Falling Back On Marketing

/

Peter Bart, writing in the New York Times about Hollywood's struggle to make decent films:

Today’s studios, however, are peopled by marketing gurus and Harvard M.B.A.’s. They are keenly aware that the ground is shifting under them, as it did 30 years ago. Their young audience is distracted by video games and the Internet. The huge DVD business has hit the wall.

Their basic response, however, is to fall back on marketing, to tell the public what it wants...

Sound familiar?

Instead of wondering if ratings are declining because golf's "product" is less interesting to watch, the Commissioners fall back on marketing to enhance the product. The influence of setup and architecture or the role of technology plays? Not on their radar screens.

Open Championship Friday Reads

/

openlogo.jpgLawrence Donegan with his Guardian game story, reminds us of Greg Owen's 2005 mix-up:

Alongside Woods on five under was Greg Owen, who 12 months ago characterised the R&A's leadership as a bunch of port-drinking fuddy-duddies after they denied him a spot in the 2005 Open on an entry-form technicality. He was more circumspect yesterday, presumably with one eye on dinner invitations to St Andrews should he play well enough to win. "The R&A run this tournament, it's their tournament and what they say goes," he said.
Richard Williams on the Marty Hackle fashion shows breaking out amongst the players.
The trouser thing is now out of control. In the members' car park at Royal Liverpool yesterday morning, one competitor was showing off his new flares to a colleague: two shades of lichen in a Prince of Wales check, an inverted pleat running up the outside seam of each leg and opening to show a contrasting taupe panel. On the practice green in front of the red-brick clubhouse, another player was modelling a pair of slacks quartered in light and dark blue, like a Boat Race spectator trying to support both sides at once. And all that was before there had been so much as a glimpse of Ian Poulter.
Martin Johnson writes about Monty's rabbit ears.
It was as tense a moment as there has ever been in an Open Championship. One of those occasions where you simply can't bear to look. Colin Montgomerie was poised to launch his tee shot down the par-four third, and away in the distance came the sound of music. It was a nice tune, the Blue Danube to be precise, but when it's coming from a mobile phone while Monty is playing, you tend to wonder whether the owner's next aquaintance with Johann Strauss will be on hospital radio.

Not this time though. Monty swished one down the middle as though he hadn't heard a thing, but then again that's always been the way. He was one under par at the time, having birdied his first hole of the championship, and with Monty the key is in the scoreboard. Approach him after a double bogey and the coroner will lean less towards a verdict of misadventure as suicide.
And...
By the 13th hole, when he had slipped to two over par, the number of people he had required to either keep quiet or make themselves invisible included eight marshals (one of them twice), four spectators, and two BBC buggy drivers. There was one moment when he backed off, and waved his hand at a source of agitation so far away that it could only have been aimed at a lollipop lady in Hoylake High Street.

They talk about golfers being "in the zone", but Monty is quite the opposite after a bogey has just been posted. It was Joyce Wethered, at Sherringham, who holed a crucial putt when a steam engine hurtled by, and when asked afterwards whether she'd considered waiting until peace and quiet had been resumed, replied, "what train?"
Paul Kelso compiles Guardian notes on a lousy change at Birkdale (can the Brits ever find an architect who knows what he's doing!!?!?) and on Barker Davis's Liverpool rant.

Meanwhile, Alan Shipnuck finds Hoylake boring and compares its lack of memorability to Firestone.

Darren Clarke is going to be taking a break for the foreseeable future to be with his ailing wife.

If you didn't see the Golf Channel feature, Doug Ferguson offers a nice print version of Jarrod Lyle's story and the help he got from Robert Allenby.

And finally, The Scotsman's Glenn Gibbons on the Faldo-Woods pairing: 
Like an estranged couple still sharing a one-room flat, Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo yesterday found a way of achieving a semblance of peaceful co-existence.

Even so, the vast acreage of the Royal Liverpool links was not expansive enough to prevent the awkwardness and general discomfort of being in each other's company. This was tolerance enforced by circumstances, as opposed to reconciliation.

Tiger After Round 1

/

On the 18th hole eagle...

TIGER WOODS: The eagle? I hit 2 iron off the tee. I hit a 4 iron into the green and I had a putt, and as I said earlier, I don't know who it was, but someone made that same putt earlier this morning. I was watching it on the telecast. It doesn't break at the end, it holds its line. I played it on the right edge. I hit it and it held its line all the way here. Normally I would have given that hole away if I hadn't seen that putt earlier in the morning.

And on the one hole he used driver on (which he hit into the adjoining fairway):

Q. Did you drive on any hole besides 16?

TIGER WOODS: No. And I really wasn't supposed to do that, either. I was trying to the entire week has been 2 iron, 3 wood off that tee. But with the wind being down today, I could fly the bunkers. It felt like it took the bunkers completely out of play, and it did.


Ernie After Round 1

/

Q. Given the benign conditions, the fact that there's 20,000 people at 4 under and no one has shot a huge number, what about this course has allowed that and can we expect that to continue on through the week?

ERNIE ELS: First of all, it's a major championship and it's the first round of the major championship and you definitely don't want to shoot yourself out of it the first day. So you're not taking as many chances on the first day. You basically are trying to play a solid round of golf. That's what I try to do, anyways. And you really try to keep big numbers off the card.

I think as the week goes on we'll see how the golf course progresses. If it stays soft there will be a couple of 64's out there. There's enough par 5s where you can score. We're not even halfway through the day and there's already good scoring.

But it's not the hardest course we've ever played because of the weather, but there's enough trouble out there where it makes you really think on every hole.

And God knows, that's not nearly as important as keeping the scoring from getting too low! 

Ringo Schmingo

/

TNT actually send the following quotes out as part of a press release highlighting the first round Open Championship commentary, but neglected to include Bobby Clampett's declaration that John Lennon hated golf (which he corrected later). Clampett confused Ringo and Lennon. These things happen when you are making it up as you go!

Before we relive his most captivating quotes, here are my favorite Clampett redundancies from round 1:

dry hardpan fairway
big oversized driver
past history

Nice! And from TNT:

Clampett on Mike Weir: “Mike’s been licking his chops this week, because he saw the course set-up playing hard and fast, and that plays right into his game.”

Clampett on Hoylake: “I would not be surprised to see the scores this bunched throughout the whole championship. It’s a course that lends itself to bunching.”

Clampett on the wide open field this year at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England: “I believe there is a better than 50-50 chance of a player out of the top 50 winning here. The reason for that is it’s a golf course that doesn’t necessarily favor the longer hitter. The guys who are the short, accurate strikers have equally as much a chance to win here as one of the bombers.”

Clampett on Faldo/Woods: “There is no bad blood here, there just isn’t, and regardless of what the media is trying to build up these guys have no problem with one another. Tiger gets that (criticism) from everybody. All of us that are in the TV business have an opinion on what he is doing. We express our opinion and he respects that we have an opinion.
 

The Capitalist Market Mechanism

/

From John Strege's game story on the John Deere Classic (not posted online yet):

"As a matter of fact, some of the criticisms of Michelle's playing on the PGA Tour are very logically thought out," B.J. Wie said. "However, they do not fully understand the capitalistic market mechanism. Did you see the large galleries following Michelle yesterday despite her first round of 77?"

Dottie Pepper also makes some disturbing observations in this week's SI Golf Plus that indicate Wie's career is not being very well handled at this point.  

LPGA Leaving Las Vegas

/

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

/

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

/

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."