This and That

Life is beginning to return to normal, though it would help if my ear would finally pop after the flight home on Sunday...

Making Friends - We've spoken previously of the Tour Caddies' lawsuit against the Family Tour related to the advertising on their bibs, which I find to be an interesting legal issue.  At the same time, though logically unrelated to the economics of the caddie bibs, the Tour seems to go out of its way to treat the loopers as second class citizens, most notably herding them into a metal enclosure during a lightning storm...

Duane Bock, who loops for Kevin Kisner, posted the most recent development to Facebook:

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Duane Bock

Caddy at PGA TOUR · March 21 at 5:37pm ·


This PGA Tour is at it again. Apparently they had a problem with the color of my shorts today. After the round, I was told in the scoring trailer by a PGA Tour official that these shorts are not an acceptable color. Funny how I've been wearing these shorts every week for the last 14 tournaments but now they have a problem. Regulations state "solid-color, knee-length tailored shorts"....guess the color of my shorts is taking attention away from that MasterCard symbol I'm advertising on my back for FREE
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On the contrary, Duane, the color of your shorts perfectly matches the red in the logo and you should be commended for that...though it's not clear the the shorts actually reach your knee.

Rex Hoggard fills in the background for those not current:

Bock is among 167 caddies who filed a class-action lawsuit against the Tour last month, claiming the Tour has engaged in restraint of trade and anticompetitive conduct involving the caddie bib. 

Following Sunday’s final round, Bock told GolfChannel.com that he had no problem with officials policing what caddies wear, but that he would like to see more consistency. 

On Friday, for example, Henrik Stenson’s caddie Gareth Lord wore a similar pair of red shorts and told GolfChannel.com officials said nothing to him about it.

Now there's no indication that any penalty was assessed, so any harassment seems decidedly minor...For those not versed in the appropriate law, there are a series of tests that determine whether a relationship is that of an independent contractor or employee.  The players are themselves independent contractors and the Tour makes no demands of them in terms of wearing sponsors' logos, yet they feel free to impose such demands on the caddies, one-step further removed.

That's an economic dispute and I can see merits in both sides of the transaction....what I find strange is how the Tour seemingly stays up nights thinking of ways of treating the caddies as second-class citizens....c'mon Commish, free my people!

Rio, Always Goof For a Laugh -  Actually a couple of laughs today... per Shack:

The Rio Olympic course is finished and growing in. But that didn't stop Judge Fabio Dutrafrom ruling (again) that construction may move forward, despite attempts by city of Rio prosecutors who have attempted to halt completion due to environmental concerns.

There's one catch: construction is complete! Proceed!

Well, that's certainly a relief....  but of course it's Rio, so we may revisit this a few times more before we're done.  But what's really funny, errr...perhaps funny isn't quite the concept, comes this bit:

RIO DE JANEIRO — With 500 days to go until the 2016 Olympics begin, Rio de Janeiro's mayor acknowledged Monday that the much-touted goal of cleaning up the city's blighted waterways for the games would likely not be met. 

In an interview with SporTV, Eduardo Paes said that cleaning up Guanabara Bay, the sewage- and trash-filled waterway where the Olympic sailing events are to be held, "is something that we should have been able to achieve." 

"It is indeed a wasted opportunity," Paes said, adding, "as a Rio resident, I think it's a shame."

That was the amusing part of the environmental protests, focused on a golf course when the city is dumping raw sewage into the local waterways.  But won't those sailing events be special?

Honoring Jack - Congress typically features approval ratings somewhere between pedophiles and axe murderers, but this is something that can bring us together:

WASHINGTON -- Leaders of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives awarded

the Congressional Gold Medal to Jack Nicklaus on Tuesday in honor of his contributions to the game and charity efforts across the nation. 

The Gold Medal is the highest civilian award the United States Congress can bestow. Nicklaus is just the seventh athlete to be given this honor, and the third golfer. Roberto Clemente, Joe Louis, Byron Nelson, Jesse Owens, Arnold Palmer, and Jackie Robinson have all been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

 Nice company to be in... and turnout was good:

All of Nicklaus’ five children and 22 grandchildren were in attendance at the ceremony, as were Arnold Palmer, Johnny Miller, David Graham, Commissioner Tim Finchem and countless others from the golf industry. 

Among the speakers at the event were members of the congressional leadership, as well as CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz and Nicklaus’ son Jack Jr. Nantz told of the first time he met Nicklaus, during a guest caddying job in Utah in 1980. 

“Under my leadership, Jack did something he probably never did again in his career,” Nantz said. “He played a birdie-free round. Seventeen pars and a three-putt bogey, all because of his caddie.”

More famously, Nantz's first Masters with CBS happened to be in 1986, which ain't too shabby in the timing department.

Bubba Stuff - Folks are enjoying this from Jimmy Fallon:

Good form....by the way, that's January Jones doing the honors, though admittedly it's not her best side.

Though I prefer the CBS video that you can find here, wherein the Bubbameister and 2014 champion Kelly Xu promote the Drive, Chip and Putt competition that takes place a week from Sunday.  The beauty of the event is not just the Augusts National setting, but that it's the Sunday before masters week when the show ponies are on site.  See if you enjoy the video of Bubba walking the range and introducing himself....it's a tad awkward though the kids seems to be more at ease than Bubba.

Dubious Recognition - Inmates, asylum....let's see how this works out:

Golf purists might object, but FootGolf, the relatively new hybrid soccer/golf sport, is

here to stay and is growing to the extent that it has received what is tantamount to a seal of approval from the National Golf Course Owners Association. 

Last week, the NGCOA announced that it has recognized the American FootGolf League as the governing body for the sport of FootGolf in U.S.

“Some people think we've been drinking the Kool-Aid or doing something strange,” Mike Tinkey, deputy CEO of the NGCOA, said. “But what we've found since 2013 is that FootGolf has grown virally in our membership. It’s bringing in new customers, a lot of millennials, families and women, and they’re spending money. And their ancillary spend is very strong. It’s sort of energized a lot of facilities.”

Might?  To be fair I don't object in the slightest, you're just not playing on my golf course...  If you're the owner of a struggling facility, you're naturally going to be open to any revenue-producing alternatives.  It's this that has be cackling:

There are two types of owners — those who would like to see the FootGolf players segue into golf and those who don’t care. 

“I think in the main we’re interested in studying, as an association, whether there is a crossover to some form of traditional golf. I think we’ll be looking at that.”

Whatever you're smoking, I hope you brought enough to share with my readers and me.  The logic that somehow just being on a golf course will, through the process of osmosis, create new golfers is a good belly laugh...

Getting people started in our game remains an issue, it's got a steep learning curve and can be quite frustrating early on...  oh heck, when does it stop being frustrating?  But you're not going to get them started in our game without getting them started in OUR GAME, capish?

The Chinese Are Coming - Thanks to maggot for a heads up on the story about Chinese investors buying up golf courses in Myrtle Beach, which I've been sitting on awaiting further details.  Here's as much in the way of specifics as I can find:

Myrtle Beach, S.C., renowned as a destination resort for golfers, has been attracting a different golf clientele: Chinese investors buying up its courses.

The Sun News reported recently that Chinese investors have bought 13 courses in the area, paying $47 million for them.

That's an average of $3.6 million per golf courses, which seems a bargain basement price, though for that World Tour Golf Links replica of the 12th at Augusta they clearly overpaid.

Myrtle Beach courses appeal to Chinese investors for a couple of reasons, Draughn said.

“A lot of these guys are coming out of New York and New Jersey and are buyers of commercial property,” he said. “Their kids are going to Harvard or Yale and such, and they understand the east coast. And Myrtle Beach is affordable and nice. 

“One or two of these guys are just fanatical about golf. The man who bought Crown Park Golf Club [Shengwen Lan] played in the [Myrtle Beach] World Amateur a couple years ago.”

They've got cash the golf course are difficult to finance in this environment, so it's a buyers' market.  And they seem a lot savvier than the Japanese back in the 80's, but the larger unanswered question is what they intend to do with the properties... 

Stuff That Amused Me - Dis you watch Tour rabbit Marco Dawson secure his first Champion's Tour win over the weekend at the new event in Tucson?  Of course you didn't, because you likely have a life...I didn't either, but just this morning noticed something about it that brought a huge smile to my face, specifically this great picture of the winner in their rather unique trophy:

They used to give that Conqistador hat to the winner of the Tucson Tour event, until Commissioner Ratched threw it out with the bath water... Would I kid you?

That' from 1996, though I'm a bit disappointed he didn't give us the double-thumbs-up as well...Good to have it back...golf.com has a fun slideshow of strange trophies you might enjoy as well, although the one of Henrik below seems quite the obvious omission.

And this is a feature on golf.com that you'll have to read on your own:

Craig Stadler, the '82 Masters Champ on Augusta, Son Kevin And... Pilates?

That last item doesn't so much as amuse me as it makes my head explode...

In honor of March Madness, Alex Myers posts this oh-so-helpful golf instructional video from Bobby Knight:

The usual Not Safe For Work warning label is insufficient to the task, as it's an expletive all-star performance.

David Owen pretty much always makes me laugh, except of course when he's writing about the yips.  Today he asks the question I'm sure that every golfer has asked at one time or another, what does my living room stimp?

One of the greatest things about my house, which was built in 1790 and moved to its current location on the back of a truck 180 years later, is that it contains very few level

surfaces. The room I used to use as my office has a carpeted floor that slopes from end to end and sags on the diagonal. When my work got boring, I could practice any kind of putt: right-breaking, left-breaking, uphill, downhill, side-hill, whatever. My living-room floor is less severe, but it's bigger and more undulating. The rug is an old Oriental that belonged to my grandparents, and if you move a couple of chairs you have a putt that might fool a tour pro: a bowl-shape double-breaker from the piano to the nearest leg of a pie-crust table that my wife and I got as a wedding present. 

I've often wondered how the floors in my house compare with the greens on real golf courses. Recently, my club's superintendent lent me his Stimpmeter, the official USGA tool for measuring green speed. It's a three-foot-long extruded-aluminum bar, with a shallow, V-shape trough running down the center. You find a level putting surface a dozen feet across, place a ball in a notch near one end of the bar, then slowly lift that end until the ball begins to roll. You do that in both directions, and the speed of the green is the average run-out, in feet and inches. For normal golf courses nowadays, readings of 9 or 10 are considered fast, and greens at major tournaments are probably 12 or higher. 

I'd always assumed that almost any ordinary residential rug or carpet would be slower than almost any real green, so I was amazed to find that nearly every room in my house is too fast to host a PGA Tour event.

As you might have discerned from the graphic, David takes his stimpmeter rug shopping...