Midweek Musings

Sorry about yesterday, as I was called upon to play investment banker again....  I'll make it up to you for sure.

What He Said - I exercised my blogger's veto on this item, in which the British public deemed golf the most boring of sports to watch.  I have no qualms, as that which non-golfers think of our game is pretty predictable.

Shack frames his response along the lines of considering the source:

1616 members of the British public were asked to vote on the most exciting and boring sports to watch and even though it's a country that can be enthralled by a three-day cricket match, golf and American football got the most votes.

Ah yes, cricket..... the all-purpose response to any diss from the British Empire.  But the point of all this is Derek Lawrenson's spirited defense of our game:

 First, the set-up:

But, if we're being really honest here, we ought to admit we can see where the public are coming from. Golf, essentially, is a boring sport. It's designed to be boring. It takes for

ever to play — at least in a world where so many people wile away their time composing thoughts in 140 characters — with a set of rules so complex they're beyond all but the most avid bores. 

How can it compete for an instant fix alongside a 100 metres race, where the only requirement asked of a viewer is to keep your gaze on a screen for a shade under 10 seconds? Or a tennis match, where the rules are so simple and the demands so easy on the eye?

I guess Derek hasn't heard the exciting news that Twitter is up to 280 characters.... But here's the crux of his case:

The truth of the matter, though, is that golf will never score highly in such polls. It really isn't for everyone. It's like reading a book. It's time-consuming and requires serious levels of concentration but, oh, what a world awaits if you knuckle down. 

That's why people who do love golf or reading books or watching cricket tend to be such devotees. 

If you think golf's boring, I wouldn't seek to convince you otherwise. I get it.

However, just as hardback book sales refuse to dip, there will remain enough of us with an appetite for sports that fall back on the old adage: 'The more you put into it, the more you get out of it.'

What's a book, I hear the kids asking....

You know who else likes our little game?

You may know the name T Bone Burnett. You may not. (He's Joseph Henry Burnett III 

Gotta love the bucket hat.

on his birth certificate, issued 70 years ago. He was born Jan. 14, 1948.) T Bone is the perfect example of a secret legend. He has backed Bob Dylan and produced Elton John. He has won 13 Grammys (thanks in part to his work on the soundtracks to "Walk the Line," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "The Hunger Games") and an Oscar for "Crazy Heart." (He reveres Johnny Cash and counts Jeff Bridges as a friend.) When I asked T Bone if he was in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he said, "God, no." In recent months, he's been assembling a band, securing a bus, planning a tour — and hitting balls. Regarding his round-number birthday, T Bone said, "Seventy feels like 30, without the anxiety. If I can make a few putts, I look forward to shooting my age one of these days."

He and Mike Bamberger have been e-mail friends for some time, and there's much to amuse in these excerpts.   Here's a taste:

I once told the musician T Bone Burnett that one of the things I like most about golf is how it fosters friendships. This was by email. In response, T Bone wrote, "That is, of course, true, but you could say the same thing about Renaissance Faires or Civil War reenactments. Or anything, really. What I love most about golf is the solitude of it. You initiate every action — alone."

T-Bone is a Fort Worth boy, which should connote reverence for Hogan and Jenkins, and here's the latter on our subject:

While I was at the Masters a few years ago, T Bone wrote, "Please give my best to the venerable Mr. Jenkins. I hope to meet him again someday. We first and last met when I was about eight, when he came over to our house to interview my dad who had given a friend from Arkansas a pig wearing an Arkansas jacket before the TCU-Arkansas football game. We have a great old mutual friend, Vance Minter. Vance is Magoo, in the Jenkins books. Vance and I have sat up many a night discussing the close parallels between B.J. Grooves and R.R. Raskolnikov. I'm pulling for Spieth."

I assume that anyone still reading knows of Bobby Joe Grooves, but can anyone identify Raskolnikov with resorting to Google?  I could, but then I've got that degree in Russian Literature that's proven so useful.....

Read it all, if you've a any sense.... 

Insufficiently Corrupt -  Will Gray with bizarre and troubling news:

Jordan Spieth may still be relatively young, but he has gained the confidence of some of the PGA Tour's most seasoned voices. 

Spieth is one of two players selected by the current player directors of the Tour's Policy Board to run for Chairman of the Player Advisory Council (PAC). Spieth will face Billy Hurley III in an election that will end Feb. 13, with the leading vote-getter replacing Davis Love III next year on the Policy Board for a three-year term through 2021.

He's been out there about an hour-and-a-half..... Shack with the better rebuttal:

The PGA Tour's Player Advisory Council and Policy Board are about as first world as it gets in terms of debate serious life questions, but as Will Gray notes at GolfChannel.com, Jordan Spieth has been selected by current PAC members to face Billy Hurley for a chance to sit on the PGA Tour Policy Board.

In the best interests of the game, players please vote for Mr. Hurley. Golf needs its superstars eating, sleeping, practicing and doing everything but sitting in meetings voting on executive compensation. Besides, if Jordan needs anything from Policy Board member Randall Stephenson, he knows where to find the AT&T CEO.

Concentrate on your game, son.....  especially those putts withing five feet.

Coul, Not Coul -  We recently blogged the concerns of Todd Warnock, Mike Keiser's partner, about resistance to the development of the proposed Coul Links in the Scottish Highlands.  Let me acknowledge that I'm in no way qualified to address the environmental concerns, but this item is so over-the-top that it inclines one to be dismissive.

As far as we know, Botanophila fonsecai exists in only one place in the world: a roughly six-mile strip of coastline, adjacent to Dornoch and the nearby village of Embo. Its entire world is estimated to be less than a single square mile; its population size is unknown.

Hmmmm... preservation of a rare species sounds serious.  Of course, there is this from later in the piece:

There are more than 110,000 fly species in the world and more than 7,000 in the UK alone. Botanophila fonsecai was discovered in the 1960s by a fly expert called Evelyn

Cecil Muschamp d’Assis Fonseca. He visited the area during the summer, when the flies break out of their pupae buried in the ground, eager to buzz off and find a mate. A friend and fellow bug enthusiast, Michael Ackland, named the fly after Fonseca 30 years later. 

It is admittedly almost impossible to tell a Fonseca’s seed fly apart from the many other seed fly species, but an expert can make the identification by examining the genitalia under a microscope. Craig Macadam at Buglife says that, to the untrained eye, the distinguishing features are barely visible. But to an entomologist, the exact placement of tiny hairs and the subtly different shapes of the reproductive organs are a sure-fire way to tell one species apart from another. 

Though flies may seem insignificant, Macadam points out that they are important workhorses in many ecosystems. Like bees, some help to pollinate plants. Others control the populations of certain invertebrates by feeding on them. In turn, flies themselves generally provide an important source of food for birds, bats, and amphibians.

I'll leave that detailed examination of the genitalia to the experts, as I'm a happily married man.

Part I of the game reveals itself....  This fly can only be found on a six-mile stretch of beach, but it plays an outsized role in our entire ecosystem.  We're all gonna die!

I'll elide Part II, which is a conventional story of a woman that retired to Embo because it was deserted...  There's such a person in every development project.

Part III is that about which Todd Warnock expressed concern, that the Scots are p in arms because of.....wait for it....Trump!  And just because he's paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get him.  Apparently, Mike Kaiser has legally changed his first name to "Billionaire":

American billionaire Mike Keiser has enough capital to plant a golf course pretty much anywhere in the world. He made his fortune in the greeting cards business, selling cards made from recycled paper back in the 1970s, when that was a “trendy” thing to do. The firm he co-founded, Recycled Paper Greetings, still exists today.

That last bit sounds ominous....

Trump’s Menie course, southeast of Sutherland, has been a controversial project in Scotland. It was recently in the news again because of habitat loss that appears to have resulted from its construction. Keiser and the other developers are keen to discourage comparisons with Trump and his golf business, but for some Scots it’s impossible not to see one in the light of the other. Indeed, Fortune once described Mike Keiser as the president’s “biggest rival” in the golf business.

Yeah..... Keiser and Trump are rivals in the golf business in the same way that WalMart competes with Nordstrom or Saks.

Look, I don't pretend to be in a position to mediate the competing claims, but this smacks of a hit job.  Mike Keiser has a well-earned reputation for building successful and environmentally-conscious projects.  If he can make to Commissars of the People's Republic of Oregon happy, he can do the same for the nice folks in Embo.

The obvious problem with environmentalists is that they don't want anything built ever by anybody.   But Scotland is a very poor country, and the Highlands is among the poorest regions.  I don't deign to tell them what they should do, but if a course is going to be built, I'd like Keiser to get the shot.

Still Needing That Teenager - Shack's got a wonderful new feature in which he aggregates his favorite Instagram posts of the day.  My problem is that I still don't know how to embed such posts in this blog....

Here's one from his latest post, but can anyone identify it:

That's the famed Himalayas course of the St. Andrews Ladies Putting Club in late afternoon light.  One should take a quick tour of it before playing The Old Course.

And this topical shot in homage to this week's Tour event:

And this little witticism from Geoff:

A fun old image of Arnold Palmer and Bob Hope in the good ole days of the Careerbuilder Challenge. You know Palmer won five Careerbuilders, right?

I'm old enough t remember when The Hope was The Hope..... 

And this aerial view of the seventh green at Pebble:

Good stuff, but I really want to learn how to embed the posts, because many are worthwhile videos....

I'm going to leave you nice folks here.... Tomorrow is a travel day, so check back on Friday.