Monday Mishegoss

The Longest Day - Today is U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying, dubbed by Golf Channel as The Longest Day in Golf™.  The way-too-cynical-for-me Shackelford had this to say:

One of golf’s great days is here, aka Golf’s Longest Day when a network was crazy enough to televise it at a big loss under the belief that the non-profit USGA appreciated their partners for things other than cold, hard cash.

The Tides' Cory Whitsett will give it a go today.

That reference is to the awarding of the USGA television contract to Fox in recognition of their longstanding commitment to the game of golf  for the modern equivalent of thirty pieces of silver.   Like Shack I thought it was great of Golf Channel to televise the long day of qualifying, though mitigated by the fact that the budget didn't permit coverage of much of the actual golf.  One can only stare at scoreboards for so long, but even that may not last as GC will no longer be promoting an event carried by their sister station NBC.

As you may recall, frequent evening golf buddy Kent St. Charles (d/b/a Kunta Kente) qualified for the Sectionals, and will be playing today at Century and Old Oaks Country Club.  The bride and I are planning to head over in the afternoon to catch Kunta in his afternoon round and cheer the lad on.  There had been talk of my caddying for Kent, but fortunately his friend Kyle Munoz grabbed the bag, as lugging a bag for 36 holes is a young man's game.

As of now, the plan is that I caddy for Kunta in his N.Y. State Open qualifying round at Garrison on June 17th.  He's been forewarned that it's likely to look something like this

I'm thinking six clubs and maybe three balls... Don't sweat it Kent, you're a shotmaker.

The USGA has posted Sectional storylines here, and there are many.  Four groups in front of Kent are two-time U.S. Open Champion Lee Janzen and newly-crowned NCAA Individual Champion Cameron Wilson.  I've got to give Janzen a ton of credit for trying to play his way back in, which he seems to do every year, and per the USGA is the only former champion in the qualifying field.  

I stopped in our golf shop yesterday to give Kent my best wishes for the day, and happened to ask him who he was paired with.  He responded that it was an amateur named Nathan Smith....Ummm Kent, that may be an amateur but it ain't just any amateur:

Nathan Smith, 35, of Pittsburgh, Pa., is a four-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion who holds the record for the most victories in the championship. He has played on three USA Walker Cup Teams and helped the Americans defeat Great Britain & Ireland last year.

Those Mid-Ams have also gotten him into three Masters.  What a great pairing for my friend, though we do need to broaden his exposure to the game a bit.  For instance, when you intend to make your living in golf and your knowledge of Old Tom Morris is limited to chirping "Go Play" in a faux-Scottish accent, that seems to warrant an intervention...

The Art of the Steal - We've noted Donald Trump's new project in the Bronx in passing a few times, including that it's been touted (likely by Trump himself) as a possible future U.S. Open venue.  The N. Y. Daily News commits an actual act of journalism and its article should be taught as the conservative manifesto on why government should limited to only those activities that the private sector is incapable of performing:

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently wasn’t satisfied with simply handing Donald

Trump Ferry Point., with views of the Whitestone Bridge.

Trump control over one of the most expensive public golf courses ever built in this country – the new $236 million, 18-hole Parks Department course scheduled to open next spring at Ferry Point Park in the Bronx.

Before we get to the gist of the article, let that rattle around in your brain for a bit.  The City of New York spent $236 million building a golf course!  Because, you know, they're so proficient at filling potholes and collecting the garbage that they need to build golf courses.  But I digress...

Bloomberg’s aides quietly added a slew of financial giveaways in the 2012 deal with The Donald that no other city golf course concessionaire enjoys, a Daily News review of Parks Department golf contracts has found. 

Those giveaways include: no concession fees for four years; then decades of extraordinarily low revenue-sharing with the city; tens of millions of gallons of free water annually; even a five-year delay for Trump to build a $10 million clubhouse, his only major capital investment in the project.

Sigh.  At least I'm no longer a City taxpayer... Want some comps, as they say in the real estate biz?

At the Pelham Bay & Split Rock course in the Bronx, for example, the operator pays the Parks Department from 18% to 23% of greens-fee revenues, plus an additional $4 surcharge for every round of golf. 

At Clearview in Queens, it’s 27%. At Silver Lake in Staten Island, the city gets 25% to 27%. And at Marine Park Golf Course in Brooklyn, the city’s split is 20%. These also have a $4 per round surcharge. 

So what Trump will pay for his brand new course designed by golf legend Jack Nicklaus at taxpayer expense? 

Would you believe 7% of greens fees? 

If you do the math, the older courses will produce more actual cash per person for the city than Trump’s.

Yup, seen this movie before...  It works out extremely well....for one person, that is.  Trump think of himself as a genius, but nothing could be further from the truth.  It's just that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

At our Metropolitan Golf Writers Association outing at Bethpage, there was a rumor that we were going to add an event at Ferry Point in the Fall.  A full report will follow, if and when...

Phil Phollow-Up - The New York Times follows up on the WSJ's report on the insider trading investigation into everybody's U.S. Open favorite.  After covering the familiar ground of the Clorox trades, they offer this:

And yet, nearly three years after the trades flashed some telltale signs of possible insider

Who says Phil takes the club back past horizontal?

trading, a case has yet to materialize.

The focus then turned to Mr. Mickelson, whom authorities hoped to scare into cooperating. As one of America’s most popular athletes, Mr. Mickelson had much to lose under the glare of the government’s spotlight. 

But when the F.B.I. approached Mr. Mickelson — first pulling him off a plane at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey last year, the people said, and then confronting him on Thursday at a golf tournament in Ohio — Mr. Mickelson had little to offer. In the airport discussion last year, which lasted no more than an hour, the people said, Mr. Mickelson pledged to cooperate but explained that he did not know Mr. Icahn and had no clue that the stock tips might have been improper. On Thursday, Mr. Mickelson said, he instructed F.B.I. agents to “speak to my lawyers.”

That's reasonably consistent with our insightful putting green speculation over the weekend, but Phil's prominence does leave him vulnerable.  And here Pravda reverts to form in attempting to link two of the biggest threats to humanity, golf and Wall Street:

The confluence of golf and an insider trading investigation is hardly new. The golf course has become something of an ideal scene for consummating many a big corporate deal. Wall Street investment banks often hold golf outings for investors, analysts and executives. 

In 2001, the S.E.C. and federal prosecutors charged a San Diego man with making $137,485 in illegal profits from a stock tip he got while golfing with the director of a company that was in the middle of merger negotiations. Last year, an executive at KPMG, one of the country’s largest accounting firms, was accused of leaking tips to a frequent golf partner. The San Diego man and the KPMG executive both pleaded guilty.

Really?  That's all you have?  I know print media is a dying industry, but I thought they still had editors at the Times.

Game Improvement, Circa 1977 - I had the bride give the Bridgestone E6 golf ball a try, and she liked very much.  So I ordered her a season's worth off of E-bay, but they won't arrive in time for her important match tomorrow morning.  Ever the devoted husband, I agreed to make a run to the NY Golf store in Port Chester to score an E6 fix for her.  I know, she's a lucky lady...

I should note that I'm not the biggest fan of golf retailers, and I particularly dislike this store.  It's quite dingy and one needs to be really careful with purchases as I've seen the same items on display there since the Carter Administration.  As I strolled the store, I was shocked by the volume of older golf clubs on display.  There were racks and racks of older drivers, most notably Lynx Boom Boom Drivers from early in Freddie's career, and which today could be mistaken for hybrids.

But my favorite was this so-called Cavity-Backed Driver:

Not sure what my point is, since the back of the club is, in fact, a cavity.  It must look awfully elegant hovering behind a Tour Balata 100.  You better hurry though, as supplies are limited.