The Lost Statements of Henry Hughes

Last week we featured a mistaken Michelle Wie press release from the PGA Tour that went out by accident to members of the media. Well my sources in Ponte Vedra have unearthed two more Henry Hughes statements that never were emailed to writers.

“The PGA TOUR congratulates Phil Mickelson on his historic accomplishment of winning his third straight major at Winged Foot, becoming the first to do so since Tiger Woods in 2000. His quality of play over the final round is a testament to the level of performance and individual achievement found on TOUR. The PGA TOUR wishes him well in his attempt to win a fourth straight major at the British Open.”

And this one is a bit dated, but an understandable mistake:

"The PGA TOUR congratulates Thomas Dewey on his election as President of the United States. His quality campaign overcame Harry Truman's negative advertising and is a testament to the level of performance and individual achievement that is found every week in America, especially on the PGA TOUR."

Oops, Wrong Attachment

Looks like the PGA Tour's Joan Alexander attached the wrong Henry Hughes statement on Michelle Wie's John Deere WD due to heat stroke:

Comment from the PGA TOUR on Michelle Wie making the cut at the John Deere Classic:

“The PGA TOUR congratulates Michelle Wie on her historic accomplishment in making the cut at the John Deere Classic, the first female in more than 60 years to do so on the TOUR. Her quality of play over the first two rounds is a testament to her high level of performance and individual achievement. The PGA TOUR wishes her well in her play this weekend.”

Henry Hughes
Senior Vice President and Chief of Operations PGA TOUR

"Just write the truth. Golf has enough press agents."

The Houston Chronicle's Doug Pike offers an entertaining Q&A with author Curt Sampson on a range of subjects, including the best writing advice he ever got from Desmond Muirhead.

Tarde: Wishes Distance Regulation Had Happened

In his August, 2006 editor's column, Golf Digest editor Jerry Tarde lists his "Top 5 Wished They'd Happened" moments in golf. Number 5:

The USGA holding the line on distance in 1976, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1995, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2006. 

This, combined with his June Top 5 that included 4 ways to deal with distance (only one suggestion to do nothing), requires that I add Tarde to The List. I'm sure this will make his month.

Pucker Up and Shill

That line about the smaller the ball, the better the sports writing? (Wind, Plimpton, Jenkins...one of 'em said it first.)

Well GolfDigest.com's "Bomb and Gouge" blog is going to do everything in its power to prove that it's not true.

This latest puckering up to a certain advertiser based in the lone state where Bruce and Steven can get married:

Gouge:  It is hard for me to say this, but if a professional golfer can average 207 yards off the tee and make the cut at the most prestigious tournament of the year, then maybe we don't need to worry so much about a rollback of any kind. 207? It is true. Rosie Jones did that this week. In fact, only the teenage wondergirl hit it farther than 280 on some of her measured drives. Hardly anyone else even came close to that. OK, so Rosie was barely in the tournament and retired from competitive golf after putting out on the 18th on Sunday. But still the average drive at the U.S. Women's Open was just 228.7, and that's hardly a threat to any golf course.

That's right, they are gauging distance by using a tournament that had standing water in its bunkers and a tournament where they couldn't even let spectators on the course on practice round Monday. Either they are intentionally misreading readers, or they didn't actually watch the event. Either way, not good. Oh but it gets better.

You want to know what's the real problem? People who complain that the golf ball is going too far may be short-sighted. The problem is that at the elite level (men) it's not the ball, it's the golf course. If men are driving it 28 percent farther than women, then why (at least in the case of the U.S. Open) are the men playing a championship course that is only about 10 percent longer? Shouldn't the U.S. Open and all significant men's championships be played at courses that are about 8,000 yards long, or at least 7,500 yards long? Well, I guess they're not because there's no room to make Winged Foot, Oakland Hills, Oak Hill, Southern Hills and Merion that long. That infatuation with the past is what Emerson called a foolish consistency. 

Whoa, we're quoting Emerson now! Deep stuff. (Note to really cool classic courses out there that are sick of spending money updating their courses so people like Bomb and Gouge can play the latest equipment they get for free: it's Mike Stachura and E. Michael Johnson, feel free to charge them double.)

BOMB: But finally, FINALLY you might be coming to your senses. The ball is not the problem. The courses are not the problem. Drivers are not the problem. Know why? They’re ain’t no stinkin’ problem! And we don’t need to go to 7,500 or 8,000 yards, either, to keep it that way.

Opponents of distance regulation have long said “grow some rough.” Worked pretty well at Winged Foot, don’t ya think?

Uh let's see. Tiger said watching the weekend was his "punishment" and according to one publication, the ratings tanked.

Worked great. 

Oh but here's the best part.

Throwing out the Match Play where they don’t keep the stats, there have been 26 events so far on the PGA Tour this year. In nine of them—more than a third—the winner has ranked 34th or higher in driving distance for the week. That’s out of about 70 players or so that make the cut. In six of those events the winner ranked 58th or higher. That’s right, 58TH—a lot closer to last than first. The winner has been in the top 10 exactly 10 times. That means sometimes distance wins and sometimes it doesn’t. And when distance is the difference-maker I’m all for it. Golf is a sport. An athletic endeavor where physical superiority should be rewarded. But unlike weight-lifting, it’s not the sole determinant of success. Tiger, Phil and Vijay may blast the cover off the ball, but I don’t think they’d be choppers if they didn’t. Holmes and John Daly and the like will wow us every so often with a week where they whack the ball a mile and hole an equally-lengthy amount of putts. But Fred Funk will win a Players and Jim Furyk a U.S. Open playing small ball.

So yes, distance only matters sometimes. That's why Bomb and Gouge continue to fight for every golfers right to buy things that let them hit the ball longer, free of USGA regulation.

If distance doesn't matter that much, then why do they so shill so hard to keep it from being regulated? 

"his putting can resemble a form of electric shock treatment"

Thanks to reader Chris for noticing this unusually fun writing from Mark Reason in the Daily Telegraph. Reason was covering the bizarre events at the French Open and filed this story on July 2.

Michael Campbell was leading the French Open by three strokes standing on the 17th tee. Half an hour later he had hit three drives, lost one ball, had another kicked by a lady in a pink hat, had a third mistakenly picked up by his partner's caddie, received more rulings than handed down by an entire session of the House of Lords, and finished the hole by putting out twice. It was beyond strange.

The sequence started when Campbell slashed his opening drive wildly to the right. Initially he thought he had found it in bounds, but it turned out to be neither his ball nor in bounds. So back to the tee he went and carved the ball away for a second time. Thinking that this, too, was out of bounds, he then pulled a provisional drive into the rough on the left.

In fact Campbell's second ball had careened into the tents and hit a lady on the knee. Her first touch was not the best, so she chased after the ball, flicked it with her right foot, brought it under control with her left and then ran upfield with her blouse mercifully not pulled over her head. By the time the ball had finished rolling it was back in bounds.

And this made me cringe...the dreaded "didn't fit their eye" which, I understand usually does some have truth to it, but still...

Many of the top players claim that Golf National, one of the top courses on the circuit, doesn't "fit their eye". It must certainly come as a shock to be playing a course that doesn't allow them to wallop their driver 100 yards west into Frau Schmidt's cucumber frame and then claim a free drop under that week's local rule. But the colossal prize money - 666,660 euros to the winner - has attracted one of the best fields of the season and even the last-place prize money would be more than Barry Jaeckel would have earned for winning the French Open in 1972.

"Barry who?" you may well ask, but the 50-something-year-old Jaeckel turned out to be a cove. He once walked off the course in the middle of a tournament for no apparent reason. He says: "I just short circuited, I felt very crowded." The son of Richard Jaeckel, an accidental character actor who made countless films from the Sands of Iwo Jima with John Wayne to The Dirty Dozen, Barry opted for a life in golf because there were too many "strange" people in films. Jaeckel's final drive of the French Open was a vicious duck hook that was heading for a wasteland of gorse and water. He stormed off the tee quite oblivious to the fact that one of his playing partners was anxious to hit a provisional. His partner waved the ball at Jaeckel's back, then smiled, shrugged and started walking himself. Strange.

And saving the best for last...

Bobby Clampett was another welcome diversion from the tour's usual diet of white-trousered Swede. Some may remember that Clampett, something of a "phenom" in his youth, once led the Open by seven shots after five holes of the third round. He then exploded, perhaps afraid of his own theory that "with great players there is almost something wrong with them."

But here Clampett was in France, his youthful curls going much the same way as Art Garfunkel's, his ball striking still a joy to watch. Unfortunately his putting can resemble a form of electric shock treatment. Clampett is sponsored by Yes Golf - "no other putter in the world is as accurate".

The problem is that the static from Clampett's hair combined with his self-confessed excitement at this amazing product rendered his putter as useful as a lightning rod.

St. Andrews?

In a New York Times story on Ralph Reed's ties to the Jack Abramoff scandal, the paper of record runs a photo "of a 2002 golf trip to St. Andrews in Scotland" that shows, "from left in the front row, the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, David H. Safavian and Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio."

I don't think that's St. Andrews!

And boy, amazing how those trench coats really slim down Abramoff!

If You Enjoyed...

...Brett Avery's excellent hole-by-hole live blogging of Michelle Wie's attempt to qualify for the U.S. Open, good news, PGATour.com has announced via email that he's going to be doing it again Thursday and Friday. This time he'll be filing reports on Tiger Woods.

I'll post a link as soon as they have one up and running.

But it should be fun to get an inside-the-ropes perspective on the hoopla surrounding Tiger.

Update on 2006-06-15 13:40 by Geoff

Here's the link to follow Avery's coverage.

Hopkins On Whitten's "Astonishing Attack" On Hoylake

John Hopkins considers Ron Whitten's Golf Digest criticism of Hoylake as a modern day major venue, and offers a rebuttal from the R&A's own in-house designer, Peter Dawson.

It is safe to predict that a few eyebrows would have been raised at Royal Liverpool Golf Club on The Wirral yesterday when word reached it of an astonishing attack in the present issue of Golf Digest, the world’s biggest and best-selling golf magazine. The course that will stage the Open next month is fiercely criticised by Ron Whitten, the architecture editor of the magazine, who calls it “Royal Out of Bounds” and says it is no place for a major championship in the 21st century.

Hoylake is regarded as one of the sternest of all links, and the club has a wonderful history in golf. It slipped from the rota of Open courses after 1967 because the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, organisers of the Open, felt that there were too many problems meeting the requirements of an Open.

And...

Some of Whitten’s displeasure is based on his belief that the course does not have a par five that cannot be reached in two with an iron and many of its par fours are not as long as they look on paper. He also does not like the rerouting of the course. It was done because the R & A wanted a more gentle start than the old 1st, which had out of bounds on both sides, and a stronger finish than the old 18th. The 17th has now become the 1st, the old 1st is the 3rd and the par-five 16th is the 18th.

“I simply don’t agree [with the criticism],” Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the R & A, said. “Those who have played Hoylake have been very complimentary about it.”

The only thing astonishing about the "attack" is that Whitten didn't even focus on the most egregious change of all: Donald Steel's mangling of the old H.S. Colt designed road-perched green on the par-4 17th (No. 2 in the Open).  

It's also a bit disconcerting to read about a 7,200+ course being outdated and questioned as a venue for failing to "keep up with the times," with no mention why this happened or whether this is a reasonable occurrence. The message seems to be: modernize your design at all costs. 

"We see a major as a brand moment"

Richard Sandomir in the New York Times writes about a new Nike ad remembering Earl Woods that will debut this week:

Nike naturally looks to create interest around Woods, especially around the time of golf's four major tournaments. "We see a major as a brand moment," said Adam Roth, Nike's United States advertising director.

Sandomir on Streaming

Richard Sandomir writes about the trend of online streaming and the USGA's plan to carry action from the 6th at 10th holes at USOpen.com. He also writes:

This will be the sixth year that the United States Golf Association will post streaming video from the Open. It did one hole the first year, and has done two holes ever since. This year, the group decided that Winged Foot's par-4 sixth hole, "the Pulpit," one of the course architect A. W. Tillinghast's masterpieces, was must-see viewing, as was the par-3 10th hole.

Of course No. 10 is definitely the "Pulpit" while No. 6 is actually "El" (as named by Tilly himself).

Oh To Be A Subscriber, Synergy Edition

Some of you longtime readers may recall that at various times I've had trouble receiving my golf publications here in the very remote, isolated Home of the Homeless (only about 9 million neighbors in my county).

Anyhow, I know you were dying to know about my Golf World subscription. Yes, it's back up and running. But when the post office apparently determined one of my issues was undeliverable, the good folks at Conde Nast decided to put a stop on my Vanity Fair, New Yorker and Golf Digest subscriptions too!

Synergy is a beautiful thing.

Anyway, it's all good now, And not only that, but my Sports Illustrated Golf Plus has arrived three weeks in a row!

Kostis: Where's The Cry For Wie-Proofing?

Maybe one too many weeks doing CBS infomercials telecasts has blurred his vision, because Golfonline columnist Peter Kostis (and Titleist "Golf Products Design Consultant") publishes a doozy with his latest attempt to tell traditionalists that they have it all wrong:

...Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters and courses felt they need to become Tiger-proofed. Many facilities around the world added length and started cutting holes closer to the edges of the green. For golf traditionalists, the idea of playing par 4s with a driver and a wedge was just blasphemy, and boring as well.

Have those purists bothered to watch an LPGA Tour event lately?

Actually, not really.

Sorry, you were saying...

Proportionate to the length of the courses they play—typically between 6,300 and 6,500 yards—the women on the LPGA Tour are getting as long off the tee as the guys. Just look at this chart:

Longest Hitters on LPGA and PGA Tour by Year
1999     260.7 (Jean Bartholomew)     305.6 (John Daly)
2000     270.1 (Caroline Blaylock)     301.4 (John Daly)
2001     265.8 (Wendy Dolan)     306.7 (John Daly)
2002     269.3 (Akiko Fukushima)     306.8 (John Daly)
2003     269.7 (Annika Sorenstam)     321 (Hank Kuehne)
2004     270.2 (Sophie Gustafson)     314 (Hank Kuehne)
2005     270.3 (Brittany Lincicome)     318 (Scott Hend)
2006     288.7 (Karin Sjodin)     321 (Bubba Watson)

Now let me ask you this: Have you heard anyone say that the LPGA needs to do anything to its courses in response to players getting longer? I certainly haven’t.

How do I explain this deep, very complicated concept?
 

You see, your typical LPGA tournament course is 6800 yards from the tips and the LPGA is playing it at 6300 yards.

So let's say they need to add some length to offset the advances in agronomy and instruction, so they just go back to the 6600 yard tees, and they have another 200 to spare.

Cost? $0. Nada. Zilch.

Shocking as it may seem, people are irked when courses add length, take out trees, shift bunkers, blowing up rock and in general, spend ridiculous amounts all so that the grown men can keep shopping free of regulation.

In fact, Michelle Wie is creating a global fan base and earning millions in endorsements because she is not only young (16) and attractive, but overpowering LPGA courses exactly the way Tiger overpowered Augusta back in ’97.

Now, I think the world of Wie and tire of the "she needs to learn how to win debate." But uh, Tiger was winning in 1997 and doing it in a way that was clearly going to change the men's game, and therefore, the courses tournaments are played on. 

Is there an outcry that Sjodin is hitting it 18 yards longer than the 2005 distance leader like there was for Kuehne in 2003? I don’t think so! Are people blaming a new golf ball for the sudden 18 yard increase in distance at the top of the LPGA stats?

No, it must be the agronomy and improved diet that helped Annika pick up, oh, 50 yards.

Nope! Is anyone complaining that LPGA play has become boring? To the contrary, it is more exciting than ever!

So to conclude this dark conspiracy? Get ready to laugh...

This is yet another sign of just how sexist golf can be.

Oh, it gets better.

Seriously, there are only about 40 men in the world capable of overpowering a course. But the knee jerk reaction to these players has created a call not only for courses to be lengthened, but restrictions be placed on equipment and the golf ball.

Only 40 men in the world capable of overpowering a course? A knee jerk reaction has created a call? Uh, it's not 40 and it's not a call anymore, just ask the course owners who've spent millions and millions of dollars or the Winged Foot members who spend $500k to build a new tee on No. 12 that will be used twice next week. 

If you are going to talk about what’s good or bad for golf, please have the courtesy to remember that women play too.

This could be one of those turning point columns that awakens even fence-sitters to just how far-fetched and comical the pro-distance shilling has become.

Update on 2006-06-06 18:20 by Geoff

Speaking of knee jerk reactions, this might be a nice time to point out a Kostis's 2002 declaration that Augusta National's changes were all things wonderful, and his change of heart this year.

His actual comment during the 2002 telecast was that the pre-Hootie course was "one-dimensional" and that the addition of rough and trees had made it a stronger test. But after seeing more trees and rough this year he wrote that the course "now dictates more forcefully what shots the pros must to play" and that you don't like "those strategic qualities being taken away."

Knee-jerk or just...

Wie Coverage Watch

There was something retro and really fun about following Brett Avery's live hole by hole account of Michelle Wie's quest to qualify for the U.S. Open. You'll get the same old time vibe by checking out this photo gallery from GolfDigest.com.

It's funny that PGATour.com had the best coverage of Wie's quest today while GolfDigest.com tried three different links to scores (Met, TGC, ESPN), SI had nothing but AP stuff and USGA.org kicked the day off with its annual rehash of its merchandising success story (and scores only updated after each nine holes).

Golf Channel and Rich Lerner came through with an excellent wrap up show that you would hope they might do every year for the Sectionals, and not just the times Michelle Wie tries to qualify.

But it was Avery's hole-by-hole account, and his (Bernard) Darwinian obervations that stole the show. Not only because it allowed us to get a feel for this unique event in golf history via the Internet, but Avery and the Tour may have ushered in a new era in golf coverage. With the length of a golf round and the spread-out nature of a course, no other sport lends itself to a writer using a Blackberry type device (I'm pretty sure these were written accounts) to contribute real time blog updates.

It wasn't perfect. You had to refresh the page instead of the page doing an automatic refresh like a typical PGATour leaderboard, but that's a minor detail they can work out. Imagine a similar on-course blog at a major where the writer follows the last group and offers supplemental online coverage for viewers at home wondering what went on with a ruling or what Tiger was saying to Stevie when they appeared to not agree on something.

Still, it requires an observant writer willing to take a few changes, and Avery, the former Golf Journal editor who covered the rise of Tiger Woods, was more than up to the task of putting Wie's historic run into perspective.

We can only hope PGATour.com will send Avery to Winged Foot so that web readers can get such a unique, inside-the-ropes account and that other golf news organizations will experiment with this novel form of reporting.

For a distinctly old school summary of the events, here's Dave Anderson column in the New York Times.

For final sectional results, check out this USOpen.com link.

Whitten On Major Venues

Noticed this in the table of contents for July's Golf Digest:

Back to Royal O.B.
Royal Liverpool is no place for a major in the 21st century.
By Ron Whitten

It is interesting to see the continuation of Whitten's shift from defender of major venue changes to questioning the relevance of older venues in the modern game and attempts to set them up in the face of massive change over the last ten years.

You may recall his preview of Augusta's changes was less than flattering after having been an initial defender in 2001-02, while his Winged Foot preview appeared skeptical of the USGA's tiered rough and was marked by an underlying tone that rain may could easily render the course defenseless.

It's nice to see someone at Golf Digest putting their name on strong commentary. And it's great to see someone provoking reader thought on the technology issue, its impact on classic courses and setup, and the ramifications for the game in general.