Harding to Host...

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The Western Open the BMW Championship! But it'll be spun as falling in line with the old Western, which moved around the country and was once played at Presidio.

Maybe that year they could play the Western in Chicago on July 4 weekend? Just a thought. The date is open.

Hey, did you know Laurie Auchterlonie won the second BMW Championship at Midlothian? Just an FYI.

Anyway, Ron Kroichick details the move and Harding getting the President's Cup in '09 despite the temptation to bring it to Riviera so that they could play before lackluster crowds and even less enthusiastic corporate support.

The revised deal also will bring the BMW Championship, one of the PGA Tour's "playoff" tournaments, to Harding in 2013 or '14. That event, scheduled this year for Sept. 6-9 outside Chicago, is the third of four postseason tournaments in the tour's new FedEx Cup schedule, a yearlong points race designed to create a climactic finish to the season.

Harding would host one other elite-field, PGA Tour event in the next 12 years, plus the Schwab Cup, the Champions Tour's season-ending tournament, in 2010 and 2011.

The original contract between the city and tour called for five marquee events at Harding over a 15-year period. San Francisco officials hoped those tournaments would help pay for the course's extensive renovation in 2002 and '03, which was projected to cost $16 million but ran more than $7 million over budget.

To The Golf Gods...

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danny_stool_pic.jpg...I'm sorry for every complaining about too much Ray Romano during Saturday Crosby coverage. Really, even if he doesn't have a sitcom on CBS, show us more of him and less of Danny Gans.

While it pains me to admit that Gans does a nice Al Pacino impersonation, did we have to go through his entire repertoire today? Der Bing and uh, Harry Caray? David Feherty setting him off of a pre-planned list?

Does he own nude photos of Lance Barrow?

Well, for those of you interested in Gans's work, you can get his "My Lord My Life" CD for just $5.

Operators are standing by!

"Just came across the tracks.''

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Doug Ferguson filed a follow up to the Vickers-Finchem press conference stories by going to the Commish so that he could rebut the Vickers post-press conference claims. (Wouldn't it have been easier if they were just honest when the mikes were on?)

The PGA Tour has narrowed it search to four cities to replace the International, and commissioner Tim Finchem said Friday that a return to Washington likely would be the first choice if all options were equal.

The other cities being considered for the Fourth of July spot on the schedule are Portland, Ore., Minneapolis and another market he declined to identify that "just came across the tracks.''

Nothing like a good railroad metaphor.

"When we get done and we're ready to prioritize, if all is about equal and Washington was one of them, we would probably prioritize Washington because we know it's a great time with the Fourth of July ... and it would be nice to have members of Congress involved.''

Why would it be nice to have members of Congress involved? Am I missing something?

Finchem said Congress has been supportive of The First Tee, a program aimed at getting kids involved with golf.

Uh huh.

"On the one hand, the Tour's asking for a new five- or six-year commitment and you've got a one-man show out there right now that is the big difference,'' Vickers said Thursday.

Finchem disagreed. He said if that were true, "we would have a schedule of 18 events.''

"That's just not the case,'' Finchem said. "When Tiger Woods plays, more people watch on TV and more tickets are sold. When he doesn't play, a lot of tickets are sold, a lot of money is raised for charity and our TV numbers are solid for the value of a sponsor.''

Uh huh.

One Way Around L.A. Traffic

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Tod Leonard on Phil Mickelson's late entry into the Nissan Open:
“I'm starting to play well and I want to play more,” Mickelson said. “I'm real excited about the way I'm driving the ball. In the past, I've missed a lot of fairways (at Riviera). But if you can put it in play there, you can really attack the course.”

Mickelson said he would attempt to commute to L.A. each day from his home in Rancho Santa Fe by using his private jet, flying from Palomar Airport to Santa Monica Airport.

"There's nothing more selfish than a slow golfer."

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Nice questions and slow play rant from Nick Price during an early week conference call to kick off his Champions Tour debut.

Q. One last question, with respect to pace of play, which I know you've always felt strongly about, it's certainly showing no signs of abating. What are your thoughts about it?

NICK PRICE: Fines. Fines. Fine them. Penalties, two-shot penalties, a fine. A warning, a fine and then a penalty. That's the only way they're going to stop it. I don't know how they're going to enforce it, but the only time any guy is going to pay attention is when you penalize him for slow play because it's such a disease, and there is no way on this earth that three professional golfers should take more than 4:15, 4:20, to play 18 holes of golf.

Q. You'll find on the Champions Tour we play quickly.

NICK PRICE: That's what I'm looking forward to, threesomes. McNulty has given me the heads up there because that was one of the first questions I asked him, what's the pace of play like. I think most of the guys out here, we learned a long time ago that the longer you take, the worse it gets.

Q. The players have somewhat of a responsibility. Obviously average golfers look to the pros and see that as an example.

NICK PRICE: It's terrible. It's terrible. The problem is that there's only maybe a handful of slow players certainly on the PGA TOUR who make everyone else's lives a misery. There's maybe 12 or 15 or 20 guys who are slow players, and they just slow down the rest of us. A fast player has to play at the pace of a slow player; a slow player doesn't have to play at the pace of a fast player. That's what's so one-sided.

Anyone who's played rapidly or doesn't mess about on the golf course, there's nothing more frustrating than playing with a guy who pulls the same club out three times, then puts his glove on, then looks at the yardage again, throws the grass up, asks his caddie 15 questions and then suddenly decides to hit it. You know, there's nothing worse, and those guys should be fined.

Q. What was your strategy for combating it or dealing with it?

NICK PRICE: I just used to put my mind in neutral. You had to. You had to. You had to learn to deal with it. If you're playing with someone who was really slow, then I would walk slowly, as well, up to my ball so I wouldn't have to wait around at my ball while he was fiddling around getting ready to hit.

So I'd sort of walk around 20, 30 yards away from my ball and then get to my ball just as he hits, so I could go through my same time zone. So you learn as the years go by how to deal with it. There's nothing more selfish than a slow golfer.

"Are you supposed to be here?"

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From Brett Avery's PGATour.com AT&T blog:

2:55 p.m.
Are you supposed to be here?

Here's something from that last rain burst. Michael Bamberger of Sports Illustrated -- he's the writer involved in the Michelle Wie drop brouhaha last year -- walks up to the fourth tee trailing Murray. Murray is not pleased.

"Who are you?" Murray demands as partner Scott Simpson stands over his teed ball.

Bamberger looks as if he's trying to gauge Murray's comedic temperature. "I'm a writer with Sports Illustrated," Bamberger says.

"Are you allowed in here? Shouldn't you be outside the ropes?"

By now he's fingering Bamberger's credentials, hanging around his neck on a lanyard. Murray is not convinced.

"Yes," Bamberger says, looking around as if sensing a security guard is about to grab him by the collar.

"How long have you been following me?" Murray demands.

"Two days."

Murray waits two beats and turns as Jeff Sluman hits his drive. "You don't know what it's like to have the blood sucked out of you."

 

Now We're Getting Somewhere

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Jack Vickers didn't say much with Tim Finchem at his side, but he opened up to Woody Paige:

Vickers secured a big-time international sponsor.

The PGA Tour "claims I didn't have a sponsor for the $10 million tournament, but damn right I did."

He is telling the truth. I knew about the deal last year. He was taking a mighty gamble, but Vickers was willing.

He had originated the first seven-figure tournament. He would originate the first eight-figure tournament.

Three times Vickers went to Finchem and the PGA Tour, "three times I didn't get an answer. They didn't say no. They just didn't say anything," Vickers said.

The PGA Tour stalled Vickers out of the way. That's because the PGA Tour was secretly working on its FedExCup, a year-end series of tournaments and point systems that would crown a tour champion and award $10 million.

"They didn't want me to overshadow what they were doing," a resigned Vickers says now.  

Pebble's 9th...Why Can't There Be More Holes Like It?

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I watched five minutes of the Crosby AT&T today. Between the blinding white bunker sand (thanks Arnold) and Kenny G talking to the camera, I just couldn't take it. And that was before the traditional blimp shot showing the 9th and reminding me of what a simple, elegant and strategically sound hole Chandler Egan created.

Notice how simple the strategy is. You play right and flirt with the ocean, you open up the better angle of attack. You play left, you have to come over that massive greenside bunker. This isn't rocket surgery, and yet...no one builds 'em like this anymore.

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No. 9 sketch by Joe Mayo230136-269714-thumbnail.jpg
No. 9 at Pebble Beach circa 1929 (click to enlarge) 

"I've never seen it in my 21 years like it is right now."

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I listened in the working portion of the Tim Finchem-Jack Vickers conference call and boy was it a downer...and I never even had one of those milkshakes everyone raves about.

While it was all a bit murky as to exactly why this happened, the most revealing comments came from Vickers: 

But all of the sudden here, we're into an era that the marketplace out there is not the same, and I think it's been influenced by some phenomena in that we have one outstanding, unbelievable player in the form of Tiger Woods today, and when he's playing, the ratings are great, and when he isn't playing, the ratings aren't so hot.

So when we go to talk to these contacts, and we have a ton of them, we've got plenty of contacts to get sponsors.  But, they call their advertising people in and the next thing we know, we're talking about ratings and that makes it tough.  Right now we're just in one of those dips.  That will change and I think we'll get things worked out looking down the line.

And during the Q&A:

I feel a little bit today that we didn't, as I said without being repetitious, the timing here on behalf of both of us was tough to deal with.  But on the other side, and moving forward on a basis that we didn't feel made much business sense and we're really going to get us in trouble if we didn't take a deep breath and try and regroup.  And so I feel that we have to do that.
I'd be honest to say that off the record here, we were just talking with Tim, he's got some problems to resolve, I've got some problems to resolve, and those are going to take some time to do.  But they will be handled and they will be mended back together and we'll have this thing back flying again.  But it's going to take some doing.

Hmmm...

I'm disappointed, and it hurts to see this happen all of a sudden because we really thought even down to the last minute we might get it fixed.  But it's a different world out there right now.  I've never seen it in my 21 years like it is right now.

Where's The Ball Study?

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On the USGA blog, Marty Parkes offers a final thought on the annual meeting by citing Jim Vernon's speech on the groove study. Vernon said:

"Our exhaustive research work on grooves is an example of this.  We now clearly understand both how grooves function and why they have had an effect on how the game is played.   Our work doesn’t end with grooves.  We need to understand how all modern golf equipment technology affects the game.  Once we have this type of full understanding of causes and effects, sound decisions can be made to change - or not change - equipment rules."
The USGA has added a comments section to their blog (over-under on it coming down: February 28). This was interesting from Charles D. Brown:
A big reason why there are so many doubters on the issue of the USGA's equipment regulation is that so little information has been shared.

Driver-distance increases may have flattened in recent years, if one carefully selects the right years in which to survey. The simple fact is that distances have increased substantially since the Joint Statement of Prinicples by the USGA and R&A essentially declared that ANY FURTHER INCREASES IN DISTANCE WOULD BE UNDESIRABLE.

The stock USGA answer to critics (and the critics are not just pajama-clad web trolls, but include Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Ben Crenshaw, Frank Hannigan, Slugger White, Tom Doak and Geoff Shackelford, to name just a very few) has been, 'They don't have the data that we, the USGA, do.'

So how it it that the 'exhaustive research' on grooves is now complete, but the three- or four-year-old study on golf ball performance is incomplete and unpublished?

Ouch.

According to the USGA's 2005 annual report, the ball study started in 2002:

This study, which was begun in 2002, is a wide-ranging investigation into golf ball design, construction, materials and performance.

We have a grooves study, but no ball study three years later and significant distance increases since 2002.

Groove Study Done, Ball Study...

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...hopefully forgotten about?

Mike Stachura reports that the USGA has issued a final report similar to their preliminary report from August, but still no mention of the ball study from 2002. Here's what Stachura says:

The final report does not include any proposal for a rule change, but it does seem to indicate a fundamental change from the USGA's position on grooves 20 years ago. At that time (during the so-called "square grooves" debate), Stuart Bloch, then chairman of the USGA's Implements and Ball Committee, actually termed any differences between U-grooves and V-grooves "inconsequential."

This next part comes after Dick Rugge is quoted as saying that the USGA has better testing procedures...

Rugge did not provide any specific timetable for a rule-change proposal or even suggest that there would be a change at all. But he did suggest that a meeting with Arnold Palmer several years ago prompted him and his staff to research the issue further.

"When Arnold Palmer came to our building and shook his finger at me and said, 'Allowing U grooves was the biggest mistake we ever made,' it did make me want to take a look at that issue."

Arnold, could you go back and shake your finger at Dick and tell him your thoughts on the golf ball going too far?

According to a USGA study of amateur players at the Walt Disney World Palm and Eagle Pines golf courses, only 13.1 percent hit the green from shots out of the rough from 100 to 200 yards. The PGA Tour average for similar shots is 49 percent. Also, because the urethane-covered ball used by tour players spins much more out of the rough than the typical ionomer-covered ball (like those with Surlyn covers) preferred by most average golfers (more than two-thirds, based on a study of recent Golf Datatech industry sales figures), average golfers don't often use the equipment that can generate the most spin.
"It's a way of addressing the problem where the problem shows up and not affecting anybody else," says Rugge.

Translation: this way we can keep harvesting rough and offering 22 yard landing areas to discourage distance for tournament play while ignoring the issue we don't really want to deal with because it would require us to admit we botched this one big time!