It’s back!
Twenty years later Tatra Press has kindly allowed me to bring back Grounds For Golf now that golf architecture is of more interest to the masses. A new Introduction looks at what’s driven the interest growth and two new chapters I had a blast adding (plus a few edits to keep things up-to-date).
The Amazon purchase page for the book arriving June 15, 2026.
Garry Smits in the Florida Times-Union (really annoying registration req.) says Tim Finchem will not be announcing a new date for the Players Championship tomorrow. We're instead going to the Commish paint "broad strokes." The over-under on platform mentions just went up to 15.
For those following the Top 125 race, this, from the PGA Tour's media notes:
Four players fell out of the top 125 with one event remaining, next week’s Southern Farm Bureau Classic – Loren Roberts (No. 120 to No. 126), Nick Watney (No. 121 to 127), Michael Allen (No. 123 to No. 128), Ben Curtis (No. 124 to No. 130). Roberts turned 50 this year and splits time between the PGA TOUR and the Champions Tour while the 2003 British Open champion Curtis has exempt status through the 2008 season.
Four players climbed into the top 125 – Tag Ridings (No. 126 to No. 101), Hidemichi Tanaka (No. 149 to No. 115), Patrick Sheehan (No. 129 to 116) and Tommy Armour III (No. 132 to No. 123). Tanaka’s T3 finish matched his career best, a T3 at the 2004 B.C. Open.
An AP story that doesn't shed too much new light on the Tour schedule announcment, but I did notice this buried at the end:
The WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone would switch to the week before the PGA Championship instead of the week after. That means players like Woods or Phil Mickelson might have to compete in six events in seven weeks.
"We kind of have to if you want to have a chance of the playoff system, especially toward the end of the year,'' Woods said. "If you're playing well, you're going to have to play them all.''
Woods has met with Finchem at least four times this year, and presumably has signed off on the changes.
Reader Greg asked why the great interest here in the jumps at the top of each Tour's driving distance stats.
On May 9, 2002, the USGA and R&A issued a "Joint Statement of Principles" regarding the improvement of golf clubs and balls. The key line says: "any further significant increases in hitting distances at the highest level are undesirable."
PGA TOUR:
Nationwide Tour:
So while the average Tour drive has climbed at a pace that the USGA could easily shrug off as not necessarily "significant," the huge leaps at the top would seem to indicate that manufacturers have been able to design a ball that passes the USGA overall distance standard under the stipulated launch conditions, but under different launch conditions, allows the players to exceed the distance standard. Thus, creating a situation where some are able to work around the intent of the rules.
Or the guys have just really been working out a lot since 2002.
But it doesn't matter how they've managed to increase their distance since the governing bodies say "any further significant increases in hitting distances at the highest level are undesirable."
Not much grey area in that statement, nor in the "highest level" driving distance increases since 2002.
You have to hand it to the PGA Tour folks who are organizing the "Drive to a Billion" celebration on such short notice. After all, who'd a thought they would have reached the magical number by East Lake when it was originally believed this was going to happen next year?
Well, the celebration sounds touching:
A public celebration of the milestone is planned for Tuesday at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Ga., in conjunction with the season-ending TOUR Championship. A giant cake will be cut and children from the East Lake Foundation -- representing the many charities that benefit from the money raised by PGA TOUR, Champions Tour and Nationwide Tour events - will be holding a host of colorful "Thanks a Billion" balloons.
Pretty soon, these East Lake Foundation kids should be eligible for SAG cards after all of the photo ops they've had to do.
Even with soft conditions the last two weeks, the PGA Tour held steady at 25 players averaging over 300 yards off the tee, up from 14 last year. (If Ernie Els and Jason Gore had played enough rounds to be eligible, the number would be at 27 for 2005.)
The conclusion of the Nationwide Tour season provides an opportunity to revisit their numbers. Again, a look at the leaders in driving distance average.
With its season concluding, here's a look at the Champions Tour driving distance leaders through the years:
Yes, that's right, the Senior/Valiant Competitors/Champions Tour leader in driving distance is up 36 yards from 1988 to 2005.
If only those guys would have been working out in the late 80s...
The distance leader in 1988 at 264.9 (Bob Boldt), would have placed 63rd in 2005, just ahead of the notoriously long hitting Morris Hatalsky.
Tim Finchem is expected to announce the parameters of the 2007 Tour schedule this week. So I'm wondering, and wondering if anyone else is wondering...
The British Open and PGA will likely be played on their current dates (although wasn't Finchem trying to get the PGA to move up or back a week?).
The season will then conclude with four mega-purse events (New York, Chicago, Boston, Tour Championship), creating a "playoff" that will theoretically prove exciting because of a huge bonus pool.
So besides theoretically asking the players to enter four straight events after a major (!?) at the hottest time of the year, won't this kill the chances of luring big names to the events between the British and PGA? And do they really expect these guys to play five weeks in a row?
Mark Soltau has a nice look at the career of Casey Martin, who appears to be calling it quits after giving it his best.
The Tour will reached $1 billion in charitable donations thanks to the Charles Schwab Cup (Champions Tour event played this week in case you were wondering what that was).
This ought to silence all you cynics out there who thought it would magically happen at the Tour Championship.
Nope, it happened the Sunday night before...so they can milk it all week. Why didn't I think of that!
"It's pretty special," Tim Finchem said. "It's nice to celebrate a milestone like this. If more people and more companies really understand what's happening, that can help you grow. This is part of our mission. It's part of our culture."
Part of our culture?
From a front page L.A. Times story today by Greg Johnson:
Operators are dangling discounts and promotions in front of customers — and courting a new generation of duffers who prefer T-shirts to polos and wouldn't think of playing without their iPods and Bluetooth-enabled cellphones. To survive, some courses are taking Palm Desert's approach: plowing under acreage to build homes that will finance improvements.
This isn't the scenario that golf's gurus envisioned in the 1990s, when the "Tiger effect" — a surge in interest in the sport inspired by the arrival of Tiger Woods on the pro tour — and dot-com stock options fueled the belief that a course a day could be built for the foreseeable future.
That euphoria extended into 2000, when 400 courses opened nationwide. This year, about 150 will open, still far exceeding the 50 or so that will shut down.
The build-it-and-they-will-come mentality has been fueled by demand for high-end communities anchored by alluring courses. It comes after a heady half-century of growth; only 3.5 million Americans played golf in 1950, compared with 27.3 million in 2004.
But the number of rounds played increased by just 0.7% in 2004 after three years of decline. The ranks of serious golfers — the roughly half of all players who account for the vast majority of rounds — fell by nearly 5% last year."We've gotten to the point where we could probably stand to close a course a day for the next 10 years," said Walt Lankow, the owner of a family-run golf business outside Boston.
Woods has lured newcomers, including many minorities, to the game. Latinos, Asians and African Americans now account for one-fifth of all players, according to a 2003 National Golf Foundation survey.
But many new golfers quickly retire their clubs because of the game's high costs, its inherent difficulty and the time it takes to play 18 holes — or because they come to agree with Mark Twain's observation that golf is a good walk spoiled.
That leaves golf's near-term success in the grip of baby boomers, those now in their 40s and 50s with time and money to play, their fascination with the game ingrained after watching Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer turn it into a television staple.
Second time in five years he's skipping it.
Len Shapiro profiles former USGA Executive Committee member Jack Vardaman. He doesn't ask him about his thoughts on the state of the USGA or game.
Thomas Bonk's golf column, like a lot of other things in the L.A. Times' once meaty sports section, became a web exclusive this week. Besides a preview of Tiger's west coast schedule, Bonk offered this:
Ratings update: With Woods missing the cut, the overnight Nielsen rating for Sunday's final round of the Funai Classic on ABC was 1.4. Though that's still an increase over last year's 1.2 (when Woods wasn't entered), it still wasn't even close to NBC's "U.S. Open of Supercross," which had a 3.1 rating.
Lawrence Donegan has some fun with the Van de Velde story.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
