Australian Open Week

This Martin Blake story from October previews the Peter Thomson designed Moonah Links, home to this week's Australian Open. Will Golf Channel will be televising it? I couldn't find any listings.

Jackson My Shot

This Golf Digest My Shot with Samuel Jackson gets off to a rough start ("If Darth Vader played golf, he'd for sure wear Nike"), but recovers quickly and there's some fun stuff worth reading.

Family, God, USGA

Arnold Palmer at the groundbreaking for the Palmer Center at the USGA: 

"It's like winning the [U.S.] Amateur, Open and the Senior Open all at once," said Palmer of the honor of having the new structure named for him. "I'm very flattered. I don't think you can put words to how important it is to me as an individual. When I was a kid, it was my family and God and the USGA. That was kind of the way I was raised."

Scoring From The Rough

Thanks to reader Tuco for the link to this interesting Tiger-related stat from his play at East Lake earlier this month.

3 FOR 19: The number of strokes that Tiger Woods was under par on the 19 fairways that he missed after 36 holes of the season-ending PGA Tour Championship. Translated, that means he hit it in the junk 19 times and was 3 under par on those 19 holes. This is more than scrambling; this is mystical. If he had played in Colonial days at the Salem Open, he would have been burned at the stake (after he was presented with the trophy, of course).

Lewis on TGC and the European Tour

SI's Chris Lewis turned on the Golf Channel to help him fall asleep, and instead, he writes about the reasons so many of us love their European Tour coverage.

CEO Challenge

Slow news day. Until this arrived in my email box. [Sarcasm in brackets, courtesy of this site's CEO.]

Who is the World's Best CEO Golfer?

BOULDER, CO - (November 17, 2005) - There has been much debate about which CEO is the best golfer. [There has?] In the past, rankings have been issued based on handicaps, but there has never been a tournament to bring together the best CEO golfers and find out who really deserves the number one ranking in head-to-head play. [Gee, I wonder why?]

CEO Challenge LLC is pleased to announce a series of CEO Golf Challenge events at six of the greatest golf tournaments in the world, with the ultimate goal of crowning the world's best CEO golfer! The CEO Golf Challenge will be held during the following tournaments in 2006:

The Masters
The U.S. Open
The British Open
The PGA Championship
The Players Championship
The Nissan Open

Each of the six events includes a 36-hole CEO Challenge tournament, deluxe accommodations, a Saturday Series Pro-Am tournament with PGA TOUR pros, [Lucky them!] and VIP access to the professional tournaments. [Clubhouse badge.]

Participants must be a CEO, Chief Officer, or company President, [Hey, I'm eligible!] and the field at each event will be limited to 28 golfers to ensure an intimate atmosphere in which CEOs will have the opportunity to get to know each other. [Cuts down on the potential witness list for the class-action suits.] The top four CEOs from each of the six events will be invited to the CEO Golf Challenge World Championship to compete for the title of World's Best CEO Golfer! [Hey, maybe they can have a CEO-Am at the World Championship?]

"Five years ago we came up with the concept of organizing competitions for CEOs, starting with the CEO Ironman Challenge," said Ted Kennedy, President of CEO Challenge LLC.  "It was only natural that we expand into golf events, given that most CEOs love golf and love to compete."

Kennedy continues, "We drew up a set of criteria for making this a first-class experience from start to finish, and found the perfect partner in the Saturday Series Pro-Am that let us hit every mark. [Nice CEOism there.] They have the expertise in organizing tournaments, and, being a PGA TOUR official licensee, [notice he got it right, Tour in caps] they have a close association with all the major PGA TOUR events, and great relationships with PGA TOUR Pros.  Through this partnership we will offer a series of events that will over-deliver to the high expectations of participating CEOs.  And, we will finally see who really is the best CEO golfer." [Let me mark my calendar.]

Kevin Laura, General Manager of the Saturday Series Pro-Am, stated that his organization is tremendously excited about this unprecedented and innovative program. "We are thrilled to be involved with the CEO Golf Challenge.  They have the expertise in designing events for CEOs, and we have the expertise in designing Pro-Am events for some of the largest corporations in the USA. It's a great relationship that we're sure will be a huge success."

Laura went on to underscore the basic philosophy of the joint effort. "Determining the best CEO golfer is a fun aspect, but what the CEO Golf Challenge is really about is affording hard-working company heads the chance to spend a few days 'inside the ropes' at the greatest golf tournaments in the world. There's no other way to do that unless you're a sponsor. Add to that a private tournament for the CEOs themselves on some magnificent courses and it's an unbeatable, full-immersion golf experience." [Full immersion? Jot that one down Commissioner]

Added Kennedy, "We made sure that CEOs who are not great golfers but simply love the game will have a wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime experience as well. Kevin and his team have designed a two-in-one tournament format to ensure that the higher handicappers are right in the middle of the competitive action throughout the whole event."

CEO Challenge LLC capitalized on its deep experience organizing previous CEO challenge events to design an all-inclusive program for each location that includes:

-    Three nights first-class accommodation close to the tournament, usually at the same hotel where the PGA TOUR Pros stay [Oh and won't the pros be grateful for that.]
-    Tournament pass that, in most cases, includes access to the VIP Hospitality tent or clubhouse
-    CEO Challenge tournament and Awards Celebration Dinner [That'll be a barnburner.]
-    The opportunity to play with two (2) PGA TOUR Pros at a Saturday Series tournament
-    CEO Golf Challenge apparel and customized gifts
-    Charity contribution to the Prostate Cancer Foundation on behalf of each participant
-    Meals, snacks, and beverages
-    Transportation to and from the host hotel to all golf courses

About CEO Challenge LLC
CEO Challenge LLC (http://www.ceochallenges.com) is a company that specializes
in designing high end 'inside the ropes' exclusive multi-day sport experiences for CEOs.

For more information on the CEO Golf Challenge, including entry information for each event, please visit http://www.ceogolfchallenge.com, or contact Ted Kennedy at Ted@ceochallenges.com, or 720-222-3043.

Intelligent Design

Thanks to reader Pete for this intelligent discussion of golf issues between Mike Hurdzan, Richard Mandell, Tim Heirs, Bob Randquist and Jim Moore, courtesy of Golf Course News.

There is less reverence for the game now because of the changing demographic.

Maintenance is more important than design, and visual aspects are more important than playability. As an example, several of the Golf Digest top-rated courses are unplayable but have great views. But that’s what we have to deal with.

We need to have an easy point of entry into the game for people to help bring golf to communities. We need to be creative in bringing people into the game, and using existing facilities are the easiest way to do that.

The Brand Promise

New LPGA Commish Caroline Bivens rolled out the 2006 LPGA schedule and served up an MBAism that only Tim Finchem could love.

We're launching the LPGA Playoffs at The ADT next year, which will add only more drama and excitement to our Tour on a weekly basis, and when you combine all of that with some new and challenging host venues, we are certainly fulfilling our brand promise of showcasing the very best of women's professional golf.

And there were other fine moments from the transcript.

We love the fact that when you look at those 10 first time winners, they come from a variety of different countries; with our first time ever winner from Colombia and from Chile.

Hey, don't forget Korea!

But what you are also going to see is an effort to improve what we're calling the stages that these women play on.

You will see us upgrading the quality of the golf courses at every opportunity that we have.

Why couldn't you just say courses the first time? Sorry, carry on.

So some of the things that you'll see, some of things that you won't see, but what has happened with the LPGA over the course of the last eight months, has put them on an incredible trajectory. I'll call it the old hockey stick, where they've gone along and a lot of people invest in a lot of years and a lot of effort, including Ty and the previous five commissioners before him.

The old hockey stick? Okay.

The Longs Drugs moves from Sacramento to Black Hawk. That's one of the courses that illustrates what I'm talking about when I talk about elevating the level of the courses that the women play.

Hey, what about the Office Depot played at Trump National LA, the course that's better than Pebble Beach?

Q. Did you lose any events from last year?

CAROLYN BIVENS: Office Depot.

Well you didn't have to be all succinct about it. But the gals had so much fun there!

Oh here's a new one that Commissioner Finchem may want to add to his list:

...what most affects our ratings, and we an absolutely go back and track, where is it prepromoted? Where are the programs that come before and after that, somewhat similar. And that people know where to tune in.

Nobody these days we don't have a viewer in the world that if they can't find their program, whatever their program is, nobody is going to sit there and flip through all of the channels and try to find you. So we've got to be able to prepromote and be easy to find.

I've always said, you're nothing if you don't prepromote. And cross promote too:

I have been quoted as saying that there is something for every one on the LPGA. I believe that.

You've got the Pat Hursts and the Carin Kochs who are balancing raising kids on the Tour, and who are very good inside the ropes, rank at the top of the Money List.

You've got Rosie Jones, who I don't believe for a second I'm not going to let her retire. Rosie Jones is a huge RV enthusiast.

Golf 20/20 Summit

I haven't seen any substantial media coverage of the 6th annual Golf 20/20 meeting that concluded Monday. Just a few years ago Tim Finchem predicted at the first 20/20 summit that they hoped to grown the game to 55 million by 2020, and people actually were interested in what this gathering of minds had to say.

This press release appears on the Golf2020.com site and gives an overview ofthe 2005 event:

The two-day symposium began with a look back at the past five, and where the industry has come in that time in terms of its fan base, participation, rounds played, facility development, retail spending and international growth.

While the decline of rounds played that occurred so sharply in 2002 has leveled off, that continues to be the area of greatest concern. But at the same time the fan base continues to develop and broaden demographically, there are more participants in golf than ever before, retail spending will hit an all-time high in 2005, and expansion of the game internationally is happening at an unprecedented pace, which is having an impact on many businesses based in the U.S.

Looking back through past press releases (yes, scary), I noticed this major objective in 2001 for Golf 20/20, a topic that does not get mentioned in this year's summary of accomplishments and goals:

Affordability is critical to growing the game. Affordability/value is by far the most important factor that influences play. Nearly 60% of golf’s best customers believe affordability is one of the three most important factors that influences play, and that an 18-hole round of golf is a good value at about $35. A round begins to get expensive at about $55 and too expensive at $117.

Golfdom Columns

My two most recent Golfdom columns on wildlife and on course markings. Hopefully they aren't as boring as they sound in the previous sentence.

Langley Retiring

A nice story from Brian Hewitt on the retirement of Jim Langley at Cypress Point, one of the game's great souls.

McDonald on Golf Digest/Tour Deal

Tim McDonald at Travelgolf.com writes about the new media partnership between Golf Digest and the PGA Tour, and wonders if this will water down Golf Digest's coverage.

...to sum up, we know what the corporate partners, the PGA Tour and the magazine (not to mention its sister publications in the Conde Nast family: GolfWorld, Golf For Women, GolfWorld Business, etc.) get out of this new marketing agreement. What do we readers get out of it? Well, I can tell you what we probably will not get out of it: any negative coverage of the PGA Tour, and maybe not even the whole story. That isn't what partners do.

Thanks to reader Stu for passing along the Travelgolf newsletter where managing editor Mark Nessmith slams me and other bloggers (including his own Travelgolf blogs) for not looking harder at this deal and questioning Golf Digest's integrity (guess he didn't see my recent Golfobserver column).

Nessmith suggests that I'm a "contributor" to the publication, which theoretically explains why the story was not posted here (actually, I didn't think it was news...these relationships are standard in golf):

A few reported the deal when it went down, some even dutifully posting the press release. But none - not one - thought to expound on the ramifications of such a cozy "partnership." Not engolfed, not Brent Kelley, not Geoff Shackelford (go figure, since Shack  is a contributor to Golf Digest  among others), not Golf Fore Golfers, not Going For The Green (go figure, since Robert Thompson is a contributor to PGATour.com and a course rater for Golf Digest), not Just-For-Golf  ... and none of the TravelGolf.com bloggers either. I couldn't find anyone who thought to stick up his or her hand and ask: Hey, aren't journalists supposed to offer critical coverage of what's going on, not just sanitized pap that their "partner" has vetted!? Not even the Rebel Blogger could be roused from his (welcome) silence of late to take on the Big Boys.

I'd email Nessmith to find out where my contributor's check has been going all these years, since it was six years ago that I last appeared in the pages of Golf Digest. But for some curious reason all of the Travelgolf people don't want to be contacted (it does help cut down on the emails when you can't get your facts straight).

Monty's Musings

Thanks to reader Phillip for this reminder that they still have room for fluff in the British papers.

From Colin Montgomerie, writing some kind of diary and sharing this rationale behind his move to a new home closer to the great St. George's Hill course:

...it was a good hour's drive simply to pick [the kids] up. Much the same applied to my visits to the Wisley. The urge to practise can disappear at the end of a lengthy drive. But it is not just these bigger issues which prompted me to sell up. This may sound trivial, but I wanted my own front door and, above all, I wanted to be able to wash my car as I had always enjoyed doing in the past. You can't be trailing from a sixth floor apartment to the basement with a bucket of water. It just doesn't work.

No, not trivial. Ridiculous maybe, but not trivial Monty.

In next week's installment, Monty talks about how he approaches his washing schedule on those 12 days a year it doesn't rain in Britain.

2,059 and Counting

2,059. That's how many PGA Tour drives finished over 350 yards in 2005 according to the Tour's stat gurus.

You may recall that last week the longest drive stat was looked at here, and it was pointed out that ShotLink was now tallying all long drives hit this year (unlike in past years where only drives hit on the pair of measuring holes counted toward the longest drive stat).

However, the 2005 list ended at 978 drives of 357 yards or more. 2,059. I had 1,500 in the pool.

Architects, change those turning points! 300 is out, bring on 340!

Shoot, might as well go with 350 just in case the guys really start hitting the weights this winter. 

Get This Man Some Exemptions

David Drysdale, who withdrew from the Dunhill Cup with a rib injury when he could have taken one swing and earned a check that would have secured his 2006 European Tour card, failed at Euro Q-School...by one shot.

Here's Lawrence Donegan's column that initially drew attention to Drysdale's situation and how he passed up the chance for a check so someone else could play at the Dunhill.