Midweek Musings

Yanno, for a slow week there seems to be quite a bit of fun to be had...

Veej, The Sequel - After posting yesterday's item on Vijay's Olympic plans, it occurred to me that his lawsuit against the Tour has been awfully quiet lately.  In a GMTA moment, Rex Hoggard brings us up to date:

The ensuing media maelstrom and investigation has led to 2 1/2 years of contentious and

often confidential litigation between the Tour and Singh, who filed a lawsuit against the Tour in New York County Supreme Court in May 2013. 

That lawsuit reached a milestone last week with a flurry of filings, including a request from both Singh and the Tour to the court for summary judgment. Last week also marked the end of an intense discovery process, with over 130 filings posted to the public record last Thursday (Nov. 5) that at least partially pull back the veil on this bizarre episode.

Summary judgment motions at ten paces, is it?  But the veil isn't pulled back terribly far, alas, though we do get to share a couple of juicy bits.  For those not up to date on the lawsuit (which Shack refers to as Veej suing the guys that made him rich), it's about his use of deer antler spray, and that's not a joke, which in the moment was thought to be a banned substance.

Hoggard has the timeline for those that live for this stuff, but it's of course a highly technical issue and the Tour itself relies on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)and contentious, and it's still not clear to me whether Vijay actually incurred a suspension during this process.

But he's certainy breaking all longstanding rules against doing you-know-what where you eat, and given that he resides at TPC Sawgrass he eats there frequently.  Items like this don't butress the Tour's case:

Some of the discovery offers a glimpse into the nuanced world of anti-doping, like an email exchange between Ty Votaw, the Tour’s executive vice president of communications, and a golf writer from the Associated Press who asked, among other things, if deer antler spray was on the Tour’s list of banned substances. 

Votaw responded that, yes, deer antler spray is on the Tour’s banned substances list, when in fact it is not. The substance IGF-1, an ingredient found in the spray, is on the banned list, but not the product itself. It’s a nuanced distinction but central to Singh’s claim that the Tour was negligent in its handling of his case.

Shack called the next bit Hall of Fame caliber TMI, so see if you agree:

“[Dufner] said it was accidental how he read it,” Singh said in the deposition. “He was sitting in a can having a you-know-what and it was laying on the floor so he picked it up, and he was surprised that it was on it. 

“He said if he hadn’t been in the can at that moment in time, he’d have never known that it was [on the banned list].”

I do hope there are no college kids reading this, as my blog has never been and never will be a safe space (how's that for a topical reference?).

A Nine-Way Tie for Second - Golf Digest has a slideshow up of the best new courses this year, and it didn't require a recount.  Oh Trump Ferry Point got the silver and there's a new Pete Dye called Full Cry, a name I happen to like.  But this is your winner:

That's Cabot Links by Coore-Crenshaw.  If only you could get there from here...

Say It Ain't So, Ko - There goes any chance of my watching the Lorena Ochoa Invitational this weekend:

Inbee Park’s chances of surpassing Lydia Ko for Rolex Player of the Year were boosted by Ko’s withdrawal from the Lorena Ochoa Invitational. Ko cited fatigue from a four-week stretch in Asia as the reason for her withdrawal. The 18-year-old Kiwi has a 33-point lead over Park in the POY race. 

Park must finish eighth or higher in Mexico City to have a chance at overtaking Ko at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.

Couldn't care less about the POY, just need something to pass the time this weekend.

Timewaster - As if on cue, the inbox has this suggestion from Maggot as to how to fill the time, via our old friend David Owen.  First, the deep background:

I first used Google Earth in 2004, before it was Google Earth. At the time, it was a subscription service called Keyhole Earth Viewer, and I used it while working on an article for the New Yorker about golf courses in New York City. Then Google bought Keyhole. It renamed Earth Viewer, and improved it, and made it free, and has continued to improve it. One of its coolest features is Historical Imagery, which lets you travel back in time by cycling through earlier images of whatever you're looking at.

Name dropper!  But David spends some time showing us the opportunities as relates to the venue for the next important golf tournament, as he explains:

For example, here's what Augusta National looked like last February, from a little over 7,000 feet up:

And here's what it looked like from the same altitude in November 2002, when the enormous tournament parking lot, to the left of the golf course in the picture above, was still a residential neighborhood (before the club bought all the houses and tore them down):

And here's what it looked like in February 1993, two months before Bernhard Langer won for the second time, by four strokes over Chip Beck -- who, you will recall, laid up on No. 15:

David, most of us have summoned the strength of will to move on from that Chip Beck layup (excepting, perhaps, Mrs. Beck).  But good stuff!

Maggot Mail - From the volume of e-mail I'd guess he's lonely on the left bank, but this one will have you spittin' out your coffee.  So Mags' e-mail came with this claim:

How to get a 4 stroke penalty!

1 = the putt

2 = the hit with the dropped putter

3 & 4 = the 2 shot penalty for the ball hitting his elbow.

You have to see this, it is really short http://i.imgur.com/sCfjWeI.gifv

Now our Mags has the reputation of being a rules Nazi, so I'm quite surprised that he didn't pick up on the incorrect interpretation.  OK, you've been patient, here's the video in which a gent named Mike Clayton (not sure if it's THIS Mike Clayton, they got his bad side) shows the kind of finely-tuned motor skills I myself frequently exhibit:

Now, he's gonna hear from people about this, but I do hope that they recognize that he really stuck the landing.

I just wish the camera angle had caught the reaction shot of his playing partner.  I can't tell if he's completely blase or does he give Mike a "Dude, you just face-planted in my through-line."

OK, back to the rules interpretation.  I knew something was awry with it as presented, and not just because the writer counts the putt as a penalty stroke.  But after inadvertently moving the ball with his putter, he would have had to replace it or incur yet another penalty stroke.... though, admittedly, that wasn't his primary concern at the time.

OK, if you're still reading, here's the skinny on this epic fail:

Now, as for the damage done -- notwithstanding the endless ribbing and self-loathing that follows such a sequence -- Clayton was at least provided some leniency via the Rules of Golf. Although there are actual two moments when Clayton deflected his ball-- first when he throws his putter, and then when his elbow hits it -- the rules dictate you can't incur two penalties for one continuous motion. Thus, Clayton was only assessed a one-stroke penalty under Rule 18-2: Ball At Rest Moved By Player, Partner, Caddie Or Equipment. In either scenario, the ball should be replaced. 

So there you have it. The lesson here is you shouldn't hit a ball you're not intending to hit. And if you do, for the love of God, don't let anyone videotape it.

Don't you wish that a rules official could commute the sentence when it's really funny?  Or at least when it's really funny and on video.