SI, Golf Magazine Buyout Offer

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Richard Perez-Pena reports on a request of 100 volunteers for a buyout at Time Inc. and notes:

Hardest hit in the first round is the group that includes Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated Kids and Golf magazines. In a memorandum to his staff, Terry McDonell, managing editor of Sports Illustrated, asked for 40 people to leave voluntarily, out of an editorial staff at the magazine group of about 250 people.

"I think it's bad for the sport that so many print people are no longer covering it."

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Neil Sagebiel at the Armchair Golf blog interviews ESPN.com's Bob Harig about a variety of issues including the impact of fewer newspaper reporters covering golf:

ARMCHAIR GOLF: One of the latest casualties in the golf writing ranks was Thomas Bonk of the L.A. Times. Where do you see this thing heading as a golf writer?

BOB HARIG: It's bleak right now. I think it's bad for the sport that so many print people are no longer covering it. Newspapers still have tremendous reach and they have all decided that they don't need to cover golf. Their attitude is people can get the information elsewhere. Well then, you're telling them to go elsewhere – or forcing them to. If you don't cover it with your own guy, human nature says that you're going to give it less attention. So there is a medium that's not getting covered. I don't think it's good for the sport at all. I think they want as many voices and as many publications covering them as possible. You also have probably the most popular athlete in any sport and they choose to ignore it except for getting by with the bare minimum. 

Dean Barnett, R.I.P.

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John Kirk's lovely tribute on GolfClubAtlas tipped me off on the passing of someone I only knew through email and his writings, though we tentatively planned on meeting and playing Rustic Canyon sometime this winter. That's one round I'll sorely miss playing (and you know how much I love slashing it around for five hours). But Dean's passion was so strong and his eye so unique, I couldn't wait to take him on a tour.

Dean wrote one of my favorite golf architecture stories, which you can read here. This spring he also filed this entertaining blog item on The Players v. The Masters.  He was working on a follow up to his architecture piece titled "Saving Golf" and had quizzed me about a variety of topics via email. For a Red Sox fan, he sure got it.

He was a respected figure in the conservative blogosphere and his passing prompted a nice tribute from Mitt Romney, as well as this from the Weekly Standard. The Boston Globe also ran this obituary.

Walters Wins Suit Against TravelGolf

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Jeff German reports for the Las Vegas Sun. This can't bode well for the future of TravelGolf.com:

District Judge Jennifer Togliatti has awarded Las Vegas golf course developer Billy Walters a $9 million judgment against the owner of a large Arizona-based Internet company he alleged had defamed him.

Walters charged in a 2006 lawsuit that Robert Lewis, a Flagstaff businessman who runs Travel Golf Media Inc., had falsely disparaged him and two of his golf courses, Stallion Mountain and Desert Pines, on the Internet after he refused to sign a new agreement to promote the courses on the company’s many Web sites.

The new contract, the suit alleged, required Walters to pay three times the promotional fees he had been paying Travel Golf Media.

Lewis published a series of posts with critical reviews and unflattering photos of the golf courses over two months in the spring of 2005, the suit alleged.

Walters’ lead lawyer, James Pisanelli, argued that the defamatory statements had caused Walters emotional distress and injured his personal reputation.

The Demise Of The L.A. Times

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In a couple of years when the largest paper west of the Mississippi is relegated to nothing more than a news website, they'll be asking how a once proud and highly profitable operation was destroyed. While I can't comment on the overall operation (LAObserved has covered it well), one department near and dear to this blog has been recklessly destroyed.

Thomas Bonk, a 27-year staffer was part of this week's staff buyouts, leaving us with just a handful of newspapermen and women covering golf. Bonk had been covering golf full-time for at least 12 years by my faulty memory count.

Here's what's most astounding about this: the most famous athlete in the world and one of the planet's most visible human-beings is Tiger Woods. He is a southern California native and part-time resident who hosts a tournament here, where, incidentally, the Los Angeles Times is published.

Along with the AP's Doug Ferguson, no writer was more consistently breaking news or demonstrating some form of access to Team Woods than Bonk. And recently, Bonk was regularly breaking news and offering important information related to the game with a weekly online column. For a paper that has touted its need to be breaking news online and in general beefing up its website coverage, Bonk delivered. It makes little sense that you would release someone fulfilling the stated mission, particularly someone with access to and a relationship with one of the world's most newsworthy and inaccessible figures.

And remember, this is a paper with six sports columnists. Not one has a clue about golf.

Peter Yoon, a talented and developing golf writer, was a victim of an earlier staff purge. The only other Times staffer capable of covering golf is Chris Dufresne, one of the top college football writers in the land who better serves the paper taking advantage of his arsenal of sources covering college football or his old beat, college basketball.

Of course, this is a paper that just fired one of its two primary film critics and numerous talented entertainment writers in the same town where there's a multi-billion dollar industry called Hollywood, so I suppose the beat writers for UCLA basketball and USC football might just be doomed too.

"A nearly 60-year-old golf magazine at the 'vanguard'? Yep."

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Golf Digest has won an innovation award for...drum roll please...its break 100 at Torrey Pines deal. I know, I know, you were thinking it was for having the most rankings in American magazine history, but no, Simon Demenco at AdAge writes about The American Magazine Vanguard Awards and says...

A nearly 60-year-old golf magazine at the "vanguard"? Yep. It scores an AMVA this year for its Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge. As the magazine explains it, "Last year at the U.S. Open, Tiger Woods said no average golfer could break 100 on a U.S. Open Course because the conditions are so tough." The editors asked themselves, "What would it be like if we got an amateur out on the course within a few days of the U.S. Open to see how he or she plays?" After the contest was announced, some 56,374 people submitted entry essays, 117,331 people voted for the winner (from a list of five editor-selected finalists), major sponsors (Rolex, Lexus, American Express and AT&T) came on board to back a brand-new TV special -- and the special itself, also called "Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge," with guest golfers Matt Lauer, Tony Romo and Justin Timberlake, scored a 2.4 rating -- outpulling the Friday round of the actual U.S. Open.

Hoppy's Hero: Me, Myself and I!

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I always go to John Hopkins' Spike Bar column for my weekly golf instruction, so I was disappointed that this edition left out the vital information I need to get through the weekend.

Instead, my heart was warmed by his "Hero of the week."

Hero of the week: Me. Well, why not? I watch golf, cover it, read about it, write about it, listen to it, listen to others talking about it, watch it on television, cock an ear to it on the radio. What I do not do is play it. Not often at least and not as often as you do, I am willing to bet. Now that the Ryder Cup is over, I am going to go and play at my club, Royal Porthcawl. Fore!

Take that Bernie Darwin!

WorldGolf.com: "Fight breaks out on shuttle bus among drunk media after Ryder Cup Matches"

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Brandon Tucker files the best exclusive of the week:

According to our shuttle bus driver from Valhalla to downtown Louisville, her van turned into The Octagon.
“There were two Americans in the van and the rest British,” she recalled. “One of the Americans said something about Sergio’s putting…and they started arguing.”
It’s about a 30-minute drive from Valhalla to the downtown hotels. The argument escalated along the way.
“When we arrived at the hotel, they got out of the van and went to blows,” she added. “They scratched my van!”
First and foremost: what is there to argue about Sergio's putting?

Scribblers and lens luggers: I want names and details. Now!


NY Times Flash: Golf Made Easier When You Can Hear and See

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Bill Pennington offers another instruction piece in Monday's editions. Because the world needs more golf instruction stories and what better place to read about them than the paper of record?

Ah but Pennington isn't serving up only "it's-all-about-you" fluff. He shares this interesting bit from a USGA test center visit with

Dick Rugge.“It’s all about how much water is channeled away by the grooves,” Rugge said. “Deeper grooves get rid of more water more quickly.”
This month, the U.S.G.A. announced new restrictions on the size and edge sharpness of grooves for clubs manufactured after Jan 1, 2010. The U.S.G.A. said the new rules were aimed at professional golfers who have had an advantage hitting out of the rough with modern U-shaped grooves in their clubs. With more control in higher grass, the pros haven’t had to worry as much about keeping the ball in the fairway, an accuracy challenge the U.S.G.A. hopes to restore on some level.

No worries mate!

But the scientific research behind the groove debate is fascinating, especially as seen in super-slow motion video. At the U.S.G.A., Rugge showed me that when a club cuts through heavy rough, grass squeezed against the face of the club actually releases water. This microscopic bed of water is what reduces spin on the ball. Larger, deeper grooves whisk away the water, like treads on a car tire, and allow for crisper contact with the ball. And in expert hands, more imparted spin.
Back in March, Rugge didn’t tell me what the U.S.G.A. might do about the more efficient U-shaped grooves in golf clubs. But playing that video back and forth, and watching clubs in thick grass putting spin on golf balls, I had an inkling. It’s all about the water.

So, shouldn't the USGA and R&A just advocate putting less water on courses instead of changing the grooves?

"There was a very strong response from people who don't believe in global warming. I was surprised by that, because global warming was actually a very minor part of the piece..."

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In the July Golfdom, I pen a column/essay on the importance of Golf Digest redefining their conditioning category. Along with the piece was a column that surprisingly hasn't elicited surprisingly nice emails from superintendents.

Online, Golfdom offered editor Larry Aylward pens a column taking issue with Barton's tone toward superintendents.

I also interviewed Barton, who had plenty of great stuff to say about his research and the surprising reaction Golf Digest received.

The entire package of Golf Digest stories can be viewed here.