"I'd like to know why Jack designed this"

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Brian Lee in the Tucson Citizen takes a sneak peak at the Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain, new home to the WGC Match Play.

The signature Jack Nicklaus- built course, utilizing two of three finished 9-hole layouts, will be "typically" Nicklaus, said general manager Kenn DePew of The Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain resort. That means intriguing and multiple bunkers, tempting space and undulating greens with eight to 10 possible pin placements each.

"I'd like to know why Jack designed this," DePew said. "Not that I question it. I just want to know what the reasons are. There is going to be some good golf played here."

Well I'm sure he'll be happy to take your call anytime to answer questions about his thought process.

But a Ritz-Carlton designed for tournament play is not just about the worldwide pros. The change from the much narrower straight-out-and-in Gallery course of the first two years of Tucson WGC play, is a fans' delight or relief, depending on how you look at it.

"The Gallery was beautiful but was a lot of walking," DePew says. "It was a load of work. This is fan friendly."

And at just a few yards under 8,000, it's oh so quaint.

"I like watching golf as much as the next sentient being, but four hours of it from the third round of a 32-man event? It's too much, and it leads to bad TV." **

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Every member of the SI Golf Plus team--except for Steve the night janitor (who forgot his login name)-- piled onto golf.com's new weekly email roundtable to kick around Geoff Ogilvy's win at Kapalua. Weighing in at a hefty three pages - a novel by online standards - Gary Van Sickle opened up the conversation with concerns about, ironically, the length of Golf Channel's telecast.

While I love the chance to watch live golf in the evening, that doesn't mean I want to watch it the entire evening. What is this, the U.S. Open? I like watching golf as much as the next sentient being, but four hours of it from the third round of a 32-man event? It's too much, and it leads to bad TV.

Alan Shipnuck, senior writer, Sports Illustrated: Is a four-hour telecast too much? Obviously, yes ... every other week of the year. But I love watching the Mercedes because the course makes for thrilling golf, the surfers and spouting whales are a fun diversion, and I'm usually ready to plug back in after months without a meaningful golf tournament. But the mood quickly passes, and then I prefer a shorter telecast to assist my DVR'ing.

I agree that the oversaturation was too much even with those stunning views and much improved production values thanks to Brandt Packer and Jack Graham.

But a greater concern for the PGA Tour should be the burden these excessive telecasts have on the announce teams and the potential created for idiotic commentary. I contended last year that the Kelly Tilghman's back alley lynch remark was largely a product of the announce conditions (too many hours to fill, too many executives wanting ESPN-cutesy humor that is not Tilghman's strongsuit).

This year Rich Lerner was charged with killing time via lengthy interviews and as was pointed out here, Boo Weekley came dangerously close to saying something embarrassing. Readers also noted that Lerner, innocently killing time, may have crossed a line in questioning Davis Love about his return to Hawaii.

As readers pointed out, Golf Channel's sycophantic coverage of Anthony Kim signing autographs and driving off in his courtesy car bordered on the ridiculous. Throw in way too much time for Mark Rolfing to fulfill his obligations to whoever in Hawaii is paying for raves, and the Mercedes Championship was a reminder that more telecast hours do not necessarily translate to a better "product." At four hours with announcers who can only say so much, the pacing is setting the stage for a product liability disaster.

"If you're trying to get one or two players, you're going to have to move it to San Diego or Orlando"

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I should have known last week that there was more to the probing back-and-forth between Tim Finchem and writers over the future of Kapalua as a PGA Tour venue. Doug Ferguson reports that the tour is looking at other venues for the Mercedes, even though most players love it and it looks absolutely stunning on television. (Though it sure would be nice to see the course play faster in the approaches like it did in the early part of this century).

Lots of interesting stuff in the piece, but a few items jumped out:

Ogilvy is among those who took up joint membership on the European Tour this year, and one reason was a variety of courses that he believes the U.S. tour lacks. He finds it odd that a move from Kapalua is being discussed.

"After Florida, you probably play the same golf course 20 times in a row," Ogilvy said. "But to play such an extremely different setup, it's a cool place to start."

After Florida? How about starting with Florida!

Actually, it was wise of Geoff to put it that way. I think any knock on Florida golf architecture is a fineable offense.

The tour is said to be looking at Wailea, about an hour to the east on Maui, where the weather is more predictable. It might have more options for Mercedes' clients to play golf, but it doesn't have the caliber of course that Kapalua offers. Players often criticize the tour for not playing on the best courses available; this could be one of those example.

"I love coming here," said Stewart Cink, one of four players on the tour's policy board. "I like playing here. I think this is a fun course to play. It's different and a challenge in its own way. I would not want to move it. But it's a business decision, I'm sure."

Those tournament week golfing options for the Mercedes customers should take priority after all. Oy. I'm actually feeling sorry for the tour if they were in fact told by the sponsor that this was a concern at the current venue (and I guess it say the Mercedes people don't really like the Bay Course at Kapalua...but it was designed by Arnold Palmer!).

Here's your early evidence of Justin Leonard winning a future Jim Murray Award for giving scribes user friendly, succinct and wonderfully not-so-subtle quotes:

Some players believe the tour is looking at a move to the mainland to make it easier to travel.

"If you're trying to get one or two players, you're going to have to move it to San Diego or Orlando," said Justin Leonard, referring to Mickelson and Woods. "And even then, I don't think those guys would play. It's nice to start here."

"I've had a lot of deflated looks up at 18. That's the way it goes."

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Enjoyable post round conversation between the scribblers and Geoff Ogilvy after his third round 65 gave him a six-stroke lead at sunny Kapalua, which looks oh so good on Golf Channel HD.

Q. Justin said he got to 18 and looked at the scoreboard and said it was deflating.

GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, well, I guess it would be. I've never actually been this far in front before, but I've been this far behind a lot of times (laughter). I've had a lot of deflated looks up at 18. That's the way it goes.

And yeah, my pitching has been pretty good. It's probably the only part of my game that I really work on all the time. My golf swing and putting and all that comes and goes, but pitching is something I work on all the time. I think it's one of the most important parts of golf, especially the type of golf we play on TOUR. All the best players in the world are the best pitchers of the ball, so that's a part of my game I work on a lot. I guess this week, it's been pretty good.

Jenkins In The February Digest

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Great to see Dan Jenkins in fine form in this February Golf Digest column. Though I'm sure how Camilo Villegas is going to feel about his Ellen Lupton sketched depiction that looks more Michael Jackson.

11. When 38-year-old Phil Mickelson said that he had somehow grown an inch through stretching exercises, was it in:
(a) Height?
(b) Width?
(c) Between the ears? 

"I think the first and foremost is coming out in good shape in the wide range of scrutinies that we always get during these downturns."

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Tim Finchem, sporting a PGA Tour logoed dress shirt (PGA Tour PGA TOUR(C) logoed Hawaiian shirt would have sent the wrong message in these tough times) sat down with golf's last remaining scribblers to drone on about a few things, including negotiations on future Mercedes Championships at Kapalua (Robert Collias reports that the post-2010 future is far from certain.)

Q. You indicated that your major focus was to be better coming out of whatever this is we are in right now, than going in. How do you do that?

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Well, there's a number of things that go into that. I think the first and foremost is coming out in good shape in the wide range of scrutinies that we always get during these downturns.

Scrutinies. New Year, new MBA jargon!

When we start into a downturn and companies are reducing their expenditures in advertising and marketing and sponsorship, they are obviously going through a process that they are deciding what's more valuable to them, where they get most value to the dollar spent.

In prior downturns -- and I would add to that, in my experience, every time we have a downturn, there was even more scrutiny than last time, and there's better scrutiny, because companies have learned how to do it better. They have better analytics and outside consultants, etc., etc.

Oh yeah, America is really feeling the effects of companies' improved scrutinies and those analytics. What did Obama say today? "We arrived at this point due to an era of profound irresponsibility."

So in prior downturns, we have performed very well in that regard, because our value model, in terms of spending a dollar with the PGA TOUR versus spending a dollar versus X-Sport versus spending a dollar in Y-Sport, we come out very well. The first step is to win that contest and to come out ahead. If we are coming out ahead in those tests and those challenges, that absolutely positions us better for the future.

The second thing is that we just take advantage of the environment to work hard on our cost structure, challenge ourselves, although, we like to think that we do that all the time, but even more intensely, and be more efficient coming out of it.

And on that note, my jet is prepped and waiting, so I'm outta here once we finish up.

And the third thing is, use the period to where we are not winning that contest, where we are in a situation where we are sliding, use the opportunity to fix whatever problem it is that created that slide and structurally make changes that give us more value.

Let's see, how about working on the dreaded WGC's? The Fixed Cup's version three in year three? Competing tournaments during majors and WGC's? Boring product fueled by excessive course setup and demise of shotmaking?

Get your cliche and sports metaphor boards out...

So that's where we are at full-court press to do. We are going to take some hits. Everybody is going to take some hits in this environment. But if it's cyclical, we'll come through it and we want to position it to get back into a solid growth pattern.

This answer about the decline of newspapers seemed to be an improvement over the one I got at Sherwood.

Let's say we have a PGA TOUR event in St. Louis this year, we're there once during the year for four days of competition. The market doesn't view it -- the intensity level of the fans isn't such that they really have to have somebody that covers that sport for them.

So when you are coming to chopping budgets, a dedicated golf writer is going to come on the chopping block before somebody that covers a team sport. That's just the way it is.

I went out to my driveway and picked up my local newspaper and thought I had lost a few sections of it. It got quite thin on some days. But I don't know where it leads.

To be able to live in Pittsburgh or Detroit or anywhere and see a familiar name dedicated to your newspaper writing about a sport is a good thing for our sport. Losing that is a bad thing for our sport. But I can't quantify it in terms of what it really means to the fan base.

Ah the first John Daly question of the new year...

But if a player comments, if a player says, "I was fined $50," and he was fined $10,000, we might correct the record. But that's the extent of our commentary. That's up to the player, whether the player wants to keep it confidential or not.

So that was my response to the John Daly situation. I did say that I am not clarifying or changing his commentary on his suspension, which by definition means that he is generally correct in what he said.

Now, why don't we talk about it or give out the details. One, we don't feel like people really care that much. We don't get emails from fans saying, Why don't you tell us. So we don't think there's this hunger for that information.

No, there's no hunger...just reporters all over the world writing about it!

Two, candidly, we don't have that much of it, and we don't want to remind people about it. I'm just being straightforward. If somebody -- and remember now, in our sport, a bad thing is a bad word; it's not getting indicted usually. It's a bad word. But we don't want to remind people by saying, we fined such-and-such a player $5,000 for saying a bad word. It's just reminding them that he said a bad word.

In most cases, people don't know he said a bad word; somebody was standing at the ropes, a marshal or a fan who brought it to our attention, for a fellow competitor, and the player got fined. So usually it's a very small amount of people that know about the kind of attractions that we get, and we see no reason to publicize it.
If we had a problem of any magnitude, if we had a conduct problem, if we were faced with any significant issues where a player is not showing integrity or respect for the game, we might have a very different attitude.

Thankfully John Daly would never demonstrate anything that, wait, continue digging this hole...

I mean, I can understand in the NBA that if a guy jumps into the stands and gets into a fistfight, if I the Commissioner, I would pretty much feel like I had to tell the public about that, because there's a demand to know. We don't have those kind of situations.

No, our guys just take spectators digital cameras and smash them into trees.

And finally an unusual and unusually succinct answer on Tiger's comeback:

Q. But do you expect him to come back better than he was?

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: I'm not going to comment on my expectations.

"But I'm more a man for a Coke."

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Tim Carroll talks to Padraig Harrington about his wrist, the Ryder Cup, Sergio, the chances of a Paddy slam and clarifies this little bit for the media that always assumes every Irishman bathes in Guinness:

WSJ: Which tasted better: Guinness in the first Claret Jug or the second?

Mr. Harrington: Oh, I'm not a Guinness man at all. John Smith's Smooth Bitters was the first drink out of the jug, which is a drink that my manager drinks. It wouldn't be my cup of tea at all. It would be down to the Irish whiskeys for me. I don't have the most acquired taste for beer. But I'm more a man for a Coke. 

"The tour season opens: auto, electronics, auto, financial, auto."

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Seems like we've had quite a few of these economic crisis-impact stories, but Ron Sirak's is one of the better ones at clarifying a few of the important dates and possibilities. Mercifully for the PGA Tour, Buick has a car to promote

And how can you not love this bit:

The most important spin, at least for the first part of the season, won't be on the golf ball but rather on the economic reality. There are 15 events the first 13 weeks of 2009, and 12 have sponsors from the most distressed areas of the economy. Forget the tournament names and think of it this way: The tour season opens: auto, electronics, auto, financial, auto. All are industries that have suffered deep and painful layoffs.

Hertz Club Gold, Here They Come!

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Doug Ferguson reports the tragic news that the PGA Tour's finest may have to rent cars next year after Buick's various regional offices are believed to be cutting courtesy car programs at all but a handful of tournaments.

Kevin Sutherland finished a career-high 18th on the PGA Tour money list this year with just over $2.5 million. He has been on tour a dozen years and can remember times when he rented his own car at an airport.

“I expected some of the perks we’ve gotten in the past are going to be cut back, and it only makes sense,” Sutherland said. “It’s easy to take this for granted. You show up, you get your car. You bring in your dry cleaning, they do it for you. Some of this stuff is over the top, and you get spoiled over time. But so many companies are struggling.” 

"I'm delighted to say that the demise of the PGA Tour has been overstated considerably"

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In noting the slight total purse increase for the 2009 PGA Tour schedule, an unbylined ESPN.com story includes this:

"I'm delighted to say that the demise of the PGA Tour has been overstated considerably," commissioner Tim Finchem said Monday night at the World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Getting cocky are we? 

Bob Harig breaks down the schedule changes here.