Late-Week Logorrhea

The week got a bit jammed up, but I didn't want to leave you hanging, so I'll start this post on Thursday afternoon and finish it as time permits.  But it likely preclude any coverage of the Thursday golf, not a big loss in the pre-U.S. Open week.

A One-Off - This week's Tour event is at an unknown, mysterious venue, though you'd think they could get their story straight:

Built by billionaires, Congaree has only 1 member but a grand purpose

Versus:

Congaree: The PGA Tour heads to the billionaires golf club with two members, one mission

 As Hogan might have said, which is it?

Ridgeland is the seat of Jasper County, one of the poorest districts in the nation, but it’s where you’ll find a new kind of golf philanthropy. It’s also where you’ll find the PGA Tour for this week’s Palmetto Championship at Congaree, which replaces the RBC Canadian Open, an event canceled by Covid for a second straight year.

Located behind a wooden gate along a two-lane road in the woods, Congaree isn’t a golf club in the conventional sense. There is a course — actually, one of the best that Tom Fazio ever signed his name to — but that is almost incidental.

Fair enough, though best Tom Fazio is an awfully low bar...

At Congaree, golf is the route, not the destination. It opened in 2018 and has only two official

members — its billionaire founders Dan Friedkin and the late Robert McNair, who owned the Houston Texans. What it has instead are invited ambassadors, people prominent in their industries who aren’t so much expected to pay cash as donate their time and mentorship. Their number includes titans of industry and golf Hall of Famers, like Masters winner Mark O’Meara.

Each year, the Global Golf Initiative at Congaree identifies dozens of high school students from around the world who have the talent to play college golf but who lack the financial, parental or social advantages that kids from places like Kiawah Island might enjoy. The intense four-week program is a mix of educational, vocational and golf instruction, including college preparation, life lessons, counseling, fitness training and even club fitting. When they leave, Congaree’s advisors and counselors shadow them through the end of high school and into college.

“Mr. Friedkin’s vision was for Congaree to bring together like-minded individuals who played golf, loved golf and realized a philanthropic club was a conduit to be able to make a difference in the lives of deserving and underprivileged children,” said Bruce Davidson, a genial former Tour pro from Scotland who is now Congaree’s co-director of golf and, with his colleague John McNeely, the driving force behind the project.

Sounds like a worthy undertaking, though not an especially convenient place to be late Sunday afternoon of U.S. Open week.  

Today in Sycophancy - Nothing bespeaks modesty more than naming something after one's ownself:

USGA’s $45M GOLF COURSE SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH PROGRAM RENAMED TO HONOR OUTGOING CEO MIKE DAVIS

Turfgrass and Environmental Research Program will become the Mike Davis Program for Advancing Golf Course Management

LIBERTY CORNER, N.J. (June 9, 2021) – To celebrate the legacy of its outgoing CEO, the USGA has renamed its most impactful sustainability initiative as the Mike Davis Program for Advancing Golf Course Management.

Formerly the Turfgrass and Environmental Research Program (TERP), the longstanding initiative represents the single largest private grant program in golf dedicated to advancing innovation in sustainability and improving the on-course experience. The USGA annually invests nearly $2 million in the program ($45 million to date), which has resulted in better playing conditions, dramatic cost savings and a more environmentally friendly game.

The new title will honor Davis, who joined the USGA in 1990 and has made a consistent, positive impact on the game in his 31 years of service while positioning it for long-term success.

It's an interesting time to guess at how Davis' USGA tenure will be viewed by posterity, though your humble blogger became increasingly less of a fan as the tenure became measured in dog years.  Ultimately I would fear that he would be viewed as the man that refused to take on the equipment manufacturers to the detriment of the game.

Of course, with the woke mobs coming for Lincoln and Washington, at least there's likely nothing here to be torn down.  But unseemly, no?

Meanwhile, in an Alan Shipnuck interview, Davis's successor gives the first inkling of what the Whan era might entail:

One of your pet peeves has always been that range finders are not allowed in competition. Is that something you’re going to legislate so that they will be allowed at USGA competitions?

We're going to go to range finders on the LPGA in 2022 across the board. The PGA Championship announced the same. It just makes sense. There is nothing worse on TV than watching a golfer and caddie do arithmetic. That is the worst television experience of your life. To me, it's one of those technological improvements that can improve the viewer experience and the pace of play.

What about the optics? You don’t worry about the ghost of Sandy Tatum haunting you because caddies at the U.S. Open are shooting things with a laser?

There’s a lot of ghosts that I worry about bothering me, but that’s not one of ’em.

Alan, to his credit, gives us the first look inside the new USGA boss' mind on the threshold issue of the day:

Let’s talk distance debate. Do you agree that at the highest level of the men’s game, the distance gains have fundamentally changed how the sport is played and have rendered a lot of traditional venues, if not obsolete, certainly heading that way?

I don’t know that I agree that it’s fundamentally changed the way the game is played, but I do think it’s creating issues, not only for the people that are hosting events but for anybody who wants to host in the future. I hear people say, “We’re building a course; it’s gonna be 8,700 yards so we can host anything.” The acreage that takes, the water, the maintenance, it all adds up.

For the men’s professional game, do you need to limit the distance players are hitting it?

If we’re talking about the men’s professional game, I’d be surprised if people don’t believe that some degree of reining in wouldn’t be good for the game long-term. I haven’t had those conversations with everybody yet, but I will. I’ve read the Distance Insights study, but I don’t know if the need for change really trickles down to other levels of the game. I question if we need change for the average player. I’m still trying to understand why bifurcation scares everybody as much as it does. I’m not really sure why.

There's more at that link, but stay tuned... He will be hearing from the very people that are afraid of bifurcation, and he will get an earful.

The Premiere League, Still Not Dead-  It's seems as though their pitch has devolved into, "You might as well play, because we're never going away":

Organisers of a proposed €290m breakaway golf circuit have pledged to "never stop" in their bid to install the Premier Golf League (PGL) at the top of the game's pyramid.

And PGL chief executive Andy Gardiner is confident the likes of Rory McIlroy will be presented with a choice between the current tours and a new 18-event, Formula One-style season "without fear of reprisals".

And just when you think you're out, they pull you back in.  As you might have inferred from the above, they're now pitching this as a civil rights issue:

Since then Gardiner believes he has become "probably one of the UK's leading experts on competition law" in order to prepare for what could descend into a protracted legal battle over banning players and awarding ranking points.

"It's not a concern," Gardiner insisted. "I think sense will prevail. I think the nature of what we have to share will be sufficiently attractive, genuinely.

"If it's not, the door has always been open and actually we've taken it off the hinge now. And we're not putting it back. We'll never stop.

"The next stage is the consultation so there is no leap (of faith) from the players. It's just a little shuffle to the left or right if we get this right. It's about free will and about choice without fear of reprisal.

"We went through establishing what the law says and how it applies to the players, we now know the position and that's why we are reaching out to the community to say 'There's a nice way of doing this, a great way of doing it, which is to make sure everybody gets a fair share'.

"All we've ever wanted is the ability to compete for the services of these guys in a fair and effective manner.

That issue is obviously not as clean cut as he's pretending, but also doesn't account for the support recently offered  by the Five Families.  

This Alistair Tait item is a bit amusing:

You’d think the Premier Golf League was the devil incarnate considering the reaction in some quarters to the proposed new golf tour.

Why the fear?

The PGA Tour has threatened banning players who have the temerity to join the proposed new league. The European Tour has also said it will fight the new circuit. That they, the PGA Tour in particular, should take such a defensive stance is not surprising. However, surely if PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan is so confident in the product the PGA Tour offers, then he should be able to swat away the PGL threat without resorting to draconian measures?

Tait succeeds in making his point, as far as he takes it.  But even more interesting are the steps Kubla Jay has taken to ward off the threat to his feedlot, exactly none of which involve improving the underlying product.  In fact, his most famous initiative, the we're-not-supposed to-know-about-it PIP program, where he gets to bestow millions of dollars on his faves with no accountability....I guess he knows his audience, but it doesn't do anything for the rest of us.

But, just as we're locked and loaded to go to press, a further clarification arrives from Andy Gardiner of the PGL (via ESPN's Bob Harig):

"All we want is a conversation,'' Gardiner said. "We've never been the enemy. But I can understand why we've been perceived as such. But we'd love to be friends. I've not had that opportunity so far. And I will be redoubling my efforts. We want to have a conversation in the best possible way to ensure they understand where we are coming from and why we are doing it and to ensure that nobody's feelings will be hard done.''

Friends?  Let's see, you're trying to skim the top (or at least the top players in Meltwater) talent from the PGA Tour, relegating it to the status of development tour... To me, that doesn't sound all that, you know, friendly...

Amusingly, at least to this observer, Gardiner keeps leading with a suspect legal analysis:

"We will require those in the league to commit on a contractual basis as long as they are fit to play 18 in a season. We believe they are independent contractors, and as long as they turn up as required, we can assure them that this will be the best place. It's been done in Formula One. It's been done in tennis, other sports. Golf is one of the few sports left where fans and broadcasters and sponsors are left with a lottery as to who they are going to get.

Independent contractors who are required to show up as and when summoned.  Hope their financial modeling is better than their legal guidance. 

There Is A God - One of the cruelest blows I've absorbed in recent months was Alan Shipnuck's departure from Golf Magazine, which denied me access to his Ask Alan mailbag feature, perfect for low-impact blogging.

Today there's joy in Mudville, however, because Alan has revived the feature at his new home, The Fire Pit Collective, leading with quite the topical hot take:

We need the Ship take on Rahm. CBS, the PGA Tour and the Bear are all taking the praise-Jon angle. I love Rahm but the state of Ohio is not even at 40% vaxed. So weird. @DonDoncarey4

Based on the contact-tracing protocols Rahm was subjected to by the Tour it’s clear he had not been vaccinated. That’s a risky decision for a member of a traveling circus that barnstorms from town to town, especially given how disruptive to his playing schedule (to say nothing of his young family) a positive test would be. In the wake of Rahm’s W/D the Tour made a point to announce that more than 50% of its members have been vaccinated, which means probably around 49% haven’t. Fellas, the world has changed, like it or not. To get in the door at the U.S. Women’s Open, fans (and reporters) had to show their vaccine card or proof of a negative test in the preceding 72 hours. When I was looking for a restaurant reservation in San Francisco I ran across multiple places that required diners to show proof of vaccination to snag a table. No one is being forced to get the vaccine but if you opt out you’re giving up certain privileges, up to and including a Sunday tee time at the Memorial. By the way, I didn’t get the criticism of the Tour’s decision to tell Rahm the news just off the final green on Saturday afternoon. Time was of the essence, but more than that, it was a riveting TV moment that brought home the cost of Rahm’s choice.

I don't know if they were praising Rahm or commiserating with him, but no one seems to have any interest in diving into the issue of why these guys are so slow to get vaccinated.   But contra Alan, I found it positively bizarre to drop that on him in public at that very moment.

This one is just perfect because of the elegant simplicity of both the Q and the A:

What would Johnny have said about Lexi? @wcyoungIII

“That’s pressure, Rog.”

Yeah, I don't think Johnny would have been able to resist the C-word....  But there's pressure, then there's Lexi under pressure.  Combine at your own peril.

Despite the obvious category error, this one is pretty epic:

Gonna need you to stack rank the all-time major implosions. I feel horrible for Lexi but that’s gotta be pretty high up there. ‪#AskAlan @hailflutie

15. Rory McIlroy’s 80 at the 2011 Masters

14. Dustin Johnson’s 82 at the 2010 U.S. Open

13. Ernie Els’s 80 at the 2004 U.S. Open

12. Lexi

11. Retief Goosen’s 81 at the ’05 U.S. Open

10. Lorena Ochoa’s dropkicked snap hook into the lake on the 72ndhole of ’05 Women’s Open

9. Adam Scott’s four straight bogeys to close the 2012 British Open

8. Scott Hoch ’89 Masters – in addition to blowing a 2-footer in sudden death that would’ve won the green jacket he missed another shortie on the 71st hole.

7. Sam Snead at the ’47 U.S. Open playoff, which he led by two strokes with hole to play but he booted it away, including missing a 30-inch putt on the final green to lose by one

6. Phil at Winged Foot

5. Shark at the ’96 Masters

4. Snead tripling the final hole at the 1939 U.S. Open

3. Jordan Spieth at the 2016 Masters

2. Jean Van de Velde

1. Arnold at the ’66 U.S. Open

That Alan would throw out such a list is awesome beyond measure, so we should just enjoy it.

Personally, I view the sudden collapses (Phil 'o6, Van de Velde and both of Snead's) as completely distinct animals from the slow-motion train wrecks such as Norman '96, Rory, DJ and, especially, Palmer at Olympic. 

I especially love the citation of Lorena Ochoa from that Women's Open at Cherry Hills, because it's the only swing I've sene made by a professional that compares the Mark Calcavecchia's swing on No. 17 at the '91 Ryder Cup.  But no one knows it, because she was way ahead of the leaders and it was before we knew Lorena, but it was one of those where she all of a sudden realized that she was going to win the Open, though her body wasn't prepared to allow that to happen.

This I think misses the point entirely:

Did the USGA cut the rough back too much? @JStew68129215

Nah, I thought the Olympic setup was pretty close to perfect. There was a substantial cost to missing the fairway but a lot of the time players drew a lie good enough to play some kind of recovery shot. The greens were firm and fast but never close to getting out of control. In the end, only five players broke par. Olympic reaffirmed its place as a superb championship test.

Maybe they should have cut it lower, because watching those ladies deal with the Olympic rough isn't something that will help sell women's golf.

‪#AskAlan‪ do you think Bryson and Brooks should settle it in the ring? @PaulTyson04

I’d prefer they settle it on a golf course. How about a prime-time exhibition match—no gags, no quarterbacks, just pure golf with $10M on the line, all of it going to charity. Put mics on them and let them go play. It would be f’ing intense.

And here I thought the first installment of The Match was as painful as things could get.   Would anybody listen to these two frat boys wired up?

Is this true?

No armlocks or longer putters in women’s pro golf. Why? A bunch on the men’s side. @Johan_Edin

There is so much imitation on the pro tours; when players see a colleague having success they are quick to steal the idea. Since the top players on the LPGA have eschewed the arm-lock (and most other putting weirdness) everyone else follows their lead. As soon as a top female player goes rogue and wins a tournament with the arm-lock others will follow. Unless, as suspected, women just have stronger minds and don’t need that crutch.

Given that, prior to the 2019 rules revision, the ladies couldn't hit a shot without their caddie lining them up, I think was can safely rule out the stronger mind hypothesis.  But it is interesting that that crutch hasn't polluted the LPGA... I just don't know why.... are women intrinsically less yippy?

With so many players in the mix who is getting picked for the U.S. Ryder Cup team? @debrafleck

Dustin, JT, Bryson and Morikawa seem like locks to remain among the top 6 automatic qualifiers. Brooks is pretty close behind them. Right now Xander Schauffele is holding down the 6th spot. Even if he were to get edged out he would certainly be a pick so let’s say the above six players are on the team no matter what. Phil and Jordan are definitely getting picked, so now there are four spots for the following players: Reed, Cantlay, Finau, Berger, Simpson, Horschel, Scheffler, Kokrak, Homa, Burns, Zalatoris, Woodland, Kisner, Cink. I don’t think there’s any way Reed gets a captain’s pick; at this point he simply has too much baggage. Cantlay probably locked up his spot with a big-time performance at Memorial. I think Horschel’s swagger and dominant run at the Match Play gets him on the team. Webb is simply too solid and experienced to get passed over. So now we’re down to one pick. Cink would be a popular choice among his peers, given this is surely his last chance and his easygoing, cerebral vibe makes him a good partner. If the U.S. is looking for more grit, it’s Kisner. More firepower for fourballs means Finau (who played great in Paris) or Woodland. If the Americans are building for the future, go with Zalatoris. Or Burns. Or Scheffler. I don’t envy Cap. Steve Stricker on this one.

I don't actually expect Billy Horschel to be on the team, or is that just wishful thinking?  I could see Strick and the brain trust over-estimating that combustible personality, but what else has the guy done in like forever?  

But more perplexingly, si there any reason to believe that Captain America has worn out his welcome?  I'd be delighted to hear that these guys have any kind of standards, but I've seen absolutely no evidence for that premise.

‪#AskAlan‪ – Do you see this truly being the last reno at Muirfield Village and how did you feel about the changes? @jasleeack

I didn’t even notice. It’s hard to get emotionally invested in that golf course when Jack is constantly tearing it up. Given that the Olden Bear is now 81 this feels like it will be the last nip/tuck but 20 years from now Jack may very well be drawing new bunkers on the back of the bingo cards at his old folks home.

I always compare it to Medinah in that regard.  We're assured by all the right people that it's an architectural gem, yet every time they return the place has been completely rebuilt.

Does it really matter at all that Lexi didn’t stay for a full presser? If so, why is it a big deal? @Buchanamania

She acted like a pro and answered a few questions. Lexi was so shell-shocked there wasn’t much content in her responses and I’m not sure another half dozen questions would have changed that. I give her credit for facing the music and I’m glad her presser was mercifully short.

I'm no Lexi fanboy, but what was there to say in the moment?  Let the girl lick her wounds and, as Alan notes, she did at least go through some motions.

I’m personally not a fan of the two-hole aggregate playoff format. Make it either four holes or sudden death. Your thoughts? @OldBalcony

Yeah, it’s lame. The USGA’s rationale was that sudden death can be a little fluky, if a good drive lands in a deep divot or some other unfortunate rub of the green; having a second hole allows a player to recover. But the USGA also wanted the instant gratification of a short playoff for its TV partners so they settled on two holes, which somehow is both too long and too short.

OK, but for decades the USGA was telling us that the only legitimate way to settle a prestigious event was an 18-hole playoff on Monday.  Fortunately, like Groucho, if we don't like their beliefs, they have others... Including a shorter playoff than the PGA and Open Championships. 

Should Cantlay donate 10% to Jon Rahm’s charity of choice? ANSWER: YES!!! @delawarekip

More like he should donate 10% to Rahm’s caddie; poor bastard missed out on a bloated win bonus. But I like your idea. It’s kind of like in tennis when the umpire clearly blows a call and on the next point the beneficiary dumps one into the net to balance the ledger. Cantlay clearly deserves the victory but it would be cool if he acknowledged he was the beneficiary of good fortune.

Which, if you're keeping a scorecard, kind of undermines Alan's assertion above that the win cemented a Ryder Cup slot for Cantlay.  

But, would you mind if I venture off on a tangent?  yeah, I know, why start worrying about that at this late juncture?  But Shack just posted about ratings from last weekend, and I thought one bit curious:

Two of the biggest non-men’s majors went up against each other last week and as they will in the foreseeable future unless schedulers push for change. Still, with nearly matching TV windows and the conclusions happening in annoying congruity, it’s not a shock to see CBS’s 2021 Memorial broadcast and NBC/Golf Channel’s U.S. Women’s Open delivered smaller audiences than hoped-for.

 Add on the an NBA Game 7, Tiger’s absence and the Memorial hit a three-year low according to Sports Media Watch’s Paulsen.

Final round coverage of the PGA Tour Memorial tournament averaged 2.82 million viewers on CBS last Sunday, marking the tournament’s smallest final round audience in three years (2.35M). Viewership fell 12% from last year, when the tournament marked Tiger Woods’ return from hiatus (3.28M), and 5% from 2019 — when Woods finished in the top ten (2.96M).

I suppose you could say the rating was pretty great all things considered, but with the previous day’s Rahm/COVID news, more were likely tuning in.

The man leading by a touchdown is DQ'd for reasons unrelated to golf, and Geoff thinks that drives viewers to their couches.  I think the result is far more likely the opposite, that the outcome had been rendered tainted and therefore deprived of an competitive significance. 

Back to Alan, who breaks real news in this invertigative piece:

How many burger dogs did you eat? ‪#AskAlan @gabehurl

Not a single one! The line was too long. But I loved the low-key drama surrounding the burger dogs this week. You may have detected on social media that various folks were underwhelmed with the famous Olympic Club snack, which in normal times is a proprietary mix of ground sirloin and ground chuck. I had two members buttonhole me to say that to cut costs the USGA greatly reduced the amount of sirloin and thus besmirched the proud reputation of the burger dog. It reminded me of last year’s U.S. Open when all the Winged Foot members were pouting publicly because the scores were too low. These country club members have a knack for wallowing in the most First World problems imaginable.

The hollowing out of every important American institution continues apace... How Alan failed to cover this in his interview with the incoming USGA Chief Executive Officer tells you all you need to know about our lapdog media...

 Have a great weekend and we'll dive into our U.S. Open coverage beginning on Monday.