Thursday Threads

I actually had two golf events on the calendar for today, both cancelled due to the expectation of rain.  Which leaves us time for blogging...

The Kornhole Invitational - Is there anything in our game that provides more unintentional humor than sponsorships?  I'll grant you Robert Allenby, but other than that singular exception...

There's humor to be found in the companies that choose to sponsor events (Hello, Cialis!), but more from the odd-sounding names and granting of retroactive sponsorships, such as Willie Park's dramatic win in the 1860 Weetabix Open Championship.  OK, I might have made up that last one, but you take my point....

Even odder, is a mid-season bait-and-switch, of which we have a doozie:

Say this for the newest title sponsor in pro golf: they know how to make an entrance. 

Just off a gleaming marble hallway on the sixth floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday morning, executives formally announced a new partnership that could —

eventually — reshape golf’s minor league circuit as we know it. Goodbye Web.com Tour. Effective immediately, the top minor-league golf circuit in America is now the Korn Ferry Tour. 

New to the name Korn Ferry? A quick primer: It’s an L.A.-based company that conducts global executive searches and consulting. It claims to have helped thousands of executives land jobs in companies of all shapes and sizes. They’ve been in business for nearly 50 years, and they have also been a behind-the-scenes player in sports — and pro golf — for more than two decades. College hoops fans will recognize these Korn Ferry-orchestrated hires: Shaka Smart to coach the University of Texas. Patrick Ewing to coach Georgetown. The company has also helped staff up the C-suite in Ponte Vedra, and it’s currently helping the Tour find its next Chief Marketing Officer. Now, Korn Ferry steps into the spotlight as the headliner for golf’s top developmental circuit.

That sound you hear is Ben Hogan, the original namesake of this very tour, spinning in his grave.... Not to worry, we'll get to that splashy entrance post haste.

The PGA Tour gives the Democratic Party a run for their money in terms of maintaining the part line.  For instance, when was the last time you heard the word "hazard" used on a golf broadcast?  That's why this screen grab from Shack last night was a tad surprising:

Can't anyone here play this game....

The Korn Ferry people obviously bring a full kit bag of PR capabilities to the table.  For instance, this otherwise innocuous item from Golf Digest contains an early branding opportunity for the new sponsor, and seize it they do:

Evan H. Vollerthum, a caddie on the Korn Ferry Tour, was arrested Monday for human trafficking and attempting to sexually exploit a child. 

Vollerthum was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations in Topeka, Kansas, according to an ICE news release. Topeka is about two hours away from this week's Wichita Open.

See, Jay, that's how this here game is played.... really, you can't make this stuff up.

Via Geoff there was also this priceless bit from the press release:

Korn Ferry also becomes a PGA TOUR Official Marketing Partner as the “Official Leadership Development Firm” of the PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR Champions, and Korn Ferry Tour. Additionally, Korn Ferry will assume sponsorship of the Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance in Evansville, Indiana – the third and final event in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.

As for that name.... well, at best it seems a bit jarring....

 Corn brings to mind ethanol, meaning that a tie-in to AOCs Green Nude Eel can't be dismissed....

Shack raises a question of usage:

I suppose we'll get used to it...

Did Someone Mention Hogan? - Admit it, you didn't see that segue coming....  With the Yankees game in a rain delay, I caught the first twenty minutes of the new Golf Channel film on Hogan, which made me want to revisit this interview blogged by Shack.

Here's Geoff's intro:

Debuting Monday and Tuesday June 17-19 at 9 pm ET, Golf Films looks at the life and legend of Ben Hogan.

With limited commercial interruption thanks to sponsor Charles Schwab, Hogan is narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Kyle Chandler, and produced for 13-time Emmy Award winner Israel DeHerrera. He answered some questions about how the film came together.

This will quickly tell you their premise for the film:

Q: What is your best interview get and person you most wished you could have interviewed and did not? 

ID: Best interview was Curt Sampson. He was our Shelby Foote. We also sat down with Ben's niece Jacque Hogan. It was pretty cool to get a first person account of the accident and the recovery as well as the Hogan family history 

Person I wished I could of interviewed is pretty easy…Hogan!

I didn't see any of Curt, though he wrote the definitive biography of Hogan.  he also wrote a book about the founding of Augusta National and The Masters, though I'll only note that David Owen's book on the same subject seemed to include many corrections of Sampson's work.

But this is the bit that interests me based upon the limited portion I saw:

Q: There are reenactments in the film. Tell us what goes into the thinking on those and is there consternation given in using them given how strong the visuals and storytelling is with a subject like Hogan? 

ID: This was a difficult decision. There simply was not enough footage of Hogan's career to be able to tell the story we wanted to tell so we decided to do re-enactments. We found Christo Garcia who spent five years of his life dedicating himself to copying Hogan's swing. We wanted to be as genuine as possible so we flew him to Shady Oaks for a shoot and to Merion to shoot there on the East Course. That said, I was very conscious of that fact that having someone trying to replicate Hogan’s swing was sacrilegious, so we only tried to use tight shots of hands, legs, shoulders etc. We tried to avoid showing an entire full swing.

Hogan’s childhood was another reason we needed to do re-creations. There are only of handful of photos of Ben during his childhood. I am very happy with how these turned out. We spent many hours casting, blocking, searching for the proper locations, actors, props etc. and I think it shows during the childhood scenes and the famous caddie tournament he played against Byron Nelson at Glen Garden. We also rented out an old house in LA to shoot his re-creations of his recovery from the accident.

He seems a tad defensive, no?  All I can say is that the first cut to a reenactment was quite jarring, and had me reaching for the remote.   The most curious part to me was the decision to film them in color, which might have been what caused my negative reaction.  

In no way did I give this effort a proper chance, so please take the criticism with a large grain of salt.

Phil Phaces Phacts - Taking valuable time away from his scatological social media efforts, he seems to have reached the acceptance stage of his grief:

A few days removed from the festivities, the reality of another missed opportunity

seemed to have sunk in. 

“I really don’t have many more chances,” Mickelson said Wednesday from the Travelers Championship, where he is playing for the first time in 16 years. “I probably have to come to the realization that I’m not going to win a U.S. Open.”

Phil-philes will argue his last, best chance could come at next year’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot, where he famously kicked away a chance in 2006. History, though, suggests otherwise -- the oldest player to win a U.S. Open was Hale Irwin, who was 45 when he hoisted the trophy at Medinah.

Would this be a good time to ask him to revisit his strategy on No. 18 in 2006?  

He Cares -  He really cares.... I'm sure he got a good talking to from Fortress Ponte Vedra Beach, but this is amusing in a postmodern kind of way:

Brooks Koepka is not pleased with the perception that he doesn’t care about regular PGA Tour events. 

Speaking with the media ahead of the Travelers Championship, Koepka was asked about his level of focus this week. The preamble to that question included a reference to comments Koepka made two weeks ago, prior the RBC Canadian Open, when he said he “could care less what happens” in his tune-up start for the U.S. Open. 

“Let me set the record straight,” Koepka said Wednesday at TPC River Highlands. “It's not that I don't care about the event. … Some people took that and ran with it. … Can't believe everything you read.”

Alternate take:  Who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?   I might have gone with ears, except there's video....

I can see where the press was wrong to accurately report your comments....

By the way, what is Brooks doing in Hartford this week?  I get why Phil is there, and Jordan as well..... Those guys are looking for something.  Brooks should be in a thong with Jenna, then head across the pond to play the Irish.  

Did Someone Mention Hartford? - It's a gift, which I'm happy to share.

We rant a bit about the misuse of sponsor's exemptions, so I'm quite happy to give credit where due:

“We probably had 60 or 70 players, either in college or just a year or so out of college, reach out to us [this last year],” said Grube, who began running the tournament in 2006

and ever since has routinely given out his four non-restricted exemptions to rising amateurs and nascent professionals looking for a break. 

Of those 60 or 70, Grube, along with Travelers executive VP and chief administrative officer Andy Bessette and others on the tournament team, whittled the names down to an impressive foursome for this week’s event: Viktor Hovland, Matthew Wolff, Collin Morikawa and Justin Suh, who were ranked first, second, third and fifth in the World Amateur Golf Ranking as of the end of May. 

For Hovland and Wolff, college teammates at Oklahoma State who just finished their junior and sophomore years, respectively, the start this week at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Conn., will mark their professional debuts. Hovland, a 21-year-old from Norway who won the U.S. Amateur last August, had a tremendous send-off to the pros last week, earning low-amateur honors with a tie for 12th at the U.S. Open, breaking Jack Nicklaus’ 72-hole championship scoring mark for an amateur. Same for Wolff, a 20-year-old from Agoura Hills, Calif., who arrives at the Travelers fresh off a five-stroke win at the NCAA Championship, his sixth individual title this past season.

I guess Tony Romo had a conflict?

It's a good look for this event, and almost makes me inclined to check their progress.  Unfortunately, I will need to wash my hair this weekend....

I'll also direct you to this interesting introduction to Matthew Wolff, he of the weird swing (and even weirder trigger) and clubhead speed:

Wolff played his first PGA TOUR event at this year’s Waste Management Phoenix Open. He impressed with a 67 in his first roundbefore fading to 50th place. He was third in driving distance (325.4 yards), trailing only Bubba Watson and Ollie Schniederjans. Wolff’s clubhead speed of 125.8 mph was second only to Champ. Wolff reached 131 mph in the second round at TPC Scottsdale. 

“Occasionally someone comes along who is uncorrupted and they’re called freaks. They’re dismissed as freak talents,” Chamblee said. “They have a way of dismissing genius for convenience’s sake because it doesn’t fit their model or aesthetic. 

“Here comes Matt Wolff, here comes George Gankas, here comes a bunch of golfers who are going to change the game. They’re going to hit it 20-30 yards past what we thought were the longest players and they’re going to have an advantage.” 

Wolff’s swing has inspired enough copycats, especially among Gankas’ students, that people have assumed it is a model that Gankas tries to squeeze his students into. Wolff developed that move before coming to Gankas during his freshman year of high school. Now, after seeing the results and the power that it produces, students are asking Gankas to teach them to swing like his star student.

 I'm going to leave you here, but perhaps your disappointment will be tempered by the enormous volume of content teed up for tomorrow.  Or not...