Kostis: Where's The Cry For Wie-Proofing?

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Maybe one too many weeks doing CBS infomercials telecasts has blurred his vision, because Golfonline columnist Peter Kostis (and Titleist "Golf Products Design Consultant") publishes a doozy with his latest attempt to tell traditionalists that they have it all wrong:

...Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters and courses felt they need to become Tiger-proofed. Many facilities around the world added length and started cutting holes closer to the edges of the green. For golf traditionalists, the idea of playing par 4s with a driver and a wedge was just blasphemy, and boring as well.

Have those purists bothered to watch an LPGA Tour event lately?

Actually, not really.

Sorry, you were saying...

Proportionate to the length of the courses they play—typically between 6,300 and 6,500 yards—the women on the LPGA Tour are getting as long off the tee as the guys. Just look at this chart:

Longest Hitters on LPGA and PGA Tour by Year
1999     260.7 (Jean Bartholomew)     305.6 (John Daly)
2000     270.1 (Caroline Blaylock)     301.4 (John Daly)
2001     265.8 (Wendy Dolan)     306.7 (John Daly)
2002     269.3 (Akiko Fukushima)     306.8 (John Daly)
2003     269.7 (Annika Sorenstam)     321 (Hank Kuehne)
2004     270.2 (Sophie Gustafson)     314 (Hank Kuehne)
2005     270.3 (Brittany Lincicome)     318 (Scott Hend)
2006     288.7 (Karin Sjodin)     321 (Bubba Watson)

Now let me ask you this: Have you heard anyone say that the LPGA needs to do anything to its courses in response to players getting longer? I certainly haven’t.
How do I explain this deep, very complicated concept?
 

You see, your typical LPGA tournament course is 6800 yards from the tips and the LPGA is playing it at 6300 yards.

So let's say they need to add some length to offset the advances in agronomy and instruction, so they just go back to the 6600 yard tees, and they have another 200 to spare.

Cost? $0. Nada. Zilch.

Shocking as it may seem, people are irked when courses add length, take out trees, shift bunkers, blowing up rock and in general, spend ridiculous amounts all so that the grown men can keep shopping free of regulation.

In fact, Michelle Wie is creating a global fan base and earning millions in endorsements because she is not only young (16) and attractive, but overpowering LPGA courses exactly the way Tiger overpowered Augusta back in ’97.
Now, I think the world of Wie and tire of the "she needs to learn how to win debate." But uh, Tiger was winning in 1997 and doing it in a way that was clearly going to change the men's game, and therefore, the courses tournaments are played on. 
Is there an outcry that Sjodin is hitting it 18 yards longer than the 2005 distance leader like there was for Kuehne in 2003? I don’t think so! Are people blaming a new golf ball for the sudden 18 yard increase in distance at the top of the LPGA stats?
No, it must be the agronomy and improved diet that helped Annika pick up, oh, 50 yards.
Nope! Is anyone complaining that LPGA play has become boring? To the contrary, it is more exciting than ever!

So to conclude this dark conspiracy? Get ready to laugh...

This is yet another sign of just how sexist golf can be.

Oh, it gets better.

Seriously, there are only about 40 men in the world capable of overpowering a course. But the knee jerk reaction to these players has created a call not only for courses to be lengthened, but restrictions be placed on equipment and the golf ball.
Only 40 men in the world capable of overpowering a course? A knee jerk reaction has created a call? Uh, it's not 40 and it's not a call anymore, just ask the course owners who've spent millions and millions of dollars or the Winged Foot members who spend $500k to build a new tee on No. 12 that will be used twice next week. 
If you are going to talk about what’s good or bad for golf, please have the courtesy to remember that women play too.

This could be one of those turning point columns that awakens even fence-sitters to just how far-fetched and comical the pro-distance shilling has become.

Winged Foot With Tilly: No. 1

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wingedfootlogoKicking off what will be Winged Foot's final U.S. Open (unless the USGA does something about distance), I thought it would be fun to look at some of the holes from A.W. Tillinghast's perspective in 1929.

This series of articles, photocopied from the old National Greenkeeper magazine, features his hole descriptions and a some old photos.

I will try to include some modern shots as well so you can soak up the confining setup.


230136-357288-thumbnail.jpg
(click on image to enlarge)Anyway, here's #1 from Tilly's point of view, circa 1929. 

My advice: don't miss it left of the tee. Bomb it as far down the flat fairway as possible, and lay up short depending on the hole location.

The green is that wild and maybe one of the neatest in all of golf. 

15 Year-Old In U.S. Open

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From AP:
Tadd Fujikawa, a 15-year-old who just completed his freshman year at Moanalua High School, beat out nine other players in the smallest U.S. Open sectional qualifier to earn a trip to Winged Foot next week.

"Maybe in my wildest dreams I thought about it," Fujikawa said.

Fujikawa missed by one year becoming the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Open. Tyrell Garth was 14 when he qualified to play in the 1941 U.S. Open at Colonial.
And...
Lori Fujikawa said her son didn't start getting serious about golf until four years ago when he began taking lessons. He was previously into judo. Despite being just over 5 feet, the teen averages about 285 yards off the tee.

Fujikawa said he doesn't know what to expect, but he likes the idea of being inside the ropes with the best players in the world.

"I don't really have a favorite player, but of course it will be pretty cool to be in the same tournament as Tiger Woods," he said.

An Observation From Muirfield Village

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A reader who was at the Memorial wanted to note that another element adding a bit of curiosity to the whole furrowing madness: fairway bunkers were cared for by the grounds crew while greenside bunkers were handled by the caddies. (This would explain why we saw "Bones" walk away from the 6th hole fairway bunker with Mickelson after that miraculous shot Sunday.)

The reader also notes that with the caddies handling the greenside bunkers, players were at the mercy of the players in the groups ahead of them as much as they were at the mercy of furrows. 

In other words, as much fun as it was to see danger returned to the hazards, they needed to think this one through a bit better.

The Man Loves His Spikes (And He'll WD To Prove His Point)

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Thanks to reader Tom Kirkendall and reader Edward for the heads up on this interesting Steve Campbell story about Steve Elkington WD'ing after being told he couldn't wear spikes at Lakewood Country Club.

USGA rules allow players to use spikes at next week's U.S. Open at Winged Foot. At the sectional level, the USGA allows the host sites to set the rules. Of the 13 sectionals on American soil, two allowed long spikes and 11 required soft spikes.

"I made a stand for the sport," Elkington said. "The USGA does not have an across-the-board way of qualifying. How can they have some sites that are spikeless and some sites that are not — and the rules of the USGA don't apply?

"They lost the plot here today about what it's all about."

Euro U.S. Open Qualifier: 24 WD's *

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Starting at 71 players for 8 spots, it ended up a 47 for 8 spotter. Lovely.

Other than Darren Clarke, the rest of the DNS's should not be allowed to enter next year unless they have a really, really good excuse.

Maarten Lafeber 64-66--130 -14
Graeme McDowell 70-68--138 -6
Jyoti Randhawa 71-67--138 -6
Graeme Storm 69-69--138 -6
Richard Green 72-67--139 -5
Jeev M. Singh 70-69--139 -5
Oliver Wilson 71-69--140 -4
Phillip Archer 69-71--140 -4
• • •
Failed To Qualify

y/a-Gary Wolstenholme 72-68--140 -4
y-Soren Kjeldsen 70-70--140 -4
Soren Hansen 69-71--140 -4
Marcus Fraser 74-67--141 -3
Garry Houston 67-74--141 -3
Peter O'Malley 71-70--141 -3
Steve Webster 68-73--141 -3
Gary Emerson 71-71--142 -2
Gregory Havret 71-71--142 -2
Andrew McLardy 75-67--142 -2
Jamie Spence 71-71--142 -2
Simon Wakefield 72-70--142 -2
Emanuele Canonica 75-68--143 -1
Peter Fowler 73-70--143 -1
Raphael Jacquelin 71-72--143 -1
Chris Rodgers 72-71--143 -1
Brett Rumford 73-70--143 -1
Gregory Bourdy 71-73--144 E
Brian Davis 73-71--144 E
Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano 72-73--145 +1
Jose-Filipe Lima 73-72--145 +1
Joakim Backstrom 71-75--146 +2
Paul Broadhurst 72-74--146 +2
Paul Lawrie 77-69--146 +2
Wade Ormsby 71-75--146 +2
Christian Cevaer 71-76--147 +3
Robert Karlsson 73-74--147 +3
Barry Lane 77-70--147 +3
Anthony Wall 72-75--147 +3
Simon Dyson 74-74--148 +4
Simon Khan 76-73--149 +5
Johan Edfors 76-74--150 +6
Francesco Molinari 74-79--153 +9
Peter Gustafsson 76-79--155 +11
Paul Curry 77-80--157 +13
Francois Delamontagne 72-WD
Andrew Oldcorn 75-WD
Richard Bland 76-WD
Sam Little 76-DQ
Darren Clarke WD
Nicolas Colsaerts WD
Robert-Jan Derksen WD
Jamie Donaldson WD
Scott Drummond WD
Richard Finch WD
Alastair Forsyth WD
Stephen Gallacher WD
Ignacio Garrido WD
Anton Haig WD
Christopher Hanell WD
Peter Hanson WD
Shiv Kapur WD
Jose Manuel Lara WD
Peter Lawrie WD
Jean Francois Lucquin WD
Andrew Marshall WD
Gary Murphy WD
Steven O'Hara WD
Marten Olander WD
Phillip Price WD
Miles Tunnicliff WD
Jean Van de Velde WD
Lee Westwood WD

 

Wie Coverage Watch

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Michelle_Wie.jpgThere was something retro and really fun about following Brett Avery's live hole by hole account of Michelle Wie's quest to qualify for the U.S. Open. You'll get the same old time vibe by checking out this photo gallery from GolfDigest.com.

It's funny that PGATour.com had the best coverage of Wie's quest today while GolfDigest.com tried three different links to scores (Met, TGC, ESPN), SI had nothing but AP stuff and USGA.org kicked the day off with its annual rehash of its merchandising success story (and scores only updated after each nine holes).

Golf Channel and Rich Lerner came through with an excellent wrap up show that you would hope they might do every year for the Sectionals, and not just the times Michelle Wie tries to qualify.

But it was Avery's hole-by-hole account, and his (Bernard) Darwinian obervations that stole the show. Not only because it allowed us to get a feel for this unique event in golf history via the Internet, but Avery and the Tour may have ushered in a new era in golf coverage. With the length of a golf round and the spread-out nature of a course, no other sport lends itself to a writer using a Blackberry type device (I'm pretty sure these were written accounts) to contribute real time blog updates.

blackberry.gifIt wasn't perfect. You had to refresh the page instead of the page doing an automatic refresh like a typical PGATour leaderboard, but that's a minor detail they can work out. Imagine a similar on-course blog at a major where the writer follows the last group and offers supplemental online coverage for viewers at home wondering what went on with a ruling or what Tiger was saying to Stevie when they appeared to not agree on something.

Still, it requires an observant writer willing to take a few changes, and Avery, the former Golf Journal editor who covered the rise of Tiger Woods, was more than up to the task of putting Wie's historic run into perspective.

We can only hope PGATour.com will send Avery to Winged Foot so that web readers can get such a unique, inside-the-ropes account and that other golf news organizations will experiment with this novel form of reporting.

For a distinctly old school summary of the events, here's Dave Anderson column in the New York Times.

For final sectional results, check out this USOpen.com link.

"If the Tour decides to implement furrowing as part of a larger strategy to counteract technology..."

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Ryan Ballangee writes about the bunker furrowing at Muirfield Village:

...the question is this - if the Tour decides to implement this strategy in the long haul, is this a good move by the Tour? The answer, like most things, is "it depends."

If you are a purist like I am, then the answer may very well be that it is good. Since there is no action on equipment restrictions, the Tour can add this into its arsenal of setup changes it can make in an effort to discourage bombing and increase the penalty for inaccuracy. The problem, though, is that many Tour stops do not have very significant bunkering. This means that furrowed raking would only be prominent at a percentage of Tour stops. In essence, it's a six shooter with two bullets.

If you are a Tour marketer, then this is a terrible idea. There are only four weeks of the year that fans look forward to the best players in the world being made to look like fools - the major championships. In particular, the number one week for that is the US Open. The rest of the year, the fans are looking for interesting setups that reward accuracy, are not too gimmicky, and attract good fields. If the Tour decides to implement furrowing as part of a larger strategy to counteract technology, then they may actually upset some of the top players in the process. This could prove to hurt the potential of the FedEx Cup (not that it has any right now) and fly in the face of its goals.

Oh but the irony is so sweet!

British Amateur Date Change Improves Field

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The R&A is quite proud of the improved field caused by the British Amateur date change. I'm more proud of the amateurs for making the trip: 

When the dates for the 2006 Amateur Championship were being considered, The R&A decided to play the Amateur during the third week in June to avoid a clash with the NCAA Division 1 Finals in the US.

That decision has resulted in 21 players in these NCAA Finals entering this year’s Amateur Championship which will be played at Royal St George’s and Prince’s from 19-24 June.

American college players Kevin Chappell, Stuart Moore, Dustin Pimm and Alex Prugh head the US entry of 19 which also includes 33 year old Kevin Marsh of Las Vegas, the winner of the 2005 US Mid-Amateur Championship.  Marsh is a reinstated amateur following a brief spell as a professional.

Other top-ranked overseas players who will be competing in Kent include Won Joon Lee, Australia’s number one player and the winner earlier in the year of the NSW Medal.  Countryman Tim Stewart, their national champion has also entered, as have Joost Luiten of the Netherlands, the German titleholder and Antti Ahokas of Finland, the recent winner of the Irish Open Stroke Play Championship.