Did Sisyphus Blog?

That's how I'm feeling this morning as the items accumulate at a rate in excess of my ability to deal with them.  Though having typed that, I can hear Mark W. in the background asking if I'd like some cheese with that whine?

The good news for readers is that the skiing is pretty bad right now.  And with no relief in sight, there's no reason we shouldn't do some serious blogging... Not that we're terribly serious about anything, but you take my point.

Maui Musings - You might have heard that the PGA Tour season starts resumes today, with 34 lucky stiffs teeing it up in the Hawaiian sunshine and trade winds.  Mark Rolfing will be doing his usual Tourist Board gloating and they'll be some spectacular aerial photography.  

Alex Myers provides five things to know about the event, including this:

2. Some very big names are missing

Only four of the 38 golfers who qualified for the event won't be in Hawaii this week, but it's quite the foursome. World No. 1 Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott, Justin Rose and Martin Kaymer are all skipping the trip to Kapalua. Hey, work is work.

We know, Alex, you don't need to rub it in.  Then there's this unbylined AP story on five things to watch for this season:

THE MASTERS: Already the highlight of any year, this will be the first time since 1991 that a player showed up at Augusta National with a chance to complete the career Grand Slam. That was Lee Trevino. And it wasn't much of a chance. Trevino was 51, and he never seriously contended at the Masters.

Rory McIlroy is 25.

Not sure about you guys, but I was likely to catch the Masters without this prompt.  Oh well, they've got column-inches to deliver, and they're not all going to be insightful gems.

On this event I'll just say that Commissioner Ratched's retched wraparound schedule has hurt this event badly.  For instance, the Myers item above would normally be about who didn't qualify, except that why moan about guys not qualifying when those guys wouldn't be here in any event.

The Tour Confidentialistas batted this one around to no great conclusion.  But Cameron Morfitt makes a very valid point:

Of course there's still a reason for the Hyundai TOC! There are several reasons, actually: soft island breezes, ukulele music, drinks with tiny umbrellas and watching Bubba carve driver off the deck neatly along the shape of the slice fairway on the par-5 18th hole. Oh, and whale-watching.

That really was quite the shot by the Bubbameister... but Josh Sens has an even better justification for the event: 

Since I'm playing in the pro-am Thursday, the event has a vital raison d'etre this season. But on a less self-involved note, the humpbacks! Don't you love those humpbacks?

Yes, Josh, we love the humpbacks...though right about now we're hating you!

Anyway, that's three browser tabs closed...I'd like to linger but we must keep moving.

I'll Have What She's Having -  A delightful Irish lass named Alice O'Donnell turned 100 and offered this wonderful advice to us all:

O'Donovan was a former lady captain of the Grange Golf club -- she wore her captain's pin to her birthday -- and played at the course twice a week up until she was 97-years-old. It was that fresh air that golf brought, followed by a cold glass of beer after the round, that she said kept her young.

It's possible that it wasn't the golf or the beer, but why take chances?  And many readers will know of my soft spot for Irish girls... 

Time To Move On - Ted Bishop, the gift that keeps on giving, was interviewed by Mike Walker at Golf Magazine for reasons that escape me.  This is the clueless excerpt that's gotten attention:

"Take Patrick Reed as an example. Patrick's remarks were far more inflammatory than my remarks," Bishop said. "My youngest daughter Googled 'Patrick Reed' and 'insensitive gay remarks,' and she said there were 145,000 results. She Googled 'Ted Bishop's Twitter remarks' and 10,600,000 popped up. When I talk to people with the PGA Tour about how they would handle players who had tweeted far worse things than I did, this was really an extreme reaction."

Where does one start with such nonsense?  Ted doesn't seem to understand that the standards might be just a wee bit higher for the senior officer in a large organization, not to mention that fact that in the heat of battle there's no delete key.

To rehash, I have no issue with Ted's tweets and Facebook posts being a firing offense, but having nothing to do with the "little girl" comment.  It was beneath the standards of a national figure to intervene in such a petty spat.  Oh, and if the Euro's want to fight amongst themselves, why is the Prez of the PGA of, you know, America, intervening?

 Mailbag Tidbits - Gary Van Sickle has a weekly feature titled Van Cynical's Mailbag that has much of interest this week.  Gary typically writes a short piece as a lead-in, and this week's is Golf's Ten Dirty Secrets.  There are examples of Gary's fine wit on display such as this:

1. Everyone is in favor of junior golf… until the kids are playing in front of their foursome.

True that.  This one puzzled me...

2. The USGA makes rules for maybe 800 or so players — the top pros and top amateurs. The rest of us can rot in hell.

Until I read the next item:

3. The USGA (yes, again!) began every defense of its anchored putting ban by explaining that it has no data or evidence to suggest that anchored putting methods are an advantage. It’s one thing to be ignorant, it’s another thing to brag about it.

Wow, anyone know if Gary himself is an anchorer?  Otherwise that level of anger might necessitate

professional help.   

Him Again - As further confirmation of my mancrush on Geoff Ogilvy, I happened across this December item at Golf Australia in which he describes his perfect golf course.  It covers the predictable...

So my perfect course is going to incorporate width off the tee. It isn’t going to be too long. And most of the challenge will be found in the shots to the greens. 

My greens will be large and incorporate interesting undulations. Nothing too silly though. They will be firm. Golf is infinitely more interesting when the ball bounces and rolls after it lands on the ground. And, while I’m not one who pays much attention to Stimpmeter readings, my greens will be slower than today’s accepted standard.

Amen, brother.  But he also has an eye for things not specifically related to design but that affect the ambiance of a club:

My perfect course will also be part of a welcoming and friendly environment. There will be no cart girls, but there will be a Sunningdale-type halfway house where sausage sandwiches will be available. There will be a small range where you can hit a few 5-irons before you wander to the 1st tee, carrying your own bag. At the end of the round, you will be able to get your own car from the carpark and you will be able to walk around with your dog on a leash if you so wish. I don’t know why we don’t do that in Australia.

Geoff's halfway house is visible in the photo behind the 10th green on the old, a clever location that provides access from the New Course as well.  And I can confirm that the sausage sandwich is of the Gods.

Tiger, Grounded - News broke yesterday that the Striped One will play the Phoenix event in late January:

According to two sources, Tiger Woods has signaled that he will enter the Waste Management Phoenix Open, which begins Jan. 29 in Scottsdale, Ariz. Woods has skipped the high-profile Tour stop for the past 13 years after a series of incidents involving the tournament’s famously large and raucous galleries.

Not sure what's more curious here, the Santaesque Fluff or the Titleist staff bag?

This has been rumored for some time, and kudos to Shack for guessing that the added event would be Phoenix (admittedly, not exactly Final Jeopardy, but he got there first).  But how sorry is golf journalism, which I'll explain after this excerpt:

After an injury-plagued 2014, in which he made just seven starts and logged a best finish of T25th, Woods has been expected to add at least one event to his usual playing schedule in an effort to get his game in shape for the Masters in April.

Just plain wrong on every level.  Tiger is not adding an event, he's replacing one.  He typically started his season at one of the Euro Tour Mideast events, which he's not doing this year.  Why not, I hear you asking... because, as we learned late last year, the sponsors of such events have determined that he's no longer worth the seven-figure appearance fees required to fuel the Gulfstream.  

Wouldn't you think, journalistically speaking, that that last factoid bears mentioning somewhere in these stories?  Golf Channel was even worse, as Tiger-buddy Notah Begay fell all over himself congratulating Tiger on breaking his pattern to help the Tour.  Yeah, he just can't stop thinking about others...

I've got more, but can we talk later?