The return of the pro-am: Push carts, COVID testing and gift cards, oh, my
JACKSON, Miss. – Instead of a pro-am pairing party, the Sanderson Farms Championship had a COVID-19 test party.
“We gave everybody an hour window where they could come and be tested, 15-minute results and 100 percent negatives and everybody’s here,” said Steve Jent, tournament director. “We’re just trying to turn lemons into lemonade.”
The PGA Tour resumed pro-ams last week at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in the Dominican Republic, following in the footsteps of PGA Tour Champions and Korn Ferry Tour, which first did so at the Ally Challenge and Price Cutter Charity Championship, respectively, in July.
Gone is hobnobbing amongst pros the night before at the draw party, the chummy team photo and the fist bump celebration for a birdie putt.
Those of us that survived the Great Pushcart Famine of 2020 might be amused by this:
The biggest change of all may have been amateurs using push carts. In an effort to limit the number of people on site, caddies for the participants were eliminated this year.
“We’ve always done a walking pro-am and cart-path only is no fun, so, how do we do it without caddies? I thought, why not push carts,” Jent said. “I ordered 250 (from Bag Boy). You can’t find these things. They are not to be found. The local Edwin Watts has asked me if they can buy some.”
So, you can't find these things but you scored 250 of them on short notice? Though this bit struck me as a tad vague:
Jent said some of his corporate guests were renting out space at restaurants to do team dinners in smaller groups or grabbing take out and going back to their hotels. “We told them you need to semi-self-quarantine before you come here,” he said.
Semi-self-quarantine? Is that anything like a modified, limited hang-out?
Amusement aside, pro-ams are a necessary fact of life in a sponsor-centric world, so this constitutes progress. Good as well to see this guy in the field:
JACKSON, Miss. – Watching the U.S. Open on television gave Scottie Scheffler, well, a sick feeling. The reigning PGA Tour Rookie of the Year withdrew from the national championshipafter testing positive for coronavirus on the Sunday before Bryson DeChambeau bludgeoned the field by six strokes.
“Not a break I necessarily wanted, but I felt all right, so it’s good to be back out here feeling healthy again,” Scheffler said ahead of the Sanderson Farms Championship.
With a clean bill of health, Scheffler, who was asymptomatic, is set to launch his 2020-21 PGA Tour season this week as the second highest-ranked player in the field (World No. 30, and behind only Sung-Jae Im). Scheffler was the first player on the PGA Tour to test positive after a run of six weeks without a positive case. Scheffler failed a required in-home test in Dallas before traveling to New York for the championship at Winged Foot.
Given what we've heard about the testing, who knows whether he in fact had the virus. But he took the set-back graciously, so good to have him back out there.
On a tangentially-related note, Shane Ryan has this feature up at Golf Digest:
11 tour pros most likely to emerge as the fall's breakthrough performers
Curiously, this is the pic supporting his premise:
It helps that Shane admits that Rory is long past "breaking through", but still it's curious:
5. Rory McIlroy
Remember this guy? He’s a professional golfer who has won four majors and various other events, and was once considered the best player of his generation. Joking aside, McIlroy rarely plays many non-WGC fall events on the PGA Tour, but this season he’s committed to at least the CJ Cup and the Zozo Championship, likely for Masters prep. We all know how badly Rory wants the green jacket to complete the career slam, and if he’s ever going to become a legend of the fall, 2020 is the time.
I certainly agree that this November Masters is a unique opportunity for Rory, especially because the course could potentially be softer than is typical. But my take on Rory is that the more he wants it, the more poorly he plays....
As for this other guy, hasn't his time passed?
6. Rickie Fowler
Let’s go back to that strokes gained vs. FEC points comparison. Rickie Fowler was 31st in strokes gained and just 94th in the FedEx Cup, meaning he under-performed his true skill level. Prior to 2019-’20, his worst FEC finish was 43rd in 2011, and if you believe the numbers, he was at least a little unlucky not to be better than that last season. Everything here points to a rebound season. Anecdotally, it’s crazy how his profile has diminished after just one down year, although the failure to win a major has played a part. Like McIlroy, Fowler will be playing at least two events this fall and could emerge as the guy ready to re-take his spot at the top of the game.
You think this is just about the one down year? Maybe Rickie breaks through in a big event, but I know I've long since ceased to expect it...
Reports Of Its Demise... - One inescapable conclusion of the pandemic has been the obvious failure of our governing institutions. We tend to focus on the CDC and FDA, but I would add this one as well:
Yale G.C. closed for the 2019 season last November. Three months later its superintendent of 17 years, Scott Ramsay, left, weeks before the course’s scheduled 2020 opening. Two weeks later the COVID-19 pandemic hit, forcing Yale University to shutter its campus and facilities, including the golf course. The university reduced the course maintenance staff, which hovered anywhere from 18-24 members, to two. They were limited to four hours of work per day, total, for three months as the university shifted its way through ever-changing health and safety protocols.Members say there wasn’t much communication between the university and the members. Why, they wondered, with golf enjoying a renaissance during the pandemic, was their course closed? “Yale has never been good at communicating plans,” Mullally says.Worse, rumors began to spread about the course’s condition. Yale officials told Golf Digest over the summer they were trying to keep up as best they could. Conversely, it doesn’t take an agronomist to understand the consequences of no superintendent and a skeleton crew. A few members found a way in to discover for themselves, and what they found was startling.
Here is a sampling of those pics from June:
Yale is not just any university golf course, its widely considered the best of them, due to its architectural lineage to Macdonald and Raynor. In a world filled with issues deserving outrage, the magnitude of the endowments at certain institutions is worthy of a spot on the list. This back-and-forth is so very typical:
Members who requested anonymity told Golf Digest the photos were distributed not to embarrass the university or its administration, but to raise awareness—and alarm. On that front, mission accomplished, as the photos spurred a wave of commentary from media, club members and architectural purists, all wondering how Yale, with an endowment of $30 billion, could let such a masterpiece be defiled.The photos made the rounds as news that Peter Pulaski, Yale’s director of golf, was leaving in June after two decades of service. Not helping matters were developments with fellow Ivy League members Dartmouth (which was closing its golf course) and Brown (which eliminated its golf program). With the fallout of COVID-19 forcing many institutions to rethink their budgets, and continued silence from the university, there was worry Yale G.C. would be no more.
“People always cite the endowment, and we know there are other things needing money than a golf course,” Massimilian said. “But the golf community never felt like the university knew what it had, and when everything happened during the pandemic, some wondered if that would be it [for the course].”
Le Sigh! Yes, people keep citing the endowment, because it's thirty billion dollars! That's billions with a "B"... Of course it's Yale, so there's always the need for that Seventy-third Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion...
They hide behind "safety", but the State of Connecticut (not to mention common sense) had established that golf is a safe activity. Perhaps more than just safe, it's actually beneficial both psychologically and because of that which we've learned about the importance of Vitamin-D levels. But that would involve actually caring about your students and members, but they've got an endowment to maintain...
Masters Notes - Sebastian Munoz has actually played the place in November, and has an account worth noting:
“It was cold,” Muñoz remembers. “I booked for two days, so the first day it was gorgeous. I played like around noon or a little later. It was like 70, 65. It was just long that time, but they told me it was playing different in April.”The temperature average in November is slightly cooler than it would be expected in April. The typical April high is 77 degrees, while the lows drop into the upper 40s. In November, that high doesn’t usually get above 70 degrees, while the lows drop down to the lower 40s. Not a significant difference, but enough to potentially force players to battle different conditions than the ones they’re used to.
We've seen cold Aprils as well, most notably the Zach Johnson year. Not all bad some of the clubs we might see pulled:
On the par-4 11th during Muñoz’s lone round at Augusta, he hit a 3-iron (!) into the green for his second shot. The hole plays out to a meaty 505 yards during the Masters, but in the spring players typically don’t have that much club into the green. He was also unable to reach the fairway bunker on the 18th hole, which normally comes into play for nearly every player in the field.
No. 14 has evolved to a drive-and-pitch hole, so maybe an old-timey Masters?
Outrage in 3, 2, 1... - As I noted earlier in the week, the marriage between the Saudis and the Ladies European Tour seems, well, problematic. Accordingly, this comes as no surprise:
Amnesty International has voiced deep concern after the Ladies European Tour announced it willstage two events in Saudi Arabia in November. The LET insisted that it was a “landmark moment for women’s sport in the kingdom” when confirming the tournaments on Monday.
The Saudi Ladies International and Saudi Ladies Team International will deliver a combined $1.5m in prize money and mark the first professional tournaments for women in the country. They are, however, highly controversial given Saudi’s high-profile human rights violations.
“With leading Saudi women’s rights activists currently languishing behind bars, there’s an unmistakable irony to the spectacle of Saudi Arabia throwing open its heavily-watered greens to the world’s leading women golfers like this,” Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, told the Guardian.
“Under the Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia has embarked on a major sportswashing drive – attempting to use the glamour and prestige of big-money sporting events as a PR tool to distract from its abysmal human rights record.”
Quiet, please? That's certainly how the Saudi's like their women...
But the biggest winners are those players such as DJ, Phil and Brooksie, that cashed the Kingdom's appearance fee checks. I find interesting that this article and the Amnesty International objections seem grounded in their general civil rights records, as above buy also with a reference to the Kashoggi murder as well. Left out of the discussion is any reference to the status of women in the Kingdom.... Why do we think that is?
Another Damn Thing To Worry About - For years we've been hearing about the need to attract Millennials to our game... In fact, that was the justification for deep-sixing longstanding terminology such as "all-square", a horribly obtuse term that we couldn't expect the snowflake generation to understand. Shack has been all over this nonsense, but apparently that concern is no longer operative. Apparently the death of our game is more attributable to Gen-Z:
The Sports Industry’s Gen Z Problem
The next generation of consumers isn’t following in the footsteps of sports-hungry millennials
So now they're "sports-hungry millennials"?
For those of you needing a scorecard, here's the definition of Gen-Z:
New research, however, indicates the next wave of consumers — Generation Z — is much less enthusiastic about sports. According to a Brookings Institution analysis of Census Bureau population estimates, those born between 1997 and 2012 accounted for 20.3 percent of the U.S. population as of July 2019.
If I ran a professional sports league, this might be a concern:
Gen Z’s relative disinterest in sports is reflected in its viewing habits: While 42 percent of all adults, and 50 percent of millennials, said they watch live sports at least once a week, only 1 in 4 individuals ages 13-23 said the same. In addition, Gen Zers were twice as likely as millennials to say they “never” watch live sports.Zach Leonsis, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at franchise ownership group and media company Monumental Sports & Entertainment, said the keys to growing live viewership among young fans are accessibility and opportunities for engagement.“Sports properties need to make sure that their games are digestible and available via streaming products,” Leonsis said. “They need to make their games engaging by fostering gamification, daily fantasy, free-to-play games and, ultimately, sports betting.”
Gamification? The good news is that our game, at least at the club level, comes gamification-ready... But this actually sounds more like Fan Duel press release than a serious analysis...
Jura On My Mind - I used to have a feature called Great Places In Golf for just such locales:
It’s safe to say that anyone who goes to Ardfin will never forget it.It isn’t an easy place to get to. The course is on the southern tip of Jura, a Hebridean island off the west coast of Scotland and it will take a long drive and at least one boat to get there. When you do, you are greeted by one of the most dramatic coastlines in Scotland.The Ardfin estate was purchased by the antipodean multi-millionaire Greg Coffey. He wanted to build a golf course to play with his friends and family in his retirement. He made a phone-call to the Australian architect, Bob Harrison, who had created Ellerston - another millionaire’s retreat.The course opened in 2015, but only a handful of golfers have seen Ardfin. Stories emerged of luxury accommodation and breathtaking holes; but it was unknown whether those outside of Coffey’s immediate circle would ever be able to play the course. However, in early 2020 it was announced that the course would be open to visitors – but only for those willing to pay stay on the property. I cover the logistics, accommodation and overall package in the Tour Tips section below.
It's dramatic for sure:
For those with a few minutes of available time, this video flyover will wow you:
Building a golf course here would have been virtually impossible until recently - it isn’t sandy, traditional Scottish links, terrain. Rather, it is built on a rocky outcrop and it must have taken incredible vision to conceive of it as a golf course.
Jura is actually not horribly out-of-the-way, an easy ferry ride from Troon. Jura is also adjacent to Islay, where the ready availability of brown liquor for Employee No. 2 and The Machrie are an effective siren song.
There's also this one additional issue precluding a trip there:
Much has been made of the expense of playing at Ardfin. You may even hear it is £1,560 for a round. Well, it can be. That’s the cost for 24 hours on the property. It includes your accommodation (more on that below) and at least 2 rounds of golf. There are never more than a handful of people on the property at any time so you will be able to play pretty much whenever you want when you are there. There’s also a 9 hole pitch and putt, with another one on the way.
If you are staying somewhere else on Jura, or nearby Islay, and fancy just a round of golf then you still need to pay the £1,560. I would encourage you to stay, and play as much as you can!!
Which accomplishes the unlikely in making the cost of a round at Pebble seem downright reasonable.
OK, kids, I'll see you tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment