144=Quest For The Card Demise?

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fedexcuplogo.jpgOn the comments thread following Commissioner Finchem's teleconference last week, reader Chuck wrote:

...allowing 144 players in the playoff is an admission that there will not be a 'fall finish' or a 'quest for the card', as was originally planned. Guess they can't get any sponsors...

Though they do have a few California events lined up, is Chuck right?

Are the 144 player fields in the "playoffs" a sign that the post-playoff events have little future?

Or are the 144 player fields genuinely a result of the Tour's desire to make it possible for anyone to win "the Cup?"

Either way, I just can't figure out what the purpose of the season points race is when 144 players make these playoffs, with the meaning of the season points diluted?

Thoughts? 

Booz Allen Stories

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Obviously I'm still catching up, but there are a few things worth noting in the SI and Golf World game stories covering the Booz Allen's demise. Though neither story questions what would actually require $25 million to redo Avenel (copper irrigation piping?), the handling of Booz's Ralph Shrader was laid out in detail by Gary Van Sickle.

While being wooed by the Tour, Shrader was shown what he calls "exciting" plans for an imminent $25 million renovation of Avenel. The tournament would have to be moved for a year during construction, and favors were called in so that in 2005 the Booz Allen could be played at nearby Congressional Country Club, which has hosted two U.S. Opens. Last year's Classic, played the week before the Open and won by García, was a huge success, but in the meantime not a teaspoon of dirt was turned at Avenel. Finchem blamed delays in getting the needed permits due to Avenel's environmentally sensitive wetland areas, an inexcusable planning lapse if true.

Shrader was equally frustrated in his quest for a preferred date. Shrader wanted the week before the U.S. Open every year, if possible. "One thing we learned in 2004 was that the week after the Open doesn't work here," he says. "Washington is one of those towns where, once the kids are out of school, everybody goes somewhere else and this place shuts down. The Tour said, 'Hey, get in line. A lot of people want to play that [pre-Open] week.'"

But six months before the '05 Classic, Shrader says he got a letter from Finchem. According to Shrader, "[Finchem] said, 'We haven't finalized the schedule, but I'm confident in assuring you that you can have your tournament before the Open three out of four years. Two of those years would be the week before the Open, the third year would probably be another date sometime before the Open, but the fourth year would have to be the week after. We are well aware of your concerns, and we are going forward with our plans for the course.'"

Shrader says he had several conversations with the Tour in succeeding weeks and met with Tour execs during the Presidents Cup in September. Another session was scheduled for two weeks later but was canceled by the Tour. Shrader says he received a subsequent letter from the Tour saying, "Give us another 30 days." Says Shrader, "The next conversation I had was on a Friday morning in January when [Finchem] called two hours before the FedEx Cup and the 2007 schedule was announced. He said, 'We've decided to move your tournament to the fall.' I was surprised, obviously. It was totally different than anything I'd been presented."

And Jim Moriarty writes in Golf World:

In a telephone interview, commissioner Tim Finchem said the tour never contemplated making any changes to Avenel until 2006, yet Shrader secured Congressional as the venue for the highly successful 2005 event held the week before the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2. While both sides acknowledge that permit problems have delayed work on Avenel, Funk, for one, wondered, "When we're spending however much money we're spending down at TPC [at] Sawgrass, doing a huge renovation there, do we have the funds to do a huge renovation here as well?"

Enter the FedEx Cup. Lo and behold, when FedEx agreed to ante up $40 million to be the title sponsor of the tour's new year-ending points race, the tournament FedEx used to sponsor in Memphis just happened to get the date the week before the U.S. Open coveted by Booz Allen. With the Players Championship moving to May, "It's just one of those situations where we had too much water to put in the glass," said Finchem. Good for Memphis, not so good for D.C.

Mechem Stepping Down From LPGA Board

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This may be old news, but I don't remember seeing it in Golf World or online anywhere. Sports Business Journal's Scott Hamilton reports that former LPGA Commish Charlie Mechem is stepping down from the LPGA Board at the end of the year.

The LPGA will have another management hole to fill at the end of the year. Former LPGA Commissioner CHARLIE MECHEM’s second term on the tour’s BOD expires at the end of this year and he will step aside. Seven top executives have resigned since CAROLYN BIVENS took over as commissioner last September, including three last week (two of whom were recently hired by Bivens). There has been no change on the BOD. Mechem would not comment on the turnover and other LPGA matters, saying, “It’s really up to the chairman of the board and the commissioner to speak for the tour, not for me.” Board members are limited to three, three-year terms, meaning Mechem could have kept his position through ’09. “It’s time,” said Mechem, who was LPGA chief from 91-95. “I’ll be 76-and-a-half years old then. There’s a time when people ought to think of turning it over to younger people. I’ll remain involved, but there comes an appropriate time for others to move in.”

Thanks LPGA Fan for the tip.

Lorne On Links

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Lorne Rubenstein shares a few thoughts on Hoylake and also writes about some favorite links holes in Canada.

Seve: U.S. Open "worst of the majors"

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Seve Ballesteros on the 2006 U.S. Open:

"I watched 45 minutes on Saturday [second round] and didn't see a single birdie, so I decided not to continue watching it," Ballesteros said yesterday. "For me, it was like watching basketball rather than golf. It is very sad to see real champions finishing plus-20, and I don't think that is the spirit of the game."

"I have never been in any favour of the U.S. Open in any way, and I think it is the worst of the majors," he added.

Week In Review, June 25-July1: Bad News Tour

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WeekInReview2.jpgWhat should have been a slow week turned into a series of bad news stories on the PGA Tour centering around the demise of the Washington stop and the Western Open name change.

Regarding Ed Sherman's latest commentary on the Western's demise, reader JPB said: "Glad to see the Evans Scholars will get more money. Aside from that it is bad that the name is gone. The Western was essentially a major for crying out loud. I know it lost that status long ago, but it is sad to see the name changed to the BMW. I like free trade and globalization and stuff, but can anybody tell whether the Deutsche Bank, BMW, Johnny Walker, SBS, RBS or FBR are on the European Tour, PGA Tour, or senior tour anymore? Even BMW Western would be better at this point."

Following Jeff Rude's story on the Tour's lousy treatment of the Western, JohnV wrote: "I went to bmwusa.com and told them I think they have made a terrible decision in renaming the event. As for its leaving Chicago, the Western Open used to move around a lot so I have less problem with that.

Jimmy countered: "If Finchem and his cronies want to move an event around each year why not pick Quad Cities or Milwaukee, venues with less generated revenues than the Western Open held in Chicago and less support. Taking the second oldest golfing event in the country, run by the Western Golf Ass. and requiring a name change is astonishing. Whatever this mad man is up to one thing is quite evident, he cares nothing about tradition, values, history, integrity."

We kicked the week off with Geoff Ogilvy's comment that "if they [the governing bodies] don't take care of the game, i'm sure there is someone out there who wants to make money off the game that will."

Matt responded: "the USGA has made a ton of money off the game, and not through member dues. Their TV deal with NBC was a huge whopper that made them beyond flush with cash. How they should have used the money: staying one step ahead of the manufacturers and being proactive when it came to controlling the distance the golf ball traveled. The big TV deal was in 1995, about the same time that the golf ball started on the distance rise that has spiraled out of control in recent years. Instead they have spent the money on jet travel for executives and for hiring Rees Jones and other folks to trick up classic sites, and also some turfgrass research I guess. I'm not sure they can be trusted to 'ultimately make the correct decisions.' The game has been injured enough through the wrong ones the USGA has made."

Regarding the wonderful second hole at Newport, Charlie wrote: "This morning we managed to see only about nine holes, but I honestly thought to myself as I beheld (that's the word) the super-short 2nd, 'Man, this is a hole the rest of the world should see.' It's almost like you could play it forever and never really figure it out. It's just too easy-looking and yet... It'll require two quite good shots and two good putts to get your par - yet birdie and bogey seem equally likely for 9 out of 10 golfers. Tantalizing..."

Midweek brought the PGA Tour's announcement on next year's FedEx Cup points playoffs, which does not appear to be the answer to the Tour's spiraling ratings.

Rick Adams: "Can't you hear the watercooler talk on Monday? 'Did you see that Phil is one thousand six hundred eighty-six points ahead of Ogilvy now?'"

And on a later post, Kevin: "If they were REALLY trying to emulate Nascar then a player should get points for the 3rd round lead..."

After the Commissioner's tortured teleconference talk, MacDuff wrote, "the more I think about it I realize a points race works for a team sport, where a team has a fan base (sorry) and their ups and downs are shared by their supporters. Apply this to sports of individuals, like golf or tennis, and that magic evaporates...unless you're Tiger or Phil."

cmoore said: "That "playoff" system, as explained by Finchem, comes off as an ill-conceived load of dung. "On one hand, more or less" a player has a "home-field advantage? What? On the system not eliminating those who have no chance to win: "What that's going to create, obviously, is a player who no longer has a mathematical chance to win might play lights-out for two weeks and move well up into the points list from a distribution standpoint." Distribution standpoint? What? I fear this system may lose the 112 million fans the tour currently has."

Jay wrote: "When I was in the Air Force, they sent all the E-5s and above to a one day communication course. One of the lessons I remember is to simplify one’s message. Cut out the BS. Finchem could sure use that course...

Dave Marrandette agreed: "having been trained in the military as a BS interpreter, I can perhaps enlighted everyone about Mr. Finchem's ramblings. You see, he has followed the NASCAR and LPGA pattern. Not wanting to be outdone by a bunch of rednecks and women, he put his debate packground to the test and BS'd FedEx out of millions of dollars."

And Chuck had this to say, which I think I'll raise in a post next week: "To me, allowing 144 players in the playoff is an admission that there will not be a 'fall finish' or a 'quest for the card', as was originally planned. Guess they can't get any sponsors..."

Scott wondered: "It seems that if you win the first of the four tournaments, then you could take the next one off to rest. I don't understand all of this. What is the point? How is this going to make these four tournaments more exciting than NFL or college football?"

On overall impressions of Finchem's announcment, Glyn wrote: "If there isn't a chance of elimination then it's not a playoff, plain and simple. Thus the "excitement" is the same as any other event, week to week."

And Kevin: "Well, I will say that Finchem tried his best to make lemonade when faced with a bunch of lemons. He had Tiger, among others, complaining about the length of the season and a TV contract to negotiate. And like a good magician he pulled a rabbit out of his hat. And he got FedEx to buy in. Will I watch ? Yeah, probably. Will I care who wins the FedEx cup? I doubt it. Will Tiger now get late fall off, excuse free? Absolutely. How will the PGA Tour and FedEx fare at the end of it all? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn..."

Bruce Selcraig's story on The K Club prompted this from Jonathan Cummings: "I played K-Club a few weeks after it opened (10 years ago??). I just looked up my notes for that round...."reminds me of a 100 other Florida golf courses...."

Jason Sobel interviewed Bubba Watson, causing Smolmania to comment: Seems as if Mr. Watson fits right in to the Commish's NASCAR revisions to the sport doesn't it? See ball, hit ball far. . . the sport of Hogan and Nelson? Yes, Bubba, there will always be big hitters. But when the manufacturers take over the game by allowing technology to permit the big hitters to take an unfair advantage of the guys who can actually play the game, the game loses relevance to the folks who pay the bills. . . the fans.

The USGA gave a press conference at Newport, and David Fay's comments on Winged Foot elicited some interesting replies.

Chuck: "'...a great old golf course can still be a great championship site for contemporary golf...' if, in five years of preparatory work, you build six or more new tees, stretch the distances by 400 yards, create single-file fairways and have a phenomenal wet spring for growing steel-wool tiered that requires a staff of 200 marshalls to avoid an epidemic of lost balls. Why not give it a try with your own "great old golf course"?"

Hank: "D. Fay must think us fools to believe this garbage that he continually puts out there, and all the lap dogs in the press(?) keep on lapping it up! I think it is fair to say that the players' remarks were more criticism than just "comments". Those greens were terrible and adversely impacted the tournament. I'd be curious as what WFGC members think?"

Regarding the USGA's Marty Parkes and his comment that the USGA is not aware of what the Ohio Golf Association is up to with their competition ball event this August, Barry wrote:  "Why should the OGA consult the USGA, an organization that seems to be paralyzed by this debate? For heaven's sake, the OGA's experiment may fail miserably - but at least they are trying something here, in reality, in this space time continuum...You can't whine about not being part of a conversation if you don't have anything to say. "We're looking at the issue" doesn't cut it anymore.

Mike B.: "Of course the USGA has no idea what is going on, they don't know where Ohio is ... or how to pick up the phone and call the OGA ...And the OGA is doing this, running the tournament, selecting the ball and collecting technical data without the warchest the USGA has..."

On Lorne Rubenstein's story about Pate and Kite's different views on equipment, AP Maran wondered after watching some World Cup ball debate, "Every championship releases a new ball model, fit to the ideas of the individual championship. By that they can promote spin against length this year, to promote more goals. Goal keepers have difficulty yo grip them with that spin and less length to promote more passes in the midfield.The discussions have been wild about the new ball but everyone accepts the need for change! Why not have specific tournament golf balls, Titleist and the rest have the specifications in good time and also creates a collectible(!?) at the same time, think about playing your home course with the "Open Championship 2006 ball" and see how you end up; if the USGA saw the moneyside in this maybe they would change...

Gene Yasuda reported on Carolyn Bivens's latest run-in, this time with the tournament owners.

Jim Jax wrote: "Glad to see the Tourney Owners taking on the dictatorial Bivens. It's hardly a golf tour partnership with her "my way or the highway" management style. She is absolutely the wrong person for the job with her confrontational approach to loyal in-house staff and the TOA. It will "Bye, bye Bivens" soon I think."

FedEx Farce?

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fedexcuplogo.jpgJohn Hawkins points out the many flaws and overall silliness of the Tour's recently announced FedEx vision. Namely, that the system will not genuinely reward those who play often and consistently because the playoffs take 144 players and attempt to give them all a shot at winning "the Cup."

It also remains somewhat fascinating (as far as FedEx Cup discussions go) why there is no cut of any kind over the course of these faux playoffs.

But back to the topic of Hawkins' post. As you know, reader MacDuff has been tracking 2006 using a points system that distributes points equally from event to event. The Tour unveiled it's points system that adds extra points for The Players Championship THE PLAYERS, WGC's and majors.

So here's what the PGA Tour's Top 25 looks like (with MacDuff's rankings in parentheses).

1 (1)      Phil Mickelson         17,483.0 
2 (4)     Geoff Ogilvy             15,797.5    
3 (3)      Jim Furyk                14,898.0    
4 (2)       Vijay Singh             13,663.6    
5 (14)    Stuart Appleby         12,132.3
6  (48)    Tiger Woods            11,362.4
7  (19)    Rory Sabbatini         11,214.3
8 (5)        David Toms            11,192.7
9 (10)    Chad Campbell         11,014.3
10 (17)    Adam Scott             10,705.6
11 (12)     Luke Donald           9,489.8
12 (16)    Rod Pampling         8,831.7    
13 (54)    Brett Wetterich         8,805.9
14 (15)    Arron Oberholser     8,610.0
15 (23)    Trevor Immelman     8,604.3
16 (9)    Carl Pettersson          8,445.0
17(18) Jose Maria Olazabal     8,339.1
18 (24)    Zach Johnson         8,126.315
19 (45)   Stephen Ames         7,912.3    
20 (25)    Retief Goosen         7,744.7
21 (11)    Tom Pernice, Jr.     7,400.2
22 (8)    Lucas Glover            6,719.1    
23 (39)    Tim Herron             6,581.2    
24 (31)    Tim Clark                6,395.2
25 (73)    Jeff Maggert            6,353.3

Note the leaps made by Woods and Ames thanks to the added points for the Players and majors.

And even as the system does offer obvious reward for those playing regularly and doing it well, I still wonder what the point of the "race" is if 144 players get into the "playoffs" and once there, the season points have little meaning?

NASCAR doesn't do it that way, and yet it was used as the model? 

Latest On OGA Champions Event

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Don Delco in This Week News looks at the Ohio Golf Association's "unified-ball" tournament and has this quote from the USGA's Marty Parkes:

"Fact is we haven't been consulted and don't know much about the competition with one ball other than what we've seen in the press," said Marty Parkes, senior director of communications at the USGA. "We just don't know much of what's going on."
Isn't this the same organization that is studying rolled back balls and trying to gather as much information as it can?

You would think they'd take more interest in an event worthy of study than just not knowing "much of what's going on."
 

Anyway...

For the Champions Tournament, the OGA has designated a current, modern golf ball for play. While they would not say the brand, Alan Fadel, chairman of the golf ball committee, explained its makeup.

"It's a three-piece ball with a very soft outer cover and low compression that has a very soft feel," Fadel said. "It has the highest spin rate we could find. It's also an approved ball. What has happened is spin has been taken out of the golf ball, and we want to see what high spin does versus what is out there now. It gives us another benchmark, so to speak."

The OGA also is getting scientific. They have hired a company named ISG, inventors of the Trackman system, a sophisticated Dopler radar system that tracks information regarding the flight of a golf ball.

Trackman was used at the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst and will be used in the British Open, July 20-23 at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England.

"We will also survey players and ask them what results they've seen," Fadel said. "We will take that info and compare it to the scientific information and we might be able to share things with the USGA and the industry. If nothing else, it lest people know we're concerned and we'd like to try and protect the integrity of the old courses and game."

According to the OGA, integrity of the game is at stake.

"We want to draw attention that the fact the golf ball has given an unfair advantage in length to higher swing speeds," Popa said. "This makes older courses obsolete. In the old days, someone with 20 miles per hour extra on their swing speeds only gained 10 yards, today it's 30 to 40 yards. Add another 20 miles per hour, and instead of 15 yards it's 50-60 and sometimes 100 yards farther."

Selcraig On K Club

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The Irish Times web site is for subscribers only, but reader Paddy sent this piece by American writer Bruce Selcraig on a recent Irish golf trip that included a visit to the Ryder Cup host site, K Club. I think it's fair to say he's not a fan.

Oh, and somewhere along the trip, we apparently were anaesthetised and flown George Bush-rendition-style back to Florida or Texas, where we played a thoroughly uninspiring, comically overpriced, Americanised resort course beside some gazillionaire's lovely, green, horsey estate.

They call it - oh, steel my loins - The K Club.

I think you're having a big tournament there in September.

I hate to sound rude to my many wonderful Irish golf friends in your long-overdue time of pride - and please know that I love Irish golf like a vital organ, perhaps a kidney - but the K Club and its major-domo, cardboard-box baron Mike Smurfit, and his regal hosting of the Ryder Cup as a jewel for his crown, symbolise nearly all that is rotten about modern golf. And worse, as many have said before me, the K Club Palmer Course is a relentlessly mundane track that has no business representing Irish golf.

And...

Bringing Ireland's first Ryder Cup to the charmless Palmer course is like having Keira Knightley invite you to her bedroom - to move furniture. It's like going to Rome for dinner and ordering fish and chips.

Yes, America has provided some pretty lacklustre venues for the Ryder Cup - Kentucky's Valhalla in 2008 is a snoozer, too - but American golf is not synonymous with the game's purest ancestral ground.

Dear Ireland, repeat after me: You now possess the finest collection of golf courses in the world. Period. There is no more competition with Scotland, where they're still talking about Old Tom Morris's niblick. You have Ballybunion, Portmarnock, Waterville, the European Club, Carne, Enniscrone, Lahinch and two-dozen more Ballywhotsits. And we'll throw in Royal Portrush and Royal County Down just to irritate the Brits.

In other words, you have Rembrandt, Cezanne, Gauguin and Michelangelo hanging in your kitchen, and in September you're inviting 800 million TV viewers to watch your Disney World home movies.

And...

Frank Hannigan, former director of the United States Golf Association and a spirited columnist, challenged readers to name any Arnold Palmer-designed course that was merely "good, not great". George Peper, formerly the editor of Golf magazine for 25 years, just surveyed the best courses in Scotland and Ireland and put the K Club on his "10 most overrated" list.

"To put it bluntly," Peper wrote, "this was the most disappointing course on my visit."

There are some constructed ponds and hillocks - and the required artificial fountain Yanks adore - but because there's so little natural elevation-change and no sweeping vistas - unlike Druid's Heath, unlike Killarney - your pulse never quickens. On my visit, among journalists everywhere, I rarely saw a camera pulled in delight. Just duty. Trust me - there are 14,000 golf courses in America, and 1,000 of them look like the K Club but cost 300 less to play.

And...

Everyone knows by now the selection of the Ryder Cup venue has nothing to do with quality golf and honouring the home country, and everything to do with maximising profits for the event's biennial owners - this year, the PGA European Tour, the British PGA and the national PGAs on the Continent. Sure, the venue has to be able to handle crowds, and you need good roads and plenty of hotel rooms, but if the golf lords thought they could put everyone in a Beijing car park and make more money we'd all be shopping for chopsticks.

Money dominates this event like few others in golf. Is it really true that the Irish Government contributed €16 million of your tax money just for marketing - 5 million of which went to the European PGA Tour - and that you'll not even be able to watch the thing on free-to-air television?

Even the compliant American masses might not swallow those worms. We may look the other way on torture and global warming, but tamper with our God-given right to fall asleep to golf on TV and you're headed for fist city.

"Let's be clear about this, we're talking commercialism, unashamedly as far as I'm concerned," explained the former European Tour executive director Ken Schofield to author Dermot Gilleece in his book Ryder Cup 2006.

Schofield reportedly said the K Club deal was sealed when Smurfit - oops, that's a mandatory Doctor Smurfit for all his "speak when spoken to" serfs- promised his company (once Jefferson-Smurfit, now absorbed by the US firm Madison Dearborn) would sponsor the European Open from 2005 to 2015. That decision, Gilleece writes, "nailed the widespread, cynical view, certainly among Irish observers, that success for Dr Smurfit was always a foregone conclusion."

They were right. To Smurfit, a Monaco tax-haven resident whose family fortune was recently estimated by the Sunday Times of London at 403 million, the Ryder Cup is just another bauble beside the Italian yacht, Gulfstream jet, helicopter commutes and far-flung mansions from Paris to Acapulco, including what the Independent of London reported in 2002 featured a 40,000 sq ft palace beside the Marbella Club on the Costa del Sol, estimated at $40 million, and an apartment below Donald Trump's in New York City's gauche Trump Towers.

"He is absolutely lost in his own importance," a K Club member told the Independent.

So, Mike Smurfit bought himself the Ryder Cup. Sad, but not a felony. If you had his loot - after giving most of it to Darfur refugees, of course - you'd have bought the Cup too. But that doesn't mean those of us who love Ireland and its incomparable links courses have to applaud the moneychangers as they take over the temple.