Thursday Threads

Real life is exerting its demands, but we'll see if we can a few items for you in the interim....

Here's Comes The ... - Well, we certainly know what the PGA of America is praying for, though as yet said prayers have been unanswered.

Earlier this week Shack posted this weather forecast:

I played yesterday and suffered a run of early Spring lies....  you know the kind, where the inconsistent growth leads to the ball finding the low spots, often on hard pan or mud.  I'll also remind you that I was at Bethpage last May with the Met. Golf Writers, one year out, and the growth of rough around the greens was quite spotty.

Kerry Haigh, the PGA's set-up majordomo, had these comments:

As Seth mentioned, we are extremely excited looking forward to the up coming PGA Championship at Bethpage and as we all know, Bethpage is a wonderful test of golf. We've come through the winter very well from a conditioning standpoint. 

Obviously the next two weeks are important in terms of leaves on the trees and grass growing, which is exactly what we knew and anticipated the past two years when we have been monitoring conditioning into this new date. 

We're very excited where we are. Andrew Wilson, the superintendent and Mike Hadley, the Black Course superintendent, both are feeling very positive about the overall conditioning. Just need a few warmer days the next 10, 14 days, and I think the golf course will be in just outstanding condition for the 101st PGA Championship. 

Obviously we're excited about the date change from a conditioning standpoint in that the grasses will be -- the cool season grasses will and should be a lot healthier. They will be sort of improving, as opposed to in the August date previously, we were sort of more on a hanging-on, keeping-the-grass, the-cool-season-grasses-alive mode. Whereas the spring temperatures are likely obviously to be more temperate and easier, cooler temperatures, which I think everyone will enjoy. But also more likely, and possibly have more chance of wind and probably tougher playing conditions.

It's not a great outlook, and the longer term forecast calls for rain during tournament week....  As much as we agonize over the conditions for Long Island with its sandy substrate, 2023 in Rochester should be magical....

But my bigger question is whether Kerr is being ironic above...  I mean, sing from the hymnal about the wonders of cool weather grasses, then remind me which organization decided to go to Kiawah, Valahalla, ACC and Charlotte in August....

A Matter of Personal Urgency -  So, towards the end of ski season I popped for four dozen new pellets from golfballs.com.  Four for the price of three satisfied those four centuries of cultural heritage, and the alignment marks with initials contained therein can't be a bad thing, right?

Now comes this extensive testing from MyGolfSpy.com, and there's a lot to unpack here....  If you're unfamiliar with the source, this is a golf blog devoted to equipment in a serious way.  They're best known for creating the buzz around the Costco K-Sig golf ball, which they compared favorably to the ProV1.

This was the bit that initially caught my eye yesterday before I went out to play::

Pretty amusing sequence, as I had no sooner read this than I went to play in cold, raw conditions in which the golf ball was going nowhere.... and now I find myself long on Chrome Soft X's....

Of course I'm a little short of that 115 mph club head speed....

It's a much more complex subject, one that I need to spend more time with.  I'll share a couple of the graphics, and you can commit your energies as you see fit:

Mizuno makes golf balls?  Who knew?

This one might actually be the more useful:

Whew, that's a relief.... middle of the pack.  I guess I can safely work through my four doz., though I do want to spend more time with this to see if a change might be appropriate.

No Kidding - Most of us understand that increased distance comes from a wide range of factors.  That acknowledged, those trying to convince us that it's all that ab work are not being serious....Luke Kerr-Dineen with the data, but an original Taylor Made metal drive was put in the hands of Jason Day:

From Geoff:

Day’s current 2019 PGA Tour ball speed average is 177.2. His clubhead speed average is 118 mph, but in a follow up Tweet posted a screen shot showing a 111 clubhead speed with the much smaller head (275cc?).

Nothing to see here, he was probably just hitting one of those dead Chrome Soft X's....

Dark Days in Liberty Corner -  Rex Hoggard with surprising news:

The USGA is downsizing. 

The association confirmed Wednesday that 63 of its employees, roughly 15 percent of its workforce, were offered “voluntary retirement incentive” plans. According to a USGA

spokesperson, the plan was offered to employees who were part of the association’s benefit plan which closed to new participants in 2008 and who were 55 or older. 

“As the USGA continues to evolve its organizational structure in an effort to drive greater impact and sustain a strong financial future, we have offered a voluntary retirement incentive plan to a segment of our staff,” the USGA said in a statement provided to GolfChannel.com. “It provides eligible employees with enhanced pension and retiree health benefits, with no obligation to participate.”

I have been unable to confirm that Mike Davis insists on referring to the buy-out offers as employment mulligans...

Does this timing seem odd?  

The move is surprising for an organization that appeared flush with cash from a 12-year television deal the USGA signed with Fox Sports in 2013. 

According to various reports, the television rights deal is worth $93 million per year and the association reported $214 million in total revenue in 2017 according to tax forms.

Shack amusingly revisits the Fox contract award, an episode that shows the USGA at peak delusional neediness, coveting Masters ratings but unable to understand that factors that cause that.  And I'm not above delving into a bi of schadenfreude at the expense of those involved at the time:

Of course, it’s cringeworthy reading given proclamations in Sirak’s story by the deal’s visionaries Glen Nager, Gary Stevenson, Tom O’Toole, Mike Davis, Casey Wasserman and Sarah Hirshland. Four of those names have all moved on to leave the mess behind to Davis.

Let’s catch up with them! 

While this review is no comfort to those who are taking early retirement to help the USGA keep the lights on, it’s hard to say anyone but Wasserman has landed in a better place.

Nager is representing a dreadful Chinese company suing the United States and looking even more miserable than ever, Hirshland is dealing with the unfixable US Olympic Committee mess and stepping in it early on, while Stevenson has an MLS job and Pac-12 network launching on his resume, a notch above “former Enron executive” in the current sports business world. O’Toole, meanwhile, has not turned up in a green coat at the Masters but has been seen driving around carts with Fox logos at recent U.S. Open’s. I’m not sure if he’s working as Joe Buck’s go-fer, or just a friend of the network, but it’s not a great look for all involved. 

Wasserman’s highly successful and generally well-regarded agency is still collecting USGA consulting checks as the engineer of the deal, but I can’t imagine his word in the golf world carries the weight it once did given Fox’s failure to deliver the USGA to the promised land of increased prominence and Masters-level ratings dreamed of by Nager.

And good to no that Geoff is no better a human being than I....

Though the assumption that they burned through the Fox money is just that, an assumption.  Organizations develop dead wood over time and it does need to be thinned out....  a leaner governing body might just be a better thing.  For instance, if those 63 people where the ones responsible for changing halve to tie, we can only hope that the door doesn't bang them on the way out....

Don't worry, I'm not getting my hopes up that the picked the right 63 souls....

Dateline: 2014 -  Eamon Lynch has been en fuego recently, though I do fear his Christmas cards may be down a bit this year....  See if you agree:

Eamon's Corner: Has Rory McIlroy peaked?

Yanno, it's quite the accomplishment to call a high, whether it's Apple or an athlete....  But, this seems late enough to not add much to the discussion.

Though Steve DeMiglio has a different take:

Rory McIlroy isn’t sweating turning 30 on Saturday. 

He isn’t uptight about his less-than-stellar performance at Augusta National Golf Club in 

the Masters in April, where his tie for 21st was the first time he finished outside the top-10 this year. 

And he’s certainly not looking ahead to the 101st edition of the PGA Championship, which will be staged in two weeks at Bethpage Black. 

No, his mind is on the present. McIlroy’s concerted effort to make sure his attitude is on the good side of par and that the game doesn’t define him has proven to be one of his top weapons this year, one that has included so many solid runs at victory that came up just short and led to criticism that he couldn’t win on Sunday.

He's got a great life, so no reason for him to sweat the small stuff.  But there doesn't seem to be much fire in the belly, so he becomes less interesting as a player.

Commitment Issues - Who knew that Lydia Ko was still playing on the LPGA Tour?  I started making jokes about her not even being Low Ko in events, and it becomes semi-permanent.  Now comes this cry for help:

Lydia Ko is in the market for a new instructor, telling Golfweek that she recently asked Sean Foley and Chris Mayson to look at her swing. 

Ko parted ways with Ted Oh after the ANA Inspiration, as first reported by Golf Channel’s Randall Mell. They first began working together ahead of the 2018 season. 

“I think we we’re both a little stressed out,” said Ko after her pro-am round at the LPGA Mediheal Championship. “We ended on good terms. It’s not like when I see him it’s ‘Oh my god it’s Ted.’ ”

 Hey, it's been a good half-hour since she's fired anybody, so this could work.

Asked what she’s looking for in an instructor, Ko said keeping it simple and making sure that when she’s playing under pressure that she’s able to commit to the shot and be confident. She’s not rushing into a decision, saying that she’s got plenty to work on in the short-term.

Pressure?  You mean like on a Friday to make the cut?

We kid because we love.

Alan on Carly -  I'm in wind-down mode, but did want to get to this one Q&A from Alan's weekly mailbag:

Can you even recall another sponsorship that was a bigger miss than that Carly Booth-Saudi Arabia deal (in any sport)? I get that folks in her tier aren’t generally in a position to turn stuff down, but good gravy. #AskAlan — Brian (@HailFlutie) 

It was an unmitigated disaster that raises some important questions. I’ve never

You say cheesecake like it's a bad thing...

interviewed Booth so I can’t speak to her worldview but her social media presence is frivilous skewing toward cheesecake. Does she follow geopolitics? Is she aware that Saudi Arabia supplied 15 of the 9/11 hijackers? Of the ongoing controversies surrounding the assassination of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi? Maybe, maybe not. Clearly she should have done a lot more due diligence. 

But professional athletes are incredibly myopic and live in bubbles – they have agents and handlers whose only job (besides making money) is to avoid these kind of screwups. What the heck were these folks thinking (besides about their commission)? Booth is guilty of cluelessness but the pros around her committed malpractice. 

Another interesting part of this controversy is how Booth has been skewered in print and on social media while all the top male players who competed in Saudi Arabia earlier this year mostly skated. There’s a weird mysogynistic double-standard here. Bryson DeChambeau made some public statements that were as groan-inducing as Booth’s social media posts but at most he earned some mild finger-wagging. The likes of Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka and Justin Rose and Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia were so transparent in their greed that it somehow was deemed more palatable than Booth’s faux-sincerity. These are troubling times.

I love the "Frivolous skewing towards cheesecake" bit, but I think this is one of Alan's bigger misfires.   In the same graph he informs that she tends towards the cheesecake, but that her worldview should be of interest to us?  And while he spares a word of contempt for the male golfers, how about the players' very tours that schedule events in these countries.

The social justice mobs are an outrage of modern society, is it too much to ask that we not egg them on.  I'm not suggesting that she was right to take Saudi money, just that our game and its governing bodies have endorsed this.  I'm happy to have Alan or anyone else suggest another course of conduct, but can we please not crucify the players.

Let me also spare a little vitriol for Alan's adherence to the stylebook usage of "Washington Post reporter Jamal Kashoggi".  It is true that Kashoggi cashed checks from the WaPo, but he also cashed checks from others:

The Washington Post has caused itself a major scandal since it has come to light they and their martyred “reformer” Jamal Khashoggi were publishing anti-Saudi propaganda for Qatar. They tried to bury this in a pre-Christmas Saturday news dump, but that can’t stop the damage this will do to their reputation. 

“Text messages between Khashoggi and an executive at Qatar Foundation International show that the executive, Maggie Mitchell Salem, at times shaped the columns he submitted to The Washington Post, proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government,” the Post wrote December 21. 

The Post says they were unaware of this, although Khashoggi’s Qatar connections were well known. They will have to answer for what is either incompetence in connecting these dots or simply not caring as Khashoggi’s attacks on President Trump and the Saudis fit right in with their narrative. The Qatar Foundation denies they were paying him to produce the anti-Saudi material.

You might well say that Alan is just a dumb sports reporter, and we can't possibly expect him to understand the nuances of Middle East politics....  But he himself can't spare much compassion for the simlarly ourt of her depth Carly Booth.

As for WaPo, their behavior is inexcusable, especially in a world in which actual reporters in many countries are at risk.  They were extremely reluctant to share this information about their "reporter", and took every opportunity to deflect from their shoddy narrative-driven journalism.  A pox on them all...