Tuesday Tidbits

This may seem to the Reader to be a grim Tuesday in the endless miasma of a PGA Tour season, but there's reason for you to go on.  We have a verified Shark sighting, and he's every bit as needy and clueless as ever.

Christina, Explained - Yesterday I found a bit of fault with the girl, though her explanations definitely warrant reconsideration of my concern about her delay.  What was never a concern was a her desire to protect the field, in which she acquitted herself well.  Brian Wacker gets Kim's thoughts, including this piece of the puzzle missing from prior accounts:

As Weber had prepared to play the par-3 17th (the group’s eighth hole of the day), Dye motioned to Weber’s caddie to confirm what club Weber was hitting. Doing so is a 

Kendall Dye

violation of Rule 10-2 under soliciting advice. Kim saw the interaction, and after the group putted out says she alerted an official who was behind the green. 

“I said, ‘I think I saw an infraction,’ ” Kim told Golf Digest in a phone interview on Monday. “I said, ‘Is this allowed?’ and made a motion. I was not exactly given a clear answer of yes or no. 

“Given that we were chasing daylight, I wasn’t going to [carry on]. I was 99.99 percent sure it was a violation. [The official] asked if I wanted to handle it now or later, and I said we’ll handle it after the round. That was my choice, because I needed to make sure from this individual that it was a violation. I didn’t receive any confirmation that it wasn’t.”

I still have my concern about not heading off additional instances, but both her uncertainty as to what she saw and the involvement of a rules official obviously render me less certain of my position.

And this:

“I was very surprised [they didn’t know the rule]. I don’t want to say I am disappointed in them as individuals, but I am disappointed in the fact that [the violation] was even a possibility, that people claim to have seen it thousands of times. What shocked me was their lack of knowledge of the rules. Does that suck? Royally. Is it excusable? Absolutely not. 

"I think everybody, myself included because I don’t know all the rules verbatim, [should know the rules]. There’s no harm in knowing the Rules of Golf. This isn’t basketball, where it’s you can foul someone but [are told] don’t get caught. That’s the antithesis of everything golf is founded on.”

It really isn't excusable, but maybe it's worth the time to excerpt Dye's entire statement of alleged contrition:

It's really encouraging to see her taking 100% responsibility for her actions....  Yeah, right.  Except for the minor bits about everyone else also cheating and this should have remained a private matter....  That mean Christina, causing such a distraction....

But riddle me this, Batman...  How can you call yourself a professional golfer and think you have a right to know what club another player hit?  And she actually demands our respect for cheating overtly, instead of the prescribed covert cheating that everyone else employs...  Sheesh!

We'll circle back on that "thousands of times", but first to her call-out of Kim for taking to twitter.  I don't pretend to know exactly how this played out, but this was Christina's first tweet

Wow, that's awfully personal!  

More from Christina:

“I was shaking in the two hours after [I talked to them]; it did rattle me” said Kim, who had eight putts through her first three holes of the final round. “I told [both players], ‘I hope you shoot 62 today.’ ”

Their responses, Kim said, ranged from supportive to just trying to move on and focus on what was at stake. 

Days later, Kim continues to feel for both players but doesn’t regret her decision to report the infraction, or the manner in which she did it. 

“The only thing that has been difficult is knowing that there was a truly innocent unknown rules violation,” she said. “That hurt me. It sucked. 

“It’s tough, too, because I know the people involved. They’re good people, but mistakes happen. Those mistakes have severe consequences, but that’s not to say they can be excused. I’m not going to [ignore the violation], because then I’m complicit and all three of us would deserve to be disqualified. It was a tough decision to make in that I care about these people, but I also care about the 95 other players in field. The only thing I regret is people had to be affected by an honest mistake, and it was all avoidable. I feel sad about that.”

Well, yeah.  The player has a responsibility to protect the field.  Full stop.

On that other issue, Robert Damron with the bitch slap:

Monday morning on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive, Robert Damron shot down Dye’s “thousands of times” assertion. 

“The fact that she’s said she’s seen this thousands of times is a crazy statement,” said Damron, adding he’s never seen it happen once on a professional level. Maybe at a club, sure. “I think that she’s confusing the fact that a caddie may flash a number to a spotter or a cameraman or one of the on-course reporters what they’re hitting, but it’s no way directed at the other players. No way did one of the other players ask them, ‘Tell me what you just hit there.’” 

Damron didn’t stop there. 

“Kendall says she’s been a pro for 10 years. Not knowing this rule… this isn’t one that’s buried in the rule book.”

You might think my use of the B-word to be overly harsh....  Except, that in defending herself, she's accused all of her peers of cheating...  I'm thinking the B-word is going easy on her.  

Via Shack, there are a couple of curious reactions from allegedly knowledgeable sources.  First, Golf Channel's Lisa Cornwall, who obviously got her job on merit:

Hey, I'm just relieved that Baghdad Bob was able to find work....  The only thing missing is "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".

And then there's Karen Stupples:

OK, let's just throw everything we can at the wall...perhaps something will stick.

Karen, I'm going to type very slowly in the hope that you can keep up.  Dye has admitted that she held up three fingers, so the value of her say to a rules official seems not so much on point.  But aren't you just a little curious that she didn't know she couldn't ask, yet she knew she could peak?  perhaps, and I know this an awful thought, she's just rationalizing and it doesn't mean anything...

As for her one point, we can all agree that the rules are a little bizarre.  That happens sometimes because life is complicated, and other times because rules are poorly conceived and drafted.  I assume that a few things have led to this unfortunate state of play, both the difficulty in legislating wandering eyes, but also the desire to accommodate television.  

That said, you're encouraging her to peak into other players' bags, and that's not the spirit of the game.  The spirit of the game is that you take advice only from your caddie (and partner when playing as a team), and hit your shot blissfully unburdened by knowledge of what the other gal hit.  And, Karen, if you don't know that, perhaps you're unqualified for your current gig.

A Cautionary Tale - Eamon Lynch has a piece that should be required reading far anyone thinking they can make it out on Tour.  He uses Dennis Pugh, among whose students is Francisco Molinari, as his canary:

“If you think you can make a living as a Tour pro prepare and invest in your future properly,” he tweeted. “This winter find a Challenge Tour player in your area and play him twice a month, home and away courses, for £500 a game. If you can make money from him, you are a potential ‘player.’” 

Pugh’s intent was to illustrate the chasm that often exists between talent and ambition. He was duly accused of pugh-pughing dreams by Panglossian types who believe every aspiration should be pursued, no matter how futile and costly. Others praised the wisdom of Pugh’s reality check. “It’s a fine line between shattering someone’s dream and stopping them from wasting their money,” replied former world No. 1 Lee Westwood.

Social media permits people to live in airtight bubbles that only reinforce their beliefs, free of inconvenient facts and contrary opinions. It’s easy for a kid who happens to be the best player in his school or town to harbor notions of making it on the PGA Tour. 

Piercing that bubble early is crucial to knowing if competitive golf might be a career. Most of us lack sufficient talent to even entertain such ideas, but the harsh reality is that even the

The succinct expression of this on Tour driving ranges is, "Scaratch ain't s**t."  But can you imagine the reaction of these parents:

That’s why when a parent once told Pugh that their son had a scratch handicap and was going to Tour qualifying school, he replied, “As a caddie or a scoreboard carrier?”

Harsh be fair.  The issue, of course, is that kids can waste many critical years chasing this dream, and inevitably forgoing other options in life.

This is a similarly amusing anecdote:

Delusions about how recreational golf talent might translate to Tour level success aren’t limited to earnest kids or pushy parents. A friend of mine was once asked by a buddy to arrange a lesson for him with Harvey Penick. On the appointed day, his buddy explained to the legendary teacher that he had been successful in business, was a very good golfer, and wanted to commit himself to the goal of a second career on what was then the Senior Tour. 

Penick heard him out before politely delivering a sobering reality check. “I have another student you should meet. He’s been successful in his business too and also has plans for the Senior Tour,” the budding pro recalled being told. “Actually, he’s at the other end of the range right now. His name is Tom Kite.”’

Never heard of him.... No one wants to be the messenger in telling a kid to give up on his dream, but at the very l;east they all need a Plan B.

GB&I Hardest Hit - More on the new handicap system, which seems specifically designed to maximize confusion.  Let me explicate, first with this bit from a Golfweek primer:

Handicap index updates will be more responsive 

Players’ handicap indexes will update the day after a score is posted. This replaces the current bi-weekly update method in the U.S. Event operators should take note, because they might have to implement new cutoff deadlines for handicapping instead of trying to update each participant’s handicap the day of an event.

That has to be a good thing, right?  Except for the niggling detail that, even under the current system, the prevalence of folks arriving on the first tee unsure of their current handicap is already off the charts.  

I've been reliably informed that golf is a game for gentlemen, but it also occurs to me that this increases the importance of the timeliness of posting,  If that Saturday 76 could potentially take me from a seven to a six on Sunday, might not I feel a lack of urgency to post?  

But, combined with this, and I see little chance of folks actually getting this right:

Net double bogey will replace equitable stroke control 

The maximum hole score for handicap purposes will be limited to net double bogey (par + 2 + any handicap strokes received). For example, scratch players do, of course, make triple bogeys or worse. But for handicap scoring purposes, double bogey is the max.

So, not only does the player have to know the minute movements of his course handicap from the Saturday until Sunday, but the maximum he can take on a given hole might also change.  What could go wrong?  Remember also, that this presumably takes place in the context of a match, wherein strokes are assigned off of the low handicap playing, so two separate handicaps must be accommodated.  

The other bells-and-whistles seem to suffer from the same unnecessary complication:

Safeguards have been added to protect handicap indexes 

The system will account for abnormal playing conditions, limit extreme upward movement of an index (largely to help prevent sandbagging) and reduce a handicap index when an exceptional score is posted. Handicap committees can make adjustments in rare cases when a player’s handicap index has been shown to be out of whack, such as when that player consistently outscores their index in competition.

So, have sandbaggers gone extinct?  It seems pretty obvious to me that any theoretical improvement in the system's performance will be more than offset by the effects of the increasing complexity and resulting decrease in compliance.  They really don't understand the importance of simplicity and continuity, and all for what?

So, that header?

Many British, Irish handicaps to rise under new World Handicap System

Less there than it seems, as it's only the high-handicappers that will see a minor tick up in their numbers, but guess what?  Who do they use their handicaps with?  Yup, other high-handicap British and Irish golfers.  So, the net effect of all this is....approximately zero.

The Norman Conquests - It's been ages since my favorite Shark has graced these pages, and I for one have missed him terribly.  His his epic self-absorption and penchant for displaying his upper torso live harmoniously with his insatiable neediness.  I do the best I can. but it really demands a team of Viennese psychiatrists to do it justice.

So, popping up in the last 24 hours is this Men's health profile of the modest Aussie.  The header is, of course, a shocker:

How Greg Norman Has A Six Pack At 64

They want him to talk about his body?  Geez, I hope Greg doesn't mind...

 It's mostly just about that which you'd expect:

The word is you still train five days a week and your workouts, which combine cardio and weights, can last for up to two hours. What drives you to maintain such a demanding regimen? 

I think it’s just my DNA. My whole life I’ve been a very disciplined guy. I was a fit kid growing up in Townsville, running on the beach, skid-boarding every afternoon I possibly could, riding a horse bareback along Pallarenda. You know, snorkelling, SCUBA diving, Aussie Rules, rugby. And now, because of my work in golf-course design, I do a lot of walking on virgin sites. I’ve just been in Saudi Arabia and we were walking up and down hills in 118-degree [48°C] heat. So that all bodes well at my age. Apart from that, I just enjoy doing it, quite honestly.

He's obviously a fit guy, and I don't begrudge him the plaudits on that score.  His sown obsession with showing off his body, that's a different matter entirely....  The accompanying photo is also just what we'd expect:

At least this time it's only a half-Monty....

As for this bit, haven't we suffered enough?

Do you make the choices you do with longevity in mind? 

I’ve been very open about the fact that I want to be the longest-living Norman. And the Normans have got some really good genes. On my mother’s side, it’s 90s and 100s. My dad [Mervyn] is 93 this year. And I’d like to hit 108, 110.

This is all well and good, as Norman is a remarkably healthy man of a certain age (Incidentally, Norman and I are almost exactly the same age, so 108-110 sounds pretty good).

But then the interviewer takes an odd turn, and The Shark shows himself in the most vulnerable of light:

What did you feel when Tiger Woods won the US Masters this year? I ask because there doesn’t seem to be any bond between the two of you. 

Yeah, look, I’m happy to clear that up for you. Like, when you ask me a question, I’m going to give you an honest answer. I’m not going to bullshit to you. I’m also going to draw on my experience of the past in terms of what Jack Nicklaus did for me, what Arnold Palmer did for me . . . where there was that respect handed off from the generation before you. It’s a code of conduct in a lot of ways. Very few people know this: when Tiger won the Masters this year, I wrote him a handwritten note and drove down my road, maybe a quarter of a mile, and hand-delivered it to his guard at his gate. I said, “Hey, this is Greg Norman here. I’ve got a note for Tiger – can you please hand-deliver it to him?” Well, I never heard a word back from the guy. When I won my first major championship, Jack Nicklaus was the first person to walk down out of the TV tower and congratulate me. I don’t know – maybe Tiger just dislikes me. I have no idea. I’ve never had a conversation with him about it. I’ve always been respectful about what his father did for him. I played nine holes with him at his father’s and IMG’s request when Tiger was 14 or 15 and I was the No. 1 player in the world, to give an assessment of this kid. So, I have always been willing.

First question Sharkie.... When you drove down that road, did you happen to put on a shirt?  Asking for a friend....

Did I say vulnerable?  I really meant pitiful.... 

Look the golf world has been very hurtful to our precious little Shark....  First, there were all those meanies that denied him majors....  Then he got canned from Fox, and no one will return his phone calls...  As for the pimped-out golf cart that was going to revolutionize the game?  The fault must lie within us....

But yes, Tiger has never seemed to warm to the Shark's act, which in this instance makes him pretty much like the rest of us.  Notice his little sleight of hand above, wherein he conflates himself with two giants of the game....  One suspects that our insistence that one of those is not like the other two is the source of his discontent.

Of course, as relates to Tiger, there was this running of the mouth:

"I never feared anything or anyone on the course, and I wasn't afraid to fail. So I think I'd do pretty well against Snead, Hogan, Tiger (Woods) and Phil (Mickelson) - whoever," Norman told the publication. "Tiger's a tough guy, but I was a tough guy on the course, too. I probably would have beat him."

 I'm trying hard not to laugh at the concept of Norman v. Hogan....  really, I'm trying so very hard.

But I totally get his point.  He beat everybody he played against, so why shouldn't he have beaten Tiger?  What?  Well, he beat everyone except Mize, Nicklaus, Floyd, Tway, Azinger, Calcavecchia and Zoeller, though I'm perhaps missing a dozen or so.

Thanks for stopping by, Greg.... Please don't be a stranger.