Lots to cover, as you'll have to manage your Friday without a fix of my random musings... As I scan the open browser tabs, and there's a gaggle of them, it's feeling like an "everything Old is New Again" kind of day.
The Ladies Enter Stage Left - We'll have plenty from Las Vegas below, but we'll allow those with cervixes to grab the spotlight, as they play their KPMG/PGA Championship this week at storied Aronomink. First, some backgrounders:
The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship looks a little different this year.
Traditionally held in mid-summer, the 2020 edition has an early October date, with reds and yellows serving as a backdrop at Aronimink Golf Club instead of the normal summer green. Besides the foliage, the weather is another differing variable. Skirts have been shelved for pants and hats replaced by beanies as players deal with the cool Pennsylvania air each morning.
Fair enough, I guess, though that "traditionally" is quite the misdirection play. Regular readers will recoil at another of my Western Open-style rants, but see what you think of this from the event's Wikipedia page:
It's really quite the howler... The insufferable Suzy Whaley was the first to stick the shiv into Ted Bishop for the hate crime of calling Ian Poulter a little girl, apparently immune to the irony of her organization hiding behind her very own skirt. But the takeaway is that the PGA of America, with its thousands of female teaching professionals and the requisite 114 Vice Presidents of Diversity & Inclusion, could not be bother to hold a championship for women until 2015. We noticed.
This similar item from Beth Ann Nichols uses a surprising adjective:
KPMG Women's PGA set for a 'monstrous' week at Aronimink
Perhaps that's setting the bar a little high, though that adjective did not come from Beth Ann:
From the moment players walk on the property here at Aronimink, it feels like a major. Everything about the historic Donald Ross design, including its stately clubhouse and oversized greens, feels grandiose.
The view from the first tee alone is a stunner.
“I mean they’re kind of calling it the ‘lumber yard’ right now,” said Cristie Kerr, referring to the number of woods players are hitting into greens.
Danielle Kang called it “monstrous,” and said she’s thinking about taking out one of her wedges and putting an extra hybrid in the bag.
“This is a proper golf course for sure,” said 2018 AIG Women’s British Open winner Georgia Hall. “It’s what a major should be.”
Amusingly, Beth Ann's piece uses a pic eerily similar the that Golf.com item above:
Amusingly, it looks to be the same practice round pairing, but with a different player hitting...
More on that theme:
No one in the field owns as many major titles as Inbee Park. She turned to her caddie, Brad Beecher, at one point during her first practice round and asked, “Is this a par 5? Because it looks like we’re not going to get there in two.”
Even Brittany Lincicome barely reached the par-4 10th with a 3-wood, and her nickname on tour is, “Bam Bam.”
If Nos. 1 and 10 are into the wind, Park said she can’t reach the greens in regulation if the tees are played back. A tough way to start any round.
“I’ve gotten probably a little bit shorter over the years,” said Park, “but it is definitely one of the longest golf courses that I’ve ever played.”
You're not the only one, sweetie...getting shorter, that is.
This event comes with the usual empowerment nonsense, which we'll link to for those with an unusually high tolerance for pain:
KPMG is proud to be the title sponsor of the sixth-annual 2020 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit
But this one sentence jumped out at me:
The KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit will be held on-site during Championship week.
How come they're not on Zoom like the rest of us idiots? You know what's coming... Adjust your Newspeak Dictionaries accordingly, as one cannot catch the Wuhan virus from BLS demonstrations or women empowerment seminars, as virus is smart enough to skip social justice warriors....
LPGA majordomo Mike Whan has had a rocky 2020, though who among us hasn't? The problem is, this header reminds of one of his recent pratfalls:
Sophia Popov readies for first major start since unlikely Women’s Open triumph
Of course, that header is as carefully constructed as the Wikipedia graphic above, carefully eliding the fact that it's not the first major played since that unlikely Women's Open triumph, it's merely the first in which she's allowed to play.... Because....well, reasons.
That rigid adherence to rules didn't play well, but now we come to potentially the most curious part of the week ahead. Mike Whan has worked hard to get the ladies on network television, about which I've expressed concern. Forgive my repeating those concerns, but the audience for televised golf is incredibly small to begin with, and the audience for women's golf is, well there's no reason to beat around the bush, somewhere between miniscule and nonexistent. It also doesn't help that, when speaking on this subject, Whan comes across as an entitled jerk, ignoring any need to earn that network exposure. I've long thought the sacrifices needed to be on network TV, typically involving a mid-round channel switch, were probably not worth the effort. There's value in your core audience knowing where to find your broadcast...
Let me switch gears and offer this excerpt from a place long ago and far away:
Forty years ago at the 1955 U.S. Open, Ben Hogan finished playing his 72nd hole at the Olympic Club in San Francisco and Gene Sarazen offered him congratulations. Sarazen then told a national TV audience that Hogan had just won another Open title.
He was wrong.
Still out on the course, back at the 14th hole, 33-year-old Jack Fleck held a golf club and destiny in his hands. Although he didn’t know it, all that stood between Fleck and his unique place in golf history were five holes, two birdies, one playoff and a victory absolutely no one expected.
Well, there was one person who thought this virtually unknown municipal course pro from Davenport, Iowa, had a chance. It was Fleck, and he even put it in writing.
That's an item from 1995, so don't be confused by the timeline. But here's the first payoff on that everything old is new again bit:
NBC will air the championship on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. ET and on Sunday from Noon to 2 p.m., ahead of NASCAR. To make that work, the leaders won’t be teeing off last on Sunday. And if play from Friday pushes to Saturday morning, the same will hold true for the third round as well.
“We feel it’s important that everyone watching the telecast will see the leaders,” said Haigh, “see the leaders play all 18 holes, and we think that is important. And although it’s a little different and out of the box, we as partners with the LPGA and KPMG are prepared to make those changes for what we think will be a greater and a better championship for everyone to observe.”
The irony, she burns. This business of the leaders going last is entirely a construct of the TV era, so now we're firing up the Wayback Machine to....wait for it, accommodate TV.
We all understand that 2020 is different, though Mike's TV issues seem eternal... But if NBC can only spare you the two hours because of NASCAR, maybe that's a sign from the heavens that you don't belong on their network.
If anyone pulls a Jack Fleck or Peter Malnati after NBC goes dark, it will happen in a void... Given the cosmic clusterf**k that is 2020, it would only sense that the role of Jack Fleck be played by, you know it's coming, Sophia Popov.
What Happens in Vegas... - If only. Did someone note that everything old is new again?
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted just about everything, but at least one time-honored tradition is rolling on like clockwork, the release of prototype Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls at the PGA Tour’s event in Las Vegas.
White boxes are distributed and put into players’ lockers every two years when the Tour arrives at TPC Summerlin, and this year was no different. While Titleist’s ball factories and headquarters had to close during the pandemic’s height in the spring, the prototype Pro V1 and Pro V1x balls were manufactured at Titleist Ball Plant 3 in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the first Titleist Pro V1 at the 2000 Invensys Classic. That week, 47 players in the field switched into the new multi-layer, urethane-covered ball, including Billy Andrade, who went on to win.
Historically, Titleist brings prototypes of the three-piece Pro V1 and the four-piece Pro V1x balls to Las Vegas to get feedback from players, then makes the balls available to consumers in late January of the following year.
Le Sigh! Which news Shack blogged under this amusing header:
Players To Get Boost Of Athleticism As New Pro V’s Turn Up In Vegas (Again)
What's your point, Geoff?
Ironically, these new pellets arrive as The Beats comes out of hibernation, although folks might want to reexamine their driving range location protocols:
LAS VEGAS – We’re going to need a bigger range.
Brawny Bryson DeChambeau is shaking up the golf world by knocking the cover off the ball
since adding 40 pounds of mass to his already large frame and increasing his ball and clubhead speeds to ridiculous levels. Regularly cranking out drives in excess of 400 yards, DeChambeau has many in golf’s circles wondering if there’s a golf course that can contain him.
On Tuesday afternoon at TPC Summerlin, home to this week’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, DeChambeau was clearing the fence at the back of the range nearly 360 yards away. And he wasn’t swinging full-bore. He put a dent in one car and forced officials to ask him to move back on the range. So he moved 40 yards back – nearly off the range completely – to be safe.
When last we saw Bryson at Winged Foot, he had ambitious plans for the November Masters. On item No. 1, he's not quite there:
“I watched ‘Happy Gilmore’ a little while ago and just re-inspired me to try and hit it as far as possible,” said DeChambeau, who is even bigger now since he left Winged Foot. Eight pounds bigger.
I assume he's just trolling us with the Happy Gilmore reference, so I simply refuse to take the bait. What, oh yeah, guess I just did...
Of course, here i have no sense that he's trolling:
“There will be holes where I’m going to try and drive them, get it up as close to the green as possible,” said DeChambeau, who led the PGA Tour in driving distance last season at 322.1 yards a pop. “It’s just fun having a 7-iron go 220. That’s unique. And 4-iron, 265. There will be holes where I had to hit 3-wood and now I’m hitting 4-iron off the tees.
“Kind of like I would say Atlanta (for The Tour Championship) a little bit where I was hitting 3-woods in the past and now hitting 4-irons off the tee, and just hitting it as far as everybody else.”
And this on other Masters prep:
That means possibly introducing a 48-inch driver shaft – 2.5 inches longer than standard length. He’s been working with the longer clubs since the U.S. Open but said he won’t put it in play until possibly the Masters in November.
“I’m looking forward to trying to put in a 48-inch driver and see what that can do to the golf course and what opportunities it will present for me,” he said. “It’s going well. I think there is a lot of, I don’t know, I guess you could say advantages to having a 48-inch driver and being able to put it in play and keep it in play.
“Still need to get some things worked out, but so far it’s been pretty amazing. There are speed improvements, speed gains, and it’s exciting. It really is something crazy that I never thought was even possible. The numbers that it’s producing are staggering, way more than what I’m doing right now.”
As the kids are wont to say, developing...
Also appearing in Vegas this week is this guy, who fortunately seems to be stopping short of going full Anthony Kim:
What on earth would possess a 37-year-old man to move with his wife and two school-age kids from London to Los Angeles at the height of a pandemic? Is this a mid-life drama or a full-blown crisis?
This week, Francesco Molinari will end his seven-month exile from tournament golf and begin to answer one of the great summer sporting mysteries. Instead of the easy journey to Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship, the popular Italian will be motoring 300 miles across the Nevada desert to play in Las Vegas, as he begins a fresh start with what he hopes will prove a fresh mind.
Pro Tip: Never go full Anthony Kim.
There's a story here, as that was a rather dramatic move from London to LA, though it's not at all clear that we'll ever know what happened. But, as noted at the bottom of this piece, the far more dramatic and sudden change occured on the walk from the 11th green to the 12th tee at Augusta National:
At the age of 38 next month, it's a long way back. Up next month is the Masters, the scene of another life-changing event for the man from Turin. The last edition will always be remembered for Tiger's victory, but it was a tournament in Molinari's grasp during his all-conquering run.
When he fell apart on the back nine, the magic disappeared along with the green jacket. Since then, he hasn't registered a single top 10 finish worldwide.
The only comparable fall from grace I can think of is Joe Hardy... Yeah, that Joe Hardy:
Golf In The Time of Bryson - A couple of notes on our distance issues, the first this interesting take from Aussie jornalist Rod Morri:
Perhaps it would be instructive to start the conversation by outlining what it’s NOT about, so here goes:
It’s not about players or athleticism or Trackman or modern coaching or ‘handcuffing’ the most talented individuals.
It’s not about which golfers might gain or lose the most in a rolled back world or whether the value of long hitting in relation to the field has changed over time.
It’s not about scoring or agronomy or making the game harder with stupid rough and penal minefields of bunkers in some futile bid to ‘protect par’. In fact, it’s not about score, full stop.
It’s not about any of those things because all of those things are about golfers and the distance debate isn’t about golfers, it’s about golf courses.
Now let him work up a head of steam:
Imagine competitive golf being played at a driving range with points awarded for accuracy, distance and some combination of both instead of shots taken to get in the hole.
Now ponder whether you’d be inclined to watch THAT on TV. No? Me neither.
Conversely, think about all The Opens at St Andrews over the years with its endlessly fascinating landscape of humps and hollows and balls running and following the contours of the ground and the unpredictability of it all.
Of its devilish little pot bunkers and the tee shot over the old railway sheds at the 17th only to be confronted by the conundrum of the wall behind the green.
Or the simple depression at the front of the 18th green which so influences the play of the hole that it is universally known as the ‘Valley Of Sin’.
Then consider The Masters and its ‘momentous decision’ at the par-5 13th when in contention on Sunday, or the courage required to pull a 1-iron for the second shot across the water to the 15th.
Or Royal Melbourne and its sweeping, rolling topography and grand scale and stunning bunkers cut right to the green’s edge.
And then tell yourself these treasures are not integral to the game and that allowing these great cathedrals of golf to become little more than pitch ‘n’ putt for the best players is an advancement.
Because it’s not. Not in my book, anyway.
Alas, Rod, your book seems to be out of print.
I'll pair Rod with this God-awful suggestion that might be most interesting because of its source:
Bryson proofing. It’s no coincidence that the European Institute of Golf Course Architects came out against distance this week with the primary takeaway, “95 percent of respondents agreed that action needs to be taken to reduce hitting distances.”
In the wake of Bryson DeChambeau’s dismantling of Winged Foot at last month’s U.S. Open, the EIGCA isn’t the only acronym digging in against distance. So in true Bryson fashion, we attempted to reverse-engineer the problem and asked the bomber’s long-time swing coach, Mike Schy, how he would Bryson-proof a golf course.
“I’ve thought through this and I think I have the answer,” Schy explained on this week’s Golf Central Podcast. “I believe the rough should be scaled so that the closer you get to the green the thicker the rough becomes. Let’s say 60 yards out the rough is 7 inches deep and as you go back [toward the tee] the rough is scaled [shorter].
“You could actually narrow the fairway just a little bit, scale the rough and that brings back all the old golf courses. The courses that are potentially becoming obsolete [to Tour players], like Pebble Beach.”
The USGA has tinkered with graduated rough for years but that was based on a horizontal concept, with thicker rough as you move away from the fairway. What Schy is suggesting is a vertical version of graduated rough that would, in theory, make long hitters like DeChambeau make choices off the tee.
In a world that seems to have a shortage of answers Schy’s idea is certainly interesting.
I do so hate to be critical, but I'm pretty sure that's not how you spell "Bat-s**t crazy."
Yeah, there's the amusing irony of a charter member of Team Bryson arguing that distance should be actively penalized...
One of the common misconceptions of the distance debate is that it intends to eliminate the advantage of the longer hitters. Those that can hit it long should and always will have a significant advantage under any regulatory scheme, and no one argues other wise. Except, it seems, Mike Schy. I would further argue that this argument itself is prima facie evidence that the battle has been lost.
Everything Old Is New Again, The Coda - Yeah, I know, when I find a bit I like, I'm like a dog with a bone. But this one is worth it, if only for the photo of The King. Also being played this week is the Euro Tour's flagship event at Wentworth, and it just so happens that Fall golf at Wentworth used to be a thing:
The BMW P.G.A. Championship begins on Thursday at the Wentworth Club in England, a venuecreated from a grand country estate that was once in the Duke of Wellington’s family and is steeped in golfing history. The tournament that became the Ryder Cup was played there in 1926.
Many legends, including Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman and Nick Faldo have tested themselves on the West Course.
In the village of Virginia Water, about an hour southwest of London, Wentworth was originally the home of the brother-in-law of the famous duke. The West Course, which was completed in 1926, was designed by Harry Colt, and the head offices of the European Tour are still there.
And why should we care about a bunch of dead white guys (yes, I'm aware a few names on that list are not technically dead, at least yet)? Lest you think I'm just being my usual self, that link is from Pravda, who's major journalistic endeavor in recent times is to slander dead white men.
In 1926, the tree-lined course hosted an event between a group of American players who were in the country for the Open Championship and a team from Britain. Dreamed up by Samuel Ryder, a businessman and golf enthusiast, the match was played at Wentworth and at the time was called the Ryder Cup.
It was considered a friendly competition and not officially counted as a match. The first official Ryder Cup, now held every other year between the United States and Europe, was played the next year in Worcester, Mass.
That's quite obviously a strong link to golf's rich history, but this is the more recent history evoked by this Fall visit:
Wentworth held the Ryder Cup in 1953, but to many golf fans the club will always be remembered for hosting the World Match Play Championship, which it held from 1964 to 2007.
Staged each October, shown live on the BBC and often played in challenging autumnal conditions, each match was played over 36 holes, a test of stamina as much as skill. Though it later expanded to 16 players, it began as an eight-man knockout event, with Palmer the first champion, beating Neil Coles of England in the final.
Ernie Els, who won the event seven times and later helped to redesign the West Course, loved Wentworth long before he got to see it himself.
“The history speaks for itself, especially the World Match Play,” Els said in an interview. “All the great players played there. Growing up in South Africa, we’d read all about Gary and Jack and Arnold winning there. Then watching Greg, Seve, Faldo, [Sandy] Lyle and Woosie [Ian Woosnam] in the 1980s. It was an iconic tournament and venue.”
Yes, Ernie, funny you should mention the iconic venue, an Harry S. Colt classic desecrated by the combination of distance increases and a clueless modern architect. And who was that modern architect? Well, this will shock you, but it was a fellow named Ernie Els. Who, amusingly, threw one of golf's epic hissy fits when his fellow professionals had harsh words for the crimes against humanity he inflicted on their finishing hole. I too found the criticism unduly harsh, as I thought Ernie built a wonderful hole, the only possible criticism being that he neglected to paint the clown face around the hole.
I'll set you on your way and wish you a good weekend.
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