Thursday Threads

A little of this, a little of that.....

Today's Controversy - here's a bit from the straight news story:

A topic once thought of as fantasy fodder for watercooler debate is set to become a reality for Steph Curry.

Curry—who carries a 2 handicap—will compete among the pros in the Web.com tour's Ellie Mae Classic in early August as a sponsor’s exemption, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle. The event, which benefits the Warriors Community Foundation, takes place Aug. 3-6 at TPC Stonebrae, just east of San Francisco.

And one last bit before we get to the opining part....

As the Chronicle pointed out, former 49ers receiver Jerry Rice played in the event three times, performing miserably in comparison to the professionals.

I hate these stories because there's no easy right or wrong... 

Steph at least seems to understand that these guys are seriously good:

He played alongside Justin Thomas (now ranked No. 12 in the world) at Silverado Resort 

in October 2015, and with Harold Varner III (now No. 135) this past October. After the Varner round, Curry acknowledged the disparity between tour pros and accomplished amateurs.

“These guys are ridiculous,” he said. “Their misses are good shots for me. It’s just a different type of expectation. You see their ball flight and it’s something you’re not used to."

There's an old saying on Tour ranges that "Scratch ain't s**t", meaning that a guy with a zero index at his club wouldn't make cuts in professional events.   

Brentley Romine spends a few minutes on Twitter to present the obvious counter-point:

But after scrolling through Twitter, I quickly realized that not everyone was excited about the opportunity for an NBA champion and MVP to tee it up with pro golfers.

“Steph Curry, a 2.2 handicap, is getting a sponsor’s exemption into a Web event,” former Georgia standout Lee McCoy tweeted. “So many great players could use that chance. Sad.” 

Said PGA Tour player John Peterson: “So when is @ALoupe6 gonna get a start in a D league game??!? This is awful all around. Takes a spot from a pro trying to make it.”

 Shack makes the case for this invite, including the romance angle:

It's a debate that will forever dog the sport and has arisen since the days when Babe Didrickson, a priest and George Zaharias got LA Open sponsor's invites. (Didrickson later married Zaharias thanks to that round!)

The Ellie Mae Classic (July 31-Aug. 9) gets to invite any player they want with their exemptions, including college players like Maverick McNealy, who are also taking away a playing opportunity. For 2017 they've chosen a hometown global superstar and low single-digit handicapper that will bring enormous attention to a tournament that otherwise would have gone largely unnoticed. Yes, they probably reached too far when Jerry Rice played given his abilities, but Curry is a both a legitimate golfer (2.0 index) and at the height of his allure.

There is also an opportunity to highlight the Warriors Foundation, and while we should always suspicious of sports teams and their foundations, this one seems more active and player-supported than most.

Well, I believe that Steph is married, so any budding romance we'll consider a bug....

It's obvious that the event is trying to boost its profile, and the ties are strong enough for the attempt to be credible.  If successful, that increases purses and playing opportunities for all...  But the people making this decision are the same folks that invited Jerry Rice back two more times after he embarrassed himself....Not exactly confidence inspiring...

But I am legally required to call BS on Joel Beall, responding to Lee McCoy's twwet:

That includes Lee McCoy, who's been particularly vocal against Curry's inclusion. For the former Georgia Bulldog's highlight of his fledgling career was spurred by an invite to the 2016 Valspar Championship because, well, he grew up at Innisbrook. He ultimately proved his mettle, finishing T-4 as an amateur. However, a lot of viable, established tour veterans sat at home that week, and though McCoy may ultimately become a presence at golf's top level, he's failed to produce anything of note at the tour outside Copperhead. 

This is not to pick on McCoy (especially accounting for his off-the-course injury), and he boasts an exponentially-better golf pedigree than Curry. But, while golf is the ultimate meritocracy, the philosophy is not found in every aspect of the game. No matter the circuit, each event simply won't have the best x-amount of players in its field. Hell, a fourth of Masters' competitors don't have a shot at the green jacket, and that tournament seems to be doing just fine.

Excuse me Joel, it IS to pick on McCoy....  You seem to have a gripe against his exemption, on the strong grounds that it was only because of who he knew....  But he finished T4, so I'm gonna say that that was a great use of a sponsor's exemption....

The point is to acknowledge the high cost of granting an exemption, a scarce resource, to a golfer that can't possibly be competitive.  The bar should be extremely high and they should be used sparing for such purposes.

As for this from Brian Wacker, one wants to root for his name to be in the next round of layoffs:

Because it's so hard to understand guys fighting for survival bemoaning a wasted exemption....  Sheesh!  Write better, Brian.

Balls Said the Queen.... - Mike Bamberger with a radical proposal:

What is threatened by the modern golfer playing modern equipment is the sanctity and the identity of the four men's majors. There's talk of lengthening the iconic 13th hole at

Augusta National, so that it continues to be a meaningful risk-reward par-5. The course itself, with all the lengthening and tree-planting over the years, has lost its singular identity, as a sui generis inland links, over the past 30 years. The U.S. Open at Erin Hills, even when the course measured in the vicinity of 7,800 yards, played short. When British Opens are played on parched courses and windless conditions, players club the courses to death with irons off the tee. 

My proposal: The best minds at Augusta National, the USGA, the R&A and the PGA of America working with the top golf-ball manufacturers to produce a ball that would be used only in the majors. Maybe it would be a wound balata ball, I wouldn't pretend to know, but the basic goal can be easily stated: it maxes out at about 300 yards. That's it. The nutted three-wood in still conditions would max out at about 260.

There was a time when folks hoped that Augusta National would save us by using a lower-distance ball, the thinking being that they were the only folks in the game with the, please excuse me, the balls to do it.

But let's remember how different our game is, as it's the only one where the players bring their own balls.... Mike Davis has gone so far as to not rule such a possibility out, but there doesn't seem be close to enough belief that the game needs such a move.

Shack had an interesting take on this subject from the world of tennis:

It turns out, to the surprise of many close to the game, that men use different balls than

women during their Grand Slam tilts. 

According to the United States Tennis Association, the balls — manufactured by Wilson — are identical in every respect except for the yellow felt coating. 

“Men and women use the same ball in terms of size, pressure and design,” according to a USTA statement. “The sole difference is that the men compete with an extra-duty felt ball while the women compete using a regular-duty felt ball.”

But this slight difference can have huge effects on speed and ball action, experts says.

Everything old is new again, as I'm of such an age that I can remember that American players going to The Open Championship had to adjust to the smaller British golf ball....

But it's all idle chatter without governing bodies equipped with a spine....

If Millennials Hate Golf.... - From the press release:

Sports fans and concert-goers seeking pre- and post-event entertainment will soon be able to play Topgolf® once renovations of Philips Arena are complete for the 2018-19 season. The Topgolf Swing Suite – Topgolf's first permanent amenity in a major sports arena – will feature two Topgolf simulators, comfortable lounge seating, HDTVs and food and beverage service. 

"As we began to discuss transforming our arena into a premier sports and entertainment venue for next generation Atlantans, we realized there was no better potential partner than Topgolf," said Atlanta Hawks Basketball Club CEO Steve Koonin. "They provide a one-of-a-kind experience that appeals to millennials and people of all ages. We are thrilled that they will have a home in our arena."

Here's Shack's take:

What an interesting move for Topgolf and the Atlanta Hawks even if it's stated as a blatant millennial play. But hey, the M's love their Topgolf! Yay! 

However, I'm not sure sports fans need something else to distract them from the game on top of their phones. (That's precisely what two of them are looking at in the demo image of the Hawks Topgolf bay.) More encouraging though is the re-imagining of the amenities available at an arena, and that golf is being included.

But I had been reliably informed that golf is officially uncool....  Didn't Steph Curry get the memo?

At Monday's Met. Golf Writers Awards Dinner I sat with two employees of GolfZone, a Korean company preparing to roll out their simulator technology in the U.S.  I guess they as well didn't get the memo...

Not A Financial Genius - Phil Knight talks about Nike's role in the golf world.  This is the bit that's getting attention:

Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike Inc., was so enamored with a young Tiger Woods that the company began recruiting him three years before signing him to an endorsement deal at 20. 

“You could see him coming from way back,” Knight said in an interview on Bloomberg Television that airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. New York time. The young golfer would occasionally play in the the Portland area, near Nike’s headquarters, “and we’d always invite him and his father out to lunch.”

But this is the important part:

Woods went on to become the greatest golfer of his generation, and Nike sought to benefit by selling clubs and equipment. But even the celebrity of Woods and his legion of fans weren’t enough to make it break even, said Knight, who left the company’s boardlast year. Nike exited the category a year ago amid Woods’s fading star power and the sport’s declining popularity. 

“It’s a fairly simple equation, that we lost money for 20 years on equipment and balls,” Knight told interviewer David Rubenstein, host of “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.” “We realized next year wasn’t going to be any different.”

And why, praytell, did it take you twenty years to come to that rather startling conclusion?

I get the Tiger relationship, because .... well, it requires no explanation.  But that Rory contract seems particularly unwise....

Rio Dividends - Bill "Olympia" Fields drew the short straw, and is at that dreadful Chicago venue pimping women's golf:

"Golf was a massive success in Rio, and we're continuing to support having golf on the platform because it is a global sport," said board member Angela Ruggiero, a four-time

United States women's hockey Olympian who spoke Wednesday during the Women's Leadership Summit at the KPMG. "It has equal men and women in terms of [competitors]. So I think the IOC felt this is a no-brainer." 

Ko called the news an "amazing step forward," given her positive experience in Brazil.

"It was just great to be in that vibe of being alongside some of the other best athletes in the world, not just in golf," Ko said. "You never really get to meet all these people in sailing or shot put. It the biggest range of sports." 

Whan said he believes that the number of elite golfers from an increasing number of nations -- 45 countries were represented at 2016 LPGA Q School, compared to 26 in 2015 -- is rooted in part to the October 2009 announcement that golf was going to be played in the Olympics, which caused many countries to invest in the sport.

A massive success?  That's just a tad hyperbolic....

It always made sense that the Olympics would be more important to the ladies, because they have the far greater need for the exposure....  The problem with the back-patting is that it takes the pressure off to improve the format and increase the field size...We all remember the Dream Team in B-ball, but after the novelty of the first wore off, it became quite boring...

But this is the more significant news from Chicago:

That's great....  But how in God's name did the PGA of America not have a women's event until three years ago and avoid being cast as misogynists?  Oh, and can you please put a bit more thought into your choice of venues....

Shark Sighting - We love our topless Shark photos more than life itself, so you'll know I was intrigued by this post from Shack (need to type very carefully to distinguish Shark vs. Shack):

Because this is a family website, I won't be embedding the Living Brand's latest Instagram post, but let's just say, it really, uh, covers, the state of the brand.

This doozy came after several weeks of fairly textbook brand-building posts for the living icon: Greg fixing a Range Rover flat tire flashing some bicep, Greg drinking booze, Greg congratulating maybe-buds George Clooney/Rande Gerber on the Casamigos sale, Greg in the gym, Greg fixing heavy equipment, etc... 

More disturbing: the shot of Shark shooting this on his phone, but opting for a different angle from someone else. Quite a production for something that no proper horse owner would dare shoot or promote. That's your living brand!

I'm not on Instagram because I'm 62 years old, but I do maintain my Google account.  So, what the heck is Shack not linking to:

This one seems appropriate:

But perhaps we have a winner:

I don't want to know....