Midweek Musings

I'm in one of those curmudgeonly moods, so reader beware....

Analysis: Unconvincing - In this week's SIGolf+ the usually sensible Michael Bamberger writes the cover piece titled...  never mind, here's a screen shot of the cover:

Ring it On is cute.... It's a short piece, but Bam's logic seems to boil down to the following:

1. Brooke Henderson, a Canadian, is excited about Olympic golf;
2. The Latvian Golf Federation is excited about Olympic golf.

Ipso facto, we're all supposed to be equally excited....yanno, if Rory and Jordan come as well.  And if we're not?  Then we're Super-Bowl-watching xenophobes.  

It's one of those evil digital mags, so I'm unable to excerpt for you.  But late in the pice Mike notes that viewers want to see the best and best-known golfers in the world.  he seems unaware that the competition format will leave many of those at home....

Mike, we get to see JordanJasonRoryBubbaInbeeLydia play a gazillion stroke play events in the course of a year, what makes this any different?  I can think of a couple of things, for instance:

1. An extremely week field;
2. On Channel 4 at the same time are the finals of the 100 meter sprint with Usain Bolt.

Never mind.

Analysis: True - Steve  Mona, CEO of the National Golf Foundation, presented these dire participation statistics in a recent address:

"There are between 20 and 21 million people who play golf who say they are committed

to the game, that they plan on playing this game years from now," Mona said. "The fact is that we have a franchise – if you want to use that term -- that is quite stable."

The National Golf Foundation estimates that about 25 million people play at least one round of golf during the year. With a plus-or-minus margin of error of 875,000, that number has been close to the same since 2013, though the alarm went off a few years ago because participation was down from 30 million in 2005. (Pre-Tiger Woods, participation was about 25 million.)

Wait, that's amazingly stable.... that's the dirty little secret of our game, people actually like it.

As for the Tiger reference, I'll remind everyone for the umpteenth time that while Tiger undoubtedly created some golf viewers for CBS and NBC, there's scant evidence that he actually created any golfers.  

Now, by stature Mona could not conclude such a presentation without paying homage to the only generation that matters:

They key segments to all of golf are youth and the millennials, which the NGF deems as those between 18 and 34 years old. The NGF did a comprehensive study of millennials and found that six million are currently playing and contributing about $5 billion annually to the golf industry. Another 12 million millennials expressed interest in taking up the game at some point. 

"This kind of sky-is-falling talk that millennials aren’t playing the game, the facts belie that," Mona said. "It would be disingenuous of me to say, though, that there aren’t issues to address." 

The NGF study reported that millennials value the tenets of the game as much as their older peers, but are turned off by perceptions of stodginess or lack of acceptance. Among the areas that need to be addressed, Mona said, are dress codes, use of technology on the course and even the use of music while playing. 

"There are courses that already are reshaping their whole experience to be extremely millennial-friendly," Mona said. "There are others who haven’t so much. But if you talk to any operator who is paying attention to the business, most of them will tell you they are making adjustments to appeal to the millennial audience.

"They’re the next group coming along, and they’re going to be the core."

Yawn!  That last bit is true but a tad obvious....  Our game has proven itself to have enduring popularity, though of course it evolves over time.  The case that's being made is that this generation is different, the proof for which eludes me...  I mean except for the obvious problem that most of them are living in their parent's basement.

Analysis: Risky - Loyalty is an admirable trait, at least until it isn't....Where we are on that spectrum, though, if difficult to discern:

Joe LaCava knows what you're thinking. And the answer is "no." 

LaCava has been a caddie for 30 years on the PGA Tour, most notably on Fred Couples' bag for nearly two decades. Though he was known by ardent golf fans through Couples, as well as his short stint with Dustin Johnson, LaCava gained an extra notch in notoriety when he went to work for Tiger Woods at the end of 2011. 

While the relationship has paid dividends for LaCava -- the duo has combined for nine wins -- Tiger's recent downtime, as well as his ominous playing prospects, begs the question: Is it time for LaCava to look for a new looping gig?

 And this:

Still, it has to be hard for LaCava, sitting on the sidelines, especially when the player he left -- Johnson -- is entering his prime. Yet, LaCava insists he has no regrets; moreover, he says Tiger has gas remaining in the tank. 

"I still have faith he's going to continue to do well and win," said LaCava. "My outlook is basically the same as when I started with him. He's Tiger Woods.''

Well, he WAS....

Analysis: Amusing - Another guy who thinks Tiger still has gas in the tank is NBC's newest voice, David Feherty.  The previously-unknown to me Connell Barrett files a fun-filled interview with the man, that gets off to this rip-roaring start:

Yes, David Feherty is "on" even when he's off the air. As he strolls into a bright Manhattan loft space for GOLF's photo shoot and interview, he politely declines a handshake. His right mitt is swollen. "Sorry, just had surgery," he says. Diagnosis? "Excessive masturbatory syndrome."

OK, thanks for sharing....there's good stuff to be found about Tiger, Johnny and others, though I'll point you in particular to his reminiscences about Bob Torrance.  

I like David and I remain quite puzzled that CBS let him go.  His is, to say the least, a unique voice in the game and I'm curious to see how Gary McCord will play without his foil...

He's long made the point that he wishes the public could see the Tiger Woods that he's been privileged to see, and there's little doubt that he's genuine in that.  Here's one of his anecdotes in support thereof:

I remember one time he says, "Hey, Feherty," pulling the bill of his cap down so the cameras can't read his lips. "What do you call a black guy flying an airplane?" I say I don't know. He says, "A pilot, you f---ing racist." [Laughs] He loves to needle, to give people a hard time.

 OK, that's a good one....but then I saw this jibe in the comments:

So if Tiger can tell off colour jokes, Why did he leave Fuzzy out to dry?

A tale of two Tigers.... something we've been trying to make sense of for twenty years.

Analysis: A No-Brainer -  This is the most coveted piece of mail in golf:

Don't forget to RSVP....do we think it comes with a SASE?

But, this doesn't suck either:

Though if I'm Fabian, I probably don't tweet my home address.