LPGA Leaving Las Vegas

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Thanks to reader Noonan for this Kevin Iole story:

In a letter to volunteers, tournament manager Ava Kawana wrote that LPGA Tour commissioner Carolyn V. Bivens doesn't think Las Vegas is a good market for the tour.

The Takefuji Classic took place at Las Vegas Country Club for four years beginning in 2003.

"I regret to inform you the new commissioner of the LPGA does not feel Las Vegas is a good market for the tour and we will not be continuing the tournament," Kawana wrote in her letter. "I hope that in the future, the LPGA will have a different view and we will be able to work together again."

Clampett Blues

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We're not even 50 minutes into the telecast here on the west coast and already Bobby Clampett is in rare form.

In the opening he declared that there was a 50-50 chance that someone outside the top 50 in the world ranking would win. On a Mike Weir approach to 18 that was 15 yards right of the ideal line he declared that the ball finding the bunker was "unlucky."

On an Ernie Els putt he asked us to note the brown patch where the putt would roll faster (and declared that the less green the greens are, the faster they are).

And of course, the usual redundancies (a variety of different shots, etc...).

Thankfully, Mike Tirico and Ian Baker-Finch are talking a lot.  

Open Championship Thursday Reads

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openlogo.jpgI'll spare you the stories about asking people to be careful with their cigarettes.

Lawrence Donegan previews play with this:

Ten days of baking heat have reduced Royal Liverpool's fairways to parched wastelands and its rough to a wispy irrelevance. But they have also transported the game back to its roots. Gone is the mind-numbing repetitiveness of modern golf, where a premium is placed on bombing the ball as far as possible off the tee and spinning it hard on the green with a wedge from 100 yards. In its place is the necessity for subtlety: the strategically placed long iron off the tee and ingenious bump-and-run from 30 yards short of the green.

And he reports that our lovebirds have made up. Well, not really by the sounds of this:

Faldo made the first move, approaching the world No1 on Royal Liverpool's practice range, but he was forced to wait a couple of minutes while Woods continued to hit shots.

Eventually, he deigned to acknowledge the Englishman's presence, shook his hand and engaged in some brief small talk before returning to the business at hand.

Perhaps Tiger didn't want to be interrupted because he was deep in thought, pondering a commentary...yes, that's right, he pens a guest piece in the Telegraph and doesn't say much. But hey, it's something.

Peter Kessler reviews Bobby Jones' 1930 win at Hoylake, which hasn't been talked about much this week.

Golf Gazette polled writers and Tiger was the overwhelming choice.

The Scotsman's Mark Garrod says the bookies are sweating a Tiger Woods win, with two £50,000 bets placed yesterday. There are plenty of other fun anecdotes in this piece.

Alan Pattullo provides an entertaining look at John Daly's performance at the Cavern Club. How far the mighty have fallen. I'm referring to the legendary Cavern Club, of course.

And this wire service story reports that the PGA Tour loaned Trevor Immelman its jet for a return trip to the U.S. to be with his wife and child.

Immelman was trying to catch a flight home, while first alternate Andrew Buckle of Australia was trying to get to Liverpool as soon as possible with the tournament beginning Thursday.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said Tuesday night that Immelman would be flying on the tour's corporate jet back to Florida, which would arrive early Wednesday morning. Finchem said he understood Immelman's wife had already given birth, although he didn't know any other details.

Immelman has played in four British Opens, tying for 15th a year ago at St. Andrews.

Asked if Immelman would have to help pay for fuel, Finchem quipped, "He's already paying for it; he's missing the British Open."

Pernice: Drug Testing "for the future of the sport"

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Paul Newberry follows up on the drug testing story with some interesting comments from Tom Pernice, followed by Tim Finchem doing his best impersonation of Bud Selig circa 1998.

But mindful of the scandals that have bedeviled baseball, cycling and track, Tom Pernice Jr. said he believes golf needs to send a clear signal that performance enhancers won't be tolerated. He said a detailed testing program, complete with a list of banned substances, is the only way to deliver that message.

"I think so, for the future of the sport more so than what's going on today," Pernice said. "We need to do it for the college and high-school kids."

He worries that many up-and-coming players will turn to drugs as a way to compete in a sport increasingly ruled by bigger, longer-hitting players, who often spend as much time in the weight room as on the driving range.

"The young people out there can see how important power has become," Pernice said. "The top five or 10 players are all long hitters who don't necessarily hit it very straight. Of course, they do other things very well, but the kids see the power."

Pernice conceded there are whispers in the locker room every time a player bulks up during the offseason.

"When people get bigger in a short period of time, it makes you wonder," Pernice said.
And this from Lance Armstrong's good buddy:
Dick Pound, leader of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said he has heard it all before.

"It sounds like baseball, doesn't it?" he said when reached on his cell phone Wednesday. "If you look around golf, the shapes are changing from what they used to be. I'm not sure all this stuff is due to technology. Guys are working in gyms, and someone comes along and says, 'You should try this. It will build you up and make you get better faster.'"

Dawson said the R&A - which governs golf everywhere in the world except the United States - supports drug testing to put the sport in line with WADA's code and to keep performance-enhancing substances from creeping into the game.

Pound said he has discussed the issue with PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who was reticent about a drug-testing program.

Since steroids are illegal without a prescription, Finchem doubts few players would take the risks inherent in using them.
Oh lordy. And I thought I was naive. 

But, he added, "I have authority from my board to require a test of any player who I have reason to believe, or our team has reason to believe, is using illegal steroids."

Finchem apparently bases that power on a broadly worded introduction to the players' handbook that governs conduct. It mentions situations from passing bad checks to maintaining a neat appearance - but nothing about drugs.

"In golf, a player is charged with following the rules," Finchem insisted. "He can't kick his ball in the rough, and he can't take steroids. We rely on the players to call rules on themselves, and if you look at our tour over the years, many players have, to their significant financial detriment.

"That," he added, "is the culture of the sport."

Monty's Press Conference

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From Monty's Q&A:

Q. A couple of the guys earlier today talked about the need for creativity and shot making here. I was just curious, the idea of that kind of being a lost art these days, particularly on the PGA TOUR in America.

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: I think it is. I think that is people say this course is dry and it's bouncy and everything, but that is part of golf. The ball does bounce into some places, and you've got to be able to control it and be patient. I think sometimes when you play in America that you hit the ball 157.6 yards and it scoots back 3.2 feet. This isn't like that. It's a more natural game and played on the ground.

And it will be interesting to see artistic shots more than you do possibly in the States. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, it's just a different form of golf. And we have a different form here, especially with the weather as it is and it's forecast to be the way it is right now.

 

Ernie's Press Conference

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Thought this exchange was interesting from Ernie Els's sitdown with the scribblers:

Q. Kind of curious just where you are in your overall life right now. We've seen with a lot of great players that they transition at some point; Nicklaus moves into the design business, Arnold Palmer moves into the business. Can you talk about that? Not the specific ventures that you're doing, but if you're finding it a challenge to balance that with your golf, et cetera?

ERNIE ELS: Yeah, it's true. You get other interests at some point, and I would say the last two years those interests have become kind of a business, you know. You've got to be careful.

Golf is still my life. That is the core of my life. And without golf I couldn't see myself sitting in an office right now and doing those other things that we are busy with. I've got people in place that are running those different interests. I'm basically sitting back and they're reporting back to me, which is kind of a nice situation to be in. But before I got to this situation where I am now, you had to set it up. And it takes time and it takes a bit of concentration. I wouldn't say that it affected my game. I would say the time that I had off away from the game gave me a lot of time to do those different things.

So I think it's pretty well set up right now, and as I said, golf is everything for me now. I've got a good ten years to do what I've always wanted to do. I'm really just 100 percent playing golf right now.

Q. 100 percent golf?

ERNIE ELS: Yeah.
 

Tiger's Press Conference

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Apologies if this is old news, but if you didn't see his comments, there are some interesting things said here that seemingly only could come from either Tiger or Ogilvy's minds.

Q. What were your memories about your dad and this Championship and links golf?

TIGER WOODS: He absolutely loved it when I played at Carnoustie, because it was one of the very few times that he thought I was able to use my imagination and create shots, because in the States we don't get a chance to do that very often because it's always soft and the balls are plugging. On links golf courses you have to use your imagination to create shots. It presents so many different options.

And he thoroughly enjoyed it, watching me go out there shaping shots and hitting all these weird shots. He always got a big kick out of that.

Q. On the same thing, do you think that need to use imagination to conjure up shots is going to limit the number of potential winners? Do you think it makes your test that much easier?

TIGER WOODS: I think playing an Open Championship you always have to hit different golf shots, because of the golf courses we play. We don't play golf courses like this each and every week. And then we certainly don't ever play a golf course this fast. There's only very few, rare occasions we do. And those times you have to be able to control your golf ball in the air, you have to control your spin.

It's not like you can go out there and hit a marginal shot and expect it to be okay. You come in with a wrong spin in the fairways or even on the greens, you're going to pay a consequence of that.
And...
Q. Can you talk a little bit about the imagination you need to use specifically here at Hoylake? Some of the guys were saying they couldn't keep their balls on the greens on the par 3s on the front.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, you know, some of them. Yeah, if you get downwind it's really hard to keep it on the green, unless you get a chance into the wind to use the wind as a backboard. But when it gets going downwind and the greens are this firm you have to to a front pin, it's going to be really hard to get it close. A lot of good shots here downwind are going to be 20, 30, 40 feet away and it's going to be a good shot.

That's one of the neat things about playing over here is that the galleries certainly understand that. You hear the types of applause; we play around the world and a lot of times the ball gets airborne there's always applause. Over here if you hit a good shot and they know it and it's 30 feet away, there's a pretty good roar, because that is a good shot. The people are very knowledgeable when we come over here and play an Open Championship.


Ogilvy's Press Conference

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Forgive if you read this already, but ASAP was slow to post this and since this is my very own clipping library, I have to put these things up! Plus, he has some more interesting things to say.

STEWART McDOUGALL: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Geoff Ogilvy, thanks for coming across, early in the morning, half past 8:00.

You won the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Tell us how you find the course here compared to the one at Winged Foot.

GEOFF OGILVY: Well, it's about as different as you can get, I guess. It's a little bit wider off the tee, which is nice. It's a lot firmer, it's probably the firmest links course we've played in a long time. And they've only been running 30 yards, and these are 60 yards. It's perfect, which is the way it should be.

The rough is playable. If you hit it in the bunkers, you're going to be in that's a chip out in most cases, but the rough you have to be able to play from. So in some cases you're laying back with really, really short clubs, just to make sure you don't run out to the bunkers, to give yourself longer second shots, but it's better than being in the bunkers, so it's a fun course.

Q. This course has numerous places where there's out of bounds. Could you talk about how much that affects you and how you play this golf course? And also, could you talk about specifically the 18th hole and if that's as hard as it looks with that out of bounds so far on the right?

GEOFF OGILVY: Out of bounds, the two obviously would be the 3rd and the 18th. The 3rd you have to be cautious, because it's draining so much to the left, so it's probably more a play on the second shot, because you're going to have quite a long second shot in sometimes.

18 is a strange it's a funny kind of tee shot, especially if the wind is pushing it that direction, as well. It's the bunkers that you can't really carry. Yesterday you couldn't carry on the left, so you've really got to start it up the middle and it's quite a weird tee shot. It's one of the strangest holes I've seen but actually quite fun to play, I think. It's a fun hole.

We don't have out of bounds on the last hole on many golf courses. It's going to be interesting. I don't know, I've never really played them much. But it's not like last year at St. Andrews, you can poke it down there somewhere, you have to on the second shot, as well. I mean, it's in play with the second shot. Same with the third and 18th, out of bounds is in play, which is interesting. It's funny, somebody could come back with a 3 on the last or an 8 on the last, which is what you want, I guess, at the end of a tournament.

Q. Would you have thought the U.S. Open would have been your first?

GEOFF OGILVY: I thought the U.S. Open would be my last. Everyone has asked me, I don't know why. For my reasoning it didn't make sense. My reasoning is because I don't drive the ball very straight; that's probably the weakest attribute. But the more you play U.S. Opens, the more you realize that nobody hits fairways. Strikers are missing fairways, so people that hit it a bit wide have probably an advantage, because they're used to playing out of the rough. It's just that narrow.

If you look at the guys up there, Monty is a straight driver, but Phil doesn't hit it very straight. I don't hit it very straight. There's a good cross section of people. It doesn't seem to be only strikers that don't do it well. Maybe my reasoning was wrong, but that's the one I would have picked last. This one is the one I would pick first, because there's a large percentage of the field here that doesn't play or hasn't played much links golf. I always said I have played more than a lot of guys.

Their Own Self-Interest

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Ron Sirak has the latest on the LPGA-ShopRite spat in this week's Golf World, with this quote from the Commissioner.

Harrison says Bivens gave his date away while they were still negotiating with the LPGA Tour. Bivens denies that, and the level of acrimony is evident. "I have trouble with her credibility and I have trouble with her integrity," Harrison said.

"We would love to be able to work it out," noted Bivens, "but it hurts the overall product when people care only about their own self-interest."
Isn't "own self-interest" redundant?

Of course Bivens is only interested in dumping the ShopRite for a more lucrative event to increase her Tour's charitable donations.