So, would you like the bad news now or later? Eh, who cares what you want, it's my blog and we'll save the downer for later....
Monster Down - Light winds and soft greens are a recipe for red numbers, and the small but elite field tore the joint up. Here's Gary Van Sickle's lede:
DORAL, Fla. -- There is glitz everywhere at Trump National Doral. That's kind of Donald Trump's business and he does it well.
From the entrance, where his name is emblazoned on a stone wall in burnished gold and his golden crest stands high above the front gate, to the shiny marble floor in the hotel lobby, it's solid glitz, and glitz is good in the resort business.
What ever happened to that guy? Seems like we never hear anything about him any more... What, oh yeah, the golf:
It's even better in the tournament golf business. So while Scott Piercy and Marcus Fraserturned in stellar opening rounds at the Cadillac Championship here at Doral's Blue Course, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott were close behind.
You don't get much glitzier than those two. Phil has helped carry the game for the last two decades and Scott, in addition to winning a Masters, looked nearly flawless in winning last week's Honda Classic. Fraser and Piercy shot matching 66s, Mickelson posted 67 and Scott was among a group at 68.
Meanwhile, the three musketeers of Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day were paired in Thursday's glamor tee time and had mixed days. Spieth bogeyed his final hole -- the ninth -- for 69. McIlroy over-cut a 6-iron shot into that par-3 green and found the water, making a double bogey that dropped him back to 71. Day posted a quiet even-par 72.
Don't get me started on Rory, who turned a 66 into a 71.... Funny thing is that Roger Maltbie kept saying that Rory likes to draw the ball, though everything I've heard this year is to the effect that he's struggled to move it right-to-left. Certainly Van Sickle saw that 6-iron differently....
But perhaps he was put off his feed by this dis:
Anyone know what year that is in Roman Numerals? I don't think Trump can actually be blamed for this, though I'm sure Hillary will try... But let's be fair, those foreign surnames can be so hard to spell....
The tedium of South Florida golf was broken by an unusual number of shots played from the mud or barely submerged in the water..... as you'll recall, one of the steps Gil Hanse took was to soften the banks so that not every ball slightly off-target would bounce into the agua.
You can see Justin Thomas' 18th hole disaster here, but others (Duf, Sergio) were able to at least salvage bogeys. It's often said that three-quarters of the Earth's surface is water, and clearly Doral exceeds quota in that regard.... often these guys have no choice but to try these shots, simply because there's no realistic place for them to legally drop.
NBC/GC did good work in certain cases in using blimp footage to show where balls might have crossed the hazard line, most notably for Scott Piercy's tee ball on the finishing hole. If you didn't see it, the ball just cleared the water and stayed in the Bermuda rough short of the fairway. The ball was withing the hazard so there was no relief for an embedded lie, but you could see the full ball from the aerial shot, and you always assume these guys can muscle it 15-20 yards, but he took a clean drop 50-60 yards further back.
But my favorite moment was this video that I'm unable to embed, so I'll just give a screen shot of Alan Shipnuck's wonderful bon mot:
You'll have to click through to understand the reference, but I'm gonna go way out on a limb and guess that the cop isn't a big golf fan. And kudos to Adam who limits his reaction to that instinctive glare, but then otherwise gets on with it... rub of the green and all.
Life Is A Seinfeld Episode - No, not my usual shrinkage joke:
Seinfeld” fans take note: The real J. Peterman, as actor John O’Hurley identifies himself on Twitter, will be auctioning off a real John F. Kennedy golf club later this month.
O’Hurley, an avid golfer, will do as part of the American Cancer Society’s 48th Annual 19th Hole Club presented by the Addison Hines Charitable Trust on March 21 at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. O’Hurley will be hosting.
Here's the actual club to be auctioned:
Business Briefs, Golf Division - You'll need to have your MBA Decoder Ring handy for this first item on the golf equipment market leader:
The future of TaylorMade-Adidas Golf and its various brands will be decided withinweeks, according to parent company Adidas.
In a letter to shareholders published Thursday as part of the German multinational’s annual financial report, Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer outlined the golf division’s declining performance and its potential.
“Following a decade of strong and profitable growth, TaylorMade-Adidas Golf experienced two very difficult years in 2014 and 2015, caused by a number of structural, commercial and operational issues,” he wrote. “As a result, halfway through last year we started analyzing future options for our golf business. This strategic review is expected to be concluded by the end of the first quarter of 2016.”
Wow, structural, commercial and operational issues all at the same time....What's it all about, Alfie?
In addition to initiating a restructuring program, Adidas hired an investment bank in 2015 to analyze future options for the company’s golf business, with specific mentions of the Adams and Ashworth brands.
TaylorMade plans to slow down the frequency of product releases and hold firmer on prices, according to the annual report.
“As the market leader in metalwoods, TaylorMade-Adidas Golf will put a high emphasis on maximizing list prices for future product launches, while at the same time extending product life cycles,” the report read.
English translation: It turned out that golfers don't actually want to buy three $500 drivers each season... To be fair, who could have seen that coming?
I never understood the Ashworth acquisition, but I thought they'd do better with Adams. Though that deal was spurred by an intellectual property lawsuit, I though it was, forgive me, tailor made to focus on the senior and women's markets.
But if you read the whole thing you'll see that their sales have stayed fairly flat over the last few years, with the damage coming from flooding the market with way too much product. And those remainder bins at Dick's are likely still full of SLDRs...
But there is a bullish story to counter the above tale of woe, if you ignore for a moment that they're not, you know, in the golf business:
There’s something of an urban legend on Wall Street that renowned fund manager Peter Lynch used to base his investment decisions on anecdotal observations. If he saw a long line out the door at Starbucks, for example, that was a sign that he should invest in the company.
Lynch would have loved Topgolf. Golfers and non-golfers alike can’t seem to get enough of Topgolf, with its winning mix of automated practice-range game, music, food, beverage and more. It’s not uncommon for guests to wait an hour or more for a hitting bay, even on weeknights.
The Dallas-based company is well-capitalized and expanding rapidly.
There's nothing wrong with being in the saloon business, and they do put actual golf clubs in the hands of civilians...and here's CEO Ken May's topgolfline forecast:
We’re trying to open about 10 (locations) a year. Now we have 24 that are open. We hired a head of international, so you’re going to see us moving our growth plan outside of the U.S. pretty quickly.
GW: To which countries?
KM: The logical places would be the U.K., Australia, China, Korea, Canada. The U.S. has 21 locations (there also are three U.K. sites); we think the U.S. can accommodate 100 to 110. So we’ve just scratched the surface of what we can do in the U.S. We think another 100 internationally is very reasonable.
They've found a fun little niche in the entertainment industry....
And do check out the addendum to Geoff's post with Instagram video of just such a Topgolf-inspired convert to our game. How many rounds do you think that gent will be playing in the current season?
Thanks for Sharing - First we had the girl sharing her new locker:
These crazy kids with their hashtags....That's at tony Sherwood, by the way, and this is follow up, with Jack on site to supervise his tweaking of the golf course:
Shack proposed a thought-bubble for Jack, and I'm gonna go with, "Are all the girls in your family so tall?"
No Love for STP - We don't do fuel additives, so here's the background on that acronym:
The Twitter account @secrettourpro has developed quite a substantial following since its creation, now boasting 30,000-plus followers largely on the premise that the person who controls the account is, in fact, a top touring pro who has chosen to anonymously draw the curtain back on what really happens in pro golf. The account makes proclamations about the status of players -- typically top players -- and shares bite-sized versions of rumors that, in many cases, are pretty well disseminated on Tour.
All good fun this gents says, except when he starts getting things way wrong...and he's been wrong frequently about one specific subject:
More specifically on the subject of Woods, STP had been wrong twice in the past. Last summer, the account suggested Woods had fired swing instructor Chris Como, prompting some media on site at the Quicken Loans National to pry about the rumor to Woods. Who shows up the next day on the range? Como. Woods has a way of proving a point when things aren't true.
In December, STP tweeted out an image of Woods, purporting that a "source" had told him Woods was hitting balls on the range at Bear's Club in Jupiter, Fla. It didn't take long for an enterprising, Googling golf fan to figure out the image wasn't current. It was of Woods at a pro-am event for The Honda Classic from a few years ago. That cued up STP to claim he had a bad source. Going 0-fer on big Tiger Woods claims doesn't exactly inspire confidence that this report about Woods' health is right.
Now that latter one I remember well, and to his credit he issued an immediate mea culpa.... But while having an anonymous set of eyes pulling back the curtain is appealing, if he's getting played by sources he's better ignored....
He and a Golf Channel producer also take aim at photos used by STP at the venues at which he's allegedly playing... I'm unpersuaded by this line of attack, as an actual STP would be, you know, publicly taking photos.... We all do Google image searches.... let those who have never right-clicked cast the first stone....
Both parties think it's a fraud, more specifically someone or multiple parties with access to the major tours but not an actual player.... I don'r know, what's a fellow to believe in in this crazy, mixed up world....
That Bad News - Whatever transpires at Doral this week, I'm afraid you'll have to make sense of it without my expert guidance. I know, but really, this will be good for you... Here's the deal, tonight my brother and nephew arrive in Park City for the weekend.
They are coming here at long last because Zach has qualified for the 2016 Freestyle/Freeskiing Junior Nationals in Sun Valley, ID next week. I can't tell you how impressive this achievement is, because the God-awful winter back east limited his training and competitions to a substantial degree. Additionally, Z competes against kids who ski seven days a week, and he lost his coach over the summer who moved to Park City.
Z will train here in Park City over the weekend, and then we'll all drive up to Sun Valley Sunday night or Monday )hopefully dodging the incoming storm). I won't be able to stay for his competition, but will give him my keen insights during these last few days of training.... yeah, right. Not sure when I'll get back to Park City, but I travel back to New York on Thursday. So, you might not hear from me for a bit...
But here's the youngster in action in a recent comp:
You can readily see the overlap in genetic material, eh? Try not to miss me too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment