty special all the same.

So much for the drama of that shot with a PW in hand.  Like No. 11, the players used to aim to the right and hope to catch the downslope of those old mounds that would kick it forward 60-70 yards.  Of course that was before they mowed the grass back towards the tee...

Buried is this little nugget:

By my count, Woods was 44th in driving distance at this year’s Masters. In 1997, he led the field by some 25 yards. This was a different brand of victory, to be sure.

Anyone remember the shock and awe that Monty experienced when paired with Tiger on Friday?  He basically conceded Tiger the win after 36 holes... 

Geoff has an interesting take on the golf course we saw last week:

“During our overseed period we saw four times the amount of normal rainfall,” he said. “To say that growing conditions were a challenge would definitely be an understatement. And given the recent rainfall, the course will not play as firm and as fast as we would like it.” 

Fairway speed is rarely an ingredient here because the club has presented longer fairways with the mowers pushing grain toward the tees. The ball rolled minuscule amounts, and

all but 12 players still averaged over 290 yards. But having players openly note the lack of green speed and hearing Tiger Woods say words like “fuzzy” to describe them might be enough to make some chairmen panic. 

Yet when Ridley, the former competition committee head, sits down and reviews the numbers, he will notice that slower greens helped the tournament finish Sunday.

“During our overseed period we saw four times the amount of normal rainfall,” he said. “To say that growing conditions were a challenge would definitely be an understatement. And given the recent rainfall, the course will not play as firm and as fast as we would like it.” 

Fairway speed is rarely an ingredient here because the club has presented longer fairways with the mowers pushing grain toward the tees. The ball rolled minuscule amounts, and all but 12 players still averaged over 290 yards. But having players openly note the lack of green speed and hearing Tiger Woods say words like “fuzzy” to describe them might be enough to make some chairmen panic.

Yet when Ridley, the former competition committee head, sits down and reviews the numbers, he will notice that slower greens helped the tournament finish Sunday.

And this doesn't bode well for one of the best golf holes on the planet:

The numbers from the two back-nine par 5s most likely will not sit as well in Augusta. While both holes created moments of drama, the former icons of risk and reward now rely on the golf architectural equivalents of smoke and mirrors to retain traces of danger. At the 13th, the field recorded 17 eagles and averaged an all-time low of 4.474 in scoring since the hole was lengthened in 2002 or any year before that. Players had created a muddy, worn area on the tee by Sunday, all teeing up in the same right-side post due to a conspicuous overhanging limb. Tied at the time, Woods and Francesco Molinari had 161 and 180 yards left, respectively, for their approaches. 

The momentous decision Ridley longs to restore was not part of the equation.

The par-5 15th, which appeared wider this year due to lost limbs on a once meddlesome left-hand pine, was lengthened in 2006 and yet has never played easier than it did in 2019, with its 4.532 average and 15 eagles.

There's a reason they're called half-pars, but let's hope Fred understands that to the players they're already Par-4's.  Because this revamped hole did its job:

By contrast, the revamped par-4 fifth hole played as the course’s most difficult with a 4.336 scoring average and just 13 birdies.

Tiger bogeyed it all four days.  

Alan on Augusta -  You knew this would be good, no?  The first two question cover the yin and yang of nonsense:

Is Tiger back? -@Rbrown1518 

Duh.

Is Tiger going to win the Grand Slam this year? -@AmandaGolf59 

He might as well. If he drives it at Bethpage the way he did at Augusta National, Woods will surely be in contention. With his guile and the crowd on his side, Tiger could easily bring it home. Then he goes to Pebble, which like Augusta National is a quintessential second-shot course. Tiger was first in strokes gained approach-the-green at the Masters; if he strikes it like that at Pebble he will surely be in contention. If Woods were to somehow win both the PGA and U.S. Open is there any possible way he could be denied at Portrush? It’s absurd to even be entertaining these notions but Tiger just proved, yet again, he is not of this earth. Might as well let our collective imagination run wild.

Alan was far more civil to that first questioner than I'd have been, but was he into the mushrooms to the second?

Do you think the revelation that it’s STILL in there despite everything he put himself through elevates Tiger to second most reckless self-saboteur of all-time? -@Lou_TireWorld 

This will always be one of golf’s most tantalizing questions: what might Tiger have accomplished if he didn’t waste a decade of his prime because of scandal and injuries that may be directly related to killhouse cosplay and vanity-induced overtraining? No doubt he would have smashed Nicklaus’s record by now. But think how differently we would feel about Tiger if he had simply continued being the golfing automaton of the 1997-2009 epoch. He’d be a more accomplished golfer, yes, but a far less interesting and sympathetic human being. 

The old Tiger – emotionless and seemingly infallible – was revered but never loved. The explosion of emotion that accompanied this Masters win (by the man himself and everyone else) was not because Woods won the Masters. It’s because he’s been to hell and back (a couple of times!) and we were all part of the journey. Without the self-sabotage there wouldn’t be the redemption, which in the end is a better story than a few extra trophies.

Man, that's harsh.  

Is 12 at Augusta National the best golf hole in the world? -@SteveThomsonMN 

Not sure ‘best’ captures it, exactly. It is certainly the most fraught, nerve-jangling and exacting. It’s amazing how many Masters dreams can be found at the bottom of that creek.

Not even close, but No. 13 might be....

Seriously, I had thoughts on this in a prior post.  I thought the hole was in danger of losing relevance, but that four out of six has me puzzled.

Can fat guys wear mock turtlenecks? Asking for a friend. #AskAlan -@SHistorians 

Sure, they hide all the extra chins!

Just because they can, doesn't mean they should....

And the inevitable:

Okay, now that we have a reset with Tiger at majors, where do you rate his chances at catching and passing Jack? -@KeithKHorton 

It’s *still* a tall mountain to climb. I was interested in Tiger talking in the champion’s press conference about how sore he was going to be the next day, since he had spent the back-nine swinging with abandon. This remains the biggest question how long will Tiger’s body let him play at this level? If the answer is five years, Jack’s record is certainly in jeopardy. It’s also worth noting that on Sunday, Woods putted like a 43 year-old who has been saddled all season with mediocre putting stats. The longest putt he made all day was eight feet, and that was on the third hole; his birdies on the back-nine were two-putts on the par-5s and a kick-in on 16. If Woods is going to win a handful more majors he’s going to have to rediscover some of his old magic on the greens.

I'd almost think that he needs to grab another one this year to have a chance....  Not to be Debbie Downer, but I think it's far more likely that he ends at fifteen than at nineteen.

These next two are pretty funny, as it's always shocking to find folks snarkier than I:

Is Koepka finished? -@WillBardwell 

No, but he is diminished. It would have been sooo on-brand if Koepka had ruined this Masters by winning it. As bad as the water-ball at 12 was, those shortish birdie putts at

17 and 18 never scared the hole. Things get a lot more interesting if Koepka makes either one, but he shrank from the moment.

If Frankie had won, would he or Cink (Turnberry) be a bigger spoiler? -David (@dmalament) 

I still think it’s Cink because we all knew Watson would never again have another opportunity like that. This Masters marks three straight major championships at which Tiger coulda/should won. Win or lose on Sunday, it’s increasingly obvious he is going to be a consistent force at the game’s biggest events as long as his body doesn’t betray him.

Silliness.... If Frankie had held on, he would have been a deserving champ...  As for Brooks, the only thing that's diminished him is the purple thong.

Did I say the questioners were snarky?

Fred Ridley’s acting job during the Patrick Reed’s-been-a-great champion-speech…too late for an Oscar nod? #AskAlan -Jason (@jasleeack) 

That was delicious. So many golf fans loosed a violent guffaw at that moment I’m surprised it didn’t register on the Richter scale.

What do you think of this Q&A?

Which sponsors that deleted Tiger during his controversial years are kicking themselves the most right now? #AskAlan -@GolfingBrock 

All of them, plus the thousands of other corporations that could have bought a piece of Tiger at a firesale price. But loyalty is a rare commodity in corporate America, so Nike deserves to benefit wildly from its decision to stick with Tiger all along.

Nike may deserve Alan's praise, but given the tawdry nature of Tiger's scandal, I'm not in the least critical of those that didn't want to be associated with the man.  Most women still evidence a visceral hatred for the man.

What was your nightmare outcome? #AskAlan -@_SMisner 

Webb. Schauffele and Cantlay could both get the star-is-born treatment; the former is a very likable kid and the latter has a moving personal story. Webb is Webb – nice guy, good player, minimal buzz. If he had stolen this Masters we’d have to elevate him to a great player, but I’m still not sure what the second paragraph is.

Nor the first...  

#AskAlan Many are pointing to 16 as the defining shot for Tiger. Why not 17? After back-to-back birdies he pulls out his driver (kryptonite) and puts it in the fairway. Never doubted he could hit an iron (9-iron no less) but a driver… -@HighFades 

I was a guest on a podcast today and, without having seen this question, brought up this very same drive, which I said was the best swing I’ve seen Tiger make in at least a decade. That tee shot on 17 is so awkward, but even with the Masters hanging in the balance he made a gorgeous, smooth, confident, controlled swing. If he is going to drive it like that in crunch time, everyone else on Tour should be very, very concerned.

Lede, buried....  Not only has that very tee shot befuddled our hero, but a she himself note in one of the pressers, the last time he walked off No. 16 with a two-shot lead, he proceeded to bogey in.

This is a fine exit question (and answer):

Dream scenario for the last three majors of the year? #AskAlan -@Michael_Tyler22 

Jordan wins the PGA, Phil takes the U.S. Open, Rory prevails at Portrush.

Dream on, Alan.  I have a follow up question for all thos ethat thought Augusta was the cure for what ails Jordan....

Suspicion, Confirmed -  I had the same thought in the moment, that we had missed a shot of significance:

To all those golf fans who think TV networks show "Too much Tiger!" during broadcasts, you're not going to believe this. CBS did not—I repeat, did NOT—show

every Tiger Woods shot during Sunday's final round at the 2019 Masters. 

OK, so they basically did, only missing one of his 70 strokes (a tap-in for par on No. 1) on his way to winning a fifth green jacket. The network was nearly as thorough with Woods' playing partner and 54-hole leader Francesco Molinari, showing all but two of his actual strokes (Molinari was also penalized two shots during a final-round 74). However, one of those two swings turned out to be critical to the outcome of the event.

Thanks as always to ClassicTVsports.com for charting all the shots televised during the final round of a major. The site confirmed what I believed to be true while being in and out of the Augusta National media center on Sunday: Molinari's second shot on No. 15 never made it on TV.

CBS' broadcasts have become a parody of themselves, but that's a rant for another day....  But it was significant shot, and I wondered  how Frankie got there.

The Significance of 82 - With everyone focused on eighteen, it's far more likely that Tiger's next milestone will be to halve tie Sam Snead's record of 82 PGA Tour wins.  I'm not terribly excited by this one, because it's a hash of a record.  here's the skinny on the Slammer's First "Tour" win:

So what exactly was the West Virginia Closed Pro? 

In 2010, the Charleston Daily Mail ran a piece that unearthed information on that 83-years-ago tournament. A Greenbrier press release, dated July 9, 1936, that Ann Snead, Sam’s daughter-in-law, found in an old scrapbook early in 2013, verified the Daily

Mail’s findings. The Greenbrier hosted the tournament simultaneously with the West Virginia Amateur, but the “Closed Pro” nomenclature meant no amateurs could play. Snead shot rounds of 70-61 in the one-day, 36-hole professional tournament, defeating nearby Logan Country Club Head Professional Clem Weichman by 16 strokes. It was certainly an impressive feat. But should that tournament have shown up on Snead’s “official” record? Was it really an admissible TOUR event? 

And therein lies the rub. It was a Snead win, of that there is no dispute. But since the entire field consisted of local pros from in and around West Virginia and Virginia, and since none of the stars of the day entered, not even TOUR pros from the area—Bobby Cruickshank, Chandler Harper and Denny Shute—its place in history is somewhat dubious. Should it have been considered official?

We have the very same issue with majors, of course.  There's no way to compare across the ages in any way that is fair to players of both eras.

Eyes, Rolled - Was your concern about world ranking points for the Tour Championship keeping you awake at night?  Your concerns have been addressed:

The player who takes the fewest strokes might not win the Tour Championship because of the radical scoring change for the FedEx Cup in which the top seed will start at 10-under par with a two-shot advantage. 

The PGA Tour will continue to keep a traditional score, even if it won’t be published, so that world ranking points can be awarded. 

The Official World Golf Ranking board met last week at the Masters and approved a PGA Tour proposal that awards full ranking points based on where players would have finished without the staggered start. 

The No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup starts the tournament at 10 under, with the No. 2 seed at 8 under, and then 7 under, 6 under and 5 under. The next five players start at 4 under, all the way down until Nos. 26 through 30 begin at even par.

Is this stupider than dropping from knee-height?  Our governing bodies continue to beclown themselves....

Adios Sheep Ranch -  I expect that this will be epic:

BANDON, Ore. – Bandon Dunes Golf Resort is famous for the clifftop, ocean-front 

Mike Keiser, Phil Friedman and Bill Coore on the site.

holes on three of its four highly ranked courses set basically in the middle of nowhere next to the Pacific Ocean. 

There soon will be even more flagsticks along that coastline.

Nine new cliffside greens are under construction just to the north of Bandon Dunes as part of what is being shaped into the par-71, 7,000-yard Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch. The opening date has not been set, but expect play to begin in spring of 2020 if all goes to plan. 

And you read that right – nine of the 18 greens will be directly on the 100-foot cliffs. Compare that to the resort’s Bandon Dunes course, which has five greens directly on the cliffs, six if one green (No. 5) shrouded by a dune is counted. The Pacific Dunes course has three greens directly on the cliffs and a couple very close, and the Old Macdonald course has one.

I would expect this to be pretty great, as the coastline if more jagged, offer better opportunities for tees and greens, than the earlier courses.

Although I had always wanted to play the Sheep Ranch:

The site of what had been the Sheep Ranch – 13 greens with an unset, play-as-you-like routing built by Tom Doak – will become the fifth 18-hole course associated with the resort that already has four of Golfweek’s top 10 resort courses in the United States. The Sheep Ranch had existed since Doak built the resort’s Pacific Dunes course and came next door to set up a rustic experience accessible to a handful of golfers who went to the trouble to determine the place actually existed and to gain access.

 Put Bandon on the schedule for a return visit in 2021.  Though we need to go for two weeks, to play all the course a couple of times each.

I'll see you when I see you...

The Reconquista - Day 2

Butler Cabin looks like a funeral parlor, badly lit. FRANK HANNIGA

Gee, this Tiger story might actually have legs....  Who knew people were interested?

The Big Picture - Folks continue to outdo themselves with the wide-angle assessments of Tiger's Sunday win, including Christine Brennan:

AUGUSTA, Ga. – It’s a natural question to ask: What was more momentous, Tiger Woods’ first major victory at the 1997 Masters, or his latest at the 2019 Masters? 

Were it not for the first, he certainly would have had a different path to the last, of

course, but I believe Sunday’s victory, a sports comeback for the ages, will end up being more memorable because it was so improbable and so long in the making. 

It’s one thing for a 21-year-old prodigy to burst onto the scene with a 12-stroke victory at a course that was made for him. As spectacular as that was, that’s usually the way sports work. 

It’s another thing entirely for a 43-year-old who has endured personal scandal and four surgeries on his back, including spinal fusion two years ago, to end a nearly 11-year major championship drought by taking on and beating all challengers on the course he first conquered 22 years ago.

The Tour Confidential panel led with a similar question:

1. In case you missed it, Tiger Woods won the Masters; it’s his 15th major title but first since the 2008 U.S. Open. Given all Tiger has overcome in recent years — the scandal, the surgeries, the swing changes, the chip yips — is this his greatest victory?

Jon Wall: Without a doubt. Woods wouldn’t give it the superlative it deserved, but nothing tops this victory. Sometimes you have to lose everything to truly realize what you had. Woods went from rock bottom back to the mountaintop. It’s nearly impossible to pull off what he accomplished on Sunday. 

Jess Marksbury: Well said. The yearning is what makes this the greatest. Eleven long years. Just a year and a half ago it seemed impossible that Tiger could contend again. It truly is the most remarkable comeback ever. The joy and excitement we witnessed today felt like a gift. And now, here we are thinking about the possibilities of Bethpage, Pebble … it’s just awesome. 

Sean Zak: Can we delineate between victory and accomplishment? I’d call it his greatest accomplishment. Greatest victory was probably that ‘97 beheading of the field. 

Dylan Dethier: Thanks for that cold water, Zak. We all saw his reaction on 18. That was absolutely years in the making, and it was pure, and unbridled, and I’m glad he let himself have it. That tells you everything about this W.

That's a ton of pixels wasted, because grizzled veteran Mike Bamberger nails it succinctly:

Michael Bamberger,: You can’t have this one without the first one, and the 14th one. But this was the most meaningful.

They're bookends for an epic career....  I'd be reluctant to argue against that first one, when he....how did Sean put it, beheaded the field.  But it's really the same phenomenon....  that otherworldly talent that, in his youth, allowed him to destroy fields, now allows him to remain competitive in the face of age-related decline.

This Is So Disillusioning -  I was reliably informed that Tiger just won his 5th green jacket.....Turns out that was some of that fake news that the kids on MSNBC are always droning on about:

When Tiger Woods slipped into his Masters green jacket Sunday in Butler Cabin, with an

assist from 2018 champion Patrick Reed, an awkward moment of silence followed, before a glowing Tiger peeped, “It fits.” 

At that instant, you may have asked yourself: How did they have the right-sized jacket ready for Tiger minutes after his win? The answer might surprise you.

It turns out that the green jacket Tiger wrapped himself in Sunday afternoon was the exact same one that he donned after his four other Masters victories.

That’s right, Tiger Woods did not capture his fifth green jacket on April, 14, 2019 at Augusta National. He just put on his old green jacket for the fifth time.

Were you lying about Santa Claus as well? 

Did The Internet Hold Up? - Just barely it seems...  So you're probably assuming TV ratings that were off the charts....  A bit of a split verdict, actually:

Masters Sunday clocks monster TV ratings thanks to Tiger's win

TV ratings for Tiger Woods' historic Masters win hurt by early start time

7.7 Overnight: 2019 Masters Scores Strong Ratings Despite Early Start

You see the issue...  No word on how many folks turned on CBS at 2:00 not realizing that tee times had been moved up....

It was actually a weird week to analyze the ratings.  Saturday's broadcast was the highest rated golf broadcast in four years, but ESPN's numbers on Thursday-Friday were weak.  Shack and others have speculated that streaming coverage might have eaten into the linear broadcast, though that was speculation.

I do love this from CBS:

The final round — which culminated in Tiger Woods’ first win at a major championship since 2008 — also registered a 21 share, which means 21% of television viewers at the time were watching the event. It peaked at a 28 share between 2:15 and 2:30 p.m. ET. 

CBS touted the ratings as dominant, calling the Masters “the highest-rated morning golf broadcast in 34 years.” However, it is worth noting that the majority of golf broadcasts occur in the afternoon or evening; The British Open is one notable exception. 

CBS also showed an encore presentation of the final round from 3 – 7 p.m. ET Sunday. It delivered a 3.4 overnight rating and an 8 share.

Was the 1986 Open Championship especially memorable?  Sandy Lyle at Sandwich wouldn't seam to be the stuff of dreams....Curious, no?

Geoff had this chart, which I'll not presume to understand:

 
 This analysis from Sports Media Watch is interesting as well:

Keep in mind that ratings are the percentage of homes watching a program out of the total number of television homes. Those numbers will be inevitably lower when fewer homes are watching television (as is the case during the morning). 

Using the share, which is the percentage of homes watching out of the number of televisions in use, Sunday’s telecast fared much better. It had a 21 share, up 17% from last year (18) and tied with 2013 as the highest for the Masters since 2011. 

An encore presentation of the final round delivered a 3.4 overnight from 3-7 PM ET. Combined, the live and encore telecasts grossed an 11.1 overnight. That would be the highest for the Masters since 2010, which marked Woods’ return to golf following his marital infidelity scandal (12.0).

Those numbers for a replay seem especially impressive.

Not sure where The Forecaddie and Martin Kauffman are this week, as they usually pop up on Tuesdays to confirm our disdian for the CBS coverage.  Instead, we have Golfweek posting Bill Goodykoontz's thoughts from the Arizona Republic:

But once it was clear that Woods was going to win his first major championship in 11 years the CBS coverage became so downright gooey the television screen practically dripped. 

After sinking his final putt, the crowd went wild and started shouting, “Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!” To be sure, this is not Masters behavior. This is Phoenix Open behavior. But it was unstoppable. Woods has overcome addictions, injuries and some pretty horrible choices since the last time he won a major, and now he was back. 

He walked off the green and his young son ran to him, at which point CBS analyst Nick Faldo, himself a former Masters champion, said, “That will be the greatest scene in golf forever.” 

Uh, really? 

Dude. It wasn’t even the greatest scene in golf Sunday.

So you're saying our Sir Nick is a little excitable?  Weird that.... But CBS is excessively treacly in their coverage of the Zurich, you weren't expecting them to controls themselves at The Masters, were you?

And yes, watching Woods embrace his family was indeed moving. You can bet that within a couple of minutes someone in the production truck had put together quick snippets of Woods, winning his first major in 1996, embracing his late father, with a cut to Woods embracing his son. Someone give that person a raise. 

Of course that wasn’t enough. Jim Nantz, who hosts CBS coverage of the Masters and treats Augusta National Golf Club and the tournament itself as if it were some sort of church and he its most devoted member, went back to it again and again. He even asked Woods about it — not the hugging itself, but the compilation. For Woods’ part, he repeated that he was, in the moment, speechless.

C'mon, they didn't have to put together, as they had it teed up and ready to roll....  From the moment Molinari's ball went kerplunk  (on 12, not 15) they had the narrative set to go. 

This is pretty spot-on as well:

After Brooks Koepka finished his round, and he tied for second, CBS reporter Amanda Balionis conducted the post-match interview. The first thing she asked him was how Woods must be feeling. Imagine what that must be like.

The thing is, I give them a pass this week, because the result did in fact justify their breathless worship.  It's when they apply the same tone to lesser events or to a Trevor Immelman win that my head explodes.

Sam Weinman has a very personal investment in this story:

The history books choose to ignore this, but Tiger Woods and I turned pro on the same day. In August 1996, the morning after watching Woods come from behind to win his third straight U.S. Amateur, I drove my Nissan Sentra to my first real job at a now-

defunct monthly sports magazine. Woods flew to the Greater Milwaukee Open in Phil Knight’s jet. 

By Thanksgiving, Woods was a two-time winner on the PGA Tour and my first gig was over almost as soon as it began. The magazine went under—I refuse to take all the blame—and I had already migrated to cover golf at a local newspaper. 

I suppose it’s weird to only have covered golf through the prism of one incredibly disruptive figure. It would be like if your introduction to covering presidential politics was through the Donald Trump Administration. And then if Trump remained president for the next 22 years.

 Sam, have you considered the possibility that this has never been about you?

Professionally, though, I have never known golf without Tiger Woods, and those of us who work in golf media have been tethered to him in some capacity for decades.

OK, I'm gonna take that as a "No:.

But here's the gist of his argument:

But I do feel like I’ve been afforded a certain perspective on Woods, and particularly, how wildly we swing from one extreme to the next when charting his progress. Turns out at his height, even in playing golf better than anyone in history, Woods was destined to fall short of the image we projected on him. And in the depth of scandal, injury and addiction, he was never that bad. People tend to deal in absolutes these days, but Woods is just another guy who struggles to navigate the vast space between his best and worst self.

It all reminds me of those heady days early in both of our careers when the possibilities seemed endless. But I hope, for everyone’s sake, that we recognize the patterns that brought us down this road in the first place. Even as Woods continues to deliver on the spectacular, it's still as someone who fights many of the same flaws as the rest of us. The last thing he needs is a breathless public equating an improved driver swing or stabler family life with new expectations even he can’t sustain. 

Golf is hard. Life can be, too. Rather than put Woods back on a pedestal, I choose to admire the man for simply finding a way back to his feet.

What I love about is he's basically saying that the sporting press isn't very good at their profession...  and by extension, and he made the reference to Trump, neither is the rest of the media.

I find myself disagreeing with his basic premise.  Yes, as a golf writer, he was "tethered" to Tiger who was the largest story i the game.  That he couldn't find other subjects or explore other aspects of the Tiger story is his own failing, not ours.

Most of us long ago came to the realization that we don't really know our sports heroes.  It turns out that Mickey Mantle was a drunkard and womanizer, and I'll just have to deal with that.  He's still my baseball God, because he was Mickey Friggin' Mantle....

Same with Tiger.  I recognized and loved his brilliance on the golf course, but I also realized that he never let us in enough to know him as a man.  Unlike Sam, I don't need to excuse the Tiger that we learned about at Thanksgiving 2009....  You know what, it really was that bad.  I'm not suggesting that he should be banished from polite society, but let's not trivialize destroying ones' family....

The Hyperbola Begins - Mike Stachura tells us that it's the pictures that got small:

“Tiger winning Augusta is huge for our brand,” said Dan Murphy, president and CEO of Bridgestone Golf. “Seeing our Bridgestone ‘B’ rolling toward the hole on international TV is a big boost. The victory pays off a big bet we made in not only contracting with Tiger but in featuring him in all our ads this year. In a word: Wow!” 

That immediate excitement also was echoed by Buddy Christensen, president of Golfdom, the large independent golf retail store outside Washington, D.C. 

“Tiger moves the needle like no other, and a win like this over big names, all while he looked as much like the Tiger of old as ever, will get golfers excited,” he said. “The Masters weekend always provides a ‘pop’ and starts our season, but this takes it to a whole other level. I can't wait to open our doors.” 

Some believe that needle is poised to move with a velocity it never has before—precisely because he had been written off multiple times for multiple reasons. Christensen called it “a more ‘real’ Tiger, more accessible and fun-loving.” David Pillsbury, CEO of private club company ClubCorp and a former top executive at the PGA Tour and Nike, sees the transformation of Woods as more appealing than the original phenomenon.

The Bridgestone comment is amusing, because back when Tiger was unable to play, their Chairman stated that Tiger was more valuable as a non-plying spokesman.  Really, and from all accounts he said it with a straight face....

Te AP sees an investment opportunity:

Apex Marketing Group, a branding consulting company, estimated the media exposure for Nike to be worth more than $22 million. Nike Inc.’s stock rose less than 1% Monday. 

Shares of energy drink maker Monster Beverage Corp., a sponsor whose green logo appears on Woods’ golf bag, gained about 2%. 

Other golf companies that aren’t connected to Woods also saw a boost. Club maker Callaway Golf Co.’s stock rose 1.5%. And Acushnet Holdings Corp., maker of golf balls and other golfing equipment, added 1.7%.

Unclear whether that's just Tiger, as Molinari and Koepka were similarly swooshed-out as they rinsed their balls on No. 12.

In another Sam Weinman item, he correlates Tiger's early career with the NASDAQ index:

Sweet Sixteen - While I disagree a bit, I'm very glad that this got kicked around by the writers:

6. Our Sean Zak made the case that the ace-friendly Sunday hole location at the par-3 16th is too predictable. Is Zak on to something or on something?

I've been questioning this green for years, so let's see what Sean had to say:

The current Sunday location at 16 has been manufactured for excitement rather than

plotted to display skillful golf shots. By the modern player, it is played quite simply with a straight wedge, carrying some 170 yards, cozying to the hole with a touch of spin. Adam Scott knows it. “They know exactly where to put (the hole) for some excitement,” Scott said back in 2018. “It’s a funnel pin. If they put it right there, it all kind of feeds towards it. And, guys are good, they hit the right line and right number.” 

And then we wait. Gravity tells the golfer if they’re lucky enough for the one instead of a two. Fans who tune in for their annual dosage of early-April golf adore it, but that’s not what major championship golf is about. Is the Masters about chasing entertainment, or a test of peak golf performance? Is a “funnel pin” good enough for the 70th hole of the greatest tournament in golf? Through five hours of play Sunday morning, the only holes at Augusta playing easier were the par 5s.

He makes excitement seem like a bad thing....  In fact, a ball on the ground is about the most exciting thing in golf, and we should recognize that.  But there's a strategic flaw in the green.  With water in play, a hole location near the water is chosen to force the player to negotiate the risk-reward trade-off....  That's not in play here, because the contour allows for a line away from the trouble, which will then feed the ball towards the pin. 

So, what does Sean suggest?

The Sunday pin location should be moved back to its roots, deep right on the green, where it used to be played. Want some history there? Think of Jack Nicklaus and his excited caddie in 1975. Getting close to that hole is as tricky as it gets. And the short-sided bunker long right? A book-it bogey.

Ugh!  The real problem with the 16th green is that the Sunday pin is the only one that works on any level.  When the pin is back right, we see the entire field have the same 35-40 foot uphill putt....  Talk about a snoozefest. 

The gang is a little tough on our Sean:

Bamberger: No. He is incorrect. But points for the original thought! It has to be one of the top-100 par-3s in tournament golf. 

Wall: I love Mr. Zak, but this is a terrible take. Part of the magic of Sunday at Augusta is the outside chance a player could make an ace that alters the course of the tournament. That pin position is always good for some fireworks, which is what the back nine is all about at the Masters. Sure, returning to the back right pin would add a degree of difficulty, but this isn’t the U.S. Open. I want to see guys firing at flags, not hitting shots to strategic spots for a routine par.

Dethier: Yeah, I kinda dig this one. If any course besides Augusta National had a hole in a collection area exactly like this, we’d give it a hard time. It is super fun, and part of the tradition — but sometimes new traditions are good, too. I’m game for a change. 

Ritter: Zak has had several great Masters-themed ideas over the years, including an oral history of the 1997 event and a podcast that celebrates its history. I never thought he’d do anything more offensive than eating 21 of Augusta’s fried chicken sandwiches in a single week (link?) a few years back, but this might be it. The 16th is the easiest hole out there, but it’s still a blast. Don’t mess with it.

 Don't mess with it unless you're inclined to blow up the green and start fresh.  I don't think it's near as good a hole as Mike, but it's very much a part of why that back nine on Sunday has such a track record of delivering the goods.

On a similar subject. I have been coming to the conclusion in recent years that the twelfth hole's days of terror had succumbed to the modern game.  I grew up in the game with Jack's admonitions in my ear, never go at that right pin on Sunday.  Of course, Jack was hitting mid-irons back in the day, whereas today's brutes are hitting pitching wedges. 

Yeah, we had Jordan back in 2016, but he's unusually high strung.  But four of six in the last two groups?  I assume this is just a blip on the rend line, but four out of six is one heck of a blip...