Tuesday Trifles

Today will be the good, the bad and the....well, Grayson Murray.  It just uglier than that....

Venue Variations - They're giving out major championships like there's an endless supply, which is only true on the LPGA Tour.

First, came this shocking news last week:

Rory in the gloamin'

Ten years after Rory McIlroy defeated Phil Mickelson and gathering darkness to win the PGA Championship, the major championship will return to Valhalla Golf Club in 2024. 

Ted Bishop wonders why it took so long to book a return trip. 

The former president of the PGA of America, who suggested Valhalla as a permanent site for the tournament in an August essay on MorningRead.com, expressed surprise Friday that the cost benefits of staging the event at a PGA-owned facility had not prompted an earlier return date.

That picture caption is a semi-obscure baseball reference. 

The link is to the local paper, which interestingly doesn't see the need to inform its readers that the PGA of America owns Valhalla....  As Shack notes, it must have been a difficult negotiation.

Of far greater interest comes this announcement from Joe Juliano in the Philly Inquirer:

Aronimink Golf Club has been awarded a major championship on each of the world’s

predominant men’s and women’s tours — the 2027 PGA Championship and the 2020 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, sources told the Inquirer on Monday.

Aronimink officials and the PGA of America will make the formal announcement of the two majors Tuesday at the club, located in Delaware County.

The awarding of two more prestigious tournaments — majors on the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour — is a big development for Aronimink, which next September will host the BMW Championship, the third of four PGA Tour FedExCup playoff events.

The club has been in contact with the PGA and the U.S. Golf Association since the AT&T National, hosted by Tiger Woods, was held at Aronimink in 2010 and 2011. The idea of holding national events at the club became more feasible after Aronimink embarked on an extensive course restoration in October of last year.

 Now we're talking....  This is the kind of inspired choice that we'd hope to see much more of.  I'll admit that I had forgotten this history:

Officials said about 85 percent of the project was completed before work stopped in early spring, and that the entire undertaking will be completed early in 2018. 

Aronimink last hosted a PGA Championship in 1962 and waited a long time for a second one. The PGA of America named it as host of the 1993 PGA but the club pulled out of the agreement in November 1990 when it determined it could not have minorities as part of its membership by the time of the event.

That '93 event was moved to another Ross design, Inverness, and won by Paul Azinger when The Shark three-jacked in the playoff.

Even better, Shack links to this 2016 Juliano article previewing the Gil Hanse restoration, which is a mini-Master Class in golf architecture:

Over five decades, the legendary architect Donald Ross designed about 400 golf courses, but he believed that just one - Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square - deserved this

lavish praise: "I intended to make this my masterpiece, but not until today did I realize I built better than I knew," he said.

As it turned out, the Aronimink that you're accustomed to seeing, the course that hosted the AT&T National hosted by Tiger Woods in 2010 and 2011, is not exactly the one to which Ross was referring. 

The recent discovery of photographs, an aerial shot and several from ground level, from 1929 - one year after Aronimink opened at its current location - has unveiled some never-before-seen features of a Ross design that have disappeared over time. As a result, the club's membership has given approval to returning the course to that vintage look.

It's all there, from restoring lost areas to the greens to reinstating Ross' more free-flowing tee boxes....  Also, apparently, Ross' original clusters of bunkers had morphed over time into single bunkers, with all sorts of attendant drainage issues.

Here's one quick look at one of the restored greens:

How Donald Ross is that chipping area between the front bunkers and the green?  More like this, please.

Harvey Plays Golf?  Who Knew? - I know it's the Silly Season, but it should never get quite this silly:

How vulnerable are 'cart girls' to sexual harassment? Here’s one woman’s take after three years on the job

Sigh.  Mike Bamberger does his best with the subject, including a disclaimer that leads the piece.  And the girl whose story it is, 25-year old single Mom Ashley McConnell,  seems quite sensible and likable, in addition to her obvious qualifications for the gig.

But it's just an objectionable addition to the oeuvre, given it's inherent lack of importance.  We've been inundated with such stories, many of which conflate obviously disgusting behavior with the merely rude and obnoxious.  There's no need for our little corner of the world to pile on in such an obviously trivial environment.  Cart girls have a cart, duh, they can drive away from any behavior that steps over the line.  

Fewer like this, please.

Golfers On Twitter, Women and Children to the Lifeboats - Grayson Murray was born without a filter....  I know, its an evergreen for folks that blog, but is he really that divorced from reality that he can't see the obvious endpoint of his brilliant commentary?

Admittedly, the current circumstances are really quite trivial..... It's just the inability to get along with others, and by others I mean everyone else, that's such a train wreck.  So, here's the lay of the land....  Will Gray had this terribly provocative tweet:

OK....  I can see where that's sufficiently incendiary that Grayson must be heard.....  So, heard he was:

And you'll likely never be relevant, but what purpose is served by entering the fray?  And when challenged, he violates the first rule of holes:

Don't know much about history....  Maybe you're right about those guys, especially Tiger, but guys named Nicklaus, Palmer. Trevino, Watson and the like have played that Tour, and you'll not endear yourself by questioning their relevance.

There's this as well:

An invoice for sure.... For those new to Mr. Murray, here's a brief background:

Murray has on multiple occasions tried to rein in his Twitter use, usually after one of his tweets stirred up controversy and brought him unwanted attention. He has had his agent change his password; he has deactivated his account; he has made his account private.

That lasted all of ten days.  It seems the kid can play a bit, but there's something deep in his persona that causes him to pick these fights his peers.  It's OK to think that the round belly tour isn't terribly important, an opinion most of us hold.  But the world doesn't need to know what Grayson thinks on all these issues, especially when he's such a jerk.

On the other side of the pond is another Twitter spat, though we lead with this interesting header from the estimable John Huggan atGolf Digest:

Is Eddie Pepperell too smart for his own good? 

The 26-year-old Englishman has plenty of talent to become a European Tour star. If he only didn't try to outthink himself.

Worth a read on a November morning, at least until one sees this item with the following tweets:

And this:

I'm guessing you'll continue to live that beautiful life....  But as for Huggan's question, I'll go with "No".

The Euro Beat - Adam Schupak has an interesting interview with Euro-Tour majordomo Keith Pelley:

MR: What are your goals and what are your concerns for the debut of the Shot Clock Masters next year in Austria?

KP: Well, the goal is merely to see if it is a significantly betterpaced tournament with a monumental entertainment element to it. The challenge is, how would you implement it week in and week out if it is ridiculously successful? But then again, that would be a good problem to have. We're comfortable experimenting. We're also comfortable if something doesn't work. Then, we just say, ‘It didn't work.’ And that's exactly what happened when we launched our new website and app. We might have been too aggressive and ambitious in terms of what we were trying to accomplish there and maybe geared away from a little bit of the actual critical mass of the golfers that still needed this, this, this and this. So, there's a fine line, and understanding that balance is key, but not being worried about making a change or making a mistake is critical. As long as you make more right decisions than wrong decisions, you'll be OK.

That's a great attitude, especially for a minor Tour.....  I know, but we only kid because we love. 

Pelley has made the Euro Tour a fun place, quite the contrast with the mind-numbing boredom closer to home.  They've been especially aggressive with video content, this being just the most recent:

I do hope they carry malpractice insurance....  But, as Derek Lawrenson explains, even his biggest success creates issues.  In the instant case, the creation of the high-purse Rolex Series has made it more difficult for graduates of the Qualifying School to make to the season-ending event in Dubai:

In all, a record low of just three players — the others were Englishman Ashley Chesters and 2010 Ryder Cup member Edoardo Molinari — kept their cards for next season from the 30 handed out 12 months ago. 

Contrast that to the nine who kept their cards the previous year and the 12 who retained their privileges in 2015. 

Why has the success rate plummeted so alarmingly? Ironically, the prime reason is the Rolex Series: eight events that have added wealth and prestige at the top end of the European game but have skewed life horribly for those seeking to make their way who don’t gain access to them.

There far more of this in our game than folks realize, especially with the World Golf Championships.  Qualification for those events creates automatic OWGR points (small fields and no cuts) that prop up world rankings long beyond that from the actual quality of play.  And don't get me started on the Hero World Challenge, World apparently being defined as seventeen guys that Tiger likes.

Caddie GOAT - See if you think this is as silly a question as I do, from this week's Tour Confidential panel:

2. Steve Williams, who is best known for caddying for Tiger Woods from 1999-2011 (he also helped Adam Scott to his first major title in 2013), said in a recent podcast that 2018 will be his final year caddying. Where does Williams rank in the looper pantheon, and what made him so effective?

You're kidding, right? 

Apparently not....

Wood: Despite what the press may have thought about Steve as a personality, or perhaps mistakes he has made in regards to his post-Tiger career in remarks about Tiger, it’s hard not to argue he is the greatest caddie of all time.

Watch me.

Zak: I am no authority on separating the best of the best of caddies, but the guy pulled off possibly the toughest (or was it easiest?) job of all-time by caddying for Woods during the peak of his powers and popularity. That will never be fully appreciated. In times like these, I lean on the long-winded power of the man typing before me, John Wood, to tell me who is the GOAT.

Bamberger: He is by the far the most accomplished caddie of all-time. He was intense, hard-working, knowledgeable and not afraid to speak his mind. Sometimes, he should have been.

It apparently hasn't occurred to these nice folks that we have absolutely no basis for assessing their performance.  Or, rather, that the only basis, the performance of their players, is likely to be highly misleading....

And while I agree that Stevie's post-work comments shouldn't affect our judgment of his capabilities, how do we declare him the GOAT based upon his work for a black man that treated him as slave?  Just askin'....

The only thing that mitigates this silliness is that embedded in the item is a slideshow of famous player-caddie pairing, which will introduce younger readers like Grayson Murray to names like Tip Anderson, Angelo Argea and Carl Jackson.  Though I will call BS on this one:

That's of course Nancy Lopez with hubby and former third baseman Ray Knight.

Kudos for including Fanny, though her more significant pairing was with Sir Nick.  Oh, and Jeff Dolf isn't exactly a household name....

Desperate Times - Shack has a really curious item at Golfweek, which calls out for a strong editor.  It's header is grabby for sure:

Shackelford: Golf's desperate bid for attention puts game at risk

Coulda been the header for the Grayson Murray piece for sure...

Golf is not the problem. Desperation, however, is a recurring theme worth monitoring. 

Like other sports, we know the game faces issues related to its pace, scale, cost and the time constraints of modern society. The efforts to “grow,” sustain and jump-start both pro and recreational sectors are worthy given signs of a shifting modern sports landscape. And for every silly element piled onto recent European Tour gimmicks (pyrotechnics, really?), there is nothing desperate about sampling new formats to break up the monotony of 72-hole stroke play. 

But there is such a steady air of desperation to the improvement efforts that we may scare off the very people golf hopes to retain or attract. In a recent case, the desperation may have injured a top player.

OK, but that accompanying photo shows he's about to tie it into the unfortunate Stenson injury.  OK, but does this support that argument, or is it more of an admission against interest:

Pre-tournament publicity stunts have long been part of the game. The Los Angeles Open held a long-drive contest in the Coliseum during the 1940s and the Masters used to kick off the week with a downtown parade. In modern times, social-media stunts and other visual presentations are used to get people excited for tournaments and some of them, particularly European Tour videos, have perfectly toed the line between creative and fun. But it’s the nearly relentless volume of efforts meant for attention, with that unmistakable undertone of desperation, that undermines respect for the core merits of golf as a product.

These things have been done since the beginning of recorded time, but now there's what, too may of them?  It's really unfortunate that Henrik injured himself and the HSBC folks have some 'splainin' to do, but it's called marketing and it kind of works.

Geoff in this 'graph makes an important argument about institutional confidence in our game, one I make regularly when we have the ubiquitous Death of Golf items:

The sport is too sound, too time-tested and way too full of smart people to miss the point so regularly. Sure, appeal to the next generation, but don’t insult an older generation by so regularly suggesting we’ve never seen times like this. Rest on golf’s timeless laurels sometimes and consider pushing at a time when there are openings to grow the sport.

This is the proper response when we hear that loud music on the course or Foot-Golf is the salvation of our game.... Golf is timeless and appeals to the greatest athletes in the world, so a little backbone wouldn't hurt.

But he uses this argument to this effect:

Several issues have made the NFL less popular. Ratings are down, in part, because of changing perception about the NFL as a safe, sound product. The long-term prospects for the sport attracting young people look shaky. Golf, perhaps because of its genteel nature, has sat back and avoided wading into the controversy.

There was also the issue of needlessly alienating half the country....But here's his rousing coda:

Why bring negative attention to our sport – the thinking might go – by pointing out that parents ought to send their kids in golf’s direction instead of football? Yet that is the very thing golf should be doing. The health benefits of the sport are known, and outside of excess exposure to the sun or rib injuries at unnecessary photo calls, it’s a much safer alternative that can be played for a lifetime. 

Golf has survived a little of everything over 500 years and will be here for another 500. Yes, we should get the house in order on a few fronts, but the inherent values in this sport are time-tested. Let’s own this game and stop trying to sell something it is not. Let’s stop dressing golfers as Superman and suspending them in mid-air. They’re just golfers, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Methinks we're way over-reacting to one admittedly stupid promotional bit.... Chill, Geoff, we're good.