Rolex Rankings Tweaked

It looks like the Michelle Wie-ranked-second-without-a-win-farce is over.

From the LPGA:

Following is a media question and answer session with Chris Higgs, chairman of the Rolex Rankings Technical Committee regarding two modifications to the Rolex Rankings.

PAUL ROVNAK:  I would like to welcome Chris Higgs, chairman of the Rolex Rankings Technical Committee to the interview area.  Many of you were present when Chris announced two slight modifications to the way the
Rolex rankings are calculated.  For those of you who were not present, Chris, if you would briefly review the modifications and then we'll take questions.

CHRIS HIGGS:  Be happy to.  As you know when the rankings first came out with a minimum number of events required to be ranked in the rankings, that number was 15.  As a result of our biannual meeting of the Technical Committee and the Board of the World Rankings, we decided to make two modifications to the ranking system. The first is the elimination of a minimum number of events, and the second is the addition which is similar to men's golf, of a divisor.

The easier way to describe that is beginning with the conclusion that of this week's Weetabix Women's British Open, any player on any eligible tour who scores points will now be eligible to be ranked.

And getting to the point behind this...

Q.  So before this week where would Michelle Wie be ranked using the new
system?

CHRIS HIGGS:  If you were to use this week's current rankings, pre-British Open, and apply the new 35 divisor, I believe Michelle would now be ranked seventh.

More Brand Equity Leveraging...

 I wonder what the point of this is other than to plug those superstores? It's not to give the USGA data to study, is it?

Short-game Guru Dave Pelz To Appear At 23rd Annual PGA Tour Superstore World Amateur Handicap Championship

Pelz and PGA TOUR's ShotLink Team to Gather World Am Golfer Shot Data for Future Comparisons with PGA TOUR Golfers

August 1, 2006, Myrtle Beach, S.C. - Dave Pelz, golf's foremost authority on the short game and putting, will partner with the PGA TOUR's ShotLink team at the 23rd annual PGA TOUR Superstore World Amateur Handicap Championship, August 28 - September 1 in Myrtle Beach, S.C., to gather golf-shot data on amateur participants for comparison to data regularly collected on the PGA TOUR.

The ShotLink system is the TOUR's data engine, developed in conjunction with IBM, that tracks every shot by every player in real-time. ShotLink integrates data sources to record and transmit information including shot number, drive length, ball location and score. This data is supplemented by the use of laser devices positioned throughout the course to record the exact position of every ball.

The PGA TOUR Superstore World Amateur Handicap Championship, the world's largest single-site golf tournament, will serve as a beta test site as the ShotLink scoring system has never tracked amateur golfer data. During the World Am, the scores for scratch, 10, 20, and 30-handicap golfers will be recorded at four holes during all four rounds. All four flights will play the same courses and the Pelz/Shotlink team will track their statistics.

The Tiger Effect

Golfweek's Gene Yasuda kicks off a "Special Report" on Tiger's impact 10 years after turning pro, with other contributions posted here. Meanwhile the Washington Times' Tim Lemke focuses on television ratings.

Over the years, tournaments with Woods in contention have 10 percent to 20 percent higher television ratings than those without. And the exposure for sponsors, particularly Nike, can be worth $10 million for a big tournament, according to one report.

But this year, Woods has played in only 10 events and just three since the Masters in April. Woods went nine weeks without entering a tournament as he dealt with his father's death. During his absence, several key tournaments Woods normally enters saw major ratings drops. Sunday ratings for the Wachovia Championship in May were down 32 percent, while the Memorial saw a 39 percent dip in viewers.

Overall, ratings for golf on CBS and ABC are down more than 10 percent from this point last year, and ratings on NBC are down 3 percent.

It hasn't helped that the non-Tiger events have been won by a host of relative newcomers with little following, including J.B. Holmes, Chris Couch, John Senden and Brett Wetterich. And in six of those nine events, the winner prevailed by five strokes or more.

But this year's ratings dip clearly has not scared broadcasters away from the sport. CBS will expand its coverage from 16 events to 19, and NBC will broadcast 10 events instead of five. Meanwhile, the Golf Network is locked in to a 15-year contract as the PGA Tour's exclusive cable provider, and ABC will show the British Open through 2009.

Golf Channel, Golf Network. Eh, what's the difference.

"There's no question that having Tiger on the leader board has an effect on the ratings," said Brian Walker, Sports spokesman for NBC Sports. "That being said, NBC is bullish on golf in general as evidenced by our recent extension agreements with the PGA Tour, USGA and PGA of America, which will more than double our golf coverage beginning next year."

Ponte Vedra Nights?

In case you've missed Will Ferrell's efforts to plug his latest movie, Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, I've embedded a preview of the film below. I share this not because I'm rushing out to see the uh, film, but because this Jim Peltz L.A. Times story from last week noted how NASCAR has supported the film about the white trash driver and other bold tie-ins that have promoted their uh, gulp, "product."

Can you imagine the PGA Tour cooperating with Ferrell on a film that pokes fun at the players. Say, Ponte Vedra Nights: The Ballad of Tim Bland?

The Tour understandably works hard to protect the image of their players, perhaps too much so. If such an opportunity presented itself, even if it meant poking fun at themselves, would the Tour cooperate on such a film? Should they?

I say yes, simply because the humor of golf has long been an important element of the game that often seems absent today, especially when it comes to the PGA Tour. Thoughts?

"Right In Front Of You"

Reader Sam wanted to know why I don't like it when Tiger Woods praises a course for being "right in front of you," (as he did again today with Warwick Hills and will inevitably do when he answers dumb questions lobbed his way by the inkslingers.) Oh, and check out the doozies he was asked today. No wonder he can't stand the media.

Anyway, the "right in front of you" thing is simple.

Woods, like Jones, Hogan and Nicklaus before him, thrives on strategic courses that reward local knowledge. These courses nearly always tend to contain mysterious design features. Even the ones that seem straightforward (Pebble Beach, Riviera), are loaded with subtlety and elusive qualities.

The elite players have always embraced this mystery and recognized that it separates them from the merely great player.

So for someone who adores the Old Course like Tiger does, it's hard to fathom why he also loves courses that are "right in front of you," when they have little to reveal after one or two rounds, and therefore, lack an intelligent purpose.

Then again, if Woods told the media that thoughts of Warwick Hills make for an ideal sleep aid, he'd be tarred and feathered as a negative, spoiled Tour pro. So he's probably wise to keep on repeating the same line.
 

Flogging: It Works For Tiger

On Mike Vitti's PGATour.com ShotLink blog (scroll down to find the post), he breaks down an interesting new "percentage-of-distance-covered-by" stat that validates the flogging approach, at least for Tiger Woods.

So, for example, if a player hits a 300-yard drive on a hole measuring 450 yards the percentage of drive covered is 300 yards/450 yards or 66.7 percent. The 2006 TOUR average for this statistic is 61.7 percent for all driving holes. On par 4s the percentage rises to 65.6 percent, while on par 5s it drops to 52.1 percent.

He brings the stat up to look at Tiger possibly using driver less often: 

Judging by his results at Royal Liverpool, it appears that Woods should do whatever he can to find the fairway, and not worry about distance. However using the distance covered percentage on par 4s as the counter to this argument, accuracy in lieu of distance may not be Woods' best option. Consider the following from par-4 statistics by Tiger Woods:

^{2005-2006 Tiger Woods Par-4 Scoring
Drive Covers at least 67% of Hole Yardage   Drive Less than 67% of Yardage
Total Drives                 465                                                 341
Under Par                    130 (28.0%)                                     47 (13.8%)
Over Par                      45 (9.7%)                                        62 (18.2%)}

In 2005-2006, Woods had 465 drives on par 4s where he covered at least 67 percent of the distance of the hole from off the tee. In these instances, he was able to make birdie or better 28 percent of the time. On the drives where Woods did not reach this mark, he only made birdie or better 18.2 percent of the time, and he also had a higher rate of over-par scores in these situations.

Then he looks at drives landing in fairway v. rough.

<sup>2005-2006 Tiger Woods Par-4 Scoring
Drive Covering at least 67%, Out of the Fairway  Drive Less than 67%, In Fairway
Total Drives                         211                                               193
Under Par                            41(19.4%)                                      36(18.7%)
Over Par                             30 (14.2%)                                     16 (8.3%)

2005-2006 Tiger Woods Par-4 Scoring
Drive Covering at least 67%, In the Fairway   Drive Less than 67%, Out of Fairway
Total Drives                           254                                               148
Under Par                              89 (35.0%)                                     11 (7.4%)
Over Par                                15 (5.9%)                                       46 (31.1%)</sup>

The conclusion:

Out of the rough on longer drives Woods has about as good a chance of making birdie as he does from the fairway on shorter ones, and more importantly, if he misses the fairway on a shorter drive he has a much greater chance of making bogey. If you are thinking that his accuracy with the shorter club should be greater than with the longer one, look at the numbers again. Woods' accuracy on drives that travel at least 67 percent of the fairway is around 55 percent while the accuracy rate for drives less than 67 percent is only around 43 percent. So why bring a greater risk of bogey into play if you can avoid it?

So Vitti concludes:

Back to the original argument, on whether Woods should change his strategy, I would say yes - every time he plays Royal Liverpool or a course that dictates that would be the best way to win. Otherwise, I think with 49 career victories, including 11 majors, Woods already knows what approach is best for him. 

"We're trying not to do perfect anymore"

Thanks to reader Nick for this Seth Soffian story in the News Press, where Jack Nicklaus is teetering on the edge of Phil status:

"I watch Tiger a lot, obviously," Nicklaus said. "His golf swing that week was right on the plane it should have been. He gets himself off of plane very easily, particularly when his swing gets longer. Then he can hit it anywhere.

"He's such a great iron player because he's so much under control," said Nicklaus, beginning the demonstration of various club positions on the backswing.

"His swing is not very long with his irons. He keeps it pretty much in here. Once he gets the driver back in here, that's when he gets off plane, and then he can bring it under this way or around this way."

And...

"He was on plane the whole time with the driver," said Nicklaus, throwing one last variable into the mix to consider for the year's final major championship.

"Obviously, (Hank) Haney is doing something with him that (Tiger) feels confidence with, because he's getting great confidence with his other clubs," Nicklaus said of Woods' swing coach.

"It could be he's got a bad driver, too. I don't know. If you're hitting everything else good and you're hitting your driver bad, it may be your driver, not him. I don't know."

He also had this to say about his design work, which Nick was possibly a reflection on his collaboration with Tom Doak:

Q: We heard you said the course was "too perfect."

A: Sometimes, yeah. We're trying not to do perfect anymore. We used to work really hard to get everything absolutely dead perfect. I don't think nature's too perfect. We try to bust up a few things to make them look a little irregular at times. Perfect is a description I drove my guys crazy with for about 20 years.

Bandon Here We Come

Ryan White says Bandon Dunes figures to land more USGA events, and includes several rave review quotes from David Fay.

 "I couldn't come up with one single thing that wasn't just superb," Fay said.

Translation: Executive Committee members in attendance loved the lodging and comp rounds on the Trails course!

"Wie being winless makes about as much sense as Mel Gibson on the side of the road"

Grant Boone takes an entertaining look behind the scenes at the Evian Masters and women's golf in Europe. Thanks to Noonan for the heads up.

Golf Digest College Ranking

Golf Digest unveils their second (annual?) college golf ranking, again breaking down schools by golf and academics (spelled acadmeic twice when I checked in).

Refreshingly, there seems to be a West Coast bias to the list, at least based on my initial reading of it. That's a first! 

Writer's Ryder Picks

An AP story reporting votes by some of our most esteemed scribblers suggesting who they see making the U.S. Ryder Cup squad (with their vote tally included):

Tiger Woods 18
Phil Mickelson 18
Jim Furyk 18
David Toms 18
Chris DiMarco 18
Chad Campbell 16
Scott Verplank 16
Stewart Cink 13
Zach Johnson 13
Fred Couples 12
Davis Love III 10
Lucas Glover 9
Arron Oberholser 9

Also receiving votes: Jerry Kelly 5, Vaughn Taylor 4, Tim Herron 3, Kenny Perry 2, Ben Crane 2, J.J. Henry 2, Fred Funk 2, Justin Leonard 2, J.B. Holmes 1, Brett Wetterich 1, David Duval 1, John Daly 1, Brad Faxon 1, Jay Haas 1.

Not much faith shown in J.J. Henry, John Rollins and Brent Wetterich. 

The Skill Open?

Get the Washington Post ombudsman on the line!

We have some good old fashioned anti golf ball bias displayed by Leonard Shapiro, who not only dares to suggest a retro equipment tournament, but proposes that Nike run it!

Back in June, when the PGA Tour pulled the plug, for now, on Washington playing host to a tournament for the next few years, I received several e-mails from a friend and Northern Virginia neighbor, Howard Jensen, clearly a thinking man's golfer himself, who offered an intriguing alternative to the usual stroke play format for a tournament he'd love to see some day replace the Kemper/FBR/Booz Allen Open.

The play of Woods and Pavin over the last two weeks reminded me of his proposal, which follows mostly in his words. It includes a deep-pocketed sponsor -- he suggested Nike--that would put up the prize money -- say $5 million -- and dictate the rules of play that would go something like this:

Equipment: Nike selects a standard shaft, maybe graphite, and a standard ball (soft) that all players must use. The goal is to select a shaft and ball combination that, in the hands of the longest hitters, would only carry 300 yards maximum when hit perfectly.

See the bias. Criminal I tell you! Here's more from Len's equally biased friend:

"Skill with mid-irons and skill around the greens becomes a significant factor in professional golf again. The equipment in the bags of all players is identical, no tricked-up wedges, no fairway iron/woods, no fade driver/draw driver combinations. It's pure golf, pure equipment.

"This is not a radical notion. Every other professional sport uses standard equipment for all players, even NASCAR. The Battle Cry will boil down to a single question: Is it the player, or is it his/her equipment?

And naturally, this next point is just ludicrous. The plummetting ratings and Tom Fazio say the people want long drives, so they must want the power game, not silly stuff like this:

"Fan interest would be off the charts, drawing in even the casual golf fan. Sports radio and ESPN will have a field day hyping the event, and Washington would be the place to be in the world of golf.

Ogilvy At Warwick Hills

Geoff Ogilvy talking to da medja at Warwick Hills:

Q. You guys are professional, you play all over the world in all kind of conditions, but how difficult is it to go from a golf course like Hoylake which is brown

GEOFF OGILVY: Total opposite to here?

Q. Total opposite to here.

GEOFF OGILVY: How much of a difference is that? It's harder to go from here to there than it is to go from there to here, because we play that once a year; we play this type of setup pretty much every week, you know, rough like this, just off the green.

I guess you just learn to adapt. I guess if all you'd ever done in your whole life was played a golf course around here and you went to this for one week, it would be completely bizarre. You grow up in Australia, Australians have to travel somewhere to play because Australia is on its own. It's a small country. You get to a point you have to go somewhere. So we are all used to traveling to different countries and playing different golf courses. That's the nature of doing that is you I think by the time you get good enough to be a professional golfer, you tend to play a lot of different types of golf and you learn to adapt week in, week out. The British Open, that's why a lot of players don't play the week before and will go over to Ireland and all that because it takes a while to get used to it again. But coming back from there to here, we play this type of setup so much that it's quite easy to get back into this.

Nice chance for any number of questions about Hoylake, PGA Tour setups, architecture, etc... uh no.

Q. You were talking about the field a little bit and how that makes it a bigger deal, a lot of the players say they don't pay attention to who else is here, but a field like this with Tiger and Vijay and Furyk and yourself does that make it a bigger deal? Do you get more fired up or is it a bigger deal to win?

"There must have been a hiccup somewhere"

John Gordon on the Canadian Open's lousy date in 2007, offers this from Vijay Singh:

"For a Canadian Open, it's not right to have a date like that. It's a very odd date for a Canadian Open. Here you have one of the most prestigious events on Tour, and to have it on a date like that?

"I don't know what happened. There must have been a hiccup somewhere. You got the wrong end of the stick. I'm going to try to talk to [Finchem] and see if there is a chance of moving the dates."

Lengthy Erin Hills Review

Rob Schultz in The Capital Times writes a lengthy story about newly opened Erin Hills and the USGA's infatuation with the Hurzan-Fry-Whitten design.

The usually staid USGA is so completely gaga over Erin Hills that the mere mention of the place makes many of its officials act like 13-year-old boys debating how to ask a girl to dance for the first time.

Many golf courses have been waiting for decades for the USGA to give them one of their national championships held annually. Erin Hills has the unique status of being given the USGA's 2008 Women's Public Links Championships even before it opened. That tournament will tell the USGA if the course is ready to handle more. If it passes, Erin Hills will be on the fast track toward getting an Open.