Flashback: East Lake in '98

From Sunday's post round press conference, after Hal Sutton beat Vijay Singh in a sudden death playoff at East Lake in 1998:

Q. You talked on TV about it's a high -- it calls for a high shot. You really can't get it that high.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I was a little worried. I needed the birdie at 15 really bad. I felt like, That's not a really good shot for me either. This golf course, as a whole - I should probably reflect back on this - I went to dinner with Tim Finchem Wednesday night. He said, "What do you think of the golf course?" I said, "It's a golf course, but it really favors a high ball hitter. I'm going to have to play pretty defensive. I'm not going to be able to attack the flag a lot. I'm going to have to try to be patient, 2-putt, make a putt wherever I can." He just kept reminding me of that all week long. I didn't really have a lot of close birdie putts. Probably the happiest that I am to report is that I had a lot of long putts all week long, and I only had one 3-put all week. That was the big difference right there. But the finishing holes - getting back to your question a little bit - when I didn't birdie 15, 16 was my last opportunity that I felt like a low shot could be okay, and I drove -- hit a good drive. It just trickled into the rough there. I was fortunate to get a good second shot into the green, but I still didn't have a good birdie putt. When we got to 17 and 18, I knew Vijay had the advantage because he could drive it up on top of the hill. That shot is a much different shot from on top of that hill than it is from 30 yards back there where you can't see the green. Then 18 does require a high shot. That's why I carry a 4-wood most all the time. When I saw that hole early in the week, I knew the 4-wood was in for sure.

Q. How far was 18 playing? Is that a perfect yardage for your 4-wood?

HAL SUTTON: It was playing 240. That's exact yardage that I try to hit it most of the time. Actually, I can fly it about 230 - between 230 and 235. That was just under the hill, so it could release up top.

Cog Hill Update

Looks like Cog Hill #4 will be Ree-stored. I hope Rees sends David Fay a royalty check for these wannabe-U.S. Open redos.

Tiger On?

Not sure what to make of this from Tiger's pre-tournament press conference:

Q. You mentioned that you feel a 300 yard drive that you didn't feel in your 20s. What are the things you see later in your career that you might change in your game? We know MJ went to the fade away later in his career. What are some of the things you may incorporate into your game later on?

TIGER WOODS: I don't know. Certainly that's dependent on equipment changes, whether or not we're going to make any equipment changes, whether I can roll the ball back or not, reduce the club face or whatever we're going to do. You're going to have to adjust. I think that's the great thing about this game. You have to keep it fluid. Things always have to adjust. I have plenty on my plate to work on, all the changes I'm trying to incorporate in my game. That will keep me busy for a long time.

East Lake Scoring

Tiger wasn't happy with his 66 where he hit 6 of 14 fairways. 17 players were at par or better in round one. Remember when East Lake had teeth way back in 1998 when Hal Sutton's winning score was 274 (-6). It's 200 yards longer than it was in '98 and they torch the place. 

Time for another Rees-toration?  After all, this will be the host of the Super Bowl of golf...

Hoggard On Bubble Players

Rex Hoggard and Golfweek are filing stories on players struggling to retain their card, or on guys playing in the early stages of Tour school. If you aren't a regular at Golfweek.com, here's a link to the most recent piece on Tommy Armour III.

McCleery Weighs In

Longtime golf-on-TV critic Peter McCleery weights in at GolfObserver on the state of the Tour's TV situation. Too many good points and quotes from McCleery's inside sources to clip and paste here. Just read it.

Plays Often at MountainGate in L.A.

First there was the ranking of best golfing Washington thie...politicians, now the ranking world does Hollywood golfers. Golf Digest offers up a list with comments next to each celeb. You get an insight from the people you've heard of, or a description of the names that draw a blank (plenty of those).

My favorite: Sly Stallone, a beloved Riviera member gets, "Plays often at MountainGate in L.A."

Now that's a line Sly might want on his tombstone!

"On A Course Without Roll"

That's how Ian Baker Finch described the conditions at East Lake today near the end of the broadcast as they discussed how much the course had changed in just a few years. (He mentioned how Hal Sutton won in 1998 hitting a fairway wood into par 4s and the par 3 18th compared to today's 3, 4 and 5 irons).

Well, somehow Sergio still managed to average 339 on his two measured drives, Tiger was at 318, Adam Scott at 313, Davis Love at 312, etc, etc, etc. 

Tiger had 102 yards into the 453-yard par-4 17th. He drop kicked it 230 and it rolled 120 yards. ;) Oh and the five-iron he hit on 18 from 235 rolled at least 10 feet.

And They Wonder Why ABC Isn't Interested...

From Thomas Bonk's L.A. Times column:

Ratings update: Sunday's final round of the Chrysler Championship on ABC had a 1.1 overnight Nielsen rating and was nearly doubled by the 2.1 rating for NBC's "Pro Bull Riding" show.

Campbell On "Point System"

Steve Campbell in the Houston Chronicle:

The points system is another potential series of land mines. If the tour puts too much weight and too much money on a fall finish, it runs the risk of undermining the majors and unduly rewarding a player who gets hot at the end of the season. If the tour puts in place a points system that measures a player's entire body of work, how much would that differ from the money list?

Set up a system where too many players are in contention, and the championship cup will runneth over with hold-your-nose champions. Set up a system where only the most deserving players are in contention, and you get the Tour Championship multiplied — a series of money grabs meaningful only to the richest of the rich and their accountants.

Remember, the Tour Championship seemed like a great idea once.

Sandomir On Cup Race

Richard Sandomir in the New York Times:

How much more money the PGA Tour will reap should be a concern. It has created a new revenue stream by selling the title sponsorship to its championship race to FedEx (the champion will receiver the hitherto nonexistent FedEx Cup), but will the four-tournament Championship Series be alluring enough to networks, whether it is sold as a package or piecemeal?

"It could be on different networks," Moorhouse said.

Who will carry the playoff? CBS and Fox are out, because they televise the National Football League on Sundays; ABC will return to Nascar in 2007 (replacing NBC); and NBC will be showing Sunday night N.F.L. football.

Moorhouse sees some daylight. ABC won't have Nascar every Sunday; NBC might have Sunday afternoons open; and before Labor Day, CBS might have some time. But there might not be the consistency of a single network carrying all four events. The last eight races of the Chase for the Nextel Cup, for example, are all on NBC.

East Lake Skeptic

This Cy Connelly piece for Sports Network offers some pithy comments about East Lake and the Tour.

These days, its not enough for the Tour to put on golf tournaments; it needs to be a highly visible (and tax-deductible) force for social change. Its all quite heartwarming stuff, except that while passion is hard to quantify, the financing behind the East Lake revival is not. Simply put, while a lot of money has flowed into East Lake, its not clear that golf has played a central role, despite the Tours continued focus on the East Lake story.

Of the $100 million thats been invested in East Lake, over $70 million came from only two sources: Tom Cousins, a prominent Atlanta real-estate developer with a strong philanthropic bent; and the U.S. federal government, through its "Hope VI" program for restoring public housing.

Various corporations contributed nearly another $20 million indirectly, as part of a national drive to recruit members for the restored East Lake Golf Club, which is now strictly private. (In the old days, the course was a popular choice among promising local juniors because, as Stewart Cink pointed out, "you could always get on.")

As Cousins cheerfully concedes, however, these memberships were structured to provide a substantial tax break. In return, the corporations got near- exclusive access to a top-flight golf course. Ray Robinson, Chairman of East Lake Foundation, slipped a little off-message at last years Tour Championship, noting dryly, "The golf course has little to do with whats over [at East Lake community], because this is a private club; the neighbors dont belong." The neighborhood kids are, however, welcome as caddies, though the clubs "no tipping" policy may come as a surprise to them.

Ouch. Now, as much as I enjoyed this passage, it's not quite entirely true:

For its part, the Tours actual contribution to the East Lake Foundation was roughly $700,000 last year. To put this in context, the Tour plans to spend $24 million upgrading the TPC Avenel course next year, part of the continuing cost of its unwillingness to take on the equipment manufacturers and rein in driving distances.

Actually, it's just not a very good course. Though added length and the elimination of a birdie friendly (perish the thought) par-5 are components of the redo plan.

And how about the highly-touted East Lake charter school, whose pupils will be trotted out for todays "Drive to a Billion" photo op? Its actually run by the controversial Edison Schools outfit, a for-profit concern best known for two things: shareholder lawsuits and its proposal to require students to do unpaid administrative work, as a means of cutting operating costs. Last week, Edisons efforts in "Little Vietnam" were given a borderline-passing grade by the people who brought us "Big Vietnam" - thats right, the RAND Corporation. Tough marks given that Edison itself had commissioned the study and paid $1.6 million for it.

All of which leaves the Tour sitting squarely in the middle of a broad experiment in social engineering. To the extent the East Lake story works, credit goes to a strong-willed developer with a social conscience and a lot of federal dollars to spend. Can the experiment be replicated elsewhere? Not if the White Houses current budget passes: it eliminates the "Hope VI" program entirely. If the Tour and its corporate sponsors hope to add more federally subsidized golf communities to the PGA rotation, they should get in touch with their lobbyists immediately.

Early Reaction To Finchem

TGC's George White is undestandably confused.

SI's Chris Lewis says the press conference left a lot of unanswered questions, and proceeds to analyze how much of the new schedule is network driven, and how much is player driven (hint: he says the networks are in control, and after Finchem's press conference, it's hard to disagree).

GolfDigest.com has...wait, they don't have anything.

Jeff Rude looks at Phil Mickelson's unusual decision not to play at East Lake and how it relates to Finchem and the TV situation.

Finally, the 2006 schedule was also released. No big surprises. 

Thoughts On "State of the Tour"

Without seeing what the inkslingers filed for tomorrow, I have to say that based on what I heard today and their questions for Tim Finchem, they probably left the "State of the Tour" press conference with more questions than answers.

Basically, we learned FedEx is going to put up a lot of money for a year end points race where the PGA Tour really hasn't figured out what the"playoff" seeds will do for anyone (I suggest seeds 1-10 have the option of saying no to a Ben Crane pairing).

I find it  amazing that after all this time, the Tour brought nothing other than FedEx to the table.

The fact that they can't even commit to the Players moving to May means that if a network wants to play it on the Moon in January, the Tour might consider it.  

But hey, we may get to see FedEx Cup finish events at Bellerive every three years. Oh joy!' 

Questions From the Press

Some of the more intriguing Q&A moments from Tim Finchem's State of the Tour press conference:

Q. Of the number of players, 175 or whatever that start the season, how many do you imagine would be in the running to get to the TOUR Championship? Once the first stage of the points system is over, how many do you imagine would have a chance to compete for those 30 spots in the TOUR Championship?

COMM. TIM FINCHEM: It depends entirely on the way the point system is developed. We intentionally last summer put off the discussion of points because it's detailed, it's involved. The players are going to want a lot of opportunity to comment, and frankly, it wasn't necessary to complete it for television or discussions with FedEx.

Now, we expect that if player A goes through the first part of the season, is seeded No. 1 and has amassed a 4,000 point lead over No. 2, those seedings are going to bring that No. 1 and No. 2 back very close together because playoffs are all about starting over. You position yourselves. It will probably be worth like a small home field advantage.

Uh, home field advantage? In what way? Oh sorry, I interrupted. This is bound to make sense shortly.

But what those increments are will tell you what the mathematical chances of making the TOUR Championship are. I don't know that. It could be 144, could be 110, could be 90. It will be a healthy number of players, though, and there will be great volatility going through those three weeks in jockeying back and forth because it's our assumption everybody is going to play. It's going to be difficult for a player not to play and have a chance. The rewards at the end of that stream are significant, not just at the No. 1 position but down. So your competition is all playing, you have to play, and the point structure is going to be such that there's a lot of volatility.

And apparently we'll care more as viewers? Hmmm...

Q. Commissioner, the outlines of what you have suggested, they sound a little bit like the way NASCAR restructured themselves for the Nextel Cup. How much did you look at that organization?

COMM. TIM FINCHEM: Well, you might note that we have had the Schwab Cup Championship on the Champions Tour now for a number of years. So we think that we have some experience in the year long competitions, and we frankly think that that competition has had a very positive effect on that Tour.

A little touchy about the copying-NASCAR thing aren't we?

Q. How do you address some of the concerns of the tournament directors or individual tournaments that all of this is leading toward a two tier system, between has and have nots, where you have a wider gap in purses, maybe lesser fields for some of these tournaments? Is there an issue there?

COMM. TIM FINCHEM: I don't think so. Eight years ago I heard those concerns when we added the World Golf Championships to our schedule. I think the fundamental is that over the years, the PGA TOUR as a brand and a concept as something in sports has grown significantly, and that growth has underpinned all of our tournaments. Any tournament that's on our Tour now can market itself successfully with good management.

But who besides the top players $ees the World Championship events as a rousing success? Sorry, continue...

I've often said that we're jealous of some of the team sports if you walk into an NFL stadium or NBA arena, you could close your eyes and not know which city you're in. Because of the nature of our sport, we have to deal with different real estate and golf courses. But from the positioning of the tournament in the marketplace and the staging of the tournament, there shouldn't be that much difference, and I honestly think that with the FedEx Cup and some other things we're going to do, we're going to be there in '07, and that's going to diminish any concerns that our Tour has. We'll be able to grow their charitable functions across the board, they'll all have quality fields, marketable fields.

Q. Could you talk about how the seeding would work, like what the benefits of being a higher seed as opposed to a lower seed would be going into those final four events?

COMM. TIM FINCHEM: Well, you want to be a high seed because, like I said, you're not starting from zero in the seeding. You will have a certain number of points walking into the first event as a base, and if you're the No. 1 seed, it's going to be this much comparative difference between you and No. 5 over three events to get to the fourth event, that much more between you and No. 10, 15 and 20. So you're going to be heavily incentivized to achieve the highest possible seed because mathematically you're better positioned given your playing level to get into the Top 5 or 10 in the cup, and again, the financials are going to be heavily weighted toward the Cup.

He was asked about player thoughts on this and whether it would "incentivize" them to play more. The transcript is not correct here, but you get the point:

You will be able to run you'll get this because we'll be showing it to players next year anything we show to players is not confidential.

Ah, so that's why the players are totally in the dark on the new schedule! They are free to talk to the press about what they know.