Sunday, January 1, 2023

Year-End Bits

I haven't been much of a blogger this week, but I appreciate a few days off from the daily grind to recharge my batteries.  I head back to Utah on Monday, so thought I'd share a few bits and, most critically, close some browser tabs.  Because they're like rabbits...

There are some items that warrant low-key musing, but first I thought I'd share some ski-related bits, because it's been wacky out West.  First, one of the Open Snow forecasters posted this photo from Bogus Basin, Idaho (actual name):


Cute, eh?  It reminds me of my first year skiing Canyons, before the soul-destroying ogres at Vail took over,  One mid-December day I came off the Gondola to see this:


I think we can all agree that Santa on a snowboard is just wrong....

The forecast, and this is from a day or so ago, is just crazy:


These are just obscene numbers for Park City, but it's not quite the embarrassment of riches it seems.  It's way too warm, so the snow has a high moisture content, masking it heavy.  More importantly, the temps are fluctuating so that the snow will not be consistent, which screams high avalanche risk.  The hardy souls in the back country best be very careful, though that's not an issue for the older crowd that skis inbounds.

That's what I'm heading back into, and I'll pick up the thread from there, likely on Tuesday.

On Phil - Don't mean to ruin anyone's holiday, but this struck me as an odd note:

Phil Mickelson’s 2022 will be remembered for everything but golf

This was in their countdown of 2022 stories, including this:

No. 4: What happened to Phil Mickelson?

He is present in his absence, out of sight but top of mind as a tumultuous year in golf kicks into swing. A three-time Masters champ, he fails to make the drive down Magnolia Lane in April. The reigning PGA Champion, he pulls his name from the field at Southern Hills, in Tulsa, passing on the chance to defend his crown in May.

For three months in early 2022, Phil Mickelson makes himself as scarce as Sasquatch. But even as he morphs into a shadow figure, he remains a source of headlines, engulfed in controversy that reflects deeper fractures in the game.

I had a couple of reactions, neither especially profound.  The first being that 2022 was never likely to be much about Phil's golf, given his age.  And to the extent that his 2022 did feature his golf, that would have most likely been on the Champion's Tour or in the senior majors.  Think Monty as predicate, as winning a Senior U.S. Open wouldn't Phil the void, but it's not too shabby, either.

But that led to think of all that he's forfeited, and how quickly the losses amassed for him.  Not only did he not have the option of beating up on the old guys, but he gave up his victory lap/title defense at the PGA in May.  When Aaron Judge was a free agent I was pretty sure he would re-sign, mostly because that Yankees captaincy was what the kids call an NFT, a non-fungible token.  Well, our Phil has squandered a boatload of NFTs....

Curiously, ESPN has this list on offer:

This is an especially curious list from which we might sample more later, but this of course jumped out at your humble blogger:

1. Phil Mickelson

The six-time major champion revived his career with a stunning victory at the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, which made him the oldest major champion in history at 50. Then things quickly took a turn for the player once fondly known as "Lefty" in mid-February when his controversial comments about the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian monarchy were published.

During a telephone conversation with author Alan Shipnuck, who was writing an unauthorized biography of the golfer, Mickelson said he was willing to get involved with the Saudi Arabian backers of LIV Golf to gain leverage with the PGA Tour.

You could argue that he was the most influential personage in 2022, but isn't he a spent force?  I think his influence right now, as per the header, is asymptotically approaching zero.

In fact, my recently thoughts have invoked Coleridge, because I think Phil will quickly become an albatross for LIV.  This will somewhat be affected by the quality of his play, but he may well become the manifestation of all that is wrong with the LIV model, whereby an old guy is blocking the ascent of young talent.  The same can be said for Poults, Westy, Sergio et. al., a huge factor given that the fields are only 48 players.

The above was drafted on Saturday morning, but early Sunday I tripped over these Sean Zak predictions for 2023:

9. LIV regret

LIV golfers banded together in 2022. They spoke in unison, at times from talking points provided to them by LIV’s communications staff. But not everyone is getting DJ’s $150 million. Not everyone is getting pulled along like Pat Perez on the 4 Aces. Some contracts are for just two years, and when they’re done, what comes next?

There will be some level of discontent lower down the LIV ranks in 2023. It might not come until the LIV season ends in the fall, but not everything can be sunshine and rainbows while lawsuits play out and governing bodies make stern decisions with their major championships. The OWGR gave us a sign that it might make LIV wait until November for its events to be ranking-eligible. That won’t sit well with anyone, let alone a LIV golfer who might not have a place on that tour forever. If LIV is anything like other team sports, not everyone can be happy. Talor Gooch was dropped from the 4 Aces in favor of Peter Uihlein. Maybe it starts there.

Remind of where I left the world's smallest violin....

Oh, I think there will be no shortage of anger, which is part of the resaon that I think Tiger and Rory were so ill-advised to go after the Sharkie-poo so personally.  It just figures to play out so much more schadenfreudalisciously with the guy that assured them they couldn't be suspended form the PGA Tour still in place.

But, more substantively, this is a point I've been almost since Day One (and has support in the OWGR guidelines).  There is no mechanism for the ins and outs of players based upon performance (call it relegation in  Premiere League terms) that a real tour requires.  What LIV has is perfect, as lng as your business model calls for a series of exhibitions.... the only downside is that Gene Sarazan is unavailable to provide commentary.

Current State of Play - Two pieces that are worth a read, beginning with Eamon Lynch's latest.  Nothing Earth-shattering, but Eamon is always worth a read:

Lynch: 2022 was a year of conflict in golf. Don't expect a ceasefire in '23

Thank God, I'm long on popcorn....

Nadine Gordimer, the South African Nobel laureate, wrote that time is change, that we measure its passage by how much things around us alter. By that standard, 2022 in golf felt like many more than a dozen flips of the calendar. What was the status quo just 12 months ago seems now about as current as sepia-toned photos of Old Tom Morris, an era often spoken of yet irretrievably lost.

Back then, the PGA Tour was governed with an eye toward mollifying the many rather than favoring the few who drive business. LIV Golf existed more in rumor than in reality. Phil Mickelson’s reputation was, if not pristine, then at least largely intact. Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka were subjects of febrile focus among fans. Greg Norman was more infamous for the majors he choked than for the sentiments he voiced. Were it not for Pat Perez still being an overpaid vulgarian, it might seem as though only Patrick Reed remains unchanged from what he was a year ago.

None of which assumes that ’23 portends change that is equally chaotic and rapid. But change there will be.

Don't get too excited, Patrick, that's not a compliment....

Start with the PGA Tour. Its fixation on securing the loyalty of star players—leveraging cash, calendar and cards to that end—risks provoking an uprising by resentful members below deck, men who draw no eyeballs but who have nonetheless grown accustomed to being well-compensated for mediocrity. Bridging the chasm between what elite players are demanding and what the rest of his membership will concede is an onerous challenge for Jay Monahan, made no easier by the disquiet among some sponsors who are now underwriting events unlikely to attract many stars.

With hostile fire incoming on every flank, it seems inevitable that Monahan will face calls to surrender his position from some aggrieved constituency. The most powerful voices on the Tour’s board remain firmly in his corner, but much will depend on his ability to build alliances, a skill not historically valued in the autocratic world of PGA Tour commissioners.

I think he's a tad off-point here, as a Fall schedule is to be introduced that should, theoretically, mollify the unwashed masses.  The place to watch is going to be the sponsors, with Honda being the first obvious warning shot.

But....

For all of those looming challenges, Monahan begins ’23 on firmer footing than his opposite number, Greg Norman, at least in the eyes of those who don’t interpret social media posturing and bot-bluster as metrics of success. LIV has lost its novelty value and must soon show what can sustain it, beyond Norman’s seemingly inexhaustible animus. Players have, for the most part, chosen sides. Eventually the courts will choose too. But LIV doesn’t have the luxury of time to wait for the wheels of justice to turn, even if they were to land in its favor. Which is why 2023 will see a growing stench of desperation emanating from the upstart league.

Nothing is more crucial to LIV than a broadcast deal that would place its product before more consumers, regardless of the fact that any new platform will have less reach than YouTube, where its audiences quickly stagnated. In September, Golfweek reported that LIV was nearing a deal in which it would pay Fox Sports to air its tournaments, a move embarrassingly far short of conventional agreements that see leagues paid by broadcasters. Stung by the resulting criticism and mockery, Fox passed. LIV is now reduced to discussing a similar deal with The CW, which currently offers its affiliate stations no network-supplied sports.

Has it perhaps finally occurred to the Saudis that, notwithstanding those McKinsey projections, that no one actually watches golf.

Can't leave without sharing his rousing coda:

These are boom times for disbarred lawyers, bots and bullshitters. With a little luck, fans will be rewarded for their forbearance with dramatic, history-making moments that distract, if only momentarily, from the noise.

For all of the developments witnessed in ’22, one thing remains unchanged. I concluded my final Golfweek column of ’21 with an observation that remains my view as we careen into ’23: “If nothing else, the Saudis are offering a reminder that the values on which golf prides itself—integrity, honor, respectability—are not immutable, but must be defended against charlatans and chiselers, some of whom are card-carrying members of the PGA Tour.”

Ironically, it was the PGA Tour that, by withholding disciplinary actions and the like, was creating a fiction that these guys are all gentlemen.  And some of them actually are, but the good news is that those miscreants have self-identified.

This from John Huggan portends the 2023 battlespace, methinks:

LIV bans, prize money questions, schedule gaps and keeping pros loyal: What the DP World Tour faces in 2023

Dull moments have forever been difficult to locate on the former European Tour that now goes by DP World. Over the 50 years of the Old World circuit’s existence, goings-on have always been
on-going. Contentious issue has invariably followed contentious issue, with controversy only rarely far behind. Appearance money. Slow play. Ryder Cup qualifications. Scheduling. Membership requirements. The concession of putts. The often-erratic behavior of Sergio Garcia. Even cheating. You name it and the diverse and cosmopolitan membership has debated it, often enough heatedly.

Much of the talk as the DP World Tour heads into 2023, with hope amid uncertainty, revolves around the decision to spurn LIV Golf in favor of a strategic alliance with the PGA Tour. (Golf Digest previously reported the DP World Tour considered a Saudi-funded proposal in 2020, only to align with the PGA Tour, and pondered a relationship with LIV in 2022 before doubling down with the PGA Tour again in June.) As things stand, the Old World circuit’s attempt to ban those who made the jump to the LIV series remains unresolved; in February, a court will decide whether or not the likes of Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson and Martin Kaymer can continue to compete on what was once their home tour.

That answers the timeline question, but you can readily see the importance of that February date.  Who knows, perhaps Luke Donald doesn't have quite the job security one assumes....

But do you know Billy Foster?  He's caddied for just about everyone, and nabbed (perhaps bagged would have been cleverer) his first major with Matt Fitzgerald last summer.  But get a load of this vitriol:

It's not just the players who have things to say, positive or negative. Last month at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, this journalist bumped into veteran caddie Billy Foster, who over his long career has served the likes of Seve Ballesteros, Woods, Lee Westwood, Garcia, Darren Clarke and now U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick. During an emotional chat, Foster covered a lot of ground.

“I’m upset,” said the normally amiable Englishman. “For one thing, this isn’t the European Tour anymore. … We’ve sold our soul to an organization [the PGA Tour] that has done nothing but stamp its foot on us for the last 40 years.”

Foster also questioned the attempt to ban LIV players. “They should be welcome on this tour,” he said. “I’d also have them available for Ryder Cup selection. And the captaincy. In contrast, too many players out here bring nothing to the party. The European Tour is dead. It’s on its arse. It has lost its heart and soul, which breaks my heart.”

Did the PGA Tour contribute to the waning of the Euro Tour?  The answer is yes, well, but it's complicated.... though it's inevitable that the Euros would feel that they have.   

But, as crazy as this opinion sounds, you know there's many players that feel the same:

“We’re struggling,” concurred Pete Cowen, the prominent swing coach whose students have won more than 300 tournaments. “The standard is dropping. And has been since the better players basically stopped competing here. You get better at golf by playing against better players. But if they’re not there, you’re not getting better.

“I was here before the European Tour existed. I’ll probably be here when the European Tour ceases to exist. That’s what I fear. For this tour not to align themselves with the Saudis was a mistake. … Players see the LIV people earning huge money that could have created 30 unbelievable tournaments on this tour. At the right time, too, which would have enticed a lot of big names.”

OK, Pete, but when they schedule an event in Istanbul, I suggest you give the visit to the consulate a hard pass.

At least some of the guys get it:

“Even if we had gone with the Saudis, we would have reached a moment where they would have pissed everyone off,” countered former Ryder Cup player Nicolas Colsaerts. “They would have wanted to own everything and be the biggest voice in every room. When you look at the European Tour now and what it was at the turn of the century, it’s all good. The safest move was to get into bed with the PGA Tour. Was that what we really wanted? No. But when you only have limited options, you have to choose the best one long-term. The Saudis never offered long-term stability.”

The Saudis offered money, full stop.  But it just so happens that so many of our gentlemen care about only the one thing...

But this caught my eye:

Innovation is also part of the mix. Beginning in 2023, the 10 leading players on the DP World Tour who do not already hold a PGA Tour card will qualify for one. What business, argue many, gives away 10 of its biggest assets at the end of each year?

Reality is a cruel mistress....But the reality is that the Euro Tour has devolved into a feeder tour for the ogres in Ponte Vedra Beach, and shaking your fists at the heavens won't change that.  So, staying in MBA mode, if you're a feeder tour then you're in the business of feeding those assets away.  But, if you're going to be a feeder tour, you might as well be the best, and those ten Tour cards are quite the lure.

I see that February decision as critical to understanding what might come next, including potential disaster scenarios for the Ryder Cup.  No doubt you saw this:

'I just want to win:' Why Matt Fitzpatrick isn't against LIV Golf players being on European Ryder Cup team

Really?  How about the American team?

I'm slightly curious as to who among Poults, Westy, Hnerik and Sergio might not have yet been placed in a care facility.  OK, they've got Paul Casey and Bernd Wiesberger, but wouldn't one take DJ, Brooks and Bryson over them in a heartbeat?

But.... let's say Paul Casey ends up on the Euro Team via court order... Over to you, Jay.

Happier News - No commentary required:

Sweet.

Great Trees In Golf -  I've long thought that this would be a great article, though I'm not the guy to pull it off.  My field of expertise is links, so what's a tree?

There's sad news on this front, but we'll let Matt Ginella fill in the detes:

It was during a visit last April when Mike Keiser, the Bandon Dunes Resort owner and visionary,
was informed that the “Ghost Tree” on the ridge of Old Macdonald’s 3rd fairway was starting to give in to the howling winds of the Pacific Northwest.

“I knew it wouldn’t last forever,” Keiser said at the time.

It was, after all, a ghost tree. Others refer to the trees as “snags.” They are dead trees with a dead root system. In this case, the 50- to 60-foot port orford cedar most likely died decades ago, the victim of a fungal root infection. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the port orford cedar, which can rise to 200 feet, “is native to a limited area along the Pacific Coast from Coos Bay, Ore., to the mouth of the Mad River near Arcata, Calif.,” a roughly 230-mile stretch of coastline.

After an especially gnarly storm on Monday night, which produced 25-foot waves and 60 mph winds, the iconic “Ghost Tree” of Old Mac is leaning into its last stand.

It's just a great tree that frames a blind tee shot over a ridge perfectly.  You're not really going to hit it, yet it's just that slightest bit too close for comfort.


I love that tree as much as the next fellow...well, not if the next fellow is, yanno, this fellow:


 I have no words to help you understand what could a man do such a thing...

Just found this old photo of mine:

We need to get back there, given that we've not seen the Sheep Ranch, the Par-3 or the massive putting green, but this could be fun:

Meanwhile, the Ghost Tree Grill is under construction behind Old Mac’s 18th green. From what I’ve been told, the naming of that grill will not change regardless of what happens to the tree. According to several sources, the tree will continue to be the unofficial logo. And parts of the tree could be incorporated into the grill architecture.

That could be fun because the 18th is their Punchbowl green.  And, while it's  highly artificial, it's also a hoot watching ball carom this way and that.


They've stabilized the tree using steel cables, so it will hopefully hang on in an even ghostier fashion for the foreseeable future.

Twitter Hate - I'm a Twitter-pretender, meaning that I signed up and followed a few golf folks way back when, so I now have an idiosyncratic Twitter feed.  I don't know how some accounts got there, for instance LIV Insider certainly didn't exist when I last clicked on "Follow" for anyone, but what's been showing up lately is fairly crude and vile.  Shall we sample some of it, simply because if Guinness had a category for most open browser tabs...

Shall we sample a few, beginning with this:

But at least they know to punch up (unlike Tiger himself and Rory).

Is this inside information or more wishful thinking:

Why it's almost as if they're taking sides in PReed's defamation suit....  So let's get them on the witness list.

Not that that PGA Tuor account is much better:

Somehow?  Who wants to break it to them that he'll get one in perpetuity?   But my mind keeps coming back to that Tuesday Champions dinner, and I'm thinking two tables, right?

C'mon, I could tell from here that the ball was embedded....

Anyone remember Holly Sonders from Golf Channel?  She seems to be auditioning for Only Fans these days:

Egads!  To think that they tried to sell her as a knowledgeable source on golf....

Some fun and appropriate items do appear, including this one that's got my name all over it:

Fun because the first three are special places in the links firmament, but that last one is new to me.  It's a Norwegian links and pretty spectacular looking:

If you like that sort of thing....

Right Now? - Let's briefly pay off those comments about the ESPN item about the most influential folks in golf, defined in their header to be at this very moment.  Clocking in at a shockingly low No. 23:

23. Fred Ridley

Ridley made headlines last week when the Augusta National Golf Club chairman announced that any golfer who qualified for the Masters based on previous criteria, including those players
competing on the LIV Golf circuit, would be invited to play in the tournament in April. While it was hard to imagine that Augusta National would ban past champions like Bubba Watson, Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Reed from competing, there was speculation that the club might alter its qualifying criteria to make it more difficult for other LIV golfers to get there.

Ridley's statement contained pretty strong language about how LIV Golf has divided the sport: "Regrettably, recent actions have divided men's professional golf by diminishing the virtues of the game and the meaningful legacies of those who built it. Although we are disappointed in these developments, our focus is to honor the tradition of bringing together a preeminent field of golfers this coming April."

Boy, if I knew that little about golf, I sure wouldn't be showing it off in public.  Among those these clowns think are more influential are Bryson DeChambeau, Will Zalatoris, Keith Pelley (I guess they didn't read Huggan's column linked and excerpted above) and Matt Fitzpatrick, among others.  To me, Ridley will be as important as anyone in the LIV battle...

But then this silliness as well:

20. Judge Beth Labson Freeman

Freeman is an avid golfer and has a posted handicap of 32.9. Former President Barack Obama appointed Freeman as a U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of California in 2014, and she will preside over LIV Golf's federal antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour, and the tour's countersuit against LIV Golf, in which it alleges that LIV Golf interfered with its contracts with players.

In August, Freeman denied temporary restraining orders to three LIV Golf players, Matt Jones, Hudson Swafford and Talor Gooch, who wanted to come back to the PGA Tour to compete in the FedEx Cup playoffs. In her ruling, Freeman wrote that the plaintiffs failed to "even show that they have been harmed -- let alone irreparably." The trial isn't scheduled to begin until January 2024, but with both sides squabbling over discovery and other matters, Freeman figures to play a critical role in how the sport evolves going forward.

It won't begin for years.  If you want to speculate as to who will influence golf NOW, that European judge would be a far more obvious candidate.   

Pittenweem On My Mind - We have just committed to a return to Pittenweem in July.  There's was quite the sick house we saw while there in August, and we just locked it down for ourselves yesterday.  We'll be there in July, as our preferred late August dates were already taken, but your humble blogger has a huge smile on his face.

On that subject, I had intended to blog this Sean Zak piece on that crazy Anstruther nine-holer:

Why this simple Scottish course was my favorite I played in 2022

With farmland on one side and ragged Scottish coastline on the other, the nine holes of the Anstruther Golf Course sit in a peculiar spot. Gazing at the course from any angle, you can imagine a long-ago conversation that begins with, So, what should we do with this land?

On the other end of that question was not just a golfer, but many golfers: the Anstruther-based members of East Fife Golf Club who, back in the 1890s, wanted to play their golf a bit closer to home. What a novel idea. Today, it is the cutest, simplest nine holes that will also promise to drive you crazy enough to pass Go, not collect $200 and take an immediate, second spin around the track.

You may have heard of Anstruther before. It’s a fun and mostly phonetic name to say out loud. It’s just a 20-minute drive from St. Andrews proper and the perfect warmup for a tired body fresh off a redeye. The likely reason you’ve heard of Anstruther is its 5th hole, nicknamed Rockies, which is one of the most difficult par-3s in the world. It’s a memorable one, for sure. And potentially unfair. But we’re not here to rule on that.

I had intended to do a notebook dump post in the aftermath of our trip, which I never got to.  This course and that famous Par-3 was to be included.  We had traversed it on the way on our path to the Dreel Tavern with Elsie and John, and once more on a final walk along the coastal path:


But, most importantly, that phot above is far better than any I took, and shows why the hole is so brutal and quite obviously completely unfair.  The Alps is at the far right, and the key bit is the encroaching slope just short of the green that kicks your ball into the Firth of Forth.  

On that final walk we saw a man playing alone hit a great shot that miraculously kicked forward onto the green.  The best part was that the gentleman had no cue he had gotten such an unprecedented break and gave us sheepish grin while noting, "Yeah, it never does that".  It rarely does that for sure....

That goes on the list of things to look forward to this summer.... As for things to look forward to in the shorter-term, Park City reported 14" this morning, 19" in the last 48 hours, with more coming today.  

On that note I'll bid my readers a happy and healthy 2023, and I'll see form Utah in a couple of days.

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