Tuesday, June 2, 2015

'Dis and 'Dat

We've got quite the smorgasbord for you this morning...you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll spit coffee at your computer monitor...

The Young and the Reckless - Golf Channel continued its coverage of the NCAA Championships yesterday, this time with the men's singles finals, which does double-duty as the qualifier for team match play:
BRADENTON, Fla. – Bryson DeChambeau didn’t see the dramatic ending here at
Concession. Didn’t need to, because the roar at 18 told him all he needed to know. 
After making birdie on his 71st hole, after wandering around the clubhouse for more than an hour to see if his 8-under total would stand up, after bolting for the practice area because couldn’t bear to watch another second as Washington's Cheng-Tsung Pan charged up the NCAA leaderboard, DeChambeau took his cue from the crowd. 
OoooooooOOOOOOOohhhhhhhhhh … 
About 300 yards away, Pan’s pin-seeking bunker shot scared the hole and gave the crowd a thrill, but his rally ultimately fell one shot shy.

“That did it,” DeChambeau, 21, said on the range, listening to the polite applause.
Oh, so that's how OoooooooOOOOOOOohhhhhhhhhh is spelled....noted.  It turns out that the winner is rather quirky:
He majors in physics. 
He wears a Ben Hogan-style hat. 
He uses a push cart. 
He employs something called Vector Putting, which takes into account length of putt, percentage of slope and speed of the green.
OK, but to me that buries the lede...the weirdest aspect of Dechambeau (they seem to go both ways on whether to capitalize the C) is that his irons all have the length shaft, that of a seven iron in a traditional iron set.  This Global Golf Post item will give you the background, as it's something he worked out with coach Mike (Vanna, I'd like to buy a vowel) Schy and has used ever since.  It seems quite weird to me, and I can't imagine how he doesn't heel every 60 degree wedge, but the last thing we need is another cookie-cutter swing, so I'll be rooting for him.

As I noticed with the ladies last week, the NCAA does not seed the field based upon their standings before the final round, so in both cases we had the winner off the course long before their challengers.  It at first seems to be a missed opportunity, though perhaps like the winners hat, it should be thought of as an homage to an earlier time...

In any event, the real fun begins at 9:30 with team match play...

Cabot Kudos - No surprise here, but another review, this one in the Global Golf Post, It's one of
those dreaded e-mags, so no excerpts unfortunately.  But one new factoid for me is the eccentric routing, with six Par-3's and, six Par-4's and...well, I'll let the reader do the math from there...

The second nine runs along the cliffs, though the writer finds the outbound nine through the dunes equally compelling.... This might have to go on the 2016 schedule somehow.  That's the 17th green picture at left...

This Week in Cross Marketing Platforms - We know he's an avid golfer, so this isn't a huge surprise:
After teasing many golf fans by fitting Keegan Bradley with Jordan Brand golf shoes
throughout the past few seasons, Michael Jordan and Nike are finally rolling out a golf shoe for amateurs. 
The new footwear will be an adaptation of the popular Jordan Flight Runner 2 trainer shoe, according to a press release from Nike. 
This shoe, which will not look much like the Jordan Brand shoes Bradley has sported around Tour, will incorporate “mesh and synthetic materials with Nike Flywire on the upper" and will look similar to other variations of Nike golf footwear seen within the TW franchise.
Interesting choice in using Keegan, as conventional wisdom would have suggested an actual professional golfer....Hey, we kid because we love.  Just a little weird seeing a basketball player on golf shoes.

But a far less successful cross-actualization of revenue platforms can be found seen when Fox decided to unleash a bespectacled USGA official on their....baseball audience.  Memo to Fox:  Baseball fans may or may not be golf fans, but they've tuned in to watch baseball, and I'm told that the profanities go on for some time.....
Tweet text
And these folks didn't even endure Natalie Gulbis' interviewing skills....

 This Week in Cross-Something Else - It turns out that Vanity Fair's cover girl has game....
She then jokes, “I’m not doing this so I can hit it off the women’s tee,” but she does tell Bissinger that on her E! show she plans to do a segment in which she sees if she can still hit a golf ball 300 yards off the tee, even with her very ample breasts.
Jenner, an Olympic gold medalist (she won the 1976 gold for decathlon in Montreal), is obviously athletically inclined. She is a member at California's Sherwood Oaks Country Club and has been an avid player for the last 15 years. Jenner has reportedly been subjected to taunts on the golf course recently.
I'm not sure that the use of the feminine pronoun is entirely appropriate in that second paragraph parenthetical, as it was, of course, a men's event.  But I'm also reliably informed by the Bride of Maggot that Sherwood has no women's golf program.  Additionally, the grill room is reported to be men only, so awkward much?

Rut Roh -  I found Michelle Wie's win at last year's U.S. Open one of the feel-good stories of the year, but the fact of the matter is that her body seems to breaking down at an alarming rate:
Michelle Wie said early in the year that one of her biggest goals for 2015 was to stay
healthy. So far it has been nothing but a struggle for the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champ. 
Wie withdrew Saturday from this week’s Manulife Classic in Cambridge, Ontario, the LPGA confirmed, citing a left hip injury that caused her to quit after one round at the Kingsmill Championship. She missed the cut at last week’s ShopRite LPGA Classic.
Early in the season, Wie came down with Strep throat in the Bahamas, which turned into a sinus infection in Asia. 
Wie, who has slipped to No. 13 in the Rolex Rankings, has yet to record a top-10 finish in 2015.
Last year, Wie’s major momentum came to a grinding halt when she suffered a stress reaction in a bone of the index finger on her right hand. The injury caused Wie to miss two majors, the Wegmans LPGA Championship and The Evian Championship. From early August to mid-October, Wie failed to complete a tournament. 
The LPGA’s second major of the year, the new KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, will be held June 11-14. Let’s hope a week’s worth of rest is enough.
Apologies for the overly-lengthy excerpt, but I thought it worthwhile to cover all of the issues just in the last few months.  The only thing missing seems to be back trouble, inevitable given her putting stance.

Shack Unplugged - I'm watching it as I blog it, but Callaway Live's third installment features our Shack in sports jacket and tie above jeans.... I know, but it's the law in L.A.  and the pocket-hankie is a nice touch.

The full HD video can be found here, and here's a short tease:



Good stuff indeed, and bonus points to host Harry Arnett for his Shack Golf dig...not too soon at all.  And don't miss the Mack Daddy rap commercial after the 16:00 mark...
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Monday, June 1, 2015

Other Stuff

If you tuned in anticipating a disquisition on the Byron Nelson, I'm sorry to disappoint.  I saw about ten minutes of it, and while I'm glad they got the event in despite 142 inches of rain, it's probably the worst golf course played on Tour (at leas the worst played for all four rounds).  So, you're on your own there, but we've got a few things that may interest you....

He's Baaack - Part-timer Tiger Woods will once again grace us with his presence this weekend, naturally kicking off the speculation of how he might perform.  I can help you there, in the immortal words of William Goldman, Nobody knows anything" ... but I did like the lede in this John Strege version of the genre:

The first time Tiger Woods played a competitive round at Muirfield Village Golf Club
he shot 78, then assuaged his anger by eating 10 tacos. The next day he shot 66. He was 16.
Those were the days, when he could eat 10 tacos with impunity. Those were the days, as well, that Woods turned to when he took up with yet another new instructor, Chris Como, six months ago. “We looked at a lot of video from when I was a junior,” he said shortly after his work with Como began. “And it was quite interesting to see where my swing was then and how much force I could generate with a very skinny frame. That’s kind of what we are getting back into.”
He shot 66 there when he was 16?  Wow, I've heard that he used to be able to play some...

He's Also Baaack, Alas - Sometimes when couples split up they realize that whatever small issues they had, life is just better together... 

Not sure I'd have gone with the
wifebeater...
Either Steve Williams is just helping out a friend in need, or maybe he isn't so committed to retirement after all.

The game's most famous caddie, who won 13 major titles with Tiger Woods and was last helping Adam Scott reach world No. 1 status, had stepped away from the game at the end of 2014, but is coming back to caddie for Scott through the heart of the major championship schedule. Scott has said he's no longer working with Williams' replacement, Mike Kerr.




Gentlemen, hide your cameras...but is he more famous than Bones or Fluff?

Trouble in Paradise? - This news broke over the weekend:
Golf Channel laid off about 30 employees, or 3 percent of its workforce, on Friday. 
Most of the layoffs came in Golf Channel’s original-production division and related positions. The cutbacks indicate a reduction in costly programming that has a limited shelf life or use on the channel’s website. 
“Golf Channel has realigned some business functions to add emphasis on live events, news and digital businesses,” a spokesman said. “As a result, some positions primarily working on taped programming with limited digital focus have been impacted.”
They've been doing a great job with the NCAA coverage, plus the extended broadcast from Royal County Down, so I've no problem with the refocusing on that side of the business.  The other stuff is just filler...  Though this is troubling:
“Big Break,” the long-running reality show, is on hold as Golf Channel searches for a viable production and sponsorship model. “Altered Course,” a new reality show that debuts June 15, will air as planned, but going forward, the spokesman suggested it also will undergo the same cost rationalizations.
No Big Break?  How's a fellow going to get himself out of bed in the morning?  All joking aside, since they don't pay the talent anything, how can it be a bad business model?


Charles Darwin, Call Your Office - Who doesn't love pics of kids with golf clubs?   So of course everyone cooed over the video of Bubba Watson's son Caleb's first swings...video is here including the obligatory hashtag #DropTheClubAndRun.


Shack posted it with a reference to the apple not falling far from the tree, though he seems to have missed the broader implications.  Given that Caleb was adopted, doesn't this put the timeless Nature-Nurture issue to bed?  Just askin'...

Shack also has a cute video of Joshua Poulter at that link, and while I agree with Geoff that there's more clubhead speed than from his dad, I'll also add that he seems to be a better dresser.  

Still Creepy - Thanks to the USGA , I'll be spending far more time with Greg Norman than I'd other wise be inclined... I know, what's a golf blogger to do?  Remember a bit ago when we had pictures of Mrs. Norman's rather unusual 60th birthday gift for his Sharkness?  

As we saw with Steve Elkington, social media and senior citizens can be an awkward fit... as the Shark and his Missus insist on posting additional photographic evidence of their self-absorption.  To wit:


And just to show what a match made in heaven this is:


Really Kirsten, this just isn't normal... you couldn't just get him an Asian hooker like a normal wife would?  Though admittedly this allows him to spend more time with the one he loves most...

Chambers Bay - Mike Davis had to do a modified limited hangout on his impolitic comments about our U.S. Open venue, as Dave Shedloski informed:
“My point was this is really a unique golf course that was going to require a lot of
study,” Davis said. “[There’s] more elevation changes than a normal U.S. Open course. It’s wider. It’s all fescue. They had never seen it before. There’s a lot of local knowledge needed. 
“This is going to be my 26th U.S. Open, and I’ve noticed that players just don’t play as much golf there [at the Open site]. They’ll play nine holes a day, rely on their caddies instead of coming in early to play three or four rounds the week before like they did in the past … it’s just the way things have become. And what I wanted to communicate is that the advantage really goes to the player who knows the course inside and out. There is so much bounciness to that course that you just can’t learn it quickly. You certainly can’t learn it well from a yardage book. It is not a straightforward test, like, say Oakmont next year, which many of them have already seen.”
That second 'graph is quite true, and Jack Fleck famously played 186 practice holes at Olympic before his stunning defeat of Ben Hogan.  On the other hand, our Touring professionals are an entitled sort, and they don't like being told how to prepare.

That said, in the last few days we've received word that both Phil and Tiger have visited the golf course.  Phil gave Todd Miles these cryptic comments:
“A very interesting course,” he added. 
Finally, Mickelson was asked if anything about it surprised him. He responded by saying that Chambers Bay, indeed, closely resembled the type of links course found in Great Britain. 
And with that, Mickelson sped off into the afternoon.


And by interesting he means?  

Love Is The Drug - I'm entirely clear about my good fortune in hiring marrying Employee No. 2, and I don't even dabble in spousal humor of that kind.  But see if this isn't the saddest (and funniest) Craig's List ad ever:


But at least he's not bitter....
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Weekend Wrap - County Down-centric

It has been said that 'everything is big at Newcastle'. It is true: the big mountain; the big sea; the Sleive Donard Hotel that was once the biggest in Ireland; and a big golf course, both in character and reputation. The Royal County Down Golf Club is a unique, proud and reverent club with one of the finest and most beautifully irreverent links in the world. SCOTT MACPHERSON (Golf's Royal Clubs)
I know the television times were inconvenient for anyone with a life (that, fortunately, excludes your humble blogger), but it was a spectacular week of linksy goodness at Royal County Down:
NEWCASTLE, Northern Ireland (AP) -- Soren Kjeldsen of Denmark won the Irish Open 
The Winner
in a three-way playoff Sunday after his short winning putt on the first extra hole just barely managed to avoid lipping out. 
Kjeldsen entered the final round with a two-stroke lead, but shot a 5-over 76 to finish tied with Eddie Pepperell of England (69) and Bernd Wiesberger of Austria (73). All scored a 2-under total of 282 on the wind-swept, rain-battered Royal County Down, where just five of the 156 competitors finished the tournament under par. 
The 40-year-old Kjeldsen took command of the playoff by hitting a second shot that reached the sloping green of the par-5, 525-yard 18th hole - which he had bogeyed Thursday and Saturday and nearly again Sunday.
I know, not exactly household names... but the show ponies had the grace to exit Stage Left and let the golf course be the star this week.  In light of the high winds forecast, the greens were not cut Sunday and a good thing that, as the wind was gusting past 40 mph at times and the temperatures never hit 50, so think  golf's version of the Bataan Death March.  In fact, at about the midpoint of the broadcast with the "leaders" having just made the turn, England's Danny Willet chipped on for eagle on the finishing hole to post even par, and it wasn't inconceivable that that score could have held up.

Ultimately the worst of the weather blew through and the guys found enough pars out there to post 2-under, the lowest winning score I can remember since the Massacre at Winged Foot (I exaggerate slightly).  And how appropriate the the winning putt took a full 360 around the cup before dropping in, so those hearty souls on the golf course could get home for a warm cuppa...

Golf.com provides a gallery of weather photos from the Irish Open (as well as the Nelson), including this that could as well be an ISIS beheading video:


Though given the nature of out friends at ISIS, I'd expect Nike or Puma in lieu of Ping and Titelist...Or how about this one of Graeme McDowell, who called the place 'A Beast":


Did you hear about Rickie's finish on Saturday?  Golf Channel video can be seen here, but the gist of it is that Rickie had no sooner chipped in for eagle on No. 16 than he launched two ball OB on No. 17 and another on the home hole.  For those scoring at home, that's a 2-8-8 finish, not something we see every day... or ever.

I'll throw another household name at you, Maximilian Kieffer, a German golfer of little distinction who now holds the Royal County Down course record:
Kieffer struck a course-record round of 65, one shot lower than the previous best set in 1939 and matched Friday. 
"I had the luck you need," said Kieffer, who joked with his caddie before the round about breaking the record on the 126-year-old seaside links course.
How quaint is that?  I know the big boys don't get to Cty. Down but once a century, but is there another track in the world where the course record in 2015 is as high as 66?  Heck, Rory shot a 61 at Royal Portrush at age 16, and he's not even a good links player...

As a professional blogger I know how to pounce on a teed-up segue, so how about the young man missing two straight cuts?  Jaime Diaz was the first to the bar with this typically astute analysis:
McIlroy's particular brand of genius-level ability comes with an artistic temperament that makes him stubborn about playing the kind of golf he knows he's capable of and deeply wants to play. Which starts with hitting his favorite club -- the driver -- aggressively and often. It's statistically established that when he's hitting the driver well, it provides his most distinct advantage over the competition. And McIlroy has hit it so well -- with a gorgeous ball flight that he can bend both ways -- often enough that at 26 he is already considered a historically great driver. Most importantly for McIlroy's competitive state of mind, playing his brand of majestic golf tee to green is what most satisfies the artist within.
But on the flip side, being slightly off at the very high swing speeds that McIlroy generates means misses that go farther into trouble than shorter hitters. Psychologically, for an artist with McIlroy's talent level, it's nearly unavoidable that the mistakes grate more than they would for a less talented player with a more pragmatic view. The mega-talented and artistically bent Tom Weiskopf ruefully mused that after a couple of shots that displeased him, he began to look at his round as a painting he wanted to tear up and start over.
You guys know how highly I think of Jaime, but while the Weiskopf comparison is of interest, the results speak for themselves... Weiskopf never managed to get much out of his artistry, winning only an Open Championship in his entire career, while Rory has four having just turned 26.  Back to Jaime:
Of course, golf is a game of misses even for Ben Hogan. But while he's gotten better at stemming the tide on those days when it's not going right, McIlroy is susceptible to seeing his indifferent rounds snowball into snowmen. At McIlroy's stratospheric level -- No. 1 in the world, four major championships by age 25, one of the powerfully efficient golf swings ever seen -- it's a weakness. 
Compared to the two dozen or so players golf's pantheon, at this point its fair to say that McIlroy's exhibits a distaste for grinding. Whereas Tiger Woods seemed to get as much satisfaction from turning a 75 into a 70 as from posting a 65, and Jack Nicklaus was a disciplined master of not shooting himself out of tournaments with wasted strokes, McIlroy models those behaviors almost grudgingly.
Jaime kind of walks that back in his next graph, but I think the message here is something slightly different... Rory is far less consistent than Tiger was at his peak, and he does seem to have a propensity to go walkabout at times.  As I read somewhere else, he's more Phil than Tiger...

Shack goes a different direction with Jaime's piece, as per this excerpt:
But there is also the fascinating issue of his recurring issues with links-style conditions given his country of origin. Whether it's a lack of patience for wind, or firm and fast conditions, or simply finding himself more comfortable on lush, tree-lined courses instead of exposed ones, McIlroy now faces three straight majors at courses potentially presenting the conditions he is unaccustomed to liking and for which he managed to like enough to win last year at a soft-ish Hoylake. 
Should he devote even more of his time to figuring out how to conquer such conditions? Or look beyond 2015 and accept that not enough significant tournaments beyond the Irish,Scottish and Open Championships are played in links conditions to warrant a reconsideration of his approach? 
Historically, few of the all-time greats have gone an entire career having a chilly relationship with links golf. Bobby Jones and Tom Watson famously disliked exposed golf and unpredictable conditions only to become the most eloquent of all links spokesmen. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods were on board from the start and reaped rewards.Phil Mickelson always knew he should love the creativity and artistry required in links play but it took him nearly a quarter of a century to finally conquer such conditions. The payoff, however, forever changed his place in the history of the game from elite player to one of the all-time greats.
Life is ironic, ain't it?  The comparisons to Phil are quite entertaining, though it took Phil far longer to not only win an Open Championship, but to win majors in general... But Phil is from Southern California, Rory is from links-central, hence the conundrum.   

One last note from Shack, this time as relates to the date of the event:
Traditionally golf's French Open kicks off a huge three-week run culminating in The
Open Championship but is played on an inland course that will host the 2018 Ryder Cup. 
But wouldn’t three weeks of links golf when the weather doesn’t make Rochester natives wonder what tundra they’ve stepped into, be a better fit? 
Sure, the lads will cry foul that three weeks of links golf will undue their precious swings, but we also know about 50% of the world’s elite believe in playing the week before a major, and the other 50% like to play two weeks out and have the week off heading into one of golf’s big four. So both the Scottish and Irish Opens should be able to attract quality fields while giving two historically important events on links golf the prominent place they deserve. 
Now it’s just incumbent on Rory and his friends from Dubai to learn from the success of the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open to keep pushing for links venues.
OK, you can click through if you want to understand the Rochester dig?  And Geoff may be over-promising a bit on the weather, as it's not like we don't see the ski caps and mittens in July...

But on his larger point, it's a spectacular idea, actually it's two great ideas.  The first is that the Irish Open commit to links venues as did the Scottish to great acclaim and improved fields.  The second is that it be moved to a better spot on the calendar...that, alas, would require the Euro. Tour to see the benefit, and good luck with that.  But a fellow can dream...

That concludes (yanno, unless it doesn't) our coverage of Royal County Down.  I hope to be back later with a return to our regularly scheduled programming.
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