Tuesday Tidbits

A slow week for sure, but that Conway Farms buzz should hit any day now...

Walker Cup Afterthoughts - Some folks are never happy... No sooner do we begin the discussion of the lack of drama in the Prez Cup, than this homer bemoans the predictability of the Walker Cup:

LOS ANGELES – Nothing in golf is more predictable than recent Walker Cup matches. The home team almost always wins. 

The match at Los Angeles Country Club was further proof. Home teams have won eleven of the last 13 matches. You have to go back to 2007 to find the last away win, when the United States beat a Rory McIlroy-led Great Britain & Ireland team at Royal County Down. Sixteen years ago was GB&I’s last away win, just their second in the match’s history. 

On both occasions it took fantastic sides to win. 

Before I’m inundated with hate mail, I’m not taking anything away from this U.S. team. It was by far the better side, and I fully salute its superior victory.

 Eleven of thirteen doesn't exactly blow me away, but here's Mr. Tait's diagnosis:

However, the 19-7 score line isn’t reflective of the strength of the two teams. This GB&I team wasn’t a bad team, just as the 2015 U.S. team wasn’t a bad team. The GB&I boys just couldn’t get to grips with the conditions at Los Angeles Country Club. Neither could the 2015 U.S. team handle Royal Lytham. Lytham is one of the toughest tracks in the British Isles, one the GB&I players compete on every year in the Lytham Trophy. No wonder they felt at home. 

Unfortunately, they looked like range balls amid a basket of brand new balatas at LA CC. 

“It is quite a shock to the system when they come and play on a course like this,” GB&I captain Andy Ingram said.

Really?  It's not like they don't have plenty of parkland courses in GB&I, but LACC seemed to be running pretty firm and fast.  Yanno, the kind of track where it gets most interesting after the ball hits the ground...

I'll also note that GB&I Captain Andrew Ingram noted that the course was perhaps too long for his players....  perhaps they should coordinate their stories?

But I think this has it only half-right.  The U.S. squads tend to be stronger and deeper, but that advantage is mitigated in away games by their lack of familiarity with links golf.  Our Official Fact Check of this item determines it to be Half-True.

Shack has a fun item on the use of club caddies for the week:

While Miller redefined the increasingly silly spectacle of high-profile captain cart

driving by staying in the background during a 19-7 thrashing of Great Britain & Ireland, there was really no cooler component than the unusual matchmaking of Walker Cup players and the home-course caddies. 

Instead of being allowed to bring their own sidekicks, the 20 Walker Cup players are assigned a local caddie to prevent any kind of stacking of local-knowledge bias.

“I think it’s a great thing we do,” Miller said. “The caddiemaster here assigns the caddies that he feels are the best, and it’s a reward.” 

Besides a nice stipend of $1,200 and multiple gifts, the Walker Cup caddies this year got a chance to be needled by a former President and even got cell phone pictures taken of them by the members who normally are asking them for yardages. There is also the obvious added cache of becoming a former Walker Cup caddie, no doubt a brand-builder at a place like Los Angeles Country Club, where the club oozed with pride hosting the event. 

Ultimately though, this crash-course in bonding is about the rapid-fire relationship they must build with a young player who they must guide around a course the caddies know, while also helping the lads with the inevitable Walker Cup nerves.

And he used the blog to post more pictures.  Good stuff.

Top 100 Aftermath - I know, they're pimping the hell out of the silly rankings, but Travelin' Joe has five courses that will likely (per Joe) make the list in two years, including this one on the come:

2. Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley Resort (Nekoosa, Wis.)

Sand Valley's second 18 looms large for 2018. Designed by David McLay Kidd, the 

The Par-3 16th.

aptly named Mammoth Dunes sits on a massive, 620-acre plot. It features more dramatic terrain than the resort's namesake track (U.S., No. 52), including an 80-foot, V-shaped ridge that gives rise to Ballybunion-like sandhills. At press time, nine holes had opened for preview play, a tease of things to come.

Fair enough, but it's our old friend Joe, so you know he'll have us scratching our head and wondering what his point is.  He also includes Hogs Head, a new links (presumably, though he can't be bothered to clarify that) near Waterville on the Ring of Kerry.

But he also includes some old, familiar tracks, such as Quail Hollow and Royal Aberdeen, for reasons that escape me.  The former unveiled three new holes for the PGA Championship, though the reaction from overseas seemed rather negative.  As for Royal Aberdeen, it's a first-class links that narrowly missed making the list, but again it's a know quantity.  I actually agree with Joe that it should be ranked more highly, but my World Top 100 would be mostly links in any event.

Biased Much? - Golf.com seems intent to go full-ESPN on us, though that hasn't exactly worked out for ESPN.  Here's the subject matter, another of my seamless segues at which the reader can marvel:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A tiny airport in central Wisconsin that's seen an influx of

private jets since a Republican donor's world-class golf course opened nearby would get $4 million in improvements under funding slipped into the state budget this week. 

The Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee approved the funding after the developer of the Sand Valley Golf Resort, Mike Keiser, donated $25,000 to the state Republican Party in February, records reviewed by The Associated Press show.

That donation was three weeks after Gov. Scott Walker released his budget without funding for Wisconsin Rapids' Alexander Field. Keiser has given at least $65,000 to Walker and Wisconsin Republicans since 2012.

Wow, you make that sound so.....well, dirty.

Upon further review, this is actually an AP wire story, and that makes it all make sense, especially this plaintive whine:

"It sure looks like Mr. Keiser's campaign contributions to Scott Walker and Republicans teed up millions in taxpayer-funded improvements to help bring corporate jet ferried golfers to his Wisconsin courses," said Mike Browne with the liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now. "Meanwhile the rest of us will continue to have to deal with crumbling roads and bridges and delayed projects as these same Republicans take a budget mulligan and refuse to fix the state transportation funding crisis."

For those few able to go deep into the story, there was this bit of actual journalism contained therein:

The state Department of Transportation had planned to pay for the airport upgrades in 2021, but it would be moved up to this year to meet the demand caused by the added air traffic due to the golf course, Krug said. 

"It would be rare to see a private jet before the Sand Valley course opened," he said. "Now you have six to eight private jets sitting out there on any given day."

You might recall that a few months ago we had a local news account of the infrastructure challenges to feeding the visitors to this large new resort.  There's money to be made for the state, but not if the folks can't get there...

I'd also prefer to live in a world where a Mike Keiser could build a huge resort without making a contribution to the local representative, but that's not the world in which we live.  It's a laughably small amount, and the representative in question isn't even on their budget committee, though he does represent the district in which the resort is located.  But no doubt the state made commitments to Keiser to support his investment, and there's nothing facially wrong with that.

And given that Keiser has long resided in Chicago and made his name in The People's Republic of Oregon, how likely is it that he's even a Rethuglican?

Your Voice Has Been Heard - Or not, as the case may be:

The governing bodies wanted feedback. Boy, did they get feedback. 

In March, as part of their ongoing effort to simplify the Rules of Golf, the USGA and R&A put forth a preview of proposed revisions to those rules, along with a request for input from golfers around the world. 

That six-month feedback period is now over, and this much is clear: the golf-loving public had a lot to say. 

All told, more than 22,000 golfers from 102 countries offered their two-cents on the proposed rules changes. Most of their feedback came through an online survey, conducted jointly by the governing bodies. But there were also phone calls, letters, texts and tweets, as well as input from golfers who played under the proposed new rules in test-run tournaments held by regional golf associations.

One of my fellow members at Fairview sent an e-mail with two concerns, and received a substantive response from the USGA.  He objected to leaving the rule regarding sand-filled divots as is, and the answering e-mail actually took the trouble to explain their reasoning....  Good for them doing that.

Though Pagel said it was too early to provide a detailed account of the public feedback, he said that much of the input touched on proposed changes focused on the putting green (fixing spike marks, for instance, or allowing putting with the flagstick left in the hole). There was also ample interest in rules changes related to penalty areas (such as eliminating the penalty for moving loose impediments), and oodles of feedback on new dropping procedures.

Yeah, that's not a good look....

Maybe Like You -  This is a classic of the genre of angry golfers, interesting for three reason.  The first is the header:

WATCH: Frustrated golfer is just like us, chucks all of his clubs in lake

While I admit to running hot on the golf course, my answer is in my own header.  here's a screen grab of the video:

Admittedly, that's an epic toss, though I can't quite discern if it's the full fourteen.

The second note is that the video comes from Josh Scobee, former NFL placekicker and noted good stick.

But here's the best part:

According to Scobee, it was a golfer in his club championship this weekend. We will guess one too many double bogeys led to this series of events. Check out the video below.

OMG, it was in their club championship!  Priceless!

RIP -  OK, this segue isn't quite as smooth as the prior example, but a loss with a golf connection:

Don Ohlmeyer, whose influential television career ranged from producing ABC’s “Monday Night Football” during its 1970s heyday to guiding NBC to No. 1 in prime

time two decades later on the strength of programs like “Seinfeld” and “ER,” died on Sunday in Indian Wells, Calif. He was 72. 

His family said in a statement that the cause was cancer. 

Mr. Ohlmeyer, a cocksure, creative personality, was well known to NBC when it hired him in 1993 to resurrect its entertainment division. After a decade as a disciple to Roone Arledge, the president of ABC Sports, Mr. Ohlmeyer had left to be executive producer of NBC Sports, then formed his own company, Ohlmeyer Communications, to produce sports and entertainment programs. 

Promised autonomy by Bob Wright, the president of NBC, Mr. Ohlmeyer evaluated the network’s prime-time assets: “Seinfeld” and “Law & Order” were not yet hits, “Cheers” was in its final season, and “L.A. Law” was no longer a powerhouse.

Ohlmeyer is credited with the slogan "Must See-TV" as well.  here's the golf connection:

Don Ohlmeyer was a television legend, the original producer of Monday Night Football, whose impact on the medium extended even to golf. The Skins Game was his

brainchild. 

“His idea was ridiculed at every turn,” Skip Myslenski wrote in the Chicago Tribune in 1987, four years after the advent of the Skins Game. “Golf just cannot compete with football during November, he was constantly told, and with that each of the major networks refused to carry his creation and ushered him to the door.” 

So he and partner Barry Frank decided to stage the event themselves and bought the time on NBC. They were facing a million-dollar loss, until advertisers at the 11th hour signed on. 

It was played at Desert Highlands in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Saturday and Sunday of Thanksgiving Day weekend, nine holes each day. The players were Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson, with Vin Scully anchoring the telecast. It was an instant success.

It was fun, until it wasn't...  Best part was Watson calling out Player for his cheating....RIP.

Intentional or Inadvertent? - You make the call....  here's the item:

Tiger Woods has won three U.S. Opens, and he was in attendance at one Friday. Well, the tennis one that is. 

The 41-year-old showed up to the year’s final major in tennis in Rafael Nadal’s box as the Spaniard took on Juan Martin del Potro in the semifinals. As Nadal took care of his opponent in four sets to advance to the final, Woods viewed it all from the third row of Nadal’s box.

Presumably he would have been in good buddy Feds' box had the desired match-up come about, but who cares?  

But it's the photo that I like most:

How long do we think the photographer waited to get the two peroxide blondes, including Tiger's leer at the closer one?  Not that there's anything wrong with that....  (note segue to Must See TV!).