'Dis and 'Dat

The plan is to take today off from skiing to ensure fresh legs for the coming wave of storms...so, what would you like to talk about?

Sony Preview - Waialae Country Club has always puzzled me, presented as a Seth Raynor masterpiece but not evidencing any of the interesting design features typical to a Raynor design.  The land itself is pancake flat, though that's above Seth's pay grade.  Shack fills us in on what's happening there:

As we discussed on Golf Central today, Waialae arrives in sharp contrast to last week's

venue. But going forward, the Honolulu course will begin to look different this year and beyond. This is good news for those who have scratched their heads wondering how the course could be a Seth Raynor design. 

The PGA Tour's on-site advance man for the last eight years, John Lillivis, reports already seeing an improvement from the removal of 230 trees by architect Tom Doak. The removal has allowed for more sunlight and turf growth, leading the club to introduce tight mow around many of the greens according to Lillivas.

New hole locations have been restored on the 4th and 6th greens but probably won't be introduced this year to let the areas mature. Doak is reportedly planning many more changes to greens with Raynor's style in mind. The outcome will be fun to watch as its pretty clear Raynor's bold style was not incorporated at Waialae because of his lack of on-site time. Therefore, Doak will have to balance keeping the course fun, playable and enjoyable for members, while keeping it relevant in today's game. One that expects a challenge along with a certain bunker depth and style if a course wants to call itself a Raynor.

Doak is a good choice for that task.  Hopefully they can turn it into a venue that justifies carrying Raynor's name.

This Week in Endorsements - A couple of quasi-interesting developments there....this first no doubt the odder of the two:

Under Armour announced a new deal with Yale Athletics Monday, and while the terms were not officially disclosed, a person with knowledge of them said the Baltimore-based apparel company will pay $16.5 million to outfit the Bulldogs for the next 10 years. 

That’s more per year than Nike Inc. pays to outfit Rutgers or Illinois, according to the Portland Business Journal’s contract database, and dwarfs the $460,000 Nike pays Iowa State -- all major-conference programs whose basketball and football teams regularly appear on national TV, giving their sponsors’ logos valuable visibility across the U.S.

Yale?  Why would you do that?  Here's what passes for the business rationale:

So what’s in it for Under Armour? The Yale brand, said Under Armour Vice President of Sports Marketing Ryan Kuehl, who cited the powerful alumni network, its global footprint and its elite student body. 

"The number of young people around the world who aspire to attend Yale University is mind-boggling. That aspirational positioning made the deal worth it," Kuehl said.

The Yale brand?  But I see no reference to Halloween costumes in the description of contract terms.... And this seems like wishful thinking:

Under Armour may be particularly interested in Yale’s golfers, who are likely to keep playing long after they graduate. Yale’s golf course was recently rated the best university course in the country by GolfWeek magazine; Under Armour sponsors Masters champion Jordan Spieth and is building its golf business.

Yes, they have quite the interesting Macdonald golf course with what might be the most famous Biarritz greens, but does that make Yale golfers more likely to keep playing?  Interesting theory...

Best of all is the built-in segue to our next item, which Shack's header notes is an opening for the competition:

An Opening? Competition Can Only Hope Jordan Spieth Will Be Injesting Copious Amounts Of High Fructose Corn Syrup

Incurring the wrath of Michael Bloomberg, here's the actual story:

As if the sports marketing world needed another sign that the 22-year-old is "the real

thing," the golfer has signed a deal with Coca-Cola. Neither the company nor his agent, Jay Danzi, would confirm the financials of the partnership other than to suggest the multiyear deal will be one of the biggest the company has made with an athlete. 

Spieth will appear on everything from television commercials to digital and social media as well as point-of-sale and on packaging for Coca-Cola products as well as its water brand Dasani.

Coke posted this video for us:

I only posted that video for the opportunity to share some first-class Shack snark:

They also posted this video-- a 5 on Awkward Scale, with a 10 being "kidnapped by El Chapo"--where Spieth discusses his love of post-golf Coca-Cola drinking in Texas (take that,Dr. Pepper!).

I would have gone with the Iranian Navy, as he comes dangerously close to comparing Jordan to Sean Penn.  Stevie maybe, but not our Jordan....

All Things DeChambeau - Remember when our biggest complaint about our game was that the players were all produced from a cookie-cutter, and were indistinguishable from each other.  That hasn't been a problem for a while, and in this Era of Jordan, Jason, Rory, Rickie and Bubba, we have been blessed with an abundance of appealing personalities and styles of play.

But the biggest shock to our system may be paused on the horizon, in the figure of reigning NCAA and U.S. Amateur Champion Bryson DeChambeau.  Even the name feels like it's from a different era...

Tim Rosaforte is back on solid ground (really, there's a reason Suzann Pettersen chose him to whom to bear her soul) with an update on the interesting young man currently in golf-limbo:

As part of the internship—which will end April 11 if DeChambeau sticks to his current thinking about turning pro—he has made one exploratory trip to Augusta and has plans for four more visits before the Masters. We’ve been texting through the winter months, and Bryson described his two rounds at Augusta National in December as the greatest experience he’s ever had. “Bobby Jones’ spirit is alive and well there,” he said. 

The highly educated Jones, who earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech and another in English literature from Harvard, would have been intrigued by the artist and the scientist in the young man from Clovis, Calif. According to DeChambeau’s coach, Mike Schy, Jones won the Grand Slam using a set of same-length irons, a distinctive characteristic of Bryson’s David Edel-made clubs, which he expects to stay with as a pro.

The limbo was caused by the senseless death penalty to the SMU golf program, preventing DeChambeau from defending his NCAA individual title.  In the interim, Bryson is making some new friends:

Other than Australia, DeChambeau filled his playing schedule at the end of 2015 with better-ball events in California like the Straight Down Fall Classic in San Luis Obispo and the Plantation Pro-Am in Indio, the latter providing him an opportunity to exchange ideas with Phil Mickelson. 

“We were just loving the time spent together, one golf geek to another, talking about fun stuff and trying to figure out a couple things on my end from the wedging aspect,” DeChambeau said of his conversation with Mickelson. “He was talking away, and I was listening. It was a lot of fun.”

Of course that trip Down Under ended with a second place finish in the Australian Masters, which certainly took this observer by surprise.  He'll be playing in all three Euro Tour stops in the desert, so that will give us a good sense of whether his game is ready for the heightened level of competition.

Click here to see his unusual balance training...

I don't have a clue as to whether he has the talent to succeed, but it will be fun to have him around.

Is That All You Got? - Golf Magazine updates its annual Most Beautiful Women in Golf, and color me disappointed.  I'll await expert commentary from Maggot, but I can't help but be underwhelmed.

There's the obligatory Holly Sonders sighting, but since she moved to Fox is she still considered to be "In golf"?

And who is Bailey Mosier?

She looks like she should be the spinster sister on Downton Abbey.  And Anna Cladakis?

And yet, no room for Paige Spirinac:

C'mon guys, I know she's not much of a player, but she reads comic books in red lingerie....that's gotta count for something.