When 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
Bob Harig on the question of Portrush's prospects raised during Wednesday's R&A press conference. Peter Dawson:
Other tours and governing bodies now just throw up their hands, shrug their shoulders and give the "it's always been that way" answer to slow play questions.
Not for the R&A's Championship Committee head Jim McArthur, with a nice assist from Peter Dawson!
I've noticed a recurring theme in a few stories about the course: the R&A addressed complaints by widening fairways and keeping the rough tame. Uh, let's give credit where credit is due: the Golf Gods have kept Sandwich dry and therefore, at least based on the player comments I could find, the course is going to present itself well thanks to the lack of tall grass lining the fairways that has become an R&A staple to slow down swelling driving distances.The higher the ball flight, the worse the landing on a fairway hillock, goes Peter Dawson's theory revealed yesterday in a story by John Huggan.
Now Mike Stachura has tracked down a professor who confirms. Fasten your seat belts!
But here's the bit that justifies Dawson's explanation of projectile motion. Basically, a projectile like a golf ball has two velocity components, a horizontal one and a vertical one, as Martin Brouillette, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Sherbrooke and a member of the Golf Digest Technical Panel explains: "Assuming two cases with the same landing velocity but with different landing angles, the case with the steeper landing angle has a smaller horizontal velocity component, therefore a greater vertical velocity component. This greater vertical velocity component, upon interacting with a tilted landing surface, is more likely to produce a greater sideways velocity component."
Therefore, play the stinger...less sideways velocity component. Oh wait.
***** Stachura writes:
Of course, a ball that's rolling over those awkward angles is going to be dramatically affected; one that's flying by those humps and bumps won't be bothered by them at all.
Maybe we could read more about this theory in the USGA/R&A ball study? After all, we're 8 years in, I assume this theory is covered?
The Guardian's Severin Carrell reports on the big change for St. Andrews. Naturally, despite the story describing the St. Andrews clubhouse, they ran a photo of...you guessed it...the R&A clubhouse, which is definitely not the St. Andrews Golf Club.
The committee at the St Andrews Golf Club, which is run from a handsome Victorian mansion overlooking the greens and fairways of the fabled Old Course, has written to its 2,000 male members recommending that it admit women to the club. The club, founded in 1843, has warned its members that under the new Equality Act, the club could face prosecution for failing to allow women to join. Keeping the ban would be a "retrograde step" as it would mean women would also have to be barred from its clubhouse as guests.
Its past club captains and trustees had decided that allowing all members, regardless of their gender, to have full access to all its bars and facilities would be "the best way, in their opinion, of safeguarding the long-term wellbeing of St Andrews Golf Club", the members were told.
Down boy, down boy. Contain your enthusiam!
I'm sure the R&A's Peter Dawson's fellow powerbrokers at the various tours just loved the International Golf Federation head's answer to the question Tuesday about the tours opening up their books and making public disciplinary actions. Iain Carter reports.
"In terms of what Tour disciplinary policies should be and whether disciplinary action should be made public I think if you look at the wider world of sport that has become the norm.
"I think keeping it quiet, whilst there are many good reasons for doing that at tour level, is probably something that tours should look at changing because I do think that keeping these things in the public domain has a lot of benefit in keeping our standards of behaviour high," Dawson said.
This is especially true with pace of play, not that what he or anyone else thinks matters to the tours.
Meanwhile Dawson did a nice job squelching the much-talked about behind-the-scenes grumbling about the "shock exit" of R&A championship manager David Hill, reports Martin Dempster.
"David had groomed some very good people, the likes of Johnnie Cole-Hamilton, Michael Wells, Robin Bell and Rhodri Price, for example. We are confident that the knowledge David has passed on and their experience will see us through."
Jim McArthur, chairman of the R&A's championship committee, added: "After 32 years, David decided to retire and we thank him for his immense contribution, as well as wishing him well."
The members of Hill's Open team are currently reporting to Dawson, who revealed he will be waiting until the autumn, after the last of the events the R&A run is held, before looking at the options in terms of a new director of championships.
Colin Farquharson reports that Aberdonians are on the verge of congregating in the town square and calling for the ouster of a certain severely hair-dyed autocrat to protest Frank Chirkinian's emergency World Golf Hall of Fame induction over their man, the unsung master of staking 18 holes in a day, Tom Bendelow.Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
