I have only a couple of hours for you, so let's have at it. Just a few oddball items that you can use to fill those awkward moments in your Saturday fourball.
Golf Channel, The Good, The Bad and The Curious - As golf, the sport, enjoys it's moment, Golf, the channel, goes along for the ride:
Single-Sport networks? I'm thinking that's setting the bar awfully low...
Geoff has this from an NBC Sports press release:
- GOLF Channel’s Total Day viewership in the quarter (118,000) ranked #1 among all single-sport networks, posting a 33% increase from the same time period in 2019.
So, the cleaned The Backgammon Channel's clock, which is good to know. But didn't they also have two majors, one in prime time (and that 2018 Open Championship would have been morning air times).
And these data points as well:
- The conclusion of the PGA TOUR Playoffs combined with the return of the U.S. Open to NBC Sports Group led to GOLF Channel’s second most-watched September ever (124,000). GOLF Channel also delivered its most-watched August (113,000) since 2017.
- Early round coverage of the 2019-2020 PGA TOUR season after the restart on GOLF Channel was the most-watched for these events vs. the same/comparable 12 events since the start of the FedExCup format in 2007.
Plaintiff Justin Breault claims NBCUniversal sells or rents subscriber information to third-parties in order to supplement its revenue.
The information allegedly being rented or sold includes customers’ names and addresses, as well as “detailed transactional information” about the titles and subject matter of the media purchased by subscribers.
Detailed transactional information? I'm a little confused here, because, well, read along:
“For example, as a result of Defendant’s disclosures of Personal Viewing Information, any person or entity could buy a list with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all women over the age of 50 who reside in New York, earn an income of over $80,000, own their home free and clear, and have purchased the Golf Channel from Defendant,” the class action lawsuit states. “Such a list is available for sale for approximately $120.00 per thousand customers listed.”
I actually take this privacy stuff fairly seriously, but the surprise would be that Golf Channel would know that I'm over fifty and own my house free and clear (if, in fact, I do own my house free and clear).
The information allegedly being rented or sold includes customers’ names and addresses, as well as “detailed transactional information” about the titles and subject matter of the media purchased by subscribers.Once the data is disclosed, the third-party recipients of the information can add other personal and demographic data for those customers, then re-sell the personal viewing information to other third-parties, the class action lawsuit says.
The nature of three-card Monty is misdirection, so follow very closely. GC is accused of selling viewership data, but it's third-parties marrying it to the more detailed and scarier data:
The NBCUniversal class action lawsuit includes a screenshot from NextMark Inc.’s website that shows consumer records available for sale.
“The Personal Viewing Information of 13,089,254 American consumers who purchased Defendant’s video products is offered for sale on the website of NextMark, Inc. (‘NextMark’) – one of many traffickers of this type of Personal Viewing Information – at a base price of ‘$85.00/M [per thousand records]’ (8.5 cents each),” the NBCUniversal class action lawsuit says.
I don't actually know whether this is legal and/or morally acceptable on the part of Golf Channel/NBC Universal. But I do know a few things that should cast skepticism on the claims. First and foremost, class action lawsuits are out of control, most serving the purpose only of generating legal fees. Anyone that invests in the stock market has received no shortage of legal documents related to such claims, most of which are resolved with no benefit to the actual claimants.
The other obvious point is that the claimants go ut of their way to add a bunch of lipstick to their pig of a claim, the egregious behavior not apparently coming from their defendant, chosen quite obviously for the depth of their pockets.
Amusingly, Geoff adds background on a couple of other legal matters in which Golf Channel has been ensnared, first this about the name of its Golf Pass service:
GolfClub’s GOLFPASS, which is a United States Golf Association official golf club that partners with local golf courses and allows customers to book tee times through a mobile application, alleges that the group of defendants misappropriated its business name when they launched their own version of Golfpass in February of 2019 in violation of the Lanham Act and monopolized the market for digital tee time booking in violation of the Sherman Act and Clayton Act. Court documents filed by GolfClub and its CEO, Christopher Silano, allege that McIlroy, who is described as a "Founding Partner" of Golfpass, and the defendants knowingly took the name GOLFPASS despite GolfClub first using it and establishing trademark rights.Court papers further allege that as soon as Rory McIlroy and NBC launched their platform, consumers and potential partners immediately began confusing the two platforms to GolfClub’s detriment, and that Silano regularly started receiving a barrage of emails from customers complaining about the McIlroy/NBC service and app.
Interesting...I suppose. One assumes that NBC has an adequate supply of lawyers and that said lawyers can do public records searches competently, so I struggle to take this seriously. But Geoff, who has always seemed to enjoy the more absurd side of things, left the best little nugget unblogged. This source reference includes a photo of the plaintiff with this caption:
 |
| Chris Silano, Founder and CEO of GOLFPASS, who has been described as a McIlroy doppelganger |
That's just bizarre...
And one last piece of weird litigation, in which Golf Channel employees from the Orlando facility are suing Lockheed Martin for...well, it ain't pretty:
For decades, Lockheed Martin manufactured heavy weaponry at its facilities, generating “dangerous wastes,” including different types of metal sludge, oils and greases, metal cuttings and scraps, cyanide and spent acid solutions, the lawsuit said.
Instead of carefully managing the waste, attorneys alleged Lockheed Martin stored toxins in leaking storage tanks, collected and transported waste in leaking underground piping systems and dumped tons of toxic waste sludge inside trenches dug at the Orlando facility.
“Lockheed Martin’s stunning indifference to environmental protection and human health resulted in staggering levels of contamination at the Orlando [facility],” the lawsuit said.
Regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limit certain chemical contaminants in drinking water to 5 parts per billion (ppb) with a goal of having zero. The lawsuit alleges two contaminants were detected in groundwater underneath the Lockheed Martin facility in concentrations as high as 386,000 ppb and 213,600 ppb.
Well, we hear so much these days about toxic work environments. Just a weird confluence of litigation, though it's unclear that any of it much matters. Though it does reinforced something I've been saying for years, that you'd have to be out of your mind to start a business these days.
Unrelated to golf, but there are many others that don't want you to start that business as well:
I've got the revolution penciled in for November 4th...
Tear Down All the Statues - You knew this one was coming, right?
What’s in a name? For some clubs in the South, uneasy ties to the Confederacy
This was the first club to pop into my mind after seeing the header:
For years at Secession Golf Club in Beaufort, S.C., a private, links-style course surrounded by marsh brimming with nature, the club featured two sets of tees after Union generals (Grant and Sherman) and three after Confederate generals (Lee, Stuart, and Jackson).Or it did up until late August. The tees now carry the names of important people in the club’s history. In response to the May 25 killing of George Floyd at the hands of police and the ensuing nationwide protests over racial injustice, the walking-only course, which opened in 1992, has taken a number of small steps in recent weeks to avoid the perception that it is paying homage to the Confederacy. In addition to replacing an adaptation of the Confederate States’ first flag with the state flag of South Carolina in their crossed-flag logo (the other is Old Glory), the club also has removed a copy of the Ordinance of Secession, which was first drafted in Beaufort, from a wall inside the front door. (Full disclosure: I know this because I was once a member.)
I find this all rather dreary, as there's simply no appeasing the mob. The actual history is far more complicated and messy, but is it strictly necessary that every reference to that era be stricken.
I'm open to the concept that certain names might be problematic, and General Wade Hampton offers one such example here. On the other hand, how about we circle back to these Civil War era issues after we've removed every last reference to Woodrow Wilson? You'll quickly see the issue...
That'll Leave a Mark - I have no interest in the first round action at the Sanderson Farms, and it's true enough that this guy has never won much of anything. But, even with those concessions, this header seems a tad overly hostile:
Must be Thursday: Charley Hoffman grabs share of Sanderson Farms lead
Maybe you guys should hug this out?
Who Was That Masked Man? - To me, this isn't much of a story, except for masks being an outsized part of our zeitgeist these days. It all relates to the story told under this 1912 N.Y. Times header:
Give it a read.
Alan, Asked - Since I'm on the clock, we'll saddle up Alan Shipnuck and ride him hard.
We open big:
As the self-appointed new leader of the USGA, what are your first executive orders? – @NickGoblirsch
– Driver heads for the pros may not exceed 260cc.
– Golf may never be used as a verb.
– Every private club on the Top 100 list must allow public play at least two days a week.
– Only Michael Bamberger is allowed to use the terms “linksland” and “golfing his ball.”
– Golf influencers may post only one Instagram story per day.
– Golf Twitter prognosticators can complain about TV coverage only once per year.
– O.B. shall be converted to orange stakes — drop a ball within 2 club-lengths of where it crossed the hazard line and play on.
– Being creepy with the beverage cart attendant is a 2-stroke penalty.
– Iron covers, ball retrievers, blade collars, mock turtlenecks, joggers and using the term “width and angles” are punishable by death. Fans who holler “You da man!”, “Mashed potato” or other such drivel are subject to more extreme measures.
– If you didn’t start the company, you can’t wear the logo’d merch.– All golf balls must be white.
– All golf podcasters must report for a recreation of The Hunger Games; only the lone survivor shall be allowed to continue podcasting.
– At every tournament, reporters shall be given the best parking and on-site spa services.
– Holes-in-one are banned until I make one.
I assume Alan feels better for having solved all of golf's problems... or at least all of Alan's golf problems, most notably that last one. Though I think we can all agree that iron headcovers deserve their own bullet point.
How many weeks until Will Zalatoris has full status, and will he be in the top 10 of the Fedex Cup by the end of 2020? – @Golfingbrock
What a great story this kid has become, further proof that golf is the ultimate meritocracy … even if confusing Tour rules occasionally hold back a rising young talent like Zalatoris. No reason he can’t crack the top 10 — the dude is playing with a ton of confidence, and while plenty of other pros appear to coasting to the end of the year Z is coming strong every week. It’s clearly only a matter of time until he locks up his Tour status and then keeps building from there.
I have no real sense of how good the kid is compared to his peer group. But what always jumps out at me is how hard it is for the kids to break through, the big tour being, in my opinion, too much of a closed shop. A complicated issue, for sure, but I'm always concerned that the balance unnecessarily favors the entrenched.
This one is good fun:
#AskAlan Is there better “elitist country club guy” name on tour than Hudson Swafford? I bet the Swaffords would have gotten an invite to the Smails’ yacht christening. Maybe Harris English or Charles Howell III? There can’t be many Hudsons living below the poverty line. – @BillMarksHusker
You make an excellent point, but it’s tough to top Brandel Chamblee, which sounds like an $800 bottle buried deep in the Augusta National wine cellar. And Davis Love III may have retired the category — I mean, he’s too soft to even have an aggressive ‘d’ sound at the end of his first name! Love’s surname makes us go gooey and the Roman numerals are *chef’s kiss*.
Back in the day there was a guessing game about who on tour might be gay, and Davis Love's name came up frequently. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but elitist is the least of his worries... Of course there were also those nasty rumors about DLIII's wife, so perhaps we should just move on.
Do you see a journeyman type making next year’s Ryder Cup team? Someone that parlays a career year into a spot like Brett Wetterich, Chris Riley, or Jim Gallagher, Jr? If so, who for either side? #askalan – @SonofaFitch46
Don’t forget Vaughn Taylor! And J.J. Henry! It was those two, along with Wetterich, making the 2006 U.S. team that led the subsequent captain, Paul Azinger, to overhaul the qualifying criteria to make it less beholden to old results. Azinger also demanded more captain’s picks, a system that has stuck and thus reduces the chances of a rando sneaking into an automatic qualifying spot. Because of Covid the 2021 captain, Steve Stricker, will have a whopping six picks, so there is virtually zero chance a Wetterich or Vaughn makes the team. Europe has also tweaked its qualifying formula over the years, weeding out the Ignacia Garridos and Peter Bakers, though, in fairness, those fringe players tended to come up big, one reason the U.S. has consistently been upset over the last quarter-century.
Well, the real problem was that you had the three of them on the one team, and that they played like, well, journeymen... Of course, that event was played at the K Club, so the only thing worse than the U.S. squad was the golf course.
#AskAlan have you seen Ogilvy’s work at Shady Oaks? Do you believe he can be the next Great Designer? – @pintosjavi
I was just talking with a friend today about how badly I want to tee it up at Shady and Colonial, two citadels I’ve visited but never played. I’ve heard the restoration work Ogilvy did is terrific. He has such a high golf IQ and reverence for good architecture it’s hard to imagine he won’t build a bunch of great courses, if he has the patience and persistence to see the projects through, which even before Covid was a tedious process for every would-be MacKenzie.
I know nothing about this project, except that the caddie yard at this Fort Worth club produced Hogan and Nelson... But my mancrush on Geoff Ogilvy remains active, all the more so as a result of his prominence related to the return to Winged Foot.
This is quite easily the most interesting and substantive of the topics:
Do you think Tour players see a shorter career for themselves than in generations gone by? For example, Bryson, is he thinking ‘I’ll hulk up and give it everything the next 3-4 years’ while his body holds up rather than a 10-15 year timeline? – @StevenStewart18
Well, Bryson is a bad example because he plans to be playing the senior tour at 110 years old. But, yes, I do think in general players are going to peak younger and burn out faster. We might already be seeing that with the likes of Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy. Top juniors are like shrunken down Tour players in their early teens, pushing themselves harder than the old-timers could ever imagine. (Brooks Koepka’s and Jason Day’s bodies are breaking down, just as Tiger Woods’ did before them.) Huge money and non-stop social media scrutiny await the most successful players, both of which make early retirement more attractive. So, enjoy these young stars while you can because their reigns may be fleeting.
Like Alan, I do think this is the case. I'd further add that, at the same time, the Tour has become about a few strong weeks vs. consistent week-to-week results.
But what I find most interesting is the names cited by Alan in his response. He throws out five names as candidates for early retirement, all of whom except Spieth have dramatically bulked up their bodies. he mentions that the bodies are breaking down, but fails to note the literally connective tissue. Isn't that really the issue begged here?
here's todays "Don't Know Much About History" entry:
Are you the most famous golfing Alan? – @TomIrwingolf
Honestly, it’s a very sad list. Allen Doyle has to take the top spot here, even as he spells his own name incorrectly.
Ahem, (waving hand in air). There was this guy.
Bobby D., call your office:
Feelings on plastic tees? – @ameyer77
A crime against humanity.
I just have trouble understanding the liberal mind. Alan is in favor of reusable shopping bags for sure, but an advocate for single-use golf tees. Think of the carbon footprint...
Who was better, Duval or O’Meara? – @WallDwarf
Duval and it ain’t close. That O’Meara is in the Hall of Fame but Duval isn’t is a testament to how we overrated sustained-pretty-goodness over transcendent-but-fleeting brilliance. From 1997-2001 Duval played at a level few golfers have ever attained. It’s a shame ennui and injuries ended his run, but even so, his record is damn close to Fred Couples’.
Agreed. One question I always ask is whether they were ever considered the best player in the game. That answer is arguably yes for Duval and Couples, but a resounding no for O'Meara, even in 1998 when he caught lightning in a bottle.
If we took the top 30 of the FedEx Cup standings, and had a pro wrestling battle royale, who would win? Who would do surprisingly well? Who is out immediately? #AskAlan – @NYRfan46
Out immediately: Webb, JT, Abe Ancer, Bryson, Morikawa, Kisner, Leishman, Horschel, Finau
Surprisingly well: Na, Xander, Berger, Sungjae, B. Todd, Cam Smith, Rory
Winner: Tyrrell Hatton
You think these guys want a piece of Bryson? I'd take that bet...
On that amusing note I'll wish you a good weekend.
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