Greetings From The Wasatch

Safely ensconced in the Unplayable Lies Western HQ, good to be back with you all.  It's a good news-bad news day.  There's 12" of fresh stuff reported by the resort.... Though having my first day on skis a powder day is a decidedly mixed blessing...

The bad?  High today is 6 degrees, with a wind chill of -19.... In fact, I almost didn't get here yesterday as Route 80, the only way into town, was closed for a couple of hours.  Ski buddy Bob, who was good enough to come fetch me from the airport, almost paid a hell of a price forthat favor.

Venue Euphoria - I almost blogged this item yesterday morning before heading to JFK, such is my excitement at this unbelievable news:

The lure of the almighty dollar has often been a tough opponent for USGA officials as they try to keep talented men’s amateurs from leaving for the “greener” pastures of 

The 16th green (top) and 17th hole of Cypress

professional golf in the run up to the Walker Cup. The notion that representing your country in the biennial event is “an experience of a lifetime” doesn’t spend quite as easily as a big cardboard check. Yet that doesn’t mean the USGA is without leverage, as it demonstrated Thursday with the announcement of two high-profile future host sites for the event in Seminole Golf Club in 2021 and Cypress Point Club in 2025.

Pinch me, will you?  yeah, it's a bit in the future, but I promise even if the blog has gone dormant I'll reappear to blog an event at Cypress Point.

Coming on the heels of the USGA's 2016 annus horribilis, all is forgiven....  Both are national treasures, and the ability for golf fans to see them on TV is something I thought we'd never see.

From the press release at Geoff's site, here's what you need to know about Seminole:

Seminole Golf Club will host its first USGA event and the first Walker Cup Match in the 

state of Florida. The course was designed by Donald Ross and opened for play in 1929. The course’s routing encompasses two dune ridges, one that peaks to the west and another along the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Members have included U.S. presidents, business and industry leaders and golf elite. Ben Hogan, a four-time U.S. Open champion, practiced and played there, while Henry Picard, who won two major professional titles, served as club professional for 26 years.

Going to Seminole also required a change from the Walker Cup's traditional September date.  As for Cypress Point, which I was lucky enough to play twice in the 1980's:

Cypress Point Club was designed by Alister MacKenzie in collaboration with Robert Hunter and opened for play in 1929. Beginning in coastal dunes, the course then enters the Del Monte Forest before remerging to rocky coastline along the Pacific Ocean. In addition to the 28th Walker Cup, the club hosted “The Match,” a 1956 four-ball competition between professionals Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson and amateurs Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward, and was one of three courses used for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for more than 40 years.

The Walker Cup, along with much of the amateur game, has veen threatened by Commissioner Colossus' scheduling insanity, most notably doing away with Tour Q-School.  But think venues don't matter?

Indeed, holding the event at these exclusive and historic venues has the potential to give some players pause before seeking fame and fortune on the pro tours. When the Walker Cup was held in 2013 at Long Island’s National Golf Links of America, then Alabama junior-to-be Justin Thomas waited until after the competition to announce he was turning pro, in part due to the primo venue.

There's a little cold water to throw on this news, first from Shack:

We had an inkling on Seminole, but the Cypress Point announcement is wonderful news. Though I can't fathom how either course will be very testing given their lack of length, unless everyone's ok with lots of driveable par-fours?

Heck, by 2025, they might be driving those back-to-back Par-5's on the outbound nine at Cypress.  But I can't wait to see what they hit on No.16....  The other thing to point out is that TV coverage of the Walker Cup has typically been mundane...  just a few of the closing holes.  At Cypress that will likely include the ocean holes (Nos. 15-17), but we'll take what we get....  I believe that Cypress is outside the scope of the Fox contract, so perhaps we won't have to abide Joe Buck.

All credit to Mike Davis and the USGA, and also note that it's not just these two venues.  The return to The National in '13 and the restored Los Angeles Country Club in '17 are also inspired choices.....

Lastly, while I haven't watched it yet, the USGA posted this video of the 1981 event held at Cypress Point, in which the U.S. team featured Corey Pavin and Jodie Mudd.

The Man Has Balls - The Artist formerly known as Tiger made news:

One tournament into his return was all Tiger Woods needed to strike a deal with Bridgestone to play its golf ball. 

Bridgestone Golf said Thursday it has signed Woods to a multi-year agreement in which he will play and promote the golf ball. Woods effectively became a free agent for equipment deals when Nike decided to stop making clubs and golf balls and instead focus on apparel. 

Bridgestone becomes the first new equipment company that Woods has endorsed since he turned pro 20 years ago. He signed with Titleist (equipment) and Nike (footwear and clothing) in 1996, and his switch to all Nike equipment began with its golf ball in May 2000.

As we've touched on previously, Tiger is an interesting endorsement opportunity for the equipment companies.  There would seem to be a ton of upside and little downside, it's just how much would you guarantee given the injury and other risks.

This was a curious formulation of an obvious point:

Corey Consuegra, Bridgestone’s senior director of marketing, said Monday evening that his company has an internal philosophy based on a Japanese phrase, Genbutsu-Genba. 

“What that means is that we make fact-based decisions, decisions that are based on data,” he said. “So when we looked into the opportunity to be a partner with Tiger Woods, we studied closely and learned (in focus groups) that our brand perception increases by 50 percent when he is connected to our brand, and the purchase intent of our consumers goes up based on the nature of his credibility.”

I gotta remember that Genbutsu-Genba thingee, it might come in handy at cocktail parties...  But, yeah, we get that Tiger moves the needle, it's just that he has to be actually out there and, perhaps, playing well, to continue to do so....

Meanwhile, his former stablemates seem to be channeling their inner hoarders:

By choosing a new golf ball, Woods went a different direction from two of Nike's highest-ranked players. Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka said they have asked Nike to set aside as many golf balls as possible. 

"I have about two to three years' worth," Koepka said in the Bahamas. 

McIlroy, who plans extensive equipment testing in Dubai at the end of the month, said changing golf balls would be the most difficult adjustment.

Shack is running a caption contest on this social media post:

Except for the guy in the middle, they've won all of one major, and that most certainly wasn't with a Bridgestone ball.  Just sayin'....

Strange Bedfellows - How about this unlikely pairing:

Tiger Woods, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on board for South Side golf mecca

Here's the gist of the story: 

For decades, Chicago's golf impresarios have wondered if it would be possible to recast

Jackson Park and the lakeside South Shore into a dazzling course that could host a premium PGA Tour event such as the BMW Championship. 

Finally, the answer is yes.

As first reported by the Tribune, Woods has committed to be the lead designer. In a statement released by TGR Design, Woods said: "This project can create incredible possibilities for the community on the South Side. We want to design a course that everyone will enjoy." 

And on Sunday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel will announce the formation of the Chicago Parks Golf Alliance (CPGA), a nonprofit charged with improving Chicago Park District courses and golf facilities, expanding youth golf programs and, most significantly, raising money to make the Jackson Park/South Shore project a reality.

I'd like this story a hell of a lot more if I could remove a mere three letters, those being BMW.  If the purpose of this project if to create something for the people of Chicago, why add the challenegs of making it able to be played by the best in the world once every few years.  That creates a series of requirements, length being only the most obvious, that will saddle the project with higher maintenance costs in perpetuity.

And just when I got done praising Tiger for the imaginative short course at his Mexico project.

The Possibilities Are Endless...- Forget Cypress Point, mark your calendars for this epic showdown:

A fifth major has been added to the 2017 schedule.

Ok, not really. But if you're a golf fan, you do have something big to look forward to

during next year's offseason. In what's being called the Birdies and Beer Shootout on Twitter, John Daly and Andrew 'Beef' Johnston have accepted Steven Bowditch and Boo Weekley's challenge to go head-to-head in a charity match. 

We're not sure a match with this much star power has ever been assembled in the history of the game.

Well, except for this.... It's being billed as "Birdies, Beer and Beef", so would be good fun....

The tweets that led to this are all at the link.  The just better make sure the TV coverage includes wide-angle lenses.....

No One Said There Would be Math - How's this for a provocative header:

Have You Been Playing Match Play Incorrectly?

Poorly, for sure...  But what does he mean by incorrectly? 

In 53.1% of simulated matches, the lower handicap player won; the bias in winning percentage was greatest in the handicap difference range 4 to 10 where it exceeded 54% and least in the handicap difference range of 1 to 4 or greater than 20. 

Course hole handicaps corresponded neither to difficulty nor to the order in which holes differentiated scores of high- and low- handicappers. 

While 53.1% might not sound like a large bias, it corresponds to an “edge” of greater than 6% for the low handicapper. This exceeds the house edge in almost all casino games. Another way to think about this is that in 100 matches under the current handicap system, the lower handicap player would on average win 53 and the higher handicap player would win 47. Hence if they were better $10 per match, over 100 matches the low handicapper would on average win $60. Certainly one would expect better odds if he or she was going to wager on a match.

There's a lot to unpack here, as he's basically challenging the handicapping system, which is designed to be aspirational, as well as the way one individual course assigns handicap strokes.

If you've the time, it might intrigue one to think of the implications....

Incoming - The most famous hazard affecting a tee shot is to be hacker-proofed:

THE famous Old Course Hotel in St Andrews is to have a new golf-ball-proof roof fitted to stop stray shots damaging it. 

Bosses at the hotel have called in experts after they were spending more than £1,500 each week replacing slates damaged by errant balls. 

Every year, golfers who go to play the world-famous course fire shots that miss the fairway on the 17th hole, known as the “Road Hole”, and strike the roof of the popular hotel. 

The five-star resort has now hired Canadian company Euroshield Roofing to fit a new rubber roof to the top of the building.

What took so long?  Here's what the shot looks like:

The line is over the fence, specifically the second "O" in Old Course Hotel....  But most of us bail so far left that we play from the second fairway (if we're lucky).  But with bad golfers inclined to the slice, you can see where they take some hits....

And, amusingly but not surprisingly, when they clean their gutters it's to remove Pro-V1's....