Thursday Thoughts

I just read the long-range snow forecast for Utah and it's not pretty....in fact, the forecaster has broken out his mountain bike, not a good leading indicator methinks.

Bay Hill Boogaloo - Can you feel the buzz?  I know, but whatya expect?  Not that folks aren't trying, including this Orlando Sentinel write that leads his profile of Robert Gamez thusly:

There is a marble marker embedded in the right side of Bay Hill's 18th fairway that commemorates one of the most iconic shots in golf history.

You'll note the absence of a link as the remainder of the article is behind their paywall, something of a relief given the hyperbolic open.  As the song goes, don't know much about history...

Here's what little you need to know....Bubba is a WD due to the untimely death of a childhood friend.

 The event retains the four of the top five in the world, quite a testament to the King...  I would expect we'd see Bubba at least once more before Augusta.

No doubt you remember Tiger saying that he spoke to Arnold after deciding not to play Bay Hill.  Somehow that morphed into an hour conversation (Tiger never said such), but Arnie put that to bed cryptically with this:

Arnie brings down house with zinger when asked about long phone convo w/ Tiger. "Who ever told you it was an hour is full of sh--." #classic

Good to see him still full of spit and vinegar....I'll also recommend this warm profile of Arnie's relationship with this grandson Sam Saunders.  Being the King's grandson has to be quite the mixed bag, but Sam seems to have dealt with it with grace and his career seems to be building.  here's a tatste:

That grip? “The basic fundamentals,” is what Palmer likes to call it. Aye, though, here’s

the rub: The grandfather wants to be tough on his grandson, but he has a difficult time doing it. He’s got a real soft spot for the kid, who has grown to be, beyond a pretty good golfer, a very nice and polite young man. 

“Arnold is a tough guy, because he wants to be like his father,” said Alastair Johnston, the vice chairman of IMG and a man who has overseen Palmer’s business interests for decades. He knows Palmer as few others do.

Also new at Arnie's gala is the presence of World No. 1:

McIlroy makes his debut in the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Thursday, his final

tournament before he tries to complete the career Grand Slam and win a third straight major at Augusta National in three weeks. 

He began playing the Masters in 2009, and this is the fourth pre-Augusta schedule he has tried. 

''I thought I'd just mix it up a little bit this year,'' McIlroy said Wednesday. ''Play here and then I'll have a couple weeks off to get ready for Augusta. Back in '11, I took three weeks off before the Masters. It worked pretty well - for 63 holes, not quite 72. So just trying to adopt a similar approach.''

 It's also something of an homage to the King, and good on the youngster for understanding that time is of the essence.  And do spend some time with this collection of recollections of Tour player sof first meeting Arnie, the common thread being great generosity with his time.  Picking one alsmost at random from Brandt Snedeker:

The King with a young Jason Gore.

In 2009 when Snedeker was struggling with his game a little bit, he called Palmer out of the blue and asked if he could come to Orlando and talk to him. 

"I thought I’d get 30 minutes of his time, but we ended up sitting in his office upstairs at Bay Hill for two hours talking about golf, life, just everything," Snedeker said. "I told him I was having a hard time handling Sundays and pressure and asked him about how to get over that hump. 

"He said he never hit a shot he wasn’t 100 percent committed to -- it didn’t matter if it was a 3-iron from 200 yards out he thought he was going to make it. Whether he was going to pull the shot off or not he thought he could. He said, ‘People always thought I was aggressive, but I thought I was conservative.’" 

Snedeker and Palmer played 18 holes that day, and the King birdied 17 to win money off the Tennessean. "We had a blast," Snedeker said.

How perfect is that?  Incredibly generous with his time and willing to help a young player, but on the course, as the old joke goes, business is business.

Rory's Roots -  Rory seems to remember where he comes from, as per this item in the Belfast Telegraph:

Rory McIlroy's pulling power knows no bounds.

He's persuaded top names, including Ricky Fowler, Sergio Garcia and Ernie Els to play alongside local heroes Graeme McDowell and Darren Clarke in this year's Irish Open and yesterday at the Royal County Down Golf club it was revealed his influence has helped bag the tournament its first title sponsor since 2010. 

Having a successful company such as Dubai Duty Free on board won't just add weight to the event, it'll mean more prize money added to last year's €2m pot.

That's great, though I expect that the venue was part of the attraction for the players...certainly Rickie is quite familiar with County Down, as this iconic photo of the two was from the Walker Cup held there in 2007

County Down is a spectacularly beautiful site, it simply looks like no other golf course in the world.  The only minor quibble with it is that the front nine is far superior to the back nine, both visually and strategically, though the TV coverage will necessarily be weighted towards the latter.  But the event is in May when the gorse should be flowering, so it's never too early to set your DVR.

Where Are The Now Files: Sir Scam-A-Lot - In case that moniker isn't familiar. Jay Adkisson writing in Forbes provides the background:

I have previously written about the misadventures of the notorious Ponzi schemer Allen

Stanford, a blustering Texas real estate developer who bought his way into the Knight Commander of the Order of the Nation (KCN) for the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, ceremoniously conferred in 2006 by no less of a figure than Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, and then revoked in 2010 after Stanford had revealed Antigua and Barbuda to be the bad joke of the offshore financial world when his $7 billion pyramid came crashing down. 

Stanford was for a few years legitimately known as Sir Allen Stanford, but these days he is referred to as Sir Scam-A-Lot while serving his 110-year prison sentence, trading in his intended retirement on the tropical Antiguan and Barbudian beaches for the prison yard of the U.S. SuperMax facility in Sumterville, Florida. Stanford left behind a trail of financial disaster that has taken — and will continue to take — many years to clean up by the court-appointed receiver of Stanford’s Evil Empire , Ralph S. Janvey.

Stanford cut a wide circle in the golf world, and many players were victims, most notably our old friend Vijay.  Now what brings this scum to the fore is a curious court decision in the endless litigation that inevitably follows the collapse of such a scheme:

There's a lot here, so you'll need to click through if you want to follow the logic, but as part of their sponsorship of a PGA Tour event they paid Golf Channel some $5.9 million over a period of years.  While the initial court verdict was in favor of GC, here's the latest:

The Fifth Circuit took all of this into consideration, and then looked to see whether The Golf Channel’s advertising was of any benefit to the Sanford’s Ponzi scheme victims, and concluded that it was not. Thus:

While Golf Channel’s services may have been quite valuable to the creditors of a legitimate business, they have no value to the creditors of a Ponzi scheme.* * * Services rendered to encourage investment in such a scheme do not provide value to the creditors.

Wow, I hope you can appreciate the staggering breadth of such reasoning.  here's Adkisson's own reaction:

This case illustrates the dangers to a business that deals with a debtor, even unwittingly. If this decision is followed, it creates tremendous risk for any service business that deals with a debtor, since between the business and creditors, the creditors may win. This decision imposes what amounts to a significant duty on businesses to “Know Your Customer” and to thoroughly investigate a large customer’s affairs before taking their money. 

How realistic is such a requirement? Not very. Just think about this case: Was The Golf Channel supposed to divine that our world renown Knight Commander was just another Bernie Madoff before the SEC did? As silly as that sounds, it is what the Black Robes sitting on high at the Fifth Circuit just told us.

I can only hope that this is reversed on appeal, as it seems quite the dangerous precedent.  As the writer note, the applicability appears to be primarily to victims of Ponzi schemes, where by definition there is never enough money to go around.  But it imposes a level of due diligence on vendors that seems excessive, especially when the underlying business transaction is consummated on commercially-reasonable terms.

An Overnight Success - it seems our word of the day is iconic, an adjective often appropriately applied to Ben Hogan. Cliff Schrock devotes his Throwback Thursday column to reminding us that success was far from immediate for Bantam benL

Hogan had experienced a journeyman-type career to that point, relying on income from

Who better to present your first medal?

club jobs to get by. Some reports noted he was down to his last $30 to $36 upon arriving in Pinehurst, and others said he was on the verge of giving up tour life. At the same time, things were looking up, and Hogan had had seven runner-up finishes in the year leading up to Pinehurst, which only made him more determined and ramped up in his practice. Hogan was additionally feeling confident using a new 14-ounce MacGregor driver that Byron Nelson had loaned him; the heavier club, with a black head, seemed to calm down his nefarious hook. After Hogan’s Round 1 success Nelson gave it to him for good.

He's such a titan of the game that we forget his early struggles.  he only succeeded after he figured out how to take the left side of the golf course out of play.  And how about this finish:

Snead finished with a final-round 67 to put pressure on Hogan, but the impending champion made pars on the last two holes for a 70, and his 277 total won by three. For the first time, the results had the great contemporary trio of Hogan, Snead and Nelson, all born in 1912, finish 1-2-3.

Here's how Cliff closes his piece: 

Once Hogan got going, he won at a hectic pace. He won the next two tour stops at Greensboro and Asheville, N.C., and would win 64 times in the next 21 years, despite not playing for almost a year after his 1949 bus accident. 

The importance of a victory 75 years ago at Pinehurst is being honored at the course. The starters on No. 2 from now until the end of April will be wearing Hogan caps in a mix of blue and white as a tribute.

Nice tribute, that.  But 64 wins is just staggering in light of his slow start and the near-fatal bus accident.   

This And That

We're at that familiar stage when your humble blogger has far too many browser windows open...so do me a solid, will you, and help me close a few.

The Tiger Beat - Jim McCabe's entry in the  "How the mighty have fallen" genre includes this:

Tiger Woods’ fall in the Official World Golf Ranking is a weekly curiosity factor. He’s

presently 87th and if he doesn't play in either of the Texas tournaments – the Valero Texas Open and Shell Houston Open – he would likely be ranked around 104th headed into the Masters. 

Compare that to 1997 when Woods, having left amateur golf just seven months earlier, headed to his first Masters as a pro ranked 13th.

This isn't exactly news, as the man isn't earning any new world ranking points and those from his five-win 2013 season inexorably roll off.  But this is his real point:

Want further proof that Woods put together a mind-blogging resume? The current top 10 – Rory McIlroy, Bubba Watson, Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Spieth, Jim Furyk, Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson, and Justin Rose combine for 75 PGA Tour wins – four fewer than Woods owns.

I have a different favorite measurement of the phenomenon known as Peak Tiger.  There was a period when he had more than double the world ranking points of Phil, who was then ranked No. 2.  That meant that any golfer who had earned ANY world ranking points was closer to the second-ranked player in the world, than the aforementioned no. 2 was to Tiger.  That my friends is dominance...

 And Sean O'Hair, who has also spent time in the golf wilderness, had words of sympathy

for the Man:

"Obviously Tiger is going through some issues right now," O'Hair said Tuesday from Bay Hill. "I don't think that it's anything abnormal. When you look at all the greatest players in the game, you know, Jack, Arnold Palmer, all the greats, they've all had their ups and downs and I think the thing that with Tiger is that he's got to figure out what he wants to do and where he wants to be mentally, and I think that once he figures that out, he's going to be able to do whatever he wants to do again. 

"I just think that he's lost and the only reason why I say that is because I see it in his eyes and I see it in how he's walking and I see it in how he's playing because that's where I've been. I've been living it."

I'm not a psychiatrist nor do I play one on television, but I'll venture a guess that pity doesn't make him feel any better.

And the hits keep on coming....we had previously heard that EA had dropped Tiger as the sponsor of its PGA Tour video game.  But I'm guessing this rankles as well:

Now that Rory McIlroy has dethroned Tiger Woods as the world’s top-ranked golfer, heis claiming his rightful place as No. 1 in the world of virtual tournaments. 

Electronic Arts Inc., the second-largest U.S. video game publisher, is making the 25-year-old champion the face of its new video game, the Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, the Redwood City, California-based company announced Monday, replacing Woods after 16 years. The $60 game comes out in June, EA said.

And apparently Rory is a bit of a gamer himself:

"My first system was the original PlayStation, which I got back when I was a kid," he said. "I’ll still jump into a FIFA match with a buddy every so often, and if a bunch of us want to play we’ll start up a round of EA SPORTS PGA TOUR. I think games are a great way to spend a couple hours if you’ve got downtime and just want to relax for a bit."

 Well, since I'm now retired I've got plenty of downtime...except for keeping my damn readers happy.  I think my man cave is crying out for this, though like the blog itself I need to find a teenager to help me set it up.

Lastly, Gary Van Cynical provides nine thoughts on Tiger missing Bay Hill, though I suspect he's in grassy knoll territory with this one:

Suspension bridge: We know where the unfounded story about Tiger being suspended for a failed drug test originated, a club pro on a radio show. But where did he get that information? Based on what? The PGA Tour even stepped out of character to categorically deny it. We all saw him hurting at Torrey Pines. Was that part of a master cover-up plan? I really don’t buy into this rumor for a second…

Dr. Galea could not be reached for comment.  But as long as we're on the subject of Bay Hill....

There's Only Room for One Combover in Golf - Alex Miceli informs us that the greens at Bay Hill aren't ready for their close-up:

Last week at the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, officials posted a letter in the Innisbrook Resort locker room that advised players of the conditions at Bay Hill. The notice included a copy of the news release announcing the change from Emerald Dwarf to TifEagle. 

“It looks like a combover,” one player who spoke on the condition of anonymity said after a practice round Monday, describing the shaggy conditions.

You have to expect the grain to be a factor in central Florida.  But lest there be any confusion, this is the Official Combover of Unplayable Lies:

It never gets old, does it?

Masters Countdown - David Owen wears many hats, and his amusing My usual Game features sometimes obscure the fact that he literally wrote the book about the founding of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters, all of which were far more happenstance than it seems in hindsight.  In his current post at The Loop he covers a number of topics, including providing this 1934 picture of what would now be the tenth green:

The green was subsequently moved further back and that's the famous Mackenzie Bunker which is now well short of the green and not really in play.

He also provides this wonderful old photo of the media center, with beer cans and what he calls "strange laptops" in evidence:

But David's real purpose is to tell the story of of ANGC's worst golfer, a Mr. Schoo:

During the club’s early years, a small creek ran across the first fairway, at the bottom of the hill, less than a hundred yards from the tee. The carry over the ditch was so short that few players noticed, but a member named Clarence J. Schoo drove into it so often that it came to be known as Schooie’s Gulch. Schoo was the founder and president of a boxboard manufacturing company in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company doesn’t exist anymore, but Schoo's name is preserved in the Schoo Science Center at Springfield College, of which he and his wife were benefactors.

At Augusta National one day, Schoo topped yet another drive into Schooie's Gulch, and told Clifford Roberts, the club's co-founder and chairman, “I wish you’d fill in that damn ditch.” Roberts did, during the summer of 1951 -- and sent the bill to Schoo. Or so the story goes. In truth, the ditch had always been a maintenance problem

That reminds of the C.B. Macdonald story from the building of The National Golf Links of America. One of the original members suggested to C.B. that a windmill would be a nice addition, yanno, just like in the auld sod.  So C.B. found one, had it sipped in and erected, and sent the bill to that member. 

For those who like David's more whimsical writings, you can find him acting as unpaid shill for Kentwool socks here and for Mixbook (his foolproof method of preserving golf photographs) here.  

Oh and I missed blogging David's celebration of Pi Day here in which he tackles the existential issue of the proverbial third world putt:

When a ball stops on the rim of the cup, golfers and TV announcers often say that it

needed "one more roll" or "one more rotation." But they're wrong, and Pi Day -- which celebrates the discovery of the mathematical ratio between a circle's diameter and its circumference, and is celebrated for obvious reasons today, on 3/14 -- is the ideal time to explain why. A golf ball, to be legal, has to be at least 1.68 inches in diameter. That means that its circumference -- the length of "one more roll" -- is at least 3.14 times 1.68, or 5.28 inches. And that length is eerily similar to one that was in the news earlier this month. Coincidence?

Click through to David's link at your own peril... but of course it was nice to see how above average I am.

Pictures - This is why you should look carefully before removing your ball from the cup:

And if there's one thing more interesting to your humble blogger than Lydia Ko, It's Lydia behind bars:

 I thought it was orange that was the new black...

And Golf.com has a kinda cool slideshow, some of the best golf courses on our planet as seen from space. This one of Old Head Golf Links isn't actually that great a golf course, but you can readily see how spectacular the peninsula on which it was built is:

An Existential Crisis

For your humble blogger, that is...

I'm in the early stages of my morning routine....first cup of coffee perched precariously on my lap as I open Shack's blog on my iPad... his lead item involves the publication of Dan Jenkins' 21st book, apparently a fine compilation of the Master's recent work for Golf Digest.

But see if you can guess what caused the violent projection of coffee from my mouth:

To quote Robert Redford from the final scene of The Candidate, Now what do we do?

Should I?

1. Be flattered that his own self has chosen to confirm the wisdom of the moniker I chose for the blog?
2. Channel my inner Prince and change the name to The Blog Formerly Known as Unplayable Lies?
3. Pen a nasty rebuttal for Derek Jeter's new Players' Tribune website?  After all, that worked so well for Tiger...
4. Pull a John McCain and immediately suspend campaign operations, and rush back to Washington, DC with no clue what to do?
5. Have my lawyers send a cease and desist letter to his attorneys?

No. 5 has some obvious problems, such as I'd first have to retain an attorney and of course I've no legal protection for the name whatsoever...

As an aside, friend of and former proofreader to the blog Al Z. has been pushing me to acquire and host the blog on my own domain.  Unplayablelies.com is for sale for $2,095.00, which is a tad rich for my blood given the revenue stream the blog provides, but I did pop for $15.00 to warehouse unplayable-lies.com.  

So my dear readers, what does a struggling blogger do having been bigfooted by a legend?  I'm leaning towards option No. 1, but any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

More Money Than God

Today's required reading is Ron Sirak's heavily reported special report on the economics of the Masters....Ron does a great job of it and though I'll excerpt heavily an discuss in detail, you'd be remiss to not read it in full yourself.

This is a subject of interest to me, as I've long suspected that the sponsorship of golf events is economically unjustified, and it's a subject I'd like to blog further if Ii can access the necessary data.  No doubt corporate CEO's make the case for the value proposition to feed their own golf addictions, but the payback seems, I don't know, speculative at best....

But of course The Masters is a different kettle of fish entirely.... so, let's start with the basic parameters, what's that second week in April in Augusta worth:

The Masters makes a lot of money, leaves perhaps even more on the table, spends a lot

of money to make its tournament better, and gives away a lot to help grow the game. In all, the Masters will generate about $115 million in revenue this year, according to Golf Digest reporting, more than a five-fold increase from the $22 million the magazine estimated in 1997 for the previous year's Masters. And that $115 million in revenue could translate to a profit of almost $30 million, up from $7 million in our 1997 report.

More on the money left on the table below, but Billy Payne is getting high marks:

From the Masters' beginning in 1934 under Bob Jones and Clifford Roberts, the focus of the tournament has been to provide the best experience possible for the players and spectators. From the absence of corporate logos to limiting the number of people inside the ropes, the Masters is perhaps the last major sporting event left where the emphasis is solely on the game. But since taking over as chairman in 2006, Billy Payne has non-intrusively yet dramatically increased revenue and expanded ways in which the club gives back to the game. 

"What Billy Payne has done is incredible," said one source involved in sports marketing. "As the commercialization of sports expanded, through great discipline and vision they were able to increase revenue without harming the experience. People want that Masters experience. They want to hear the roars. There are no logos anywhere. It's all pure."

I'll skip the long discussion on Masters badges, which despite recent price increases remain quite the bargain in the sports world.  But let's return to the concept of money left on the table:

But think of the money Masters officials are choosing not to pursue. They could probably triple the ticket prices and still sell out. (A waiting list for weekly badges opened in 1972 and closed in 1978 before briefly reopening in 2000.) The concessions are likely run on a break-even basis—or even at a loss. And imagine how much more they could make if they opened an online store to augment the merchandise pavilion. "Can you even imagine there being an online store?" says a source who runs other tournaments, laughing with incredulity. "We'd all chuckle."

Well, I'm chuckling now....they've got the most recognizable logo in the golf world, notwithstanding their seeming refusal to sell you anything.  Wouldn't be prudent...

The reader will no doubt know what comes next, discussion of their rather eccentric management of television rights:

But nowhere is Augusta National showing more restraint than with its domestic TV rights. This is the 60th consecutive year CBS has broadcast the Masters on a one-year contract, an arrangement that began in 1956. ESPN has had the weekday cable rights since 2008 on the same basis. "The way the Masters TV deal is constructed is still shrouded in mystery," says a source in the broadcasting business. "The deal changed a little bit when Billy came in as chairman, bringing in a small rights fee, but neither CBS nor Augusta National makes money on the deal."

Ponder that for a moment if you will... it's the most valuable television property in golf by far and no one makes money off it.   Intentionally.... 

"After the Masters, CBS sends an invoice to Augusta National, and they check it out and get the money from their corporate partners to cover production costs," says the source. 

That means that IBM, AT&T and Mercedes-Benz pay about $6 million to $8 million each in exchange for four minutes of advertising time per hour—about one-third of the commercial interruptions of other sporting events. Rolex and UPS are the corporate partners for the international broadcast. "If they ever opened up the [domestic TV] bidding, it would absolutely be worth more than the U.S. Open, but that's never going to happen," said the source, referring to the $93-million-a-year, 12-year deal the USGA signed with Fox Sports in 2013. "There was talk back when the Masters went without sponsors during the Martha Burk controversy [2003-'04] that it might go to pay-per-view," the source said. "If they did, they could get $100 for the weekend and get two million to three million buys. Do the math on that. But they're never going to leave CBS."

I've no doubt that those three corporate partners are getting good value for their money.  Freed from the typical advertising clutter and associated with the most prestigious event in golf sports, how could it be otherwise.  So ANGC gets a failing grade for revenue maximization, but why?

For Augusta National, the trade-off for the one-year contracts and for walking away from such a cash windfall is that the club has complete control over how its event is portrayed on TV. Ask Gary McCord, who was banned for his "bikini wax" description of the greens, or Chris Berman, who is passionate about golf but is said to be too over the top by Augusta National to be part of ESPN's coverage.

What, they have a problem with "Ground Control to David Toms for the 114th time?  Sheesh, the man is an institution....or rather, belongs in one.

Shackelford, in his blogging of this article, calls it the most watchable broadcast in golf by far... and I couldn't agree more.  But, and this is something that I had intended to discuss, some of the control exerted is to the detriment of the broadcast, which could be so much better.

Most of you are old enough to remember that for decades the Sunday broadcast was only three hours in length, showing only play on the back nine.  For eons it seemed they were too embarrassed to show us the front nine, and then they slowly relented and allowed hand-held cameras to show late front-nine highlights.

To this day they refuse to allow coverage as technically proficient as we see at the Hartford Open.  Remember Bubba's epic gap wedge from the trees in the 2012 playoff on the tenth hole...you know, the one he drew 20-40 years depending on the commentator?  Have you ever seen the flight of that ball from a blimp shot?  No you haven't, because the Masters doesn't allow CBS to use a blimp in its coverage.

Similarly, do you remember how David Feherty set up the shot facing Bubba?  If so, you're hallucinating, because on-course reporters aren't allowed.  So we never get a description of a lie from someone on the ground, a perhaps minor point since they're all perfect.  It's the greatest broadcast in golf, but I'm left with the feeling that it could be so much better...

Sirak also gets into the discussion of how ANGC is using its money for infrastructure, including buying up adjoining properties allowing for new media centers and a state-of-the-art practice facility.  Their support of amateur golf is admirable, as well as allowing the Drive,Pitch and Putt event to take place the week before the Masters.

Which provide a good segue into the other valid criticism of the Masters, which is that the field isn't up to the standards of a major.  There was much press earlier this year about their struggles to keep the field shy of 100 players.  We all instinctively love the Masters' support of amateur golf, especially appropriate in view of Bobby Jones' history in the game, as well as the tradition of inviting former champions to participate.

But when you do the math there's barely seventy world class players in the field, and that just doesn't cut it for the most prestigious title in golf.  But I'll be watching anyway...as will you.

Weekend Wrap

I turned on the golf tournament and coverage had been preempted for a short game clinic.... who knew?  Who needs Michael Breed or Martin Hall?

First, Gary Van Sickle sees a future for American golf:

PALM HARBOR, Fla.—The future of American golf is in good hands whenever the day 

comes that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are done winning. 

The only problem with Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth is deciding exactly which former legend they most resemble. 

When Reed poured in a must-make 30-footer on the Valspar Championship’s final green, his eyes got wide as saucers, he pumped his fists and he bellowed some kind of war cry.

He’s brash and cocky and damned good, but is he more Raymond Floyd or Lanny Wadkins? Either way, he’s got Hall of Fame pedigree working. 

When Dallas-area native Jordan Spieth got to the Copperhead Course’s last five holes, he stated pouring in putts like strawberry-banana smoothies out of a pitcher. He sprayed some shots, sure, then he got up and down for amazing pars on the last three holes to get in a playoff, including a super-clutch 15-footer at the last. 

Spieth, still only 21, putts like Mickelson—better from 20 feet than from five feet—scrambles like a young Jose Maria Olazabal and wills the ball into the cup like a young Seve Ballesteros. His great skill is getting the ball in the hole from anywhere and everywhere

Oh, I'd definitely go with Lanny.... Raymond had way too many friends.  Randall Mell focuses on the winner:

He’s learning how to command a stage. 

Watching Spieth win the Valspar Championship Sunday, with his confident stride, his certainty of gesture, his fist pumps, and even watching the way he corralled and wrestled disappointment over mistakes, that was more than fun to watch. It was fun to listen to as he made his way around Innisbrook. 

There was entertainment value listening to Spieth think out loud the way he likes to do under pressure. The way this young Texan talks to his golf ball, the way he chastises himself for bad shots, there can be danger in that with live microphones catching just about everything nowadays, but this observer dididn'tetect anything objectionable. Just the opposite. There was almost something Palmer-esque in the way Spieth drew us out there on to the stage with him.

I gather that some folks are put off by Jordan, though I don't see why.   In fact he's kind of what we wanted Tiger to be all those years, he wears his emotions on his sleeves buy absent the F-bombs that make it a bad fit with kids in the gallery.

As is often the case, I found myself rooting for Sean O'Hair because he needed it the most.  How difficult must it be to put a career back together, especially since playing privileges are so scarce these days.  But he looks like the real deal, again, and one hopes he can hold onto his new attitude.

And our Patrick, who had been having a gosh darn awful week PR-wise, reminded us that he's the real deal...  And did so on a week when he wasn't playing all that well, at least tee-to-green.  

As for our winner, he was the subject of the first question to the Tour Confidential panel, though I thought the question was framed kind of oddly...see if you agree:

1. Jordan Spieth birdied the third playoff hole to defeat Patrick Reed and Sean O’Hair and win the Valspar Championship. Spieth joins Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and Robert Gamez as players since 1940 to win twice on Tour before age 22. Does Spieth have the talent to win multiple majors or does his relative lack of power mean he’ll only be able to pick off wins here and there on shotmaker’s courses?

Jordan's not the longest guy out there, but he's what's known in the trade as long enough.  To amplify, here are some of his current ranks from his PGA Tour statistics page:

• Driving Distance - 44th
• Driving Accuracy - 133rd
• Strokes Gained: Tee-to-green - 8th

Now it's only that last one that surprises me, but I'm guessing the numbers are somewhat skewed with a small sample size and coming off a win.  But otherwise it confirms what my eyes tell me, that he's long enough but hits the ball alarmingly crookedly...let's call it Luke Donald disease.  

There's lots of interesting stuff to be found on that stats page...for instance, he's 91st in average clubhead speed, therefore clocking in at 44th in driving distance demonstrates good efficiency in his swing (he's obviously familiar with the sweet spot).  He's also surprisingly low in scrambling, currently ranked 42, and I'm guessing you'd have guessed he was higher after that demonstration of short game skills yesterday.

The event itself seems to be on increasingly solid ground.  Nice to see top players turning up based upon the quality of the venue. That's especially encouraging given my opinion of the other Florida swing venues.  

Soporific Sunday

I'm only going to spend a very few minutes with you this morning...there's not much news out there and I'm feeling a bit sluggish.  

First, a couple of pictures from yesterday's golf outing to Soldier Hollow, a 36-hole complex with both tracks rated in the top ten in Utah by Golfweek (which hosted the USGA Publinx as recently as 2012).  A fun day for sure, if you ignore the minor detail that I come here to ski.  It was a very enjoyable course perfect for a mid-winter swing, but quite the wacky routing, with exactly six holes of each par.  If you're looking for your first ace, this would be the place as where else do you get six whacks at it each loop...

Lee traversing a fairway.  There should be much more white stuff on those peaks.

Even I don't really care how I play in mid-March, especially with borrowed clubs.  But I did pure a knockdown 8-iron into the ninth green that reminded me of why I love the game...the official start of the 2015 golf season here at Unplayable Lies.

Mitch hit a good shot here at the brutal Par-3 15th.

Of course I got my comeuppance at the 15th pictured above, where a hard left-to-right wind caused two splashes for your humble correspondent.  But we were out in shorts, had great company (Nate from the Wasatch Biathlon back in December was our fourth) and a good time was had by all.

Just a couple of other quick items.... the Innisbrook event is setting up for a good finish, but by far the best part of the broadcast was this incredibly cute side-by-side video of Ryan Moore's son Tucker's swing compared to Bubba's:

I can't embed the video but you can watch it here.  Neither of their feet stay on the ground for long, so it's good fun.

Lastly, Shack is running a reader poll of whether he will or won't... you know whereof I speak for sure.  Probably of greater interest are the comments of Shack himself:

I'm of the view that Woods won't play the Masters, should not play, and based on the peculiar dramas of 2015, will only find more misery if he tries to play with a rusty, iffy game. His team's claims of hard work along with the decision to wait until as close as possible to Bay Hill's entry deadline appear meant to give sponsors the impression they will get value for their investment at some point.

And while I know some are tired of Tiger talk, this bizarro will-he-or-won't-he drama appears unprecedented in the annals of All Time Greats. (Well, unless you count when he was in rehab and reappeared at the 2010 Masters).

A reminder that he finished T4 that year, but of course his game hadn't deserted him (he won six times in 2009).  The only thing I'll add is that if you're suffering from the chipping yips, Augusta will try your soul with its incredibly tight lies.   

Ski Season Interruptus

Strange times, no doubt.  The bride is on sump pump duty as a result of biblical rains in NY, meanwhile the thermometers will be brushing up against 80 degrees in the Salt Lake Valley.  So we're making lemonade today, specifically heading to the aforementioned valley to tee it up, and we'll be in shorts and applying sunscreen.

RIP, James Finnegan - Known to everyone in the biz as Jim, he was an accomplished player but best known for his books about the great courses of Great Britain and Ireland:

Alongside Herbert Warren Wind, no other American writer captured the windblown,

rugged beauty of golf in the British Isles with such wild enthusiasm. Three of his books about golf in Ireland, Scotland and a third combining England and Wales are indispensible guides not only to the shrines of the game but to lesser-known courses where a visitor is apt to fall in love all over again. If you know the names Golspie, Machrihanish and Cruden Bay, Mr. Finegan's infectious writing may well have something to do with it.

Infectious is a good word for it, as his books are equal parts travelogues and course reviews.  Jim was a big part of my coming to love those windblown, rugged links, as I would Xerox the relevant sections to caryy with on my travels and read about that day's course over breaky.

Via Shack, I'll leave you with this fine tribute from Gil Hanse:

"Jim Finegan was an exceptional gentleman, as committed to golf as any person I have ever met. With a true flourish for both the spoken and written word, he could keep you hanging on his every thought and the payoff was always more than you could hope for. We will miss him dearly. A great voice for our game has been silenced, and on every golf course he ever graced with his presence it is a truly sad day."

RIP.

Tiger, Not -  Color me modestly surprised, as I thought we'd see Tiger at Bay Hill because he's logically want at least the one start, reps, you know, before the big one.  But it's not to be and I'll spare you the pain of his official statement on the matter, and instead let's see what buddy Notah Begay has to say:

Frank doesn't seem as amused as the other two.

"I spent quite a bit of time the last couple of weeks down at Tiger's house, trying to be a good running mate and going through workouts and practicing with him,'' Begay said during Golf Channel's Friday telecast of the Valspar Championship. "I can attest to the fact that things are improving and that he is putting in some solid workdays. It is just not at the status that he wants it. 

"Sometimes it is difficult when you want to get out there, and your heart tells you that you want to be playing competitive golf because you want to see your friends and he's won so many of these events. At the end of the day, if his game isn't going to hold up from tee to green and around the greens -- especially with the question marks around his short game -- I think it is a good decision to hold off until he is 100 percent."

Am I the only one that finds Notah's duel role as "Running mate" and golf journalist increasingly strange, especially as Tiger approaches parody?

Shack for a while had a running gag at The Loop of translating official statements into English for the rest of us, and Alex Myers has picked up the gauntlet of parsing (or is it Fisking) Tiger's statement:

I've put in a lot of time and work on my game and I'm making strides, but like I've said, I won't return to the PGA Tour until my game is tournament ready and I can compete at the highest level. 

Translation: "I don't feel like shooting another 82 on national TV at this time." Side note: It's pretty frightening he doesn't feel comfortable playing at a course where he's won six more times than anyone else.

 Now it's anybody's guess whether we'll see him at Augusta.

In Which Ernie Gets The Shaft - Just a couple of notes about the events in Tampa,... If you missed this shot by Ernie give it a look, and make sure your audio ifs functioning properly:

I'll just note that this is how a classy guy like Ernie grinds to try to make a cut, unlike some others.  The other note of interest is that Adam Scott missed the cut for the first time in a while:

Scott missed four putts inside 5 feet in the second round and shot a 4-over 75 to miss the cut at the Valspar Championship, ending the longest active streak on the PGA Tour. Scott had gone 45 straight PGA Tour events - and 57 events worldwide - without missing a cut. 

"It had to happen eventually," he said

Most of the attention was focused on his use of the conventional putter with a modified claw grip, with which he was quite futile this weekend.  Yesterday in particular, he was -4 strokes-gained putting, and it's really difficult to putt that badly.

While he was putting well in the early going we correctly predicted that he's regress to the mean, but in this case I think he overshot it entirely.

Hope For Golf Retailers - If this doesn't amuse you then I'm not comfortable having you as reader.  Two golf shop salesmen ("R-Rabbit" & "Q-Tip" from Bobick's Golf in Fort Wayne, Indiana), a subset of the population not known for much of anything memorable, have out together this great sales video:

As the proud owner of a new G30 driver, I've got a couple of questions.  First, where can I get myself one of those necklaces?  Second, can you tell me more about those turbulators?