Sorry for the delayed appearance at the keyboard, but I was thinking of you while otherwise engaged. I've concluded that unless it was Robert Allenby that knocked out Tiger's tooth that I can't make any sense of these stories...
We Have a Winner - Here was Shack's lede for the latest on the Allenby story:
If you had Wednesday morning in the Allenby Exposed pool, you may be looking good as Robert Allenby's unbelievable story of kidnapping and assault by mystery wine bar stalkers has been refuted by another credible witness suggesting the injuries may have been the result of passing out and introducing a head to a rock.
Sounds promising...Shack's peg is this Daily Mail piece:
In yet another twist to the mystery, a homeless man has come forward claiming heknows where Robert Allenby was for the two and a half hours that the golfer says he can't recall following his alleged abduction.
Toa Kaili says he stumbled across the pro golfer passed out on a sidewalk in Waikiki, in Hawaii, at 11pm on Saturday and when he and his friend tried to help Allenby he accused them of stealing his wallet and phone.
About two hours later, Mr Kaili says he returned to find the golfer still unconscious on the pavement but now with a bloodied face – the man claims the Australian was injured from falling over and hitting his head on a rock.
I know this will shock you, but Shack had good fun with this next bit:
'Then he’s accusing me and my friend "you guys stole my wallet and phone – alright the gig is up just hand it over" so I was like "brother we are the ones who woke you up - we are the ones just helping you,' Mr Kaili told Channel 9 News.
'He was saying 'you don’t know who I am".'
That last reaction will surprise exactly no one who is close to the golf world... But I'm left with an empty feeling over the concept that he concocted this crazy story to cover up a mere bender... There's gotta be a hooker involved, no?
And if this was all concocted, it would seem to me that the Amuse Wine Bar as well as the Honolulu police wouldn't be terribly amused... seems the only prudent step is to stay tuned.
Toothgate - There's nothing that meets even our incredibly low standards for news on this one, though Team Tiger is sticking to it'c Colonel Mustard story.
Shack throws out this thought that I hope is acted upon:
Meanwhile, those crafty Arizona State frat brothers who populate TPC Scottsdale's 16th are buying up all the skull masks they can find for next week's Waste Management Open,
Shack rambles on, but how funny would that be? Tiger emerges from the tunnel to face thousands of fans that look like this:
And then misses the green....OK, back to planet Earth.
PR Fail - Dustin Johnson sits for an interview with the softball-tossing Tom Rinaldi and it ain't pretty.... It's a form of video that I'm unable to embed, so you'll have to click through to watch. It's of the same ilk as the previously-blogged Sports Illustrated profile, and it's about as believable as a Robert Allenby abduction story.
I sensed some authentic emotion as he spoke of Paulina and the baby (the interview was before Paulina gave birth) and of The Great One and Janet Jones, to a lesser extent. Good to hear that in his voice, but the sense remains that he's being failed by the Tour as well as those closest to him.
In responding to the questions about the suspension and cocaine use, DJ comes across as programmed and evasive, and to what end? He's pretty obviously not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the point of denying the drug use and failed test escapes me.
And as supportive as Clan Gretzky is being, what happens when that 24-7 support is gone...say when he misses the cut at the Sony and ends up in a park 6 1/2 miles away...
This Week In Golf Sponsorship - The Tour stops in the desert this week for the Bob Hope Desert Classic PGA Tour's Humana Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation, and isn't that a much better name? Larry Bohannan has a longish piece in the Desert Sun on the future of the event, which is mostly like this:
 |
| I did not have sex with that woman...I'm sorry, what was the question again? |
The marriage of the Clinton Foundation, title sponsor Humana and the desert's PGA Tour event has been a grand experiment, seeing if a tour event could deliver a message to golf fans as well as delivering charity dollars to a community. Clinton is happy that as the fourth year of the marriage nears, the tour and the Clinton Foundation are both happy with the results.
"From my point of view, it has been great," Clinton said. "But I think it has been great for the tournament. The field just keeps getting better and better."
While the Clinton Foundation has well-established credentials in wellness, it's always been limited to the wellness of people either named or useful to those named Clinton. And this is buried way deep in the piece:
The Clinton Foundation will remain a part of the tournament beyond next week, even though Humana is leaving the tournament after the 2015 event.
"We are going to land on our feet on that. The PGA is working this hard, and I have done a little work on it, and I feel like we'll be fine," Clinton said about new sponsorship for 2016. "I am grateful to Humana. You know they have new leadership and they have the right to have new priorities. We'll figure out how to replace them, and they still want to stay involved in some way."
OK, sponsors come and go, but an event focused on wellness will need a logical sponsor, and neither Cialis nor Pods will fit the bill...
In other surprising sponsorship news, Charles Schwab has extended its contract to sponsor the Senior Champions Tour for, gulp twenty years. I don't what he's thinking, Jordan Spieth will still be ten years away from that tour...Talk to Chuck? No thanks, he's clearly crazy...
Hogan Redux - We reported some time ago that the Ben Hogan brand was going to be reintroduced to the market, a prospect that we found appealing given the unique reputation of its namesake. There's probably no golfer in history more closely associated with superior ball-striking, so it's just a natural. Ben Hogan putters, not so much...
Worth 15, and the irons do look awfully sweet. Or, as Shack notes, maybe we're all just suckers for that iconic signature...
Here's some background from a Star-Telegram piece by Steve Kaskovich profiling Terry Koehler (no relation to those Koehlers), who had been marketing director of the company in the mid-1990's before it descended into irrelevance:
Since striking a deal with Perry Ellis International last year to license the Hogan brand for golf equipment, he has assembled a team that includes veterans of the old Ben Hogan Co., including a director of operations from the Fort Worth factory. He said the company is trying to approach the business as Ben Hogan himself would have done it.
“This is the real Ben Hogan Co.,” said Koehler, 62, who since 2011 has run a company in Victoria called Eidolon Brands that produced a line of wedges under the SCOR4161 name. “We have up to 150 years of Ben Hogan Co. experience on this team, including people who worked side by side with Mr. Hogan.”
With that in mind, the new set of Hogan clubs being unveiled this week, dubbed the Fort Worth 15, combines the sleek look of traditional “blades” with state-of-the-art perimeter weighting technology to offer a high-performance premium club for the serious golfer. (The company can no longer use its famous Apex model name, which was retained by Callaway Golf, the old Hogan Co.’s last owner.)
And this is an interesting marketing approach:
And in a novel approach, the company will allow golfers to create their own set from a
Caddie, my 24 degree nibblick, pleas. selection of 44 different irons, including 16 wedges, numbered by loft angles from 20 to 63 degrees instead of the traditional 2-9 plus wedges.
The clubs will be sold exclusively through golf professionals at country clubs and learning centers, where players will be custom-fitted and provided help to choose the lofts that fit their game. They’ll be priced at $149 apiece with steel shafts, and $165 with graphite.
Yeah, that's gonna be a problem....quick class, what's the loft on your seven-iron? They're making it way more complicated than it needs to be. Even the gearheads amongst us don't focus on the lofts within a set, we trust that they will be properly spaced and know that we'll have to arrange our long and short clubs to manage the spacing.
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