Bonk On Riviera Changes

Thomas Bonk writes about Riviera's latest changes.

The greens on three par-four holes — the third, ninth and 12th — have been brought back to their original size and shape, all of them slightly enlarged to take away the encroachment of the Kikuyu over the years and to come up with pin placements that had been lost since the club opened in 1926.

It opened on June 24, 1927, but hey, no worries.

"We're restoring them to recover the flexibility that Riviera had in the very beginning," said Michael Yamaki, the club's general manager. "Mother Nature has been the one who kind of grabbed those greens. We fought back."

Mother Nature? We fought back?  Hopefully Captain Thomas doesn't get the L.A. Times where he is now.

Tom Fazio, the architect who oversaw Riviera's previous round of changes in 2003, which basically involved the lengthening of the course, was again at the head of this latest project with the greens.

A half-day visit en route to the desert constitutes heading a project? Poor Tom Marzolf does all of the work and gets no ink. Then again, looking at the 7th, 8th, and 15th holes, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Todd Yoshitake, Riviera's head pro, said the pin placements now reflect what was available in the past.

"We're getting back to our heritage," he said.

The insights you glean in the Times!

Looking through club archives and maps of the layout and studying aerial views of the course from the 1930s helped Fazio discover the original shapes of the greens that Yamaki targeted for restoration. Computer enhancement of the aerial photographs provided nearly precise dimensions of the greens. In their research, the revisionists discovered that the Kikuyu had moved in more than three inches on the greens.

The revisionists discovered that the Kikuyu had moved in more than three inches.

Priceless.

Hannigan On Vernon Speech

Another must read column from Frank Hannigan on Golfobserver. He looks at Jim Vernon's USGA Annual Meeting address and comes to many of the same conclusions that were drawn here. But as usual, Hannigan takes the analysis a bit further and as always, does it with a sense of humor.

What Vernon wrote and said indicates the USGA is finally committed to rolling back distance after a decade of fakery as the best golfers, the members of the PGA Tour, were gaining on average 27 yards of driving distance whether they lifted weights or ate Dove bars and Twinkies.

Hannigan lays out three options for the USGA at this point, based on the Vernon speech.

Option 1 — Do nothing. Stay right where they are with the pretense that it ain't gonna rain no more than it has, that the horse has not quite left the barn, that they have drawn the ultimate line in the sand when it comes to distance, and they can go on presenting 7400 yard courses as par 70s for U.S. Opens.

They can go on fooling most of the people most of the time while being admitted to the promised lands with memberships in the Augusta National Golf Club and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.

The problem with Option 1 is that it is a sham. Every week more golfers understand the USGA has utterly failed and are laughing at the erstwhile "governing body." At the same time, much as they don't want to do it, Finchem and his boys inch toward acting on their own.

I used to like this next option, but when you start to realize how simple it would be to slow down the core of the ball, it looks too complicated and potentially fractures the game.

Option 2 — Use the device of local rules whereby committees can invoke more restrictive equipment regulations while still remaining under the broad umbrella of the USGA.

There are plusses to the local rule contrivance. It offers the opportunity to cut back on BOTH the club and the ball. To restrict the driver the local rule spec would offer a lower maximum of correlation of restitution (COR) — the spring-like effect of modern drivers.

The USGA has invented an ingenious little device to measure COR. Those of us who could never change the oil in a car could measure COR with this machine. The COR could be adjusted to cut back l0 yards or so, another l5 yards taken off the ball and there you have it — back to l995.

A second advantage is that a local rule would not get real golfers mad at the USGA, a fear that has paralyzed the USGA. Real golfers think they have been pulled along with the pros in terms of distance. They haven't and the USGA has been unwilling to whisper the truth: "Move the tee markers up a few yards and nobody will ever know the difference."

And finally, the option that never seemed possible with the USGA's old stance, but which seems more plausible now. Except for the issues pointed out by Hannigan:

Option 3 — Make basic changes on equipment in the Rules of Golf proper. Although the USGA has said it needs more surveys, more testing and needs to do grooves all over again, the answer is quite simple. All they have to do is pick a number and announce that as of Jamuary 1, 2008, that famous line in the sand will be, say, 25 yards shorter.

But whoops, any roll back in the ball will render virtually every brand we now use as non-conforming.

That seems like a huge impediment for ball-makers, who have dwindled down to a precious few in the United States. Acushnet dominates the wholesale market with 53 percent of sales. Its percentage of profit is likely higher.

Why then should a Callaway not want to start all over again to compete against Acushnet from a new starting line? The golf equipment business is nothing but a fight for market share. The market itself is stable. Tiger Woods has not created new golfers.

Hannigan sums up the sea change that has taken place, and the possible reasons for what appears to be a monumental shift within the USGA:

The USGA was captured during the last l0 years by Fred Ridley, who just left office as president, and his successor Walter Driver. But with an annual turnover of two or three executive committee members a year a new majority may have dawned.

Or it could be that Ridley and Driver are just sick and tired of being blistered about distance wherever they go.

Driver made an inaugural speech so banal as to defy description other than to note that he used versions of the first person singular "I" or "me" 68 times. Everything was about him.

In a departure from tradition, the new president was introduced by a celebrity — Arnold Palmer himself. Driver loved it.

This is the same Arnold Palmer who sold his failed equipment company to the late Ely Callaway. Arnold then lobbied for two sets of rules so that Callaway's ERC2 driver would be OK. The ERC2 had a COR beyond even the USGA's soft regulation.

The ERC2 driver bombed. But the myth of Arnold is eternal.

Final Round Hole Locations

Another week, another bordering-on-silly final round setup. Reviewing the tape after hearing Gary McCord's raised-eyebrow comment about some of the hole locations, I went looking for any player comments on the setup.

Rory Sabbatini: 

"Obviously, the greens were a lot firmer today, they had some pretty amazing pin positions out there," Sabbatini added. "A couple of them I'm still bewildered at, but, you know, they made the course definitely tougher for us today." 

Now, not to take away from Arron Oberholser's win, because it was well deserved and he is a huge talent (not to mention the kind of character the Tour needs more of).

But I noticed while listening to the audio and staring at the dolphins going by that there were very few cheers, and seemingly fewer opportunities for anyone to post a few birdies in a row.

I know this has been asked here many times, but why can't we let the U.S. Open be its own thing. Why is the PGA Tour turning Sunday's into train wreck days instead of letting the players create a little more to cheer about? 

Will The Tour Start To Listen, Vol. 2

My latest Golfobserver.com exclusive is now posted...

PGA Tour Driving Distance Watch, Vol. 6

Jim Nantz told viewers to put another log on the fire, sit back, and enjoy the Pebble Beach scenery.

Well, I searched for a piece of driftwood down at the beach, but figured it was a little too hot here in the Home of the Homeless to start a fire. 85 degrees today. Brilliant, as Bobby Clampett might say (I was torturing myself listening to the audio feed).

Hey, and you east coasters who had to shovel snow, remember, you get to enjoy the seasons. We don't have them.

Anyway, they must have measured drives on some pretty interesting holes at the AT&T, because in spite of Monterey's record temps Thursday, the PGA Tour driving distance average dropped nearly 3 yards, to 286.08 yards despite what seemed like a whole lot of wedges hit into 450-yard+ par-4s.

Of course, some big bombers weren't playing and bums like Tiger aren't even eligible for the list right now, which might just influence the numbers.  

In the 350-yard or longer drive category, the tally was boosted by 7 tee shots, pushing the season total to 488.  There were 2059 drives of 350 yards or more in 2005.

Anti-Flog Rough, Vol. 2

Blue Blazer said I left out something on the Anti-Flog Rough post. That's where I pointed out the silliness of the USGA trying to grow rough to different heights depending on the hole.

Apparently the theory goes that taller rough on shorter holes will somehow negate the advantage of long hitting floggers, even though it's on the long par-4s where the dump-and-chase approach works best. 

I suggested that it is a peculiar idea for the USGA to be manufacturing lies (of the playing surface variety) even though the organization has admirably been a proponent of "play it as it lies."

Then there's the idea that the USGA, which has denied altering course setups to counteract the benefits of  equipment deregulation, is actually doing exactly what it denies by using different rough for different holes idea. They appear to be trying to counteract changes in the game.

But Blue Blazer thought I should have also pointed out that the USGA has gone to great lengths to improve the consistency of conditions throughout its Open courses: same green firmness, better bunker sand consistency, etc... and here they are actually forcing inconsistency into the setup equation. 

Why? It seems the only logical conclusion one can draw is that this is an effort to eliminate flogging, a symptom caused largely by modern equipment and ridiculously narrow fairways.

So, can anyone think of a way that super high rough on a short par-4 like the sixth at Winged Foot somehow enhances strategy or rewards skill that a normal setup would not?

Riviera History Overview

MikeWeir.com's Chris Cook does a nice job sharing key historical information from the Riviera club history to preview the Nissan Open.

Titleist Seeks Patent For Reduced Flight Ball

The plot thickens.

Applying for a patent, Titleist is. The product:

A high performance golf ball having a reduced overall distance while maintaining the appearance of a high performance trajectory. The golf ball includes a combination of low CoR core and cover materials coupled with a less aerodynamic dimple pattern that achieves a reduction in carry and overall distance of 15 and 25 yards versus a conventional golf ball, while still providing the look, sound, feel and apparent flight of a conventional golf ball. A high performance golf ball having a reduced distance is also achieved by controlling dimensionless coefficients of lift/weight and drag/weight at certain Reynolds numbers and spin ratios for various CoR.

And here's what Tiger has been suggesting for some time now, slowing down the core:

One golf ball component, in particular, that many manufacturers are continually looking to improve is the center or core. The core is the "engine" that influences the golf ball to go longer when hit by a club head. Generally, golf ball cores and/or centers are constructed with a polybutadiene-based polymer composition. Compositions of this type are constantly being altered in an effort to provide a targeted or desired coefficient of restitution ("CoR"), while at the same time resulting in a lower compression which, in turn, can lower the golf ball spin rate and/or provide better "feel."

Here's where they acknowledge that some ball-driver combos are outsmarting the current USGA testing:

On the new USGA standard: Advances in golf ball compositions and dimple designs have caused some high performance golf balls to exceed the maximum distance allowed by the United States Golf Associates (USGA), when hit by a professional golfer. The maximum distance allowed by the USGA is 317 yards.+-.3 yards, when impacted by a standard driver at 176 feet per second and at a calibrated swing condition of 10.degree., 2520 RPM, and 175 MPH with a calibrated ball. 

Yes, this is probably just a technicality related the USGA ball study.

But I still say that the first company coming out with such a ball and if it finds its way to classic, respected courses, has a better chance of establishing dominance in the "competition ball" or "classic course ball" market. Or even the overall market, should the USGA act.

And if that company is Titleist, they not only solidify their well-earned place atop ball sales, they earn huge points for doing the right thing from traditionalists/purists/above average golfers, a sizeable portion of their Pro V1 customer base.

Honda On the Move

Randell Mell looks at the Tour's efforts to upgrade the Honda Classic at the expense of the foundation that has run the event for the last 34 years (and taken us to so many wonderful venues).

Exclusive, With A Twist

Harry Hurt in the New York Times looks at exclusive Emerald Dunes, where they try to maintain a sense of humor. Frank Chirkinian is Hurt's host.

He also examines the concept of super high-end clubs.

Oh, and isn't Sebonac spelled, well the way I just spelled it instead of the New York Times version?

PGA Tour Wine

I know you've been holding off on two-buck-Chuck purchases (eh, it's a west coast thing) to buy the PGA Tour's new wine. Aged in only the finest creosote protected railroad ties from the original TPC Sawgrass oak, "The portfolio currently consists of three distinctive flights at various price points."

The concept behind PGA TOUR Wines was to combine excellent wines with sophisticated packaging to reflect the high quality and standards of the PGA TOUR brand and the lifestyle of golfers. “The TOUR is very excited about this new relationship as it extends our brand to our fans and friends in a unique way that reflects their chosen lifestyle,” said Leo McCullagh, Vice President of Marketing and Retail Licensing for the PGA TOUR.  

Old 9th at Pebble Beach

The original design concept for the 9th, in case you were wondering why there is all of that real estate between the fairway and Pacific.

 

TGC Talk From Perth

You won't hear a conversation like this on U.S. television this weekend:

RENTON LAIDLAW: You were talking about the difference in equipment and how it has affected the game, Ken.

KEN BROWN: Well the modern ball not only goes a long way, but it goes very straight as well. So the dispersion of your iron shots going to greens, where you were going with 5s and 6s, now your going with 8s. Certainly the bunkerings now a bit remote. 230 yards used to be a big carry with the driver.

RENTON LAIDLAW: Is all this big hitting affecting the game? Is it a detriment to the game?

MIKE CLAYTON: Well I think it is. I think it cost a fortune to change golf courses. And people change golf courses for people people who are never going to play them. At Lake Karrinyup, we had a meeting and we had to explain that there is no point designing a course for Ernie Els. He plays there once ever ten years, and its a members course. And you start seeing ridiculously long courses that people can never play. I don't know how you design golf courses for pros. You need to make them 8,000 yards and if you make them that long--even 7,500 yards--you don't have any great short holes and it seems to me this is why the game is in a mess. They need to do something about it. J.B. Holmes is not going to be the only guy driving it 350 yards.

KEN BROWN: But who is going to do something about it?

MIKE CLAYTON: Well, the people who run the game. Does Titleist run the game or does the USGA run the game?

RENTON LAIDLAW: Kevin Flint for par [laughing].

KEN BROWN: You're very quiet Renton.

RENTON LAIDLAW: [Laughing]

KEN BROWN: An R&A member.

RENTON LAIDLAW: I don't think that really has anything to do with it. It's not at all relevant. [Laughing] 

7th at Pebble

While we're looking at the old Pebble Beach, this is a view of the 7th a few years after Chandler Egan's "imitation sand dunes" had evolved.

 

6th at Pebble...

...in the old days. Below is course redesigner H. Chandler Egan teeing off not long after his 1928 redesign (with Robert Hunter) that gave us the Pebble Beach we know today. Think anyone at CBS will mention him this weekend? Dumb question?

 

Week In Review, Feb 5-11: J.B. and Jim

The week started off with a look at the election of Walter Driver to the USGA presidency and his inaugural Q&A.  Driver's annual meeting address was posted online, with the new USGA prez taking the opportunity to talk a whole lot about himself, prompting Ned Ludd to wonder "if President Oversized Driver has ever invited the parking attendant in the bottom of his building to a friendly round, or even to wash his hands with the Pine Valley Soap."

That didn't stop Jim Achenbach from declaring Driver a man of the people because of his speech (which included an introduction from Arnold Palmer (the jet fuel tab on that must have been pretty high if he came from the desert!).

Speaking of jet fuel, many of you jaded cynics wrote in to predict that Walter Driver and Fred Ridley used the USGA jet card to transport themselves to the AT&T pro-am, where they are playing to inspect Pebble Beach for the 2010 U.S. Open. Naturally, I'm sure they flew commercial.

The real USGA highlight came later in the week with the posting of Jim Vernon's annual meeting speech on equipment and where his committee stands with its research. The address was a landmark moment for a group that has in recent years struggled to take a stand, and now appears to be laying the ground work for a monumental decision. Stay tuned...

J.B. Holmes became this week's next great American hope with his stunning win at Scottsdale. On Saturday he displayed Spackler-esque distance, hitting an 8-iron from 198.

The inkslingers of America jumped on his bandwagon, already forgetting boring ole Bubba Watson (who they realized is not exactly the world's greatest interview). Holmes is working on his graduate degree in flogging at the young age of 23, and while Crankpot chimed in to point out that he lead the field in putting, Tom G reminded us that "Putts/GIR is a somewhat misleading stat. If you are hitting a wedge into every hole, the chances are greater that you will be closer to the hole for your birdie putt than the guy hitting 5-iron in there."

J.B.'s post round talk mentioned his 4 iron from 257 and his 3-wood into 17, prompting reader Jay to ask, "Are we entering an era where we say “what a shot!” even on a drive??"  This story on the flogging at Scottsdale suggested that the hard and fast fairways were the cause of Holmes' drives, and then went on to contradict itself repeatedly.

The Tour driving distance average jumped 2 yards but figures to take a hit this week at Pebble where most of the bombers are not playing and where the fog rolled in Friday.

I wondered if the Tour is on board with the USGA in case of a lawsuit, while reader NRH brought up a good question that hopefully someone can help answer: "wondering if any other visitors to this site with a knowledge of the law and restraint of trade precedent could inform us as to how such a case would likely turn out (beyond who has the best/most expensive attorneys of course)."

John Huggan slammed the Tour for not handling the World Golf Championships better, in a week when everyone finally noticed that the 2007 WGC's are all scheduled to be played in the U.S.

Tiger Woods reminded us that he's a traditionalist at heart, shooting down the notion that distance measuring devices should be allowed in pro golf. As usual a debate broke out on this hot-button issue and in light of that, I started a thread on the question of skill and these devices.

Jim Nugent of Golfweek made the LOL funny claim that Tiger could play in the NFL to assuage his advertisers prove that the equipment must not be regulated.

Gary Van Sickle's latest column elicited quite a bit of discussion on the issue of shorts on the PGA Tour, with The Duke questioning a photo caption including Tiger in shorts: "Letting players wear shorts might get marquee players like Tiger Woods to enter more tournaments."

I looked at the USGA's latest attempt to prevent flogging, and it seems they are going about it about as badly as you can imagine.

And if you don't to read all of this stuff, I appeared on Ryan Ballengee's excellent 19th Hole Golf Show to discuss most of these topics. The show also includes a chat with Frank Thomas about his recent survey.

Callaway Sues Acushnet

Callaway sues Acushnet over the Pro-V1 after negotiations break down.

According to the complaint, the Sullivan patents "revolutionized the game of golf" and "have done more to change the game of golf than any other equipment advance in the history of the game."

Now this is interesting, because Titleist argues that the ball is not the only thing uh, revolutionizing the game. But instead it's the optimization, athleticism, the agronomy (LOL!) and other fun stuff.

 
Yet here is Callaway saying the ball that they created and which they claim Titleist copied has "done more to change the game" than any other piece of equipment. Ever.

So much for these two lovebirds joining hands for a joint lawsuit when/if the USGA acts.

Weekly Long Drive Contests?

Chris Lewis says the Tour should have a weekly long drive contest to generate a little buzz, and he looks at how they used to have such events at Tour events.

I remember while doing research on Riviera's history that they used to have one at the L.A. Open, I believe down on No. 17 certain years. And in 1941 there was a long drive contest at the LA Memorial Coliseum. Babe Zaharias competed, as did Hogan who hit drives of 260, 256 and 259 yards to win. Babe hit two 240 yarders and one 235, returning to the site of her Olympic gold medal winning performance.

Today, if they tried to hit from the peristyle end  they might think about hitting out of the stadium!

Anti-Flog Rough?

Back in May when Sports Illustrated threw me in a room with David Fay, Brad Faxon and Larry Dorman to discuss the state of the game, Fay said it was his hope that the rough at Winged Foot would be 8 inches on certain short holes.

This, apparently to deal with the flogging mindset that became even more widely practiced at Pinehurst just a few weeks following the roundtable.

So in reviewing Jim Achenbach's recent column on Walter Driver, I found this perplexing:

Driver also would like to be seen as an innovator, so a major change in the famous U.S. Open rough apparently will be seen in his first year as president. Driver was chairman of the Championship Committee before becoming USGA president, and his fingerprints already are all over the U.S. Open. After the USGA lost control of course conditions at Shinnecock Hills in the final round of the 2004 Open, Driver wrote a collection of course setup guidelines that were successfully adopted at the 2005 U.S. Open and will be followed at all future U.S. Opens.

Mike Davis, senior director of rules and competitions, outlined the changes in the rough by saying that for the first time the U.S. Open rough will not be a uniform height. Davis indicated that the primary rough probably would be higher on short par 4s and lower on long par 4s.

Now, for the moment I'm going to disregard the fact that growing rough at higher heights on shorter holes only reinforces the idea that the USGA is obsessed with preventing red numbers.
 

And I'm going to ignore how disturbing it is that the USGA, obsessed (and wonderfully so) with "play it as lies" golf, is working so hard to manufacture lies. (No pun intended.)

After all, course setup staffer Mike Davis is one of the real bright hopes within the USGA. He and Tim Moraghan got Pinehurst through the '05 Open despite the meddling of Tom Meeks and Lord knows who else.

And I like the staggered rough cutting concept that Davis has introduced because it has eliminated the ridiculousness of drives just missing fairways finding heavy rough, while tee shots further off line find less penalty. Davis also does not seem pre-occupied with the winning score hovering around par, as some are.

However, last I looked, flogging really separates the bombers from the shorter hitters on the long par-4's, not on the shorter holes where the USGA plans to grow more rough.

So with shorter rough on longer holes, it would seem that the players will only be that much more encouraged to flog it off the tee to get that flip wedge approach.

Apparently, the USGA doesn't see it that way...

The theme here is easy to decipher: The USGA does not want long hitters to be able to exploit shorter par 4s by bombing their drives with impunity somewhere close to the green. Some kind of remedy needs to be found, Davis indicated, and variable rough may be one answer.

No Masters For Jack

Scott Michaux in the Augusta Chronicle puts to rest the rumors that Jack Nicklaus might tee it up in the Masters again.

"I received a letter of invitation in early January and have already declined," Nicklaus said Thursday in a statement. "(Masters and Augusta National Golf Club chairman) Hootie (Johnson) has not pressured me at all and, in fact, other than the letter of invitation, I have not heard from Hootie."