Rugge: We have time to be careful with our research

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The USA Today's Jerry Potter looks at this year's driving distance numbers, setting up Dick Rugge to lay the groundwork for some good ole red-white-and-blue USGA spin.

Twelve players, led by Bubba Watson at 318.5 yards, average 300 yards on their drives, but that's not even close to the record 26 who ended 2005 as 300 hitters.

Just wait, however, says Dick Rugge, the senior technical director for the U.S. Golf Association. They're on their way.

"It's a natural year-to-year variation," says Rugge, who notes that there were 11 players at 300-plus last year at this time.

Wet conditions in the winter made for soggy courses that held down distances. As the hot summer progresses, fairways will harden and golf balls will roll. And tournaments coming up in high-altitude areas, where drives carry farther, such as The International in Colorado and the Reno-Tahoe Open in Nevada, should increase the totals.

"My expectations are that the number of 300-yard drivers this year will be pretty much the same as last year," says Rugge, who points out that there are 14 players between 298 yards and 300.

That in itself is a bit of an upset, however: The number has been steadily climbing in recent years — one in '02, nine in '03, 15 in '04 and 26 in '05.

The overall average also might have hit a high.
Here's the fun part.
The average distance has been relatively stable in recent years after a jump from 273.2 yards in 2000 to 279.4 yards in 2001. The average climbed again from 278.8 in '02 to 286.3 in '03. Advancements in driver technology and club fitting are credited for those changes, but the USGA's recent restrictions on drivers have helped level off that average. Since '04, the number has been about the same: 287.3, 288.9 and 288.0.

This stability might mean Rugge and his staff have caught up to changing technology.

"The train has not pulled out of the station," he says. "We're in about the same place we were three years ago. We have time to be careful with our research and thorough with our investigation."

Ah yes, notice he says three years ago.

Because we want to focus on that lack of change since 03.

After all, if we go to '02, that means having to abide by that pesky Joint Statement of Principles where they say no more distance increases will be tolerated.  If you haven't read them in a while, you'd be wise to do so. 

 

Bivens v. George

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Vartan Kupelian paired up the LPGA and Champions Tours in a comparison story, primarily to see if Carolyn Bivens could outdule Rick George in the inane quote department. You be the judge.

"We don't compare ourselves to them at all because what we do is unique, the way we've positioned our tour, hitting a different group of people who are going to watch this," George said.

But that doesn't necessarily mean a single demographic.

"We're always trying to hit different demographics to grow our fan base," George said. "It's important for us to continue to look at different demographics it's not all geared to one segment of the population."

Demographics. Yawn. The Brand Lady offers slick analogies.

"We appeal to a totally different audience, different sponsors," Bivens said. "It's as different as the NBA and professional bowling."

Oh but this is may be her best.

Bivens compares the bumps off the course "to changing tires on a car going 100 miles an hour."

That's why she gets the big bucks.

We've heard this nonsense before, but it's still breathtaking.

Bivens' goal is to "monetize the success and interest" in the LPGA and making money often means rubbing people the wrong way.

"Somebody has to stand up and say, 'This is what we're doing and where we're going,' " she said.

"I didn't take the job for the money. I didn't take the job to be voted Miss Congeniality. I don't like the controlling person I read about -- it's not who I am."

And just to show he's in his own unique world too, George says...

"Our attendance continues to get better, not as much as we'd like but better," he said. "The sponsor base is stronger than it has been. We're in terrific shape and with an eye toward the end of the year when seven prominent PGA Tour players are coming out."

Coming out? Oh right, you mean...gotcha.

Kupelian spoils George's optimism pretty quickly.

That's not always the perception. Television images show small crowds more often than not, and exposure of the Champions Tour is well down the pecking order in newscasts and newspapers unless the over-50 set is in town. It's easy to reach the conclusion that the Champions Tour is floundering until someone stops to consider that the seniors are divvying up $52.7 million in prize money annually -- a veritable windfall of lottery proportions -- and sponsors continue to pony up.

"An endorsement of what we're doing is that we've had eight (contract) renewals in 10 months," George said. "And we anticipate more. The perception should be that the Champions Tour has really solidified its position and our opportunity now is to grow."

They're growing! And they're interacting...

"If you look at the Champions Tour today, the way our players go out of the way to interact and engage, is better than any sport, not just golf.

"We think we're one of the best business-to-business marketing opportunities in all our sports. We haven't lost focus of one of the integral pieces of our business -- interaction with sponsors' guests and clients and the fans who come out."

Hmmm...George wins with that last minute run that is sure to give Champions Tour players chest pains. 

Beyond Belief

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gw20060714_cover.jpgI've read about some pretty silly things coming out of the golf executive suites in recent years, but nothing shocked me more than this from Geoff Russell's "Mid-Year Report" in the Golf World British Open preview.

Under Most Disappointing (off-course), Russell lists a series of PGA Tour miscues, but this is beyond belief:

"most extraordinary, the refusal to allow Bob Tway to miss the BellSouth Classic pro-am to attend the funeral of Bradley Johnson, 17, who lost the 2005 U.S. Junior Amateur final to Tway's son, Kevin."

Hawkins: Alternatives To FedEx Structure

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John Hawkins offers some great suggestions on fixing the clearly broken FedEx Cup. (And since they're good ideas, they have NO chance of flying.)

But I'm not in agreement with his idea of padding points for strength of field to encourage more play from top players.

Problem: Making the Players Championship worth the same number of points (27,500) as the four majors is yet another example of the tour’s petty arrogance. Please. It’s an excellent tournament, but the Players is not worthy of such status, and the harder Camp Ponte Vedra tries to ram the notion down our throats, the less credible it becomes.
John, be nice to the fifth of golf's four majors! They have a new logo that really...oh forget it.
Solution: The tour’s point-allocation formula is as follows: 27,500 for the majors and Players; 26,250 for World Golf Championships and 25,000 for “regular” events. My scale is 30,000 for the majors and 27,500 for the Players/WGCs. Weekly tournaments start at a base of 24,000, but for every player in the top 50 of the World Ranking in the field, the total increases, with a maximum value of 26,000.

This changes the distribution values as well. The tour will pay 4,500 points for a regular win, 4,725 for a WGC victory and 4,950 for a major title. My numbers are obviously slightly higher, which spreads the field and has a positive effect on player incentive. All I know is, the guy who wins Memorial should get more points than whoever wins Hartford. That’s just common sense.

Fair point, but as we've learned with MacDuff's points system, awarding equal points throughout the year actually rewards those who play well and play often.

Jeld Win Teleconference

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The PGA Tour held a teleconference to unveil yet another new THE PLAYERS logo and to announced another presenting sponsor. Some nice Finchemspeak for your files.

One of the most important things about next year's tournament is the telecast. To think that we're going to have later air times, that's important, but we're going to have limited commercial inventory, with only four minutes of commercials an hour.
Limited commericial inventory. Is that why we have all of those The Villages ads?
So over the years we have been blessed in the last few years with our relationship with Price Waterhouse Coopers and also with UBS. And today we're delighted to announce that Jeld-Wen, which is the largest manufacturer of reliable doors and windows in the world, will become our third sponsor.

That is particularly important to be able to generate the kind of television presentation that we want to present. It's also important to help underpin all the changes and presentation that will occur with the players going forward.
Underpin...nice verb choice Tim. 
Jeld-Wen is -- why Jeld-Wen? Not just that we have a relationship with Jeld-Wen that goes back several years, when Jeld-Wen has been sponsoring a major championship on the Champions Tour, the Tradition. The Jeld-Wen Tradition has quickly become a fixture on the Champions Tour.

Is that like one of the nine majors in a row they're currently playing?

But the nature of the people at Jeld-Wen, the executive team at Jeld-Wen are a group of people that believe in the game of golf. They believe in what the game can do for a brand. They have demonstrated in their relationship with the Tradition out in Portland, a commitment to charity as well, a million dollars have been raised for charitable causes in the Portland area. So they are a natural, big company, global brand to align not just with The PLAYERS, but in association with The PLAYERS with Price Waterhouse Coopers and UBS. So that rounds out our charitable mix and gives us the basis where we can move forward and have the security to know that we can accomplish the things we need to accomplish to create a better PLAYERS and bring it to our fans.

So many words, and yet so little actually said.

Ah but here's the best part, the report on course and clubhouse renovations from David Pillsbury.

DAVE PILLSBURY: Well, first, I can assure you that the windows and doors are in fact Jeld-Wen through and through. We are very proud to say that. A great product for a great clubhouse, building a platform really for the next 25 years.

And you wonder why I'm cynical? 

Elling On FedEx Cup

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Steve Elling weighs in on the FedEx Cup and he's not excited either:

It has been a fortnight since the PGA Tour raised the curtain on its new money misdirection play, a cash-rich contrivance called the FedEx Cup. Or maybe that's pulled back the curtain, because Commissioner Tim Finchem is starting to look like the Wizard of Blahs.

The innovative notion of a seasonlong points race has generated mostly yawns of indifference. Whenever fans pass at examining, if not exhuming, a plan that purports to change the DNA of a decades-old pro sport, that's not a good sign.

Those who bothered to delve into the details, however, have come away picking SPAM out of their teeth. They chewed on it but aren't quite sure what it was. Sure, it's different, but is it any good?
And...

 

Philosophically, though, it's about the money, stupid -- keeping the big-gun players rich, propping up purses, capitulating to TV and title sponsors while allowing Finchem to fill his increasingly fat wallet.

And...

What's thrilling about seeing the roughly 240 players with tour status being culled to a list of 144? That means less than two-thirds of the tour roster, including players who will be losing their cards at year's end, qualify for the FedEx "playoffs." What is this, hockey?

Finchem says players have been "incentivized" to compete in all four FedEx Cup series events to win the $10 million. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson will play all four this year, yet do you really think Woods regularly will play six times in seven weeks under the FedEx Cup scenario? Me, neither.

And...

The galling go-for-the-green attitude of the modern tour was never more in evidence than when the plan was unveiled June 28 in New York City, when Finchem shamelessly trotted out corporate shills from the four title sponsors of the FedEx series. Worse, the announcement was held on the first day of the most important event in women's golf, the U.S. Women's Open. That's just bad karma.


Shapiro Reviews Prospects For Washington Golf

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The Washington Post's Leonard Shapiro on the PGA Tour pulling out of Washington:

I think the commissioner heard loud and clear that Washington was not about to accept a second-class golf event played at what has become a second-class venue at TPC Avenel. He heard it from his own players, from the press, from talk radio, from letters to the editor, from e-mails on the internet and other correspondence to his office in Ponte Vedra. And finally, I believe he got the point.

Now it seems as if the tour may also finally be getting serious about fixing up Avenel, ostensibly the reason there will be no tournament here in 2007, and probably 2008 as well. If the tour is going to spend what they say is $18 to $20 million and what others say likely will balloon to the $25 million range, they want to do it right.

They really can't re-route the golf course, but they can certainly move enough earth to make it a more challenging venue, and perhaps also upgrade the infrastructure Avenel never has had to support the thousands of golf fans who have flocked to the course year after year.

So does anyone know if these $20 and $25 million figures represent just what is being spent on the course, or also include a clubhouse redo?

Is The Open Really Open?

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openlogo.jpgGolfweek's Alistair Tait makes some good points about the Open Championship qualifying, which is down to 12 spots after all of the exemptions.

Here are the recent qualifiers according to the R&A, with two spots remaining:

Qualifiers for The Open
 
Recent qualifiers for The Open through exemption categories 8, 15 and 16 and at Local Final Qualifying are: -
 
8. The leading player, not exempt, in the first 10 and ties of the 2006 Open de France, the 2006 Smurfit European Open and the 2006 Barclays Scottish Open. *
 
Marcus Fraser (Australia)
Anthony Wall (England)
 
15. First 2 USPGA Members and ties not exempt in a cumulative money list taken from the USPGA Tour Players Championship and the five USPGA Tour events leading up to the 2006 Western Open.
 
JJ Henry (USA)
Billy Andrade (USA)
 
16. The leading player not exempt having applied 15 in the first 10 and ties of the 2006 Buick Championship, the 2006 Western Open and the 2006 John Deere Classic. *
 
Hunter Mahan (USA)
Matthew Goggin (Australia)
 
 
* Still to be played

 
Local Final Qualifying
 
Conwy (Caernarvonshire)
Jon Bevan (Wessex Golf Centre)
Warren Bladon (Unattached)
Mikko Ilonen (Finland)
 
Formby
Jim Payne (Southport & Ainsdale)
Andrew Marshall (Unattached)
Darren Parris (North Foreland)
 
Wallasey
Danny Denison (A) (England)
Gary Day (Cookridge Hall)
Marcus Brier (Austria)
 
West Lancashire
Nick Ludwell (Selby)
Gary Lockerbie (Unattached)
Adam Frayne (St Mellion)

Ferguson: Blame Tiger and Phil

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AP's Doug Ferguson says that Tim Finchem is not entirely to blame for the changes in Chicago and Washington D.C.

Finchem was a convenient target, the czar behind these changes aimed at making the golf season shorter and more interesting.

But it's not all his fault.

If anyone has complaints, look no further than Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. They were the catalysts who first started barking about the PGA Tour season being too long. All the commissioner did was respond to his two biggest stars.

Hawkins: Minus Criticism, FedEx Cup Gets No Ink

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John Hawkins on his GolfDigest.com blog:

If not for a smattering of scathing criticism, last month’s “official” unveiling of the FedEx Cup format wouldn’t have gotten any attention whatsoever.
He goes on to write about Ed Sherman's recent blog post on markets the Tour is visiting and drops this Western Open stunner:
My sources tell me that Cialis, which picked up title sponsorship of the Western in 2004 after the tournament had struggled to find a successor to Advil, was eager to renew its commitment with the tour, even if it meant spending almost twice as much ($14 million) to subsidize a playoff event. Camp Ponte Vedra, however, was never crazy about aligning itself with a company that makes erectile-dysfunction pills. The tour basically told Cialis to take a hike, then courted BMW throughout the second half of 2005.

How can you turn away a major sponsor when so many other events are in need of them? Something just doesn't add up here. 

“I think they were probably bombarded"

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Tod Leonard reports that the USGA has reversed it's decision on MacKinzie Kline, the 14-year-old whose doctors want her riding a cart in the U.S. Junior Girl's and U.S. Women's Amateur because of a heart condition.

USGA spokesman Marty Parkes said yesterday the ruling was made by the organization's three-person medical panel after receiving more documentation from the Klines last week.

“The more we looked into it, it was clear that because of her condition she needed a cart,” Parkes said.

“They stepped up and did the right thing,” said John Kline, MacKinzie's father. “They did more investigating rather than falling back just on what the rules were. They made the right decision.”

John Kline said he was deluged with e-mails and phone calls last week from supporters, many of them strangers, who vowed to contact the USGA to voice their displeasure.

“I think they were probably bombarded,” Kline said.

Of course, one wonders why they would have to be bombarded with emails and calls to figure this one out? And one wonders why one wonders about any bad USGA decision at this point?