Travel Notes

Golfweek pesters me with unsolicited e-mails, which I read so that you don't have to.  Today's edition was focused on the HackGolf initiative of TaylorMade President Mark King, which fits into the category of ill-conceived attempts to expand the game by removing from it all difficulty and required skill, which I dismissively swatted away in this post.  But buried toward the bottom were two-travel-related links, which were of greater interest.

The first, which can be found here, is a Marty Kaufmann interview with Alan Maloney, proprietor of the Mount Falcon Country House Hotel outside Ballina, near the Enniscrone Links in County Sligo.  Maloney made me aware of a tourist initiative called the Wild Atlantic Way, designed to promote Ireland's 1,500 mile Atlantic coastline, from County Cork in the south up to County Donegal in the north.  This encompasses many of the great links we've spoken of previously, including Ballybunion, Lahinch, Rosses Point, as well as Carne, a more recent addition in Theresa's ancestral County Mayo.

As Maloney notes, Carne has recently added a third nine, designed by American Jim Engh, exciting because the first nine there is somewhat less interesting.  But the point to be made about the Atlantic Coast of Ireland is that it features the wildest dunesland available in all of links golf, which Scotland cannot match.  This aerial picture of Carne below will provide just a taste of the topography on offer:

Now, if they could only upgrade the roads a bit..  On our 2007 trip we covered from Waterville to Rosses Point, and it was, with the benefit of hindsight, just too much ground to cover.  Carne, for example, is at the far end of the Belmullet Peninsula, and is more than an hour and a half  from Enniscrone, the nearest links.

The second item for today is as far removed as possible from the lush Irish coast, the high plains desert of central Oregon.  In this case another Marty Kaufmann interview (and if my evil scheme to add Travelin' Joe Passov to the ranks of the long-term unemployed doesn't pan out, Marty's gig might do), this time with Alana Hughson, tourism chief for Bend, OR.  Bend is a way-cool town of approximately 80,000, with an appealing hipster-chic vibe and lots of interesting golf.  I say this with more than my usual degree of authority, because on our recent 2011 trip to Bandon we spent four days in Bend.

By far the wackiest golf in Bend is Tetherow Golf Club, a David McKlay Kidd design that came on the market just as the real estate market went into freefall.  After bursting on the scene with his design of the first Bandon Dunes course, Kidd has been associated with a number of over-the-top projects, including The Castle Course in St. Andrews and Machrihanish Dunes, though with the latter he had substantial environmental hoops he had to jump through just to get the course built.  

What makes Tetherow an oddity is that it's a classic links design, though with more than usual elevation changes, but built at 4,000 feet of altitude.  Links golf on steroids, as the naturally firm and fast turf is combined with a ball that travels ridiculous distances.  The course was visually memorable, with a number of interesting holes.  But it also had a number of holes where there seemed no place to set a golf ball down, and the curious routing made the golf course seemingly unwalkable.  But it falls into that category of golf courses I was delighted to experience, but would never be able to take on a daily basis.  

A couple of examples of the dramatic terrain at Tetherow Golf Club.  The mountains in the background are part of the Seven Sisters, which retain snow all year.

There are many other more conventional golf options in and around Bend, including two course at Pronghorn Resort and Crosswater, which was unfortunately rebuilding their greens when we were in town.  We also greatly enjoyed the Brasada Ranch Resort course, located a few miles out of town.

The Nicklaus Course at Pronghorn, above, and the 18th green at Brasada Ranch, below.

I picked our Bend detour on a lark, thinking it might be a place where Theresa could be happy (or perhaps more accurately, less unhappy) as I skied.  But I learned something important about my bride in those days, that she doesn't like dry climates, which I attribute to those County Mayo genes.

Royalty Checks in My Future?

Shackelford points us to this Graham Brown article in the Courier about the sale of Simpsons Golf Shop near the first tee at the Carnoustie Championship Links:

With its distinctive multi-coloured umbrella tower, Simpsons has stood on Links Parade since being founded by unsung Scots golfing legend Robert Simpson in 1883.

The premises are a short chip away from Carnoustie’s Championship Course, which Simpson helped old Tom Morris redesign. 

This was my welcome to Carnoustie on my one visit in 1991, which made me feel right at home. 

Robert Simpson was the fifth of six golfing brothers in his family, and brother Jack won the 1884 Open Championship.

The new owners, Margaret and David Valentine, have ambitious plans for the shop, believed to be the second oldest golf shop in the world, as per these comments from Mr. Valentine:

Speaking exclusively to The Courier, he said: “Our decision to buy the shop was because of our interest in developing the Simpsons brand. 

“Few visitors to Carnoustie know much, if anything, about Robert Simpson and the fabulous contribution the Simpson family made to the world of golf in the early 20th century. We will start by telling the story of Simpsons in China where I have extensive golf industry and media connections,” said Mr Valentine.  

“This year is the 30th anniversary of golf in China and my intention is to co-produce a Simpsons book with a Chinese golf writer and at the same time introduce hickory golf tournaments as a marketing platform for Simpsons branded heritage products.”

Needless to say, readers of this blog are well familiar with the many contributions to golf of the Simpson family, and I assume would be active supporters of Simpson branded products.  For what it's worth, I've always considered myself sufficiently short and near-sighted to fit in well in China.

Flotsam and Jetsam

As I settle back into home after five days in Park City, let's see if we can make a dent in a rather long blogging to-do list.

• Writing at its Local Knowledge blog, Jerry Tarde posts a remembrance of golf writer Charles Price on the 20th anniversary of his death.  Tarde posts an excerpt from a 1993 letter from Price on the elements of good writing, which I'll share in full:

The reader: Write as though your reader is an ignorant genius. He doesn't know anything, but he's capable of understanding everything. In other words, never write down to him, never labor a point. He may have spent all his life in Moosejaw, Alaska. But he could still have an I.Q. way beyond your own.

Clarity: Write everything as though it will make sense 50 years from now. That's not the same as saying your prose should seem deathless. Some of O.B. Keeler's accounts of Bobby Jones winning a championship read as though they happened yesterday. Putting the situation another way, don't write as though you are "hip." How people popularly put things today may already be on the way out. In 1956 the most popular lyric in America was "Some enchanted evening." Six months later it was "You ain't nothing but a hound dog."

Logical construction: Everything must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In writing they must interconnect, like the three rings of logic. The first ring is your proposition: what the hell is this piece all about? The second ring contains the proof of the proposition. The third ring draws a conclusion from the proof. The trick, though, is to make the third ring interconnect with the first somehow. Thus the reader is reminded of whatever it was you were trying to prove.

Increasing your vocabulary: Everybody has three vocabularies: The largest is the one you read with. You can gather the sense of an unfamiliar word from its context. Next is the one you write with. It permits you the luxury of second thoughts. The smallest is the one you speak with. Since nobody likes to put his foot in his mouth, you only use words that are second nature. Consequently, the only way to improve all your vocabularies is by reading. The others follow.

Reading: Read what you ought to read, not just what you want to. Three hours a day is an absolute minimum. Any writer who can't find those three hours is in the wrong business.

I know that's a long excerpt, but it's all good advice.  Shackelford believes Price belongs in the Hall of Fame and specifically recommends his Golfer at Large, which will go on my golf reading list.  At some juncture, I'll do a Golf Necessary Bookshelf post. 

• Phil is a go for Phoenix, according to PGATour.com.   Back injuries are notoriously fickle, so I do hope he knows what he's doing.  He loves this event (he went to ASU and considers Phoenix his second home town) and desperately wants to defend, but it would be a real shame to put the temainder of the season at risk.  However, at age 43 and fighting psoriatic arthritis, one has to ask why he's chasing big appearance fees in Abu Dhabi.  I know he doesn't fly coach like the rest of us serfs, but is the travel really worth it?

• Match-Play MIA's:  Bob Harig reports at ESPN that Tiger is likely to skip the Accenture Match Play next month.  Given that Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott have already announced the intention to skip it, as well as the fact that Accenture's sponsorship contract is in its final year, this event seems to have more issues than a teenage girl with acne.  Gee, Commissioner Ratched Finchem, could it be the result of a truly dreadful golf course (notwithstanding that the course was built by Jack specifically to hold this event), could it be that the golf calendar has gotten too crowded or perhaps it's unwise to hold the event in the foothills above Tucson where it snowed last year?  In any event, we could be headed to a repeat of the 2001 event held in Australia, and that riveting Steve Stricker-Pierre Fulke final of which golf fans still reminisce. 

• Golf World has published a ranking of the best 100 modern golfers, which can be found here.  The ranking begins in 1980 and only measures PGA Tour performance (sorry, Seve) plus the four majors.  Seems like a profligate waste of pixels, as Jack, for instance, is ranked No. 4, between Phil and Veej.  But as I noted above, the rankings begin in 1980 and therefore include only 3 of Jack's 18 majors, yet somehow Jack in his dotage was better than all but 3 other modern golfers.  Silly, no?

• Shackelford posted on and linked to this Q&A with USGA Executive Director Mike Davis.  As Shack notes, Davis seemed to take yet another unnecessary swipe at NBC, which should make NBC's last Open telecasts from Pinehurst delightfully awkward.  The award of the USGA television contracts to Fox, which has never previously broadcast golf and will have no other golf events on their schedules, was completely unexpected and exposed the dark underbelly of the USGA, as detailed in Ron Sirak's long articles on the contract award and subsequent coup.  It's easy to make fun of them, but such turmoil in the games ruling body is unsettling, and it would be nice to have a clear understanding of their mistreatment of NBC.

• Brandel Chamblee posts companion pieces at Golf Channel's website, starting with the 5 worst developments in golf in the last 50 years and then, of course, follows it with the 5 best. BC is one of the better analysts of the game, and most of the items are unobjectionable, though I'll respectfully disagree with him on anchoring.  He'll earn some kudos for his acknowledgement of Tiger after their recent cage match, but I'll give him a shout out for reminding us all of Champagne Tony Lema, a prodigious talent that we lost far too young.

• The Dubai Desert Classic, where Tiger and Rory have been lured this week, has a new twist on the hole-in-one bonus, per Rex Hoggard at Golf Channel.  They've certainly upped the ante, with a $2.5 million bonus for an ace on the 17th hole on either Saturday or Sunday.  The catch is that the 17th is a Par 4, though it could play in the 295-325 yard range if, as expected, they move up the tees to heighten the drama on the weekend.  Could be a dilemma for a player in contention, as the bonus far exceeds first prize money, though likely not certain appearance fees.
• The PGA of America has posted the photo below of the entry gates to Augusta National covered in snow, a rare event:

I have the perfect companion piece, the photo below of the Road Hole under similarly rare snow:

Confidence Men

We'll try our usual Q&A thingee with this week's Sports Illustrated/Golf.com Tour Confidential:

1. A 79 for Tiger Woods and a MDF (made cut, did not finish) at a place he's won eight times. Is this cause for concern, or should we just chalk this one up to off-season rust?

Pro's Response:  Nobody's pushing the panic button (and a bonus reference to the Bat Signal), though some Spidey sense tingling (my contribution to the pop culture references).

My Take:  I feel strongly both ways (yet another pop culture reference).  No one round or tournament tells us much about the future, but Tiger never used to shoot that kind of score and he was always ready for Torrey.  I would expect to see him look sharper in Dubai this week, but the weaknesses that have crept into his game remain in evidence, and I'm guessing will reappear at times of maximum stress.

2. There was talk about the rough being too thick at Torrey Pines this week with the implication that it led to Phil Mickelson wrenching his back and Tiger's early exit. Is that a valid point? Why or why not?

Pro's Response:  Most believed the rough was ill-advised, though not responsible for Phil or Tiger's travails.  A minority thought they should just suck it up, and one even strummed the world's smallest violin.

My Take:  I am anti-rough for the simple reason that it promotes boring golf.  The scoring invited comparisons to the scoring in the 2008 U.S. Open, and that's with calm weather.  Imagine if the wind had been up?  The writers also made the point that it's likely self-defeating for the event, which competes with the other tour events for their field.  It will inevitably create another reason for the lads to use the West Coast swing to take some time off and recharge the batteries, a loss for us all given the top-notch venues.

3. Jordan Spieth went out and dusted Tiger, head-to-head, 63 to 71 on Friday, after beating him by just a stroke on Thursday. This from a kid who had never been paired with the 14-time major winner. Is Tiger's so-called intimidation factor completely gone, or is Spieth just fearless?

Pro's Response:  The guys appropriately take apart a silly question, as both are true.  And Michael Bamberger makes the obvious point that nobody is intimidated on Thursday or Friday.

My Take:  Not much to add, except that the intimidation factor was always overstated.  It was more the case that his opponents knew that he wouldn't come back to the field, and that they therefore had to play mistake-free golf.  

4. Scott Stallings made a birdie on 18 to separate himself from a crowded leaderboard Sunday afternoon and win the Farmers Insurance Open. What was your most memorable moment from a wild final day at Torrey?

Pro's Response:  Not much to work with here, though Mike Walker found the final round exciting.  He might need to get out more....

My Take:  It was a crowded leaderboard and the event could have gone to any of them, but from what I saw it was a yawn.  I'll agree with Josh Sens who noted that his strongest memory from Sunday was Tiger's 79 on Saturday.

 5. Sergio Garcia won the Qatar Masters on Sunday, following a solid 2013 season that ended with a win in Thailand in December. What's behind Garcia's resurgence?

Pro's Response:  Much psychoanalysis is offered, touching on girlfriends, mother issues and the ongoing battle between his ego and id (just kidding on the last two).

My Take:  Sergio has always been a superior ball striker and not as bad a putter as his rep, so it shouldn't surprise us when he plays well or wins.  Unfortunately he tends towards the whiny and petulant, making it hard to root for him.  

6. At the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando this week, TaylorMade CEO Mark King led the call to change the game in order to attract new players. Among his ideas was to outfit courses with 15-inch holes into the greens, nearly four times larger than a standard cup (while offering a standard cup as well on the same green). Should the game be going down this road? What if anything should the game do to attract new players?

Pro's Response:  You'll not be surprised to hear that the writers are all over the lot on this one.

My Take:  This is obviously a huge issue for the game of golf, but I side with Joe Passov and Mike Walker who make the important point that golf is appealing to us because of, not despite, its inherent difficulty. Golf is, like it or not, a niche sport that is not going to appeal to everybody.  That may not please equipment manufacturers or real estate developers, but as a certain Canlinasian golfer is wont to say, it is what it is.  I may try to expand further on these thoughts in a future post, but I find most efforts at expanding the appeal of golf (i.e., the Olympics, 15 inch holes) to be naive in the extreme, but I believe there is magic in this game of ours and we should be looking to expand opportunities to expose people, preferably when they're young, to its charms (and frustrations).

Wither Tiger

George Peper is a name brand golf writer, having served as Editor-in-Chief of Golf Magazine for twenty-five years, and is currently an Editor at Large for Links Magazine.  George lived in St. Andrews for a time, and wrote Two years in St. Andrews - At Home on the 18th Hole about the experience.  Before diving in below, feel free to join George for a video tour of St. Andrews from the maiden Links Magazine digital issue. Go ahead, I'll be here when you get back.

George Peper near his home off his 18th fairway.

George has a piece in the current issue of Links that we'll use as a launching pad for a wider discussion of the Striped One.  His current piece, called The Thrill of the Chase, begins with a plea that Tiger win the 2014 Masters, but then takes an unexpected turn:

"Then I want Tiger to have another drought.

The only thing worse than Woods winning no majors in 2014 is Woods winning multiple majors. Why? For the same reason—we want this chase thing to last as long as possible. One win will be enough to restore the collective confidence that he can get this done. Heck, Jack won four majors after turning 38, so can Tiger. Sure the competition is tougher now, but Tiger’s also in better physical condition than Jack ever was."

The gist of George's argument is that he wants the chase to last as long as possible, and is thus hoping for a scenario that hits his perceived sweet spot, one where it remains achievable but in no way inevitable.

Let's work off this premise, taking care to distinguish among that which we think will happen, that which we hope will happen and that which would provide the most excitement.  George dealt with the third, and no argument that Tiger remains the straw that stirs the drink, though perhaps a bit less so these days.  I'll quibble with George to the extent that Tiger winning more than one 2014 major does not, in my opinion, make getting to 18 (or 19) inevitable.  We'd still have plenty of thrill to the chase, as each major is, at this point, agonizingly difficult to win.

 An increasingly frequent image, Tiger following the flight of his drive with concern.

As to the second, I feel strongly both ways.  In the pre-fire hydrant era, I was as big a Tiger fan as any, but that seems but a distant memory.  There's no question that the knowledge of his behavior, in conjunction with his rules infractions and continued refusal to open up in the slightest, has left me feeling him to be a bit of a jerk.  Should Tiger and Phil end up battling down to the wire at, say, Pinehurst, I suspect I'd find myself in Phil's corner.

But as to what we think will happen, this is the fun stuff.  The golf commentariat has been dissecting this issue since forever, and one wag's (sorry, but I don't have the time to find and link) premise, which has some logic, was to the effect that if he doesn't bag one in 2014, he'll never win another.  Part of that premise is a belief that the 2014 majors venues are of particular appeal to Tiger, based on prior performance, an argument I'll deal with in more detail below.

As William Goldman famously said about the movies, "Nobody knows anything."  So with that important caveat in mind, I will shimmy out on a limb and state that I do not expect Tiger to win a major in 2014, and it seems increasingly possible that he won't win another.  This opinion is based principally on the following factors:

1. Weekend Woes - My good friend Glenn used to speak of Tiger's Thursday problem, that he would play so cautiously that he'd be looking up at the field when he teed off on Friday.  Now the best closer we've ever seen (c. 2000-2006) struggles the most on days that begin with the letter "s."
2. Putter Woes - I had intended to blog earlier this month about some fascinating data available from ShotLink that allowed for the extension of the Strokes Gained metric from putting to the full tee-to-green game.  The gist of this data is that Tiger's advantage against the field is meaningful until he gets near the green, then he gives strokes back.  I've always believed his putting woes go back further than most think, as I remember him looking downright foolish on the greens at places like Baltusrol, Pinehurst and Oakmont.  He would need a very good putting week to win a major, and the stroke would need to hold up on the weekend under intense, ever-increasing pressure.
3. Body Woes - Tiger turned 38 in December, and as Johnny Miller remarked about him ten years ago, he's an old 38.  I've lost track of how many times his left knee has gone under the knife, and we've seen a range of injuries to virtually every joint on his body, as well as back issues attributed to hotel mattresses.  We just can't take for granted that he'll be able to tee it up when the bell rings (bear with me as I liberally mix metaphors).
4. Consistency Woes - Tiger never used to miss cuts, in fact one of his great skills was keeping his bad rounds under control.  Now it seems that his bad rounds are more like Joe Tour-Rabbits, see for instance his dreadful Saturday at Torrey.
5. Par 5 Woes - Tiger used to lap the field on the 3-shotters, to the point where writers would speak of his advantage on Par 72 golf courses.  While his 4 over on twelve Par 5's at Torrey was undoubtedly aberrational, it's consistent with his recent poor play on what used to be his competitive advantage. Part of this is undoubtedly his crooked driving, resulting in reaching fewer Par 5's, which exacerbates his...
6. Wedge Woes - Tiger is, at times, just a horrible wedge player these days, with an absolutely perplexing absence of distance control.

Now to the issue of the 2014 venues being favorable to Tiger, which I think is wildly overstated.  Let's take them in order:

The Masters 

Logic:  Four wins between 1997 and 2005.  The course was lengthened in an effort to Tiger-proof it.

My Take:  Mission accomplished.  Since the last lengthening of the course in 2006, Tiger has not added a fifth green jacket.  His results are a Rorschach inkblot, in that with the exception of 2012, it's all top six finishes, but does anyone remember him really being in the hunt late in any of those years?

U.S. Open

Logic:   Tiger finished two shots off the winning score in each of the two Opens at Pinehurst, in second behind Michael Campbell in 2005 and third behind Payne Stewart in 1999.

My Take:  Perhaps, though I remember Tiger struggling mightily with the flat stick in '05.  If it's dry in the North Carolina sand hills in June, Tiger will benefit from the ability to leave his driver in the bag.  But the iconic Donald Ross greens will test the players' short games, which is currently his most pronounced weakness.

Open Championship

Logic:  Tiger won the 2006 Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, with a consummate display of course management, hitting only one driver in 72 holes.

My Take:  That 2006 performance was memorable, but how many Opens has he won since?  Combined with his PGA win the next month at Southern Hills, a light bulb went on over my head as I realized that I had to change my vision of which golf courses suited him.  His driving had deteriorated, but those two venues didn't require the driver, thus two big wins.

While that could still be the case today, it's unlikely that we'll see Hoylake under similar conditions to 2006, when an extremely dry summer led to an unusually hard and fast track.  If Tiger is forced to take Frank off often, he'll need to be awfully straight at Hoylake, which amongst other typical links hazards features internal out of bounds on several holes.

Tiger removing Frank....lately not a good sign for his fans.

PGA Championship

Logic:  Undoubtedly the most dramatic of his major championships, his victory over Bob May in a three-hole playoff in 2000 was the third leg of the Tiger Slam, Peak Tiger as I call it.

My Take: The Tiger of 2000 would have won on any track up to and including a Myrtle Beach min-golf course.  Also, according to Links Magazine, Valhalla has completed a major renovation, in which all 18 greens have been rebuilt to USGA specification, a new irrigation system has been installed and they've converted to a new, more heat-resistant bent grass.  2000 for Tiger, not to mention the rest of us, was long ago and far away.

Having made my case that Tiger will not win a major in 2014, let me add a weaselly caveat.  Tiger won five significant PGA events in 2013, and is justifiably the number one ranked golfer on the planet (not to mention that he's won fourteen of the things previously).  It would be madness to say that a golfer who can do that can't win a major....so I won't.  But it's been almost six years since he's won a major, the pressure has and will continue to mount and the level of competition is fierce.  So while he certainly could, I'm guessing he won't.  

That's Heisenberg, I'm Certain

A couple of years ago, one of my golf buddies showed up with a cool piece of artwork on his golf ball, a Jolly Roger as it happens, courtesy of a product from a company called Tin Cup.  The product is basically a round metal form into which a golf ball fits, with a design cut into the metal so it acts as a stencil.

I liked the idea so much that I purchased one for Theresa and one for myself.  For Theresa I chose Nine Lives, because it looked so much like our cat Ray:

For myself I chose Bombs Away because, as everyone knows, chicks dig the long ball:

I like the product very much, with a couple of caveats.  First, it takes a bit of time and focus to mark the designs on a golf ball, especially if multiple colors are involved.  It also requires a fine point Sharpie, not what most of us have in our golf bags.  Secondly, the designs don't last all that long, especially if you play in the early morning dew.  

I'm on Tin Cup's mailing list, and was intrigued by their current Cup of the Month, called Incognito:

Given that Theresa and I are deep into season 4 of Breaking Bad, I have to note that nothing could be more cognito than the above, which is clearly Heisenberg (a/k/a Walter White) from that show.  See what I mean?

And as long as as we've connected golf to crystal meth, the Breaking Bad fans will know that this was inevitable, blue meth has shown up in Albuquerque.

Champions are Born....or Not

Regular reader Maggot (real name) e-mails with this piece from The Herald Scotland about newly-minted golf professional Dan McLaughlin.  And by newly-minted, we mean really newly:

What would you sacrifice in an attempt, however unlikely, to become a world class athlete instead? In the case of Dan McLaughlin, it is eight of the best years of his life.

It is no wonder sports scientists are keeping a close eye on the American. He was an otherwise unremarkable 30-year-old commercial photographer when he hung up his cameras in April, 2010, and embarked on a mission to become a professional golfer.

Among the many potential pitfalls which might undermine his audacious plan to play on the PGA Tour alongside Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson was one which was particularly striking: he had never played 18 holes in his life.

The basic premise of the Dan Plan is that 10,000 hours of intense training can create a world class athlete in any discipline.  All I can say is, if only, as I blew past 10,000 hours years ago.  But read the rest and draw your own conclusions.

Today is a travel day so blogging will be light to non-existent until later this week. 

Tim Rosaforte's Brush with Greatness

Tim Rosaforte, a writer for Golf Digest and Golf World as well as a commentator for the Golf Channel, has been awarded the PGA of America's Lifetime Achievement Award for 2014.  Ted Bishop, PGA of America President made the announcement:

"His attention to detail when reporting makes him one of the most credible people in sports. No one delivers the close-up insight on the various personalities in golf like Tim, and it is with great pleasure that we recognize him with the 2014 PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism."

Golf Digest, whose reporters have won three of the last four awards, filled in some background on Rosaforte's career:

By his count, Rosaforte has covered 124 major championships, and missed only one Ryder Cup since 1983. Rosaforte has written five books: "The PGA Tour" (1990); "Heartbreak Hill: Anatomy of a Ryder Cup" (1996); "Tiger Woods: The Makings of a Champion" (1997); "World Golf Hall of Fame Yearbook" (with Jaime Diaz, 1998); and "Raising the Bar: The Championship Years of Tiger Woods" (2000).

Former winners of the award include Herbert Warren Wind, Dan Jenkins, Ken Venturi and Frank Chirkinian.

Why is this of interest to me?  Because of Rosaforte's brush with greatness 3 1/2 years ago.  At the end of our trip to Southport, England in 2010, details of which can be found here, we flew home from Manchester.  For reasons I don't remember, I had to make a last pass through the rental car office, where I ran into Tim.

This was September 2010, so I immediately knew where he was headed, the Ryder Cup matches at Celtic Manor, Wales, which I noted.  He then endeared himself to me by asking that which golfers should ask each other under such circumstances, "where did you play?"  Thereupon ensued a delightful ten minute conversation about the courses in the area and our enjoyment thereof.  Turns out that Tim is an overseas member of Hillside Golf Club, a delightful track in Southport that was one of the high points of our trip.  I of course chided Tim for never once inviting me there to play, we shook hands, and parted as sorta-kinda friends united in our love of the game.

Torrey Jumps the Shark

Strange doings in La Jolla this weekend, so let's settle in to unpack them.  Again I offer my incisive commentary without the benefit of actually having seen any much of the play, catching only the final threesome playing the 18th after skiing. 

• Tiger's play took a sudden detour, from middling and uninspired to 20 handicapper territory, beginning with back-to-back double bogeys on No. 18 and No. 1, leading to Tiger having his Sunday free to spend more time with his family. 

• For those keeping score at home, the only higher score posted in competition by the Striped One was his 81 at the Open Championship in 2002, when his Grand Slam hopes were head-butted by a wee Scottish storm.  He's had three previous 79's on his resume, most recently at last year's Memorial (ironically a course that he similarly "owns").  And this 79 featured a mini-rally to avoid an 80, including a chip-in and 8-foot putt to save par on his last two holes.

• Tiger went seven straight holes making bogey or worse.  I don't know why that's such a big deal, even I've done that.

• But at least we learned a new acronym, the dreaded MDF.  For those not conversant in the native tongue of Commissioner Ratched Finchem, that's Made Cut, Did Not Finish.  It's apparently been in effect for some time, used to limit the final round field in cases where too many make the 36 hole cut.  As is typical, a tree falling in the forest makes no noise unless it lands on Tiger.

• The course set-up has been a fertile conversation topic (fertile...heh, get it?), primarily related to the extremely dense rough around the greens.  Shackelford goes on one of his patented rants in this post at Golf Digest's Local Knowledge blog, as per the excerpt below:

Tiger Woods missed the Saturday cut, prompted by the high number of players who made it to the weekend. Phil Mickelson's back locked-up hitting out of the thick stuff, leading to his withdrawal. Worst of all, the first network Saturday telecast of 2014 was a total bore. (Oh, and it took them 5 hours and 30 minutes for the leaders to finish 18 holes on a windless, 70-degree day.)

I've been walking the course all week and while it's in tremendous condition and some key landing areas were wisely widened by the PGA Tour rules staff, the rough is just silly in places. It's one thing when it's chip-out rough throughout and the misery is widespread. But the worst stuff seems to be just off the fairways and just off the greens.

• Shack goes so far, in a post at his site, as to speculate that if this set-up is to be continued, that Tiger and other top names might give the event a miss.  

• This ties in with some thoughts I've had about the changing PGA Tour schedule.  I don't have time at present to expound at length, but my belief is that the ever-expanding PGA Tour schedule, 4 big money events at the end and a calendar that begins in October, creates a situation where something has to give.  And that something, it seems to me, has to be the West Coast Swing.  The players have to play the Florida swing, as it's the warm-up to the Masters, so any player looking for a few weeks off will be awfully tempted by this period on the Left Bank  (and we've already seen some players, such as Adam Scott, shutting it down until Florida).  Given that the West Coast involves such indignities as bumpy poa greens and iffy weather (not to mention 6-hour rounds with Ray Romano), it's logically the weak link.  But we're talking Torrey, Riviera and Pebble, places with actual history and architectural significance.  Wouldn't we want these events to maintain reasonably strong fields?  Just askin'.

Golfus Eruptus

The Irish Golf Desk brings us this minor item in which Padraig Harrington shares his assessment of the funniest golf course meltdown he's witnessed, which took place at the 2007 Open Championship at Carnoustie.  Clearly the incident didn't throw Padraig off his game, as he went on to win his first major championship in a playoff over Sergio Garcia.

The incident was perpetrated by The Scot Richie Ramsey, who was paired with Harrington and David Toms for the first two rounds:

"When I won [The Open] at Carnoustie, I holed a putt in the first round and one of my playing partners [he didn't name Ramsay by name] missed from a similar place and he came over and he started abusing his golf bag, hitting it with the golf club, kicking it and our third playing partner David Toms went over and said something to him about it. He was so upset about him kicking the bag.

"And the player said, 'What's it got to do with you?' And Toms said, 'Well, it's my golf bag.' He'd picked the wrong bag because it was the same make."

 The IGW piece also helpfully points us to this video of top ten golf tantrums:

Not the definitive word on this important subject, as the Poulter and Woosie entries aren't close to my definition of a meltdown.  But the Otto Hennie Hennie Otto clip was suitably cringe-worthy, and heartfelt congratulations to Sergio Garcia for nabbing two spots in the Top Ten.  And the fact that his winning performance came from his rookie season attested to his wide ranging skill set, from the youthful Medinah scissor kick to the iconic loogie in the cup. 

Mid-Torrey

I've seen exactly none of the festivities from Torrey, which shan't constrain me in the slightest from opining upon it:

• From the "I told you so" files, the first round leaderboard was prototypical in that of the 16 low scores, exactly one came on the South Course, Pat Perez's strong 5-under 67.   As for Stewart Cink's 8-under on the North, I'll just go for the cheap shot and note that he certainly didn't have a bad hair day:

Here at UL, when we find something funny we shamelessly milk it to death.

• Of course, once they finish 36 the course disparity becomes moot, and we'll not see the North Course again until next year.  Pat Perez, losing the script, followed his exceptional 67 on the South with a 3-over effective par 71 on the North.  Go figure.

• Perez is a nice story, given his time picking balls on the Torrey range.  Also a nice story because he once beat Tiger in the Junior Worlds at Torrey, what he calls "the best day of my life."  One hopes the word golf belongs in the prior sentence....

• Seems we can stop worrying about a sophomore slump for Jordan Spieth.  He backed up his strong second place finish at Kapalua with the mid-pole lead this week (paired with Tiger for the first 36), after a 9-under 63 on the North on Friday (including 17 GIR's).  I'm old enough to remember when guys didn't throw 63's in Tiger's face, but these kids today.... no respect for their elders.

• And speaking of elders....er...Eldrick, whither the Striped One.  Nine strokes behind Spieth or, more tellingly, a mere three strokes clear of a trunk slammer on a course he owns without a mortgage.  Hard to know what, if anything, this tells us about 2014, but curious all the same. 

• Most curious fact from Tigerville - not a single birdie on a Par 5 over 36 holes.  And those four Par 5's on the North are little more than longish Par 4's in drag.  

• Has anyone ever heard of Jim Herman?  Put your hand down Mrs. Herman.  I've no clue who he is or what he's done, but it's somehow enough to get him in the field this week and he shot a 6-under 66 on the North Course Thursday.  He did that by posting 15 pars and 3 eagles.... not a scorecard one sees every day.  So he beat Tiger by a mere 6 shots on the Par 5's on the North.

There's No Business Like Show Business

The PGA Merchandise show recently concluded in Orlando, and many innovative and exciting new concepts were found.  I'll share just a few with you:

What would a PGA Show be without the obligatory Rickie Fowler hat float.  Rickie, can I interest you in a visor or baseball cap?

Finally a golf cart you can take into bunkers?  First thought, keep this away from Rakoff (inside joke for Willow Ridge members).  In reality, it's Odyssey launching their new line of Tank putters.  Tank?  I don't get it (not that I'm unfamiliar with tanking on the golf course) unless they've recently signed K.J. Choi.

The Bigfoot Cart above comes, unexpectedly, BYOS*.  The GolfBoard below is a mere $3,595 at retail, though I think I'd just as soon go with a Segway.

If only

E-cigars?  Who knew?  If only I could get cart mates to try these.

Really?  I'll admit that the image of Big John does have an effect on my digestive tract, but obviously not the one these two imagine.

Meade -- a golf line started by online men's clothing store Bonobos -- offers elegant contemporary golf clothes, "khakis without diaper butt," as they put it.  They look kinda metrosexual to me, especially the bespangled pants, but what if the diaper butt isn't caused by the khakis?

These Vibram Golf V-Classic shoes are an actual Golf Digest Editor's pick from the show, but aren't we being a tad loose with the term classic?  Allegedly comfortable, but even if they gave a pedicure, you wouldn't catch me dead in these.

The Rickie Fowler/OK State orange is the least objectionable aspect of the Puma Soundchuck, a Bluetooth enabled portable sound system.  Loud music on a golf course - what could go wrong?

For those of you who have envisioned Padraig Harrington as a hostage, this one's for you.  But do we really need the Swing Shirt, or is that why the Lord gave us duct tape?

* Bring Your Own Sasquatch.

The Veej Beat

Cameron Morfitt, writing in this week's SI Golf+ Digital joins me on the deer antler spray desk, with a piece that updates us on Vijay's lawsuit against his Ponte Vedra neighbors.  Morfitt is shocked, shocked to find that there's gambling in Casablanca.

More importantly, he fills in some details, such as the fact that Veej was hit with a 90 day suspension, lifted after WADA unexpectedly removed the spray from its banned substance list ostensibly because it didn't contain enough IGF-1 to trigger a positive test.

But the best part of the article is its exposure of the underlying cynicism in the Tour's drug testing program, i.e., it wasn't designed to catch anybody, at least anybody more important than Doug Barron.  So, let's pull up a comfy chair, grab some popcorn and sit back to enjoy the show.

Things That Make me Laugh

We're trying to run a classy blog here, but as someone once said, funny is funny.  And anything that meets the standards of the Wall Street Journal should be suitable for this venue, no?

This picture from Tuesday's Wall Street Journal is just priceless, and the only thing that would make it funnier would be if we had the sign language interpreter from the Mandela funeral somehow in the mix.

Dutch speed skater Sjinkie Knegt (easy for you to say) caught in the act of removing Victor An from his Christmas card list.

Not a golf item, but isn't it fun to consider the possibilities if Tiger and Phil felt similarly unconstrained?

Torrey, Torrey, Torrey

The PGA Tour kicks into high gear today, with the first sighting of The Striped One at his beloved Torrey Pines in the Andy Williams San Diego Open Farmers Insurance Something or Other.  Actually I don't know for a fact that Torrey is beloved to Tiger, but with 8 professional wins there it seems a logical assumption.  So, where to start?

From Bob Harig's table-setter at ESPN Golf:

Given his lengthy stretch (more than five years) without a major title and the seemingly favorable major venues (he's won at three of them and finished runner-up at the other) in 2014, it was suggested this is a big year for him.

"I view it as every year's a big year," Woods said. "Every year that I get a chance to compete and play in tournaments and major championships for as long as I decide to do it, every year's a big year, every year counts."

Tiger's unbelievable success at Torrey has put him in an untenable position for a golfer, where it will be an upset if he doesn't win.

Will Gray discusses Torrey architecture with Phil Mickelson, who has been hired to redesign the North Course at Torrey, used in the first two rounds before the field is cut.  Phil is not a fan of the redesign by Rees Jones, the Open Doctor™, in advance of the 2008 U.S. Open.  The gist of Phil's trashing constructive criticism:

“Why so many players love links golf is that you always have the avenue to run a ball up and it’s very easy to make the parameters left and right,” he explained. “There’s no need to block the fronts of greens.”

The changes align with Mickelson’s overall thoughts on golf course design, which he reiterated Wednesday has led to courses becoming overly difficult as players increasingly watch shots carom away from their intended targets.

This gets interesting, in a geeky architectural way (Ed.: You're playing fast and loose with the concept of what's interesting), since the turf at Torrey (Poa liberally over-seeded with Rye) is not especially conducive to the ground game.  The Phil adds the following, which almost makes us excuse his use of the word "Containment,"  pounced on by Shackelford and others:

“You can make any golf course hard by simply making the greens firm and making thick rough,” said Mickelson. “What I want to do though is make a course that is fun to play, that is playable under a variety of conditions.”

Yes, especially as the Torrey courses are, you know, public courses played by the great unwashed masses 51 weeks of the year.

Here's what I think you need to know about Torrey, starting with the South Course, on which the lads will play 3 of their four rounds and on which all rounds in the iconic 2008 U.S. Open were played.  

First and foremost, it is not a particularly interesting golf course and the routing seems specifically designed to ignore the best features of its dramatic location.  I've always said that on a scale of 1 to 10, the course is no more than a 6, though the property is an 11.  What is most curious is that one would expect that a golf course built on spectacular bluffs over the Pacific Ocean would, you know, be routed to use those bluffs to full effect.  In this case, not so much...

The Rees renovation (not quite a Reestrocity, a term I coined about his desecration of Macdonald's iconic 16th hole at Sleepy Hollow) had two major components.  The first, which greatly enhanced the golf experience, was to move fairways and greens closer to the ocean.  This improved a number of holes, most notably the Par 3 third and Par 4 4th, but he was limited by the preexisting routing

His second initiative was to increase the number of available back pin locations, since as he articulated at the time the players' ability to spin the ball left front and middle pins indefensible.  This would be an example of what I believe Phil is referring to as Containment Architecture.  The real world implementation of this was to add nooks and crannies to the back of the greens, resulting in a silhouette that reminds one more of a Mouseketeer than a golf green.

The fourth and third holes on the South Course.  The top picture comes from this weeks issue of the new e-zine from Sports Illustrated Golf+.  Pre-Rees, neither of these holes brought the pacific Ocean much into the frame.

The problem with the North Course, at least from Commissioner Ratched's Finchem's perspective, is the discrepancy in scoring, playing 3-4 shots easier than its brother.  Sal Johns has a good item in the SI Golf+ on this, but it's unlink-able.  Most recent winners have been in the mid-to-low 60's in their one loop on the North.  The outlier here is Tiger, who somehow won in 2006 while shooting a 4-over effective par 71.  

One last Torrey item before I make a beeline to JFK to head West.  Alan Shipnuck has a short piece in the same SI/Golf+ on the importance of Torrey in launching careers, as it's held the Junior World Championships since 1968.  The e-zine's format is un-copy-and-pasteable, at least with my command of technology (Al will correct me if I'm wrong), so I'm unable to provide an excerpt.  But he makes the point that anybody who is or intends to be anybody has competed there.  He cites the 1984 event, when the Striped One won the 9-10 age group, David Toms (Ground Control to.....awww, forget it) won the 15-17 age group, and the 13-14 year old bracket featured a shoot-out between Theodore Ernest Els of Johannesburg, South Africa and Philip Alfred Mickelson, a local boy.  Good stuff....

 

Great Places in Golf - Cruit Island

Regular readers of this blog will have discerned that I use this recurring tag to cover places to which I've been and loved, as well as an early warning system for the sainted Theresa to warn her of places to which she's sure to be dragged in the near future.  This is an example of the latter....

David Owen is a Golf Digest writer and proprietor of a blog titled My Usual Game, which is one of my regular golf reads.  David's usual beat is his, ummmmmm, regular golf game at his local club in Connecticut.  It's fun stuff, with the highlight for me being the unusual playoff formats when their four-ball matches end up all square.  I should also fess up to the fact that my "real name" gag was stolen from David, who uses it with a friend allegedly named Hacker.

In making my usual rounds this morning I was delighted to see David post a reader's trip report to Cruit Island Golf Club, a reputedly delightful nine-holer tucked away in northwestern County Donegal.  Cruit, pronounced Critch by David's reader but Crutch by this rave review, is considered by many to be the best nine-hole golf course in the world.  Read both pieces in their entirety and if you're not charmed by its remote location, breathtaking vistas and overwhelming linksy goodness, what in God's name are you doing reading this blog?  Unfortunately the golf club's website seems to be a work in progress, so I've no pictures to share in this post. 

My interest is that Cruit is located reasonably near (as David makes clear in his post, on Irish roads near is a highly relative concept) other links gems such as Donegal Golf Club and the delightfully-named Narin & Portnoo Golf Club, which will form a wonderful cluster for a 2-3 day side trip during our forthcoming Season in Ballyliffin™.

One more quick note about David's website.  He has a banner photograph that's immediately recognizable to those of us that love links golf.  Compare it to this photo from our 2008 trip to Northern Ireland:

Great Photographers Think Alike, eh?

That's Royal County Down, by the way.  There's just no other place that looks remotely like it.

Any Chance He'd Share a Lottery Ticket with Me?

Shackelford links to this account by San Antonio golf writer Tim Price of an amazing stretch of golf for 76-year old Bob Hullender.  Hullender is an excellent player, the oldest man to win the Texas State Amateur.

Here's the sequence:

On Friday, Jan. 3, he aced No. 16 at the La Loma Course at Fort Sam Houston with a 7-iron from 158 yards; Monday, Jan. 6, he put down the second ace at Brackenridge Park on the 138-yard 10th with a 9-iron.

 Obviously those are very respectable distances for a man of his age, but as the TV pitchman in me says, but wait, there's more:

Mike Arnold, who teamed with Hullender to win the Texas State Four-Ball Super Senior Division Championship last year, witnessed both. The day after the second ace, Tuesday, Jan. 7, he was playing in a group in front of Hullender at Olmos Basin Golf Course and had just finished his round on the par-5 18th that was playing close to 500 yards. Soon, word made it to the clubhouse that Hullender produced another remarkable shot. He’d double-eagled from 215 yards using a 3-iron loft hydrid (sic).

 OK, that's just freaky, but what's he done lately?

I'm tempted to quote Tom Lehrer, who famously quipped:

It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.

I have two stories to add, though neither tops this.  On a personal note, I had my first hole-in-one in early November, on a day I was playing with Theresa and Maggot & wife (she'd kill me if I wrote anything that came close to referring to her as Mrs. Maggot).  Right after pulling my Lethal from the cup, Theresa holed her bunker shot for a birdie.  So we were three under gross as a family on the hole, 4 under net.  

I had turned away and didn't see her shot, and mistakenly thought that it was the Bride of Maggot's the lovely Jo Ganz's shot (is that permitted lexicon?), and this was just after he had told me that he thought she got a shot on the hole.  For a brief moment I thought that my first ace would do no more than halve the hole.  Would have been better story that way, no?

The second story involves John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach who died a few years ago at age 99.  Wooden was an avid golfer, and apparently quite the good stick. 

It turns out that he is one of only five people known to have made both a hole-in-one and an albatross in the same round, which he did at the Erskine Park Golf Course in South Bend, IN in 1939.

After his death the family found the scorecard amongst his papers, which he always maintained that he had saved.

Nan Muehlhausen, Wooden's daughter, holds up the 1939 scorecard attesting to Dad's amazing feat.

What I love most about the story is Wooden's self-effacing response to his four over par 75 for the day:

“I shot a 77 (sic) that day,” he said. “You go five under on two holes and a 77 doesn’t look all that good.”