Wie Injury Progress

Bill Huffman on Michelle Wie skipping the Safeway as well as the LPGA's first major:

Tom Maletis, the president of the Tournament Golf Foundation that runs the Safeway International, said the injury also will keep Wie from playing the following week in the Kraft Nabisco Championship – the LPGA’s first major championship.

“I’ve been in constant contact with B.J. (her father) and the Wie camp,’’ Maletis said when asked about the 17-year-old superstar’s status for the Safeway International, which takes place March 22-25 at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club near Gold Canyon.

“Officially, she’ll miss our event, and, unofficially, she’ll also miss the Kraft Nabisco. Apparently, last week she had the cast taken off, and the doctor found that (the injury) was not healing like it should – there was still some pain – and so the doctor put the cast back on for another two weeks.’’

Maletis said he was somewhat surprised that the official word on both tournaments had yet to be released.

“But B.J. told me she’s not going to play in either tournament,’’ Maletis said. “I mean, she would just be getting the cast off, and that’s hardly the time to make your first (LPGA) start of the season.’’

It’s been a frustrating 2007 for Wie to date. She showed up at the Sony Hawaiian Open on the PGA Tour in January with her right wrist bandaged, which Wie labeled a “little injury.’’ At the time, she said she wasn’t sure if the wrist was sprained or strained, or perhaps a pinched nerve.

In February, she fell while reportedly running backwards during a visit to Stanford, where Wie will attend college this fall. That injury was diagnosed as a severe sprain and her left wrist was put in a cast. Now, it’s in a second cast.

Running backwards, on a campus visit? 

Question About Size of Field

About the only highlight from the Finchem-Woods press conference to launch the new Washington D.C. tour stop:

 Q. (Operator interruption. Question about size of field.)

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: I've had some preliminary conversations with our board and I have to believe that we will work with Tiger and the Foundation to fine-tune it, but my guess is that at the end of the day, the field size will be commensurate with what you generally see in Invitationals which is a somewhat limited field.

Now there's a couple of reasons for that. One is prestige of the event. The other is, even though it's snowing today, it's quite warm here -- I used to live here for ten years, July 4th, and pace of play -- we want the pace of play and the experience for the players to be positive as well. So you put those two things together, and it argues for a somewhat shorter field and I think that's where we'll be.

So the experience for the players needs to be positive, therefore limit the field size so that pace of play has a chance of breaking 5 hours?

In other words, slow play is in the best interests of the world's top players?

The slower they get, the smaller the fields become?

Anyway, thanks to reader Steve for this link to Len Shapiro's online chat spelling out the key event details.  

Ship of Fools

I miss the days of Alan Shipnuck sharing his hate mail (who are these people!?, so this retro installment of his old mail bag column arrived just in time.

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word?

Golfweek's Alistair Tait says the USGA/R&A braintrust is way too late on the grooves and distance issues, with little hope for a happy resolution.

However, it doesn't take a Ph.D. to recognize that the game has changed immeasurably, no matter what the governing bodies tell us. Yes, the objective of getting the ball into the hole in as few strokes as possible hasn't changed, but the means of doing so have.

It wasn't that long ago that John Daly was the only player to hit drives over 300 yards, now every Tom, Dick or Bubba seems to be able to do that.

You can't blame the equipment manufacturers. It's not as if they went out and broke the rules. They acted within the guidelines laid down by the governing bodies. After all, it wasn't the manufacturers who changed the specifications to allow square grooves, but the governing bodies.

Moreover, golf's two ruling bodies sat blithely by as manufacturers experimented with metal woods, graphite shafts, long putters, and did absolutely nothing.

Now they are trying to turn back the clock.

It can't be done. All this talk of rolling back the ball is just that. Try doing that and watch the writs fly. And rightly so. If I was a ball manufacturer who had acted within the rules laid down by both the R&A and USGA at all times, I'd be pretty ticked off if they turned round to me and said, "Oh, by the way, we've made a small mistake and we need you to change the way you produce your product."

The words, "Get my lawyer on the phone" spring to mind.

This grooves rethink isn't the start of some technological fight back. As far as I'm concerned they are merely putting a sticking plaster on a gaping wound.

We are where we are. The genie is out of the bottle and can't be put back in because there is no way the R&A and USGA can fight the manufacturers in the courts. All they can do now is try to draw a line in the sand.

Now, we all know that the R&A was utterly useless until recently, and the USGA was held back by the R&A's incompetence on equipment issues along with that messy legal situation where each of their members could be named in a manufacturer lawsuit. We also know that in testing areas, the USGA has been slow to keep up with the manufacturers (by their own admission).

So wouldn't a simple "sorry, we goofed, this has to be done for the good of the game" apology go a long way in this discussion? 

Best Route To The Tour...It's Not College?

I heard from a college coach today who took great exception to Hank Haney's piece on college golf not necessarily being the best place to prep players for the PGA Tour. The coach said the sense of entitlement with today's kids is already out of whack and pieces like this will only make their life more difficult, but worse than that, create ridiculous expectations from kids.

So I read the piece more closely today and found some of Haney's points to be quite reasonable. However, this told me that Haney has forgotten his days as a college player or he wasn't much of a competitor, because even on the worst days, this just doesn't happen:

The scoring format and playing fields of college golf also impede progress. At most college tournaments, teams play with five players but count only the best four scores from each day. That can cause a player having a bad round to get in the habit of packing it in rather than battling (though that might mean he's not in the lineup for the next tournament).

Right. Like players always know which five are going to count. And let's say they do, even so, they want to stay in the line up and protect their scoring average. Players do not dog it because of the five-counting-four-scores system.

And in my experience, many college events were played on courses with little rough. Hitting it crooked without being punished is not good training for what players will face as pros.

Uh, haven't we just been hearing that there is no correlation between driving accuracy and financial success? 

Jobe's Return

Doug Ferguson has the surprising story of Brandt Jobe, who is making his season debut after slicing off the tips of his fingers in a freak accident. And after this remark, he also should expect to see a case of PGA Tour wine on his doorstep:

"It wouldn't be that big of a deal if this were a normal year,'' Jobe said. "But with the FedEx Cup and everything, you probably have to be 80th to have any chance of winning it. I'm already two months behind.''

Tiger's New PGA Tour Commercial

Doug Ferguson writes about Tiger's new PGA Tour ad, filmed during his Nissan Open week off.

While at home in Florida two weeks ago, Woods did three spots for the PGA Tour. One of them was a voiceover, and the other two were scripted roles promoting the FedExCup.

"Clearly, having Tiger do these spots is a very nice element of the campaign," tour spokesman Ty Votaw said. "It’s always good to have your No. 1 player participate in these things. He’s someone who resonates with our fans, and to see him in this kind of context is something the fans will enjoy."

Ty, no mention of texture?  And I had it marked on my PGA Tour MBASpeak bingo board! Oh well. 

Mark Steinberg at IMG said PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem approached him late last year and they found a spot in Woods’ schedule — coincidentally, it was the week of the Nissan Open, which Woods skipped for only the second time in his career.

Coincidentally, I think that's the week that he was undecided about playing up until the last minute!

Uh there's your confirmation: that lovely westside traffic really did leave a bad taste in his mouth. Can't say I blame Tiger.

This should also put to rest the silly stuff about him skipping Riviera to protect his streak.  

The State of the Game

Ryan Ballengee takes a comprehensive (and I mean comprehensive) look at the state of the game, the impact of technology and other elements.

This was an interesting positive, among many other not so uplifting conclusions:

 In its 2006 report at the annual Golf 20/20 Conference, PGA of America President Roger Warren showed that the Play Golf America program may be achieving its goals. Website hits were way up, the number of participating facilities increased, and there was a 21% in the number of people utilizing free lessons during PGA Free Lesson Month. The American Express Women's Golf Week saw a 159% increase in the number of female players participating. Among those participants in those events, 23% and 52% of each described themselves as new golfers. Among all participants for both programs, 41% and 22% respectively then went on to signup for a tee time at a golf facility afterward. Play Golf America also claims a 79% one-year retention rate for its new golfer participants. In all, this is very striking data in the face of NGF data that may indicate a contrarian trend before (and maybe during) Play Golf America.

Honorable Admission

Randell Mell celebrates Honda Classic winner Mark Wilson's integrity and explains how his caddie earned him a two-shot penalty.

Letter From Saugerties, March 6, 2007

Former USGA Executive Director Frank Hannigan shares his thoughts on the ramifications and politics behind a possible U-groove rule change:

The recent USGA announcement proposing to get rid of U-shaped grooves contained every self-congratulatory cliché except “Mission Accomplished.”
 
Dick Rugge, USGA senior technical director, said “These proposals represent the comprehensive, deliberate and thoughtful nature of the USGA’s equipment research.”       

It’s Rugge’s own work.
 
Whatever happened to modesty?
 
The reality is that the USGA, unable or unwilling to do anything about the surge in distance that has polluted the game, is trying to pretend it is giving birth to an elephant. In fact, it’s not even a mouse.
 
Rugge correctly observes that "the skill of driving the ball accurately has become much less important in achieving success on the Tour than it used to be.”  From there comes his quantum leap in logic that by reverting to V grooves the rich, wild and famous will get so much less spin and loft from “the rough” that they might as well leave the Tour and look for jobs.
 
The balls used on the Tour, sure enough, are predominantly urethane covered, softer than the rocks used by the rest of us, and therefore spin more. Our balls, with surlyn covers, will not be affected, so the USGA says it has discovered a win-win situation.
 
Back in 1986 the USGA, with Frank Thomas as its technical director, published a massive “Groove Study”.  It said that soft-covered balls, with balata then in use, spun some more out of short rough  when struck with U-grooved clubs, but not enough to make any difference. The key word was “insignificant.”

Rugge & Co.  say “posh” to the original groove story. The difference they say matters a hell of a lot.

Alas, they provide no specifics.  Like so:
 
1.  The average score on the PGA Tour is stuck on 71.2.  If  U-grooves matter so much the average score then must surely jump come 2009, assuming the PGA Tour accepts the proposal.  I hazard the prediction that unless the Tour modifies the way it sets up courses the average score will stay the same.
 
2.  The USGA posture seems to be that the wrong people have been winning.    One wonders who they might be.  Surely not Tiger Woods,  who shares with the USGA a deep love for business deals with American Express.
 
3.  What is “rough” and what strains of grass are we talking about?  Is it what the announcers at The Masters are required to call “the second cut.”  It surely can’t be the USGA’s own famous “primary rough” because the grooves don’t get to the ball out of 5 inches of grass.
 
4.  U-grooves became permissible under the Rules of Golf in 1984.  So how come the tilt toward power on the Tour did not cause brows to furrow until the late 1990s?

5.  The USGA has a vast archive of television tapes.  How about pulling up about 6 shots that show the perfidious results of U-grooves and offering them as a display?

Almost nobody disagrees with the USGA observation that distance matters too much now.  That’s because the USGA blew it to the extent that the average distance per measured drive on the Tour is 289 yards, nearly 30 yards up since the early 1990s.         
 
The Tour has scrambled to stabilize scoring by making courses much harder today.  But  the power hitters benefit disproportionately.  Imagine it’s 1990 and a big hitter is 180 yards from the hole while his fellow competitor, an average hitter, is 210 yards from the hole.  Fast forward to 2007.  The  big hitter is now 150 yards away and the average hitter 180 yards distant.   I contend the difference between the two in what they score on the hole has widened in favor of the big hitter.
 
If the USGA is serious about restoring the virtues of accuracy all it has to do is roll back the fail point in its vital Overall Distance Standard test. Banning U-grooves is merely a way of pretending to do something.  The proposals for change are likely to sail through because they don’t bother anybody.

The USGA can declare victory, or at least until the end of the 2009 season when it becomes understood nothing has happened.

Frank Hannigan
Saugerties, New York
March 6, 2007

To read other Hannigan letters, here was his previous piece on the grooves story, his commentary on the recent USGA-AmEx deal, his thoughts on the USGA's private jet package and his take on USGA President Walter Driver's views on distance.

"Nicklaus and Norman and Player who are whining about distance are whining about something they no longer have."

I try not to read too much of Breach and Gulley's blog over at GolfDigest.com, but reader Charlie insisted I check out Billowy and Gnarled's take on the John Paul Newport groove WSJ story.

Besides leaving me completely confused what point they were attempting to make, this just blew me away, from the keyboard of Gouge:

Those like Nicklaus and Norman and Player who are whining about distance are whining about something they no longer have.

Yes, but they still have all those majors, their own planes and absolutely nothing to gain from their comments.

So this got me thinking about an idea that could generate some serious traffic for GolfDigest.com.

Let's get "Gouge" in a room with Nicklaus, Norman and Player, and have him say the above to their faces.

We'll videotape the moment along with the ensuing discussion and see what people think.

Jerry, Bob, I smell a million hits, easy! 

Is College Golf Doing A Disservice To Americans?

In the March, 2007 Golf Digest, Hank Haney looks at the state of American golf and questions whether the college golf system is helping produce the best possible players.

More interesting is Ryan Herrington's blog post at GolfDigest.com taking aim at some of Haney's points.

2007 Golf Writers Awards

With my schedule of late, I was never able to post the annual Golf Writers Association writing contest winners (yes, sanity has been restored, I won nothing this year).

In a review of the winning efforts, I was a bit surprised to notice the first place entry in the Internet Feature category was actually part of a weekly press release issued by an official from a tour!

Sorry I'm going to miss that GWAA meeting in Augusta. Should be a real peach! 

The Gallery As A Match Play Venue

Catching up on my reading, I noticed John Hawkins' assessment of The Gallery in the latest Golf World:

The move to Tucson resulted in more than $1 million in ticket sales—attendance was limited to 17,000 per day—but The Gallery-South is an awful walking course, set on a rise of earth known as Dove Mountain and woefully short of decent sightlines. If you didn't have a camel and a pair of binoculars, you were basically out there for the exercise.

What Happened At The Honda?

I was out of town and mercifully didn't see any of the Honda, but judging by the winning scores, the tightly bunched leaderboard and a one-hole playoff not finishing before dark, it sounds like things got a little goofy? No?

For some unknown reason I ventured to PGATour.com to find out how the best players in the world couldn't finish on time, but no luck in their game story. A check of other game stories said nothing.

Was the pace of play that bad? How about the setup?

Update on 2007-03-05 16:10 by Geoff

Ron Sirak says you can chalk this one up to ratings greed, with a late start and little window for a playoff even if pace of play was decent.