Ask the Secretary

The Guardian offered readers a chance to email questions to R&A Secretary Peter Dawson. As you can imagine, the answers are spellbinding. Dawson is getting better at answering the technology questions. Like his counterpart in the States, he can rationalize with the best. But sorry, no baseball analogies.

Should something be done to prevent technology's influence on the game? - Neal Walker Coventry

Modern equipment has certainly helped golfers of all abilities to improve their performance and this is generally to be welcomed. At top level, skill remains the dominant factor in achieving success, as evidenced by the fact that the same players - Tiger, Vijay, Ernie, etc - consistently head the rankings. If technology had taken over, then this would not be happening. Clearly, there could come a point where technology renders courses too easy and the challenge of the game is diminished. It is the responsibility of the R&A and the United States Golf Association to ensure that this does not occur by setting the equipment rules to limit the impact of technology. Course set-up, of course, has a part to play as well.

So like, if Ernie and Tiger and Vijay start to not consistently "head the rankings" (and what great rankings they are), then that could be a possible reason to consider that technology has overtaken skill?

You have tolove the stuff where Dawson and his U.S. counterpart talk about how technology has made the game easier and that's a good thing. But that they are prepared to step in when it becomes too easy and they are monitoring that closely. But how will they gauge that?

Someday they'll understand that it's not about hard or easy, but instead, how the game is played and what elements of skill somehow got the sport to this point (and why some of those elements were worth protecting). But they would have to understand what those elements were, wouldn't they?  

Elling On Points Race Idea

Steve Elling writes what figures to be a recurring theme: this PGA Tour NASCAR points idea stinks:

Rather than maintain the status quo, a formula that has worked in tour circles for, oh, about eight decades, Finchem is photocopying NASCAR, which unveiled its critically mixed and unproven points chase all of two years ago.

Mind you, this year, mega-stars Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon didn't qualify for the 10-event points playoff race, which is like Woods and Vijay Singh missing the cut last week at Disney, times 10. What if they held a points race and nobody cared?

The tour points chase is expected to look something like this: After the season's final major, the PGA Championship, a series of three events will award points to players based on their finish or other performance-based criteria. The three events are believed to be the Barclays Classic, Deutsche Bank Championship and Western Open. Not coincidentally, those events are located in New York, Boston and Chicago, where the marketing impact is hoped to be as big as the number being floated as the points-race bonus -- a cool $10 million to the winner.

The Deutsche Bank event is a whopping 3 years old and contested on a course that frequently has been criticized by players, so its inclusion is mostly attributable to one thing -- the proceeds from the tournament benefit Woods' charitable foundation. It's no surprise that Woods, who has had several private conversations with Finchem on the forthcoming changes, is on board with the points format and says he definitely would play five times in a six-week span, or whatever is required, to lend credibility to the plan.

"We kind of have to," Woods said, "if you want to have a chance in the playoff system, especially at the end of the year with the playoff system being four in a row like that."

But it's not the end of the year, really. And fans thought a viable points system already was in place: It's called the money list, right?

"They are trying to have the perception not be about money," Woods said. "You don't have any idea how much money the guys in NASCAR or Formula 1 are making."

Uh...it's not about the money, but it really is all about money. And it Tiger or Vijay or Phil cashes a $10 million bonus at the end of the  year, who will care about the rich getting just a little bit richer?

Tour Pension Questions

From Wednesday's Wall Street Journal (subscription req.):

Now Sean Murphy, a 40-year-old player who is taking a break from golf while recovering from surgery, is fighting an uphill battle to change the system.

For the past 18 months, Mr. Murphy has waged an impassioned campaign to get the Tour to offer pension benefits to every player on its three main circuits: the famous PGA Tour, the second-string Nationwide Tour and the Champions Tour for seniors 50 years of age and older. He has debated the issue with Tour officials, argued his case at a players' meeting in Erie, Pa., and has been pressing his cause in Congress.

Mr. Murphy, who has played on both the PGA Tour and the Nationwide Tour, will be eligible to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in pension money when he retires. Still, he calls the system discriminatory and says it goes against the Tour's stated mission "to substantially increase player financial benefits." He also asserts that it violates IRS rules for nonprofits by offering pensions to some independent contractors but not to others.

Daly's Latest Signature Design

Highlights from a press release on John Daly's latest:

Daly's first PGA TOUR win took place at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind. "Beginning with John's victory at Crooked Stick, he has thrilled golf crowds worldwide with his prodigious drives and daring style of play," added Mayor Claar. John Daly's first signature course, Wicked Stick, is located in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The new Bolingbrook layout has been tentatively named Big Stick in recognition of Daly's first TOUR victory and first course design.

Big Stick will stretch more than 8,200 yards from the tips, bringing John's "grip-it-and-rip-it" style of golf to Illinois. The par-5 holes will exceed 600 yards, the par 4s will measure more than 450 yards, and each par 3 will feature a tee that makes that particular hole difficult and memorable. Daly's vision for the links-style course also encompasses long, open fairways with a challenging approach and undulating greens. His spirit and enthusiasm for the game will positively complement the vision of golf course architect John Robinson who will collaborate with him on the project.

"I have a passion for building golf courses and look forward to making Big Stick one of the longest tracks in the country with a number of tee boxes to allow for maximum playability," said Daly. 

Okay, who read that without laughing? 

Players Speaking Up

Bob Harig talks to players about possible changes in the 2007 PGA Tour schedule, and they are starting to say some interesting things. 

[The PGA Tour's] theory is that a condensed schedule will bring the top players together more often, because they will have fewer events from which to choose.

"Tiger and Phil talk about a long schedule; I don't know what they would know about that," said Hunter Mahan, who plays his 33rd event this week. "They play very few events because they need to be ready for the majors. To play a lot would not benefit them. They're trying to win majors, obviously they're trying to win tournaments, too, but majors are their main concern. That's why they don't play as much. (If they change the schedule) I don't see him (Woods) playing 25 events. He has his schedule."

 "I feel bad for any tournament that might not get in those top-tier tournaments and getting - I don't want to say second-hand guys - but you're not getting the top players playing them," Chris DiMarco said. "And I don't think that's fair to the tournaments that have been around forever."

Wie and Sony

Michelle Wie is playing the Sony Open (shocker, I know).

You have to love how these appearance fees work on the PGA Tour. At least with Tiger and Buick, he waits until the last minute and doesn't play every one of their events.

Maxwell Gem Uncovered?

Ron Whitten on a rediscovered Maxwell course in Kansas. Or maybe it's not.

One of the major Maxwell finds occurred a dozen years ago, at Hillcrest Golf Course in Coffeyville, hard against the Oklahoma border in the southeast corner of Kansas. It pains me to say that I had a hand in delaying its discovery, and it pains me even more to now report that it's not quite the major find that many think it is.

Elling's Final Disney Notes

Forgive me, catching up here, but if you didn't see it, Steve Elling offered all sorts of interesting notes and quotes in his Monday Disney wrap up. He includes some interesting numbers regarding the newly lengthened Magnolia course (yes it played easier).

Ghosts of Jakarta

Lawrence Donegan takes what should be a boring Volvo Masters preview story and ponders some of the current events in big time golf.

Donegan on Wie

Thanks to reader Jay for the heads up on this Lawrence Donegan piece on the Michelle Wie honey bee drop. It was published October 15. (Sounds kind of ridiculous in the big scheme of things to be obsessing about this, but...).

Lines of Charm

My latest book should finally be shipping to retailers and wholesalers this week, meaning all of those who pre-ordered (thanks!) should see it soon. Those interested in checking it out first in stores should get a chance in a few weeks.

The book is a couple of weeks behind after the Sports Media Group folks weren't happy with the first printing (many publishers wouldn't have bothered!).

I got my first copy last week and I'm thrilled with the production values and the way it all came together. Hope you like it too.

You can preview the book by visiting the Lines of Charm page. And there is a link to the Amazon page there as well.

Azinger On Disney Telecast

Mike Tirico wrapped up the Funai Classic telecast by noting the low scores despite the lengthening of Disney World's Magnolia course and asked for Paul Azinger's final thoughts.

PAUL AZINGER: Well it was lift, clean and place all week and that made it a lot easier. But I'm always a fan of David being able to beat Goliath. You know, Corey Pavin could beat Greg Norman and Gary Player could beat Jack Nicklaus. And if we keep getting longer and longer every week it's going to be a one dimensional show.

IAN BAKER-FINCH: That's right. 

Search For a Tee Time May Lead To Tokyo

From an L.A. Times business section story on the semi-revival of Japan's golf industry:

Golf is booming in South Korea, trickling down from the elite to a new generation of golfers in their 20s and 30s who are flooding the country's courses — all 147 of them. Problem is, it does not take long in a country of 50 million people to flood that many courses. Teeing off, especially on weekends, has become a challenge for all but the best-connected businessmen and government officials.

Fortunately for golfers such as Sung, there are plenty of good-quality and relatively empty courses just an hour or so away. By air. In Japan.

Japan is bursting with golf courses, 2,458 to be exact, and they're becoming alternative links for South Korean golfers desperate enough to fly abroad for a chance to drive. Sung has made the hop by plane to Tokyo from Seoul three times in the last two years, visiting Japan for a couple of days to play several rounds and take advantage of nearby hot springs.

In the last five years, Dallas-based Lone Star Funds and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have been scooping up financially troubled Japanese golf courses, almost 200 between them. The firms are now the top two golf course owners in Japan, where golf is a $10-billion-a-year business.

Both set up management subsidiaries that aim to turn a profit by buying supplies such as sand and fertilizer in bulk, and employing American-style management techniques — slicker pro shops and carts instead of caddies to move golfers around the fairways faster. Clubs are reporting that the number of rounds played is rising, and both Goldman Sachs and Lone Star have filed applications with the Tokyo Stock Exchange to take their Japanese golf subsidiaries public in the next few months.

The new American management is also democratizing Japanese golf. The two companies have lowered greens fees and let nonmembers onto once-private courses, have encouraged more women to play and have persuaded the Japanese to start rounds at once unheard-of early-morning hours.

USGA and ShotLink

Long post. My apologies. Here goes.

In the October newsletter essay telling USGA members how change has always been a positive part of golf (and how they are going to put an end to it), the USGA Communications Committee seems to have chosen the words of PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem very carefully to back up their point.

The newsletter story touts the PGA Tour's ShotLink, which the USGA has refused to use at the U.S. Open for unknown reasons (even as it proclaims to be collecting as much data as possible).

So, from the original press conference where Finchem was asked about the distance issue, with the newsletter's lifted comments from Finchem in bold below, here goes:

Q. I got a little bit lost on the ball. I wonder if you could very simply explain what might have to happen hypothetically for you to consider working with the USGA in scaling it back or deadening it or whatever the word is that you used?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Well, we are working with the USGA and the R & A and the other golf organizations. I think the change in the industry the last ten years has been -- in all of these kinds of areas, that's much more discussion, much more interrelationship between the various entities about these kinds of issues. I don't think there's a particular litmus test. I think with ShotLink -- the interesting thing about ShotLink is we created ShotLink really to help the television and to help with the Internet in communicating what's happening, and we found that an equally vital role of ShotLink is the ability to use it as a tool if you're changing a golf course or evaluating the competition.

So what do we measure? We measure public opinion and attitude. Golf course owners and organizations are looking at it, as we are, from a competitive challenge standpoint, shot values, how the golf course was designed versus how maybe it's being played now, given where the golf ball is going and what it does and how equipment performs, plus how the athleticism of the players. So all those things combine to create some questions; are you comfortable with the way the golf course is playing, is the fan as excited about the golf course playing this way versus some other way, what things would you have to do to the golf course to get it to a point where you are comfortable, and do you really want to do that.

Obviously when the changes were made at Augusta National, there were a lot of people in the mix, and certainly a number of players, who felt like there had been a movement away from the traditional way that golf course had been played, and when you have to move away from tradition, at least at this point, it troubles people. I think you take all those things into consideration and ask yourself do we need to make a change, and that will be a conversation that goes on every year among a variety of different parties. There is no litmus test.

Notice the comments left out about the impact on golf courses and owners. The entire essay in the newsletter pays no attention to the possible notion that a burden has possibly been placed on golf courses to change for no good reason other than to allow the USGA and R&A to escape scrutiny and possible criticism. Instead, they wheel out the creation of Merion and Woodhall Spa in response to the Haskell ball to prove change has always been good (but they are drawing the line now...).

Here's the rest. Again, newsletter quotes in bold, the rest was left out.

Q. I think I get the gist of what you're saying, but I wonder if it's a combination. When it comes to how the course is being played, when Augusta made the changes one thing that was brought up wasn't so much how low the scores were but guys hitting driver, wedge, driver, 9-iron. Is that what you're speaking about when it comes to the ball is how the course is being played, or is that a combination of what the scores are?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: A combination. Let me just give you one example and maybe this will put you in perspective. At 16th hole at the Players Championship, reachable par 5, on occasion there's been discussion that we should lengthen that hole, the reason being the ball is going farther, and my response has always been, yeah, but how many players are trying to reach the green in 2, how many players are successfully reaching the green in 2,what does the fan see, what's happened five years ago, what's happening today, has it really changed, is the fan less interested, is the player less challenged, more challenged? Those are questions that are more difficult to answer until ShotLink. ShotLink tells us a lot of those answers.

Now, let's say that at the 16th we concluded that instead of 50 percent of the field trying to reach the green, which is roughly the case now, and 50 percent of those being successful, that 96 percent of the players were trying to reach the green and 90 percent of those were successful. Well, you might want to bring the tee back to a point where you've got numbers that you used to have arguably if that's what you wanted to do. I'm just giving you a real example for a hypothetical question. Let's say you couldn't take the tee back, that there was no room to take the tee back. We have a little bit of room there. We could take the tee back. On another golf course you may not have that option.

So the shot values have changed over the years. You're not comfortable but you're -- those are some of the constraints that some of the older golf courses that we have on the TOUR are facing as they do those kind of evaluations.

One of the things ShotLink does is it provides them the too,however, to really know whether it's their gut that tells them something has changed or whether something has really changed, and hopefully we can come behind that and do some reasonably big research in terms of what kinds of people in this room think as well as the fans generally. I think that we can't wait around until we know we have a problem and get ahead of it a little bit because sometimes in sports if you wait too long, catching up is tougher. That's why we've been more aggressive in this area, but we're not making any assumptions that X needs to happen, either. We're just saying let's get all on the same playing field, get out there and evaluate what's happening as things develop and as these players continue to come to the scene with more athleticism, as they will.]]

Again, this raises the question, why is the USGA not interested in ShotLink for its own championship, yet praises it as part of their research program? Does this undermine the research?

ShotLink provides amazing information, particularly if you want to analyze the impact of today's play on architecture and what exactly is going on during a tournament. What better place to analyze play than at the majors?

The other reason I subjected you to all of Finchem's comments: he gives his annual state of the Tour press conference at East Lake in a couple of weeks. Hopefully it won't be all "Drive to a Billion" and 2007 schedule questions.

Punting?

Mike Bianchi looks at the PGA Tour's "NFL problem" and the future of the Funai classic.

"The reality is that we can't compete week in and week out with NFL football on Sunday or a big college football game on Saturday," admitted Tom Pernice Jr., who was atop the Funai leaderboard when the rains came Friday.

And to think, there was a time at the height of Tigermania when PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem actually predicted that golf would someday hold its own in a ratings battle with King Kong Football. Now, it appears, Finchem realizes the folly of such thinking and is ready to punt.

But is the NFL really the cause of the Tour's ratings problem? Bianchi:

Then again, doesn't every sport pale in comparison to the NFL? Even baseball plays its weekend World Series games at night so it doesn't have to compete with football. An argument could be made that every sport in this country -- except the NFL -- is a niche sport.

Of the possibility of a late season schedule demise, Bianchi writes:

If this happens, the future of late-season tournaments like the Funai is murky at best, miserable at worst. If the official tour season ends in September, the Funai could be relegated to second-class status and filled with no-names just trying to earn enough money to keep their tour cards.

It's interesting that there still has been no news of players seeing a proposed 2007 schedule (other than Finchem meeting with Tiger, Vijay and Phil).  Could it be that it's been determined for sometime and there is just a delay to build a consensus? Or a desire to spring this on the majority when it's too late to make significant changes?

The more I read of the NASCAR like finish, the more I wonder how the rank-and-file Tour player feels about a setup that will further separate 30 or so players from the rest. 

And as fans, why will that be interesting? Who cares about who gets the final few spots in the Tour Championship other than agents, accountants and immediate family members of players?