Your Friday Frisson

Bobby D. was quite miffed about the absence of a Wednesday post...  Though even he had to admit that the blog remains good value for the money.

We'll cover every story that needs examination, we'll just be all that concerned with hitting them on the day they break.  So, some things you might have missed because life got in the way...

X-Man Gets Results - The Scauffelle Kerfuffle has led to a new driver testing protocol on the PGA Tour, as reported by Dave Dusek:

The PGA Tour notified players and golf equipment manufacturers Tuesday of a new driver testing policy that will go into effect next week at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier, the first event of the 2019-20 season, according to a letter obtained by

Golfweek. 

Starting in 2014, the PGA Tour selected random events on the schedule and had the USGA Equipment Standards Team conduct tests on drivers in tour vans to determine their Characteristic Time (CT), which is a measure of the springiness of the hitting area. Now, in addition to those tests, the PGA Tour will ask the USGA’s team to test drivers that players have or plan to use in tournaments. 

“Recently, we have become aware that drivers in play on the PGA Tour may be exhibiting a trait whereby through normal use, the clubface ‘creeps’ beyond the allowed CT limit under the Rules, despite having conformed to the CT limit when new,” the letter notes. “When such a situation occurs, in accordance with the USGA’s Notice to Manufacturers dated October 11, 2017 the club is deemed to have become damaged into a non-conforming state and may no longer be used in competition.”

The good news is that they will be testing actual gamers....  One of the disconcerting things we learned from Portrush is that the Tour previously only tested random driver heads form the equipment vans....

We can also see an attempt to combat the manufacturers' tendency to push right up against the CT limits:

The serial number of each club tested will be recorded and after the test concludes, each club will be placed into one of three categories:

• Green: The club is conforming and may be used.
• Yellow: The club is conforming and may be used, but the measured CT is within the USGA’s published tolerance. As a result, the club is more likely to exceed the CT limit plus the tolerance in the future with continued use.
• Red: The club is deemed to have been damaged into a non-conforming state and can not be used.

So far, so good, right?  Of course, we're all still trying to figure out what's really going on here, as behavior fails to conform to logic.  The manufacturers tell us that the edge gained in exceeding the CT limits are diminutions, yet they push themselves right up against said limits.  

I for one didn't realize that Xander carried such weight in Ponte Vedra Beach, but apparently he's a BSD.  I say that because he had very specific demand, more testing and less transparency, and damned if he didn't get both:

The only people who will be told the results of the test are the player and the manufacturer’s representative. Clubs coded Green and Yellow will be given back to the player. Clubs that are coded Red will be returned to the manufacturer’s representative. 

The tour’s letter states that the focus of changes and additional testing are not on individual players, but rather on ensuring a level competitive playing field for everyone.

They keep telling us it's a game for gentlemen, but keep acting as if they have much to hide.

The Walker Cup -  The media blackout is deafening, but there's actual golf being played this weekend, if only we were allowed to see it.  The Walker Cup is on for the weekend at Royal Liverpool, d/b/a Hoylake, but that massive USGA-Fox TV contract doesn't include coverage.  Who would want to watch team match play anyway?

Like your humble blogger, you might have thought that this event began at The National, but the actual origins go back to a Friendly played at Hoylake in 1919:

The Walker Cup Match began in the wake of World War I with a view toward stimulating golf interest on both sides of the Atlantic. The Match grew in part out of two international matches between the USA and Canada, in 1919 and 1920. 

At the same time, British and American amateurs considered each nation’s national

amateur championship a great plum. Meanwhile, the USGA Executive Committee had been invited to Great Britain for a series of meetings with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews Rules Committee. The meeting was to look at the advisability of modifying various rules of the game. Among the participants was George Herbert Walker, USGA president in 1920. 

Upon the Executive Committee’s return to the United States of America, international team matches were discussed. The idea so appealed to Walker that he soon presented a plan and offered to donate a trophy. When the press dubbed the trophy the Walker Cup, the name stuck. 

In 1921, the USGA invited all golfing nations to send teams to compete in the Match, but no country was able to accept that year. The Americans stuck to their mission, however, and William C. Fownes, the 1910 U.S. Amateur champion, who had twice assembled the amateur teams that played against Canada, rounded up a third team in the spring of 1921 and took it to England. At Hoylake, the American team defeated a British team, 9-3, in an informal match the day before the British Amateur. 

Early in 1922, The R&A announced that it would send a team to compete for the Walker Cup at the National Golf Links of America, Walker’s home club, in Southampton, N.Y.

Originally, the competition was open to any country that might care to challenge. The USGA invited all countries to compete. Except for Great Britain, however, no other country was able to accept. The Walker Cup was contested in 1922, 1923 and 1924 and then biennially ever since, with a nine-year hiatus between 1938 and 1947 for World War II.

There is at least some good coverage, including this wonderful portrait of U.S. Captain Nathaniel Crosby.   This could have been awkward, no?

A steakhouse seems a fitting venue at which to address an old beef, and Nathaniel Crosby had one. It had festered for a while, though time had eroded its sharper edges and the issue lay dormant until it resurfaced somewhere between aperitif and vintage port.

Seven past captains of U.S. Walker Cup teams had assembled at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in West Palm Beach in early 2018 to salute Crosby, who had just been named to lead the Americans in 2019, and to offer him advice. Among them was Jay Sigel, a playing captain at the matches at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in 1983 when Crosby was a member of his team. 

When it came around to Sigel, he turned to Crosby and said, “Whatever you do, play all your players three times.” 

A spit-take in range of prime beef generally is considered bad form, and Crosby restrained himself. Presumably. But he made his point. “You benched me twice,” Crosby said to Sigel. “I’ve been holding this baggage for 35 years.”

That 1983 team, with Crosby front row, far right.

I've always said that we're separated by a common language, and here's a perfect anecdote along those lines:

What Crosby does remember of the Walker Cup was an amusing story involving him and his caddie, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Rod Stewart. “Everybody called him Rod,” Crosby said. Golfers in those days provided their own practice balls, and their caddies shagged them for the player. 

“You’ve got to go shag some balls for me,” Crosby said to Rod within earshot of the gallery that included women aghast at him using the word “shag,” a vulgarity according to its British definition.

Heh.

This had me smiling as well:

A couple of weeks after an unexpected heatwave blistered the nation, an autumnal cool has descended from the north just in time for the 47th Walker Cup at Royal Liverpool. More importantly, a bit of a “hoolie” (strong wind) over the last few days has given the United States side a taste of the conditions that have carried Great Britain & Ireland squads to five wins in the last six matches on this side of the Atlantic. It was so bad on Wednesday that the visitors played only six holes in the 50 mile-per-hour gales before retiring to the clubhouse.

The ski hats are out...

That "unexpected" heat wave was, of course, during our time a little further North....This morning brought an e-mail from reader Mark W., who just happens to be in St. Andrews for the R&A Fall meeting:

BTW, thanks a lot! You used up all the good weather while here. We are playing in the rain and 40 mph winds. Brutal. But we’re ( Costello and me) having fun seeing all our old friends at the R&A.

There's a reason that Employee No. 2 refers to it as "Scott Simpson Weather."  We've seen the bad stuff, but have been remarkably lucky over the years.

Core Shot - That's more of a ski term, but here's a story that's been embargoed by the mainstream golf press, for obvious reasons.  MyGolfSpy.com has become the little blog that could, most famously for the comparative testing of the ProV1 against the....Kirkland Signature ball from Costco.  You might recall their extensive ball testing earlier this year, in which Callaway's Chrome Soft golf ball dramatically under-performed.  The amusement there was largely because your humble blogger had just taken delivery of four dozen Chrome Soft X's...

In July, they posted this image on Twitter, and almost broke the Internet:

 Callaway had no shortage of defenders, here's a typical comment:

Of course, this one was inevitable:

Sorry, Josh, but you do pretty much suck, but you have lots of company.

Anyway, this news makes it pretty clear that this was more than an easily-rectified QC error:

The video is some 21 minutes long, so I understand that most will not watch it all.  But the takeaway is that Callaway has committed $50 million to fix the underlying manufacturing processes.  That's a pretty big endorsement of the MGS testing process, and also a pretty obvious capitulation on the merits of their criticism of the golf balls.

I find this story interesting on its own merits, but also for its indictment of of the major golf media outlets.  For all their equipment and ball testing, when have they ever broken a story like this?  The answer is never, because they're quite obviously too conflicted...  Callaway's ad money is far too critical to their business model for them to ever be critical, as is access to players and the major governing bodies.  This obviously isn't anything new, but I always like to pint out when the mask drops.

Alan, Asked - Got time for some low-impact blogging?  Alan's got a few gems this week, first on Phil:

Phil turns 50 next June. Will he bombinate the Champions Tour or continue to hit “bombs” only on the PGA Tour? #USSeniorOpen -@BobEstesPGA 

Phil has always been disdainful of the Senior tour. He wants to play with and against the best players, and he clearly enjoys the company of and is motivated by the Tour’s young guns. It’s hard to remember now but Phil actually won a Tour event in 2019. Still, after getting his teeth kicked in over the last six months maybe he’ll be more open to playing some events where he is more or less guaranteed to contend. Isn’t that more fun than missing cuts? I mean, next year’s U.S. Senior Open is at Newport CC — how good is that? The Senior British is at Sunningdale. Sounds like a fun summer to me.

Newport?  How did I miss that?  That's such a great idea, but it makes me wonder they don't take the Senior Open to more interesting venues...

Would love to see and hear Phil in the booth. -@gaulin_rick 

Oh, he’d be great. Conventional wisdom has always been that he wouldn’t be interested because of the time commitment but Twitter has made more obvious what we always knew: Phil loves to be a smartass and a know-it-all and what better platform is there to chew the scenery than sitting in the tower next to his pal J. Nantz? This would be my wish list for color analysts among guys whose playing careers are winding down: Phil, G. Ogilvy, P. Harrington, H. Stenson, E. Woods.

What if he needs the money?  I still can't stop wondering why that gambling debt to Billy Walters was unpaid....

On this one, I love both the Q and the A:

#AskAlan: Tennis-watching Tiger is one of my favorite Tigers. What persona of the Big Cat is your favorite? -@david_troyan 

Mom Jeans Tiger.

If only he'd let us see more of these personas....

The Korn Ferry finale was riveting golf. I still miss Q school. What about the idea of mixing that with a version of Q School for three slots … would be a great fall series with “everyone-has-a-chance” implications. -@frazerrice 

Well, Q School was great fun because a rando off the street could get hot and play his way onto the Tour without ever having set foot on the developmental tours. (See Beem, Rich.) But what makes the current arrangement so dramatic is the finality of it. If the guys who get their hearts broken at the KFT finals have the safety net of Q School, a lot of the exquisite tension disappears. I think it has to be one or the other.

Let me just add this Golf Digest item to the mix:

Watching the sheer joy of a young tour pro holing a putt to win his PGA Tour card doesn't get old

This is a perennial issue that continues to frutrate your humble blogger.  Golf is at its most exciting when the stakes are the highest for the player, yet no one tunes in if Tiger's not there.  As these items make clear, that life and death struggle on the Corn Fairy Tour is so much more compelling than watching Rory and Brooks play for $15 million large, yet no one will watch the former.  

What, you thought I had an answer?  If I did, you wouldn't be able to read these musings for free.

Another fun pair of related questions:

You can only watch one, the Solheim Cup or the Presidents Cup, which one? -@LabLoverDE 

Well, is Tiger serving as a playing captain? Because that weighs heavily on the decision. If yes, it will be a fascinating sociological experiment that becomes must-see TV. And Royal Melbourne, while woefully short for the modern game, is still a unique test that could bedevil the U.S. team and make this Cup a bit more competitive than it appears on paper. But if Tiger is just a cart jockey I’m picking the Solheim Cup because it figures to be a war. 

#AskAlan, Can the U.S. possibly win the Solheim cup without three of our “Poulter” type players? Kerr, Wie, and Creamer’s intensity will surely be missed. -@TheTripleBB 

This is certainly an interesting factor. At all the Cups passion is among the most important commodities; the 2018 Ryder Cup was the latest example of how desire and team spirit can overcome a team with more talented individuals. At the Solheim, Kerr especially was a rallying figure for the U.S. I think Danielle Kang can fill those shoes. Lizette Salas, too. And I don’t think it’s an accident that Cap. Inkster used her picks on two spicy veterans: Stacy Lewis and Morgan Pressel. This American team has plenty of grit.

Unfortunately, both are being played overseas, and the resulting TV schedule will mean that almost no one will see them.

The Prez Cup is another in a long list of attempts by the Tour to make up for not having kept the Ryder Cup and PGA Championship when they split from the other PGA back in the day.  It's silly, but in a harmless sort of way.  The interesting question here, at least to me, is the effect on the Ryder Cup when the U.S. inevitably loses one....  they do have to lose one at some point, right?

The Solheim might be even more interesting, though that's not necessarily a compliment.  Copying the Ryder Cup was an obvious ploy, but it's downright quaint in view of the dominance of the Asian ladies.  But, as Alan noes, there really is bad blood between the sides, and we'll look forward to revisiting gimmegate in the run-up to the event.

This is good as well, because folks don't focus on the closed-shop nature of the tours:

What is the basis of/reason for the LPGA rule that precludes Yealimi Noh from getting into the next event after she finished 2nd from a Monday Q in Portland? And do you think this policy might change soon? Can we call it the “Noh Brainer” Rule? -@jwficket 

This is old-fashioned union boss stuff. The rule states you have to be an LPGA member to cash in a top 10. It’s basically designed to prevent a collegian, local teaching pro or young upstart from taking a spot that would otherwise go to a member of the Tour rank-and-file. It’s like the obsession with “playing opportunities” whenever any Tour rejiggers its schedule. These are closed shops and the players like it that way; they’ll gladly sacrifice an exciting young player in favor of a tired old vet who has been taking up space for years. Since these are the very players who sit on the policy boards I’m not sure it’ll change anytime soon.

I'll let you get on with your day, and see you Monday.