MidweekMusings

Off to Sun Valley later this morning to watch nephew Zach in the Freestyle Junior Nationals in moguls.  Amazingly he also qualified for big-boy Nationals at Steamboat Springs the following week.

So, just a few items for you today, including some follow-up on yesterday's musings.

Your Honour - I seem to have gotten to the Muirfield vote story before Shack, a rarity for sure since he blogs at night.  His header will tell you where he's going with it:

Trumped! R&A Welcomes Muirfield Back Years Before The Club Admits A Woman Member

Let's deal first with the issue that I raised, when will women actually become Honourable?  

Of course, the real comedy comes from knowing it'll be years before we know if Muirfield even admitted a woman. From Alistair Tait's Golfweek.com story:

There is no timetable for women to join the club. In an official statement the club said: “The current waiting list for membership at Muirfield suggests that new candidates for membership, women and men, can expect to wait two to three years, or longer, to become a member of the club.”

Yup, though I'm guessing that an actual award of an Open will not be made until there's clarity that there will be women member(s) before the actual Open takes place.  

But, as the header implied, Geoff also thinks this has a further purpose:

That the R&A's Martin Slumbers welcomed their rivals back into The Open rota the moment a policy was changed and well before candidates from the other gender were even considered for membership, speaks to one thing and one thing only: the R&A is happily postponing a return to Trump Turnberry. 

Remember, Turnberry last hosted The Open in 2009 and has since undergone a fantastic renovation incorporating former Chief Inspector Architect Peter Dawson's design suggestions. In theory, the spectacular resort should be in line for the next likely open date in 2022.

perhaps, but the linkage might not be as strong as he implies....  Look, there's no question that Trump puts the governing bodies in and akward and unprecedented position, and that even pre-dates the politics thing.   I'll also remind the reader that there were always other reasons not to return to Turnberry, related to its relative remoteness and the resulting lower revenues.

But really, who can blame them for kicking the can down the road?

Worse Than I Imagined - Remember that precious WaPo correction to the article about the vandalism at Trump's LA golf club?  If not, just scroll down to yesterday's post.... 

Well, I nailed it!  Though catching the lamestream media in flagrante isn't up there with finding the Loch Ness monster....  Here's the amazing original version of that story:

California environmental activists vandalized one of Donald Trump’s golf courses is Los Angeles over the weekend. A video uploaded to YouTube shows a small group sneaking onto the course at night and carving a message into one of the greens which read, “No more tigers, no more woods.” While the vandalism itself is noteworthy, perhaps equally significant is the response of the Washington Post. The Post published a news story whose opening line read, “A group of environmental activists pulled off a daring act of defiance.”

Defiance?  OK, I think I have it....  Trespassing + Vandalism = Defiance.  Though I'm gonna go way out on a limb and guess that formula only obtains when the guy in the White House has an "R" after his name....

Remember the very specific nature of the correction:

Editor’s note: The beginning of this story was changed to more accurately reflect the nature of the actions taken by a protest group against the Trump golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

And what of your reporter that racked his brain for the appropriate noun and came up with defiance?  Any ramifications for that bit of.....what shall we call it?   Not journalism, for sure....

Alan, Still En Fuego - A few years ago, firend-of-the-blog Mark W. and I conspired on a golf reading list for a young man who had inquired of his elders.  It was a fun little endeavor, though I wish I had kept a copy for myself....

Anyway, Alan Shipnuck's poorly-titled weekly mailbag feature continues to amuse, particularly with this query:

“Best golf books beside yours?” –Noe (@EntourageNEA)

Alan answered this on an airplane, without his sagging bookshelf to scan.... and sorry, but it's a long list:

Down the Fairway, by Bobby Jones. He was such a graceful writer and this memoir is a guided tour through some of the greatest golf ever played and the brutal toll it took on the author. 

Men In Green, by Michael Bamberger. A delightful jaunt around the golf world as Bamby visits the game’s most compelling personalities. 

The Bogey Man, by George Plimpton. Every other attempt at participatory journalism pales next to this one, and it’s an intimate look at the bygone Tour. 

To the Linksland, by Michael Bamberger. The first half of the book is an inside-the-ropes account of life on the Euro tour when it was populated by larger-than-life characters; the second half is the ultimate love letter to Scottish golf. 

The Big Miss, by Hank Haney and Jaime Diaz. The best thing that’s ever been written about Tiger Woods.

His Father’s Son, by Tom Callahan. The second best things that’s ever been written about Tiger. No one was closer to Earl than the author, and there is tons of insight here. 

Dead Solid Perfect, by Dan Jenkins. A little dated but still laugh-out-lound funny in many places. 

The Dogged Victims of Inexorable Fate, by Dan Jenkins. There are numerous anthologies of Jenkins’s work, but this is the best, capturing his incredible versatility and the game’s golden era.

The Golf Omnibus, by P.G. Wodehouse. The ultimate satirist poking fun at the most absurd of pastimes. 

The Confidential Guide, by Tom Doak. The most insightful batch of bitchy course reviews ever put on paper. 

Ancestral Links, by John Garrity. There is no more graceful voice than Garrity’s, and this is an evocative ode the game, its roots and his. 

True Links, by George Peper & Malcolm Campbell. My favorite coffee table book – golf porn on every page and a truly useful guide for planning pilgrimages. 

The Match, by Mark Frost. A story so good you couldn’t make it up, even if Frost did in a few places.

Who’s Your Caddy, by Rick Reilly. Inside the ropes with many of the game’s biggest names, providing endless material for Reilly’s witticisms. 

Around the World in 18 Holes, by Dave Kindred and Tom Callahan. I love golf travelogues and these two acerbic tour guides make it all the more fun. 

Slaying the Tiger, by Shane Ryan. There has been a strange dearth of Tour-centric books in recent years, but Ryan ably filled the void with strong reporting and keep observations. 

Golf Dreams, by John Updike. Enjoyable musings by a giant of American letters; worth buying just for the classic tale “Farrell’s Caddie.” 

Uneven Lies: The Heroic Story of African-Americans in Golf, by Pete McDaniel. An essential telling, filled with passion and detail. 

Train, by Pete Dexter. A gritty, gripping novel in which a key protagonist is a mysterious caddie with an awesome gift. 

Every Shot Counts, by Mark Broadie. The author has led the statistical revolution that has transformed how we watch, and think about, golf.

Alister MacKenzie’s Cypress Point Club, by Geoff Shackelford. Worth it just for the gorgeous black-and-white photos, but Shack does a great job bringing the good Dr. to life, along with his ultimate creation. 

A Good Walk Spoiled, by John Feinstein. A detailed, intimate look at the Tour in the days just before Tiger.

Did he list the best golf books, or every golf book?

Fun list for sure, and I might need to circle back to Train, with which I'm not familiar....

What seems to be missing is the Scottish history of the game, notably Tommy's Honour and The Spirit of St. Andrews.  

I'd also have all of Mark Frost's books on the list, as they're very easy points of entry into golf history.

But it's just good fun....

Quick Hits - As I mentioned, I got the heck out of Dodge and moved my flight back to Utah up a day....  But perhaps these guys had the right idea:

Sorry, but I hate seeing them out there without helmets....  Safety first.

Have you seen Rickie's new kicks?

My second favorite King tribute yet, mostly because it's Rickie....  Remember that when he decided that he couldn't play the API last year he drove up to have lunch with and tell Arnie personally....

Here's my favorite tribute:

But for now let's table those concerns and celebrate the best thing about winning this

year's API: the red alpaca sweater going to the winner that Dave Shedloski reported. I confirmed today--only pinning down the toughest stories--that this is a permanent API change. 

Finally a tournament loses the winner's sport coat! 

We all associate the red cardigan sweater with Arnold Palmer, but many of us don't know the full story on alpaca and how Palmer changed the way these animals were bred and raised. 

While he endorsed and had a licensing deal with Robert Bruce Clothing, Palmer's love of the sweaters inadvertently changed Peruvian alpacas due to his preference, as alpaca breeder Mike Safley explained to Modern Farmer's Andrew Amelinckx:

“It revolutionized color in the highlands of Peru because you couldn’t dye black fiber pink, so they had to have white alpacas to get the pastel colors to make these sweaters,” Safley says. “Within ten years it changed from being 90 percent colored animals to 90 percent white because they bred exclusively for white. That color mix still holds today.”

Wow!  That's so cool....

I could go on, but am going to wrap it up here and focus on getting on the road.