Udder Stuff

Glad we got that Olympic nonsense out of our system....let's move on.

Don't Know Much About History - The PGA Tour has released its 2016-17 schedule:

Golf's inclusion in the Olympics for the first time in 112 years created the most jam-packed summer in PGA Tour history. Players will be happy to know that a return to normalcy is on tap for next season. 

On Monday, the PGA Tour released its schedule for the 2016-17 campaign, and outside of a few sponsorship changes, it's pretty much what you would expect pre-Rio. Beginning with the Safeway Open (new sponsor) at Silverado Resort and Spa Oct. 13-16 and concluding with the Tour Championship Sept. 20, there will be 47 FedEx Cup tournaments.

 Normalcy?  We'll agree to disagree on that one....  Now, here's what's of interest:

The fall portion of the schedule and West Coast swing remain virtually unchanged, with only the addition of a new title sponsor, Genesis which is Hyundai’s luxury car brand, in Los Angeles. Officials are still looking for a replacement sponsor for the year-opening event in Maui, which lost Hyundai as a title sponsor after this year’s event.

As Shack notes here, the Tour would not do the same for the WGC event at Doral, a place the Tour has visited since the 1960's.  Now perhaps funding two events was too much, but Miami seems like a place that should be on the schedule.  That event has been moved to Mexico City, conveniently airlifted onto the schedule between Palm Beach Gardens and Tampa....  I guess we've moved on from agonizing about our carbon footprint.

There's also a game of musical chairs with sponsorships, with Northern Trust taking over the event formerly known as the Barclays and... well, who cares?  The problem is that we lose any sense of history about these events, as per this Shack quip:

So just remember, Ben Hogan won three Genesis Opens and five of those Dean & Deluca's!

Got that, though Ben never struck me as the Dean & Deluca type....

Now I get that these events claim lineage to the previous installments of the event, and in the case of Riviera and Colonial that's a reasonable position, though I'd have left L.A. and Colonial in the event name for reinforcement purposes.  But as I've mentioned previously, the Tour walked away from the Western Open to feed its FedEx Cup beast, only to have the BMW event a few years later attempt to pass itself off as the  reincarnated Western Open..... Ummmm, we're gonna need DNA testing to rule on that one...

Rulesgate, Jaime Weighs In -  While offering nothing new in the way of factual detail, the great Jaime Diaz has written the bible on last week's fiasco....  You'll really want to read the entire thing, but I was most struck by his dissection of the prior incident that fateful day:

THE CASE OF ROMAIN WATTEL 

The Romain Ingredient....

First, in the 10:20 a.m. starting time with Matthew Fitzpatrick, Romain Wattel of France faced a sharply downhill putt of two feet for par on Oakmont’s second green. After grounding his putter while addressing his ball for some five seconds as he looked at the hole, Wattel looked down and determined his ball had moved. He had not actually seen his ball move but noticed that the line on the ball he uses for alignment had changed position. 

The referee in the group, respected rules authority Dr. Lew Blakey, ruled that Wattel had not caused the ball to move. Blakey based his decision on the relatively long amount of time that elapsed from the time Wattel grounded his club to the time that the player detected it had moved, the downslope the ball rested on and a slight bit of wind. After Wattel played on, USGA officials reviewed the ruling via video and accepted it as correct.

Hmmmm.....Wattel played with Englishman Fitzpatrick and DJ played with Lee Westwood, another notorious Englishman, then four days later the UK surprises the pollsters and votes for Brexit..... Coincidence?  I think not....

In case you didn't catch the significance of the description of the Wattel decision, here's the essence of the USGA's call:

A key point of reference will be the Wattel ruling. Blakey, the referee, had considered the five seconds Wattel’s ball presumably didn’t move after he had grounded his club in the address position enough time to absolve the Frenchman from being the cause of the movement, but Pagel would characterize the two seconds that passed after Johnson had soled the toe of his putter next to the side of his ball as “instantaneous” and thus damning.

And this back and forth between rules geeks is all too typical:

Eger believes the right call was made based on the rule as written, but admits his experience writing, interpreting and administering the rules gives him an uncommon perspective. “All the rules officials I know think Dustin broke the rule, but none of my friends who I play golf with think he did. None of my friends have all the information. They use the wrong criteria to judge. But the rules are so fastidious, precise and often complicated.” 

But David Fay, the USGA’s executive director for two decades, who served as the Fox telecast’s rules expert, contends the Johnson ruling was a close one even for officials. “You could get 10 rules experts and show them video evidence of Wattel and Johnson’s actions around the ball. I guarantee some would say Wattel deserved a penalty and Johnson didn’t, or that neither deserved a penalty, or that both did.”

Eger, by the way, is the gent that dropped the dime and dialed the Augusta, GA area code after Tiger's infamous drop on No. 15 at the 2013 Masters....  A message that Fred Ridley ignored to his regret.

Jaime also has a helpful discussion of the evolution of the rule, and thoughts on where to go with it.  As these crazy kids are wont to say, read the whole thing.

Family Feud - I greatly enjoyed this WSJ feature on the rift between the two largest golf tours in the world:

If ever a week could highlight the fractured nature of global professional golf, it is this

one. On one side of the Atlantic Ocean, 61 players will gather in Akron, Ohio, for the Bridgestone Invitational, an event designed to bring the world’s best together on one course. Meanwhile, some of the very players who fit that description, including Rory McIlroy, will be in Paris competing in the French Open, leaving the Bridgestone with its smallest field since 2001. 

It is exactly the kind of conflict that could be avoided under PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem’s big idea for the future of golf: a unified global organization overseeing both the men’s and women’s pro game everywhere it exists. Think FIFA, without the indictments.

When it comes to FIFA, those indictments are a feature, not a bug.... But Tim, who do you see running this unified organization?

But here's where the amusement kicks in, as Tim goes to his default passive-aggressive mode:

“It’s like doing business with a company and for whatever reason, the CEO retires,” Finchem said. “The new CEO wants to take a look at the organization and wants to go to bed at night thinking he’s moving the needle to make it better. That’s where Keith is.”

I've always found that the best way to get to agreement with another party is to call them ignorant naifs in the press... We can only hope that Pelley does the same to Jay Monahan.

But having seen Timmy's version of cooperation on the schedule revisions to accommodate the Olympics, he's on notice that the Commish spells partnership C-a-p-i-t-u-l-a-t-i-o-n.  He can't move from his default patronizing setting, adding this:

Finchem mostly shrugs off that kind of talk, saying Pelley will come around to his idea eventually.

Of course he will, doesn't everybody?  As noted previously, the Bridgestone WGC event is on the calendar this week, and in a bit of cosmic irony provides a vivid illustration of his vision:

It's not breaking news that the purses on the PGA Tour are enormous. Thank Tiger Woods, Tim Finchem and TV contracts. It's really, really good to be a PGA Tour golfer. As it should be. 

Exhibit A was on display on Thursday at the WGC-Bridgestone at Firestone Country Club. Last place at any World Golf Championship event this year has a payout of $50,500. Just tee it up, and you're guaranteed that money.

Daniel Berger withdrew after one tee shot, citing a shoulder injury.

The social media reaction is about what one would expect:

Yes Tim, we'll all come around eventually....

I Might Have Lied - That is, if you interpreted my prologue to mean that we were done with the Olympic Kerfuffle....  OK, that Van Cynical guy has some amusing reactions to readers:

Van Cynical, No surprise there that Jason Day is out [of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio]. Shane Lowry is out. Is Rickie Fowler next? Crime, corruption, disease, safety concerns, etc? No thank you.—John Hobbins via Twitter

I think a number of players are one bit of bad news from bailing, too. As dangerous as Zika is, Hobbitt Master, it may be only the third or fourth biggest reason to not go to Rio.

True that!  Here's a concise summary of the issues:

It's far from the region's only issue, as Rio's rampant water-sewage problems, transportation nightmares, corrupt local and federal government, crumbling economy and rising violence are very real threats to a safe and stable Olympic environment.

Nothing to see here, kindly move along....Back to Gary:

Hey Van Slicely, The men look utterly selfish and foolish.—Brian Rosenwald via Twitter 

I disagree, Rosebud. This is simply putting family ahead of golf. The Zika threat may or may not be small, but it’s real and it’s serious. Golfers are the Olympic athletes most likely to be exposed to the disease-carrying mosquitoes since they spend the whole day outdoors walking through the grass and disturbing the areas where the mosquitoes habitate. It’s personal for each athlete, but I respect and agree with their decisions.

I think it's early to make that call, Van Slicey.  I'm excited to see how those sailing vessels slice through the raw sewage.....

The latest in Olympic golf memes is to compare it to Olympic tennis, which also got off to a rocky start:

Can you name anyone in this photo?

“What’s happening with the golf is a lot like ’88,” Gilbert said. “A lot of the tennis players just weren’t quite sure, and there were some security worries in Seoul.” 

No. 1 Mats Wilander, winner of three of the four Grand Slam singles titles, did not make the trip even though he had long relished playing for Sweden in the Davis Cup. Neither did No. 4 Andre Agassi, who would later win the singles gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and discover that it was one of the most gratifying moments of his career. 

Gilbert was coaching him at the time. 

“When Andre asked me what was the biggest regret of my career, I said if I could change one thing, I would have changed that big penny I had into gold,” Gilbert said, referring to his bronze medal. “And Andre pretty much planned his whole year around the 1996 Olympics.”

Given the sourcing on that item, we have to first address how this article helps drag Hillary across the finish line.... I know, but it's the core of their business model.

Another writer compared dropout rates among the various sports, and tennis features a significant though lower rate of non-participation.  That's fair enough, though I do think that two simple questions highlight the issues:

1. Can anyone identify a significant tennis tournament between the first week in July and the last week in August?
2. is anyone actually excited about 2016 Olympic Tennis?

I understand that the Brits went gaga over homeboy Andy Murray winning at Wimbledon, but that's more about the their and his abject futility than the magnitude of the event.

The only good news thus far is that no American player has announced their intention to skip it, though Jordan seems noticeably evasive since the Dexit announcement.  As for Rickie, as long as there's no cut (we kid because we love) he'll be there.  Or not:

“I’ve always wanted to go but I want to make sure me and my team feel safe on the health and security issues,” Rickie Fowler said. “There’s still some stuff ongoing, some logistics to work out.”

Me and my team?  Sigh.  I understand the fidelity to quotes, but couldn't some editor correct it so that Rickie doesn't sound like a moron?  Or does no one at Golfweek know English grammar?

Shack is taking it hard, as we've noted before, including this dig at Rory:

It appears not many are buying the concerns about Zika, including the readers here. McIlroy has now been questioned by Bloomberg reporter Tariq Panja (here and here), who has asked the McIlroy camp for clarification as to why he vacationed in Barbados two months ago. Barbados is also a Level 2 Zika threat region, like Rio.

We all understand that the guys are to a certain extent hiding behind the Zika threat, but Barbados is far more competent in their handling of raw sewage.  

There's No Place Like Home - Martin Dempster has exciting news:

“In securing third spot behind Swede Oskar Arvidsson and Spaniard Scott Fernandez, the 

big Scot earned a dream return to golf’s oldest major after a six-year absence at Royal Troon, his home club, in a fortnight’s time. 

“‘This was my last opportunity to play in The Open on my own course, so it is very special,” admitted Montgomerie after surviving an agonising two-hour wait in his car before discovering he’d pipped fellow Scot Jack Doherty for the third and final spot at the Ayrshire venue.’”

It's a nice story on its own terms, as his ties to the club run deep.  But I particularly liked that "Big Scot" formulation, and can only hope that the R&A tales a page out of the USGA handbook and pairs him with The Big Fijian and this Big Irishman, assuming the latter ignores the unsolicited advice.

My favorite line about (and in this case from) a fat golfer comes from a former partner in the D.C. office of Touche Ross (and that name will date it as of the Paleozoic Era).  He had a stomach made up of several spare tires and he told me of his problem with his golf game:

"If I put the ball where I can see it, I can't hit it. And if I put where I can ht it, I can't see it."

Well put, sir.

Maltbie, A Retrospective -  Doesn't the roundish Roger seem like a hoot to have a beer with?  In honor of his 65th birthday, Cliff Schrock posts seven classic Roger stories, and they're all good.  I particularly liked this one:

2. In attempting to qualify for the 1984 U.S. Open, Maltbie was at the 36-hole sectional qualifying site, where he employed a caddie to drive a cart for the grueling day. He walked alongside at first, but soon was hitching rides to hunt for lost balls or ride to a green or go uphill. When he got done with the first nine, a rules official asked about a report of him riding a cart. When Maltbie said he’d done it about six times, the official said, “I’m sorry Roger, but that will be another 12 shots on your card.” It gave him 48 for nine holes, and he withdrew for the day. Jolly Roger had failed to remember riding was prohibited under all conditions of play.

But how do you top Cliff's winner?

1. And the reigning champ of Maltbie stories that started his legend is from his win at the 1975 Pleasant Valley Classic in Sutton, Mass. This was in his rookie season, and he had won the Quad Cities Open and PVC in back-to-back weeks. In the evening’s revelry of July 20, Maltbie either left or lost track of the $40,000 winner’s check at T.O. Flynn’s tavern in Worcester. He couldn’t locate the check the next morning and had to ask the sponsors for a new one. The original was eventually found amid the floor debris and was put in a frame on the tavern’s wall.

In terms of actual golf, Roger is best known for winning the inaugural Memorial in 1976.  Though, in reality he's more fondly remembered for his choice of pants than for the win:

 

Well, it was the 70's.... Have a great weekend.