I'm safely ensconced in the Unplayable Lies Western HQ, so let the blogging commence....
The Florida Swing - While I still have a few weeks of turns ahead of me, the signs of Spring are irrefutable.... Pitchers and catchers have reported to Spring Training, The NBA and NHL are a mere six months from the start of their playoffs (I kid) and the PGA Tour is in Florida.
Now you don't need to be Charles Blair Macdonald to guess how our Shack will feel about these venues, but the header on his Forward Press feature gives the game away:
Forward Press: Goodbye West Coast, hello animal-branded golf!
C'mon Geoff, tell us how you really feel. He'll do his best, but his heart really isn't in it:
The PGA Tour’s move this week kicks off with the Bear Trap Classic, also once fondly called the Honda. Branding the course’s finishing stretch as the Bear Trap after course architect Jack “Golden Bear” Nicklaus, while cute at first, threatens to make fans turn on what has become a strong kick off to the Florida Swing.
OK, I must have been out of town that weekend when it was cute....
“There’s a contrast to between the beauty of the West Coast to the sort of do-or-die nature of almost every shot you see coming down the stretch at the Florida Swing,” says Chamblee.
The most subtle contrast is in the grassing. Bermuda’s grayish lack of difference between fairways and roughs doesn’t pop on television like the west coast’s dark green cool season grasses or yellow-green desert contrasts. Instead, there’s water and sand. And plenty of over stretches of holes.
The focus on some stretches and attempts to hype them at PGA National, Trump Doral and Innisbrook could be seen as a lighthearted bit of corny branding. Because who doesn’t love a bear and a snake and a monster?
I'll say it again in a few weeks, but the shame is Innisbrook playing along, which only diminishes the one interesting venue in the Florida Swing. Of course they're far enough North that they have features such as trees and elevation changes to avoid the endless cycle of water, sand, rinse and repeat of South Florida.
Of course there's far more to the Bermuda grass that goes with the territory, as I think its biggest effect is on the greens.
On a related subject, Van Cynical had this from his weekly mail bag:
Hey Van Cynical, Why do the TV commentators fuss about the Bear Trap, whichwas golf course marketing, and not created by competition? #NoAmenCorner—Paul Emerson via Twitter
Hang on there, Ralph Waldo—are you telling me you’re shocked that a TV network would hype one of its own entertainment shows? The Bear Trap is a mess, a perfect example of bad modern golf design--a stretch of golf holes designed to be unplayable in the wind which, oh yeah, it’s usually windy in south Florida. It only got worse when they put up that hokey bear statue. At least when fans see that, they’re more careful about dropping lit matches. I am on the same page with you, Ralph Waldo. I am not a fan.
They really are quite the mess....as for the commentators, they have qay too much airtime to fill.
But the most significant aspect of the Florida swing is that it puts us into a manageable glide path to Augusta.... And that's to be celebrated.
Wither Tiger - I've not has much interest in the idle speculation about Tiger's rehab process, but if we're in the glide path to The Masters it's fair to ask whether we might see him there. It would be far from the first time he'd play there without a tune-up....
You might be interested in this Tony Finau tweet:
Wanna bet Tiger did this as an F-You to Dan Jenkins? The buried lede (per Shack) is that Tiger took care of the bill.... But Tiger has reclaimed his status among homo erectus (I know, Tiger had lifetime status there), so we have that going for us....
And the man himself posted this video of an actual golf swing...
Shack gets off a good one here:
**And Tiger posted this today...with a date in the upper left. Much more 21st century than trying to hit a golf ball holding today's newspaper.
The swing doesn't look so hot, but it's better than most. Better than most.
OK, two good ones, actually, but I've always been a fan of hostage humor....
Wither The Donald - Eamon Lynch post an amusing take on the Donald and golf, though he may have fallen for the dreaded reverse-Costanza:
“Small potatoes.”During a week in which Donald Trump sparred with the pope, accused George W. Bush of lying us into the Iraq War and repeated (favorably) a debunked tale of Muslims being shot with bullets dipped in pig’s blood, you can be forgiven for failing to notice his throwaway comment about tiny tuber crops.
Did you catch that URL? Who knew that Newsweek still existed... I mean, waiting for a news-weekly to inform as to what happened in the last week seems a business model uniquely suited to the 21st century. But I digress.... Here's the gist of it:
While campaigning in South Carolina last week, Trump addressed a rally in Kiawah Island, the famed golf community. Speaking with his usual combination of incoherence and immodesty, he told the crowd that the developers of Kiawah had also built Doonbeg, the resort on Ireland’s west coast that Trump purchased two years ago.
“I bought it a number of years ago, and during the downturn in Ireland I made a good investment. It is an incredible place,” Trump said. “We spent a lot of money on making it just perfect, and now it’s doing great.” (Recently filed accounts showed a loss of $2.7 million in the first year of his ownership.)
It’s what Trump said next that matters.
“But I don’t care about that stuff anymore. It is like small potatoes, right? I’ll let my kids run it, have fun with it, let my executives have a good time, but I don’t care about it. I care about making America great again. That’s what I care about.”Small potatoes. That’s us, he’s talking about. Golf.
While executives in the sport fretted about how best to break up with Trump, he’s pulled a George Costanza and broken up with them.
As much as I also use George Costanza as a how-to guide for decisions large and small, I think Eamon errs here. The Donald has clearly staked out the "It's not me, it's you" turf, hence the reverse-Costanza.
Here's Eamon's best bon mot, before we move on:
For the PGA Tour, next week is the equivalent of a date night with someone you’ve already served divorce papers on.
It's pretty clear that he won't be there, as he'll be crowing about his sweep of Super Tuesday primaries and reviewing preliminary bids to add his bust to Mount Rushmore. Ewan Murray, whose Guardian account of the Martin Slumbers press availabilty seems in a follow-up item to be singing a somewhat different tune:
One glance at Slumbers’ increasingly uncomfortable demeanour on Monday, however, illustrated the impact of the Trump/Turnberry union. The issue here is straightforward; can the R&A retain the Ailsa course as an Open venue while Trump – advocating blocking Mexicans, banning Muslims and causing widespread offence as part of his campaign to become president of the United States – holds the keys? Surely the alliance is at best incongruous, at worst impossible?
Slumbers seemed somewhat taken aback by the level of scrutiny afforded to this topic, offering a continual willingness to “focus on the golf”. Good luck with that, as the world and its uncle offer opinion on what penalties or otherwise should be attached to Trump’s vociferously stated views. The chief executive slipped down the disappointing and cliched road of being unwilling to publicly mix sport and politics; not only is that crossover the very essence of this debate, it is ludicrous to insist the two never shall meet.
Just when the R&A stepped into something approaching modernity with the acceptance of female members, another monumental narrative with far-reaching implications landed at the door.
Monumental? My, aren't we the drama queen..... We're staring down the barrel of a Hillary-Trump presidential race and he's worried about where an Open will be held sometime in the 2020's?
Curmudgeonly James Corrigan is perfectly willing to sell the world's only super power down the river to, you know, save golf:
The PGA Tour must look at the R&A – which this week bought itself some breathing
Edvard Munch, call your office. room with its revelation that, due to scheduling requirements, Trump Turnberry could not host the Open Championship until 2022 at the earliest.
But maybe there is some hope for the PGA Tour and for all those who do not wish once again to witness the putrid sight of Trump overshadowing a golf event, just as he did at last year’s Women’s British Open. When talking about his extensive golf portfolio last week, Trump said: “I don’t care about that stuff anymore. It is like small potatoes, right? I’ll let my kids run it, have fun with it… I don’t care about it. I care about making America great again.”
It is perhaps as much as the game could possibly hope – he has bigger to fish to fry. The world’s loss could just turn out to be golf’s huge gain. Small mercies and all that.
Well, that's a relief....as long as Commissioner Ratched doesn't have to endure any awkward moments, it's all good.
But does it seem to you that the golf world is taking his comments a little too literally? I get that if your focus is to Make America Great Again™ that chasing a little white ball might seem insignificant and all...
My sense is to view this as an ongoing negotiation between His Donaldness and the golf authorities, especially those that control major championships. The R&A has just told him that they'll keep him in limbo for a few years and the USGA and PGA will do likewise, because what else could they do? So, what's the only logical reaction given that there's nothing that can be accomplished in the present? To say, as he just clearly did, it's not important to me.... it's, what's that phrase, small potatoes....
If only someone had written a book about this...
The Road Ahead - Gary Van Sickle (yes, him again) and the unknown-to-me Jake Nichols hold up their binoculars and try to discern what's coming.... The former gives a pro-con for each of the big three, such as this:
1. Jordan Spieth is poised to defend his Masters championship and start another Grand Slam chase.2. Jordan Spieth is already out of gas, and the first major is still more than a month away.
Right now they're both equally true, but that club he's tossing above will likely tell that tale... My guess, but it's just a guess, is that he'll struggle more than most folks expect. Because, you know, golf.
The latter's header tells all you need to know:
Rickie and Phil Could Crash the Big Three's Party This Summer
That's a weird formulation, methinks, since the two are so differently situated. But he has data, so it must be true...
Certainly Rickie is on form and we know how hungry he'll be for a major.... but he's a threat every week.
Phil is another kettle of fish entirely. I certainly agree that his early-season form is encouraging, though I still find the Pebble Sunday a bit of a red flag. But with Phil there's only two weeks on the calendar that matter, one in April and the second in mid-June.
Though if we're talking Augusta, I think you need to have Bubba on your list as well. I hear talk that the golf course suits his fickle eye...
Back to van Cynical's mailbag, with this about said Masters:
Hey Vance No-Pants Cynical, What happens if Tiger can’t play the Masters?—DeCinces898 via email
Columnists and golf typists spend Tuesday and Wednesday during Masters week agozining, speculating and waxing poetic about the Decline And Fall Of Tiger. Then the first tee shot is struck Thursday morning and Tiger is as forgotten as Ralph Stonehouse, the man who hit the first-ever Masters tee shot. He’s a non-story after Thursday. Tiger, I mean—not Stonehouse.
I think at this point he's overstating the gnashing of teeth on Tuesday and Wednesday.... But in a crazy, mixed-up world without Tiger at the Masters who knows what could happen, I mean Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination...
 |
| The eyebrows of doom! |
And one last unrelated Van Cynical snark, just because it's funny:
Hey Van Cynical, Which tour player would make the best Bond villain?—Brian Bailey via Twiter
First choice, Briny, is Steven Bowditch. He’s got the supervillain eyebrows. “Do you expect me to talk, Bowditch?” “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!” Second choice: K.J. Choi with the right tux and a bowler might be able to pass for Odd Job. I think he’s definitely got the arm for it. Third choice: Any player you put an eye-patch on. Tim Herron. Billy Horschel. Kyle Stanley. Your nominees?
And Bowditch is just a great name for a villain as well.
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