Weekend Wrap

We survived the arctic blast and actually got some golf in yesterday....

Kizzire Under the Elms - It's always a good day for the blogger when that guy with the readily punable name wins:

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico (AP) — Patton Kizzire won his first PGA Tour title on Sunday by beating Rickie Fowler in a 36-hole marathon in the rain-plagued OHL Classic

at Mayakoba. 

Kizzire closed with rounds of 66-67 for a one-shot victory over Fowler, who fell four shots behind at El Camaleon Golf Club until staging a late rally that again fell short. Fowler had rounds of 67-67 on the final day. 

Kizzire won in his 62nd career start on the PGA Tour, and it required some steady nerves on the back nine when it could have gotten away from him. Leading by four shots with seven holes to play, Kizzire saved par with an 8-foot putt on No. 12, a 10-foot putt on the par-5 13th and an 8-foot putt on the 14th.

I caught the last few holes and the excitement was....  well, let's just say it was well-contained.  I was parked in the man-cave flipping back and forth between Mayakoba and the Giants-49ers game, lest you ever envy the exciting life of your favorite blogger.

The Tour Confidential panel held what has to be one of the sillier confabs ever, with not a single question about this event or the Charles Schwab Cup denouement.... Worry not, we'll get to that hot mess in a moment.

But they were asked this important question:

1. Rickie Fowler came up short in Mexico, losing to Patton Kizzire in a 36-hole final. Fowler’s six wins across the PGA Tour and European tour include a Players Championship but not yet a major title. How would you assess his career as he begins his ninth season on Tour?

I've got a more pressing question, what the heck was he doing in the field?   What part of off-season does he not get?  Here's a sampling of their responses:

John Wood: In a word, poised. Poised to win more and win majors, soon. At the risk of

sounding like a broken record (does it scare anyone else that most of the guys we write about don’t know what a record is?), winning anything out here against PGA Tour competition is hard. In my opinion it’s harder than ever to win on tour than ever before. The fields are so deep, the competition so close, that anyone in the field any given week is good enough to get hot and win. Remember when everyone doubted Phil, and why he couldn’t win the big one? On a smaller scale, same thing here. Rickie has shown himself to be clutch. Just look at his first win at Quail Hollow in a playoff, at his win at The Players, with a blinding finish and playoff performance, at his first Ryder Cup, where he birdied the last four holes in his singles match to come out with a half. He isn’t lacking anything. He puts himself where he needs to be time and time again, and those Big Victories will happen. And when they do, I suspect he won’t have done anything different.

Michael Bamberger: They don’t know about records, they don’t know about LPs, they don’t know about 78s—but they know about spin rates. Rickie Fowler is having a fine career. Our expectations of who he is as a golfer are outsized because of the way he has been marketed.

While Mike's point is fair, I still think the Orangeman's career is a bit of a disappointment.... David Duval thinks he has the best swing and best putting stroke on Tour, shouldn't that combo win more often....

Let's Ask Chuck - On Friday I took a brief look at the first round results from the Charles Schwab Championship, not to be confused with the Charles Schwab Cup, and it seemed promising....  All of the name brands, and remember that Scot McCarron is now a name brand, were clustered at the bottom of the leaderboard, so mayhem was assured....

PHOENIX (AP) — Kevin Sutherland finally broke through on the PGA Tour

Champions, taking the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship — and topping the yearlong competition, too. 

Sutherland closed a 5-under 66 on Sunday for a one-stroke victory over Vijay Singh at Phoenix Country Club, the tree-lined course hosting its first tour event since the Phoenix Open left for TPC Scottsdale in 1988. 

"I don't even know. It's like a whirlwind thing. It's amazing," Sutherland said. "I mean, the names on this trophy are incredible. I've seen it, and to be on that list is just, I can't even put words to it, it's just amazing."

Amazing, inevitable, whatevah.....

Shack has a pretty good rant on the subject:

The dreaded "reset" reared its ugliest and most comedic head yet by depriving Bernhard Langer of the 2017 Schwab Cup.

On the list of hideous crimes this one will not register and Langer's amazing season will not in any way be minimized by a ridiculous algorithm or playoff points reset. However, for a sponsor like Charles Schwab, an association with a goofily rigged competition should not be allowed to continue. Unless Schwab wants to stand for rewarding distant-second excellence. 

A season-long points race loses credibility when a player has 16 top-10s, 21 top-20s and 7 wins in 22 starts (including the first two playoff events and 3 of 5 majors!), but fails to beat someone whose playoffs went like this: T47, T27, 1.

Which would matter, perhaps, if anyone took it seriously.  Jay Monahan certainly has his hands full, but at least we'll be spared any more of those smirking Bernhard Langer commercials.  Though expecting the sponsor to fix this seems like magical thinking...

Shack also links to a couple of quotes that crystallize the absurdity, first this from Will Gray:

This is Sutherland's first tournament victory since his lone PGA Tour title at the 2002 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. It marks the first time since 2013 that someone other than Langer won the season-long trophy on the over-50 circuit.

As John Wood would say, he was poised....and this from Kevin Casey: 

Overall, Langer fails to capture the Schwab Cup despite a season that included more wins than his last two Schwab-Cup-winning campaigns combined.

Nothing to see here, folks....

 Shanshan in Full - The young lady is on quite the roll:

Shanshan Feng made history on her home soil. The 28-year-old from Guangzhou won

for a second consecutive week on the LPGA and is projected to become the first golfer from China – male or female – to rise to No. 1 in the world. 

“I finished first in China, so I actually claimed the world No. 1 in front of all the people at home,” said Feng. “So I’m really happy about that, and I hope all the Chinese are going to be watching me, and the Chinese can play golf. Hopefully there will be more Chinese getting on the tours and more world No. 1’s coming up from China.”

She will take over the No. 1 ranking from a rookie named Sung Hyun Park, thereby relieving us all from learning that name, though the respite might prove to be temporary.

Those comments from the winner seem to me rather pro forma, though Shack credits her for a rather droll commentary on the schizophrenic approach of the Chinese authorities to our little game.   You be the judge....

Nicky to the Rescue - I saw no urgency to blog last week's announcement if Nick Prices nomination to the USGA Executive Committee last week , but this Tim Rosaforte feature on Mike Davis has quite a few interesting nuggets, beginning with this:

Price’s interest and passion resonated with members of the the USGA Nominating Committee, who added him to their 2018 slate for the 15-person board that will be voted on at the USGA Annual Meeting next February. Iconic amateur golfers Francis Ouimet, Bobby Jones and Fred Ridley, the new Augusta National chairman, have previously sat on the committee, but never a tour professional of Price’s caliber. That’s why Price rates this honor ahead of winning the USGA’s Bob Jones Award and the PGA Tour’s Payne Stewart Awards for service to the game.

That seems curious, no?

Davis pointed out that it was the same when Ben Hogan was playing, and players like Gene Sarazen and Jones were lamenting going from hickory to steel shafts. 

“The concept of courses continually having to expand [due to] equipment is the wrong

thing,” Davis continued. “It needs to be the opposite. Equipment has to fit courses. There is no other sport that changes its playing arena to fit equipment.” He used the Green Monster at Fenway Park as an example, and how the Red Sox would have to move the wall back 100 feet if aluminum bats were legalized. 

“But that’s exactly what’s happened in golf,” Davis said. “You learn from the past, but for us, it’s looking forward.” 

Of course Davis is coming off a U.S. Open venue at Erin Hills that could have been stretched to 7,800 yards and was annihilated by Brooks Koepka, who shot 16 under to win by four strokes, and Justin Thomas, who shot nine-under 63 in the third round, the lowest score in relation to par in U.S. Open history. But he seems more concerned about sustainability and the cost of water going up four-fold between now and 2030. It’s those issues at the recreational level that might just be more pressing.

But Mike, remind what organization had responsibility for ensuring that this didn't happen?   Nick is a really good guy who loves our game, but Mike is the guy on the hot seat.

So what exactly are we prepared to do?

Paramor, Paramount - I'm a fan, though I do think this Shack intro is a bit over-the-top:

Legendary European Tour rules official John Paramor, who restored order during the chaos of Jordan Spieth's errant Birkdale tee shot and who has no patience for slow play, talks to Golf World's John Huggan about his four decade career. Among the topics are rulings he's given, rules he'd like tweaked and his input on the upcoming rules revision.

If "legendary rules official" isn't an oxymoron, I don't know what is.... And order st Birkdale?  It took a bit long for me to assign too much credit for that....   When those Gentlemen of Leith codified the original rules of our game, I'm guessing that the Seve exception wasn't established:

“On another occasion,” Paramor recalls, “Seve was telling me he could play a shot in such a way that his stance would be affected by an obstruction. So I told him to demonstrate what he proposed to do, all the time thinking there was no way he could persuade me. But he did. And I gave him a free drop. He had one foot in a ditch, the other above the ditch. Then he turned the club round and swung left-handed. After a couple of practice swings, I was convinced. He could have hit it like that. But there is no way any other player would even have thought of it. Seve was different though; I knew he was capable of such a shot. He was a genius. So he got his drop.”

Should the rules official interpret the skills of an individual player in the decision to grant relief?  Beats me....

Now this is likely the most substantive comments to come out of the item:

Then there are the so-called “green books” you see people using when putting. Paramor

has opinions there, too. “I recently asked Phil Mickelson what he thought about them. He feels they are a good thing. They are good for pace of play. They clear up a lot of the questions a player might have. Which is a valid point.

"But I have to say I think they are a de-skilling of the game. Part of this game is making your own judgement about how your ball is going to roll across a green. It’s not for you to find that out on a piece of paper.”

Good for pace of play?  That is arguable, to put it mildly....

 Lots of fun stuff, so give it a click...

Fair Use Be Damned - We play a little loose with the laws governing Fair Use, but I'm pretty sure I'll never hear from Geoff's lawyers for the crime of grabbing a screen shot of the entirety of this post.  The subject is a celebration of the one-week anniversary of the announcement of Greg Norman's new pimped-out golf carts:

What's your point?

I'm going to leave you here, but we've got lots teed up for tomorrow....  Consider it appointment blogging.

Late-Week Lamentations

Mostly weather-related, if you're in the Northeast.

Rumors of Its Demise... - That would be a Samuel Clemens reference, the very same lad that ironically dismissed our game as a good walk spoiled...

But we now have two publicly-traded golf equipment companies, and 'tis the season for Q3 earnings releases.  This one seems, what's the word....EPIC:

In the third quarter of 2017, as compared to the same period in 2016, the Company's net sales increased $56 million (30%) to $244 million. This increase was led by increases in all operating segments, namely Golf Clubs (+ 21%), Golf Balls (+20%), and Gear,

Accessories and Other (+72%) as well as increases in each reporting region, namely the United States (+33%), Europe (+23%), Japan (+28%), Rest of Asia (+28%), and other countries (+23%). The increase in the Golf Clubs and Golf Balls segments reflects the continued success of the Company's EPIC line of products as well as the Chrome Soft golf ball franchise. The increase in Gear, Accessories and Other primarily reflects the successful acquisitions of the OGIO and TravisMathew brands which were completed in 2017.

As a result of this significant increase in sales, as well as a 110 basis point improvement in gross margins, the Company recognized a significant improvement in profitability during the third quarter of 2017. Due to the seasonality of the Company's business, the Company often reports a loss for the third quarter. However, in the third quarter of 2017, the Company reported an $11 million increase in operating income to $6 million as compared to an operating loss of ($5) million in the third quarter of 2016.

Cally has been on quite the run...  I always like to watch ball sales, as that's the best measure of day-to-day activity in the game, though with their hot Chrome Soft line they're no doubt taking market share from others.

Titleist reported decent results as well, and the soon-to-retire Wally Uihlein had these upbeat comments:

"We are encouraged to see that the global golf industry continues to structurally improve through the first nine months of 2017. While near term, US demand trends have been

impacted as the focus shifted to important life priorities in areas hit by the recent hurricanes, it is good to see many areas are recovering well as a sense of normalcy returns.

"We are confident that our proven strategy, dedicated associates and valued trade partners will enable us to leverage a stronger industry and extend our success over the long term."

I guess there was weakness in sales in Puerto Rico, but the picture is not one of an industry in its death throes....

What's It All About, Jaime? - The estimable Jaime Diaz attempts to discern the meaning in the announcement that San Francisco's Olympic Club has bolted the USGA for the loving embrace of the PGA of America, though he and I don't get off on a good foot:

If so, it seems that something is lost. Olympic Club used to be iconic, in the same league with Merion, Winged Foot, Oakmont, Oakland Hills and Pebble Beach for holding the

most significant U.S. Opens. The first two it held arguably contained a greater combination of drama and pathos than any U.S. Opens in history, with 43-year-old Ben Hogan in 1955 being beaten for his bid at a record fifth U.S. Open by Jack Fleck, and 36-year-old Arnold Palmer in 1966 giving up a seven-stroke lead on the final nine to tie with Billy Casper, and then going on to lose his third 18-hole Open playoff. 

But the truth is, Olympic has lost some of its lofty stature since then. The 1987 U.S. Open (Scott Simpson over Tom Watson) wasn’t as good, and the 1998 event (Lee Janzen over Payne Stewart) further eroded the mystique. By 2012 (Webb Simpson over Jim Furyk), Olympic started being considered more of a problematic layout for the best in the world rather than a supreme test of ball-striking.

Excuse me!  I'll not hear a disparaging word about that '87 Open, though perhaps my reaction is somewhat atypical...  though that first sentence is quite the hot mess.  Olympic was never in a league with The Foot, Merion or Oakmont, though the Open didn't go to Pebble until 1972 either.

But see if you react as I did to this:

Although its sandy soil, cool climate and ocean proximity gives Olympic an invigorating Scottish feel, the Lake Course is built mostly on the side of a hill that gives many of its fairways excessive slope. With the distance modern pros hit the ball, and the roll provided by agronomical advancements, keeping the ball out of the rough on tight doglegs that often have a reverse camber means pretty much eschewing the driver off the tee for 3-wood or less. The course also has trouble spots that even renovations haven’t completely cured. The 17th hole’s severe left-to-right slope in the tee-shot landing area is a flaw, and the short par-4 18th hole is a mediocre-at-best finishing hole, where tee shots all end up in the same bowl in the fairway and the severe green inviting trouble. 

By branding the U.S. Open as the “ultimate examination,” it is the USGA’s charge to reward skill and punish mistakes to a greater extend than any other championship, without going over the line into unfairness. With advances in technology, that tightrope is getting narrower, and a course that has become too short or too narrow can cause the setup to go over the line. So that when the USGA senses potential for image-damaging setup disaster, its negotiating committee might drive a harder than normal bargain. Perhaps it’s not an accident that the USGA’s reported demands underwhelmed the Olympic Club membership.

Let me see if I have this right...  The USGA concludes that the architectural nature of Olympic could result in a flawed championship, so it decides to only go there on the cheap? 

But I don't agree with Jaime's conclusion, which I'll excerpt at length:

What’s the upshot? Well, the PGA continues to raise its profile by going to older courses in bigger markets. Meanwhile, the U.S. Open, hamstrung by the increased difficulty of setting up Golden Age classics to meet its playing standards, finds itself caught between two worlds. Super-tough Oakmont still works, as it did in 2016, but Merion in 2013 felt too small. Pebble Beach needs wind. Shinnecock Hills, considered by many of the cognoscenti America’s best championship course, will be under close scrutiny in June, especially because things didn’t go well in 2004. The USGA’s pragmatic compromise has been to be more amenable to modern and bigger, but less architecturally revered sites such as Torrey Pines, Chambers Bay and Erin Hills. All three might have left purists cold, but they were successful financially, and in the case of the first two, had great finishes with superstar winners. 

All this is not to overstate the change, which, again, is subtle. Torrey Pines in 2021 is the only non-Golden Age course the U.S. Open is going to in the near future, with the rest of the lineup reading Winged Foot in 2020, Brookline in 2022, the untested-but-apparently sublime L.A. North in 2023, Pinehurst No. 2 in 2024, Oakmont in 2025, Shinnecock in 2026 and Pebble Beach in 2019 and 2027. 

But the loss of The Olympic Club as a place to hold the men’s national championship (the club will host the U.S. Women’s Open in 2021) fuels the notion—expressed by no less than Jack Nicklaus, among others—that the U.S. Open is in danger of losing its identity. The setup conundrum is a real one.

There's a lot there for sure, and I certainly agree that the USGA has site issues, but their line-up for the next decade is an architectural who's who of golf courses...

In going to U.S. Open retreads I would argue that the PGA has only further obscured the identity of its marque championship....  And I'm reluctant to assign the significance that Jaime does to their selection of Harding Park, which to me was a one-off necessitated by it being an Olympic year before resolution of the timing of the PGA, requiring schedule flexibility.

To me the PGA is locked into has-been venues at an agronomically-challenging time of year, competing against a strong schedule of other sporting events.  yes, as Jaime notes, the Ryder Cup is an important arrow in their competitive quiver...  But if it gets you Olympic, not Oakmont or Pebble, how valuable is it in reality?

Rut Roh - A very interesting and perhaps troubling coda to the Henrik Stenson injury story:

Giles Morgan, one of the most important men in golf because of the amount of 

With Jamie Donaldson in 2013.

sponsorship money he directed into the game and the influence he held within it as a result, has left HSBC, he confirmed to Global Golf Post. Morgan, 46, had been head of global sponsorship strategy at HSBC, one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organisations, for 12 years. 

As such he was the man behind his company’s commitment to events such as the WGC-HSBC Champions, recently held in Shanghai, China; the HSBC Women’s Champions event held in Singapore last March; and the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, staged in the Middle East last January. HSBC was also one of the patrons of the Open Championship. 

“Since 2005, HSBC has become one of the biggest and most influential sponsors of golf worldwide at a professional level with over 50 international tournaments around the world and with major grassroots programs in the UK, China, Singapore and UAE,” Morgan said.

One has to assume that this is somehow linked to Henrik's plea to not blame HSBC for his unfortunate rib injury.....  

Other Clouds on the Horizon -  Hogan's Alley is in peril:

The PGA Tour has moved its Nov. 1 deadline and given Colonial a month. 

The club has until Dec. 1 to find the sponsors and raise the money to ensure that the 2018 PGA event in Fort Worth will go on as scheduled. Right now, the 2018 Dean & DeLuca Invitational is listed by the PGA Tour on its website for the week of May 21-27. 

Barring a total and unforeseen collapse, club officials remain confident the 2018 Colonial will go on as planned, and it will be able to fund the $11.5 million necessary to make the event happen.

This is the first inkling that even the 2018 edition could be sacrificed to the Gods of contraction, but one has to assume that calling out the Tour is, while true, not in their long-term interests:

According to multiple sources, the PGA is not doing much to help. That the PGA is sitting on its hands is only slightly ironic because it was the PGA that put Colonial in this situation. 

It was the PGA that lined up Colonial with D&D. Now the PGA is looking at the Fort Worth country club to fix this problem.

It's hard to imagine that the Tour would want to lose this linkage to it's past, but it's also obvious that at least one of the Texas stops has to go.  There three that are currently without sponsors, but the Byron Nelson is in the process of upping its game with its 2018 move to a shiny new venue.

Stay tuned.

Enter Alan - Shipnuck, of course, with his weekly mailbag feature.  Let's get right to it, as we love a good conspiracy theory:

"What's your favorite golf conspiracy theory? #AskAlan" - Steve (@_Smisner) 

That Tiger Woods's errant drive on the third and final playoff hole of the 2000 PGA Championship was thrown back into play by a fan. Recall that Woods yanked his drive well left; it disappeared from the view of TV cameras for a second or two and then magically reappeared, bounding into a more playable spot. On the telecast Ken Venturi and Jim Nantz had a discussion about the unusual bounce ("It didn't react naturally, did it?"; "No, it didn't at all.") but there was never a second angle to show what was missed. Woods went on to birdie the hole, vanquish Bob May and win his third major of 2000, setting up his greatest achievement, the Tiger Slam. The weird bounce has been lost to the dust bin of history, save for a few of us who still puzzle over what did or did not happen.

Hmmm...you're suggesting that the ball mysteriously bounced back into play from the vicinity of a grassy knoll?  I like it....

I might have been tempted to go with this Gary Player incident from the 1974 Open Championship....

But these two answers are quite misguided:

"How many majors does Justin Rose finish with? #AskAlan" - Andrew (@a_h_davies) 

He already has two: the 2013 U.S. Open and 2016 Olympic gold medal. Rose has finished as runner-up at two of the last three Masters, which is interesting given that putting is the weakest part of his game. But Augusta National is the quintessential second-shot golf course and Rose's spectacular iron play makes him a perennial threat. His all-around game is so good he's a threat at all four of the majors; he has top-4 finishes at the PGA and British Open. But Rose turns 38 next year, so he's entering the now-or-never stage. I'll give him one more major championship victory, which will guarantee him a spot in the Hall of Fame. 

"Do you think the Olympics could be used as venue to test new types of uniform equipment? #askalan" - @wordofmouth_tv 

Sure, let's turn the biggest sporting event in the world into a Silly Season event! The Rio Games was a huge step forward for the game. Golf in Tokyo is going to be bonkers. (Did you peep the teeming crowds at the recent LPGA event in Japan?!) I like your idea of taking a reduced-flight ball from the theoretical and putting it in play, but that's what the Shark Shootout is for! Don't mess with the Olympics.

Alan's woody for the Olympics is to me inexplicable....  Rose beat about twenty legitimate world-class players, rendering it more of a curiosity than anything.

"Outside of the major championships or an AK comeback, what's the biggest golf story that could land an SI cover story? #AskAlan" - Dan (@djdonof) 

Given those parameters, it's a very short list. Dustin Johnson has never been on the cover and he's a photogenic figure who moves the needle. Were he to sweep the West Coast swing I could see him landing a cover in late-March, whetting the appetite for the Masters. (It's also a quiet time of the year in the sports world.) Otherwise, there's not too many other featurey angles that have the widespread appeal for a national audience. If Rory McIlroy goes on another big run and we could get the right access, that would be a helluva story to write. Here's hoping.

An AK comeback?  Man, we're into the silly season of columns, aren't we?  But doesn't excluding majors kind of render the question irrelevant, leaving only the Ryder Cup as an obvious answer.

Not his best week of work for sure, or his questioners either....

The Prime of Mark Broadie - Haven't featured Mark in a bit, but he has the top feature today at golf.com:

How do PGA Tour players dominate? Analyzing trends from 2017's best players

Spoiler alert:  Ball-striking and putting.....  I know, it's a gift.

LESSON NO. 1: BALLSTRIKING IS THE BIGGEST WEAPON 

In 2017, this illustrious group gained an average of 8.88 strokes on the field per tournament. Driving and approach shots (all shots starting outside 100 yards from the hole) accounted for 67 percent of their gain on the field.

To me the number that jumps out is DJ gaining 5 shots on the field every week with just his driver.... Hard to compete against.

The ShotLink data that Broadie uses is an extremely recent phenomenon, and is maddeningly unavailable for the majors.  My interest would be in whether there's a way to estimate how these numbers might have changed over time....  Because my sense is that modern equipment has narrowed the advantage enjoyed by the best ball-strikers in the game.... Distance is of course a factor, but so is the reduction in spin.

A Doomed Mailbag - This initially sounded promising to me, see what you think:

Welcome to Yo, Gear Guy!, a new GOLF.com series in which our resident dimplehead (a.k.a., GOLF's deputy editor of equipment, Mike Chwasky) fields your hard-hitting questions about clubs, fittings, gadgets, bounce, lofts, CG, MOI, and a lots of other scary acronyms. Got a question for Gear Guy? Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.

Then I read the initial installment, and this is basically the answer to every question:

The best way to know for sure is to go and get fitted by a qualified professional.

Other phrases with repeated usage include "It depends", There are a number of critical elements" and the ever-useful "there are some variables involved".  We'll see where they take this, but I'd guess it'll die a quick death.

The Handmaid's Tale - They told us that if we voted for Trump that minorities would be in peril...  And sure enough, here'e video of an Asian man being thrown into some kind of sand pit:

It's a pretty funny pratfall, unless you're looking for deeper meaning.

It does seem a difficult bunker to get in and out of, and I'm note sure how a woman would fare.  So perhaps it's a good thing that Kasumigaseki Country Club doesn't have any as members....  Send your nasty e-mails to Peter Dawson or even Alan Shipnuck.

Midweek Musings

A little of 'dis, a little of 'dat for you today....

An Easy Choice - One of the constant refrains over the years has been the shabby treatment of hosting clubs by the USGA....  They're known to be a bit tight with a buck, except of course for their salaries and travel budgets.

Ron Kroichek has a valuable follow-up to the story of Olympic changing teams, with this stark comparison:

The rivalry between the USGA and PGA of America has become more pronounced in recent years. The Olympic Club is merely the latest traditional U.S. Open course to

switch to the Ryder Cup and PGA Championship, joining among others Medinah (in suburban Chicago), Oakland Hills (outside Detroit) and Hazeltine (near Minneapolis). 

One logical explanation for the Olympic Club’s change of heart: money. Olympic could earn a projected $15 million from hosting the Ryder Cup and PGA Championship, according to one source. Another U.S. Open probably would have generated between $2 million and $3 million. 

The windfall is expected to help finance an extensive renovation of Olympic’s clubhouse, which hasn’t had major improvements in 23 years.

That's quite a weapon the PGA has, meaning The Ryder Cup, though it's of course only once every four years.... But have they awarded the 2028 Cup?  If so, I can't find it via Google...

This is also consistent with that which I've heard from other venues, most notably Baltusrol:

But the story behind Wednesday’s announcement also traces to June 2012, the last time the U.S. Open was held on the Lake Course. Two sources said that’s when the relationship between USGA officials and their Olympic Club counterparts started to fray.

They squabbled over restoration costs on the adjacent Ocean Course, which housed temporary hospitality structures, the media center and transportation for the Open. This reflected a larger issue: Olympic Club officials believed they weren’t offered financial terms comparable to other traditional U.S. Open venues.

The damage to the course played is at the periphery, for obvious reasons... but the hosting clubs' second courses are decimated.  Shack has some interesting takes here, notably the linkage to their TV contract that expires after 2019.  West Coast venues are prized for their prime time TV windows....

But I'm surprised that Geoff didn't have any snark at this Mike Davis comment:

“The USGA considers The Olympic Club to be a wonderful partner who have been tremendous hosts to a number of historic USGA championships over the years. We look forward to coming back to Olympic for the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open.”

That'll be deliciously awkward....

Pushback's a Bitch -  If you were with us yesterday, and my pageviews tell me you were, you'll remember the bit on Henrik Stenson's injury, the result of a rather silly pre-tourney promotional appearance in Shanghai.  Yanno, this bit of avant-garde stagecraft:

Now let's stipulate that HSBC is a big sponsor in our game, pouring desperately needed cash into its coffers....But Golfweek is apparently struggling with this journalism thing, unless of course Emily Litella wrote your style book. At the top of their homepage, they offer the following clickbait:

Really?  So I'm of course wondering how he hurt himself....But when you click through, here's the header on the actual item:

Henrik Stenson 'not happy' HSBC stunt being blamed for injury

Two entirely different things, I'm sure you'll agree....  And when one dives in, it becomes even less clear what Henrik wants us to think, mostly just that he was kidding:

My comment about not being Superman was a sarcastic way of saying that I am susceptible to injury like any other athlete and sometimes these things happen when you least expect them. I was pleased to help promote the HSBC Champions and to continue my string of success at the event and I was never forced to do anything. HSBC is a great sponsor to golf worldwide and I am not happy to see them being made responsible for my withdrawal. The plan as of now will be to participate in the DP World Championship if my body is back to 100%.

Am I the only one to note that it's no coincidence it's called Stockholm Syndrome?

Thanks, But We Knew - Remember that more innocent time back in.....September.  The ladies convened in France for their twelfth fifth major of the season and it didn't end well, because the LPGA and sponsor decided that it was more important that a parachutist land on the green than that 72 holes of golf were played....  

Commish Mike Whan is prepared to fall on his sword, though ultimately not for the more meaningful offense:

“We will get Evian back to a summer date,” Whan pledged. “It may not be in ’18, but certainly by ’19.” 

Whan said he believes in Evian as an LPGA major, but he regrets his decision to move the event to September, with its rainy season and its shorter days. 

“The challenges we’ve faced are man-made,” Whan said. “And I’m the man who made them.”

Yeah, it's not really a major, notwithstanding how many times you say it is...

It's also quite amazing that a Tour with notoriously horrible luck thinks it has no worries scheduling in their rainy season....

Headline of the Day -  It is, at least if you're not offended by the tragedy involved:

Family sues golf course, LA County after woman dies in golf cart hit-and-run

It's the 21st Century, so no tragedy can be allowed to go unlitigated....  But Golf.com, the source of this item, is no better than Golfweek when it comes to accuracy in their headers:

A golf course west of Los Angeles, a golf cart manufacturer and Los Angeles County itself have been hit with a lawsuit after a golfer was hit and killed by a car while driving a golf cart at a local course. 

The incident occurred at Royal Vista Golf Club in Walnut, Calif. The deceased, 59-year-old Lisa Park, was crossing a road that bisects the course in a golf cart when a car driving on the road collided with her. Park was thrown from the golf cart and later died from her injuries, according to the website of the Rancho Santa Margarita Patch. 

The car and its driver fled the scene and have still not been identified.

You really can't find the driver?  I'm guessing the car is a bit dented, but otherwise it's really quite the horrible story....As for suing the cart manufacturer, good luck with that:

In the lawsuits, Park's surviving family seeks damages from the golf club and the company that renovated the course for not providing a safe road crossing for golfers, from the county for not providing sufficient warning to drivers about the dangerous crossing, and from the golf cart manufacturer, Textron Inc., for not including a seat belt in their cart.

Good luck with that portion of the claim....

It's Different This Time -  The estimable Jaime Diaz sense that this comeback might be different:

It furthered the cynical view that Woods is only playing – or showing off his swing – to

retain his endorsement deals. Some thought Woods' priority is orchestrating a graceful end to his career as a warrior brought down by injuries, rather than from self-inflicted mental wounds stemming from Thanksgiving 2009. That narrative gained more fuel when Woods announced on April 20 that he had just undergone the most extensive surgery of his life – a fusion of the lowest spinal vertebrae (L-5) with the first vertebrae of the sacrum (S-1).

After the admittedly stop-gap measures of the microdiscectomies, the “anterior interbody lumbar fusion” was an all-or-nothing play in terms of future competitive golf. When the healing process goes well, the material that has been inserted into an area opened up between the vertebrae adheres and hardens, ending the cycle of disc fragments or hardened spinal fluid wreaking havoc with nerves. The goal is the end of spasms or shooting pains, and since it is an area where there is virtually no rotation, there should be little if any loss of range of motion. It gives Woods a chance to take a clear-minded, healthy and pain-free cut at the once ball again.

OK, that's way above my pay grade, and it seems a bit premature to assume it's worked to the extent that the back will now endure the rigors of professional golf.

Jaime does fill in how that podcast came about, as well as skirt a certain recent issue:

When in public, Woods seems to be carrying himself more lightly. At the Presidents Cup, he interacted easily with the team and engaged in a memorable hug with Phil Mickelson. 

I'm just glad to see a girlfriend without the peroxide.

Some of his tweets have been humorous. Last week he devoted more than an hour to a podcast hosted by UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma (a good friend of Woods’ caddie, Joe LaCava). When it came to his game, he couldn’t suppress his enthusiasm. “I can’t believe how far I’m hitting the golf ball.” 

Woods didn’t discuss the elephant in the room, his arrest in May for suspicion of driving under the influence, but the aftereffects could be a net positive. Certainly video of his sobriety tests were embarrassing, and Woods had to appear in court last month to plead guilty to a reduced charge of reckless driving. But after 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, who turned his own life around after a DUI arrest, told the New York Times he considered Woods’ mistake “a massive scream for help,” the incident began to be widely considered as an opportunity for Woods to take stock.

Of course Jaime elide his original theory that Tiger's fall from grace was a function of the shame he feels from the original scandal back in 2009.   I can't leave with this amusing appeal to authority:

Two more aged Hall of Famers—Lee Trevino, 77, and Lanny Wadkins, 67 —both have had a long history with back problems. Both described excruciating pain that was completely alleviated in their most recent back surgeries that were similar to Woods’. 

Wadkins in 2008 had double spinal fusion on higher vertebrae than those Woods was operated on. “It was immediate improvement,” he said. “Just a little soreness, and then making sure I did no twisting for three months. But because the pain had gone away, I couldn’t wait to do the rehab. I became the go-in-early-and-stay-late guy. Within five months, I was hitting drivers, which is the easiest club to hit post surgery. The short irons force you to bend over a little more and stay in your spine angle. 

“I really lost very little, if anything. Unfortunately, I did it at a time when my competitive career was basically over. Maybe a little rotation, but that goes as we get thicker anyway. Tiger is in so much better shape, he may rotate just as much.”

Don't be modest, Lanny, you were always plenty thick....

Bad Advice About Bad Weather -  Jessica Marksbury offers the following advise for playing golf in bad weather, though it's unclear for whom the advice is intended:

RAIN 

Preparation is key when it comes to playing in the rain. First, you need to gather your arsenal: 

- Umbrella

- Rain gloves

- Rain hood (for clubs)

- Waterproof hat

- Waterproof shoes

- Towels—big ones! 

Next: Stay organized. Make sure you know where everything is located so you don't waste precious moments fumbling around in your bag as it starts pouring. 

When it's time to tee off, open that umbrella and hang some extra gloves and towels on the ribs underneath. Plan on keeping the umbrella open for the entirety of your round, unless the rain stops. Use the towel to dry your grips before every shot. If you opt to use regular gloves instead of rain gloves, the towel is also handy for keeping your hands dry.

Staying as dry and warm as possible will make a world of difference, so try to minimize your practice swings and time spent out from under the umbrella. 

One last tip: after you replace your ball on the green after marking, keep your umbrella over it as long as possible to reduce the amount of water that falls on the ball before you putt.

A minor query, Jess.... when playing a shot, what do you think your followers will do with the umbrella?   Unless it's a Tour pro with his own sherpa, or we're in Scotland where the caddies only take one bag, umbrellas are very difficult to manage out there.

In fact, she elides the threshold decision to be made when normal people play in the rain, namely, do I use my everyday glove and try to keep the grips dry, or do I resort to my rain gloves and allow everything to get soaked.

 But she's all over cold weather golf... Layers.  Who knew?

A Buried Lede - The New York Post had this take on Winged Foot and a certain member thereof:

President Donald Trump is a member of the elite Winged Foot Golf Club in Westchester,

and members have come out swinging because the club will not honor him by putting up a POTUS portrait. 

Insiders say that the Republicans among the 800 members of the exclusive golf club — which charges as much as $200,000 in initiation fees — have been lobbying for a portrait of Trump to be erected inside Winged Foot’s stone clubhouse. But opponents aren’t putting up with it. 

One insider said, “Trump has been a member since 1969, and there is a big push to honor him at the club. We should be proud that the president of the United States is a member of Winged Foot: It is prestigious to have him here. But the senior club management has refused to put up a Trump portrait,” the source added. 

There is speculation that the decision not to honor Trump is either to avoid driving a wedge between members — who include many prominent New York law firm partners and investment bankers — or a financial move so as not to offend any charities or organizations that may wish to hold events there.

I can see both sides of this argument quite clearly, as golf should be a refuge from politics.  A safe space, if you will.... Heck, I'd even be inclined to side with management, but there was this:

“Each member has a locker with their name on it, but Mr. Trump’s name has been mysteriously taken down. Some members are outraged because there seems to be no justification, apart from, perhaps, too many people were trying to take selfies at Trump’s locker, or they simply don’t want to advertise his membership.” 

Club President Thomas Leslie — an attorney and managing shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, which was one of Hillary Clinton’s top contributors in the last election cycle — didn’t return calls.

 But here's the buried lede:

The insider continued, “It seems the leaders of Winged Foot do not want to rock the boat and politicize the club, given that the US Open will be at Winged Foot in 2020.”

Let's see if I have the match correct.... Trump was elected in 2016 which means that he'll be running for reelection in....4+6 =10, carry the one....  OMG, could they have picked a worse year to host the Open?  Good luck keeping politics out of it....

Tuesday Tastings - Luddites on Parade

For alliterative reasons, they really should have waited a couple of days....  But seemingly everyone has donned their rose-colored glasses and the zeitgeist is wistfully nostalgic.

Just not sure how to order these items....

The Talented Mr. Ridley - OK, Fred won't actually make an appearance, but the subject is again the hope that Augusta National will save us from ourselves.  Shack posts on this with a John Wood excerpt from this weeks Tour Confidential:

When we talk bifurcation and a Masters ball, incredulous golfers always ask, "but how could it ever work?" This, despite living in a country that put men on the moon nearly

five decades ago and solving to all but the most basic problems. 

Nonetheless, I understand the concerns with multiple manufacturers and the propensity for cheating in today's sports. So I give you John Wood, caddie for Matt Kuchar, keen observer of the game and regular contributor to Golf.com's weekly roundtable. 

The gang was kicking around Tiger's distance comments and as most of us bifurcation talkers are prone to do, looked toward Augusta, Georgia for guidance. Here's how Wood thinks it would work:

I’ve been saying this about Augusta for years. "Gentleman, you are cordially invited to participate in the Masters Invitational for the year ____. Under a new Invitational requirement, we have forwarded our specifications for a legal golf ball for our tournament to your equipment companies. Should they like to design a ball for you under these specifications, we would be more than pleased for you to play it. If they choose not to, we will provide you with three options of a ball meeting our requirements. One will launch high, one will launch low, and one will launch in the middle of those two. We wish you the best of luck." The long ball, for lack of a better word, is sexy...to the USGA, to the R&A, to the PGA Tour...and to be honest, it sells tickets, so they aren’t about to do anything about it. Last year, the statistics say the driving distance leader on the PGA Tour averaged 317 yards. That sounds out of control. But anyone who has spent any time at all out here knows that, weather depending, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau and countless others hit their driver 330-plus every time they bring it out of the bag. That’s the truth that statistics don’t show. When Tiger was one of the longest on Tour, averaging around 300 yards per drive, he was way out front, AND he was using a 43-inch steel-shafted driver and what was known to be one of the softest and spinniest balls on Tour. So, yes, hopefully Tiger’s words now will have some impact on the future.

OK, as interesting as it is, it hardly touches the surface of how this could work, much less whether the club has the will to take this on.  It's interesting that he sees them offering a ball, but allowing the manufacturers to also develop a ball conforming to their specs.

Not only is the development of a golf ball a lengthy process, but the players have adapted their equipment and even their swings to the modern ball.  No doubt the folks that run The Masters believe they have created the preeminent golf tournament on the planet, confirmed by the USGA's obsession with their TV ratings....  Are they prepared, and do we even want them to put this all at risk because the governing bodies don't govern?

It wasn't that long ago that Lee Trevino boycotted the Masters.....  Is it inconceivable that DJ or Brooks would say that, under such circumstances, that The Masters is now a throwback event, like the World Hickory Championship.  In fact, might Sandy Lyle show up with his hickories and do well?

Worst Appeal to Authority Evah - This is a bit of a throwaway, though there is a serious point involved.  But I'm only human, and when one of our favorite pinatas ventures into the field of play, I can't resist:

Legendary caddie Steve Williams has spoken out about the use of detailed yardage books saying the information they contain is removing an element of skill from the game. 

During his guest appearance on Episode 32 of The iSeekGolf Podcast, the New Zealander said yardage books with comprehensive information on greens' slopes, which have become commonplace on major professional golf tours, should not be allowed. 

“There’s no doubt that a lot of the information that’s getting provided now is taking a lot of the skill and the art and the natural gift [out] of playing the game,” Williams told The iSeekGolf Podcast. 

“I’m totally against greens reading books. I think it’s a skill of the game not to have a book provided that absolutely gives you a detailed description of the green and if you read the book accurately, you know exactly how far your putt’s going to break.”

I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether the phrase "legendary caddie" is an oxymoron....

But this highlights an issue of increasing importance, namely that many of the recent technological breakthroughs are seemingly outside the ability of the governing organizations to control.  Think of launch monitors and Trackman.....  There's also the distinction that's always been maintained between factual information and advice.  

On the flip side, it's easy to dismiss the thoughts of Stevie Williams because...well, aren't there cameras he should be breaking?

Tech Match Play - This is the most interesting item on this subject, but you'll have to trust me that it's not just Laz Versalles' lede:

I vividly remember being a teenager watching the 1987 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club on television with my dad. The ever-stoic Scott Simpson made a slew of late birdies to dash the title hopes of my boyhood heroes Tom Watson and Seve Ballesteros. Simpson hit a feathery 9-iron from 125 yards into the 16th and I said to my dad, “I can do that.” My dad just laughed and shook his head. 

“Son, this is not the Rich Acres Par-3,” he said. “This is the U.S. Open.” I went right back at him. “I know,”I said, “but I can do that. My 9 iron goes 125 yards.”

Hmmm....that name rings a bell....  here's a slightly modified version of the Sports Illustrated cover from that week:

Amazingly, I think that's the first time I've posted that on the blog...  

Here's the premise of his post, which comes from equipment-centric GolfWRX:

Somewhere between my father’s 1987 dismissal of the crucible that was the Rich Acres

Par-3 and Koepka’s brutish dismantling of Erin Hills, golf has become a wildly different game. But is it a better game? Is it more entertaining to watch? Does the technology that facilitates the game for the masses belittle the game’s rich history? Most importantly, is today’s game more fun to play? I set off on a crusade to find out. 

Short of buying a silver DeLorean and traveling back in time to 1987, my best bet was to try and piece together the clubs I played as a teenager and pit them against my current set to see how they would match up. A Match of The Ages if you will; Teenage Me vs. Middle-Aged Me. The artistry of the late 20th century versus the power of the early 21st century. This was going to be fun.

My next excerpt requires a spoiler alert, but you really do want to read the whole thing...  It's a Readers Digest abridged version of The Match, with a shot-by-shot accounting of the match.  Here's the takeaway to be discussed below:

Middle-Aged Me may have won the match 5 & 4, but Teenage Me definitely won the fun 10 & 8. A big part of that fun was getting reacquainted with a game I hadn’t played in a

while. A game that was less about distance and more about shapes and trajectories. A game light on predictability and loaded with variety where a good drive didn’t mean wedges into every green. I saw the golf course as the architect had intended it to be seen, which let me appreciate more of its features. I’m not denying the element of novelty, but playing with my old teenage clubs — despite shooting 86 — was nothing short of inspiring. And to emphatically answer my original question; yes, it was a lot more fun.

10 & 8?  That's really gonna piss off Tiger....

But this is interesting, because he's making us (and especially me) challenge a long-held assumption, to wit, that the equipment improvements have been an unquestioned positive for our game.

The thinking has been that the game is so challenging, that making it easier make sit more fun and will bring folks to our game.  But, and shame on us all for not realizing this, there's something that's been lost in the process.  Shotmaking has been diminished as a skill, even at the hack level.  The folks that play hickories have been trying to tell us this for ages, but we've been too caught up in Jailbreak technology and the like....

Food for thought for all of us....

A Scribe's Tail of Woe - By now you've seen this in the sporting press:

Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but the sure did nail it....

But it turns out that there's a golf connection, via Alan Shipnuck:

This sordid tale begins in the spring of 2014. After years in the wilderness, Michelle Wie was suddenly resurgent, winning for the first time in four seasons and running off a string of high finishes. Her handlers at IMG have always fussed over her like overbearing parents, but I sold them on a big feature. I spent time with Wie at her home base in South Florida and a tournament in Atlantic City and then, in early June, turned in a long story that charted her growth from an overwhelmed teen phenom into a stylish, self-possessed young woman who had finally made peace with her place in the golf world. The story was slotted into the June 30, 2014, issue (as with every SI, it would go to press a week ahead of the issue date). That magazine had plenty of pages to spare because both the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals had been lopsided series that wrapped up earlier that month. Then, on June 22, Wie went out and won the U.S. Women's Open on an iconic course, Pinehurst No. 2. It was the breakthrough we had been waiting on for more than a decade, and the biggest story in women's golf in forever.

Alan went to his mailbox that week expecting that this would be the cover:

Here's Alan's coda:

Well, with Reiter using the bully pulpit of Internet fame to continue hazing me, I could think of only way to get some closure from this lingering trauma. On Thursday afternoon I begged Stone and various other editors to recreate the Wie cover that never was. At long last, here it is. 

Bite me, Reiter.

So much for the high road.....

Step Right Up and Greet the Mets... -  For the record, San Diego's Petco Stadium got there first....  But still seems like fun:

On assignment for my strange and fantastic job, I found myself heading to Queens for the opening of Stadiumlinks at Citi Field for a golf match against Mr. Met.

How many a side does Mr. met give you?

Mr. Met drops his head like Tiger....  But he seems to have the trash-talking thing down:

Scenes From Chubbyland - John Huggan scores some time with the Chubster, and first brings us up to date on his divorce from Lee Westwood:

It went public just before the Open Championship in July. After more than 24 years together, it was announced that 10-time European Ryder Cup player Lee Westwood

would no longer use International Sports Management founder and agent Andrew (Chubby) Chandler to handle his business affairs. And now, after four months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the formal split between these former close friends is complete. 

“Lee and I concluded the legal stuff this week,” Chandler says. “Everything that has to be signed has now been signed. A short statement is all that will be said publicly about that. There is a confidentiality agreement in place. Now we all start again.” 

Understandably, long-held emotional ties may take a little longer to heal. Speaking exclusively to Golf World, Chandler expressed some sadness at what has come to pass. Westwood, the 23-time European Tour winner who is now represented by IMG, wasn’t saying as much, but it is understood that the relationship between the two men is all but non-existent, or “less than zero” as one figure close to the situation put it.

That's really quite sad, given how close they were.  This is the extent of what Chubby will say about the exodus of clients:

Looking ahead, Chandler is determined not to repeat any mistakes of the past. “I didn’t realize until all this happened how drawn I was to Lee and Darren [Clarke],” said Chandler, Westwood and Clarke being two of the original clients he took on when starting his company in the early 1990s. “Even though it never showed and they are great mates, there was always a little bit of competition for my time. I now have dinner with a bigger variety of people. I got so close with Lee and Darren that it was Where are we having dinner? every night. Without realizing, I was neglecting some of my other clients. I should have been eating with more of them more often. But that has changed now. The dynamic has changed.”

I'm going way out on a limb to suggest that more dinners is not the answer for Chubby....  Joking aside, this may explain why Rory and Danny Willett left, but leaves the Westwood divorce shrouded in mystery.

But Chubby continues to scheme, including this new format that smells like a misfire to me:

By way of example, next year’s European Challenge Tour is expected to feature an event that Chandler has a hand in in which par will be every player’s “friend.” In a bid to finally win the seemingly never-ending battle with slow play, every competitor will be banned from putting for par. As soon as a birdie has not been achieved, it will be ball-in-pocket and on to the next hole. 

“It won’t just be that par doesn’t count. The players will be banned from putting out once they haven’t made a birdie,” Chandler says. “That way they will all be round in three hours. We will have two points for a birdie, five for an eagle and eight for an albatross. That’s been done before. But no putting for par, which counts as zero. So you can’t knock it out of a bunker to four-feet and putt for par. Not allowed. And that’s where things will speed up.” 

Players will also get double points if they hole-out from off the green, and all points will double on the last three holes. “Everybody is in with a chance right to the end,” Chandler says. “That might all turn out wrong. But it could also be really exciting. We’ll see. We’re not changing the game that much. We’re just making it quicker and getting rid of the dull bits. No one really gives a bleep about eight-footers for par.”

It's nothing more than a whacked-out modified Stableford, but bogey-avoidance is a useful skill out there....

I'm very much a "Try anything" adherent, but do we really want to exclude exciting recovery shots from our game?

Time to get on with you day, not to mention my own....