Casper on Course Lengthening Trend

Add Bob Casper to the list this week saying that lengthening courses is a mistake. His solution:

No doubt, distance is an advantage off the tee. But firm greens and flyer rough negates the upper hand of the power game. It's a scary notion that millions of dollars can be spent for renovations and restorations to courses in hopes of affecting a tiny percentage of players known as bombers. The formula for success for all golf's governing bodies should be firm -- and unchangeable.

Firm is good, firm is good.

And thankfully, Casper never once mentions narrowing the courses any further (he, unlike some, apparently realizes that there is a point when 20 yards is closer to a walkway than a fairway). But it is interesting how there continue to be more calls for rough when this year's flogging approach has only become more accepted despite efforts to stop it. The more they narrow fairways and the more rough that is harvested, the more the players just swing away. 

Hannigan On Wie Drop

Golfobserver's Frank Hannigan takes a look at the Michelle Wie DQ and her drop method.

This courtesy of reader Tommy...again, for Michelle's reference.

 

R&A Weighs In!?

Here is a strange story from the UK's Telegraph quoting Grant Moir of the R&A, who is eager to let Michelle Wie know that they are on her side.

Are they that desperate to get her in the British Open, or just trying too hard to be liked? Seems they're a bit out of their jurisdiction on this one.

...the R & A were "frustrated" with Bamberger's handling of events. "If he felt at the time that he had witnessed a breach and was sufficiently sure of himself to raise it, he should have found an official at once.

"He should have known just how serious it would be for Michelle if he hung on to the information until the following day."

Meanwhile, GolfDigest.com readers weigh in and frankly, their comments are more interesting. Most are outraged at Bamberger and the overall situation, but in particular most seem to be in agreement that something needs to be done about outside rule violation reporting without time limits.

More O'Meara

Tim Rosaforte writes about the lengthening of Disney's Magnolia course, where he says the 7,500 yard course has become major like in toughness (well unless you look at the scores).

"This is the Funai Classic," said John Cook after his practice round, "not the U.S. Open."

Rosaforte provides another opportunity for more Mark O'Meara brilliance. He, the co-architect of the splendid TPC Valencia (where the even the Champions Tour refuses to go).

"I'd like to see them pinch in the fairways and plant roses bushes with big thorns," O'Meara said. "If you want everybody to compete, play a course hard and fast. At Augusta, take out the secondary cut and take the pine needles out into the fairway and let the trees be the equalizer. Most of these doglegs today, these guys hit it over the doglegs and the hazards. You have to hit the ball long. You have to be strong and you've got to be powerful."

How to fix the game, by Mark O'Meara

At least Mark O'Meara honestly sums up what all of the arguing over lengthening and narrowing courses is really about: scores, and prevention of low ones.

"What they should do, if they want to fix the game, is look at the places with the highest scoring averages," said O'Meara, who dabbles in course design. "Make courses drier and faster, with more trees, make it more penal. Make players think a little more instead of just reaching for the driver and swinging as hard as they can."

Fix the game, look to the places with the highest scoring averages. What a great idea!

As for his comments about addressing flogging (add trees, rough, etc, etc, etc), haven't they already done that?  (Except fast and firm, which is difficult when the Tour seems to be followed by rain every week.)

Shapiro on Bamberger

Leonard Shapiro in the Washington Post writes of Michael Bamberger's actions:

I believe he was dead wrong and did the absolutely dishonorable thing for his profession. He was there as a representative of his publication, given credentials by the LPGA to "cover" the event, not officiate it. If he wanted to mark off the yardage to prove the error of Wie's ways to himself and then to his readers, no problem there. If he wanted to write about his findings in the magazine, again, that certainly was his prerogative.

So if Bamberger waited to spring this on readers in SI instead of reporting it to officials and the player at the tournament (albeit, way later than he should have), that would have been acceptable?I don't think so. 

More On Magnolia Lengthening

Doug Ferguson looks at the Disney-Magnolia course lengthening:

The Magnolia Course has been stretched to 7,516 yards, the latest tournament that figures the most viable way to challenge the best players is by making a course longer.

"They just don't get it," Frank Lickliter said Wednesday. "Grow the rough. Tighten the fairways."

 Soggy fairways have made the course play even longer — and perhaps tougher.

I think they ought to just continue the player walkways from the tee right to the green.That'll put a premium on accuracy!

Ferguson noted that Tiger has put his new Nike driver in the bag, which early buzz says will make him even longer off the tee. If that's possible. Tiger had this to say about the course:

"More than the length, it's the fact that every ball is backing up," Woods said. "Every ball picked up mud. That's the hardest thing in the world. You can have length, and you can have longer shots to the green, but if you don't have a clean ball, it makes for a very difficult golf shot." 

I haven't been paying attention, but are they even going to be playing this weekend with a hurricane moving in? 

Bamberger Criticism

The criticism of Michael Bamberger and SI has bothered me for some reason, even though I know he didn't handle the Wie situation too well, as he acknowledges in the SI.com interview linked here in a second. If you want to read more complaints his actions, go here and here. For Bamberger's SI interview outlining the situation, go here. He says:

A: In hindsight, if I could do anything over again, I would try to intercept her between the 18th green and her signing her scorecard. I wish I would've done that.

And I found this comment interesting:

Q: What would that shot have been like for her?

A: From where she played her shot, she took five practice swings. Each time she lightly brushed a 9-foot tall Yucca plant behind her. If she had been 12-18 inches farther back, that Yucca plant would have been squarely in her way.

So I've finally figured out what's been bothering me about the onslaught of criticism.

Bamberger was out there on the course. Many of golf's finest scribblers haven't been seen walking with a player in years, or if they were, it was from the locker room to the parking lot. Bamberger is actually one of the few who walks enough with players to put himself in a position where he might see something unusual happen.

Some of his critics in the media might want to keep that in mind when they ponder how they would have handled the situation. (Assuming they even left the press center to give themselves a chance to see a violation). 

Brian Wacker at GolfDigest.com also puts the situation in perspective by bringing up the antics of Marco Dawson, whose whistleblowing tactics were far more troublesome. 

More Gore

Steve Elling profiles Jason Gore.

More SI Coverage Of Wie Incident

SI admirably takes the Wie incident heads on, publishing these photos of the drop (well, 6 of 7 are photos...the 7th is some sort of trivia ad thing), while offering a rebuttal to Alan Shipnuck's piece with SI's own Rob Stanger sort of scolding his colleague, though I don't buy into one of the scenarios he suggested for Bamberger to have considered (calling out to the caddy on the spot right after the drop).

Stanger also gets on Wie and the LPGA. He points out the rule 20-2 drop violation discussed in posts below.

Another good point Stanger addresses involves the LPGA players and reminds us what a debacle Trump National was with so many needing rulings. Same thing at Bighorn, including an incident with Annika.

Is it the golf courses and the many environmental areas, or as some are saying, players not knowing the rules well enough? Or a little of both? Or maybe the LPGA not having enough officials (hard to imagine that being the case at the tiny field Samsung).

Either way it seems this incident will ultimately force several issues to be addressed (DQ for day-after rulings, outside the ropes reporting of violations, player knowledge of rules, etc...), likely for the betterment of the sport.

Integrity In Pro Golf

Lawrence Donegan wonders if professional golfers are as honest as they claim to be.

USGA: Keeping Their Eye On Something, Vol. 1

For those of you who didn't get the USGA's October newsletter (and based on their dwindling membership total, that's most), this site will pass along snippets from the "Special Issue: Equipment," where as one astute Golf Club Atlas observer noted, the USGA lays how there is nothing wrong with recent changes in the game, and they're doing everything they can to stop it from happening again.

Consider the "Merion and Woodhall" sidebar, where writer Gary Galyean says that if it weren't for advances in ball performance, we would not have had those two great courses to play (and lengthen and narrow). He writes:

Ironically, without the advance of increased ball performance, we would never have seen the resulting masterpieces that include Merion's East Course (Ardmore, PA) and the perfected Woodhall Spa (Lincolnshire, England).

Then he writes, and I do not make this up:

Other than perhaps drinking, tinking to improve equipment may be golf's oldest tradition.

Nothing like some first year frat house humor to class-up the newsletter.

Anyway, the point of the sidebar and the entire newsletter is to say, it's all good, roll with it baby, this is what golf has always been about: consumption. Oh, and we are now taking a proactive approach because, well things have changed and this can't go on like this.

Somehow I don't see this appearing in the October, 2095 newsletter:

Ironically, without the advance of increased ball performance, we would never have seen the resulting masterpieces that include the 8,600 yard Jade Mountain Snow Golf Club (People's Republic of China) and 8,100 yard Antler Creek(Las Vegas, Nevada).

Other than perhaps drinking, buying a new driver twice a year may be golf's oldest tradition. A historical inspection of square grooved irons, Scotty Cameron putters or Precept balls reveals that the conniving mind of man has always been at work to find a more effective way of getting extra dollars out of the golfer.

While We're Nitpicking

Here is Wie making what I believe is the infamous drop.

 

According to Rule 20-2: "A ball to be dropped under the Rules must be dropped by the player himself. He must stand erect, hold the ball at shoulder height and arm’s length and drop it. If a ball is dropped by any other person or in any other manner and the error is not corrected as provided in Rule 20-6, the player incurs a penalty of one stroke."

Reader Blue Blazer and other readers have pointed out that they noticed the almost waist-high drop as it was happening, and thought to themselves that Wie's dropping methodology left a lot to be desired. Hard to say definitively from the photo if she's at waist level, but it appears she's somewhere between the shoulder and waist.

Just something she might want to correct since her future ball drops will be closely scrutinized.
 

Even More Wie DQ Follow Up

George White looks at the issues raised by the Wie DQ incident, namely, why is it in golf that these things can be reviewed the day after, while in other sports they'd never hear of such a thing.

Meanwhile at Golfobserver, David Barrett says throw out such analogies. He also makes this point, which might answer George White's questions regarding fairness.

I would like to see unknowing violations that come to light after a player has signed his scorecard be penalized by adding the appropriate penalty strokes--and maybe even two extra strokes--instead of with disqualification.

There are already a couple of principles embedded in the Rules that could lead in this direction. First, there is what happens at the end of the competition. Once a competition is closed--for a multi-round event, that means the final round is over and the result announced--a player is disqualified only if it comes to light that he knew he incurred penalty strokes but did not report them. This could be extended back to the time of signing the scorecard.

There's also an existing, but seldom-used, way to tackle the problem. The Rules give the committee the power to waive or modify a disqualification penalty in "exceptional individual cases." However, the Rulesmakers view "exceptional" to mean extremely rare...

More Wie DQ Follow Up

Nothing gets media juices flowing more than a story involving...itself! Lots of interesting reactions to the Wie DQ incident and Michael Bamberger's role in it.

Alan Shipnuck defends his SI colleague.  Tom Hanson in the Naples News says Wie is a victim of the SI jinx without even making the cover, and is pretty tough on Bamberger.

In the UK, Lewis Mair looks at all the losers in this, namely Annika Sorrenstam, whose easy win was forgotten, and whose post round press conference was deserted 5 minutes into it by the scribblers much more interested in the Wie story. Finally, Lawrence Donegan reports on an "angry altercation" between Wie's caddie and Bamberger over the incident. Jeese, it's just the Samsung World Championship. Let's all get along!