MacDuff's Post Byron Nelson FedEx Cup Points Standings

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MacDuff reports Brett Wetterich moved from 102nd last week to 54th with his win; Trevor Immelman was 102nd two weeks ago, 55th last week (and now 38th) in a mythical 2006 FedEx Cup points race. And for those Omar Uresti fans, he's 180th with 2137.5 points.

Do note that MacDuff has awarded the same points from week to week, with nothing special for majors or WGC's, while the tour is contemplating added extra points for winners of those majors and wannabe majors and other elite field events.
          
1    Mickelson    17509.37        11
2    Glover    15854.16        11
3    Singh    15221.87        12
4    Furyk    15212.5        10
5    C.Campbell    14637.5        12
6    Gf. Ogilvy    13762.5        9
7    Pettersson    13258.33        13
8    Appleby    12662.5        10
9    Toms    12409.37        8
10    Sabbatini    12366.66        10
11    Van Pelt    12015        13
12    Donald    12014.37        8
13    Weir    12009.37        9
14    Goosen    11775        8
15    Verplank    11612.5        9
16    Mayfair    11279.16        10
17    Oberholser    11075        10
18    T.Clark    10897.5        10
19    Olazabal    10875        7
20    Parnevik    10767.5        12
21    T.Woods    10659.37        6
22    Pernice    10650        8
23    Bohn    10288.33        10
24    Els    10037.5        9
25    Warren    10012.5        10
26    Gay    9787.5        10
27    Pampling    9772.5        9
28    Cink    9708.83        9
29    Lehman    9700        9
30    A.Scott    9625        7
31    D.Wilson    9512.5        10
32    Hoffman    9425        9
33    Funk    9262.5        9
34    Vn Taylor    9225        8
35    Ames    9162.5        7
36    Love III    9112.5        9
37    Choi    9087.5        8
38    Immelman    9000        7
39    Watney    8912.5        10
40    Purdy    8825        9
41    Jerry Kelly    8625        7
42    Z.Johnson    8475        8
43    Chopra    8267        10
T44    JJ Henry    8225        7
T44    Senden    8225        7
46    Villegas    8225        8
47    Howell III    8137.5        12
48    J.Ogilvie    8120        8
49    Franco    8087.5        8
50    B. Quigley    8037.5        7
51    G. Owen    7975        8
52    Harrington    7962.5        7
53    Garcia    7900        7
54    Wetterich    7850        6
55    Bertsch    7775        9
56    Rollins    7675        7
57    Estes    7537.5        7
58    Imada    7517.5        9
59    JB Holmes    7420.83        7
60    Branshaw    7325        8
61    Palmer    7316.66        8
62    Micheel    7275        8
63    Leonard    7258.33        8
64    J.Smith    7200        7
65    Herron    7170        7
66    Rose    7129.16        9
67    Sluman    7112.5        11
68    Waldorf    6987.5        8
69    Lowery    6975        9
70    Crane    6945        7
71    Jobe    6892.5        7
72    Baddeley    6850        7
73    Couples    6825        7
74    Olin Browne    6787.5        11
75    Beem    6768.75        8
76    RS Johnson    6767.5        7
77    Barlow    6712.5        8
78    Hart    6692.5        7
79    Langer    6541.66        8
80    Baird    6517.5        7
81    Fischer    6425        9
82    M.Wilson    6390        6
83    Calc    6342.5        10
84    D. Howell    6262.5        5
85    Pat Perez    6262.5        7
86    Bjornstad    6217.5        7
87    Allenby    6187.5        6
88    Poulter    6175        7
89    N.Green    6137.5        8
90    F.Jacobson    6075        6
91    Bryant    6050        6
92    B. Haas    6025        7
93    Br.Davis    5992.5        8
94    JL Lewis    5987.5        9
95    Bub Watson    5962.5        6
96    Sutherland    5900        8
97    S. Maruyama    5800        7
98    Flesch    5755        9
99    Gove    5737.5        6
100    DiMarco    5696.87        6
101    Slocum    5687.5        8
102    Atwal    5625        5
103    Gore    5525        6
104    J.Byrd    5500        4
105    Durant    5400        9
106    Curtis    5375        7
107    Gronberg    5312.5        5
108    Barron    5306.25        6
109    Leaney    5287.5        6
110    Stricker    5212.5        4
111    Westwood    5187.5        5
112    Sindelar    5187.5        7
113    Goggin    5125.25        5
114    Cabrera    5100        5
115    Matteson    5037.5        7
116    Lonard    4975        7
117    Maggert    4937.5        7
118    D.Clarke    4900        4
119    Triplett    4800        5
120    Kenny Perry    4762.5        5
121    Azinger    4762.5        7
122    Ws Short Jr    4612.5        9
123    Pavin    4587.5        5
T124    Geiberger    4575        7
T124    Sean O'Hair    4575        7
126    Mahan    4525        8
127    Dickerson    4450        8
128    Faxon    4362.5        7
129    Armour III    4275        5
130    Lickliter II    4250        5
131    Andrade    4207.5        7
132    Frazar    4187.5        6
133    Austin    4162.5        9
134    S.Jones    4030        7
135    Veazey    4025        5
136    Cook    4000        4
137    Ridings    3887.5        6
138    Kent Jones    3612.5        5
139    McCarron    3587.5        6
140    Kaye    3575        5

USGA Exempts Wie To Women's Open

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Their reasoning on Wie makes sense:

Wie, the 2003 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links champion, has two third-place finishes in her first two LPGA tournaments in 2006. She finished third at the Fields Open and tied for third at the Kraft Nabisco Championship. In those two events, she has won $181,449, which would place her within the top 35 on the LPGA Tour money list if she were a full-time member of the Tour. In 2005, she made the cut in all four major events, with a second-place finish at the McDonald’s LPGA Championship and a tie for third at the Weetabix Women’s British Open. Were she a professional, she would have earned $697,144 to finish 12th on the 2005 LPGA money list. 

Hopkins Reviews Wentworth West Renovation

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John Hopkins in the Times reviews the redesigned West Course at Wentworth, which has been getting universally wretched reviews from devotees who have seen it.

It has regained some of its testing qualities and although there are a couple of places where Els’s enthusiasm might have overruled his sense of what Colt was trying to do, he has, overall, updated the 80-year-old masterpiece with reverence. Take the 6th and 8th holes, for example.
He proceeds to describe many strange sounding features, which I just didn't have the heart to copy and paste. Young children might be reading.

 

One had not realised quite how much Els knows or cares about the ground beneath his feet and the trees and shrubs that line the fairways. Spend time with him on a golf course and you understand not only that he has an appreciation of colour and beauty but that he has a devilish eye for where to position bunkers. This is not to mention details he has at his fingertips, such as the width of a fairway, the roll of a bunker, the borrow of a green.

One appears to be starstruck too. 

NCAA Regional Madness

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Golfweek's Ron Balicki tries to explain some of the absurdities in the NCAA golf committee's tournament selection setup, namely sending Top 5 teams Florida and UCLA out of their regions (and to each others regions).

Ryan Herrington is even less forgiving in his latest Golf Digest college golf blog post.

The regionals kick off Thursday, with 54 holes played at three sites: Sand Ridge, Lake Nona and Tucson National.  

Old Course-Winged Foot-Pebble Beach In A Day...With Bobby Clampett!

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George Peper's latest Links column looks at his unique one day feat of playing St. Andrews, Winged Foot and Pebble Beach in a day, which is a big deal until you realize that he did it with Bobby Clampett.
 On July 18, 1983, my foursome completed 18 holes on the West Course in precisely two hours and 16 minutes. If that doesn’t take your breath away, consider this: 1) on that morning we’d traveled more than 3,500 miles to get there; 2) it was our second round of the day; and 3) that afternoon we went another 18 holes—and another 2,500 miles.

I was editor of GOLF Magazine back then and one of my core duties was to make noise for the magazine—occasionally do nutty things that attracted attention and, by extension, readers and advertisers. In a moment of questionable inspiration I came up with the notion of playing St. Andrews, Winged Foot and Pebble Beach in 24 hours.
I wonder how many weather forecasts Clampett issued?

Hawkins on Ratings Decline

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John Hawkins looks at the dismal PGA Tour ratings with his latest blog entry:

The first four months of 2006 did not bear good news for the PGA Tour in terms of its popularity with television viewers. Figures published in the most recent issue of Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal indicate some frightening drops in TV ratings. The Shell Houston Open, for example, had a Sunday audience about one-third smaller than in 2005. There were double-digit decreases (10 percent or more) at the first three events on the Florida Swing, a whopping 56.3-percent decline at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and a 50-percent loss at the season-opening Mercedes Championships.

February’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, a tournament once capable of attracting five million viewers, checked in at about 2.5 million on Sunday, down 37.5 percent from a year earlier. Not every tournament’s numbers were off. The Players Championship actually rose almost 32 percent, but there’s a catch—rain delays in ’05 forced NBC to televise live third-round action that Sunday.
So you're thinking, he's going to point out how the juiced up power game is not relatable to fans, course setups are not producing more consistently exciting finishes and that the Tour has left too many classic venues for contrived ones?
The PGA TOUR has not downsized enough and it is going to have to become leaner and meaner to survive.

I say bring back "blood and guts" competition to the PGA tour as played by Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, a young Arnie, Gary and Jack and other great players when men were men as well as golfers.

When men were men as well as golfers? Oh lordy. Still, he's headed to the old bring shotmaking back argument? Nope.

Cut the number of tour cards to a max of 100, cut the number of players in the field to 100 and cut the cut to the top 50 and ties.

Put some damn fire back into the competition and maybe golf will be interesting as a spectator sport once again and not seem to be just a gathering of nice fellows content to make a good check and have a good time. Screw the good time, get serious!
Shouldn't there be a rule that you only get to question the passion or manliness of players if you actually played the Tour?

 

Turnberry Turns 100

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turnberry-lighthouse.jpgTom English pens a nice overview of Turnberry's 100th birthday for Scotland on Sunday.

In the Second World War the government commandeered the golf course just as they had in the First. They made a military air station of it, put 1,200 men on site and told those who wanted to know that golf had probably had its day at Turnberry. The links had survived one conflict. It was unlikely to survive a second.

The bulldozers moved in. Greens were ploughed up and several thousand tonnes of concrete and tarmac were poured on to fairways to make runways.
How times have not changed...they're revving up the dozers again.
It's a challenge that is going to get stiffer by the time 2009 comes around. It would have been appropriate for Turnberry to host the Open in this their 100th year but change was needed there. Foul weather defended the course against the bombers of today but you'd fear for it if the modern pros cut loose in dry conditions. The fear is they'd tear it to pieces. The game has changed a lot since Nick Price won there in 1994. Apart from the infrastructure around the course, they needed to toughen-up the Ailsa.

The changes are pretty radical, even if the R&A has asked for some of them to be undone. They were concerned the new and extensive bunkering on some holes was too penal and would force players to go defensive off the tee. Some have been filled in completely, others have been made less deep. Still, there will be approaching 30 new traps when the Open returns there and about 200 extra yards to negotiate.

The most dramatic alteration is the shifting of the 10th tee 50 yards to the left. Dinna Fouter now requires a 220-yard carry over the sea to find the fairway. Anything remotely hooky will end up wet. It's a hole to challenge the signature ninth, with all the stunning views of the lighthouse and the Ailsa Craig. It is a vision that brings to mind Henry Longhurst's plaintive words in troubled times.

"In those long periods inseparable from wartime service when there is nothing to do but sit and think," he wrote, "I often used to find myself sitting and thinking of the time when once again we might be playing golf at Turnberry."

Coltart: "Golf has so little culture today"

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John Huggan catches up with Andrew Coltart, who has plenty to say about the state of the game. My kind of rant:
"The explosion in distance that has come with the new clubs and balls over the last few years has hurt players like me. I can't comprehend how far some guys hit the ball now. It used to be that the wide, erratic hitter was punished, but that is not the case any more. Not as much anyway."

Underlining the sad truth that golf at the elite level is now more about power than pure skill is the fact that Coltart's average drive has stretched by more than 15 yards since he battled Tiger Woods at Brookline in 1999. As he has grown more powerful, however, many of his fellow competitors have exploded past him, encouraged by the lack of due diligence shown by golf's administrators when it comes to equipment.

"Courses on tour today are set up to encourage players to bomb away off the tee," claims Coltart. "Which is admittedly exciting, especially for the less sophisticated spectator or viewer. But it doesn't help guys like me, those whose games are built around accuracy.

"Then there are the sprinkler systems courses tend to have in the fairways, but not anywhere else. The water runs off into the first couple of yards of rough. That grass gets thick in a hurry. But ten yards further out, the rough isn't nearly as lush. So the bombers get more encouragement. They get to hit from relatively sparse rough and they are 60 yards closer to the green.

"Also, greens are generally too soft. So the big hitters are able to 'plug' wedges and 9-irons in there. In contrast, hard and fast greens would encourage a bit more thinking, and make the game a bit more strategic. But playing for position never enters the long driver's head these days. Every hole is a 'wellie' off the tee, and a gouge from the rough. I see so many guys making birdies from the long grass and the trees - because they are so close to the green after the drive. It's mind-blowing."

Coltart is not only concerned with the negative effect all of the above has had on his career. Unlike so many others, he recognises the wider and longer-term implications for golf.

"I think the game has diminished over the last decade or so," he says with a shake of the head. "Shot-making and shaping have all but gone. Round the greens we all play the same boring lob shot with our 60-degree wedges. Golf today is a lot like tennis. They stand up there and it is 'smash' 15-love, 'smash' 30-love and 'smash' 40-love.

"But few people are watching that. Instead, they are looking at the clock that says the ball was hit at 150mph or whatever. Now, golf is all about the 350-yard drive. There have apparently been 881 drives longer than that on the PGA Tour so far this year. Success is measured on distance from the tee rather than tournaments won. It's a circus.

"The mass appeal of distance has overtaken any other approach to the game. Golf has so little culture today. It was great when Seve was playing the way he did. He was artistic. Where is the artistry now? There is no artistry. Or feel. Ask a young guy to hit a little knock-down shot into a green, and he a) doesn't know how, and b) wonders why he should bother. It's depressing.

"I never see guys holding shots up against the wind. The money has a lot to do with that. They figure they can go for the flag every week. When they are on, they will shoot eight under par and win a huge cheque. And when they are off, well, there is always next week.

"If they were baseball players, they would all be home-run hitters who strike out a lot."

Week In Review May 7-13: Welcome Billy

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WeekInReview2.jpgWe kicked off the week discussing the departure of Hootie Johnson, and while I mourn his retirement, reader Chris H. says, "Let's face it, Hootie choked on so many different fronts. There are so many that it's a waste of time to go into all of them. Now if ANGC can get Hootie's name off the course design and restore it to Jones-MacKenzie original then I'll be a happy hacker."

John Huggan wrote about the slow play epidemic, prompting this from reader R. Thompson: "No wonder Tim Finchem won't release the details of the new television contracts. It's as Huggie has pointed out, people are bored witless, and it's mainly the equipment dwarfing golf courses. However, if courses are lengthened rounds will simply take longer to complete. Let's stop the nonsense and slow the ball down now."

After Billy Payne's first press conference where he used some interesting language regarding the possible "resolution" of the equipment situation, Old School wrote:  "1. Nothing over 360cc driver heads. 2. A tolerance on Cor from 109mph to 112mph showing an 83% transfer of energy and a diminishing Cor value starting at 113mph.
3. A restriction on Core Hardness for golf balls, going back to the core hardness of balls used in 2001-2002 whould be fine."

St. Pete said, "'RESOLUTION', looks like Billy and the Boys have been studying the stats for the last 5 years on distance. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened from 2002 to 2003, that's when things really got out of hand and have continued to escalate. The balls and drivers of 2002 is where the USGA said it was drawing the line. I agree with OldSchool, lets simply go back to drivers being under 400CC and golf balls that somewhat compressed."

The Bloomberg story on drugs in golf elicited a whopping 31 comments, all of them tgreat. A few highlights:

R.Thompson: "It's interesting to see the PGA Tour go after a Casey because they were worried about endurance being one of the requirements but then pull this sort of phony baloney out. The PGA Tour should be testing to find out who is benefiting from steriod use giving those players an unfair advantage with endurance."

Michael: "The PGA Tour and USGA do not even test for recreational drugs, it has to be the only major sport that plays for millions, and where players endorsements are in the millions, then dismisses the notion that there is any drug use taking place. What are they smoking in Ponte Vedra?"

Sean Murphy: "Whoever thought professional golfers had a drinking problem? Who ever thought professional golfers had a gambling problem? Who ever thought professional golfers wouldn't be experimenting with recreational drugs? Who ever thinks golfers are not experimenting with steriods is completely naive."

GeorgeM: "While control of steroid use by minors is appropriate concern for parents and schools, why is it an issue for governing bodies? The current state of affairs in sports other than golf is not helped by testing. There is too much testing and too severe penalty for suspect results."

H.W.: "...the PGA Tour should be required to meet the same standards that Congress is requiring MLB. Those standards are being imposed by Congress to ensure the youth of America is not taking steriods to one day become MLB players. The same common sense should apply to the PGA Tour, and Congress should be asking for drug testing to be imposed for all the same reasons."

J.D.: "Until there is evidence? The evidence is in the testing, without testing there is no evidence. I noticed that the Commissioner declined to comment on something important to the integrity of the sport. He's not only showing his lack of integrity but is also sending the message to pro golfers no testing will be conducted until there is sufficient evidence."

Rob: "Recreational drugs, or even sports enhancing drugs, anyone who oversees rolling a green of a U.S. Open in the middle of the night should be drug tested!"

Rick reminded us of this quote from Jimmy Vespe: "It was a refreshing article you just ran about drugs not being found in golf, but it is not entirely accurate. I was an intercollegiate golfer for a major Division-I college, and have plenty of friends on Tour. I can say without question drugs -- though on a small scale -- have been used to enhance performance in golf for years. Guys smoke pot quite frequently on Tour to stay focused and calm, and take beta blockers for the same reason. It is in ALL sports -- unfortunately."

N Gn:  "Tour officials don´t push for drug testing because they are afraid of what will come out. They lie when they say there are no evidence. French Open, a few years back. French authorities notify they will conduct drug testing during the championship. What happens, more than 40 players withdraw the week prior the tournament! Need more evidence?"

And J.D. again: "Swinging for the walls with today's drivers and golf balls, where players are left with wedges from heavy rough, is all about being super strong to survive and claim greatness in the process. Greatness today based on illegal substances building muscle and endurance for golfers is the topic and testing should be conducted periodically."

On the reader report about a power struggle at Augusta National, RGB had this to say:  "Buying up companies and selling off their parts for profit is second nature for the members of Augusta. Capitalism is king, except when it comes to this one particular golf course. There's the line in the sand and this golf ball thing has now gone too far. Good luck Payne."

And Hux: "If Hootie and his cronies are the good guys, then the badies must really suck."

Regarding John Davis' story about equipment testing at ASU that might pass along savings to golfers, Scott wrote: "Pass On A Savings? Manufacturers started producing todays multi-layered balls for pennys compared to three piece wound balls, and then jacked up the price of todays balls. Who is he kidding?"

Regarding the latest confusion on rangefinders reported on by Jim Achenbach, Scott Stearns writes, "Whats the big deal, anyway? the USGA wanted to create an way for the growing number of GPS-enabled courses to remain within the umbrella of the rules. Most tournaments aren't allowing them. So What? If your course votes not to use them so be it."

Ned Ludd wrote, "I'll tell you about "slope," as in "this is indeed a slippery slope we find ourselves sliding down." If someone at the USGA only had Colbertian gonads, these devices would have been declared illegal from the get go. How can handicaps be compared and utilized when one is the product of a rangefinder and the other is not?"

And finally, Smolmania made his most spirited defense yet of rangefinders: "Information should not be illegal. Especially when the pace of play is retarded by those pacing off distances to the detriment of everyone else on the golf course. As for the stupid people who buy a device that claims to measure the distance a golf ball will travel up and down a particular slope, who does Bushnell think they're kidding? Up hill 10% translates to x less distance? For whom? With what clubs, what balls, what swing speeds? Why doesn't the USGA spend some of their war chest figuring out why the damn ball goes so far, instead of worrying so darn much about how far it is on my next shot? Oh that's right, excess distance is a myth."

Just another quiet week in the weird world of modern golf!

Oberholser Flirts With 59

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Arron Oberholser came to 18 at Cottonwood Valley knowing that he needed birdie to shoot 59. His entertaining post round remarks:
TODD BUDNICK: Let's walk back to No. 18, and at that point did you know you had a chance when you got to the tee at 18

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Absolutely. From the tee shot all the way into the putt I knew I had a chance for 59 and it made me smile. It's a great feeling.

TODD BUDNICK: Walk us through that hole.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Well, the tee shot I wasn't really nervous on the tee shot, although I didn't hit you couldn't tell by the way I hit it. But I absolutely hit the worst chunk pop up 3 wood of my life, not that I hit a lot of those, but that one was bad. And it left me 236 yards to the hole on 18 with a perfect lie in the middle of the fairway.

But a cart kind of disturbed me coming up the path to the right and I was set in my routine and I was focused, and I look up there and in my vision I see this cart coming and they weren't stopping. So I backed off. I was fine with it. I just told my caddie, I said I'm just going to let him come all the way through. So he saw we were on the tee and stopped. But I still didn't feel quite right. Got up there, didn't make a very good swing, popped it up, more of a nervous swing than I had anticipated.

And then I got to the shot in the fairway, and I was still very calm, felt great, just cherishing the fact that I had a shot at 59. It's really cool to have a shot at 59.

Woosley, my caddie, Dave Woosley, my caddie, he kind of maybe could sense that I was getting a little bit uptight, so he asked me about my girlfriend and how is she doing, and I said, she's doing fine, and we started talking about that. So that kind of took my mind off of it. It freed me up to make a good golf swing, and I hit a 3 iron from like 236 to like 15 feet right of the hole.

And then walking to the green, man, I had a smile from ear to ear. It's just so cool. I mean, it's the best nervous you can be because it's exciting. It's the same you're just soaking it in. Like a putt to win a golf tournament. Sure, when you get there, you want to be focused and ready to hit the putt. But up to that, man, you don't have a lot of opportunities out here like that, soak it up, enjoy the moment. It was really cool. I highly recommend it to everybody.

More DMD Questions Raised

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Jim Achenbach's column below has raised more questions about this idea that a player can have a Bushnell 1500 Slope Edition Range Finder in their bag, or pocket, but will only be disqualified if they use it.

Previously we were led to believe that if you set foot on the course with the "Slope Compensation" model, you were DQ'd. But now we learn you could theoretically have both models in your bag, as long as you don't pull out the Slope model.

Check out this photos of the Bushnell 1500 Tournament Edition from the Bushnell website:

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 And the Bushnell 1500 Slope Edition from the Bushnell website:
 

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So they look kind of, uh, identical.

Naturally, this is brilliant from Bushnell's perspective, forcing possible cheaters to buy two instead of one!

Now, if a competitor asks to check their playing partner's rangefinder mid-round and determines that is in fact the Slope edition, will they be disqualified for having used the Slope version to determine whether it was a legal device?

Okay I'm kidding. Slightly.

Has the USGA asked Bushnell to differentiate the models so that players and officials can easily decipher between the Slope and "Tournament" devices?

And how is Bushnell able to use Slope, which the USGA seems to have copyrighted and displays as Slope Rating ®? Do they only have the rights to Slope Rating and not Slope?  Lawyers?

It would seem that the only way to ever be sure that Slope measuring devices are not used is to actually make it illegal to one in your bag or in your pocket while playing a competitive or for-handicap-purposes round.