Sunday Surprise

I had intended that after our week apart I'd make you put bygones aside with a flurry of insightful blogging...But while still on a JFK runway I took my phone off airplane mode to reveal an endless thread of my homies discussing, of all things golf.  And not just golf, but the actual playing thereof...

Our greens committee surprised everyone by opening the greens for this weekend, and they don't have to ask your humble correspondent more than once.  Yesterday was with the boys, and what a delightful day it was.... a surprising amount of actual golf was played, I actually found a couple of birdies as well as a chip-in for par on our Par-5 tenth after preview visits to several forthcoming holes...

Today was a more lethargic affair, though enliven by the presence of the ever-lovely Employee No.2.  And as always we recorded a first.... in this case I believe it was my first two consecutive shots for which ShotLink shows negative yardage.  Things can get ugly when your tee shot on No.1 goes right, and my attempt to hit a hero shot with a 5-iron out of a hole lack a little altitude, caught a rock and went backwards and further right.  I was left with no viable options except a straightforward chip back to the fairway with a 9-iron or pitching wedge, except for one minor detail... the club I was holding had a 5 on it, and walking back to the caddie?  Well, I had long since lost my will to live...hence the repeating sound or surlyn striking rock.  Fortunately this one went far enough right that I could hook my third 5-iron around the trees....

So I won't keep you long, but just a few items...

Fun With Stats -  Shack had fun Fisking this National Golf Foundation press release about golf participation results, which reminds of the old adage that figures don't lie but liars figure...

This is the headline:

2015 Golf Participation in the U.S. – A slight dip tempered by strong positive indicators

Twenty years after Tiger Woods stepped before a microphone in Milwaukee on Aug. 28, 1996, and with the words “Hello, World,” touched off the most meaningful golf industry growth since Arnold Palmer and President Eisenhower jump-started it 40 years earlier, there are reasons to be confident about the stability of the game. While the latest NGF participation numbers show a slight dip in 2015 to 24.1 million (over the age of 6 who played at least once) from 24.7 million the two previous years, numbers remained strong in several crucial areas: among committed golfers, beginning golfers and in the number of people interested in taking up the game.

I'm sure it's a crisis, but I feel a disclaimer coming on....

While the total drop in golfers from 2014 to 2015 was within the national study’s statistical margin of error, the results do suggest that a slow leak in overall participation persists.

No it doesn't....it's statistically insignificant.  And especially so given this buried nugget:

About 80 percent of all golfers, or 20 million of the 24.1 million, make up a committed base who accounted for 94 percent of all rounds played and equipment spending in 2015. Play among this group drove an overall increase in rounds played of 1.8% versus 2014, as reported by the National Rounds Played Coalition (comprised of NGF, Golf Datatech, PGA of America and NGCOA).

Get that?  Rounds played are up almost 2%, but our game is DYING!.

 Read the whole thing for your daily dosage of Millennial Madness and other nonsense.  But I think we can count on the NGF, RPC< Datatech and NGCOA to put their heads together and design us a proper camel.

Golf Talkers - Shack took on the premiere of golf talk shows here, including David Feherty's two-parter with Jordan Spieth and Callaway Live.  Don't these people understand that it's still ski season?

I just haven't had time for such frivolities, but you might enjoy watching Phil play around with the Cally technical folks:

You do need be careful to not have too much bounce on your spatula....

Guys & Dolls - During my sabbatical world broke of an agreement/joint venure/marriage between the PGA Tour and LPGA....  Now, my understanding is that this is pretty much limited to the LPGA hiring the Tour to negotiate their television contract, the logic being that controlling more of the golf inventory creates more leverage.

But it's generating lots of crazy talk, none more so than from our favorite pinata...but first, Bob Harig with a little history:

Anyone know which is which?

PALM HARBOR, Fla. -- It was probably just a coincidence that the PGA Tour announced a collaborative agreement with the LPGA Tour just a few days before the annual stop at Innisbrook. 

Then again, maybe it wasn't. 

Back in the day, the site of this week's Valspar Championship was home to a team event consisting of PGA and LPGA pros known as the JCPenney Classic. 

The event dated to 1977 but was played on the Copperhead course from 1990 through 1999, won by John Daly and Laura Davies in its last year before sponsorship issues ended the run and led to a regular event. Tiger Woods even played it one year, just a few months after turning pro.

I'm old enough to remember the JC Penny event, but didn't remember Tiger ever making an appearance. But that Daly-Davies team is just funny, so intrinsically humorous that I don't dare touch it.... But this is the bit that I couldn't pass on:

Even PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem seemed intrigued at the various ways such a tournament could be staged. 

"If we did have an opportunity to do something together, what would be the coolest format we could use?" he said. "Because if the opportunity came up, we would want to take full advantage of it. ... There's different ways to do it. You could come up with a whole new format. You could do something that's more traditional like a better-ball or a team competition. But just showing off the comparative skills, I think, would be something that could be well received."

Can such an event exist during the regular season? If they are separate tournaments, it can still count for both tours, with full world ranking points. Getting the equipment and apparel companies on board could help, too. Perhaps a Nike team consisting of Rory McIlroy and Michelle Wie?

OK, who are you and what have you done with Tim Finchem?  Has anyone ever heard him use the "C" word?

He's taking quite the risk here, as such an event might be fun....  Scheduling is a real issue, but only because of the ridiculous schedule.  This would be a perfect event for the old Fall Finish, If you read Harig's piece there's other options, but I'm just shocked to hear the man who gave us 53 weeks of thje same dreary format speak of creating something that might entertain.... I think we've seen personal growth.

Dog Bites Man - We're deep enough into the political season that nothing should surprise, though sometimes the audacity of it can cause a gasp:

An attempt by Donald Trump to slash the property tax bill on a golf club outside New 

The waterfall is worth $50 million alone.

York City may be undermined by records indicating that he previously said the property was worth 35 times more than the value he is now trying to convince a judge to approve. 

The Republican presidential frontrunner is suing the town of Ossining in Westchester County to reduce the taxes on Trump National Golf Club, a 147-acre property with a lavish clubhouse and 18-hole course whose managers are separately accused of causing floods that led to $240,000 worth of damage to local public facilities.

Trump’s lawsuit in county court argues that the luxurious private club, which he bought in foreclosure for about $8m in the mid-1990s before spending what he claimed at the club’s opening event was another $45m in improvements, has been unfairly assessed and is in fact worth only $1.4m.

So what?  I think a guy that bought an asset for $8 million, pumped in an additional $45 million and created a property worth $1.4 million will feel comfortable in government....

Seriously, this is a man who evolved on H-1B visas during a debate, so why not here?  And who can get enough of Trump's vigorous response to Marco Rubio's scurrilous allegation regarding the size of his hands and, by extension, other anatomical features: