USA Today Story On Course Redevelopment

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I'm not sure why it took me so long to put this Dennis Cauchon story from the USA Today up. Perhaps because it's somewhat depressing.

Here's the subtitle: "Golf courses are being plowed under in record numbers to make way for residential and commercial developments."

Golf course openings fell from a peak of 398.5 in 2000 to 124.5 last year when measured in 18-hole equivalents, the National Golf Foundation reports. During that time, course closings soared from 23 to a record 93.5 last year.

When courses temporarily closed for renovation are included, the USA had fewer golf courses open at the end of 2005 than a year earlier — the first year-to-year decline since 1945.

Golfers still have plenty of places to play: 16,052 courses nationwide.

"Golf courses aren't generating the returns people like to see," says Mike Hughes, chief executive of the National Golf Course Owners Association. "The land has appreciated so much in value that it makes abundant economic sense to turn the property over to other uses."
Even more ominous for the future of the game:
Shorter golf courses and par-3 courses are being redeveloped especially rapidly, the National Golf Foundation says.

Some homeowners who bought houses on golf courses have been surprised to see their views disappear. "The golf holes go away and suddenly you have people living in your backyard," says Mike Waldron, executive director of the Georgia State Golf Association.

Golf courses are being built where land is cheaper and more rural. Golfers still have many choices but may have to drive farther to play.

"It's like when your favorite grocery store down the street closes," says Jack Nance, executive director of the Carolinas Golf Association. "You're sad, but you deal with it."


 

PGA Tour Driving Distance Watch, Week 35

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pgatour.jpgThe PGA Tour driving distance average jumped from 289.4 yards to 289.6 yards after the Deutsche Bank event at TPC Boston.

The number of 400-yard plus drives for the season rose from 23 to 24 after Scott Gutschewski hit a 400-yarder on TPC Boston's 9th in round one.

And because it's been a while, if you are wondering why these growing numbers are followed, a full explanation is available here. 

The short and sweet version: the USGA stated in 2002 that any significant increases in distance would prompt regulation. The Tour is up 10 yards in that time, a bigger jump than the alarming 1999-2002 increase.

Captain Woesnam

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Poor Woosy, he's been practicing his Opening Ceremony speech since February and all he gets is a bunch of criticism and backstabbing in return!

John Hopkins reports on the lashing Woosie received from Thomas Bjorn, who insists it's not sour grapes, but instead, fury at Woosnam's lousy organizational skills.

“So far his captaincy has been the most pathetic I have ever seen,” Björn said. “I haven’t spoken to him for six months and now I find that I’m not in the team watching television. How can that be right? He has put a lot of players through misery because he just hasn’t done the right thing.

“I have nothing against Lee Westwood. But if you can find one category in which he has beaten me then I would like to see it. I have played better than him in the qualifying phase — and then Woosnam bases his decision on results which are more than five years old. I don’t understand the way he is handling the whole situation. It doesn’t look like he is burdened by leadership qualities.

“He came into the bar at the hotel and gave me 20 seconds about Lee having won twice at the K Club. In a bar — that kind of sums it up. He can’t walk up to me, tell me in 20 seconds and expect me to be happy. I’m very disappointed. I think he’s been very poor in the way he’s handled the players.”

Woosnam cited Westwood’s two victories at the K Club as being among the factors that influenced him, leaving unsaid that Björn ran up an 11 on the 17th in the final round of last year’s Smurfit European Open when he had begun the day four strokes clear of the field.

“If that’s what it’s come down to then why didn’t he tell me I don’t think you’ve got the bottle to stand on the 17th tee?” Björn asked. “Yes, Lee’s won twice there. But Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros won at Augusta and I don’t think they’d be picked if this Ryder Cup was being played there.

“Woosie played with me when I finished second at the K Club (in 2001) by finishing three-four-three (an eagle and two birdies). So I’ve had good experiences there, too. But if it’s come down to one bad one then why didn’t he tell me?”

Meanwhile, Woosnam is not happy that former Euro Captain Bernhard Langer has advised current U.S. Captain Tom Lehman. But it's Langer who is surprised that he hasn't been consulted by Woosnam! Gosh I love how these big men are getting in touch with their pre-school days!

"I can't understand why he has not asked me for advice or suggestions," Langer said in Munich. "Everyone is different and has their own tactics but the only thing I know about him (Woosnam) is that earlier in his career he had a wonderful swing."
Ooooohhhh, don't just love how the Ryder Cup brings out the sportsmanship and class?

Woosnam revealed he has sought the advice of two other past Ryder Cup captains, while Langar has been offering advice to friend and US team captain Tom Lehman.

The German claimed he held "a little bit" back in their chat but that still seems to have riled Woosnam.

"It seems strange to me that Tom Lehman asked to speak to Bernhard Langer," the Welshman said.

Hmmm...I wonder what it is that Langer and Lehman have in common?


Tiger's Latest Streak

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Doug Ferguson considers Tiger's streak of five straight wins.

Byron Nelson won 11 straight tournaments in 1945, a streak regarded as one of the most untouchable in sports. Woods won six straight at the end of 1999 and the start of 2000, and Ben Hogan won six in a row in 1948.

Woods now takes a week off before heading to England for the HSBC World Match Play Championship, followed by the Ryder Cup. His next PGA Tour start will be the American Express Championship outside London at the end of September.

He still isn’t even halfway home to Nelson’s hallowed mark, but he surpassed Lord Byron in one category with his 53rd victory, moving into fifth place alone on the career list. Woods, who finished at 16-under 268, won for the seventh time this year. No other player has won more than twice.

Of the aforementioned streaks, Tiger's latest is the only to include two major championship wins. Of course, Ben Hogan had a four-win streak in 1953 that included three majors.

After the round, Tiger was asked about the streak and also the TPC Boston, which led to an interesting revelation.
Q. Do you ever think about 11 in a row?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah.

(Laughter.) It wasn't just 11, it was 11 in a row, 12 out of 13, 18 for the year. That will work.

Q. You don't even play 18, do you?

(Laughter.)

TIGER WOODS: Good point.

(Laughter.)

Q. Kind of along those lines, where do you see Byron's record, the 11 in a row, as it relates to UCLA or some of the other or some of the other great streaks in sports?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I think it's part of the streak that it's probably the streak that I've, he had to have so many things go right first of all. In this day and age and the competition, to win 11 in a row would almost be unheard of. What Byron accomplished, that right there goes down to probably one of the greatest years in the history of our sport. Consistency I mean you got to have one bad week somewhere. He never did. His bad week was a win, I guess. So it's I mean it's truly amazing. I know that there were a lot of different circumstances. It was one of those, the field's weren't as strong, it was one of the war years, but still, I just think that what Byron accomplished there goes down as one of the greatest streaks in all of sport. I don't know what DiMaggio's record, I see that being broken more so than winning 11 golf tournaments.
And... 
Q. I know it's early in your career to be thinking about golf course design at this point, but did you see anything out on the course today that you particularly liked, disliked, that if that day ever comes when you start designing courses regularly that you would like to incorporate into what you do?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I have my ideas, yes. And we're going to, obviously, I don't know if anyone knows, we're going to make some changes again this year for the next event, for next year's event. So yeah, I'm going to tray and help out with that, give my opinion and they can utilize it or not. But I am getting into golf course design business here probably pretty soon. So it's something that I'm very excited about to be creative and design a piece of property that people will want to go play. It's going to be challenging, but also be fun.

So that part is really enjoyable to me, because I play golf courses now, I played all around the world, I've seen so many different type of golf courses and the types of styles that I have my own opinion on how the game should be played. And hopefully you get pieces of property which you can make that happen.

Those would be his most definitive comments to date about getting into course design. He has previously said in the next 3-4 years, but this sounds like he may have a project in the works. 

Huggan On Picks, Vol. 2

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He explains in a Golfobserver.com column why Carl Pettersson didn't get a closer look:

Had the US-based Swede been allowed to join the European Tour at the start of the qualifying period (Pettersson claims he wanted to but was denied by the tour, whose officials insisted he must wait until the beginning of the 2006 season) he would have comfortably made the side without recourse to a wild card. Because of the delay, his PGA Tour victory at the 2005 Chrysler Classic and second place at the State Farm Classic one week later earned the likeable Pettersson nothing in Ryder Cup terms. Then, of course, he won the prestigious Memorial Tournament earlier this year.

It was never to be, however. Even if Pettersson, whose steady game looks ideal for foursomes play, could point to multiple victories on the world's biggest and best circuit during the 12-month qualifying window (and one more than the European Ryder Cup side combined), there was never any real chance of Woosnam burning a pick on someone he couldn't even be bothered to call in the lead up to making his selection. The Welshman has never been one of life's more outward looking individuals and was always going to favour a fellow Brit over a continental European. "Xenophobic" would be too sinister a description for Woosnam's attitude towards those not brought up in the British Isles, but "insular" isn't too far off the mark.

Faxon On TPC Boston Changes

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Joe Gordon gets a few tidbits out of Brad Faxon on the planned changes to TPC Boston:

“The tour has asked me as a guy who’s been around here for a long time to (help) make some changes,” said Faxon, of Barrington, R.I. “This course will be part of the FedEx Cup and I think they want to try to make it a little more New England style, traditional.

“They picked (architect) Gil Hanse to make the changes. I think he can make some pretty significant changes to the look of the course. It’s not a bad course. I think it plays kind of Florida-like. I think the players like (the course). They need to love it.”

Faxon said there will be changes made to all 18 holes with the two biggest the fourth and 16th. The fourth will become a drivable par 4 and the par-3 16th will be shortened.


Martina On Regulation In Tennis and Golf

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Thanks to reader George for this Reuters story by Steve Ginsburg quoting Martina Navratilova on the deregulation of tennis. She also compliments the regulation in golf. Little does she know some of us think about as highly of it as she does of the tennis regulation.

Martina Navratilova criticised the tennis establishment on Saturday for not having enough regulations to deal with the size and strings of rackets.

"It takes less skill to hit great shots or to hit powerful shots because you just bang away," Navratilova told a news conference at the U.S. Open. "Tennis used to be more like squash, now it's more like racquetball.

"Hit the ball as hard as you can, it will still go in."

 Sounds familiar. There's more...

Navratilova said "the powers that be aren't regulating" tennis enough.

"I'm disappointed that the racket manufacturers are dictating what kind of tennis we're watching," she said.

"They're saying, 'Oh, this is the rackets we need to be playing with.'"

She praised the strict rules dictated by the Professional Golf Association (PGA).

"If golf regulated their game the same way tennis regulated our game, they'd be hitting 400 yard drives, hooking it left and right, any which way they want to, or keeping the ball straight even though you have a hook swing but the ball still goes straight."

Well actually...eh, I guess Martina hasn't watched much golf lately.

On a related matter, the Agassi matches have been pure heaven because they've delivered glimpses of what tennis was and could be again. I tried to watch a Roddick match, but it was just too painfully dull watching 140 mph ace after ace.

Oh, and the virtual line judge thing for challenging calls? Pretty darn cool. Not all technology is harmful!

Paying $200 To Be Miserable

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Thanks to reader Jeff for the latest John Paul Newport column in the weekend WSJ.

Course developers are well aware of golfers' masochistic tendencies, and they spend bounteously to concoct (and maintain) the many cruel features -- bunkers, ponds, linoleum-speed greens that hump and heave -- necessary to crush our spirits. For this reason the most difficult courses are often the most expensive. A rule of thumb for resort and daily-fee properties is that the operators must collect $10 in green fees to recoup every $1 million in outlays for land acquisition, design and construction. Thus a $20 million course charges $200 to play -- a beautiful thing for those who like their humiliation served in double doses.

The mania for building tough courses is also fueled by the need of developers to get their projects onto a top 100 or a best-new-courses list in the golf magazines. Securing a prominent spot can be a make-or-break proposition for hugely expensive projects, especially those whose business models depend on attracting play from traveling golfers. In the notoriously subjective pseudo-science of list making, difficulty is one of the few objective criteria available for consideration. Most courses carry both a Slope rating (a measure of difficulty for average golfers) and a course rating (which measures difficulty for experts), determined by disinterested panels dispatched by the state or local golf associations. Difficulty does often correlate with quality, design inventiveness and the resources brought to bear on a course. But it can also be a red herring.

For players, the lure of difficulty is largely about bragging rights. Like birdwatchers who maintain life lists of all the species they have viewed in the wild, many golfers keep life lists of the top courses they have played -- the tougher, the better. When returning from a trip, it's far more impressive to regale jealous friends with tales of being eaten alive by courses with macho names like the Teeth of the Dog (in the Dominican Republic) or the Blue Monster (in Miami) than it is to boast about playing at a pretty little mountain course, even if playing the pretty little course would have been a lot more fun.

Another goad to taking on the most punishing layouts in the world is the all-but-irresistible urge to play where the tour pros play. On a course seen annually on TV, even a round of overwhelming frustration can be redeemed by a few magic moments. Players hit an astounding 120,000 balls a year (an average of three per player) into the water surrounding the island green on the 17th hole at Florida's Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass. But when Joe Everyman safely drops one on the surface, even if it's his third try, it's a memory of a lifetime -- and entitles him to casually observe to his buddies while watching the next year's Players Championship that he hit his tee shot on 17 exactly where Freddie Couples did.

Pete Dye, designer of some of the world's most feared courses, including the aforementioned Teeth of the Dog and TPC Sawgrass, told me recently he doesn't understand why golfers are so keen to suffer, but added that he's happy to keep building the courses for them as long as he keeps getting paid. One thing I've noticed over the years is that the more skilled and experienced golfers become, the more apt they are to play courses, or from tees, that don't abuse their souls. They know which level of challenge truly tests their game, and which level obliterates it.

 

Leverage, Leverage, Leverage

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In this Robert Bell story about Greensboro's hunt for a 2007 sponsor, he talks to Greensboro Jaycees Charitable Foundation chairman Bobby Long, who is in Boston this weekend meeting with potential sponsors.
Long spent Wednesday and Thursday in Boston meeting with officials from companies interested in sponsoring Greensboro's tournament.

"We're pretty far along" with negotiations, Long said. "We've gotten some strong indications from companies that they are interested."

Long declined to name the companies. He said a deal could be reached this year, but not before next month's Chrysler Classic of Greensboro.

Tournament officials have been looking for a new title sponsor since January, when DaimlerChrysler informed them it was ending its 11-year affiliation with Greensboro's PGA tour stop after next month's event.

A year ago, civic and private groups pledged a $25 million line of credit to the PGA Tour to sponsor Greensboro's tournament from 2007-10 if a new title sponsor could not be found. Long said it is imperative that a title sponsor be found sooner rather than later.

"When you're on the hook for ($25 million), you start to lose your leverage as time goes by," he said. "Any time you go into a business deal, you want to make sure you have all the leverage you can get your hands on. Time is certainly a leverage in our favor right now, but it could start to work against us."
Do really have much leverage when you're actually talking about how it works, and on the record to a reporter?