Midweek Musings

Just a few minor items for your delectation today....

Champing At The Bit - Be afraid, very afraid....  Dave Dusek with the details of a Ping driver fitting for the new kid in town.  First though, he sets the scene on the range at Erin Hills:

Before he won the 2018 Sanderson Farm Classic or even secured his 2017-18 PGA Tour card after winning the Web.com Tour’s Utah Championship in July, there already were

stories swirling around practice areas on the PGA Tour about Cameron Champ’s ability to hit a golf ball ridiculously far. 

Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas just laughed when they saw Champ, who had just turned 21, hit his driver on the range at the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills and create 199 mph of ball speed. People gossiped on the range last season that Ping had to build a higher net in the testing area at its Phoenix headquarters because the guy leading the Web.com Tour in driving distance was sailing it over the old one and into nearby businesses. (That one wasn’t true.) Listed at 6-feet and 175 pounds, Champ finished first in driving distance last season on the Web.com Tour with an average of 343.1 yards.

I do hope Rory said "Oh, stop it" like he does in the TaylorMade commercial.  You know, the one with DJ, Jon Rahm and Justin Rose...  But this is the key bit, after the cracked driver at the event he won:

On Monday before the Shiners Hospitals for Children Open, Pena built Champ a new gamer driver using the same components as in the driver that broke. However, Champ

said he wanted to make the same swing but launch the ball slightly higher. To do that, Pena would need to add loft, which would also increase spin and reduce distance. 

Instead, Pena made some drivers with counterbalanced shafts that allowed him to make Champ a head with a heaver back weight. That increased the dynamic loft at impact.

Champ’s typical drive had been launching at 7 degrees with about 2,700 rpm of backspin, creating a carry distance of about 325 yards. Using the new shaft in his G400 Max, a prototype Accra TZT 265 M5, he started hitting the ball even farther. 

“The first he hit launched at 9 degrees, carried 15 yards farther and the ball speed was almost 198 mph,” Pena said, laughing. “We looked at each other and said to ourselves, ‘What the heck did we just do?’”

Shack has the concise summary:

Champ led the field with a 353.2 yard average on the measuring holes. 

Yes, he got longer after losing his gamer and getting fit for a new one.

Sigh.  Just when you think that they can't possibly get any longer....  Oh, and in answer to a question that came up with my mates on the golf course Sunday, this about TPC Summerlin:

It hosts the tour's Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, formerly the Las Vegas Invitational, played in October. The average elevation of the course is approximately 2,700 feet (820 m) above sea level.

Here's Dusek's wrap:

Champ’s power and distance are going to be a closely watched storyline throughout the PGA Tour season, especially when the USGA and R&A release their annual distance report, which is expected in early March. With every distance record in danger, the Cameron Champ show is just getting started.

Ya think?

This Just In, Math Is Still Hard -  Did Justin Rose regaining the top spot in the Official World Golf Rankings rock your world?  If so, you might want to skip ahead to the next item, because it'll be a short stay:

Justin Rose’s latest stay atop the world rankings will last just seven days. 

The calculations of the Official World Golf Ranking will once again put Brooks Koepka ahead of Rose in next week’s rankings despite neither hitting a competitive shot this week, according to Golf Channel world-rankings guru Alan Robison.

We've seen this movie before and it's always a bit of a head-scratcher.  But those of you that have the divisor in your office pools should put those tickets in a safe place:

The 38-year-old Englishman returned to No. 1 in the world – a position he first assumed at the BMW Championship in early September – after his playoff victory Sunday at the Turkish Airlines Open. That moved him just .05 points clear of Koepka. 

Koepka’s divisor dropped from 45 to 44 in the two-year OWGR calendar, resulting in his average points rising. 

After this week, Koepka will have 10.32 average points to Rose's 10.16.

The divisor is the number of events over which the players' points totals are spread, as the players are essentially ranked on a per event basis.  The real takeaway is that any formula will have scenarios under which it demonstrates inconsistency, and we should just consider these things like the margin of error in a political poll.

Joel Beall is there for us in our moment of need with this:

The No. 1 world ranking is broken. Here is how to fix it

Except, you know, he doesn't....  Like everyone else in the world, he merely tells us what he thinks is wrong with it:

No. 1 can't be lost, or gained, by short-term absence 

The current OWGR system doesn't have the back-room vagaries its critics believe; its equation is online for anyone to see. However, its algorithm is far from infallible (more

on this in a moment), and warrants common sense stopgaps. The first of which is desperately needed: missing time, let's say less than a month of action, is not grounds for losing the No. 1. This sentiment is amplified during golf's alleged offseason, as the ranking should not change five times since the final major of the year when it's natural for stars to retreat from the public. 

Similarly, no player on the sidelines should leapfrog another because of a minimum divisor kick-in or subtraction. If a player wants to rise, he needs to show it on the scoreboard.

 Fine.  Where's your algorithm that accomplishes this?   There was an alternative suggested by a reputable source back in 2012, though I don't really care enough to venture into the long grass.  But Joel ends up suggesting, wait for it, a committee:

Point recalibration 

Two Ivy League professors wrote back in 2012 about their discovery that there is a OWGR bias against the PGA and Web.com Tours, which can be read here. Though this more of a holistic issue than aimed at the No. 1 ranking, there have been several players

to utilize OWGR point allotments in less-than-stellar fields to boost their standings. There have been minor tweaks to the formula since (you can read them here), but nothing that solves the issues addressed. There have been multiple endeavors, most notably the Broadie-Rendleman System, that attempted to minimize the arbitrariness of these problems. Nevertheless, issues remain, such as Rose winning a host of points at the Turkish Open despite there being just one other top-30 player in the field. 

As much as the word "committee" might elicit eyerolls, there needs to be a group with the ability to judge what tournaments and fields hold value, and which are glorified exhibitions, rather than letting a computer do the math unimpeded. It may not be precise and could be prone to politics, but that's a far better solution than the current system, with peccadillos like the Japan Open winner earning more points than somebody posting a top-five finish at a major.

Let's remember that the designation of No. 1 carries with it exactly.... nothing.  It's all that's talked about, but it decides nothing.  The OWGR are used for something important, though, qualification for WGCs and majors, and that's serious business.  I'm far more interested in whether those last few guys into the top fifty seem like the right guys, as opposed to who ends up with fractionally more points at the top.  But that analysis is more difficult and would be highly subjective, so no one goes there.

Otherwise, just do whatever Mark Broadie suggests.  And there was one other OWGR news item this week:

Tiger Woods didn’t hit a shot last week in Las Vegas but still climbed to No. 13 in the Official World Golf Ranking, one spot ahead of Jordan Spieth. 

That’s the nature of the system. 

Woods, who won for the first time in five years this year and tallied six other top-10 finishes, had reached No. 13 after winning the Tour Championship in September before dropping a spot recently. Prior to that, however, he last was ranked this high in September 2014 before he missed most of the next three seasons due to injury. 

Spieth, on the other hand, was in Las Vegas, and while his week started well enough with an opening-round 66 in his first start of the 2018-19 season, he left TPC Summerlin frustrated and with still more work to do on his game after going winless last season.

“I had couple plugged lies, couple divots early in the round that I made a couple bogeys off from birdie positions,” he said after a final-round 72 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open to finish in a tie for 55th. “Then from there just kind of hard to stay motivated, I guess.

Anyone that's been watching knows the sorry state of Jordan's game, though I've been reliably informed that it was just a couple of plugged lies.

'Tis the Season -  A pretty funny item from Golf Digest on the differences between liberal and conservative golfers, though it's one that actually ran before the 2016 election.  remind me, how did that one turn out?

Let's dive in with their framing of the results:

In fact, what the survey underscored is how often one’s political leanings can be manifested in a golf setting (we’re not talking about whether you’re chronic miss is to the left or the right). And when you map the survey answers against generally acknowledged differences between the two parties, the results start to follow a trend.

“It’s a super interesting set of findings,” said Chadly Stern, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has studied and written about how one’s political ideology shapes the way they see the world. “It’s very consistent with what we know about the psychological differences between liberals and conservatives, or Democrats and Republicans.”

Generally acknowledged by whom?   the campus at Urbana-Champaign is gonna skew pretty hard to the left, so color me suspicious.... and also notice how they can't decide whether we're talking belief system (conservative v. liberal) or party affiliation (D vs. R).

Let's use our first visual:

Here's their explanation of this result:

“It’s a super interesting set of findings,” said Chadly Stern, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has studied and written about how one’s political ideology shapes the way they see the world. “It’s very consistent with what we know about the psychological differences between liberals and conservatives, or Democrats and Republicans.”

“Among conservatives there’s a tendency to gravitate toward norms and rules, because rules present structure,” Stern said. “One of the things that people have been talking about is that Trump says America is in chaos and there’s a lot of violence and instability and he’s going to make America great and safe again through the enforcement of rules.”

The conclusion they're drawing is that Republicans play by the rules, but Dems just wanna have fun....  But really, it's just oh so silly....  Let's try a little thought experiment:  Who do you want to play in that club championship match?  You see the issue....

By the way, as much as I love their findings, the differences are pretty friggin' small....  But this one is the real howler:

Then there was the question of whether golfers prefer to walk or ride. You might think more Republicans would favor walking since that’s the more traditional form of golf. But here Republicans were far more likely to take a cart -- a reflection, Stern theorizes, to Democrats generally being more eco-friendly.

“That was my initial impression, is that liberals tend to be more concerned about the possibility of climate change,” Stern said. “In general, liberals are more likely to ride their bikes than take cars, and that coalesces with what we see here.”

Climate change?  Damn, I should have seen that one coming....  Of course there's no cross-tabs by age, because the polling is comically unscientific.

Yanno, I have no hesitancy to bash liberals, and Lord knows the next two years will be a target rich environment.   But among serious golfers, there are no discernible differences in their adherence to the rules by party affiliation.....

Making a  List -  Mike Bamberger is thoroughly old school, which makes him a guy worth listening to.  He's now doing weekly lists of his favorite seven things in golf, and they certainly have their moments.

I especially like his take on the recent DQ from LPGA Q-school:

5. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN? 

The most foolish change in the rules this year was the decision to stop allowing TV viewers to call in with potential rules violations. It was done because the calls are cumbersome to deal with and the phrase “TV viewer” suggests a guy in a Barcalounger. In other words, bad optics. But the optics shouldn’t matter here. The rules of golf are rooted in Ronald Reagan’s old disarmament phrase, “trust but verify.” The more people acting to help ensure players turn in scorecards that are 100 percent accurate the better. The Doris Chen LPGA 144-hole Q-School situation, where she clearly willfully violated a rule and may have been abetted by her mother, is another illustration that some golfers will try to get away with things if they can. More of that will lead to the death of the game as we know it. The best antidote to possibility is to bring in as many rules officials as possible, including TV viewers.

I think he nails it.  As much as we all hate the optics, we have to be clear on our objective.

It is of course more complicated than Mike can convey in one 'graph, because this example is one of an outrageous and conscious attempt to cheat, whereas most of the viewer call-ins, think Lexigate, are of the more inadvertent nature and don't involve the intentional seizing of an advantage.  But I do think we lose something important in the new rules environment, think Sung Kang v. Joe Dahmen as an example.

Kessler v. Chamblee - A bizarre cage match has arisen in our little golf bubble, but it's always fun to see adults behave like spoiled children.  After all, isn't that why we have Twitter in the first place?

Our tale begins with this tweet from Brandel Chamblee:

OK, I don't know the source of his numbers or vouch for the accuracy thereof, but his point is clear.  

Noted architecture buff Zac Blair chimes in with this, leaving me perplexed as to Brandel's underlying point:

I'm a little slow on the uptake, but wasn't Brandel just succumbing to the pull of nostalgia above?

Peter Kessler, former Golf Channel contributor and now SiruiusXM analyst, then chimes in with some constructive thoughts....  Errr, not so much, he just plays the "have you no decency" card:

Anyone know where I find this human decency code he speaks of?  Perhaps I'm off-base here, but doesn't this seem a bit of an overreaction?

Now, if only that had been the end of it... Next comes this sequence, in which Brandel trashes the Golden Age of Architecture and Kessler trashes Brandel:

Got it, he's both stunned and nauseated....  Please do let us know if the condition persists.

Perhaps Mike Bamberger's take on the contretemps will help, at the least it explains the heel reference.

6. MORE HEELS

In other lift-your-heel news, the best (a euphemism for oddest and most disturbing) development in golf right now involves two of golf’s most knowledgeable commentators, Brandel Chamblee of Golf Channel and Peter Kessler, formerly of (as it was known in his day) the Golf Channel and now of Sirius Radio. Although only one of them is participating in this fracas. Via twitter, Kessler has made a series of nasty comments about Chamblee, including this outside-our-code line: “Stick with the heel thing since you’re a heel now.” You may know that Chamblee, like George Gankas above, likes a righty swing where the left heel is raised at the top of the backswing. As for Kessler and Chamblee, they both believe that golf has been at its best when the most important component of score-making came by way of shot-making in its many different forms, as opposed to drive-bashing (these days taking only one shape). Where Peter’s anger is coming from I do not know. Why can’t we all just get along?

The personal connection in this is that at the time of the founding of Golf Channel, Kessler was a Fairview member.  My fellow members have had quite a bit to say about Mr. Kessler, none of it favorable.  There have been allegations that he tried to stiff the club on his way out the door, hardly the first to do that.  I've also received an especially salacious bit of gossip on a confidential basis, to the effect that he sponsored a younger couple (with a notably hot wife) into the club, then proceeded to have Biblical knowledge of said hot wife...  I suggested in response that he's the DJ of Fairview Country Club...  Just click if you're unfamiliar with that reference.

The phrase that's often used about Kessler is that he's "not a good guy".  I have greater insight into the source of his anger than Mike, but I also probably care much less.... And credit to Brandel for not responding in kind.