Stevie: Green Reading Books Deskilling The Game

There's a lot to enjoy about Episode 32 of the iSeekGolf Podcast appearance by New Zealander and caddie extraordinaire Stevie Williams who says the green reading books, so heavily used these days and under governing body scrutiny, should not be allowed.

From the pod:

“There’s no doubt that a lot of the information that’s getting provided now is taking a lot of the skill and the art and the natural gift [out] of playing the game."

“I’m totally against greens reading books. I think it’s a skill of the game not to have a book provided that absolutely gives you a detailed description of the green and if you read the book accurately, you know exactly how far your putt’s going to break.”

Match Play! 30 Years Of Tech Head To Head

Nice work by Laz Versalles to piece together his old circa 1987 set and match it against today's stuff only to confirm today's clubs are better and yet, not quite as fun of a game as we used to play.

He sets up his GolfWRX story this way (thanks to reader Peter V for sharing):

Somewhere between my father’s 1987 dismissal of the crucible that was the Rich Acres Par-3 and Koepka’s brutish dismantling of Erin Hills, golf has become a wildly different game. But is it a better game? Is it more entertaining to watch? Does the technology that facilitates the game for the masses belittle the game’s rich history? Most importantly, is today’s game more fun to play? I set off on a crusade to find out.

Short of buying a silver DeLorean and traveling back in time to 1987, my best bet was to try and piece together the clubs I played as a teenager and pit them against my current set to see how they would match up. A Match of The Ages if you will; Teenage Me vs. Middle-Aged Me. The artistry of the late 20th century versus the power of the early 21st century. This was going to be fun.

And to spoil the ending, though I hope you'll hit the link...

Middle-Aged Me may have won the match 5 & 4, but Teenage Me definitely won the fun 10 & 8. A big part of that fun was getting reacquainted with a game I hadn’t played in a while. A game that was less about distance and more about shapes and trajectories. A game light on predictability and loaded with variety where a good drive didn’t mean wedges into every green. I saw the golf course as the architect had intended it to be seen, which let me appreciate more of its features.

Veteran Looper Explains How A Masters Ball Could Work

When we talk bifurcation and a Masters ball, incredulous golfers always ask, "but how could it ever work?" This, despite living in a country that put men on the moon nearly five decades ago and solving to all but the most basic problems.

Nonetheless, I understand the concerns with multiple manufacturers and the propensity for cheating in today's sports. So I give you John Wood, caddie for Matt Kuchar, keen observer of the game and regular contributor to Golf.com's weekly roundtable.

The gang was kicking around Tiger's distance comments and as most of us bifurcation talkers are prone to do, looked toward Augusta, Georgia for guidance. Here's how Wood thinks it would work:

I’ve been saying this about Augusta for years. "Gentleman, you are cordially invited to participate in the Masters Invitational for the year ____. Under a new Invitational requirement, we have forwarded our specifications for a legal golf ball for our tournament to your equipment companies. Should they like to design a ball for you under these specifications, we would be more than pleased for you to play it. If they choose not to, we will provide you with three options of a ball meeting our requirements. One will launch high, one will launch low, and one will launch in the middle of those two. We wish you the best of luck." The long ball, for lack of a better word, is sexy...to the USGA, to the R&A, to the PGA Tour...and to be honest, it sells tickets, so they aren’t about to do anything about it. Last year, the statistics say the driving distance leader on the PGA Tour averaged 317 yards. That sounds out of control. But anyone who has spent any time at all out here knows that, weather depending, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau and countless others hit their driver 330-plus every time they bring it out of the bag. That’s the truth that statistics don’t show. When Tiger was one of the longest on Tour, averaging around 300 yards per drive, he was way out front, AND he was using a 43-inch steel-shafted driver and what was known to be one of the softest and spinniest balls on Tour. So, yes, hopefully Tiger’s words now will have some impact on the future.

I just hope we can buy them in the shop to show the doubting manufacturers that there can be other markets besides longer and straighter. Some people actually want to play courses as they were meant to be played.

Chubby On The Rebound: European Tour Challenge Tournament With Par Putting Banned!

John Huggan of Golf World talks to beleaguered 10-percenter Chubby Chandler as the ink dries on his divorce from longtime pal Lee Westwood and other players (Willett, Fox) who left the ISM stable.

While Chandler likens the Westwood split to a divorce--with confidentiality agreements in place to ensure we never know why--Chandler is moving forward and one of his passion projects involves a European Challenge Tour event where par putting is not tolerated.

By way of example, next year’s European Challenge Tour is expected to feature an event that Chandler has a hand in in which par will be every player’s “friend.” In a bid to finally win the seemingly never-ending battle with slow play, every competitor will be banned from putting for par. As soon as a birdie has not been achieved, it will be ball-in-pocket and on to the next hole.

“It won’t just be that par doesn’t count. The players will be banned from putting out once they haven’t made a birdie,” Chandler says. “That way they will all be round in three hours. We will have two points for a birdie, five for an eagle and eight for an albatross. That’s been done before. But no putting for par, which counts as zero. So you can’t knock it out of a bunker to four-feet and putt for par. Not allowed. And that’s where things will speed up.”

Players will also get double points if they hole-out from off the green, and all points will double on the last three holes. “Everybody is in with a chance right to the end,” Chandler says. “That might all turn out wrong. But it could also be really exciting. We’ll see. We’re not changing the game that much. We’re just making it quicker and getting rid of the dull bits. No one really gives a bleep about eight-footers for par.”

 And yet, that's semingly all we ever see. So bring it on!

State Of The Game 74: PGA Master Pro Billy Dettlaff

The author of the epic Doctors of the Game joins Rod Morri, Mike Clayton and myself to discuss his grand 696 page book and the role of golf professionals in the game. Given the evolution of the professional from degenerate to cherished place in the sport, including some twists you'll be surprised to learn about, Dettlaff helps us understand the role of the pro in shaping the game.

And this wouldn't be a SOG if we didn't discuss Tiger's recent comments on the golf ball (later in the show).

You can read more on Dettlaff's book here, where you can also order.

The book synopsis:

Take a remarkable journey through the history of golf from the unique perspective of the golf profession. Written by a second-generation PGA Professional whose family has been in the game for 110 years, the publication of Doctors of the Game is the culmination of over seven years of writing, research, personal interviews and international travel. This 696-page tome from the author of the 2015 PGA of America Centennial – Celebrating the History of the Golf Professional, is a vastly expanded text that features over 120 profiles and biographies of both well and lesser-known golf professionals highlighting their distinctive personal contributions. The stories of these remarkable men and women are enhanced with 335 historic images and original photography documenting the progress of the game’s development as a beloved worldwide passion.

As always you can listen here, download here via mp3 or wherever fine podcasts stream:

Tiger: "We need to do something about the golf ball."

As we had heard previewed a few weeks ago, Tiger Woods appears on Coach Geno Auriemma’s second “Holding Court” podcast and he gets much more insight than the traditional Tiger television interview.

Woods opens up about everything from technology to fly fishing to how he pays his caddie. Huge props to Coach Auriemma for asking great questions (and knowing the game and Tiger), but also to Tiger for doing a podcast where the conversational atmosphere leads to better insights. More than any interview I can recall, you hear him go into the kind of depth that shows how smart he is and how much thought he gives to all subjects.

I most enjoyed his thoughts on technology and the ball. Transcribed here for proper documentation as I'm sure his support of any effort to create a tournament ball will be very important.

After talking about persimmon and the differences in spin and accuracy of contact for his generation and today's stars, Coach asks "if they had to play with persimmon and the old balata balls, would they still be able to do it?"

No. Because we were taught to knock off spin and the new balls don’t spin a whole hell of a lot. They go a lot further and a lot straighter but they don’t spin. Well, now these guys, let’s say Bubba Watson, who curves the ball a ton with these harder balls. If he played a balata it might be coming back at him. Like a complete boomerang.

Auriemma then asks if Tiger would be in favor of any equipment changes in the game right now?

The only thing I would say is that we need to do something about the golf ball. I just think it’s going too far because we’re having to build golf courses…if you want to have a championship venue, they’ve got to be 73, 7400 yards long and if the game keeps progressing the way it is with technology, I think that the 8,000 yard golf course is not too far away. And that’s pretty scary. We don’t have enough property to be designing these types of golf courses. And it just makes it so much more complicated.

Oh to have been there when one of Tiger's really cool routings was spoiled by having to get more yardage. Welcome to the architectural migraine maker!

Coach asks if there is "any consensus on tour of how, is there some feeling on tour among the guys?"

Some of the guys say yes. The USGA is already looking at it. They’re doing some research on what the world would look like if you rolled it back 10 percent, 15 percent and 20 percent…the game of golf is on the kind of, there’s a down cycle as far as participation. We don’t have a whole lot of new golfers coming into the game. We don’t have any sustainability in the game as well. So, with that being said, you don’t want to give up the amateurs from hitting the ball further and straighter. But with the tour pros you might want to roll the ball back. The talks we’ve had on tour with the Commissioner and our board is where is the line of demarcation. Do we have it at PGA Tour levels, do we have it at the Web.com Tour level, do we have it at the mini-tour level, so there is that debate as well. I don’t see it happening in the near future but at least there’s talks about it now.

Keep talking Tiger, you are helping to make it happen.

Auriemma then talks about the modifications made in auto racing to keep tracks safe and relevant. Tiger offers this Wimbledon analogy:

I think a good analogy, or good comparison would be tennis. Back in 2001, 2000, somewhere in there, Goran Ivanisevic served over 200 aces for the fortnight, since then they’ve rolled the ball back, more fuzzy, a little heavier so the ball doesn’t travel as fast. They did the same thing at the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open. So they’ve made alterations to the ball to accommodate the strength and the power of the equipment and the strings and the racket as well as the pure athleticism of the bigger servers. Well that’s the ball analogy with another sport so why can’t we do the same thing with another ball sport, golf, and slow it down just a little bit.

Episode 2 featuring @TigerWoods is LIVE. Click the link to listen! https://t.co/M2iRy5MXBK

— Holding Court (@GenoPodcast) November 3, 2017

Shirtless Shark's Plan To Shatter The Governing Body "Cast Iron" Comes In The Form Of A Fancier Golf Cart

Greg Norman signed with Verizon through 2024 and has teased us repeatedly with suggestions of forthcoming plan to revolutionize the game. The development price tag has been put at $11 million.

When you read about the big announcement he finally made, remember this prediction from December last year:

“In the middle second quarter of next year, I’ll invite you guys down to my office,” he said. “We will tell you exactly how we’re going to break this cast iron that’s been wrapped around golf for so long. We’re going to shatter it. The institutions (USGA, R&A, PGA of America, PGA Tour) will eventually buy into it because they will have to buy into it. They won’t have a choice.”

Ok, so it was the four quarter.

And there was a press day attended as seen in this Golf.com video showing the huge, huge launch of this game-changing announcement fancy golf cart that will play "your" walk up music, give you game highlights and tips from the guy who would not play golf with the media.

Max Adler at GolfDigest.com got that special call down to the office and was one of four publications to actually acknowledge the much ballyhood announcement.

As fortunes go, I had the unique opportunity of previewing Shark Experience with Greg Norman driving. Last week at the Breakers Hotel Ocean Course in Palm Beach—a fun little 6,200-yard gem built in 1896, though where not long ago Brooks Koepka worked folding sweaters—Norman took turns playing holes with various members of the media. Actually, Greg didn’t hit any shots—he’s played just five rounds since March, and the PNC Father/Son Challenge in December will be his first competitive event in years—but rode with me as I played.

Maybe he just loves the cart so much he can't take his eyes off of it?

Seriously though, the Shark's onto something: the future of golf is not playing, just driving around golf courses listening to music, watching highlights and getting tips if we ever wanted to play!

In this pitch to Golf.com, Norman says it's TopGolf, only in your cart. I certainly can see how the music and opportunity to have a live sporting event on are great additions for those grown folks who like to take carts. Such amenities, depending on the cost, might even get people to play when they otherwise would have stayed home. But given the murky details on cost to golfers or courses, the entire thing feels like a half-baked rollout.

Looking at Google News, the big launch got a total of three listings. There were two additional items not picked up by Google on Golf Advisor and Golf.com:

Clicking on "View all" gets you this...

That said, there is more promotion to come and maybe the entire thing will lead to the PGA of America, USGA, PGA Tour, R&A and others closing up shop and turning the keys over to the Shirtless one.

Speaking of his propensity to disrobe, the Shark appeared in Golf.com's offices to film what appears to be a Sportscenter-like promo. His Shirtlessness earned him a long Daily Mail roundup of his most bizarre Instagram posts as a result of today's posting from Time, Inc:

Had a little fun filming something at the @golf_com offices today...

A post shared by Greg Norman (@shark_gregnorman) on Nov 2, 2017 at 12:29pm PDT

Some of my favorite comments on the post:

mattw12  Was it a porno? Where’s your shirt!

dazblenk  For a bloke who has a whole clothing line, you seem a little light on in the shirt department lately

rad_build  Dude, seriously, we get it. We. Get. It.

tv.griffiths  Even Adam Scott in the background is turning around and thinking WTF?! 😂😉

fineartbylorikostur   Looks like a dad fart

"Rich millennials are ditching the golf communities of their parents for a new kind of neighborhood"

Business Insider’s Tanza Loudenback piggybacks on the recent signs of agri-hood's starting to move forward as a future real estate community approach. Given that so many developments are golf course-based, the shift in philosophy could have profound effects on the future of current real estate communities.

Loudenback says the only people who matter want to grow their own food and demand "clean living,"

But millennials aren't interested in that type of manicured neighborhood. In today's culture, where young people favor farm-to-table fare and wax poetic about "clean living," agrihoods are just what they're searching for.

"Forget about the golf courses. Our buyers want to have a real environment," Theresa Frankiewicz, vice president of community development for Crown Community Development said at the Urban Land Institute's 2016 Food & Real Estate Forum. Frankiewicz is involved in the development of a 6,800-acre agrihood near Tucson, Arizona.

She goes on to reach this conclusion:

If agrihoods continue to attract young homebuyers, millennials may be held responsible for killing yet another formerly prized industry.

In certain areas, including the Coachella Valley where one of these communities is replacing what was intended as a golf community, I could easily see the golf course portions with desert scape or farming. This may not even be a statement about the game, but instead of the viability of so-so design in a world that wants more than just shiny rye grass and waterfalls.

I'm curious if you think this is a fad or a possible trend?

Golf Can't Get Out Of Its Own Way Files: Emily Nash Files

I know every sport laments the inability to capitalize on great news and accomplishments, but given golf's current predicament as an expensive, time-consuming sport played by an unusually high number of nebulous male characters, the Emily Nash story does not help. Actually, it's a colossal embarrassment.

Worse, early reports that the female high school golfer who earned medalist honors despite knowing she was ineligible actually had no idea of any such rules. Her coaches did. Oh, and she played the same tees as the boys.

Bill Speros has the full roundup at Golfweek of stories and angry Tweets. Deadspin weighed in. The story is going viral internationally, including in The Guardian.

To recap, Nash won the Central Massachusetts Division 3 boys’ golf tournament but was denied a trophy strictly because she's a female.

Emily is taking it all in stride according to her dad, who clarified a few things about the situation on Facebook according to GolfChannel.com's G.R. Team.

Trend? Pre-Recession Golf Course To Become Olive "Agri-hood"

Marilyn Kalfus of the Orange County Register reports the latest on a long planned conversion of a failed Palm Springs golf course development into an "agri-hood".

It seems the now-abandoned course once called Avalon is now going to be Miralon with olive trees instead of fairways.

Agri-hoods are a hot trend. There are about 150 so-called farm-to-fork neighborhoods around the U.S., says Ed McMahon, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute. They’re as close as Rancho Mission Viejo in Orange County and The Cannery in Davis near Sacramento, and as far-flung as Serenbe in Chattahoochee Hills, Ga.; Willowsford in the rolling hills of Loudoun County, Va., and Kukui’ula in Hawaii, where Kaua’i residents can harvest guava, papaya and pineapples.

“It’s a concept whose time has come,” said Paul Habibi, professor of real estate at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. “We’re increasingly looking to sustainability as an important objective in real estate development.”

There was also this, in a Jenkins-esque bit of reporting:

The Olive Oil Times, which touts itself as “the world’s No. 1 source for the latest olive oil news,” recently devoted a spread to the planned olive oasis. “Golf courses require a lot of water to stay lush and playable,” the story noted.

Top Aussies Chime In On Ways To Solve Golf's No. 1 Problem

Evin Priest does a nice job for Golf Digest Australia (thanks reader AM) talking to Adam Scott, Jason Day, Rod Pampling (Rampling in the online version) and Geoff Ogilvy about the best way to get kids into the game.

It's Junior Golf Week on Morning Drive so there are bound to be good ideas galore, but the four Aussies all have some great ideas. We'll just bite our tongues when Jason Day says the game takes too long. (He wants loops of holes designed into routings to foster shorter round options.)

Adam Scott on par-3 courses:

“I think growing up on a par-3 course was really beneficial. When you’re 5 or 6 years old and the holes are 80 or 100 yards, you can actually play them. It’s very hard to get a young kid, even 10 or 11, to play a 420-yard par 4 – it just seems like an unattainable goal to get it into a tiny hole at the end of that.

Day:

“Golf’s biggest challenge in the modern day is it just takes too long; young families with little kids don’t want to spend four, five or six hours on the golf course. They’d rather play a few holes and an hour is all they can possibly give up. Maybe if there were three-hole and four-hole loops on courses where they can go out for an hour and come back, they’d get on board. That’s how you can get introduced and fall in love with the game. And those who like it will transition into the 18-hole side."

Loved this from Ogilvy:

“I was so addicted when I was a kid because I had access. And is there a better place to drop your kids off in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon, considering the alternatives? Rather than the local shopping mall, terrorising the place. If they’re at the course, they’re hanging around generally respectable people learning how to behave around adults.”

Video Roundup: Stymies Versus Backstopping

In this week's Golfweek digital and now posted online, Brentley Romine and I debate the men's pro golf backstopping practice.

On Twitter, I've gotten a very frequent reply that goes like this: you want the stymie back but you are offended when players leave a ball down (in a form of silent, possibly creepy collusion that does not protect the field.)

Yes. I am offended by backstopping and hope we return the stymie to match play.

Because in match play, golf would be faster and far more confrontational if players could clean their ball, then leave it down the rest of the way to the hole. Foursomes, four-balls, individual matches, you name it would all have occasional moments of social-media-friendly drama. Virality, baby!

But backstopping suggests an element of rule-bending and collusion that can only damage perceptions of a clubby sport that is generally very honest, but does strike some as too fraternal at times.

The stymie is only interesting in match play, where we never see backstopping occur. Furthermore, a ball stymied by a match play opponent is an overtly hostile gesture, while backstopping is a mysteriously complacent act of notifying the competition that you are willing to assist them, free of charge.

For those who are not familiar with the stymie's place in the game and not owners of Bobby Jones' Golf Is My Game (1960), I can at least steer you to some video thanks to the wonders of YouTube.

Graphic viewing warning: these clips are all in black and white while involving evidence of people playing the game (well) prior to the year 2000.

First up, check out Sam Snead beating Johnny Palmer in the 1949 PGA at Belmont. At the :28 second mark watch how Snead tries to stymie Palmer, to no avail. The complete opposite of backstopping. 

Next, check out Charles Coe vs Nick Chapman at the :20 mark for a fantastic stymie and one that would freak out today's backstoppers in the 1951 British Amateur final, one of the last played with stymies in effect:

Also in 1951, the USA retained the Walker Cup in spite of a delicious stymie situation viewable at the 1:22 mark. The sun has continued to rise in the east since. 

At the :15 second mark of this 1948 PGA Championship highlight reel--when the event was still contested at match play--Ben Hogan is stymied and you can just feel Hogan’s enthusiasm as he pulls out wedge on a green. But what great entertainment and competitive edge this brought to the proceedings!

And at the 1933 Ryder Cup highlights, go to the 1:28 mark for a delicious reminder that the stymie was once part of the Ryder Cup, and dream of the possibilities today before remembering that we live in a golf culture where the players seek to help their friends, not clash competitive with them.

Flashback, Tiger On Distance: "There's different ways you can get around it so that we're all playing under certain speed limits."

In Sunday's Irish Independent, Dermot Gilleece took an entertaining look at the golf ball, considering its role in the game as a precious piece of equipment compared to other sports.

He was inspired by comments from Rory McIlroy during last week's Alfred Dunhill Championship at St. Andrews to revisit the idea of a tournament ball and recounted this exchange with Tiger Woods.

The comments were from the 2004 American Express Championship at Mount Juliet.

DG: "Would you be prepared to play with an official tournament ball designated for each event?"

TW: "What do you mean by 'tournament ball'? Do you mean with the same spin rate, same launch angle, hover, same speed of core?"

DG: "I mean a uniform golf ball that would be the same for everybody."

TW: "So everybody plays with the same spinning golf ball?"

DG: "Same golf ball."

TW: "I don't think that would be right because there's too many guys have different games and different types of swing. But I think you should put a limit on the speed of a golf ball, the spin-rate of a golf ball. You can increase the spin of the golf ball and make it so that we don't hit the ball as far. You can decrease the speed of the core. There's different ways you can get around it so that we're all playing under certain speed limits. Hopefully that will be the answer to a lot of the problems that we're having with golf course design around the world."

That was 2004!

As an aside to the speed limit comment, check out the shift in LPGA Tour leading driving distances from 2002 to 2017. While about a 10 yard limit, there is nothing going on like we're seeing in the men's game where optimization of launch conditions suggests gains are being made by top men that are out of proportion with gains the rest of the sport has enjoyed:

2002:

2017:

2016-17 PGA Tour Distance Average Up 2.5 Yards To 292.5

One key crime of the wraparound: not getting to disgest, analyze and celebrate the many fun stats produced by the players and documented by the ShotLink system.

Thanks to the crack crew at ShotLink I just started looking over the 2016-17 stats as we roll into week two of 2017-18. Naturally, I went to the distance numbers first and the overall average spiked from last year's 290.0 number.

I'm fairly certain the 292.5 yard average for 2016-17 makes it a record year, proving yet again that core work and heavy use of foam rollers can pay dividends.

All drives in '16-17 averaged 285.1, but the records do not go back as far to put that number into perspective.

(Just a reminder here that the USGA and R&A Joint Statement of Principles was issued in 2002 suggesting  significant increases would set off alarm bells. The PGA Tour Driving Distance average in 2002 was 279.5 yards, meaning a 13-yard increase since then.)

As for 2016-17...check out the interval chart:

Note that 43 players averaged over 300 yards, compared to 27 in 2015-16. That's also a new high mark for 300+ average. Just one player (John Daly) averaged over 300 yards in 2002 when the Statement of Principles was issued.

Do I need to keep going?

Nice Review Of Goat Hill Golf

Laz Versalles gives Oceanside's Goat Hill a nice, in-depth review now that we're well into its resurrection by John Ashworth and friends.

Check it out at GolfClubAtlas.com.