Skipping The Nelson

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Ron Sirak vents a bit about the number of no-shows at the Byron Nelson in the year they will be honoring the great man.

I'm finally glad someone made this point, though I think Sirak could have been even more blunt:

Why the are players staying away?

The easy answer is the scheduling-conflict excuse. But the irony there is that in an era when all of the top players travel by private jet they are finding it more difficult to get to tournaments than the guys back in the days when Byron and the boys drove four to a car from tournament to tournament.

Irony, hypocrisy, it's a fine line! 

The more complicated answer -- and probably the correct one -- is that very few of today's millionaires appreciate the fact that it was guys like Nelson who struggled to make ends meet that made today's PGA Tour possible.

There is a sense of entitlement among contemporary players that is totally out of proportion with both their achievement and their sacrifice. That sense of entitlement tends to view the world through me-colored lenses. Just as last year the one PGA Tour event all players should have been tripping over each to enter was in New Orleans, the one must-make tournament this year should have been the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. And it had nothing to do with prize money or scheduling. It had everything to do with what was right.

There will be a golf tournament this week at Las Colinas and Cottonwood Valley. There will be a party at the TPC Four Seasons Resort. And there will be tributes to the life and career of Byron Nelson at the tournament that bears his name. And knowing the first-class way the Salesmanship Club does things, it will be a celebration that will not only be worth remembering, it will be so compelling there will be no choice but to remember it.

One of the things that keeps the LPGA an organization that respects its past is that it has help remembering that past because a half-dozen of its founders are still alive to remind the young players that it was not always as nice and easy as it now is. The PGA Tour, being about 20 years older than the LPGA, has lost most of its direct connection to its roots. In Byron Nelson, it lost one of the most important.

Nelson was not the kind of guy who would grab a player and say, "Hey, don't ever lose appreciation for what you have." Or, "Don't ever forget that the game made you, you didn't make the game." Byron didn't have to use words like that. His actions said it much more eloquently. It seems, however, that not all the players were listening.


"I can't recall many golf courses where you don't see the fairway and green on the same hole."

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Wow, imagine the coincidence of Tiger Woods practicing at Oakmont and just spontaneously deciding to give a clinic to American Express suckers guests on U.S. Open Preview Day. And lo and behold the AP writer is there to cover it.

Praise the Lord!

Woods spent the last two days at Oakmont, the premiere championship golf course in America that had been somewhat of a mystery to him. He didn't qualify for his first U.S. Open until the year after Ernie Els won at Oakmont in 1994, so this had been a course Woods only knew from newspaper clippings and television highlights.

"I like it," he said. "I can't recall many golf courses where you don't see the fairway and green on the same hole. Maybe at St. Andrews, but that's about it."
I guess that's a nice way of saying "it's all NOT right in front of you."
Monday also turned into quite a mystery for the 82 people who didn't know they would get to tag along.

They were American Express card members who paid $900 for an event called "2007 U.S. Open Preview Day," not realizing that it would include more than a round of golf and free lunch until Woods entered the room from a back door to stunned silence, followed by high-fives and then a standing ovation.

They were told they would get a seminar on how to prepare for a U.S. Open.

They had no idea their instructor would be the world's No. 1 player, with ABC Sports anchor Mike Tirico as the emcee.

"I hope you guys didn't get slaughtered out there," Woods told them before inviting them along for his third and final practice round.

 

"We don’t reach everyone. Just the people with all the money"

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23golf-600.jpgThe New York Times's Michel Marriott files a piece on the PGA Tour's cool-looking new scoreboards which unfortunately provides a chance for one of the Vice Presidents to say something obnoxious. This time it's Tom Wade:

Although much of the PGA Tour’s fan base remains mature and affluent, Wade said, significant numbers in that group are “heavy technology adaptors.”

“As we say: We don’t reach everyone. Just the people with all the money,” Wade said.

 

Ugh.

"He hit a lot of 'stingers'"

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Michael Dudurich talks to Oakmont's Bob Ford about Tiger's practice round.

This item would seem to be bad news for anyone hoping to watch him spray that lovely Nike driver all over the lot:

For the most part, Woods hit 5- and 3-woods off the tees.

"There aren't too many driver holes for him out there," Ford said. "He hit a lot of 'stingers' with both of those clubs. He's a very strategic person, no doubt about it."

"I refuse to hit driver. It's against my religion."

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About the only highlight of Tiger's first tour around Oakmont was his refusal to use driver on the 8th hole's absurd 288-yard tee. Someone from AP spills the beans on his practice round...

Woods played the back nine early Sunday morning with members and swing coach Hank Haney, then stopped for lunch and played the front nine in the afternoon.

The U.S. Open, to be played June 13-16, returns to Oakmont for the first time since 1994. It is one of the few classic championship courses in the United States that Woods had not played. He first qualified for the U.S. Open in 1995 as an amateur.

Woods said he thought Oakmont as a members' course was far tougher than Winged Foot, where last year he missed the cut for the first time in a major as a pro.

On the par-3 eighth, he played the back tee at 288 yards, and hit 3-wood to the middle of the green.

"I refuse to hit driver," Woods said, smiling. "It's against my religion."

Vijay Withdraws From Design Project So He Can Spend Less Time Mailing It In

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Thanks to reader John for the sad, sad news that Vijay Singh will not be lending his name to a pair of former IMG Design Services masterpieces in his native land.

IMG Worldwide Inc, the manager of Fiji's star golfer, last week cancelled its design contract for the championship golf course at Natadola Resort.

In a statement today, Renee Lal, legal representative for IMG, says the Natadola Bay Resort Ltd (NBRL), a subsidiary of the Fiji National Provident Fund will no longer have the right to use Vijay Singh's name to promote the course.

No comments could be obtained immediately from NBRL's chairman Felix Anthony.

Last month, the FNPF, the financiers of the multi million dollar project, had said it had cancelled the Natadola project manager's, Asia Pacific Resort International (APRIL's) contract after Anthony claimed that Interpol reports showed that APRIL chief executive Gerard Saliot had a criminal record, which he did not disclose when obtaining a work permit.
A show of integrity from IMG? Eh...
APRIL, which is the founder of the Natadola scheme, says its contract is still in force and has not been legally terminated.

Golfer Singh had said he would withdraw from the Natadola Golf Course project in Fiji if APRIL and Saliot are removed.

"I thought that (the statement) was a bit irresponsible," Anthony had later said in a press conference.

Lal says Singh has indicated publicly his trust and confidence in APRIL and Saliot, its chief executive.

Singh in association with IMG, has been personally involved in the design and development of the course.
Well...let's not get carried away here. 
Lal says she received a message from Singh through IMG expressing his concern at the circumstances that led to the contract cancellation.

"His actual words were that what had happened 'has caused great disappointment to me as my dream is now altogether gone to provide this masterpiece for the people of Fiji'.

"I have been instructed to say that criticisms of Singh by FNPF and NBRL board member, Felix Anthony, are completely false," Lal says.

She claimed that they were made without as much as a "phone call to Mr Singh or an offer of discussion".

Lal says that any suggestion that Singh does not fully understand the situation between the FNPF and APRIL is untrue.

"He is well informed and is in regular contact," she said.

Lal claims FNPF's contractual default has led to a new crisis.

She said IMG had exercised its right to terminate the course design agreement with immediate effect and that the NBRL was informed about this late last week.

Lal claims that despite repeated requests, the NBRL had failed to pay outstanding sums of about $103,000 to IMG.

She claims that there was a clear and unequivocal breach of the design agreement.

Lal says that IMG may proceed without further notice to take legal action against NBRL to recover the full amount due, together with costs and interest.

According to her, the IMG is also making a demand for payment of sums due under a separate management agreement which she said at March end totaled about $275,000.

In IMG's view, the NBRL's failure to pay these amounts was also a clear breach of agreement, Lal says.

She said that although the design agreement had been terminated, it was still possible to negotiate a new agreement.

"The option is still there if matters can be resolved."

Lal who also represents APRIL says it was estimated that the interruption of the golf course contract alone could involve additional expenditure of some $5 million.

She claims the FNPF is now exposed to a number of legal problems with potentially far-reaching consequences.

Well if you can make sense of that, please feel free to explain in the comments section. 

"Or that Tiger Woods will ever play tournament golf again in Texas?"

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The Star-Telegram's Gil Lebreton realizes that if Tiger isn't coming to the Nelson this year, he probably won't be coming back ever again.

The message this time, though, seems unmistakable. If the tributes planned for Byron weren’t enough to lure Woods back this year, what makes anyone think that he’ll come back next April? Or the year after?

Or that Tiger Woods will ever play tournament golf again in Texas?

His first and last appearance at Colonial came in 1997. A disappointing final round left Woods steamed and tied for fourth place, and he has never returned.

He played in the Texas Open, a fall tour event in San Antonio, in 1996 and came in third. He has never returned.

Woods has never played in the Shell Houston Open.

The Nelson, however, was supposed to be Woods’ tournament. The tournament where Fergie, the Duchess of York, once came to see Tiger play. From 1997 to 2004, Woods played in the Nelson Championship seven times, shooting a combined 77 under par.


"DVD of the 2007 Masters could, and should, be marketed as a 100% guaranteed cure for insomnia."

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Sunday on The Scotsman's Scotland on Sunday's John Huggan notices a trend since 1997: majors gone awry. Seven "dodgy" majors to be exact. Which he revisits in detail.
Ever since the greatest golfer the world has seen annexed his first major title at Augusta in 1997 - blitzing the field by 12 strokes and wedging seemingly every approach on to what used to be distant greens - those in charge of the four most important events seem to have engaged in an unofficial contest to host the daftest Grand Slam event in history.

Unofficially at least, they call it "Tiger-proofing". I call it golf's so-called administrators attempting to disguise their incompetence over the shameful non-regulation of the modern ball.
You know I've suggested it many times, but Huggan gets the credit for actually coming out and saying it.

And bad news for the "so-called administrators." More and more people are making the connection between extreme setups and faulty equipment regulation. And that's before I they even hear me ramble on!
Most were consciously ruined in order to deflect attention away from the men who were 'asleep at the wheel', when they should have been paying closer attention to the dangerous and unlit technological road that golf was travelling. The rest were merely the playthings of those who take a one-dimensional delight in watching the best players suffer.

And so, golf at the very highest level is today too often a pedestrian and penal game designed to punish even the slightest indiscretion. Forget the spectacular and interesting prospect of watching a skilled practitioner attempt a risky recovery shot. They are long gone. Veer from the increasingly straight and narrow fairways, and the only option available is more than likely the chip back into play: penalty one stroke.

How tedious. Tennis anyone?

Phil Proposes, Butch Accepts!

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mickelson_harmon2.jpgGolf World's Tim Rosaforte has the details, Dom Furore's photo still says it all (left):

But sources have told Golf World the Mickelson-Harmon alliance will be made official before the EDS Byron Nelson Championship in Irving, Tex. By then, Mickelson and Harmon will have worked at an undisclosed location in preparation for The Players Championship and ultimately the U.S. Open.

Yes, we want to make sure they nail the details of the prenup!

Sources have also told Golf World that Harmon and Smith have spoken and will remain amicable.

 Ah and I was hoping for a pay-per-view cat fight!

Harmon had no comment. Smith did not return calls. Friends of Mickelson have said this is the toughest professional decision he's had to make. He and Smith have evolved as close friends and partners in golf course design.