Thank you Dear readers for not protesting too harshly my two-day absence.... Yes, golf was played, but the time was well-used to take care of some family business as well.
Yesterday at Engineer's was its typical delight. A bizarre mixture of heavy Jewish food and Golden Era architecture on steroids.... Those greens are a national treasure, though they will bring a fellow to his knees a few times each round. This is the centennial of their 1919 PGA Championship, and they had some wonderful B&W photos from that event on display.
They continue to tweak the afternoon Par-3 scramble, which now features eight-man scramble teams playing nine one-shotters and one cross-country hole, played from the 13th tee to the 15th green. Last year eight of us agonizingly missed a ten-foot eagle putt (it's a Par-7), but this year we bagged it.
There is one little thing that I should share at this point, which is that we might have to wait until Tuesday to wrap the weekend. A last bit of business may require my presence Monday morning, but do check back because we've reschedule once already.
Now, how about some blogging?
Slow Down, You're Moving Too Fast.... - Did you ever catch this quote:
“It’s actually quite impressive that we’re able to get all that stuff done in 45 seconds; people don’t realize that it’s very difficult to do everything we do in 45 seconds.” -Bryson DeChambeau
Well, I agree completely that it would be, though in the speaker's case it's more of a hypothetical.
Andy Johnson of The Fried Egg spent some time at Pebble with a stopwatch in his hand:
On Friday afternoon of the U.S. Open, I followed Bryson DeChambeau, Kevin Kisner, and Justin Thomas, and I timed all of their shots except tap-ins for the entire front nine. I chose this group because DeChambeau has drawn considerable criticism for slow play
The perfect photo, Kis and JT waiting on Bryson. from both media and fellow pros, whereas Kevin Kisner has a reputation as one of the Tour’s quickest. Seeing the two side-by-side offered an intriguing perspective.
As DeChambeau, Kisner, and Thomas worked their way through Pebble Beach’s front nine, I recorded the amount of time it took each player to hit each shot from the moment that it became clear the previous shot had ended. I also noted the order in which they played their shots within the group. To determine the exact start time for each shot, I simply used common sense. On approach shots, I started the clock when both caddie and player had arrived at the ball and the group ahead had vacated the green. On successive shots within the group, I started it when the previous shot had clearly ended—that is, when the previous player had picked up his tee, or when the preceding putt or chip had been marked, etc.The results are below. The numbers in the left column—1, 2, and 3—represent the order in which the player hit the shot within the group. 1* signifies shots for which a player was first in the order but had to wait on the group ahead or called for a ruling. Finally, I have color coded the times: green = a time under 40 seconds; yellow = a time between 40-60 seconds; and red = a time over 60 seconds.
It's not a river of red.... but it's close enough for one of the three:
The problem, of course, is that Kis ends up having to play at Bryson's pace, a decided advantage for the latter.
As we've covered repeatedly, we're nowhere's near have an enforcement regime that works, so Bryson will remain free to make the moment last.
Better Late Than.... - This story in the hands of Alistair Tait will yield predictable results, a good thing indeed:
Walk through the streets of Gullane, Scotland Thursday and you might just hear a tickingsound. The hands on the clock in the clubhouse of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers just started moving again.
Time no longer stands still at Muirfield, where the Honourable Company has played golf for 275 years. In all that time, women have played the Open Championship layout, but only as guests. They’ll now be able to do so as equals.
The club announced Thursday that it has extended invitations to women to join its ranks.
It almost seems that he thinks this took too long....
“This year marks the 275th anniversary of the club’s first recorded golf competition. We are proud of our club’s rich history but equally excited for its future and the part all of our new members will play in the club’s cherished traditions.”
C'mon, admit it, those 275 years just flew by....
He close with the inevitable poke at the club's name:
The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, the members club attached to the R&A, voted to accept women members in 2014. Two years later, Honourable Company members voted not to accept women into the club. Muirfield was taken off the Open Championship rota as a result.
The club did an about-face a year later when it held another vote. This time 80% of membership voted in favour of women becoming members. Today’s announcement is the result of that vote.
It’s about time, too. It beggars belief that a club with “honourable” in its title has taken nearly 300 years to do the honorable thing.
They weren't getting another Open Championship until they followed through because, dammit, if the R&A had to do so, so would the venue clubs. Ironically, it will likely be the very same women offered membership to both.
Golfer Behaving Badly - Dan Kilbridge has no chance with this, though I had hoped for more:
Some players take out their frustration on caddies, but what behavior crosses the line?
Dan recounts the Jordan bit from the eighth hole at Pebble, then gives Stewart Cink the mic:
That all depends on who you asked. Every player-caddie relationship is different, as are their opinions on what’s acceptable and what isn’t.
“People chime in from all corners of the world saying it’s (Spieth) mistreating his caddie, where anybody who’s spent time with him knows it’s not,” Brandt Snedeker said.
“People say he’s mistreating Michael. Not even close to the truth. It doesn’t portray us in the best light … (but) a caddie’s whole job in a player-caddie relationship is if you need to vent, being able to vent and get it out of your system so next shot you’re ready to go.”
Others players think those comments should take place in private, if they need saying at all.
Golf can be human frailty on parade. so we might want to give all these guys a break.... And Dan seems to go to pains to avoid the serial abusers of caddies, such as Robert Allenby.
Dan, to his credit, does get to the more interesting aspect of Grellergate, which is the demarcation between caddie and player responsibility. They both have the same information and they both agree on the club selection, but when the "perfect" shot ends up wet, Jordan seems reluctant to share in the credit....
Twitterati - Alex Myers devotes one of his The Grind columns to a ranking of golf personalities on Twitter....I love it, though I wonder how welcome he'll be in Tour locker rooms after this.
For instance, he gives Rickie an honorable mention nod, but then sticks in the shiv:
Rickie sneaks on here because he’s easily one of the five most popular players on the PGA Tour. And yes, he also has a famous WAG.Otherwise, his tweets/Instagrams are as barren as his collection of major championship trophies. Sorry, that was harsh. Love ya, Rick. And can you please provide plenty of pics from your upcoming wedding? Thanks.
Might have been harsh, but of greater import is that it's funny...
This guy is too new to know real well, though I'm guessing that we'll come to enjoy his:
10.) Max Homa
Arguably golf’s top Twitterer, Homa has the ability to start a thread that turns into a successful post just by relating a personal anecdote. He did so recently by admitting he doesn’t tell Uber drivers what he does for a living because he wants to keep the chit-chat to a minimum. It was honest, funny, and it drew fantastic responses from fellow tour pros. Here, let's randomly go check out what Max's latest tweet is at the time of this post.
Cute.
While we already love the goofy Henrik, how cool is this bit:
He also once drove down Magnolia Lane blasting Ice, Ice, Baby. The man is a treasure.
Way to stick it to the man, Henrik.
Good fun with lots of video.
Slugger's Shot - Guy Yocum's My Shot feature has occupied the last page of Golf Digest for as long as I can remember, and it always delivers the goods. This latest installment feature rules official Slugger White, who answers the question on most folks' mind:
I played on the PGA Tour. From 1976 through ’79, I made exactly $32,279 out here. Itactually was enough to break even, and it helped that I was able to supplement it by playing the mini-tours. Those events, I actually could win. A $2,500 check for a win at a tournament played somewhere between Phoenix and Tucson felt huge. In Waterloo, Iowa, I won a car, which I immediately sold back to the dealer for $6,000. It was a scrambling kind of life, but I enjoyed it. There were moments when I felt on the verge of really making it.
In the newspaper agate results, I went by my given name, Carlton White. But I’ve gone by Slugger my whole life. I was a large baby, and my dad nicknamed me after an Army buddy of his who, like my dad, was a boxer. My dad was a good fighter, a Golden Gloves champion who had 21 pro fights. He fought Sugar Ray Robinson in Sugar Ray’s real early days as a pro, which makes it hard to find in the record books, but he did it. Dad lost the fight by decision and told me he thought he’d done pretty well—until the next morning, when both eyes were so swollen he couldn’t see for three days.
This makes me like JT even more:
The most impressive player on tour, rules-wise, is Justin Thomas. Charles Howell is excellent, but Justin is incredible, especially for one so young. He’s a rules fanatic, constantly approaching me with questions and hypotheticals. At the CJ Cup in South Korea in 2017, Justin was in a playoff with Marc Leishman. As we’re walking down the fairway, Justin calls me over and starts bombarding me with rules questions. He wasn’t in a rules situation, he just wanted to chat up the rules in that “What if you whiff a wrong ball?” kind of way. I couldn’t believe it. He’s playing for almost $1.7 million first prize and his fifth victory of the year, and he wants to talk shop. He won the playoff.
Alas, this is just pig-headed and wrong:
Backstopping—one player deliberately leaving his ball on the green in a position to assist another player—is more a manufactured issue than a real one. Going back to my playing days, it never was a serious point of concern. I think so much golf is seen on TV now that when an instance arises, the whole world sees it. It’s made players more sensitive and eager to avoid the appearance of evil. I see and hear more, “Better let me run up and mark that” than ever.
Really, Slugger? So when Jimmy Walker asks his playing partner, "Would you like me to leave that there?", that's OK in your book? But if players are marking their balls to avoid any impropriety, haven't we proved our point?
A Rough 'Hood - Stephen Hennessy tries to have some fun with a crime blotter report from....wait for it, The Villages:
The swanky 55-and-over community of The Villages, with more than 100,000 seniors with a huge interest in golf, is essentially the mecca of retired life. More than 600 holes of golf are on property in this swampland about an hour from Orlando.
The news making the rounds on Wednesday is sure to shake this group of seniors up just a little bit.
According to TheVillagesNews.com (real site), the son of one of the Villages residents stole another resident's golf clubs last week. Andrew Lawrence Simpson, according to the report, stole a women's set of clubs from one of the courses on site, Mallory Hill Country Club, which he then sold at a nearby pawn shop for $333. The clubs had an estimated value, according to the report, of $4,314.
I didn't think that news days ever got quite this slow, but Stephen fails to find a single item of interest or humor in this report. Amusingly, he seems to think that folks at this location play with caddies, so perhaps he needs to get out more.
I doubt that golf club thefts are rampant there, but you know what is?
Though The Villages – which spans three counties with 40,000 homes and more than 70,000 residents – boasts 34 golf courses, nine country clubs, two downtown squares and a slew of restaurants and bars, getting lucky is one of the residents’ primary pastimes.
The huge complex began growing rapidly in the mid-1990s, and reported cases of gonorrhea rocketed from 152 to 245, of syphilis rose from 17 to 33, and of chlamydia from 52 to 115 among those 55 and older in Florida from 1995 to 2005.
The state’s sexually transmitted disease rate among those over 65 is one of the fastest growing in the country, one report claims.
In 2006, a local gynecologist reported that she treated more cases of herpes and human papillomavirus at The Villages than she did when she worked in Miami.
So, which of these stories do you think is funnier?
Be The Ball - It's Ball-Day at Golf.com, and I'm wondering if it's in reaction to this story:
At the 1945 Los Angeles Open, Bing Crosby gave Sam Snead a brand-new Spalding Dot. At the time, rubber wasn’t publicly available; “pre-war” golf balls were going forover $100/dozen. Snead repped Wilson at the time, but he took the Spalding and played it the entire 72 holes, even as the cover came loose, and won the tournament in the process.
In 1902, Sandy Herd showed up at the British Open with a new rubber-wound Haskell golf ball and played two qualifying rounds, then the four tournament rounds, all with the same ball. He won, too.
So Alex Chiarella’s one-ball win at the Lethbridge Paradise Canyon Open this past weekend wasn’t unprecedented — but it was a throwback to a different time. Chiarella, 25, shot 20 under over four rounds to capture his first Mackenzie Tour win, using a Titleist 1 the entire time. Friday night, Chiarella considered putting in a freshie.
“I looked at my buddy who I was staying with that night and said, ‘Man, I have some good mojo with this ball. Would it be weird to keep this going on the weekend?'” Chiarella told the PGA Tour. “He said, ‘No dude, tee it up tomorrow.’ There were a few scuffs on it, so I did it. I played with it on Saturday and then asked him the same question Saturday night, and he’s like, ‘Dude, there is no way you’re putting the ball out of the bag. Tee that thing up in the morning.'”
Perhaps an overzealous interpretation of the one-ball rule? Fun story and lots of great history, including this from the Waybac machine:
For the average golfer, the biggest reason to change balls is out of necessity — a 2009 GOLF Magazine study found that even avid golfers lose 1.3 balls per round. For pros, it’s more about conditioning. In 1899, golfers playing the new gutta percha found that it flew shorter than a feathery, but a nicked, scratched ball would fly up to 60 percent farther(inspiring dimple technology in the process). That’s not the case now. Most golf balls have soft covers to maximize feel, and most pros have clean grooves and high swing speed, meaning every short iron or wedge compression can result in a scuffed ball.
Ah, the guttie... But I didn't know they flew further when scarred. The guttie led to the falling out between Old Tom Morris and Alan Robertson, which led to Old Tom decamping to Prestwick, which led to...well, just about everything.
Which leads to this rumination:
How long can you use a golf ball before noticing a performance drop-off? We have your answer
I'm tempted to ask the same about my swing... We'll get to their answer, though for most folks it's as long as you want:
According to a Titleist representative, “they have considerable communication with ‘regular’ golfers as well who will write us about the durability and performance of our golf balls with images of the golf ball having played over 120 consecutive holes with the same ball.”
In other words, if the ball takes on wear during the normal course of play, the average golfer won’t see a drop-off in performance. However, that changes when the ball, for example, catches the cart path or ricochets off a tree and incurs a scuff larger than the size of a dime.
“Our normal rule of thumb for regular golfers is as long as paint loss, a scuff or defacement of the golf ball is less than the size of a dime, it should be good to go,” the representative said.
With significant improvements to the overall durability of the elastomer cover, it’s no longer a requirement to rotate balls like it was during the heyday of the liquid-filled balata.
They're amazingly durable, as the manufacturers can count on us losing them at a rapid pace.
As for this accompanying piece on golf ball fittings, it really should have carried a paid advertisement warning. Years ago I had a ball fitting from Bridgestone which was comically duplicitous, so I'm a bit of a skeptic on this subject. A thorough fitting would be too arduous and subjective, especially as compared to the price point of the product. Add to that the lack of differentiation, the balls all pretty much are the same technology, that I don't see this going very far.
I'll bid you adieu, and look to catch up next week.
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