Tuesday Tidbits

Just a heads up that you'll be on your own tomorrow....  But we'll cover anything that needs to be covered on Thursday.

Needing No Introduction - NBC has introduced its new lead analyst, whose decision to accept the gig makes him sound like any other fan:

Paul Azinger is cackling again at the other end of the line. 

The 1993 PGA champion with a giant personality has always enjoyed a good laugh,

always been able to chuckle at himself. He’s always been quick with the needle, too, and always sees the glass as half full. A cancer survivor for 25 years now, he continues to be a 58-year-old kid at heart. And right now, he’s downright giddy. 

“How good is golf going to be? How good is life right now with Tiger Woods in the mix?” Azinger said as he erupted in a long burst of joy, knowing that he’s back in the vortex that is Tiger Woods.

Frankly, the biggest surprise to me is that Zinger wanted to work that hard, though here's the skinny on that:

He has signed on for 14 events while also retaining his role as lead analyst at Fox Sports for the U.S. Open and the U.S. Women’s Open. Such is his gift for garrulousness that he has been granted permission to work for both networks. 

How hot a commodity is Zinger? A third outlet requested his services, but he declined an offer to sit in the tower for Turner Sports in its coverage of The Match, next month’s pay-per-view exhibition in Las Vegas in which Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson vie for a winner-take-all $9 million pot.

I'm thinking that last bit was a good call....   As for this bit, well I'll just hope he's less confusing in the booth:

“A change like this doesn’t seem that significant to me because they still have their whole team in place, and it’s a great team,” said Azinger, 58, who actually got his first shot at TV commentary when NBC producer Tommy Roy asked him to sit in during the 1995 Ryder Cup at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y. “They’re just going to get a different voice from the booth, but with thoughts similar to Johnny’s, more or less. I’ll just say it differently. 

“The unique thing about Johnny is that he would boo a bad shot, but you never heard him boo. He just told it like it was. Golfers don’t get booed. He booed them without saying boo. He booed them with honesty that he had when assessing a golf shot.

The big reveal relates to a possible curtain call as Ryder Cup captain:

In 2008, Paul Azinger became the first U.S. Ryder Cup captain in nearly a decade to lead a team to victory, doing so at Valhalla with his innovative “pod” system and a player-driven approach to leadership. 

In the wake of that victory there were many, including the vast majority of his players, who said Azinger deserved a second chance to captain, but at the time the 12-time PGA Tour winner appeared to be undecided and the PGA of America named Corey Pavin the 2010 captain. 

On Monday, Azinger was named NBC Sports/Golf Channel’s lead analyst starting next year and among many revelations during an extended interview on “Morning Drive” he explained how much he wanted a second chance to captain. 

“I wanted to do it again, I lobbied to do it again after we won in ’08, but I think I waited a little too long and they had already made a decision,” Azinger said. “The excuse I got was that there are more captains than there are Ryder Cups and I thought that was fair, but then they asked [Tom] Watson to do it again shortly afterward and I was like, ‘What, huh?’”

As I recall, he was reluctant to commit, and who could really blame him?  The magic was unlikely to recur....  But he's also showing a little cluelessness, because obviously that 2012 collapse required a really futile and stupid gesture.

The Forecaddie continues to break news, as that fourteen tourneys isn't the extent of his commitment:

The Forecaddie is most impressed with just how much work the 1993 PGA Champion will be doing, including the Masters.

“He’ll be there for the BBC and he’ll also be there working besides Brandel [Chamblee] and Mike Tirico, which I think is going to be a terrific add to our most-watched week,” said Golf Channel Executive Producer Molly Solomon. She also we should expect to see Azinger start off the year at Kapalua and the Sony Open for Golf Channel-only broadcasts, as well as “a lot of Paul Azinger on Golf Channel on Thursdays and Fridays.”

Amusingly, they've also seen fit to give Zinger a Secret Service code name:

As for how the deal went down, Roy revealed that once Miller had decided to retire this summer Azinger was called. 

“I wanted to meet at a place where there was a pretty good chance we wouldn’t be recognized from people in the world of golf,” Roy said. A Ruby Tuesday’s halfway between Roy and Azinger’s Florida homes
 was chosen near Ocala. A code name was born. 

“Whenever we have big-time deals at NBC, we operate in total secrecy, so from that time forward when we had any internal texts or communications on this, we always referred to Paul as Ruby Tuesday.” 

Now The Man Out Front has one more place to check when he suspects a big deal is in the works. And getting Azinger to work so much looks like a very big deal to The Forecaddie.

I'd have gone with The Podfather, but reasonable people can differ....

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics -  Shack has blogged this Dave Dusek statistical analysis, and the best analogy is Rashomon.

Here's Dusek's header:

Golf by the numbers: Distance off tee not ultimate advantage for PGA Tour players

As contrasted to Geoff's:

Mothers, Don't Let Your Sons And Daughters Grow Up To Be Average Length Straight Hitters

This is all PGA Tour data, so we'll ask Shack to keep our daughters out of this.... Really, haters gonna hate.  But what does the date really say?

As you can see in the chart below, the average driving distance on the PGA Tour last season was 296.1 yards, up 1.23 percent from the previous season’s 292.5. The average on the Web.com Tour also went up, from 302.9 yards to 304.9 yards.

We've seen these numbers before, and that three yards per year might seem small, but just like compound interest....

I'm unsure what happened in 2011-13, but the last five years tells a very specific story....

Duske then correlates driving distance with success, mercifully using cold hard cash in lieu of FedEx Cup points:

See those dots at the upper right?  Remember, distance is supposed to be an advantage....But to Shack's disappointment, Dusek has not found a threshold change in the underlying relationship:

The average PGA Tour player last season won $1,329,295, but the chart shows some of the biggest hitters – such as Rory McIlroy, Tony Finau, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas – earned significantly more. At the same time, other players who have high driving-distance averages — such as Trey Mullinax, Harold Varner and Robert Garrigus — earned less. As a group, the 20 longest hitters on the PGA Tour averaged more than $3.5 million in prize money last season, which was 164 percent more than the Tour average. 

As massive as that percentage may seem, it falls within a range that goes several years. In 2017, the 20 longest hitters on the PGA Tour averaged 123 percent more prize money than the PGA Tour average. In the three seasons before that, they earned about 150 percent more, which tells us that as distance off the tee has increased over the last few years, the longest hitters have maintained an edge in terms of earnings.

So, while this increased length triggers legitimate concerns, it doesn't seem to have change competitive balance, at least in these last few years:

The data from the 2017-18 PGA Tour season shows that pros are getting even longer off the tee, and the USGA and R&A are probably very concerned about that. But it does not appear that the longest hitters in professional golf are getting a more significant edge over their competition. The ability to hit the ball a long way with driver always has given players an edge, and that edge seems to be holding steady as yardages increase.

Of course, the far larger issue has always been that chicks dig the long ball....

The Kid vs. The Kidd -  Tom Doak has always been the Johnny Miller of architects, never afraid of saying what he really thinks of others' work.  And while we all know that David McLay Kidd have crossed paths a few time previously, I agree with Shack that his comments seem awfully personal....

Where to begin?  I guess inevitably at Bandon, their first encounter.  The Btit's original course at Bandon was the toast of the town, at least until Pacific Dunes opened, leading to this snark:

A few years ago they took part in a Q&A at Bandon Dunes, where Kidd’s original design opened to acclaim in 1999 but was overshadowed by Pacific Dunes two years later. What would you do differently, a questioner asked? 

“I’d go second!” Kidd shot back, as Doak laughed. 

“Usually it’s not an advantage because the first guy gets the best choice of ground. That didn’t happen in Bandon because Mike [Keiser] didn’t own all the ground,” Doak said.

Amusing, but misleading as well.  Kidd's career would never have happened without that Bandon course, so any residual bitterness seems misplaced.  In fact, if you read Dream Golf, one of the revelations is that Keiser probably thought he was hiring Kidd's well-known father, only to get stuck with the dauphin....

I'd be remiss if I didn't include this bit of their relationship as well:

The relationship between Doak and Kidd is always competitive, sometimes convivial and occasionally contentious. (In 2014, Doak rated a Kidd course in St. Andrews a “zero.”)

That was the famous Castle Course, about which nobody had anything nice to say....  Though, of course, Doak went out of his way to be dismissive of it with that zero....

Of greater interest than their little spat, here are Doak's comments about his new track at Wisonsin's Sand Valley:

Tom Doak waited more than 35 years for the opportunity that was presented to him this

summer, ever since he first saw Swinley Forest and Rye. Those two Harry Colt courses in England – renowned for being short on yardage but long on challenge – are the genesis of Sedge Valley, Doak’s recently announced course at Wisconsin’s Sand Valley Resort. 

Great architecture exposes weaknesses in skill or judgment, and Doak’s proposed design probes the psyche even before a shot is struck. Sedge Valley is just 6,100 yards, par 68, guaranteeing that some will dismiss it sight unseen as too short to bother with, while others will assume it’s a pushover. 

“It will be easier to break 90 than on a 6,800-yard, par-72 course,” Doak concedes, “but it won’t be any easier to shoot a low score. The hardest golf course I know in relation to par is Rye, and it’s 6,300 yards, par 68.”

But then he gets oddly personal, strange given that he's had the upper hand previously:

Doak often has plowed a lonely furrow with his work – purists blanched at four par 3s on the back nine at Pacific Dunes and his reversible Loop layout at Forest Dunes. He knows quirk can be a tough sell, even with clients such as the Keiser family, who have demonstrated admirable enthusiasm for ingenuity at both Bandon Dunes and Sand Valley. 

“The hardest part will be to convince them to let me make it somewhat challenging,” Doak said. “I don’t think they think that’s a really important part of their business model, and the feedback on Mammoth Dunes says maybe they’re right. I don’t think that’s a difficult golf course and people love it.” 

Mammoth Dunes was designed by David McLay Kidd, with whom Doak has had a robust rivalry since they built the first two courses in Bandon. Kidd had lobbied for Doak to get Sand Valley’s third job (Coore and Crenshaw preceded Kidd). 

“He’s really competitive with me and he really wants to beat me head to head, which he can’t do if I don’t do a golf course there,” Doak laughs.

Substantively, it seems that Doak is arguing that the trend towards width has perhaps gone too far, though he admits that they're digging it.  Though Doak's own work at Bandon, Pacific as well as Old Macdonald, is very much of the same....

I'm guessing what he's really saying is that his specific site, which lent itself towards a shorter course because of the specific locations for tees and greens, will be more interesting if he's allowed to make it play a little tougher, which is really an issue between Doak and the Keisers.....

Here's Shack's take:

Given that the course is years away from opening, it’s odd that Doak seems more obsessed with countering Kidd’s design than quietly going about building a great course and letting the results speak for themselves. But maybe this faux drama is what the “retail golfer” clamors for.

Keiser is wont to speak of the "Retail golfer", hence Shack's to me misplaced snark.  That retail golfer has been awfully well-served by Keiser's efforts, and I guess we'll allow them a little faux drama to get us talking about the resort.

I'll also remind that we want the courses to be different from one another, otherwise what's the point?  Doak's vision for this piece of land was sufficiently enticing for him the get the gig....  I don't mind that they've a little rivalry, but the focus should be on the golf course.

Seven Is a Stretch - Mike Bamberger (yes, I took him to the woodshed, recently, but I've moved on) has a new feature on the seven best things in golf each week.  As you can imagine, seven can tax one's resources this time of year....  He did a Polo event with Tom Watson that he milks for about half his quota:

5. MODIFIED SCOTCH-FOURSOME GOLF 

Watson will tell you that the greatest links golfer ever was Peter Thomson, who died this year. But Watson has five British Opens and three British Senior Opens. He loves

everything about golf in the kingdom, including the form of the game seldom played in these parts, what used to be known as Scotch Foursomes and what we typically call Alternate Shot. I played in another event recently, a 27-hole one-day thing in which 18 holes were played as modified alternate shot. The modification was significant and purists will detest it but I thought it was great: both members of each two-person team play tee shots, one of the shots gets selected, and then you alternate shots all the way into the hole from there. Play moves. You quickly develop, for good or for bad, team chemistry. You get to play more shots but you also find yourself all-in on what your partner is doing, in a way you might not be in a typical better-ball match. I urge you to try it.

There's not much of that left even in Scotland these days, though all of those alternate formats can be good fun.

2. GOLF WITH WAY FEWER THAN 14 CLUBS 

I mean, way fewer. I played in a little, informal event the other day, just nine holes, on a short course, and you could only carry four clubs. OMG, was it fun! (I brought a driver, putter, sand wedge and 7-iron.) The PGA Tour should have a four-club event. Not seven clubs. Four. The equipment companies would maybe hate the idea, but TV would love it and it would be absolutely fascinating to see what the players would do if they had to manipulate one shot after another after another, by way of stance and swing. Seven clubs, a number discussed now and again in this context, is not extreme enough. I can’t tell you how many bad decisions I made over the course of these nine holes, typically when I had to decide between the sand iron and the 7-iron. The event was in my head. It was great.

There's a bonus Vijay sighting, and even a reference to his ongoing lawsuit.   

That Took a Long Time... - Really, you can't make this stuff up:

Finally, a slow-play penalty, though it was called in PGA Tour Champions event and...not on Bernhard Langer

You're not going to believe this.... who am I kidding, of course you will:

Slow play is akin to the weather in that everyone talks about it, but nothing is ever done

about it. Until, oddly, the final round of a PGA Tour Champions tournament on Sunday. 

After completing play in the Dominion Energy Charity Classic, Corey Pavin was informed by PGA Tour Champions tournament official Michael Petch that he was being assessed a one-stroke penalty. Instead of shooting an even-par 72, he posted a one-over 73 and finished in a tie for 15th.

Now this also serves as a commentary on the state of journalism, as John Strege can't be bothered explaining the circumstances under which this penalty was imposed.....

Lanny is of course available to howl at the moon:

“Of all the things to happen with all the times,” he said on the telecast, "Cory Pavin, I have played, I can’t even count the number of rounds, I never thought Corey Pavin was a slow player. All the guys we know are slow players have never been penalized out here. Where has this been for the last 15 years?” 

Good question.

gee, is I were a cynical sort, I might think they're not serious about this issue.... 

Weekend Wrap

Let's see...The Dodgers are back in the Series, Ohio State got trounced....and....What?  Not what you came here for?

Brooksie's The One - The 30-second summary seems ideally suited to my attention span:

Winner: Brooks Koepka by four shots over Gary Woodland 

Why it matters: With his victory at the CJ Cup, the PGA Tour Player of the Year is set

to ascend to the No. 1 ranking in the world on Monday when the new rankings are released. 

How it played out: Koepka entered the final round up four strokes and firmly in command of the lead. However, that lead was all but eliminated after Koepka bogeyed two of his first four holes. Taking advantage of the three-time major champion’s slip-up, Gary Woodland closed in on the lead with four consecutive birdies. But after a three-putt par on 9 to close out the front half of his final round, Koepka turned on the jets and finished strong. He would birdie five of his next seven holes before delivering the death blow with an eagle on 18 to close out the win.

The Tour Confidential panel debates whether Brooks is our new alpha dog:

1. Brooks Koepka picked up his third win of 2018 at the CJ Cup — and his sixth top-10 finish in his last 13 starts — to ascend to No. 1 in the World Ranking. After a year in which the golf world (and Koepka himself) has spent much time debating Koepka’s place in the game, what does this latest achievement mean for his status? 

Jeff Ritter: It’s another notch in the ol’ career achievement belt, and it’s a big one. No. 1 in the world is one of golf’s most exclusive clubs — he’s the 23rd player to reach the summit since the rankings were unveiled in 1986. Koepka already powered his way to golf’s top tier with his two major wins this year. This is further validation.

To paraphrase Groucho, are you sure you want to belong to a club that's had Lee Westwood and Luke Donald as members?  Not all No. 1's are the same....

Alan Shipnuck: It codifies what we’ve known for a while: Koepka is the best player in golf, full stop. More than any other top player, he is a cold-blooded closer, and we saw that again in Korea with his final-round 64 and walk-off eagle.

That's a very supportable position, and I'd hate to argue against a guy that's won three of the last six majors in which he's pegged it.  But the entire body of work has been a little short, not that there isn't time for him to fill in the gaps.

And this, which seems a tad repetitive:

2. What did you learn about Koepka in 2018 that you didn’t know a year ago? 

Ritter: I was one of the misguided souls who underplayed Koepka’s win at the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills, because I thought he benefited from a bomb-and-gouge setup. And when he missed time earlier this year with a wrist injury, I thought he might not be a factor this season. Wrong, and wrong again. His power game travels, and he posses a bigger clutch gene than I ever realized, as evidenced by the way he held off Tiger on Sunday at the PGA.

Like all of us, Jeff, so don't be so hard on yourself.  

Shipnuck: How hot he burns. I’ve seen it up close in the gym, and in the media center. The too-cool-for-school vibe he likes to project isn’t reflective of how much he cares.

Yeah, I figured that from all the whining about the lack of media coverage...

This is a more interesting question:

3. Koepka is the fourth player to hold the No. 1 ranking this year, joining Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose. Over the next several years which player (in that group or not) will bank the most time in the top spot?

Ritter: After all this gushing about Brooks, I’m probably going to regret selling him

short again, but I think Justin Thomas currently has the best combo of skill, health and desire. He’s my pick by a nose over Brooks, DJ and Spieth. 

Zak: I’ll go with Brooks. He plays all over the world. He’s obviously silly-talented, and is just 28 years old. More Tour wins are bound to come which will just buoy him up atop the ranking for a long while. 

Shipnuck: Man, this is tough. They’re all consistently playing at such a high level. Rose has shown some Sunday vulnerabilities, and Johnson can’t get it done in the majors, where the most points are up for grabs. So it’s a toss-up between Koepka and JT, and right now it’s hard to pick against Brooks in anything. 

Dethier: Koepka wants to be No. 1 and he’ll continue to be. I have plenty more ink to spill on the subject, but this feels like the beginning of Koepka’s reign atop the golf world, just as Rory, Spieth, DJ and (briefly) JT rose to the top in recent years. Term limits tend to be short, and nothing’s guaranteed. But I see Koepka up top for a while.

Koepka's been out there for a shorter time, and yet has a 3:1 lead in majors over all three.....  Pretty strong argument.....  Though to me the biggest surprise is that Justin Rose could improve his putting to such an extent, and yet get so little out of it.....  And no, I'm not forgetting the FedEx Cup, though I'm still a little scarred from watching his play in that final round.

Shack goes a silly place with this change at the top:

Is "World No. 1" Status Enhanced Or Diminished By Recent Revolving Door?

I'm going to go with "yes", final answer.

It's an algorithm that's most useful for qualification purposes to things like WGC's.  When there's a clear best player in the world, we don't need no stinkin' algorithm to confirm what we see with the naked eye.  When there's no clearly dominant player, it's gonna look silly at times, as with the aforementioned Lee Westwood.

As for the future, perhaps the guys should be very afraid:

He has five PGA Tour wins, seven more internationally, and now he’s dethroned Johnson to become the undisputed top player in the world. He’s halfway to the career Grand Slam and, realistically, that’s the next plateau for Koepka as he continues to force his way into the discussion. 

Koepka can knock off the third leg in April at Augusta National, and there’s still time to find a new slight – Woods, Johnson, Thomas, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy all were favored over Koepka by Las Vegas oddsmakers to win the 2019 Masters as of Sunday morning. 

“I haven’t figured out Augusta yet,” said Koepka, who missed the Masters last spring due to injury. “I’m looking forward to finally going back and trying to figure out how to really take advantage of that golf course, because I feel with my game I definitely can.”

 Rory certainly should be, as he's the guy that needs that one.  But who do we think gets the career slam first, Brooks or Phil, Rory or Jordan?  And yes, that's a trick question of sorts, since those others guys already have three locked down.

Johnny B. Goode - This is quite late, but that TC panel took on the issue of Johnny's legacy:

4. After 29 years as the game’s most candid and polarizing commentator, Johnny Miller of NBC Sports is hanging up his mic. How would you characterize Miller’s impact on golf commentating?

Ritter: He’s an original voice in a sport with, let’s face it, an abundance of pretty vanilla analysis. His fearlessness also helped pave the way for other big and bold personalities — like Chamblee and Feherty, to name two — to find their own place in the game. 

Zak: Alarming (in a good way). He had a way of catching your ears with a couple quick criticisms or observations. Golf broadcasts constantly never “go there,” but Johnny was never afraid to. (He was also a bit of a flip-flopper, can’t forget that, but I suppose we all are.)

Shipnuck: Massive. He was in many ways the voice of the entire sport.

Does anyone remember how bad Ken Venturi was?  The bar was set pretty low, admittedly, but at least he wasn't Dave Marr.

5. Stepping in for Miller is 12-time PGA Tour winner Paul Azinger. Did NBC hire the right guy? If not, who would you have tapped for the job? 

Ritter: I’ve enjoyed Azinger’s work on Fox and, previously, ESPN. He’s honest, quick-witted and unafraid to call it like he sees it. If it was my job to make the hire at NBC, Azinger would’ve been my first call. For my second call, I’d ring ‘Zinger again and leave another message. 

Zak: We’ll see. He’s been pretty great for FOX, so as long as we keep getting that guy many more weeks a year, I’m in. 

Shipnuck: I’m a big Azinger fan, too. All these years he’s had basically a part-time gig, and it felt like he was being a little careful, perhaps angling for something bigger. Now that’s he’s landed such a plumb position I hope he lets it rip, because a wise-cracking, sardonic Azinger will great TV.

Dethier: Zinger’s been great. But it’s tough to keep the edge sharp when you’re out there every week, which is where Johnny has succeeded. Other calls? I’d pursue Tony Romo, but he’s locked in with CBS so he’d be a tough get. (That’s a joke. I think.)

Let me first say that I think they picked the right guy, mostly because I can't come up with another viable alternative.  But I do think Dylan Dethier's caveat is worth keeping in mind.

That said, let me leave you with an amusing if imponderable thought.  How would our evaluation of Zinger differ is we hadn't endured that one year of The Shark?  It's easier to look good behind the mic (I know, but Joe Buck does invite us into the booth) when you succeed Mumbles....

A Year In Time - It's been a year since Adidas dumped TaylorMade, though it's hard to know which entity has benefited more.  Dylan Dethier scores an interview with the seller's Jeff Lienhart which is notable only for the excess B-school jargon:

GOLF: How has this year been different after Adidas sold TaylorMade? 

Jeff Lienhart: It has been a year of constant change, but also a year of establishing a foundation for Adidas Golf that’s right for our business. We have a mantra within our

four walls: “Born of sport, rooted in golf.” That pulls upon the heritage of our group — tied to the world’s greatest sports brand — but it also keeps everybody firmly planted in the idea that we have roots in the game of golf. We have to live and breathe golf. And we are absolutely a part of Adidas, but within the ecosystem of Adidas we have been able to establish ourselves as sort of an independent business that can support itself and can be more nimble and faster than the mothership can be. 

What is your relationship now with TaylorMade? What does that look like, day-to-day? Is Adidas Golf now functioning as a completely independent entity? 

JL: Yeah. Even when we were together we still basically ran separate operations that were entangled, and where there was opportunity for leverage we would take advantage of it — that would go both ways. Now, standing alone, we have the ability to tap into the relationships with TaylorMade we still have, but we’re also able to reach across the aisle and spend some time with other equipment managers where it makes sense. And now, more than ever before, we’re leaning on the bigger brand, Adidas out of Herzo, Germany.

Eco system...Mothership.... did we parachute into a Star Wars film?   This was interesting as well:

Take me through the process of choosing athletes, because having that connection to the larger sports world sets you guys apart. In getting players, does that come into play in the sales pitch? 

JL: We’ve always thought of the professional golfer as an athlete. For the longest time I don’t know that the consumer necessarily saw it that way. But the fitness level, the athleticism that these guys demonstrate on the biggest stages on a weekly basis on the greatest stages around the world, these guys are athletes. I would argue that Dustin Johnson, the No. 1 player of the world and a great ambassador for us, is probably the best athlete on Tour.

Yes, I can certainly see the synergy.  You guys make clothing and DJ brings lots of baggage to the table.... Or maybe they just want to hang with Paulina....

And while we were distracted speaking of scripting and the like, that company Adidas spun off has made some actual news:

TaylorMade will not take part in the 2019 PGA Merchandise Show, The Forecaddie has

learned. The deadline to commit came and went last week. The news is a blow to the annual January gathering of golf business principals. 

“After conversations with TaylorMade Professional Staff members and key leaders within the golf industry, we will be investing into growth initiatives that we believe will create even greater value for the game of golf,” wrote CEO David Abeles to TaylorMade staff professionals. “As a result of our additional spend, we have decided not to attend the 2019 PGA Merchandise Show.” 

Abeles delivered the news after noting TaylorMade’s nearly 40-year dedication to the PGA of America and its members, insinuating that savings from eliminating the elaborate show effort will be part of a plan to broaden “support of PGA Professionals across the country.” Abeles said details would be announced in the “coming months.”

They seem to be on an upswing after the divestment, but these things can be awfully cyclical.  But the merchandise show, which has been quite a snooze in recent years, will now struggle to maintain relevance.

A Show Film About Nothing -  OK, I'll admit to being intrigued to see one specific scene, but other than that....

Last year, actress Margot Robbie earned broad acclaim — including an Oscar nomination — for her role as figure skater Tonya Harding. She could soon be playing another well-known athlete. 

As an LPGA Tour player in the 1980s, Jan Stephenson won three majors and 16 LPGA events as part of 41 worldwide victories. The Australian star also garnered attention for embracing and championing her appearance in marketing the tour. Stephenson’s imprint on the game went far beyond her on-course performance. She helped found the Women’s Senior Tour, where she played for several years, and dived into the course design business as well. She also produced a series of workout videos. 

The World Golf Hall of Fame announced last week that Stephenson would be among its 2019 class of inductees. She spoke with Golf Australia’s Inside the Ropes podcast about the honor and about her career. 

“We’ve talked about doing a movie,” Stephenson said in the interview. “Margot Robbie wants to play me.”

And how is that Women's Senior Tour doing?  I'm still having trouble understanding the basis for her enshrinement in the World Golf Hall of Fame, though I, Tonya was surprisingly good.  To be fair, that was all about Allison Janney, but still....

Media Notes - Just a couple of unrelated notes with which to have a little fun, first from Brendan Porath (this is from July, but for some reason showed up in my Twitter feed):

The subject is Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee, who is setting aside his full-time job this week to take up his former career as a pro and play the Senior Open. Phil’s comments on Chamblee:

“He and I don’t see eye to eye on anything. I just like people who build up the game. I view this as we’re all in the game of golf together. We all want to grow the game. We all want to make it better. And I feel like he’s made his commentating career on denigrating others. And I don’t care for that. I like people who help build the sport up and promote it for what it is, rather than tearing down and ridiculing others.”

OK, I never said there was a high degree of difficulty in this, as Phil is all about building up the game golf...except, you know, when he's putting a ball that's still moving....

But to me this is the howler:

That anyone would view Chamblee as making a career by denigrating others is an indictment on the hackneyed and useless fluff that is the status quo. Fear of backlash

from ruling bodies, sponsors, agents, and players corrupts too much coverage of the game. Chamblee is not Skip Bayless taking uninformed, intractable positions. He stands out because he doesn’t phony his way through it. He works to gather all different types of information and give an opinion based on his experience in the game. He can be wrong and get out over his skis, but the fact that he’s not afraid of that happening is what makes him one of the stronger analysts we have. 

This isn’t a call for coverage to get meaner but rather to stop the backlash against anything that’s a legitimate attempt at critical analysis. Brandel’s not mean and neither is Phil when he speaks out on something. I don’t know Brandel and, while I obviously think he’s good at what he does, I write this less as a defense of him and more as an objection to Phil thinking coverage of the game should operate this certain way.

Hmmm.... Got it, Phil's not mean.  Except you know, that shiv in Watson's back seemed kinda mean at the time....  

Back to that TC panel, in which their exit question was kind of interesting, and yielded some good stories:

6. Ahead of the opening round of the CJ Cup, an ill-informed reporter asked Justin Thomas why he struggled in the first round in 2017. “Actually, I shot 63,” Thomas fired back, before cracking a grin. What’s one question you’ve asked a pro — publicly or privately — that you’d like to have back?

Yanno, a mulligan of sorts....  More questions like this, please.

Dethier: Sometimes it’s the questions I DON’T ask that haunt me. As I was walking inside the ropes in Paris on the first afternoon of the Ryder Cup, I heard Steve Stricker asking Patrick Reed about Tiger and whether he was happy with the pairing. 

“I was just checking in and wondering, y’know, if you have any other feelings or desires,” Stricker said. Reed didn’t say much. Stricker continued, musing about Woods. “How was his energy level?” 

“It was good,” Reed answered. “It really was. It’s just, y’know…” and then he trailed off, suddenly aware of the presence of others, including myself. He and Stricker continued the conversation at a quieter murmur. Knowing what I know now, I’d have loved a follow up…

Great story, but why would Stricker ask him that, when it was a done deal?  I don't know that a follow-up would have been answered, but I'd have liked a lip-reader for the private words.

But this one is priceless:

Shipnuck: In 1994, when I was an intern at SI, I was given a fact-checking assignment on a story about Hal Sutton’s renaissance, which was due in part because the man nicknamed Halimony had recently remarried, to a stunner who was roughly half his age. Sifting through actual clippings in the vast SI library, I found conflicting reports as to whether this was Sutton’s fourth or fifth marriage, and I had a handful of other questions for him. This was pre-cell phones so early that Sunday I left word with Sutton’s agent, and the Tour, and various other folks, to please give Sutton my number and have him call me. I was dozing at my desk very late that night when a ringing phone jolted me awake. I answered it abruptly and it was Sutton. I didn’t really have time to compose myself and so I blurted out my first question: “Uh, Mr. Sutton, what number wife is this?” There was a long silence and then for a good 30 seconds he ripped me a new bunghole for my insensitivity. At the end of his monologue Sutton apologized, saying he was tired of the snickering about his love life. We moved on and I got the story fact-checked. It was his fourth wife….and they’re now divorced.

I had forgotten that moniker, which of course was priceless....  There's also comedy gold to be found in the logic of putting Halimony in charge of Ryder Cup pairings....  I mean, what could go wrong?

Late Week Lamentations

The hits keep on coming....First this:

Then this:

And Then There Was Snow....

Winter has arrived early in Vermont and we're hitting the slopes and making turns tomorrow! 

Killington opens to pass holders tomorrow, and the public on Saturday. North Ridge will be open and will require walking via the peak walkway to get to the slopes.

And yet, I know with near certainty that when I make my first trip to Utah the week after Thanksgiving that I'll be skiing mud.

Calamity For Sure - It's one of the cooler trophies in golf, though one needs to know his history.  In any event, Tiger got something in the mail that he's posted all over social media:

What kind of loft do we think it has?  Because back in the day their putters had 8-9 degrees of loft, as they were putting on shag carpet.

The grooves, though, seem a tad funky:

And, as Shack points out, this may be the last of its ilk:

One of the coolest—dopiest to the kids reading out there—trophies in golf arrived at Tiger’s house and he promptly posted multiple shots of the 2018 Tour Championship’s Calamity Jane trophy.

Because the world revolves around FedEx and the gobs of money they are paying for the FedExCup, the Calamity Jane may be a 2019 casualty of the Tour Championship shifting to a handicap tournament resolving only the FedExCup.

So enjoy!

Actually, the best analogy I've heard for the new event is to an auto race, where the lucky stiff at -10 will have the pole position....

Bedfellows, Strange -  I had been reliably informed that the man is toxic.... Simply not our kind, Dearie.  So, imagine my surprise:

Trump National Doral will host its first professional golf event in more than two years this winter. 

The PGA Tour Latinoamerica has agreed to bring its season finale, the Latinoamerica Tour Championship-Shell Championship, to the Doral, Fla., resort’s Golden Palm Course. The dates for the event, which features the top 60 players on the tour’s money list, are Nov. 29-Dec. 2. 

“We are looking forward to welcoming the best talent on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica to Trump National Doral when they take on the Golden Palm for their final event of the season,” said Eric Trump, Executive Vice President of The Trump Organization. “The golf course is in impeccable shape and ready to challenge many of the best players in the world. As to the spectator experience, there is nothing like the hospitality of the famed Trump Doral.”

If these folks didn't have double standards....  well, you can fill in the rest.  And Miami is in Latin America, right?

Now Islay Me Down To Sleep.... - It's a long way to go for a pun, but exciting news from my current great white whale:

Seven years ago, former European Tour player D.J. Russell was summoned to the Isle of Islay, the southernmost island in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides chain, to iron out some of the

kinks at The Machrie, the famously quirky 1891 Willie Campbell links that used to have a dozen or more blind shots. 

“When I first got involved it was just to tweak a couple of things,” Russell recalled. But the project steadily mushroomed. “By tweaking a couple of things,” he added, “it became pretty obvious that we could do a lot more things. … We gained so much comfort with every step we made and realized that we could create something extremely special.” Design changes to a few holes turned into a total reinvention of the links, which reopened in 2017. 

Along with that came a six-hole short course, a practice range with five covered bays, an instructional area with Trackman technology, a putting course and extensive short-game area – everything you would expect to find at a top resort, except a hotel.

 And the real news is that they've got that hotel thing covered....  But lots of history to be found:

The Machrie holds a unique place in Scottish golf history. Gordon Dalgleish, a Scotsman who co-founded tour operator PerryGolf, noted that in 1901, James Braid, John Henry Taylor and Harry Vardon played a match on Islay for £100, almost as much as the British Open prize fund that year. 

In 1935, The Machrie hosted the Western Isles Open Championship, which offered prize money equal to the Open. By the 2000s, however, the remote island resort located 25 miles from the mainland had lost favor. The Machrie went bankrupt in 2010 and was acquired in mid-2011 by former BBC chairman Gavyn Davies and his wife, Baroness Sue Nye, a top aide to former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

I'd pop for the Great Triumvirate on pay-per-view before Tiger v. Phil... In any event, having gotten my sorry self to Machrihanish and Ashkernish, this is now Numero Uno on my list.  And it also tees up a return to the Mull of Kintyre, as well as other eccentric options:

Baker added that he would recommend that his clients pair The Machrie with a few days on the southern end of the Kintyre Peninsula, where they could play Machrihanish and Machrihanish Dunes. He would even send more adventurous travelers down to the tip of the peninsula to play Dunaverty Golf Club, or to Shiskine, a 12-holer on the Isle of Arran, east of the peninsula. 

Like The Machrie, all of those links, with the exception of Machrihanish Dunes, predate 1900. It would be, Baker said, “a real treat for the links aficionado looking for golf as it was a century ago.” Dalgleish, from PerryGolf, said he expects his American clients will be interested in The Machrie, though he anticipates most of the business will come from the U.K. and Nordic countries. 

“For our audience, it certainly brings it into play for somebody who maybe has been to Scotland and is looking for something off the beaten track…” Dalgleish said.

 Now you know the details of my dark fantasy life....  Hope you don't think less of me for it.

A Hard Sell - Shane Ryan is peddling the unsaleable:

Fall golf: It matters, baby! 

Or at least that’s what the PGA Tour would like you to believe. As much as the players and the fans might crave an actual offseason—and as much as player participation and

TV ratings might indicate that, well, there kinda is an offseason—professional golf now circumnavigates the calendar. As I write this, Chez Reavie is leading a sanctioned event in South Korea. Next week, the stars will be out in Shanghai. And from Malaysia to Mexico to Vegas to the Barrier Islands of Georgia, the tour rolls on after the “big” tournaments of late summer have come and gone. 

The harsh question is, why should we care? 

Well, for one, the powers-that-be have done a solid job of attracting stars to a few of the events. Justin Thomas won last year’s inaugural CJ Cup in Korea and is back to defend, bringing along the PGA Tour player of the year, Brooks Koepka, with him. And Jordan Spieth just announced that he’ll play the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas in two weeks.

Who ya calling baby?  Seriously, you're trying to sell me on its importance with two photos of... Patton Kizzire?   The man whose hot start in the Fall of 2017 led to.... well, pretty much nothing.

Putting aside the appeal of the fall swing, and the tour’s clever ways of ensuring participation, there’s a bigger narrative to contend with: The idea that success in the fall can jumpstart a player’s season, and potentially even establish a spot in the top 30 on the FedEx Cup points list that carries through to the Tour Championship a summer later. 

If that’s true, then sure, it’s a great argument for why the fall matters. It would be like telling an NFL team that if they play really well for the month of September, they can secure a spot in the playoffs. It adds a ton of significance—if you care about the Tour Championship, the narrative goes, then it’s wise to also care about the fall.

Yes, by all means put aside its appeal, a far better strategy than attempting to establishing the existence thereof.... 

There is a larger issue in all this, that they need the wraparound season to offer sufficient playing privileges for the web.com graduates and also-rans of the Tour.  The problem is that they can't make this matter enough, and it seemed better when it was a stand-alone portion of the schedule exclusively for that bottom tier to enhance their status.  

Freddy Who? - Jim Nantz with a story from back in the day:

Johnny Miller and Jim Nantz never worked together in a TV booth, but their first

encounter came at a golf tournament decades ago. Johnny just never knew it. 

Appearing on the KNBR Murph & Mac Podcast on Wednesday, Nantz told a fantastic — and random — tale about coming into contact with Miller at a Houston Open while Nantz was on the golf team at the University of Houston. Nantz was there with several of his teammates when Miller hit an errant shot near them in the crowd. And, well, we'll let one of golf's greatest storytellers take it from there: 

"We were in Johnny’s gallery and he hit it left on the 18th hole on a cart path. And I’m standing there with Freddie Couples and Blaine McCallister. And Johnny was waiting for an official to come over and get a drop and a lot of time was elapsing and Fred happened to say without Johnny seeing him, and said “Just hit it!” And Johnny turned around and said, 'Who said that?!’” Little did he know, that would be a guy who would join him one day in the World Golf Hall of Fame and whose career he would be covering. Fred just being a little fresh and a little smart, made a little crack from the gallery and Johnny was trying to like out, ‘which one of you guys said that?!'"

 Freddy never seemed to be the heckling type...  

The Yang To Yesterday's Yin - The ladies are rock stars in South Korea, though there's very much two edges to that sword:

For In Gee Chun, it’s a story about more than her victory Sunday at the KEB Hana Bank Championship. 

It’s about the other side of the Korean passion that runs so deep in women’s golf and that makes female players feel like rock stars. 

It’s about the unrelenting pressure that comes with all that popularity. 

Chun explained where her tears came from after her victory. She opened up about the emotional struggle she has faced trying to live up to the soaring expectations that come with being a young Korean superstar. 

Her coach, Won Park, told GolfChannel.com on Wednesday that there were times over the last year that Chun wanted to “run and hide from golf.” The pressure on her to end a two-year victory drought was mounting in distressing fashion.

Yup, be careful what you wish for....  The good news is that when craving anonymity, all they have to do is play in the U.S.  Problem, solved. 

DJ's Travails - The hits keep coming for our ill-fated hero:

On Monday, a federal jury found Nathan Hardwick, Dustin Johnson’s former attorney and one of the top advisers in his golf career, guilty of embezzling $26 million from the now-bankrupt real estate closing firm bearing his name. 

It’s the latest chapter in a story that began years ago; Johnson claimed in a 2014 lawsuit that the firm of Morris Hardwick Schneider had conspired to scam him of $3 million with a made-up investment opportunity. That $3 million was apparently used to cover debts incurred by Hardwick’s lavish spending. 

Hardwick, 53, testified that he thought the firm’s funds he was spending were legitimately his. In reality, withdrawals were being made from the firm’s escrow accounts held in trust for the firm’s clients, reports Myrtle Beach Online. Law.com reports that a 12-person jury convicted Hardwick on Friday of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 21 counts of wire fraud and one count of making false statements to federally insured banks.

To be fair (Ed: Why start now?), this goes back a few years, but it's not difficult to see why these two inevitably found each other:

Testimony in Hardwick’s Northern District of Georgia trial revealed a tawdry list of expenditures that included paying for “female social companions,” lavish private jet trips and millions in gambling losses. Included in that spending: 

-$4 million on three “female social companions,” including Katrena Corcoran of Nebraska. Corcoran testified she met Hardwick in 2008 via SugarDaddy.com and subsequently received a credit card to use on a car, clothes, shoes and makeup.

SugarDaddy.com?  Wonder what kind of website that is....   Hey, hounds gonna hound, you just don't want them doing it on your dime....

To Be ForeWarned... - And interesting, albeit depressing, treatise on the efficacy of Yelling Fore:

A real-world breakdown of what happens from the moment of club-ball impact to when the dimpled missile returns to earth is sobering to say the least. As we present a start-to-

finish timeline of what transpires, you might begin to look at the usefulness of “Fore!” a bit more balefully, as one might when gazing at the crash-preparation illustrations on airline seat back cards. “Fore!” can work, as my episode with Mastronardi illustrates. But it tends to provide the illusion of safety more than actual protection.

To begin, the average hang time of a PGA Tour player’s tee shot for the 2017-’18 season was a shade over six seconds. For everyday players, the hang time naturally is less—more in the range of 5.5 seconds. We refer to hang time because in most cases it’s the balls that hit people on the fly that are most dangerous. 

Spectators and golfers of course don’t have 5.5 seconds to duck and cover. The window is much shorter, beginning with the fact it takes a conscientious player about two seconds after impact to notice the shot has gone awry and to holler “Fore!” The 5.5 hang time and the fan/golfer collision has now been reduced to 3.5 seconds. 

It gets shorter. Once the golfer screams the warning, the sound takes less than a second to reach the potential victim’s ears. The speed of sound is 375 yards per second. But the shout can travel slower than that if the air is cold. At the moment Koepka’s tee shot struck Remande, the temperature at the Paris airport was 51 degrees, hardly balmy. And if there’s a headwind (unknown in the Koepka example), the sound is diminished because the wind tends to refract the sound, or carry it upward. The shouts in effect become quieter. And let’s face it, some shouts are louder than others. A papery, non-assertive bleat might not carry 250 yards away.

You know what else carries a shorter distance in the cold?   Obviously the focus is on the unfortunate woman hit by Brooks in Paris, and the news there is not good.  

But where does this argument take us?  It's still better to yell and allow the potential victim whatever time is feasible to turn and duck.....  Theresa took one in the head 3-4 years ago and, while she's fine, it's no joking matter....

Have a good weekend, y'all.

Thursday Threads

A swampy day at Whippoorwill yesterday, and strange as well.  A couple of items of note:

1.  The Whip is a Charles Banks design, though the original course was laid out by Donald Ross.  The 8th hole is a Biarritz, and the pin was located at the bottom of the half-pipe.  I've never seen that before, though we don't see too many Biarritz greens for sure.  Admittedly, all the pins were unusual, as the super is clearly directing traffic away from the normal hole locations in the soggy conditions.
2. I had what might well be my first "shankie".  I had myself within ten yards of the green on their brutal Par-4 seventh, and embarrassingly hoseled the chip shot.  Somehow it ended up on the fringe, and I made the thirty-footer for par....  Mind you, I'm not saying it was my first shank....

As an aside, I had always assumed that Banks' nickname "Steam Shovel Charlie" was the result of his moving more earth than was typical in the day.  But according to the club's website, the circumstances were quite different:

Construction began by early 1929 on the new golf holes, new roads and a number of homes. A steam shovel was lost along the way; according to legend it sank out of sight while the pond on the current seventh hole was being built. That loss, coupled with the extensive ground moving work required to construct Whippoorwill, led to the course architect’s nickname: Charles "Steam Shovel" Banks.

 That's way too good to risk fact checking....

There's actually very little going on in our world, so I shan't keep you long.

The New Status Symbol - Everyone will be doing it soon, one can only assume:

Steven Bowditch, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour and former Presidents Cup player, announced on Tuesday that he will undergo spinal fusion surgery, the same procedure Tiger Woods had last year. 

“I spent much of the last two years dealing with lower back pain, leg numbness, sciatic pain, loss of control of my right side and tingling in my toes," Bowditch said in a statement. "I had exhausted everything I could think of to diagnose the source of my pain…several MRIs, multiple injections, chiropractic adjustments, physical therapy and massage. It would appear to calm down and then flair right back up as soon as I resumed golf activity. 

"But over the last year, the pain has become a constant in my everyday activity with no relief."

Does anyone remember who the first guy to wear white pants was?  Back pain is no joking matter, and yet we insist on joking about it.

Regrets, He's Had A Few -  Joel Beall with the call that Johnny would like back:

In a retrospective interview with the Golf Channel on Tuesday night coinciding with his retirement notice, Miller recalled that miss, which came at the 1999 Ryder Cup. During the Saturday fourball session, Justin Leonard and Hal Sutton were losing their match to

Miguel Angel Jimenez and Jose Maria Olazábal. Leonard had lost his morning battle, promoting Miller to exclaim, “My hunch is that Justin needs to go home and watch it on television." 

Unnecessarily harsh in the moment, yes, especially when Sutton and Leonard were able to halve the match.

"I think that I didn't say the right words about Leonard at Miracle at Brookline about he should be home watching it on TV," Miller said. "I meant really—I did say he should be home, but I meant the motel room. Even then I probably shouldn't have said that. 

"I want so much for the outcome that I'm hoping for that I actually get overwhelmed with what I want to see. Almost the kind of things you would say to your buddies if you were watching it on TV, you know? He just couldn't win a match."

It wasn't so much that specific match, but rather Justin's role in the Sunday comeback that insured the legacy of his harsh words.  But Johnny was only saying out loud that which were all thinking at the time.....

Today In Trump Bashing - Mike Bamberger is one of the grizzled veterans of the golf writing games, and when he sticks to golf he's one of my faves.  But you know I'm going to have issues with this effort:

The clampdown on immigration could have an outsize effect on your golf course

And what clampdown might that be?  We're almost halfway through Trump's first term, and those massive deportations remain an article of faith only in the fever swamps.

Rafael Barajas is the next president of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, and the first Hispanic to fill that role. I mentioned to him that, in my

experience, if you see a course worker with a shovel, machete or hose in hand, chances are close to 100 percent that that person’s first language is Spanish. 

“Mmm, not that high,” the mustachioed president-elect said. “Maybe more like 80 percent.” Barajas was born in Mexico, left school (in Los Angeles) at 16 and began working full-time in golf. “I chose survival,” he said. He is now the superintendent of the Boca Grove Golf and Tennis Club in South Florida. His four educated and productive American children — one of whom is a Marine — are making America greater yet.

That's a heart-warming story, but Mike just can't help himself with the Trump bashing....  The problem of course predates Trump, either as POTUS or owner of golf courses, but that needlessly complicates our narrative.

It’s no wonder there are so many course workers with Jorge or Miguel in script on their heavy work shirts, so many middle-aged men in bandanas who wire home money on flip phones during their coffee breaks. There are at least 125,000 course workers in the United States tilling the soil on more than 14,000 18-hole courses. Green fees and club dues would be only more expensive without golf’s immigrant workforce. I spoke to about a dozen people working in course maintenance and construction on my way here and found nobody who thinks that the current U.S. government clampdown on immigration will be good for American golf. 

Nobody knows the number of course workers who are here illegally, including employees who have presented enough passable paperwork to get a stamp of approval from E-Verify.gov. Many of the immigrant workers, of course, are legal, but a good number are in the United States on H-2B visas, and those visas have a maximum shelf life of three years. Not a recipe for stability on either side of the management line.

This is really lazy journalism, Mike, but if we must..... In allowing millions of low-skilled immigrants into the country, we have necessarily depressed wages for the jobs for which they are qualified.  And yes, there are industries, farming would seem to be of far greater significance than golf course maintenance, but whatever...

But you know who else is affected, Mike?  How about low-skilled Americans?  Why do you so hate poor people, Mike?  They tell us that these are jobs Americans won't do, burying the big lie.  We only know, at most, that Americans won't do such work at the wages being offered, after they've distorted the market by flooding it with low-skilled workers....

Worse yet, Mike finishes by trolling his readership for story ides on this subject....  I guess journalism gets added to that list of jobs Americans won't do.

Fantasyland - The LPGA thought it had died and gone to heaven, with its recent trip to South Korea:

The best women in golf believe they deserve better. 

From prize money to endorsement deals and media coverage, they believe they are undervalued. 

That’s what makes back-to-back weeks in South Korea so exhilarating for players outside Korea. They are getting the red carpet treatment at the KEB Hana Bank Championship, after getting it at last week’s UL International Crown. The rest of the world can’t help but envy the passion Koreans bring to women’s golf. 

“When we show up here, they don’t just treat us like we are stars,” Pernilla Lindberg said. “They treat us like we are superstars.” 

Lindberg said she received royal treatment when she checked in for the KEB Hana Bank Championship at the Sky 72 Golf Club Ocean Course clubhouse. She knew every LPGA pro from the United States to England, Spain and South Korea was enjoying the same adulation. 

“You know that look people have when they see celebrities?” Lindberg said. “That’s the reaction we all get here in the clubhouse.” 

American Marina Alex arrived Sunday for the Hana Bank, stopping at the Dream Golf Range in Incheon, billed as the world’s largest circular range. Alex is just a month removed from winning her first LPGA title at the Cambia Portland Classic. She found herself surrounded by seven or eight Korean juniors and their parents.

It's maddening for them to live in the shadow of the men, and nice that there's one place on the planet where they are treated like royalty.  Just don't, you know, get too used to it....

The British Masters, A Case Study - Although it will prove to be more of a case study of bad journalism, of which we seem to have a bumper crop.  First, the bad news:

The formatting will be a little crude, as the format precludes the normal copy-and-paste.

This is a shame, as it's a venerable event with longstanding ties to the growth of the Euro Tour.  What's the issue?  Well, the equivalent of knee-jerk Trump bashing over there is...wait for it:

Who had Brexit in their office pool?  Notice the complete absence of any justification for the causality, not even the faintest sniff of the logic of the premise.  What's great, is that they're all over the fan support, but guess who isn't coming out in force:

Ya think?  I know it's a slow week, but why do they waste our time with such drivel....  

I'll take His Word For It - Hey kids, anyone remember Martin Kaymer?  No, that's OK, here's a tutorial:

Seven years ago, Martin Kaymer was ranked No. 1 in the world. He had won the 2010

PGA Championship, his first major title, a year prior. He would go on to add the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst and the 2014 Players Championship to his collection of victories. 

But recently, Kaymer’s game has plummeted. He lost his PGA Tour card before last season and has just five top 10s in the last two years. In his past 10 worldwide starts, he has missed six cuts and only broken the top 40 once. 

As a result, he has slipped to No. 157 in the world and missed out on his first Ryder Cup team since 2008.

What brings him to mind?   This quote:

“As strange as it sounds, I am a better player right now than I was back in 2011 when I was No. 1 in the world,” Kaymer said. “My problem at the moment is that golf is a sport that is based on results and I have struggled a little bit to put every part of my game together for four consecutive rounds. I just have to continue doing what I am doing with my coach and things will fall into place again.”

He's of course absolutely spot on, in that I do find it strange.  I might have gone with delusional, but let's not quibble.  But thanks for stopping by, Martin.  Write if you get work....