Tuesday Tastings

Scanning my open browser tabs, it looks as though you're in for some deep dives today....  You'll be the judge as to whether that's actually a good thing....

The X-Files - It seems the the Schauffelle kerfuffle (I've been waiting a week to work that one in) has legs, as folks can't get enough of the physics of a golf club... or, as seems more likely, the whining of pampered professional set.  But the thing is, the deeper you dive the bigger the hot mess seems.

Callaway Prez Chip Brewer released a lengthy statement on driver testing, in which he sought to deflect blame from the X-Man:

While the industry continues to talk about this driver testing issue, I want to stand up for and defend Xander. He is one of the highest integrity, most talented and nicest young men in golf. And, he has a fair and reasonable point of view on this equipment testing issue. 

If anybody deserves blame or criticism for the driver test failure at the Open Championship, it’s us. We provide Xander his equipment. But in all fairness, I’m not sure we did anything wrong. We do everything in our power to design equipment that performs at the limit of USGA/R&A rules, but does not exceed it. As long as I am in charge, we will never knowingly produce non-conforming equipment or condone its use, especially in tournament play.

Amusing, in the sense that exactly no one thought that Xander was intentionally cheating....  at least not until we heard how defensive he is on the subject.  But do go on:

We test our drivers hundreds of times throughout the manufacturing process to make sure they are conforming. For Tour product, we have a Tour certification process that tests 100 percent of these products again at our facility prior to sending anything out to a player. We have also installed [CT characteristic time] testing equipment on our primary tour trailers so we are now able to test in the field on both new and “played in” parts, where high swing speed players could experience what we term CT “creep”, and a driver that originally conformed could become, through play, non-conforming or deemed damaged into a non-conforming state. We are also doing fundamental research on managing or preventing “creep” but more on that later. 

We know Xander’s driver was conforming when he received it. Probably in the range of 245 – 250 CT. At the Open we tested it at 255 CT, still conforming but close to the limit. The R&A tested it at 258, one over the limit. This sort of testing variation is going to happen. Because the R&A tested it over the limit, the driver was taken out of play and we replaced it with one that tested well within the limits. All before the event began and conforming with the rules of golf and intent of all the testing (both ours and the R&A’s).

CT Creep?  Yup, apparently it's now a thing.... 

Golf Channel's Rex Hoggard has much more:

Last year’s Open marked the first time individual player’s drivers had been selected for testing and even that effort is random with only 30 players chosen. For Schauffele and many others, it’s the first shortcoming in a process that’s riddled with problems. 

“It’s not fair just to test 30,” Schauffele said last week at TPC Southwind, a week after his Callaway driver failed the CT test in Northern Ireland. “Knowing how many people failed this time around there’s a certain percentage and if you run that percentage through the entire field there will be others. I’d put a large sum of money that other people would have failed that test as well. Them knowing that and leaving the chance there might be other players in the field with nonconforming drivers while I had to take mine out, which is fine because it failed, I just don’t think that’s right.” 

Mathematically, Schauffele’s point is valid. Although the R&A declined to comment on other test results at The Open, if two other players failed, as Schauffele contends, that would be roughly a 7 percent margin, which statistically would equate to 11 players in the 156-man Open Championship field.

OK, I know math remains hard...  But word on range is that three drivers failed (a Ping and TaylorMade, as well as Agent Scully's), which my Hewlett Packard 12C stubbornly insists is 10%, equating to 15.6 drivers in the entire field.  

This certainly won't make you feel any better about the testing regimen:

The Tour defers to the USGA for equipment testing after coming to the conclusion years ago that the circuit didn’t have the expertise or the equipment to accurately administer the test. The USGA, however, proved to be just as reluctant to lift the veil on testing, telling GolfChannel.com in a statement, “we have done testing only at [the Tour’s] request. It’s not something we would do at their events on our own or independent from them.” 

The USGA will arrive unannounced onsite to Tour events, “four to eight times” during the season, and based on the Darrell Survey, which tracks equipment usage on Tour, will select various driver heads from the manufacturers' vans based on the different models a particular company has in play. The European Tour has a similar arrangement with the R&A conducting periodic driving testing. 

Note, the testing is not done directly to the specific drivers players have in their bags, but rather on a similar model presented by manufactures from their onsite trailers.

That first excerpt above might have surprised folks, the bit about Cally's test differing from the R&A's.  Turns out that's a real thing as well:

“From what I’ve learned, every machine tests differently and depending on how you tighten [the clubhead into the CT testing device] it can give you a different reading depending on how tight or loose it is,” Billy Horschel said. “When you test something all the machines should be the same. They should all be calibrated and give the same reading within a minuscule number. 

“When different machines are off by a greater margin then it’s tough to say some equipment is illegal. The equipment the R&A and the USGA test with isn’t too a high enough standard to give an accurate reading on a regular basis.”

Let me try to summarize the current state of play....

1.  The testing of CT is a highly-variable process, with unpredictable results;
2. The CT of a driver in play can change over time;
3. There is no meaningful benefit from the incremental increases in CT; yet....
4. Manufactures push their products to the very limits of allowable CT.

What a mess...Persimmon, anyone?

Though I'll leave you with this bit, indicating that perhaps not everyone is intentionally pushing up against these limits:

To prove the point prior to last week’s Open Championship, Justin Thomas had his driver tested and his manufacturer, Titleist, confirmed it was close enough to the limit that he switched drivers before the year’s final major.

“It's something that over time when you use drivers for a while, they do get hot, they do get a little bit worn in,” Thomas said. “I think that's on the manufacturers to make sure that they are tested and that they are conforming, because it's not fair to the rest of the field if guys are using some and some aren’t.”

Good for you, JT....  Now, can we discuss your views on backstopping?

On Schedules and TV -  Things seem to be accelerating as relates to the Tour's long-term planning...  Now I'm old enough to remember those naive days back when the Tour's desire to wrap things up before Labor Day led us to dream of an actual off-season.  I know, we're all a bunch of rubes....

First up, the Tour has released its 2019-2020 schedule, which includes a grand total of forty-nine events.  Now I don't need no stinkin' HP 12C to remind me that a calendar year includes only fifty-two weeks, but that's more like an off-hour than an off-season (and yes, I do know that there are weeks with two events), but still...).

Dylan Dethier sums up the winners and losers in this slightly tweaked schedule:

WINNERS

Greenbrier. It’s back! After taking the 2018-19 season off, the Tour heads again to White Sulphur Springs, W.V. where it occupies a new spot in the schedule. Rather than buried as a mid-summer in-between event, there’s something to be said for kicking off the new wraparound season, I suppose. And I like the idea of West Virginia in early September, too, which makes this thing a winner. But going up against Week 2 of the NFL season? That’s a tougher ask.

Glad to have this wonderful golf course back in the rota, but those early tee times will be a bit chilly...

Sanderson Farms. It’s a real tournament now! Last year, the Sanderson was played opposite the WGC-HSBC Champions; now it lives all on its own. That means the man who lifts the Golden Rooster trophy (Cameron Champ, last year) will get a Masters invite. It means the purse will jump from $4.4 million to $6.6. It means a healthy $1.19 million to the winner. And it means a full allocation of those sweet, sweet FedEx Cup points. Party on, Sanderson Farms.

There's little Dylan could say that would interest me in this event, save the amusing thought of a Tour stud seeing his trophy for the first time....

ZOZO Championship. The CIMB Classic is out and the ZOZO is in. The Japan-based event will be a fantastic primer to the following summer’s Olympics, and it’s got the best headliner in golf history: Tiger Woods. Instant winner.

Somehow I'm thinking that Tiger is more interested in his revived Skins Game....

These two are the most significant of the tweaks:

Rocket Mortgage Classic. The schedule is identical from Jan. 1 through the Charles

Schwab Challenge in late May. But the first shift is a fortuitous one; the Tour heads to Detroit the week before the Memorial. That’s an easy combo to pull and adds major juice to the Midwest swing. It’s easy to imagine stars heading to Detroit and then Columbus, skipping the RBC Canadian Open and then swooping into Winged Foot for the U.S. Open. 

WGC-Fed Ex St. Jude Invitational. Somehow, this past week’s Rory vs. Brooks final-round showdown felt extremely flat yesterday. But there will be plenty more juice in its position on the schedule next summer: two weeks after the U.S. Open, three weeks before the Open Championship. That’s a theme of these winners; tournaments are best situated when they have room to breathe. WGC-Memphis may get its heat back. It also may very literally get its heat back, because despite some unseasonably cool weather this weekend, Memphis in early July sounds toasty.

I was shocked at the bad date FedEx accepted this year, so it's no surprise that they land in a better spot for the long-term.  

Of course, for every winner there's going to be someone less fortunate.  In this case, the move of the Detroit event led me to expect this one:

3M Open. The once-annual Tour pilgrimage to TPC Twin Cities may stall out at one. Its 2020 position, dumped directly after the Open and before the Olympics, means no stars are going to be trekking from St. George’s to Minneapolis to Japan.

I think Dylan forgets that there will be a max of four American golfers in the Olympics, so it's not quite as dire as he makes out.  But isn't the bigger story that the PGA Tour will not have an event competing with the Olympics?  Taking one for the team, but that was not the case in 2016, when they were at Quad Cities.

But what's good for Memphis and Ponte Vedra Beach, is bad for an event that's been a ton of fun in recent years:

Irish Open. No, the Irish Open isn’t on the PGA Tour schedule. Remember all the fun we had this year with the linksy lead-up to the Open Championship? Lahinch for the Irish Open, Renaissance Club for the Scottish Open, then Portrush? But next year, WGC-Memphis runs directly opposite the Irish Open’s slot. Bad sign for fans of Irish golf. 

This preview of the issues facing the Irish Open, written prior to Portrush, is an unintentional howler, most notably this bit:

"I know this date, this Irish Open is high on the agenda in the communication between Keith and Jay Monahan in Portrush in two weeks… they have scheduled meeting like they always do at all the majors.” 

Having a blue-chip winner in Rahm at the weekend in Lahinch, with the victorious Spaniard, also the champion in 2017, promising to defend his title and urging American stars to play in future Irish Opens, would seem to boost Pelley’s bargaining power with the Americans but McGinley added: 

“It’s not so much ammunition. As I say, we’re very harmonious. We are getting on really well with them, and we want to continue that, and we don’t want to go into a brinkmanship situation. We may have to go into two opposing tournaments, but what can we do?

 And how did that harmonious relationship work out for you?

As Shack noted recently, all of this is foreplay awaiting the expiration of the Tour's rights packages, which expire in two years.  Sports Business Daily's John Ourand indicates that AT&T might be the key player in the Tour's fantasy life:

WarnerMedia has told the PGA Tour that it would consider converting one of its existing TV channels into a golf-focused one, but only if it winds up with the PGA Tour rights that currently are being negotiated. WarnerMedia execs discussed the idea in preliminary talks with the Tour around its next round of rights, which are up in 2021.

During its initial conversations with media companies, the PGA Tour has made it clear

that it wants to control its own linear TV channel. NBC execs have discussed letting the Tour take an ownership stake in the NBC-owned Golf Channel, which has carried the Tour’s cable TV rights exclusively for the past 13 years. WarnerMedia owns channels like HLN (Headline News), which has distribution in 86.3 million U.S. homes, or truTV, which is in 84.1 million homes. Those two would be the most likely channels to be flipped if the company follows through on its initial plan. Other WarnerMedia channels like TBS, TNT, CNN or Cartoon Network almost certainly would not be part of any plan to create a golf-focused channel.

WarnerMedia has not finalized its negotiating strategy for Tour rights and still is weeks -- or months -- away from submitting a formal bid. It’s possible that the company’s ultimate submission does not include a plan to flip one of its channels, but the fact that it has even considered such a plan shows how serious it is about the PGA Tour rights, which currently reside with CBS, NBC and Golf Channel. WarnerMedia also is launching a direct-to-consumer streaming service called HBO Max next spring; its execs have said that they want live sports to be part of its programming mix. Rights to PGA Tour events could fit in with that strategy.

Even though two years remain on its current U.S. deals, the PGA Tour will invite media companies to deliver formal pitches in the coming weeks. The Tour already has held informal talks with the incumbent networks, as well as others like Amazon, ESPN, Fox and WarnerMedia. The Tour hopes to have a new media-rights deal in place by the end of the year.

What, I ask, is wrong with cashing large checks?   One thing I internalized long ago, is that every business looks better from the outside....  The obvious problem with the Tour starting their own channel is that they'll be competing for an audience with their existing rights holder, Golf Channel.  

My guess is that AT&T will be used as a negotiating lever, though Shack makes some points that cut both ways:

Given that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is on the PGA Tour Policy Board with oversight of the next TV contract, common sense says his company would seem to have an inside track if it bids. Then again, his company has received one of the worst dates on the PGA Tour just weeks after the Masters and the week prior to the PGA Championship. Tony Romo was the major draw this year.

Yeah, that has to be the worst date on the calendar.... Other issues as well:

In recent months, AT&T has been dealing with debt-reduction as its primary focus though that appears to not be a major issue. 

It was WarnerMedia that most recently was responsible for 2018’s The Match as a test case for sports gambling, synergy and golf. Reviews were mixed, with a massive pay-per-view payment disaster, live drones that didn’t work and a sense that the intersection of golf gambling and television has a ways to go.

$180 billion in debt, to be specific, but who's counting?  On the flip side, they do have that inventory of unwatched channels.... 

Major Headaches - I didn't do justice yesterday to the epic fail that is the Evian Championship, so pull up a chair.  While generally supportive of the ladies, this event deserves to be shunned for the hubris of its elevation to "Major" status.  The fact that it's been plagued by bad weather and other ills is, for me, proof positive of a higher being....

I covered the rain yesterday, ironic given the move from September to July...  Apparently, the Golf gods have not been appeased.  Perhaps the weather wouldn't have been so annoying, if they hadn't been out in it for so long:

Slow play is a hot topic in the world of golf — especially at the professional level. Just

last week, J.B. Holmes was lambasted for his pace of play at the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. Now, complaints are emerging on the women’s tour at the Evian 

Championship in France, the fourth of five women’s major championships this year.

Stacy Lewis, a 12-time winner on the LPGA Tour, including two majors, tweeted on Friday that rounds took nearly six hours to complete.

Here's her tweet, which does get at the heart of the issue:

Good news, Stacey, no one was watching anyway....

And the hits keep on coming...  Lexi Thompson didn't so much as sniff the cut line, but left town with these charming sentiments:

“So Evian, where do I begin…I’d be the first to tell you that I hit it like 💩 the first day

and missed everything. Not one to make excuses, but to land 3-4 drives in the middle of fairway and end up in the rough like the one pic with a stance like that, or get a first cut lie like this one, what is this telling you? And to play well today hit one bad golf shot but hit 3 iron shots right at the pin 5 ft at one point then end up 40+ ft….umm really? I’m actually very thankful that I don’t have to put myself thru that for another two days. You’re a beautiful place Evian but that’s just too many bad breaks with good shots for me, so bye @evianchamp ! #justnotforme #allgood #onward”

We're thankful as well, Lexi.  Win-win, baby!

Of greater significance, she posted (then later deleted) this photo of course conditions:

But if only it ended here...  Because our hero is likely to be very popular in the Woburn locker room this week:

Thompson, who sounded off about course conditions following a missed cut in France, accidentally left her passport in her golf bag, according to a Golf Channel report. Thompson's clubs were with 40 other players' sticks in a rental car traveling from the Evian Resort Golf Club to Woburn Golf Club in England, site of this week's Open. 

Ian Wright, a former caddie for Seve Ballesteros, was in charge of hauling the clubs between major sites. About two hours following departure, he received a call that Thompson's passport was in the back of his van. Wright told the Golf Channel's Randall Mell that he pulled over and waited for Thompson's caddie to retrieve the documentation.

You put your passport in your golf bag?  Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, eh?

After the passport was handed off, Wright had to repack the van, and told the Golf

Channel the episode put him back an initial three hours. Unfortunately, his delays did not end there: Because of the stoppage, he missed a ferry to England, and ultimately found himself stuck in rush-hour traffic jams. 

As Wright didn't arrive to Woburn until 5:00 p.m. local time—almost 24 hours after his adventure began—players whose clubs were in his van missed a practice round, as the course closed for maintenance. The players were, however, allowed to hit on the range. 

Thompson's agent told the Golf Channel it was an honest mistake.

Let's see if I have this correct....  Missing the cut by five shots: Someone else's fault.  Screwing up the entire field's practice round: An honest mistake.

"She had no idea retrieving it would cause the delay it did, or that it would impact other players the way it did," said agent Bobby Kreusle. "She would never have wanted that.”

I find myself increasingly unconcerned with what Lexi wants....perhaps she might want to explain herself to this young lady:

O’Toole wasn’t happy that yet another day of preparation for a major has been lost to her. 

“I don’t know why the driver would agree to accommodate one person knowing it would punish about a third of the field,” O’Toole said. “The driver should have said, 'Hey, I’ve got to get these clubs to Woburn. If you want the passport, somebody’s going to have to fly there to get it and bring it back.’”

Please, Ryan, Lexi got a bad bounce at Evian... You know that trumps everything.

Sergio Being Sergio -  I'm still waiting for that kinder, gentler Sergio to emerge from his Masters triumph.  Maybe it's me, but he seems as childish and petulant as ever...  Shack has the latest viral video here.

That should keep you guys happy, at least until tomorrow.