PGA State Of The Game: "Certainly it feels like there is recovery in the industry."

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The PGA of America's State of the Industry Roundtable at the PGA Show is an annual gathering of bluecoats talking up the great state of the game and their latest initiatives. Thursday appears to have been no different as they unveiled the 2012 intiative, Golf 2.0, complete with a Boy and Girls Scouts component.
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"There in the back of the fridge lies the US PGA Championship, pumped full of water and vitamins and preservatives, but still rotting away."

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Mark Reason helps set up what will be the second post PGA question with this lethal look at what the PGA Championship has morphed into: "a competition to find 'the world's khakiest man.'"

And that is true on so many levels. But before we pick apart the PGA, here's Reason's take on what could replace the PGA ala the Evian Masters buying a place in the LPGA major rota. Though I'm not sure about the use of Oriental Open...

If a combination of Asian TV networks and corporate interests like HSBC and Sony could come up with enough dosh, surely a new Oriental Open could replace the moribund US PGA.

America's influence is waning on and off the course as Tiger and Wall Street crash together.

Yes, Asia would be buying a major, but that is the way of professional sport. It is how the US PGA started and the Ryder Cup and many of golf's premier events.

And as Asia is already joined with New Zealand, Australia and South Africa in the President's Cup, maybe the fourth major could also come to these shores every now and again.

It is anachronistic for America still to stage three of the game's majors. We could build a statue to the 'unknown golfer' and place it in a square in Middle America to commemorate the passing of the US PGA and American heroes like David.

Toms, Larry Nelson and Keegan Bradley, khaki Confederates who all won glory's last shot in Atlanta.

This year's US PGA was the first major to be won by a belly putter. Uggh.

It's time to move on. It's time to make golf the global game it pretends to be.

"According to some fans, the marshals are more interested in following what's going on during play than watching the crowd and controlling their actions."

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You have to do some reading between the lines in Alex Miceli's item on Phil Mickelson getting accosted by a fan Saturday, but in case you were wondering if it had to do with his course comments, think again.
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State Of PGA Presser Draws A Whopping Two Questions

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Of course, you cynics are thinking that this speaks to the irrelevance of an organization that overpays its leadership and former leadership (ex-CEO at $300k four years after stepping down!), stuffs millions away in its coffers and takes the fourth of four majors to miserable climates.

Or it could have been the numbing opening remarks from PGA of America president Allen Wronowski. Wow, even Tim Finchem doesn't rally kill that hard.

"Why else would the Ryder Cup, one of the biggest events in golf and sports in general, be missing from the West Coast since 1959?"

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Larry Bohannan fires off a nice rant about the PGA of America's disdain for the western United States when it comes to selecting PGA and Ryder Cup venues.

We can all scream about an East Coast bias from an organization that is based in Florida. We can scream about making an event better for television times in Europe event even if the event is being played in the United States. But none of that is a reasonable explanation for why the PGA of America has abandoned the West Coast. Or why the Ryder Cup can’t possible come back to the West Coast before 2022.

The next three Ryder Cups in the U.S. have already been awarded to courses in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. It’s as if the PGA considers the West Coast to still be unsettled, or that maybe we out west are not part of the United States. I’m pretty sure California joined the union back in 1850, which seems like the last time the Ryder Cup was played in the state.