Midweek Musings - Open Edition

I just turned on Golf Channel and it seems to be a fine day in Southport....Not the weather we were promised at all....

Shack's got more In The Mood videos for us, including Finchie's moment in the sun:

Shocking what became of the Aussie after this stellar weekend performance in '91.

And young Justin:

Though, to be fair, after one has seen the Lego version, this seems a bit derivative....

Michael Bamberger has a history lesson about The King:

The 1961 British Open at Royal Birkdale, on the west coast of England, began on July 9, 1960, in St. Andrews, Scotland. The '60 Open came 100 years after the first Open, and it

was Arnold Palmer’s inaugural appearance in golf's oldest championship. With a local caddie, Tip Anderson, on his bag, Arnold finished one shot behind the winner, Kel Nagle of Australia. 

Maybe that was for the best. The British galleries fell for Arnold, and he fell for them, for their grand championship -- and for links golf. (It suited him, with his ability to hit line-drive tee shots and irons.) By July 1961, Palmer had already won the U.S. Open. He had already won twice at Augusta. The PGA Championship was a nice event, but the Open was the one he wanted. He had vowed, to himself and to others, that he would come back and get it. 

Ben Hogan had played in only one British Open, in 1953, but he had won it. Sam Snead had played in only one British Open, in 1946, but he had won it, too. (Later, in '62, Snead played his second and last Open.) A year and three days after his painful loss at the Old Course, Arnold was at it again, Tip Anderson by his side, trying to get his name on the old jug, alongside Hogan and Snead and Bobby Jones, and Harry Vardon and Bobby Locke and Gary Player.

Give it a read for some wonderful Henry Longhurst and another rules issue where Arnie distinguished himself.  I tend to think that the revitalization of The Open Championship would have inevitably happened in any event, but there's little doubt that The King accelerated it.

This seems kind of dodgy, though:

SOUTHPORT, England – The decree came down from the R&A on Tuesday at Royal

Birkdale: No shortcuts at this Open Championship. 

Specifically, the R&A put a stop to a trend it saw developing during Monday’s practice round: players hitting their tee shots from the ninth tee down the 10th fairway. This strategy allowed players to avoid the dogleg right on the ninth hole. The alternative route gives players a look at the ninth green with wedge, rather than a short iron. 

The R&A’s chief referee, David Rickman, released a notice announcing the new local rule on Tuesday: “When playing the ninth hole only, a ball on or beyond the 10th fairway (defined by the edge of the closely-mown area) is out of bounds.” 

There will be no white stakes or lines used to define or indicate this boundary, according to the notice.

 Lon Hinkle was unavailable for comment..... 

And while this is deja vu all over again, it actually makes sense here:

SOUTHPORT, England – Phil Mickelson is at it again. In his attempt to win his second British Open and earn his first Tour victory since 2013, the world’s 26th-ranked player is

ditching his driver this week at Royal Birkdale. 

According to Golf Channel, Mickelson will not use a driver and instead will opt to have a 64-degree wedge in his bag. For tee shots, he will rely on the Callaway Phrankenwood he used during his 2013 Open win at Muirfield, as well as a low-spin 3-iron. The Phrankenwood is essentially a prototype 2-wood that Callaway says reduces spin and helps Mickelson produce a flatter shot shape. 

While the 250-cubic centimeter, stainless steel clubhead is just more than half the size of modern 460-cc drivers, Callaway said in 2013 that the club has 8.5 degrees of loft, equivalent to a low-lofted driver.

The return of the Phrankenwood, way cool!  Just a couple of caveats....  For this to work, Phrank needs to be up to the task of the two Par-5's on the back side.  And that, ultimately, will be dependent upon the wind and perhaps the rain.  

As for that 64-degree wedge, it will no doubt be of the low-bounce variety....

Golfweek gear-head Dave Dusek informs us that it's not only Phil:

Rory McIlroy is not going to be mistaken for Chris Hemsworth, the actor who plays

Thor in the Marvel superhero movies, but the 28-year-old from Northern Ireland also swings a seemingly magical hammer. 

He debuted the club, a TaylorMade Tour Preferred UDI 1-iron fitted with a Project X HZRDUS Black shaft, on the day he announced he had signed an endorsement deal with TaylorMade at the Players Championship in May. 

The former top-ranked player in the world rocketed one ball after another on the range at TPC Sawgrass on the eve of the tournament. Contrasting with his driver shots that soar high into the air, these were low bullets that came to rest about 280 yards away. 

On firm courses with frequent strong winds, a club that produces low shots with lots of ball speed can be a round-saver. In years past, pros would reacquaint themselves with driving irons in early July as they prepared for the British Open.

Everything old is new again.  It's a very useful weapon for these guys in the right conditions, but they need to hit it straight.

He's Baaack, with another edition of The Chronicles of Na:

Na's Instagram video from Tuesday at the site of this year's Open Championship has a simple caption: "STAY AWAY FROM THE BUNKERS!"

Click the link to watch the video, but here's a screenshot of it:

Good advice for sure, even when you get a normal stance....  But, unlike at Erin Hills, the R&A will not be following Kevin on Instagram.

So, this bit about the last seven majors being won by first-timers?  That Jordan guy was asked about it, and had some thoughts:

“I think there's a lot more guys who haven't won majors than guys who have that are playing, so the chances are it is going to be somebody that hasn't won one,” he said (so far so good). “But it's very difficult to do the first time. Just mentally it's that much harder than winning a tournament in general. And those are very difficult to win. 

“I think it's a really impressive stat and it speaks to the state of the game. There are a lot of tremendous young players right now. And then you've got guys like Henrik (Stenson) and Dustin (Johnson). They are still young, but they have been around in contention many, many times - and sooner or later it was going to happen for them. And it did. It was just a matter of time for them.”

Fair enough, though not exactly rocket science.....  This as well:

“It could be anybody this week,” he continued. “At this tournament it tends to fall on half the field. You kind of cut half the field, depending on the draw. Sometimes it's more

or less 75 percent. But most of the time there's at least a group that gets the worst weather. And it's almost impossible to win in that circumstance at an Open Championship. So nothing you can do about that other than keep your head down, play as well as you can, and see what happens after two days.” 

All of which seems to make perfect sense. Until you look back to 2008 and the last Open at Royal Birkdale. On the opening day that year, the morning wave got by far the worst of the conditions - driving wind and heavy rain. And, what do you know? One of those out in that awful weather was a guy called Padraig Harrington who, three days later, was crowned “champion golfer of the year.”

As William Goldman famously said about the movies, "Nobody knows anything".  

But Derek Lawrenson goes off the deep end with this header:

The Open at Royal Birkdale is wide open... it's most certainly not like the closed shop at Wimbledon every year

Well, duh, they're very different games....  I don't even feel the need for an excerpt, it's so blindingly obvious.  The NFL plays a 16-game schedule, whereas MLB  plays 162 games.... Why might that be?

I'm not sure whether Southport is technically considered Merseyside, but it's close enough for this reminiscence of the Fab Foursome being silly on a golf course in, of all places, Indianapolis:

And Alex Myers ventures into Liverpool for his Magical Mystery Tour:

After doing some research, I settled on something actually called the Magical Mystery

Tour, which starts at a bus stop that's about a 10 minute walk from Liverpool's main train station (It's a 40-minute train ride from Royal Birkdale, the site of this week's British Open). For about $20 (£15.95) I bought a ticket for the two-hour trip on this bad boy:

And off we went with our fantastic -- and appropriately named -- guide, Paul. We pulled up to Penny Lane under a blue, suburban sky with "Penny Lane" blaring over the bus' speaker:

We covered similar ground on our 2010 trip, visiting the Cavern Club:

Part of it is on the original site.  We also had a short visit with the tragic Eleanor Rigby:

Of course, this was before she died in the church and was buried along with her name...Had we been in town, we'd have come.

Udder Stuff - A few quick notes unrelated to Birkdale.

That LPGA Dress Code, a Dissenting Opinion - I actually have a correction, but see what you think of this criticism from The Guardian:

The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) has come in for stiff criticism after it introduced a new dress code that forbids female golfers from sporting plunging 

Michelle, are you now or have you ever been a slut?

necklines, leggings or revealing skirts on the course. 

Initial reactions were overwhelmingly negative, with Teen Vogue accusing the governing body’s policy of “slut-shaming” female players. The progressive and influential youth magazine also said the code sets players and women in general “way back”. 

As of 17 July, the LPGA will crack down on athletic wear following a 2 July email to all players from LPGA player president Vicki Goetze-Ackerman, which detailed an extensive list of clothing that will no longer be allowed on course and at pro-am parties on the tour.

Slut-shaming?  When you've lost Teen Vogue, you've lost the country....  Before we move on, I'd like to note that this dress code was dropped two weeks ago, not during the U.S. Open as I previously thought.  

Here are the specifics, amusing in their own right:

Racerback with a mock or regular collar are allowed (no collar = no

racerback) 

Plunging necklines are NOT allowed. 

Leggings, unless under a skort or shorts, are NOT allowed 

Length of skirt, skort, and shorts MUST be long enough to not see your bottom area (even if covered by under shorts) at any time, standing or bent over. 

Appropriate attire should be worn to pro-am parties. You should be dressing yourself to present a professional image. Unless otherwise told “no,” golf clothes are acceptable. Dressy jeans are allowed, but cut-offs or jeans with holes are NOT allowed.

Workout gear and jeans (all colours) NOT allowed inside the ropes 

Joggers are NOT allowed

 Bottom area?  Just to be clear, these rules are fortunately not binding on Paulina Gretzky.....

More Ladies Stuff - I had previously grabbed some excerpts from this Alan Shipnuck item on The Women's Open, yanno the Christina Kim "side-boob' bit.  But I reread it and aren't thse two items a bit in conflict?

2. Setting everything else aside, the sitting President of the United States spent 2.5 days

at a women's golf event and sent a half dozen tweets about it that were beamed around the world. Pretty amazing.

4. If you love women's golf, as I do, it was dispiriting that the biggest tournament of the year had to deal with a series of unsavory headlines: the crude words about women in the past by the man whose name graces the club that held the event; the death of Hootie Johnson, which disinterred all the old unpleasantness surrounding the eight decades of Augusta National all-male membership practices; and all the conversation surrounding the LPGA's new dress code. The guidelines about clothing had been emailed to LPGA members a couple of weeks ago and it was bad luck that the news leaked during the Open. Among the players there was a wide divergence of opinion.

I don't see where you can have it both ways, Alan...  

The Beeb Back in Play -  Concerned that your Euro friends won't be able to see the wet golf shirts at Quail Hollow?  Rest assured, they'll not miss a minute of Shane Lowry or Carl Pettersen:

The BBC won the race for live UK coverage of the US PGA Championship in a shock deal which could be announced before the end of this week. This marks a potentially

seismic shift for golf, amid an earlier fear that interest in the sport would be damaged by an apparent permanent shift away from terrestrial broadcasting.

The Guardian revealed last week that Sky Sports had lost live rights to the final major of the year after talks broke down with the PGA of America. The tournament organisers promised a “multi platform” alternative but at least an element of live television coverage was also always likely. 

Sky was embarrassed by news breaking of their US PGA scenario days after it announced the forthcoming unveiling of a dedicated golf channel. Should the BBC confirm its US PGA deal in Open week, further red faces will ensue at Sky.

Now it cause quite the kerfuffle when the R&A moved their contract to Sky, it being a pay channel and all.  But eerily reminiscent of the USGA's unprovoked broadside against NBC, these comments seem unwise:

Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the R&A, has taken a swipe at the BBC by criticising “tired and outdated” golf coverage by the terrestrial channel. Slumbers’ comments are especially pertinent with the final major of the year, the US PGA Championship, on the verge of reverting to the corporation for live UK coverage after the PGA of America opted not to renew a deal with Sky Sports. 

This year’s Open Championship, which begins on Thursday, will be the second to be shown live on Sky. The 2016 tournament at Royal Troon suffered a huge decline in television audience, including 75% on the previous year’s final round, which to many endorsed negativity towards the R&A for taking the Open away from the BBC.

“We’re not uncomfortable at all,” said Slumbers. “In fact, we are very happy with our partnerships. 

“I think when we moved last year we took what was frankly a fairly tired and outdated broadcast, turned it into absolutely world class and raised the whole level of the way it was shown. I think that was a combination and a partnership of those organisations with the R&A that has truly improved how people are watching golf.

That loss of 75% of the audience only seems bad, but Martin "golden" Slumbers has this cheery note:

“A testament to that was that [the Open coverage] won a Bafta for sport. They were up against the BBC’s coverage of the Olympics and Paralympics, and also the Six Nations. So I think that was a fantastic testament to what we did last year at Royal Troon, and really shows what you can do with TV. We’re building on that this year.”

That electric duel between Phil and Henrik Stenson lost 75% of its viewers but it beat the paralympics....  Well played, Sir!

Is This News? - I'm undecided, you make the call:

For the first time since entering the Official World Golf Ranking, Tiger Woods is not a

top 1,000 golfer in the world. 

Woods dropped 17 spots in the latest OWGR update Monday, falling from No. 987 to No. 1,005. This is the lowest Woods has ever been ranked in the OWGR, and his initial week outside the top 1,000. 

The 41-year-old made his first appearance in the OWGR after finishing T-34 (as an amateur) at the 1994 Johnnie Walker Classic. He was 730th after that week. He actually dropped to No. 875 by the following April before a T-41 finish (still as an amateur) at the Masters jumped him up to No. 612. 

Anyway, the point is that Woods has never been this low in the rankings – even in his amateur days on the pro circuit. Of course, that happens when you’re not playing much.

Math is hard.  If it's news, it's only because it reinforces how little he's played in the last two years....But it should have come sooner, as this remains quite the outrage:

He was 257th following the 2015 Wyndham Championship but then had a 16-month absence from competitive golf. Woods returned in December 2016 at the Hero World Challenge, coming in at No. 898 in the OWGR, and had a promising 15th-place finish that rocketed him 248 spots to No. 650.

Got that?  He moved up 248 places for finishing 15th in an 18 player field, and one of those actually withdrew....