Week In Review, Feb 5-11: J.B. and Jim

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WeekInReview2.jpgThe week started off with a look at the election of Walter Driver to the USGA presidency and his inaugural Q&A.  Driver's annual meeting address was posted online, with the new USGA prez taking the opportunity to talk a whole lot about himself, prompting Ned Ludd to wonder "if President Oversized Driver has ever invited the parking attendant in the bottom of his building to a friendly round, or even to wash his hands with the Pine Valley Soap."

That didn't stop Jim Achenbach from declaring Driver a man of the people because of his speech (which included an introduction from Arnold Palmer (the jet fuel tab on that must have been pretty high if he came from the desert!).

Speaking of jet fuel, many of you jaded cynics wrote in to predict that Walter Driver and Fred Ridley used the USGA jet card to transport themselves to the AT&T pro-am, where they are playing to inspect Pebble Beach for the 2010 U.S. Open. Naturally, I'm sure they flew commercial.

The real USGA highlight came later in the week with the posting of Jim Vernon's annual meeting speech on equipment and where his committee stands with its research. The address was a landmark moment for a group that has in recent years struggled to take a stand, and now appears to be laying the ground work for a monumental decision. Stay tuned...

J.B. Holmes became this week's next great American hope with his stunning win at Scottsdale. On Saturday he displayed Spackler-esque distance, hitting an 8-iron from 198.

The inkslingers of America jumped on his bandwagon, already forgetting boring ole Bubba Watson (who they realized is not exactly the world's greatest interview). Holmes is working on his graduate degree in flogging at the young age of 23, and while Crankpot chimed in to point out that he lead the field in putting, Tom G reminded us that "Putts/GIR is a somewhat misleading stat. If you are hitting a wedge into every hole, the chances are greater that you will be closer to the hole for your birdie putt than the guy hitting 5-iron in there."

J.B.'s post round talk mentioned his 4 iron from 257 and his 3-wood into 17, prompting reader Jay to ask, "Are we entering an era where we say “what a shot!” even on a drive??"  This story on the flogging at Scottsdale suggested that the hard and fast fairways were the cause of Holmes' drives, and then went on to contradict itself repeatedly.

The Tour driving distance average jumped 2 yards but figures to take a hit this week at Pebble where most of the bombers are not playing and where the fog rolled in Friday.

I wondered if the Tour is on board with the USGA in case of a lawsuit, while reader NRH brought up a good question that hopefully someone can help answer: "wondering if any other visitors to this site with a knowledge of the law and restraint of trade precedent could inform us as to how such a case would likely turn out (beyond who has the best/most expensive attorneys of course)."

John Huggan slammed the Tour for not handling the World Golf Championships better, in a week when everyone finally noticed that the 2007 WGC's are all scheduled to be played in the U.S.

Tiger Woods reminded us that he's a traditionalist at heart, shooting down the notion that distance measuring devices should be allowed in pro golf. As usual a debate broke out on this hot-button issue and in light of that, I started a thread on the question of skill and these devices.

Jim Nugent of Golfweek made the LOL funny claim that Tiger could play in the NFL to assuage his advertisers prove that the equipment must not be regulated.

Gary Van Sickle's latest column elicited quite a bit of discussion on the issue of shorts on the PGA Tour, with The Duke questioning a photo caption including Tiger in shorts: "Letting players wear shorts might get marquee players like Tiger Woods to enter more tournaments."

I looked at the USGA's latest attempt to prevent flogging, and it seems they are going about it about as badly as you can imagine.

And if you don't to read all of this stuff, I appeared on Ryan Ballengee's excellent 19th Hole Golf Show to discuss most of these topics. The show also includes a chat with Frank Thomas about his recent survey.

Callaway Sues Acushnet

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Callaway sues Acushnet over the Pro-V1 after negotiations break down.

According to the complaint, the Sullivan patents "revolutionized the game of golf" and "have done more to change the game of golf than any other equipment advance in the history of the game."
Now this is interesting, because Titleist argues that the ball is not the only thing uh, revolutionizing the game. But instead it's the optimization, athleticism, the agronomy (LOL!) and other fun stuff.

 
Yet here is Callaway saying the ball that they created and which they claim Titleist copied has "done more to change the game" than any other piece of equipment. Ever.

So much for these two lovebirds joining hands for a joint lawsuit when/if the USGA acts.

Weekly Long Drive Contests?

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Chris Lewis says the Tour should have a weekly long drive contest to generate a little buzz, and he looks at how they used to have such events at Tour events.

I remember while doing research on Riviera's history that they used to have one at the L.A. Open, I believe down on No. 17 certain years. And in 1941 there was a long drive contest at the LA Memorial Coliseum. Babe Zaharias competed, as did Hogan who hit drives of 260, 256 and 259 yards to win. Babe hit two 240 yarders and one 235, returning to the site of her Olympic gold medal winning performance.

Today, if they tried to hit from the peristyle end  they might think about hitting out of the stadium!

Anti-Flog Rough?

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Back in May when Sports Illustrated threw me in a room with David Fay, Brad Faxon and Larry Dorman to discuss the state of the game, Fay said it was his hope that the rough at Winged Foot would be 8 inches on certain short holes.

This, apparently to deal with the flogging mindset that became even more widely practiced at Pinehurst just a few weeks following the roundtable.

So in reviewing Jim Achenbach's recent column on Walter Driver, I found this perplexing:

Driver also would like to be seen as an innovator, so a major change in the famous U.S. Open rough apparently will be seen in his first year as president. Driver was chairman of the Championship Committee before becoming USGA president, and his fingerprints already are all over the U.S. Open. After the USGA lost control of course conditions at Shinnecock Hills in the final round of the 2004 Open, Driver wrote a collection of course setup guidelines that were successfully adopted at the 2005 U.S. Open and will be followed at all future U.S. Opens.

Mike Davis, senior director of rules and competitions, outlined the changes in the rough by saying that for the first time the U.S. Open rough will not be a uniform height. Davis indicated that the primary rough probably would be higher on short par 4s and lower on long par 4s.

Now, for the moment I'm going to disregard the fact that growing rough at higher heights on shorter holes only reinforces the idea that the USGA is obsessed with preventing red numbers.
 

And I'm going to ignore how disturbing it is that the USGA, obsessed (and wonderfully so) with "play it as lies" golf, is working so hard to manufacture lies. (No pun intended.)

After all, course setup staffer Mike Davis is one of the real bright hopes within the USGA. He and Tim Moraghan got Pinehurst through the '05 Open despite the meddling of Tom Meeks and Lord knows who else.

And I like the staggered rough cutting concept that Davis has introduced because it has eliminated the ridiculousness of drives just missing fairways finding heavy rough, while tee shots further off line find less penalty. Davis also does not seem pre-occupied with the winning score hovering around par, as some are.

However, last I looked, flogging really separates the bombers from the shorter hitters on the long par-4's, not on the shorter holes where the USGA plans to grow more rough.

So with shorter rough on longer holes, it would seem that the players will only be that much more encouraged to flog it off the tee to get that flip wedge approach.

Apparently, the USGA doesn't see it that way...

The theme here is easy to decipher: The USGA does not want long hitters to be able to exploit shorter par 4s by bombing their drives with impunity somewhere close to the green. Some kind of remedy needs to be found, Davis indicated, and variable rough may be one answer.

No Masters For Jack

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Scott Michaux in the Augusta Chronicle puts to rest the rumors that Jack Nicklaus might tee it up in the Masters again.

"I received a letter of invitation in early January and have already declined," Nicklaus said Thursday in a statement. "(Masters and Augusta National Golf Club chairman) Hootie (Johnson) has not pressured me at all and, in fact, other than the letter of invitation, I have not heard from Hootie." 


More Tiger Talk

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More from Tiger's Masters media day:

Q. I wanted to ask you about moving to new technology, getting more distance, is that a reflection of what was happening on Tour the last couple of years versus what you could see was going to happen with guys like J.B. Holmes and Bubba Watson coming up?

TIGER WOODS: Well, the guys -- I know I didn't use technology, the advances in technology for a couple of years. Guys were sacrificing some of the spins that they would normally have for distance, and they have gone longer and lighter in shafts, bigger, hotter heads and obviously higher launching and less-spinning golf balls. All of that equates to a lot more yardage. What I've always told the guys at Nike is that I've always wanted a golf ball that would spin around the greens. So can I actually hit the ball further? Yeah, there's no doubt about that, if I went to the golf balls that other guys are using. I decided to use technology in the driver only and not necessarily the golf ball. I've got more of an overall-performing golf ball than some of the other guys because my ball does spin a little bit more, but I am able to hit it further than the old golf balls I used to play.

Tiger On Distance Measuring Devices

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Tiger Woods, Masters media day, February 8:

Q. Last year on 17, you had hit a tee shot that went pretty far wide right and it took a little while to figure out the distance. Some people have argued now with the laser rangefinders being allowed that you might have been able to figure out that distance a lot quicker and just get on with it, so to speak. Just curious to know what your thoughts are on the laser rangefinders and whether you think they should be allowed on the PGA TOUR?

TIGER WOODS: No. Never, ever should be allowed on the PGA TOUR. I think that playing the game, since it's you and your caddie, and I think it puts the onus on the caddie to be efficient; you're out there as a team together. The laser advantage, the laser takes away an advantage of a caddie doing his homework and understanding what to do out there. I don't think that's right. I believe in what Stevie does, and certainly he's done some great things for me, and I think that rangefinder would certainly I think make up for some of the guys being a little bit lazier out there.