Midweek Musings

Sorry for yesterday's absence, but I'll pop in as content allows...

The Rules Changes, Days 2-3 - As with many substantive stories, it can often take a cycle or two for the more interesting takes to emerge.  First, Shack posts this alarming header:

Why Could Replay Reviews Still Occur After A Card Is Signed?

Say what?  

As explained by the USGA's Thomas Pagel and R&A's David Rickman, a review could still take place on, say, Friday, after something occurred on Thursday. Only now, the 

Lexi's euphoria might be premature.

player will not be penalized for signing an incorrect card should a penalty be assessed by the review. 

As we noted on Morning Drive, this leaves open the question of how such a delayed review would take place if the tour's had an official watching the live telecasts. Any review over a few minutes past the round's conclusion would only occur because the official missed it the first time. In this case, the official would only be working off of some sort of outside tip to review a possible infraction.

You got that?  What's wrong with these people?  

I'm not hung up on the signing of the scorecard in a literal sense, because I understand that the replay officials (and that use of the plural is little more than optimism on my part) for something that happens on the final hole could take a little time.

But that they're still talking about Friday penalties for Thursday infractions is scary...  They keep assuring us that they've got this, but then squirming at any suggestion that their right to penalize a player ceases.  And that latter bit really frustrates me because they willingly cede that right on Sunday, ensuring that the first three rounds are played under different rules than the final round.

Here's one point that I was remiss in not making Monday:

Interestingly, the two-stroke penalty only went into effect in 2016 when USGA and R&A implemented the most recent changes to the Rules of Golf. Prior to that, players would be disqualified if they had signed their scorecards and were later found to have committed a penalty that they had not accounted. In changing the rule to be more lenient, officials acknowledged a DQ was a punishment that didn’t fit the crime.

The irony, she burns.  As with the first attempt to change the rule governing balls on greens moving, our betters got this almost as wrong.  There's no question that 2 strokes is better than a DQ, but they seem to have failed to realize that adding four strokes (two for the underlying crime, plus two for the paperwork) would take almost any player out of the hunt.  And since the cameras linger longest on the leaders, odds are that that's who you'll be having those awkward conversations with in the middle of their rounds.

Let's turn the proceedings over to Mike Bamberger, my candidate for the conscience of our sport.  Mike makes the case for that which made our game special:

We're talking about golf on TV, played by the best players in the world, typically for money, but sometimes not. (The Ryder Cup, Solheim Cup and top amateur events get a lot of TV time, too.)

The starting point for this play has to be that the players turn in honest, accurate scorecards, strictly adhering to every aspect of the rule book. If there's any wiggle room, any fudge factor, any gray area, the whole thing falls apart. The player has two main incentives to do the right thing. One, he or she has integrity and understands that is at the core of the game. Two, those scores the players post are being widely, widely vetted. If you cheat, or even if you do something wrong inadvertently, you're going to be found out. (Trust, but verify.) No biggie. Since you want to turn in the most accurate scorecard possible, you welcome the attention.

We're the only major sport where the player is responsible for the accuracy of his results....  Go on, Mike:

How about the responsibility to know the rules and to play by them? How about doing it correctly the first time? The whole ball-dropping issue with Tiger Woods at 15 in the Saturday round of the 2013 Masters was that he dropped incorrectly. The whole ball-marking issue with Thompson at the ANA Inspiration was that she marked incorrectly. Neither player ever stood up and said, "I take responsibility for this whole mess."

Golf, by tradition, is severe, austere, Calvinistic. Every aspect of it. That's why the spectators are quiet. That's why one player does nothing to interfere with another. That's why Joe Dey, the first PGA Tour commissioner, late of the USGA, carried a bible in one pocket and a rule book in the other when he officiated.

Here's Geoff's take:

I certainly agree that there is a softening effect worth considering, particularly if the softening actually leads to something worse than mere player ignorance of the rules. If there is an opening created here, as Bamberger contends, does it lead to players bending the rules out of ignorance or entitlement? A case could be made that we already see that with backstopping or the current ball mark fixing of non-ball marks on greens.

Remember what Phil told us after Lexi-gate?  That many players are deliberately mismarking their balls in order to avoid spike marks....  

But, rather than go out on that downer, how about John Strege going back to The Creation:

On Monday, we spoke to the man who set in motion what likely was the first case of 

The Walrus in a 1995 reenactment.

viewer turned rules snitch, on Feb. 7, 1987. His error? He answered the phone. Twice. 

“I’m working the media center,” Rick Schloss, widely acknowledged as the best sports PR guru in San Diego, said. Schloss was the long-time PR director for what now is the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. “I got a call from a guy on that Sunday that said a player broke a rule. I thought, ‘OK, whatever.’ You get crazy people calling all the time about certain things.” 

So Schloss innocently passed on the information to a PGA Tour media official, who relayed it tour rules officials. Upon completing the final round and ostensibly finishing second, Stadler was informed that he had violated rule 13-3, illegally building a stance by using the towel to keep from muddying his trousers. The two-stroke penalty meant he had signed an incorrect scorecard on Saturday and he was disqualified. 

“I got the first [viewer] call, I believe,” Schloss said.

If only he had let it go to voice mail......  

A Curious Tale -  The Tour runs a highly-successful drug testing program...  If you're surprised by that assessment, I'll remind you that one can only determine the efficacy of such program in light of its original objectives.  See my point?

Up until Monday, here's the full list of players that have previously violated, scratch that, have been caught violating the Tour's substance abuse policy:

Hensby joins Doug Barron, Bhavik Patel and Scott Stallings as the only players to face disciplinary action for breaking this protocol. (Stallings was a self-reported case, as his medication was for a separate non-performance issue.) Vijay Singh was also banned for violating tour policy, but he later won his appeal.

Let me interject here that it's not the best time to criticize the Tour, because new Commissioner Monahan has announced that they will start drawing blood and otherwise beef up the program.  He should be given enough time to prove he's sincere, but you see the shell game played by former Commissioner Ratched.  

News broke of a one-year suspension of Tour Rabbit Mark Hensby, and we all likely wondered what they found in his system....  Nothing, actually, though he's certainly largely to blame:

According to Hensby, following a first-round 78 at the Sanderson Farms Championship in October, he was approached by a tour official for a drug test. Hensby claimed that,

because he had used the bathroom on his 17th hole, he'd be unable to provide a sample for hours. Receiving word from someone standing by that he wasn't required to stay, Hensby left the course. 

“I didn’t know the ramifications in the moment because I was so mad at everything that had transpired," Hensby told Golf Digest.

Hensby was informed later that night that, for failing to provide a urine sample, he was disqualified from the event. He also realized that would be far from his only punishment. 

“I knew I was going to be banned, but didn’t know to what extent," Hensby said.

Hours?  Don't they have a pot of coffee you could chug...  or a tap they could open?

Something seems horribly amiss here... Now, Hensby is actually taking it with relative grace:

Hensby waited for his ruling to go public for about a month, and admittedly is somewhat shocked at how much attention it's received. He also doesn't blame the tour for its verdict. 

“Don’t get me wrong, a year is a long time, but they have rules," he said

Obviously, a drug protocol has to be mandatory, and players can't be allowed off the hook with the age-old "But I don't need to go" excuse....  That said, is it too much to expect that the Tour official will explain the consequences to the player, so that he'll know the ramifications of his refusal?  Maybe he might come with an information sheet for the player to review....  

Distaff Doings -  Ron Sirak has always been the strongest supporter of the LPGA among the golfing press.  In fact, at the Met. Golf Writers awards dinner a few year back in which he received their journalism award, the presenter noted that he was the first writer to cover all four men's majors as well as all four women's majors, for the simple reason that he was the first that wanted to.

At his blog he's announcing arrival of The Greatest Generation in women's golf:

Underappreciated in the history of the LPGA is the incredible pool of talent that built the 

bridge from the daughters of the founders – the likes of Kathy Whitworth, Mickey Wright and JoAnne Carner – to the global tour created by Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Laura Davies and Se Ri Pak. That generation of players from 1975 to 1995 has been perhaps unmatched in the history of women’s golf – until now. 

Think of it. In that group were Nancy Lopez, Betsy King, Meg Mallon, Juli Inkster, Beth Daniel, Patty Sheehan, Pat Bradley, Amy Alcott and Hollis Stacy. All are in the World Golf Hall of Fame. And now we have Sung Hyun Park, Lexi Thompson, So Yeon Ryu, Lydia Ko, Inbee Park, Brooke Henderson, Shanshan Feng, Ariya Jutanugarn, Anna Nordqvist and Cristie Kerr. All of whom could be in the Hall of Fame some day.

OK, but don't get cocky, kid.  In the literal sense, of course....

I agree that there's a wealth of talent, and highly appealing talent for sure.  But I'm old enough to remember when the Paula Creamer-Morgan Pressel-Michelle Wie generation was the LPGA's salvation....  

Ron makes an impassioned case for marketing budgets, with which I certainly agree at the local level.  There's little question that the LPGA has created a fan-friendly experience on the ground.  Problem is, those TV ratings are microscopic.....

Adults Behaving Childishly - We don't have too many golf stories from Montana, but this one is a head-scratcher:

Of the 49 states that offer golf as a high school sport, just a small percentage forbid spectators from watching the action. 

A KBZK Bozeman report dives into the one line in the Montana State High School Association handbook that has wide-ranging ramifications for the state's golfers: "No spectators/fans are allowed on the course except for certain locations as designated by the tournament manager and club professional." 

The report points out that besides Montana, the only other state known to forbid high school golf spectators is New Jersey (and Alaska — where there is no high school golf).

The justifications behind the spectator ban include "parents being unruly and disrupting play, spectator safety, and illegally coaching players on the course."

We don't need any of those pesky spectators....  

Sold! -  Golf Magazine has been sold to a curious party:

Golf Magazine and its coveted web URL, Golf.com, have been purchased by investor Howard Milstein and Emigrant Capital, according to sources briefed on the sale. 

The 58-year-old publication has been part of the Time Inc. family since 2000 and was put up for sale in October, 2017. The golf publication and its digital site never were expected to be part of any sales talks with Meredith, the new owner of Time Inc.

A sale price has not been disclosed, but the transaction is expected to close on January 19th, 2018.

The Millsteins are a storied real estate family in NYC, though they've assembled a bit of a golf portfolio:

Milstein is no stranger to golf, having invested in Miura Golf, True Spec and in the Jack Nicklaus empire. That partnership began in 2007.

The bigger issue to me is that their strong group of writers, Bamberger, Shipnuck, Van Sickle and the like had always worked for both Sports Illustrated as well as Golf Mag and Golf.com.  That tie will likely be severed, and I suspect that we'll pay the price in some form....

A Fun Take -  Doug Ferguson has a fun spin on the dreary Year-In-Review columns in which he cites the most significant shot with each club in the bag....  Since chicks have always dug the long ball, I'll excerpt these two:

DRIVER: Moments after Dustin Johnson made a birdie putt to force a sudden-death playoff at the Northern Trust, he effectively ended it with one swing . CBS analyst Nick 

Spoiler Alert:  This is his putt of the year.

Faldo pointed to a bunker beyond the right side of the lake on the 18th hole at Glen Oaks as a target for Johnson's powerful fade. Instead, he took it over the entire lake, a 341-yard blast. That left him a lob wedge to 4 feet for birdie to beat Jordan Spieth.

3-WOOD: "Oh gosh, Jimmy, be good." Justin Thomas was speaking to caddie Jimmy Johnson after launching a 3-wood from 310 yards to the elevated green on the par-5 18th at Erin Hills. It was perfect, landing softly and rolling out 8 feet to set up an eagle that tied one U.S. Open record (63) and broke another (9-under par).

I'd have been tempted to include Lexi's missed two-footer, although maybe that's a separate list entirely.... 

I'll be back when I'm back....