Bamberger: We Need Elk's Tweets!

Funny, I was just talking to someone today about how golf continues to experience black eye moments in social media, but Michael Bamberger opines that Steve Elkington's homophobic Tweet this week provides a public service of sorts.

He writes:

That first handbag tweet, it’s crude. It’s stupid. It’s not funny. But it’s useful, because it reminds us again of what’s out there. And because it reminds us again that one of our most fundamental rights is to, on occasion, make an ass of ourselves by abusing our rights to free speech. I’m going to keep reading Steve Elk. He’s better than this sorry mini episode.

He is. But so far, he hasn't shown it.

Elkington Keeping PGA Tour Fines Department In Business!

Lost in the outrage over Steve Elkington's latest distasteful Tweet is the job-creating work he's doing by keeping someone at 100 PGA Tour Boulevard gainfully employed to read these missives and report to Commissioner Fine'em Up!

Luke Kerr-Dineen on Elkington's latest conduct unbecoming moment on Twitter, which is pretty sad even for Elkington's twisted sense of social media. Ryan Lavner with the roundup of past conducts unbecoming, all raising an undisclosed amount for charity because of course, the PGA Tour does not disclose fines. But Elkington is a PGA Tour member, however, and it's a safe bet he's getting some money deducted from the account for these Tweets.

The offending Tweet, since deleted:

 ESPN's Jeff MacGregor with the best comeback:

A handbag-throwing joke FROM A MAN WHO PAYS ANOTHER MAN TO LIFT HIS GOLF BAG.

— Jeff MacGregor (@MacGregorESPN) February 25, 2014

Update on 2014-02-25 20:26 by Geoff

**Elkington has since Tweeted an explanation of his issue with ESPN's coverage:

It goes back to "a ball hit an oriental spectator".There's no oriental spectators..There just spectators.."like m Sam...He's just an athlete

— Steve Elkington (@elkpga) February 25, 2014

Update on 2014-02-26 06:31 by Geoff

**Jason Sobel takes on Elkington and says Tweeting has tarnished the legacy of a major champion with one of the all-time great swings.

There’s a good chance that if Elkington had never clicked the button to sign up for a Twitter account years ago, he’d be remembered for that buttery golf swing that earned him the 1995 PGA Championship title and nine other PGA Tour victories in a career that spanned parts of four decades.
That’s the beauty – and ugliness – of social media.

There’s another beauty to this whole story, though. Unlike in a news conference setting at a tournament, we can all just choose to ignore him.

Let The Bickering Begin: Golf World's 100 Best Modern Players

While our friends in Europe are predictably oozing with their usual xenophobia complaints, Golf World (USA) has put together a fascinating list of the 100 Best Modern Players on the PGA Tour (USA) since 1980.

The PGA Tour. Right? Are we clear so that the bickering over not doing a world 100 can be saved for elsewhere for now?

Now that we have that clear, check out Brett Avery's list built on performance metrics, with little subjectivity, some help for majors, but overall, a big reward for week-to-week excellence.

To qualify for the ranking, golfers needed three or more official PGA Tour victories since the start of the 1980 season, or two wins and at least one major championship victory.

Avery considered 1,945 individual seasons, more than 47,000 starts and 110,000 rounds and calculated the strength of each player’s performance against all other eligible players in a given season. The 1,945 individual seasons were assigned a point value, which were then averaged to determine a player’s final score.
 
The seasons were considered with performance metrics and versus-peers metrics. Some serious number crunching essentially!

The top ten since 1980:

    1.    Tiger Woods                                                           23.047
    2.    Greg Norman                                                         13.893
    3.    Phil Mickelson                                                         11.329
    4.    Jack Nicklaus                                                          11.281
    5.    Vijay Singh                                                             10.952
    6.    Ernie Els                                                                 10.702
    7.    Tom Watson                                                            10.318
    8.    David Duval                                                              9.733
    9.    Rory McIlroy                                                             9.728
    10.    Nick Faldo                                                               9.651

Let the bickering begin...