Midweek Musings

We emptied the trash in yesterday's post, so just a few odds and ends for you today.

The Long and Short of It - Par-3 courses, Short Courses if you will, are all the rage these days, the latest at that most traditional of resorts:

PINEHURST, N.C. — The famed Pinehurst Resort often still refers to itself as the The Cradle of American Golf. Now, the century-old resort is going back to its golfing roots

with The Cradle short course, a tribute to its founder and considerable golfing history. 

A Gil Hanse design that debuted earlier this month, The Cradle occupies land where resort founder James Walker Tufts had the first holes built by a local designer more than a century ago. The nine-holer adds up to all of 789 yards, with yardages ranging from 56 to a meaty 127. Scruffy bunkering, wire grass and saucer-like greens, the same features that test golfers on Pinehurst's famed No. 2 course, ensure the layout is no pushover, yet it's still wholly playable for all abilities and ages. 

In fact, two holes-in-one were made in the opening days—one by a teenager, another by a player in his 80s.

What's not to love about this?  Especially at a place like Pinehurst, where guests have all sorts of time to spend, presumably after their rounds perhaps with an adult beverage.  In a GMTA moment, the Resort has that contingency covered:

The resort plans to park a wood-paneled vintage drink cart at a well-traveled area of the

course — near the 3rd green, 4th tee, 8th green and 9th tee — where beverages of all varieties and potency will be available. Green fees are $50 for resort guests and include all-day play (and a nifty carry bag, courtesy of Seamus Golf). Kids 17 and under play for free when with an adult.

But do you remember those standardized tests from your youth?  One form of question was to pick the item that does not belong on a list....  perhaps we should treat this 'graph as such a query, identifying the name that doesn't belong:

"Our goal wasn't shot values or extensive routing, but just creating a fun course, and I think we did that," said Hanse, who designed the course with his partner Jim Wagner, and who will now begin a year-long redesign on Pinehurst's No. 4. "To work at the same facility as (architects) Donald Ross, Tom Fazio, Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore and so many others was a great pleasure."

C'mon, Gil, you can tell us what you really think of Fazio's work....Please!

The great Jaime Diaz also visited The Cradle, and pens this ode to shortness:

The Cradle follows a trend of alternative course openings in 2017, with the new Jordan Spieth-backed six-hole course at the University of Texas, Tom Doak’s 12-hole par 3 at

Ballyneal, and Dan Hixson nine-hole pitch-and-putt at Silvies Valley Ranch. 

You may note a bias toward par 3s in my commentary. Like a lot of guys my age, my first rounds were on scruffy short courses, in my case the Fleming Nine at Harding Park and Golden Gate G.C., both in San Francisco, both enduring jewels from the city’s golfing heyday. 

I’ve also seen a big appetite for pitch-and-putts overseas. They can be found in a bunch of little towns in Ireland, usually teeming with an informally dressed crowd whose members tend to nonchalantly pull off very useful bump and runs. And when the Open was held at Muirfield in 2013, the so-called children’s course next to the west course at North Berwick was a big hit with visiting American pros and their families.

Damn them for those effortless bump-and-runs!   One guy that's embraced this as well is Tiger, so let's give credit where due.  I would kill to belong to a club with a short course, as I'd spend hours there amusing myself and thereby be less of a risk to the population at large...

And since we're dealing with the short stuff, there's this as well:

The Major Series of Putting is coming to Las Vegas at the end of October. And it looks like its new Las Vegas venue is ready for its closeup. On Thursday, event ambassador and eight-time PGA Tour winner Brad Faxon shared this stunning aerial photo of the stadium:

Like me, you're immediately wondering how to get a bet down on Fax, but he's not actually in the field.  Though this exhibition is a tad curious:

And Faxon, always considered one of the tour's best putters during his career, will get a crack at the new course as well. The Fox Sports broadcaster is set to host and compete against tour pros Colt Knost, Graham DeLaet, and John Cook among others in the All Pro Championship Oct. 30-31. If Vegas sportsbooks are taking bets on the event, our money's on Brad.

Well sure, Cook's the only one that can putt, and his days as a Tour pro are very much in the rear view mirror.

Dissension in the Ranks -  There's trouble in River City, as LPGA players demand...  Well. like the NFL, it's a tad unclear what they're demanding:

Tensions are running high on the LPGA after back-to-back weather fiascoes. Players

have emailed, texted and placed phone calls to higher-ups looking for answers about on-course safety and the factors that go into pushing a tournament to Monday. 

Why was the Evian Championship, a major, reduced to 54 holes on a Thursday, while an inaugural “regular” event played in New Zealand finished on Monday? 

“We would like more transparency,” texted Kris Tamulis, “because at the end of the day, it’s a golf tournament and we are the golfers.” 

Player president Vicki Goetze-Ackerman has fielded plenty of calls from players in the past week. Some feel they can’t talk publicly about the issues. 

“I feel like there is a gag order on this tour,” one veteran player said.

We are the golfers is quite the rallying cry but, as relates to The Evian, they have a strong point.  This really seems the heart of the frustration:

Players described the conditions last Sunday in Auckland as some of the worst they’d seen, and the pop-up windstorm that hit the lead group was especially shocking. Television cameras caught tournament signage barreling down the fairway toward players. 

“I think the general feeling was anger at putting us in harm’s way, but it was a tough call,” said Becky Morgan, who noted that while the winds were forecasted, their strength took everyone by surprise.

Forecasting is difficult, especially about the future....  Setting aside The Fiasco in France, I assume the organizers were pushing the envelope to avoid a Monday finish, which is good for no one.  But at least they got in all 72 holes, though I'm unclear if they had a parachutist land on the 18th green.

Job One -  Golfweek has an interesting take on a caddie's job description....See if you agree:

It has to be rough for a caddie to inform his player that a penalty is coming, but that can be part of the job. 

Good thing for one looper that his boss is a level-headed David Howell. 

The closing double bogey Thursday actually arose after Howell was hit with a two-shot penalty. As Howell revealed on Twitter, he was penalized for teeing up his ball in front of the tee markers. It was his caddie who noticed, and because he pointed it out after Howell had hit his tee shot at No. 18, it was a two-shot penalty. 

That’s a tough thing for a caddie to have to do, and rather than being upset, Howell explained that his looper’s honesty said a lot about him.

Fair enough, as we certainly value honesty in players and caddies...

But you know what else is part of a caddie's job?  Keeping his player from incurring stupid penalties, and he kind of effed that one up, no?  He noticed it but didn't tell his player until after he hit?  And this guy still has a job?

Hickory, Dickory... - The evocatively-named East Lothian Courrier has this account of a major championship:

A FORMER Musselburgh Golf Club professional is the new hickory world open

champion on a county course.

Fraser Mann (pictured below, by Neil Hanna) produced two superb rounds, of 70 and 71, to claim victory in the World Hickory Open Championship at Kilspindie Golf Club, at Aberlady. 

He finished four shots clear of his nearest rival, Rick Valentine, director of golf at the Honest Toun's Loretto School.

Valentine hailed a "great few days" and said he was "delighted" to have finished in second place.

Alas, they don't inform us as to whether Sandy Lyle was in the field to defend his title.

Shack also had this wonderful photo from the event:

And, because you can't make these things up, apparently the Swiss are quite crazy about their hickory golf....

Proof of Life - That's a term of art most often found in Daniel Silva espionage novels, but Matthew Rudy applies it to our little game:

Tiger Woods didn't post proof of his new golf swing on Twitter Saturday. 

He posted proof of life—giving the golf world a small (and calculated) indication that his comeback from spinal fusion surgery is still a comeback, and he's taken the next step. 

The consistent consensus among a half dozen top teachers was that Woods looks better than before—when he showed off some shaky wedge shots in his previous comeback attempt. But he's "just tapping it," as one said, and showing none of the dynamic motion and differentiation between his upper and lower body it will take to produce even mediocre PGA Tour swing speed.

By all means click through and take a look at the swing, though I've had no interest in doing so since the original movie(s) has sapped any interest in the sequels....  There's talk from teaching pros as to how Tiger should manage his comeback, which might be of interest.  My interest, however, is in seeing if he tries to make good on previous nonsense.  For instance, the Silverado folks took on the chin from last-year's head fake, as well as the guy in Abu Dhabi who paid seven-figures to watch Tiger not break 80 and WD.

Job One, Part Two -  The Euro Tour has perfected the genre of videos showing their players having fun with the game of golf, a radical concept most assuredly.  See how you like this installment:

The objective was simple for Edoardo Molinari. You've got 500 swings; make one ace. 

Molinari has been a professional since 2006, and according to the European Tour, the

odds of a pro making a hole-in-one are 2500-1. Up against the odds, the Tour decided to give Molinari a chance to beat them: 500 balls on a 145-yard par 3. Could he jar one? The session certainly started out promisingly. Molinari’s first attempt ends up a mere four inches from the cup. This task should be complete in no time. Or would it? 

Shot 74 lands short of the hole and rolled just past, grazing the edge of the cup. Close, but no cigar. Shot 153 hits the flagstick. Molinari can’t believe it. He punctuates his frustration with a series of expletives. No worries—there are 347 attempts to go. 

"In a couple of hours, this is not going to be fun," he quips.

Quicker than that, I'm guessing.... Of course his first shot might have been the closest.  He obviously needed Jason Kokrack to chip his ball to the proper location before he hit...  Too soon?

But I was most amused by a couple of items from the comments:

Actually, he missed the green on two shots, so there were only a maximum of 498 pitch marks....

Heh, that's a good one.