This and That

Apologies, Dear Reader, for the unexplained absence yesterday.  A combination of family business and 70+ degree weather conspired to deny you those musings you so crave...  But I'll make it up to you today, I promise.

Long-Drive Lamentations - Joel Beall takes a long look at the Long-Drive Competition and, well, it's a curious thing.  Curious in that I agree with almost every point he makes yet strongly disagree with his conclusion.  I know, but we don't fear to tread into complex existential issues, so here' a taste of his thoughts:

Some things look good on paper, but, in actuality, are awful. Buying a bar. Dating a best

friend's sister. Cheeseburger-flavored Doritos. Go ahead and lump the World Long Drive Championship into this group. 

Because, in theory, this event should be right up my alley. It's golf's version of home run derby, mixed with the theatrics of professional wrestling. 

Unfortunately, the home run derby is a secretly terrible and disappointing spectacle, and wrestling hasn't been interesting since 1998.

Not a bad lede, especially as the home run derby is such a perfect comparison.  But here' where he gets to the heart of the matter:

Let's preface this by saying parts of the event are entertaining. But, unlike most sporting contests, it's excitement does not derive from the style, finesse or fortitude of its combatants. Rather, like cheesy pick-up lines or Keanu Reeves, the World Long Drive Championship's bright spots are so bad they're good. 

Most of this amusement comes from the players' reactions to their big hits. Imagine the grunts from Tim (The Tool Man) Taylor mixed with an NFL receiver's exaltation after a touchdown, and you get the picture:

I'll let you digest Joel's thoughts on your own, but he seems strangely immune to the charms of a simple athletic contest, to wit, who can hit a golf ball the furthest.  Now he makes many good comments, but so what?

For instance, he recites a litany of the stupid comments from the announcers, and it's a fun read.  But if we decide to not watch sports where announcers beclown themselves, we'd never watch a sporting event again.

He very fairly notes this as well:

When the WLDC started in the mid-1970s, drives over 350 yards were like UFO sightings: You know someone who once saw one, but halfway through their explanation, you thought they were crazy. 

Now, these bombs, thanks to guys like Day, Dustin Johnson and J.B. Holmes, have become routine. Last summer, Bubba Watson hit a 424-yard drive at the Bridgestone Invitational.

Here's what's strange about that.... they play this event at night in the shoulder season and the last two installments have featured the guys hitting into the wind.  It's like they're intentionally limiting the distances, which seems counter-productive, no?

He also advises the event to come up with presentation and format changes, but can't be bothered to offer a suggestion or two.  Again funny because they rather dramatically changed the format this year and I found the changes mostly increased the excitement.  Having the players on the clock required decision-making, i.e., whether to take their time with a set pre-shot routine or to rush to get in another ball or two.  Watching Jamie Sadlowski, the biggest name in the game, unable to find the grid as the clock wound down was good fun....

However, the last-chance balls was a bit of a letdown, as no one hit a good shot in that situation.  I mean none of them even came close to finding the grid.  That bit might need a rethink.

Long-Drive, Separated At Birth -  The bride watched a bit of the event with me last evening, and during one slow-mo replay noted that the swing (sorry, can't remember which player it was) looked like Jewelle's.  Jewelle is our dear friend with quite the golf swing, and it also provides an opportunity for me to give a shout-out to friend of the blog Warren Light, who had knew replacement surgery on Wednesday.  In addition to his joy in watching his beloved Mets go deep into October, perhaps an Unplayable Lies mention will help speed his recovery.

First, here's Jamie Sadlowski from Callaway's website:

And here's a photo of Wally from last summer that you've seen previously:

And here's the ever-lovely Jewelle:

I know, the resemblance is just uncanny....

To the best of my knowledge, Jamie hits the ball further than Wally or Jewelle, though with two good knees there's no telling how far Wally will pound it next season.

Golf in the Middle Kingdom - Remains quite the strange thing, even stranger when you consider how many folks consider the Chinese market to be the salvation of our game.  Now comes word from the BBC that:

The Chinese Communist Party has banned all 88 million of its members from joining golf clubs, in its latest update of party discipline rules. 

Extravagant eating and drinking, and abuse of power, are also formally banned, said Xinhua news agency. 

The party has in the past warned its officials to refrain from extravagant dinners and purchasing moon cakes using public funds.

OK, a couple of stray thoughts...first, was abuse of power previously legal?  But I think we can find common ground that moon cakes should only be purchase with private funds...

As to that first bit, 88 million is a drop in the bucket for a country with 1.3 billion souls, though it's no doubt the segment of the country that could afford it.  A piece in Reuters (sorry, Shack screwed up his link and I'll not spend any time looking for it) added this color:

The new rules are a blow to China's nascent market for golf, which is often seen as providing an opportunity for officials to make shady deals and an extravagance for government employees who should be serving the people. 

Yes, it makes perfect sense that if they can't make their corrupt deals on the golf course they'll stop being corrupt....It's obviously all about perceptions, so the logical conclusion is that the walls surrounding the golf clubs will need to be raised.

Joel Beall redeems his rep with a piece that the new law is far broader than it seems:

"Obtaining, holding or using membership cards for gyms, clubs, golf clubs, or various other types of consumer cards, or entering private clubs" is now prohibited for Communist party members. If caught, members -- totaling 88 million out of the country's 1.3 billion population -- will be punished or kicked out of the party.

You can't belong to a gym?  Sheesh, all those moon cakes are gonna go straight to their hips!

Like your humble blogger, Joel seems to be a fan of irony:

This new development puts golf in a precarious spot. Just this spring, Tiger Woods signed a $16.5 million deal to redesign two courses in China. In the upcoming weeks, the PGA Tour heads to Shanghai for the WGC-HSBC Champions. Additionally, CNN reported in April that, secretly, the Chinese government is funneling an abundant amount of money into its national golf team for the Olympics.

I think the word you're looking for is inscrutable.

Rota, Revisited - Nick Rodger spent some time with new R&A boss Martin "Golden" Slumbers and, well, there's bad news for our friends in Wales:

As a venue for a series of European Tour events, the Walker Cup, the Curtis Cup, several 

Amateur Championships and the 2014 Senior British Open down the years, Porthcawl boasts an impressive portfolio of top-level golfing events but, for the time being, we can safely say that an Open Championship coming to this southern part of the Principality is, ahem, a Bridgend too far. “We are quite happy with 10 venues at the moment,” said Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the Royal & Ancient, after confirming that Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland would be staging the 2019 Open earlier this week. “That’s all we’re looking at. There are no discussions going on about any other course. This (Portrush) was the big decision to make and we’re looking forward to getting this one going. I think it’s important not to get too far ahead of ourselves.”

Really, what else would he say at this point?  From my vantage point, it seems he's got two venues that might be at issue, Turnberry and Muirfield.  The former because of its bombastic owner (though perhaps the R&A would consider it a plus to be in business with President Trump), redesigned golf course and logistical challenges, the latter due to its membership policies.  But with Portrush in the mix, no need to make any rash decisions...

But how about this comment?

The early days of Slumbers’s tenure have been a bit of a whirlwind and the hasty re-jigging of the television contract for the Open, after the BBC decided to pull the plug a year early, was a robust introduction to the job. “It’s been a busy number of weeks but it will be a busier few years,” he added. “They (the BBC) asked us just after the Open to get out of their contract. Of course we were disappointed but Sky stepped in with great gusto.”

Gee, why do we think the Beeb wanted out?  Might it have been because you gave out the contract early and, yanno, neutered them?  And this might be the biggest news of all, though it is definitely 

inside baseball:

Having joined forces with Sky, there remains the prospect of another alliance for the R&A; a merger with the Ladies’ Golf Union. The two St Andrews-based bodies unveiled that they were having “exploratory talks” about a union earlier this year and these chin-wags continue. “Talks are progressing very well,” said Slumbers. “We’ve been having a lot of discussions over the last few weeks and I’m meeting with them (the LGU) soon and hope we will get that to a conclusion. I’ve done a lot of mergers in my time but putting time scales on them is difficult. It is better to get it right.”

Kinda weird from a Yank's perspective to have separate governing bodies for the lads and lasses...

Under the Knife Yet Again -  Who's had more surgeries than Tiger Woods?  OK, it's a trick question, as I'm referring to the West Course at storied, make that formerly storied, Wentworth:

Wentworth has announced it will do "major renovation" to its West Course, in association with Ernie Els, to reinforce the layout's position as "one of the world's top golf courses".

Egads, this is like Tiger's serial successful surgeries....I'll keep this short and just refer you to this old Shack post about the desecration of the Harry S. Colt classic and Ernie's unfortunate meltdown with the media.  

It's just like Medinah No. 3...we're told that it's aclassic course design, but every time a major event goes there we realize they've completely redone the track.  If it's so good, why do you keep changing it?

Confidentially Yours - We've previous discussed Tom Doak's repurposing of his cult classic The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses.  The originally was delightfully scathing in its criticism, as a young 'un is wont to do.  

Here's Josh Sens' take on the original and its author:

Crisply written and brimming with unabashed opinions, that first edition helped establish Doak as a force in the industry well before he’d earned design credits for such celebrated courses as Pacific Dunes in Oregon, Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand and the Renaissance Club in Scotland.

The book also set the mold for Doak’s reputation as the enfant terrible of a genteel profession, an architect-cum-critic who favors candor over convention. After all, no writer who dismissed a Tom Fazio layout as “absolutely vapid” or trashed a waterfall-adorned Jack Nicklaus layout as an example of “classic Nicklaus-client overkill” was playing by golf’s same old velvet-glove rules.

Over the years, among his peers, Doak has inspired a mix of respect and resentment. While his design expertise is unquestioned, some have scratched their heads at the comportment of a man who was once described in print as having “the people skills of an ostrich.”

My copy remains unopened in it's shipping box, but fortunately Josh had time to dive in:

Cypress Point scores a perfect “10.” Pinehurst No. 2 rates higher than Augusta National. And the Lake course at the Olympic Club, a five-time host of the U.S. Open, offers too few “risk/reward decisions” to be regarded as one of the best tracks in the land.

These and other insights are available within the latest installment of The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, a famously frank and feather-ruffling collection of course reviews by the acclaimed architect Tom Doak.

This book -- Volume 2, The Americas (Winter Destinations) -- is the second volume in a planned five-volume update of the original Confidential Guide, which Doak self-published in 1988 at the age of 27. It examines courses across the southern United States, California, Hawaii and the Caribbean, as well as a large handful in South America.

I'm gonna go way out on the limb and guess that my readers are comfortable with a little feather ruffling... 

Josh has a few quibbles, most notably with Doak's defensiveness, and it's well worth reading the entire piece.  But there's nothing comparable that's ever been written by such a knowledgeable source, and, while the pinted barbs get the headlines, he's very generous in his praise of many of his competitors.  I look forward to thumbing through it in the coming weeks, preferably in front of a crackling fire.  It is, after all, about winter destinations.