Tiger, The Gloves Are Off: Players Edition
/Jeff Rude on players critical of Tiger's decision to upstage the Accenture WGC Match Play, starting with Ernie Els, who has played in his last Chevron World Challenge.
Read MoreWhen you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Finally, A Reason To Be GWAA President!**
/Nice job by Steve Elling who spells out how the Tiger statement-reading in front of three wire service writers and three pool reporters at the TPC Sawgrass came about.
Read More"I have not talked to Accenture about this, no."
/Tim Finchem's back-of-the-room press gathering was not one of his best. But that's his fault for serving at the behest of Team Tiger, to date one of the worst crisis management operations of all time.
Read More"Definition of insanity? Playing West Coast Swing in January & February! Only 2 bad months of weather for the entire year."
/John Strege makes what seems like an old but entirely necessary case for flipping the Florida and California PGA Tour swings.
Read More"Both parties acknowledge, however, that there may be special circumstances where the PGA Tour determines a special rule is necessary for its competition."
/Jim Achenbach on the original PING-USGA settlement, a copy of which the Golfweek obtained.
Read MoreUSGA, PING Meet And Iron Out Details Of Mutually Dull Statements Offering Little In The Way Of Substance
/Why would you issue a statement that you met unless you were the Israelis and Palestinians?
Read MoreLPGA Lightens PGA Tour VP Load By One
/Interesting timing for Jon "Ironclad" Podany to be leaving his PGA Tour job in business development for the floundering LPGA Tour.
Read More"But is a barbecue chicken pizza adequate recompense for the tournament raising its ticket price from $30 to $50?"
/The PGA Tour continues to hear about their decision to raise Northern Trust Open tickets $20. John Strege in his Golf World game story:
The $20 increase over the cost of a walk-up ticket a year ago was, said Bone, necessary to offset the cost of some of the improvements made. "I wouldn't say the tournament has slipped as a golf tournament, but the sports landscape has changed everywhere, certainly here in Los Angeles. Everybody has suites now -- Staples Center, UCLA, the Angels, Dodgers, everybody. The sports landscape changed underneath the feet of the L.A. Junior Chamber. In today's market you need to make some significant investments."
The event focused on being more fan-friendly, which might have been accomplished with the Grove, an interactive area featuring food, a putting green and a pro offering swing analysis. For the first time, the tournament had branded food on site, a California Pizza Kitchen. It also increased the number of bleachers it erected around the course from two to seven, Bone said.
But is a barbecue chicken pizza adequate recompense for the tournament raising its ticket price from $30 to $50?
Bob Harig also raises this fine point, one that sails over the heads of the Ponte Vedra Value Proposition Police:
Golf tournaments ultimately do not depend on gate sales for their survival. It is about selling sponsorships, corporate hospitality, pro-am spots, etc. Those are the big-ticket items that pay the bills.
But the guy on the street is what gives a tournament its life, its buzz. Economics 101: Would you rather have one spectator paying $50 or two paying $25 each? Obviously those guys paying $25 are going to pay to park their cars and might buy souvenirs and concessions. You collect the same amount at the gate, but you give yourself a chance to make more on the back end.
More important, however, it means you create more excitement with more people attending the tournament.
“I saw that figure and thought, ‘Oh my gosh.'"
/Jill Painter of the LA Daily News filed this column on the Northern Trust Open's ticket price debacle and talked to Jerry West about the low turnout, which didn't seem to bother the Executive Director.
Read More"There doesn't seem to be a groove - or people - at the Northern Trust Open" **
/Jill Painter in the L.A. Daily News on Thursday's crowd at Riviera:
Read MoreThe PGA Tour/USGA v. Solheim
/Has such a retro vibe to it, no? Deane Beman must be so nostalgic. Or fired up. Or not answering his phone!
Read More"It seems like a heavy burden of proof for the Tour to satisfy."
/Alex Miceli does some bang-up reporting, confirming that the Tour and PING's John Solheim have talked and that it a local rule requires the formation of a committee to push through, and even then it's a reach that the tour can work around the USGA-PING settlement.
Read MoreRemembering What The Tour Is Dealing With, John Solheim Edition
/It's been suggested by PING that they warned the USGA and PGA Tour of the potential for a groove rule debacle on several occasions. Those were private letters, but in CEO John Solheim's lengthy, rambling and at times bizarre June, 2009 statement voicing opposition to the grooves, he did not warn of any potential oddities with interpretation of the rules.
Read MoreNo Local Rule!**
/Tim Finchem cancelled his Tuesday press conference in favor of briefing the players in a "highly encouraged" 4 p.m. meeting before Wednesday's scribe gathering. The question was, would he invoke a local rule banning PING non-conforming/conforming wedges or to backpeddle out of the tour's initial position.
Read More"Since last summer Phil has been feuding with the blue coats over a groove developed by Callaway that was called the multiangle wall (MAW) design."
/Alan Shipnuck offers this background on Phil's decision to play the PING wedges and what motivated the stunt:
Since last summer Phil has been feuding with the blue coats over a groove developed by Callaway that was called the multiangle wall (MAW) design. The MAW adhered to all of the USGA specs governing the new grooves but still imparted spin comparable to the old square grooves. In profile the MAW looks a bit like a martini glass, with sharp edges where the groove wall meets the plane of the clubface. "The language in the USGA rule allowed edges to become sharper as the groove sidewall becomes less steep," Roger Cleveland, Callaway's design guru, told SI in an e-mail. "Despite the fact our MAW groove design fit within the USGA's original specifications, we clearly invented something that they didn't anticipate. It performed so well that they decided to reject it, claiming the MAW groove violated the spirit of the rule."
Contrary to reports, the face of the MAW wedge did not look like this.
Meanwhile Lawrence Donegan agreed with me that this little PR firestorm is a good thing for the game, taking issue with Tim Rosaforte's assertion that this was the last thing Tim Finchem needed to be dealing with.
Excuse me but how can 464,000 Google hits on a golf-related story be a bad thing? And what is so awful about a golf story being featured on Sportscenter (which is the nightly sports news show broadcast on ESPN)?
As for PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem having to deal with a great, big, fat controversy not long after his most famous PGA Tour member was revealed to have been leading a double life - isn't that why he gets paid the ridiculous sum of $5 million (or so)? To handle, or rather capitalise on, these things?
And because golf is a gentlemen's game where the players police themselves and therefore don't need drug testing, E. Michael Johnson reports that players are bugging their tour reps for a dealer who can supply them with some old PING wedges. They can also just go on ebay, as Ryan Ballengee explains.
But Padraig Harrington reportedly has some in his bag though he hasn't decided whether to engage in cheating (which is different than being a cheater!).
