Weekend Wrap

At least Sunday delivered the goods, and it should normalize this week.  The weather, that is, Il Duce still has New York's reopening penciled in for 2023....

Free At Last, Free At Last - Mark this date (well, Thursday to be accurate) on your calendars, as folks are now able to play golf in all fifty states of this great land:

Gov. Charlie Baker said the move to allow golf courses to open in Massachusetts on Thursday — albeit under strict conditions — was made in part by looking at the

approach of surrounding states.

Under the guidelines for reopening released Thursday, players will be required to wait in their cars until 15 minutes before their tee time; only groundskeeping and security employees will be permitted to work on site; and no caddies, carts, or rental clubs will be permitted. Practice areas and indoor facilities must also remain closed.

This is what passes for leadership in the 21st century, noticing that all around have done something, and no one has keeled over.   But by now you should know to watch the dealer carefully, because I'm palming aces.  This 'graph was between to two above, and gives the game away:

The announcement that courses would be permitted to open, even though they are not considered essential businesses under the state’s coronavirus order, comes days after two golf courses in Central Massachusetts announced plans to defy Baker’s order and open for play.

Often, the only reason that they'll back down is the threat of folks noticing the Emperor's new clothes.  In the present instance, their protocols lack constitution support and medical necessity, but I have been reliably informed that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

As far as the availability of carts, there's no consistency to be found:

New York is still officially banning golf carts on courses due to coronavirus, but will now allow them for individuals with disabilities. Wisconsin has a similar policy. 

RIP: Outings and Shotgun starts.

But Michigan reinstated cart use on Friday and Rhode Island did so on Saturday. 

New Jersey says it’s up to courses. 

Tough to keep straight? Indeed. It’s all part of what has been a disjointed rollout of golf during the coronavirus pandemic.

I believe it was Louis Brandeis that labelled the states "Laboratories of Democracy"...  Well, he's for sure half-right, though democracy itself hasn't been much in evidence.

There's good news for our friends overseas but, alas, only for a sub-set of them:

Golf courses in England are to re-open on Wednesday after the Prime Minister’s announcement on modifying the current Coronavirus lockdown. 

Boris Johnson said that sport can continue on Wednesday, exercise can be unlimited and journeys are now permitted to exercise. 

This meant that golf courses could open, and the R&A has confirmed that. 

“Golf can resume in England on Wednesday following the latest update by the UK Government,” the R&A said in a joint statement with golf’s stakeholders and home unions. 

“All outdoor sport must be done alone or within a household group and that includes golf. 

“Golf clubs and golfers have observed the lockdown very well and must keep it up and act responsibly as play resumes.”

It's always special when they tell us what we "must" do, though you might have noticed (coughNeilFergusoncough) that they hardly abide by their own rules... That R&A reference was quite misleading as well, because they shan't be playing any home games just yet:

However, golf courses will only be opening on Wednesday in England, with courses in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland currently remaining closed.

Wales and Northern Ireland remain in lockdown for another three weeks whilst Scotland’s lockdown continues “for now,” according to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Three weeks?  Or, as I like to think of it, nine Neil Ferguson booty calls.... Scratch a liberal politician, and the authoritarian within shows through.

Ultimately the story of this pandemic will, I think, the extent to which government has actively hindered our reaction to the crisis.  From the CDC's malfeasance with testing, in which they literally sent out testing kits with the virus pre-loaded, to the introduction of live cases into senior care facilities....  If they were trying to kill the largest number of us possible, what would they have done differently?

Lately we've seen California Governor Newsome closing beaches because of a single photograph, Oregon Governor Brown closing state parks and beaches in a state with only a 100+ deaths, as well as the aforementioned refusal of the UK and Ireland to open their golf courses, stubbornly doubling down on stupidity, whereas the latest medical findings show a bit of a different reality:

Vitamin D linked to low virus death rate, study finds

If only we knew how people could replenish their levels of Vitamin D...  I'm sure they'll come up with a government program to solve this enduring mystery.

Tour Stuff - Don'y worry, Dear Reader, we'll get to L'Affaire Veej in a bit, but some notes on the Tour's restart.  First, this from a letter to the players:

The PGA Tour’s policy board has approved what the circuit is calling a “Health and Safety Plan” to prepare for the restart of its schedule next month at the Charles Schwab

Challenge. 

In a memo sent to players on Friday, the Tour’s chief of operations Tyler Dennis confirmed that the circuit is “on track” to play June 11-14 at Colonial Country Club and that the protocols for a return to play, which will include multiple coronavirus tests, will be released next week. 

“We have analyzed every aspect of the tournament experience for players, caddies and other essential persons in order to provide a safe environment without disrupting the integrity of the competition,” the memo read.

But I don't believe this at all:

According to sources familiar with the development of the new plan, the idea will be to limit exposure by utilizing a single hotel and creating extra space onsite for social distancing requirements. It remains to be seen if the new plan will require players to use caddies after some initial push back from players.

So, you're telling me that the reason one can buy a ventilator cheaper than a pushcart is that the Tour has accumulated a fleet?

I've been laughing at guys like Adam Hadwin threatening to stay home if they have to putt with the in in, but this is more likely where they'd draw that line.  Though I've been unable to confirm that Jordan Spieth actually said, "Jay will have to pry Greller from my cold, dead hands".

Of greater interest, the Director of Jack's event spoke at some length on their planning, as they're currently in line to be the second event played with spectators on site:

Among the biggest changes expected at the Memorial is tracking the whereabouts of fans. While there will be fewer spectators allowed on tournament grounds — ticket sales

have purposefully been slowed to keep from over-populating — each spectator badge (and the badges of tournament staff/volunteers) will have within it an RFID tag. “At any time we can know, around the golf course, how many people are collecting in a certain area,” Sullivan said. 

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification, which in this case means chips placed within the tournament badges will emit a frequency that communicates with various measuring devices littered throughout the grounds.

Good, because that's not in the least bit creepy.... I'm still trying to confirm the rumors that Governors Cuomo, Murphy, Whitmer and Newsome have ordered RFID tags for each of their serfs citizens...

No grandstands, as well, though I continue to believe that the most dangerous spots are how they transport the spectators to the venues.  

We'll use this as a first opportunity to visit the Tour Confidential gang:

4. The Memorial revealed some of its plans as the PGA Tour’s second scheduled tournament with fans — electronic tracking of fans to prevent congregating, no grandstands and temperature checks. With such precautions, is it feasible that we could see spectators at events as early as July?

Dethier: I don’t see how it will be done safely at a large scale — shuttle buses and capacity crowds both seem like no-nos. If I put on my optimist’s hat, I guess a very limited number of fans could show up, park on site and walk to the course, where they’d stay spread out.

Dylan, GMTA.  Although, Dylan and I will be taking a little trip to the woodshed below....

Zak: It’s feasible. It could happen. Anything could happen. Just know that one month from now will feel as different (or more different) as a month ago felt. Spectators at a Tour event are still two months away, at the earliest. If I had to guess, the guidelines for spectator access will be even more stringent than the Memorial is planning. These events definitely want fans there, but they also don’t want egg on their face.

Like Sean, I think it's just hard for us to envision how different this will look two months out, especially with our media continuing in freak-out mode.  The real risk for the Tour, though, might be that they open the gates an no one shows up...  Because, really, wouldn't you rather be out playing yourself?

One last bit, a little nonsense from our Shack:

Ultimately, those are minor concerns in the grand scheme of our current COVID-19 world.

Increasingly, I sense the greatest fear with the PGA Tour’s fan-free return is not with a virus spread or lack of safety planning, but instead, optics. Given models showing huge daily death tolls and continued strain on front line response efforts in a variety of locations, what will it looks like if players competing, perhaps whining about flagsticks or bunker lies, or blaming bad room service for their play?

How those optics are gauged is beyond my pay grade and may not be something that can be tracked. But given all other golf organizations either suspending or cancelling events well beyond mid-June, the risk to both the Tour and the sport’s reputation is great if the return is seen as too abrupt.

OK, Karen.

Seriously, you know what I think is a bad look?  Thirty million people sitting at home wondering how they'll support their families....  

Of Veej I Singh -  Dylan Dethier has penned a rousing defense of the Big Fijian, and I can only hope you find it more convincing than your humble blogger did.  First, he does at least answer the threshold question of how such a thing is possible:

If you’re wondering how Singh is in the field to begin with, the PGA Tour resumes that same week at the Charles Schwab Challenge, but Singh’s lifetime Tour status won’t get him into the field at Colonial. As an alternative, Tour rules allow fully exempt Tour players to compete in Korn Ferry events when they’re not qualified for that week’s PGA Tour event. Enter Singh, playing a home game at TPC Sawgrass.

As I understand things, that lifetime exemption comes from winning twenty Tour events, so at the least we'll have a small sample size.  I think this is pretty stupid, but I'll circle back to that below, after we've given Dylan a hearing.

But now people are mad at Singh again. This time it’s because Singh has signed up to

play in the first Korn Ferry Tour event when the tour resumes play in June. The optics of a man with $71 million in career Tour winnings taking a spot — or a paycheck — from a bunch of golf’s hungry minor-leaguers coming off a three-months layoff is admittedly not great. But I’d urge you to resist the knee-jerk reaction. Don’t get mad at Vijay Singh. He’s a professional golfer playing the highest-level tournament for which he is qualified, looking to sharpen his game and compete at a course he knows well. Simply put, his buy-in should be good in this — or any — card room. He’s earned that.

Which strikes me as an impassioned defense of the rules as applied in normal times...  Dylan, has anything about 2020 struck you as conforming to normal times.  So why are you counselling impulse control, when you're forced to acknowledge that it's a dreadful look?

Dylan doubles down on this tortured logic in the TC confab:

3. Vijay Singh is planning to play a Korn Ferry event when that tour resumes play in June, meaning the World Golf Hall of Famer will be taking the place of a regular Korn Ferry player on the minor-league circuit. Singh’s decision enraged at least one Korn Ferry player, who called out Singh with a series of sharply worded tweets before apologizing. (Singh’s not alone, by the way — Joel Dahmen and Kevin Streelman are among the Tour winners in the field at the Scottsdale Open this week.) Given the current circumstances, should established Tour pros feel sheepish about playing in mini-tour events? 

Dethier: I spilled enough ink on this one last week, but here’s the gist of it: Vijay Singh, one of this generation’s greats, has very much earned the right to tee it up that week — or really any week, anywhere. We should appreciate that a 57-year-old legend still has the fire to tee it up against golf’s next generation.

You know would trump by a considerable degree?  If a 57-year old with the fire still raging in his belly could remove his head from his arse and recognize that he's had the chance to realize his dreams, and allow others to pursue theirs.

A for these guys, this has become a tired argumant:

Sens: It does come off as a little ruthless, but, you know, no crying in baseball. Or golf. Singh isn’t breaking any rules to play, or benefiting from any dubious sponsor’s exemption. Don’t like it? Shooting a lower score is a way better response than sounding off on Twitter. On a side note, this whole rhubarb has drawn additional attention to an event that we wouldn’t otherwise be talking about, so that’s good, right? 

Zak: I’ll play (what I think is a very reasonable) devil’s advocate and say yeah, KFT pros unquestionably need the start more than Veej. You cannot disprove that. Would it be potentially nicer that KFT player No. 144 or 128 or whoever gets their 36-72 holes instead of someone in the Hall? Again, undoubtedly true. But as always, pro golf has a ubiquitous excuse to clap back with: play better. Play better at any given time, and it will help you out sometime down the road when you need it. Brutally truthful right now, but it still works.

This is straw man nonsense...  Under these rules, one can never disagree with the qualification protocols...  It's just lazy arguments, because no one is argue that they specifically should have the slot, just that it should go to the next guy on the list...

Even in the question we're needlessly killing off stra men, because one can readily spot the differences between Veej and Dahmen/Streelman.  

I would preclude anyone over the age of fifty from Korn Ferry events.  The Tour runs an entire tour for such folks, the price of admission is that the player should forfeit any remaining eligibility for any of the developmental tours.

Vijay retains a stubborn belief that planets revolve around him.  This is little different than those Neil Ferguson booty calls (OK, perhaps Veej has stayed on the right side of the law), but the fact that one can do something doesn't mean that one should.  This would have been a perfect opportunity for Veej to give something back, but the truth is that we're not really all in this together...

But the best part of Dylan's article?  Well, there's this header:

Don’t get mad at Vijay Singh — not for this

Get it?  Even in the context of defending the man, Dylan feels compelled to revisit Vijay's tortured relationship with reality and humankind:

Let’s review, briefly, some of the reasons you may be predisposed to rule against Singh. We can begin in 1982, when 19-year-old Vijay left Fiji to play the Australian mini-tours and was eventually banned for making long-distance phone calls back home and sticking tournament organizers with the bill. Not cool. At the 1985 Indonesian Open, Singh was accused of stroke-shaving, which led to his expulsion from the tour (he has always maintained his innocence) and a subsequent two years’ exile as a club pro in the rainforests of Borneo.

Well played, Veej... All you've accomplished is to cause the world to rehash why they hated you to begin with.  A move whose strategic brilliance is second only to John Daly's silly defamation lawsuit that resulted in the public dissemination of his Tour disciplinary file.  It certainly makes blogging easier when the a******es self-identify. 

But anyone with residual levels of sympathy for the guy should read this reprint of John Garrity's damning account of Veej's history.  Leopards, spots.

A bunch of other pros have sprung to Vijay's defense, and I'd recommend you remove all liquids before reading this howler from Steve Elkington:

You can't stop people from going to work?  As the kids say, interesting if true.

Alas, Andrew Cuomo, Phil Murphy, Getchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsome beg to disagree...

The Bigger Picture - Those Golf Magazine writers take on the big issue of how this might change our game for the long term:

1. Golf courses are open again in all 50 states, and the PGA Tour is scheduled to resume in four weeks, but in ways large and small, the game looks and feels very different than it did before the coronavirus. When we look back on this period a few years from now, on which part of the game will the pandemic have had the most lasting impact?

I'm not sure I even agree with the premise of the question, but let's see what the guys come up with.

Dylan Dethier: The optimist in me hopes, with so many other activities ruled out, that golf is going to thrive and new golfers everywhere will try and love the game! The pessimist side of me thinks that courses already struggling to make ends meet may close for good. Let’s hope Person No. 1 is much more correct.

It's hard to see our game thriving given the level of economic devastation we've imposed on folks...

Josh Sens: I think both Dylans are correct here. Courses that had serious pre-existing conditions heading into this are likely to shutter, but others seem bound to enjoy a kind of renaissance, especially as golfers seek out more affordable options. Could it be a Golden Age for munis? Competing forces at work here, of course, as city budgets dwindle. But a low-price course that can keep its greens in decent condition will be a hot commodity. An industry consultant I spoke with said he’s expecting what he called “The Great Cleanse.” Cleanses aren’t pleasant, but they can have some healthy results. Let’s hope.

Sean Zak: I think some of the smartest-run courses will thrive, and the less smart ones will be wise to follow whatever it is the smart ones do. Is it mowing less? Do accoutrements like flower beds along the course driveways just never get planted? It sucks, but the courses that were already struggling to make ends meet are probably going to struggle even more. Then again, all of us golfers can show a little awareness and play them until the fairways bleed.

Nick Piastowski: I see an impact on the camaraderie that the game provides. How long will it be before you feel safe shaking hands again? How long will it be before you feel safe riding in a cart again with someone? How long will it be before you feel safe sitting in the clubhouse and enjoying a burger and beer with 50 people in the room? I really hope it’s a short time, but none of us know.

Personally, I'm thinking the virus will go away on a surprisingly accelerated schedule, similar to the onset.  Problem is, all levels of economic activity have been ratcheted  down a few clicks, except for those industries that have been completely destroyed.  A rebirth in those conditions seems fanciful, no?

Golf is probably best thought of as three separate and only slightly over-lapping universes:

1. Municipal and daily access golf;
2. Private clubs, and:
3. Resorts.

Is anyone excited at the prospects of any of these segments?  I don't have a deep dive in me at the moment, but it ain't gonna be pretty.

Shack, as you know, has come at this from a different perspective, focusing on this reset as an opportunity to reclaim core values:

Golf Values Reset: Rekindling The Early Days Of "Play It As It Lies"

Play it as it lies has been under fire some time. Golfers get to touch their ball too much, particularly on the greens. (Though magically, for a short, dark period in the early 2000s would mysteriously leave it down to provide a backstop for competitors even when

playing for millions of dollars. Go figure.)

There are also drops, excuses to touch the ball to gauge how it lies or if it’s scuffed too much. And then there is all of that dabbing, touching, extricating and other surgery allowed in the immediate surrounds of the ball. The effect puts a few dents in play it as it lies.

Worse, massive amounts of capital and man hours are expended annually to prevent golfers from having to find a lie that might set in motion a series of ” tragic” events like sixes and sevens. Land has been rearranged to flatten stances, bunker floors have been remodeled to allow for an ideal stance. Even in hazards, where technically no one should not be entitled to any coddling, golfers demand perfection and today’s talented superintendents deliver.

But with the COVID-19 precautions such as unraked bunkers and flagsticks in holes, golfers are reporting normal western sunrises and eastern sunsets despite these pandemic-related “concessions”. Many are enjoying the stripped-down game even more.

Like with bunker rakes, good luck with this.  Geoff also trots out this from C.B. Macdonald's authoritative book in support:

So strong was the influence of my associations with St. Andrews that for many years touching the ball in play without penalty was anathema to me, a kind of sacrilegious profanity. The impression of the true old game of golf is indescribable. It was like the dawn or the twilight of a brilliant day. It can only be felt. The charm, the fascination of it all, cannot be conveyed in words.

Would that I could hand on unimpaired the great game as it was my good fortune to know it. The iconoclast and the Bolshevik, knowing nothing of golfing law or golfing sin, may mar its spirit, but I have faith in its supremacy.

I didn't even realize that Bernie Sanders plays golf.... 

There's a just one small little issue with this....  In St. Andrews, as on any links, you can play a full round and never need to clean your golf ball.  For inland golf, however, that's a different matter entirely.

One last bit from that TC Panel before I leave you to your day:

2. A second charity match was announced this week, this one featuring Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson against Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff. The event will come a week before the match pitting Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning vs. Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady. Which is the more compelling competition?

Dethier: It’s the Tiger-Phil match because of one very important decision: Alternate shot on the back nine. Watching the team dynamics as these legendary QBs put two of the game’s great recovery artists in strange positions will be worth the price of admission. I’m all in on mic’d-up DJ, though.

I agree, Dylan, though you didn't get it quite right.  It's not simply alternate shot, it's a modified version thereof, in which each plays a tee shot from which they can choose.  There should be interesting strategies around that decision, at least in the unlikely event that Phil finds the occasional fairway.

Sens: For the competition itself, the Tiger-Phil match for the reasons Dylan lays out above. But for the venue, it’s the other event, hands down. A chance for many of us to get our first good look at Seminole and see what all the fuss is about.

Score.  The opportunity to see Seminole trumps all else for sure... 

Zak: I am deeply compelled by four elite pros playing casual golf against each other without caddies. Do they think their way around the course in the same way? Will they attempt more miraculous shots than normal? If so, gimme four guys doing that at Seminole rather than just the two at Medalist.

Is Sean correct that there are no caddies?  If so, consider me amused... 

Piastowski: I’m really enjoying the dry humor going on among Tiger, Phil, Tom and Peyton, but I’m a bit more intrigued by the Rory, Dustin, Rickie and Matthew match. (In writing that last sentence, it’s pretty interesting that you can identify pretty much all the guys by just their first name. Haha!) The RDRM match will be our first live, televised golf in about two months, and I get the feeling they’ll try to put on a show in order to outdo the older crew.

Dry?  That's what you're going with?  What adjective did you use about that Shadow Creek match?

See you down the road....