Mid-Pandemic Musings

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. 

Winston Churchill

For some reason that iconic Churchill quote, uttered after the second Battle of Al Alamein, popped into my head....   Not terribly encouraging, is it?

Random Acts of Kindness - A while back I had an item, couldn't possibly remember what it was about, but it included speculation about the dark side of Adam Scott.  A man whose original equipment specifications include nothing remotely off-putting, as you'll soon see.

It's a sad story for sure:

Confused? Well, so is 76-year-old Ross Campbell, who is suffering from seven brain tumours and believes 39-year-old professional golfer Adam Scott is his best mate.

In fact, although wheelchair bound, Ross thinks he plays regular golf games with Adam, exchanges tips and joins him in beers at the Riverside Oaks club house. 

Ross and his wife, Pam, lived at Riverside Oaks for eight years but, as his condition worsened, they moved to their son’s 32 acre property near Dural. Pam says: “Ross thinks a shed on the property is the Riverside Oaks club house and he talks about Adam all the time, waiting for Adam’s call to play a round of golf.”

Certainly Adam can do nothing about that, but he did that which he could:

Adam readily agreed to phone Ross and, although initially surprised by Ross’s immediate familiarity, quickly settled in for a chat. 

“You didn’t need me for the game yesterday?” asked Ross, a question which Adam gently deflected. 

Pam says: “I’m standing in the background crying and happy as they chatted away. They talked golf and Ross mentioned that he gets very wobbly in the legs when he goes out to play. 

“He’s in a wheelchair and can hardly stand up but Adam must have sensed this and said he gets wobbly in his legs, too.”

It's actually a hard thing to do, as one can't know what such a call will entail and whether the situation can be made worse.  So, still awaiting evidence of that dark side...

Is This in the Covid Death Count - Alistair Tait mourns another victim of the times:

The death of golf journalism

Well, given that it was already in a nursing home....

Death just seems imminent given what passes for, er, golf journalism these days.

Following on from the Association of Golf Writers’ brilliant book Forgive us our press

passes, the AGW has been asking its members to pen their AGW memories. The result is a treasure trove of stories about the days when golf writing consisted of more than 183-word stories.

One hundred and eighty-three words. That’s the word count for a story on a popular golf website I recently clicked on. The story promised much and delivered absolutely nothing. Not one ounce of substance. I felt cheated. It happens a lot. It was obvious the only reason the story was on the site was to act as clickbait. Another page view was all that mattered. Shame.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still good golf writers producing fine, well-written stories for magazines and newspapers. I count many of them as friends. The problem is the number has diminished, and continues to do so.

The obvious initial reaction is to note that the same could be said about all areas of journalism... If you doubt me, spend a minute watching a White House Covid briefing...  The next thoughtful question will be the first of its kind.

I’ve worked with some fine golf writers over the years. People who knew the game, its history, its characters, people who got out and watched golf, spoke to the players, the caddies, officials. Great wordsmiths who breathed life into the game. One by one they’ve disappeared. No longer required in what one recently departed scribe described a

Hey, why employ an expert when you can hire someone fresh out of college to “recast” content? That’s not a dig at those doing the recasting. I appreciate some of those might go on to become experts in this great game. Unfortunately, too many are simply passing through and have no passion for the game, such as the recent editor of a popular golf website who asked this question in a meeting: “Who’s Ben Hogan?”

He's just some dead white guy, dude.  Really though, when today's opinion makes are banishing Churchill and Jefferson from the history books, it seems petty to worry about Hogan.

I just feel the need to add that we aren't helped in this regard by the major golf organizations, who seem to go out of their way to cut our ties to the deep history of our game.  I don't think Hogan was much for Living Under Par™.

There's Got To Be A Morning After -  A few takes on what our lives might look like if we're ever allowed to leave our homes, first from Mike Bamberger on Tour life, much of it in rebuttal to Scott Stallings:

In mid-June, the PGA Tour plans to resume play, in Fort Worth, for the Charles Schwab Challenge. There won’t be fans. The flagstick will stay in. The caddies won’t touch a rake. You’ll have your temperature taken before you enter the Colonial Country Club grounds, no matter who you are, or something along those lines. It will be different.

But there will be a 72-hole tournament and a TV show and a first-place check for $1.3 million. It will be way better than nothing. Scott Stallings need not worry. 

I know one significant thing about Stallings, and it’s admirable. Five years ago, he admitted to PGA Tour officials that he had accidently used a banned performance-enhancing drug and that admission got him a 90-day suspension. And his admission came after he had passed a drug test. Another example of PGA Tour players policing themselves. 

But what Stallings said the other day to my colleague, James Colgan, makes no sense. Stallings, a three-time Tour winner, said, “Guys are not going to play for their livelihood with no rakes in the bunker and no caddies.” Not to hang on his every word here in a fluid situation — there likely will be caddies, and bunkers can be raked by designated volunteers — but let’s look more broadly at it: 

The human race is adaptable. We the people, for whom the Constitution was written, are adaptable. PGA Tour players are adaptable. The Tour will put in place sensible procedures to ensure safe tournaments, but the show will go on.

That's the voice of experience, and he's quite right that it's too fluid to react to anything....  But isn't the most suspect factor above that the purse can be maintained at $1.3 million large?  

Brad Klein is running a three-part article on the future of golf courses, the first of which we had for you last week (in that instance I had to teach Brad the concept of Federalism).  In this second piece he speaks of adaptation as necessary for clubs and public facilities.  There's good stuff for sure, though he might have done better to not cover such a widely disparate set of facilities.

Beditz is among those who expect to see a wide variety of strategic responses by clubs in how they present themselves. With many public courses now presenting golfers with less-than-optimal playing conditions and the prospects of courses with stationary flags, holes turned upside down and unraked bunkers, it’s a good sign that so many public courses report active tee sheets and busy parking lots. The anecdotal evidence is that with so many walkers, there might well be a burst of activity in the merchandising of light carry bags and push/pull carts.

There has been, as anyone trying to find a push cart online knows well.  The problem is that the manufacturers have been deemed non-essential, so they can't produce additional carts to take advantage of the opportunity that has fallen into their laps.  Do, would you gear up production capacity?  Feels like more of a blip than a permanent change of habits, but who knows given everyone's' reduced net worth.

Cronin counsels against clubs responding to the COVID-19 crisis by reflexively cutting operational budgets and reducing dues and initiation fees. Such a response, he contends, cheapens the value of the club experience and initiates a cycle decline, measured largely in terms of increased “churn”: high member turnover and little capital growth. The answer, he says, is to hold steady, innovate and enhance the value proposition of membership. 

Actually, some clubs might find it rational to reduce services and adopt a model based on a classic English or Scottish golf club: focus on golf, a simple bar and allow public play as a supplement to membership.

It's a little scary to be a member of a club these days, as most of us are in the dark as to how this crisis is affecting P&L's.  Brad notes that private clubs routinely lose big dollars on their food and beverage operations, so we might actually have a short-term crisis that's beneficial....from that limited perspective.

The obvious point that Brad makes is that clubs have to make themselves indispensable to its members through this period, though it might no always be apparent how to do so.  I can tell you that several Fairview members have complained to me about the absence of take-out food service (which they are just now rolling out), something your humble blogger doesn't especially value.  Then again, Employee No. 2 and I have been virtual shut-ins long before I had heard of Wuhan.

On the other hand, our Board has done the one thing I wanted from them, they have endeavored to keep our golf course open.  All other things pale in comparison to that, but it's always a shock when the dues bill hits, especially when we're barred from the building.  There's a day of reckoning on the horizon, but having one's membership learn that they can live without their club can't be good for us all...  As the kids say, developing....

Scenes From Sawgrass - Let's play a quick thought experiment, shall we?  If I asked you to name the golf hole least likely to experience drainage issues, your thoughts might turn to sand-based links or similar terrain.  That's a good guess, but this is my vote, and I trust that you'll instinctively grasp the logic:

Island green at TPC Sawgrass to be closed for drainage project

Unless they've repealed the laws of gravity in Florida, how is that remotely possible?

Anyone remember thos plans for a new PGA Tour headquarters building.  Even a year ago when announced, it seem a public relations fail, so egregiously over-the-top, that I made reference to Jay's edifice complex.  A reminder:

The PGA Tour's future headquarters Ponte Vedra Beach has made it past the red tape and is ready for construction. 

A permit for the 187,000-square-foot shell building was approved in St. Johns County last week. Tampa-based Clark Construction is the general contractor on the project.

Shell construction alone is valued at $65 million, according to the permit. 

The PGA Tour unveiled plans a year ago for its new home at 5420 Palm Valley Road, which will consolidate area staff under one roof. The new headquarters, which is expected to be completed in 2020, will be located on a portion of the Tour’s existing property on County Road 210. It will be surrounded by a freshwater lake, similar to the iconic ‘Island Green’ 17th hole from The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. 

Once completed, the building will house the more than 750 employees who currently occupy 17 buildings throughout the area, with the capacity to accommodate several hundred more.

These guys are good, no?  Such strategic long-term thinkers that they anticipated social distancing....

The only point of this is that these grandiose plans seem all the more vulgar in the present moment, and Gary Van Sickle takes a fun swipe at it on Twitter:

I like Fortress of Solitude, but others may differ.

About That Sequel - Eamon Lynch has some previously unknown details about the origins of that Tiger-Phil sequel:

“The Match: Champions for Charity” will pit Woods and Peyton Manning against

Mickelson and Tom Brady to benefit coronavirus relief. The civic-minded charitable component was a late add to a plan that was being pitched to sponsors long before Mickelson teased it on social media last month, and which originally had the foursome facing off at Muirfield Village on Tuesday of the Memorial Tournament, finishing under lights in prime time. 

Covid-19 scuppered the Memorial and the Match, leaving both searching for a place amid the pandemic. The main event has been moved to mid-July, the sideshow will take place in Florida sometime next month. There’ll be other made-for-TV golf events too, and we’ll tune in because it’s all we have while waiting to see if the PGA Tour’s restart — aggressively scheduled for June 11 — actually happens closer to Memorial Day or Labor Day.

They caught a break, methinks.  We've had enough experience with these things to know that the golf itself more often than not fails to deliver.  I'll concede to Eamon that we're likely to tune in, but I'm unconvinced that we'll stick with it....

He trashes that which I've long called the worst day in televised golf:

Celebrity golf is what makes Saturday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am indisputably the worst day of the year for TV viewers, a ceaseless parade of C-tier stars and A-list corporate executives enjoying a level of obsequious brownnosing seldom seen outside the Oval Office. But to a starving man, even rancid meat can appear appetizing. So it says a great deal about what we’re missing that so many of us can look forward to watching four brand marketers (average age: 44) contrive to josh their way around a Florida swamp with no fans in attendance.

It's not so much the celebrity golfers that render it unwatchable, it's more the fact that CBS was allowed to use it to shameless promote their painful slate of prime-time shows.  Who could have seen this coming, but it just so happens that not everyone loves Raymond....

I do need to get going, as there's a long list of chores on my To-Do list,  We did notably get in a Costco run this morning, our first since the onset of hostilities.  

I'll see you for sure later in the week, as I've got some specially curated topics to share.