Timberlake Becomes First Non Has-Been To Lend Name To PGA Tour Event

Singer, songwriter, producer, director, raconteur and singer again (because he's just that good) Justin Timberlake has already conquered every demographic of importance, so why not go after golf's aging "decision maker" demo.

The PGA TOUR today announced that four-time Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, record producer and actor Justin Timberlake will become the host of the TOUR's Las Vegas event, which will be renamed the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. Timberlake becomes the 14th celebrity in PGA TOUR history to host an event, joining the likes of Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. The agreement, among Timberlake, title sponsor Shriners Hospitals for Children and the PGA TOUR, is for five years, beginning in 2008.

The Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, part of the TOUR's Fall Series, will be played October 13-19, 2008, at TPC Summerlin over 72 holes with an official Pro-Am on Wednesday. The event will be televised on GOLF CHANNEL. As part of his involvement, Timberlake will play in the Wednesday celebrity pro-am and host a concert during tournament week.

"I couldn't be more excited to host the upcoming 2008 Las Vegas tournament and to be involved with the Shriners Hospitals for Children," Timberlake said. "We will make sure to make this event unique and memorable, and we will raise money for charity while participating in the greatest game ever played. I thank the PGA TOUR and the Shriners Hospitals for Children this amazing opportunity. Raising money to better children's lives while playing golf? I can't think of a better way to pass the time."

"It is nice to win a tournament that Tiger has tried to win the last couple of years unsuccessfully"

This wire story reports on the wacky finish to the HSBC event, where Phil Mickelson

Lefty overcame six penalty strokes in the final round, blew a three-shot lead with seven to play, and still won Sunday's HSBC Champions tournament on the second hole of a three-way playoff with Englishmen Ross Fisher and Lee Westwood.

And James Corrigan explains Ross Fisher's Van de Veldeian finish.

But best of all, Nick Mulvenney reports on the latest stupid thing Phil has said:

"It is nice to win a tournament that Tiger has tried to win the last couple of years unsuccessfully," he added.

But at least has his priorities straight...

"Now that my family is older, my kids are older, eight, six and four, I will try to play more tournaments overseas and use those trips as educational weeks for my family," he said.

"But while equipment advances are nominal at the pro level, there are still gains to be had by the rest of us choppers."

E. Michael Johnson belts out another howler of a Golf World equipment column with his jubilation at the news of driving distance going down. It's fascinating how his normally even-keeled weekly roundout of what guys have in the bag becomes so emotional on the subject of distance.

After listing the driving distance number, he reports this vital news:

Scoring also is stable.

Whew! That's a relief. Especially since the number is jigged around with more than...oh I better not say.

Though the scoring average of 70.83 marks the first time it has dipped below 71, over the last five years the average on the PGA Tour has been 71.03, and over the past 10 years 71.10. From 1988 to 1997 it was 71.17. So the last 10 years have seen an improvement of a quarter-stroke per four rounds over the previous 10. Hardly cause for concern.

Because after all it's such an unadjusted number!

I know, I know. Courses are longer, pins are in insane positions, etc., etc. So? Pro golf is not a game. It is a sport. As such, it should be difficult, and the achievements of those playing it for a living are far superior to those of us who don't. The only courses that need to be lengthened are the 55 used for PGA Tour events. Any other venue doing so is just wasting open space.

Oh that'll really happen. Can those PGA Tour courses bill the manufacturers for the expense incurred?

I didn't think so.

Hey, and now a word from our sponsors...

But while equipment advances are nominal at the pro level, there are still gains to be had by the rest of us choppers. How much? Find a launch monitor that not only spits out launch conditions, but also reveals the optimum given your current swing speed. Odds are there's more than 20 yards you're not getting. Isn't that the only statistic you should be interested in?

Shop 'til ya drop!

"People don't turn on the TV to watch Stephen Ames."

Golf World's John Hawkins kicks off what figures to be an onslaught of Skins Game R.I.P. columns by covering a few key points while leaving out another.

That said, get a load of this year's menu: Couples, the Sultan of Silly Season, will serve as the headliner despite not playing a competitive round since the Masters. He'll be joined by Zach Johnson, who won that green jacket but remains instantly unrecognizable in almost every airport he enters; Ames, who is back because he claimed nine skins last year; and Brett Wetterich, who got in because none of the nine guys ahead of him on the 2006 money list had any interest in participating. After all, it is the first official weekend of the holiday shopping season.

And...

In 2004 the winner of the Players Championship began receiving an automatic berth in the Skins Game, a compromise of the product that defeats the event's purpose. "The spirit of this thing has been lost in these qualifications," says a knowledgeable observer. "Originally, the idea was to have four guys yuk it up, have some fun and, by the way, there's a million dollars on the table."

So without Woods, Mickelson and perhaps a half-dozen others, the off-season's grandest stage has become an ATM for the undeserving. People don't turn on the TV to watch Stephen Ames. In fact, the only decent ratings in the last 10 years were achieved in 2001, when Greg Norman and Colin Montgomerie teamed up with Tiger and Jesper Parnveik.

Jesper Parnevik played the Skins Game? Wow...how quickly I completely forget. 

Perhaps Woods saw this thing moving in the wrong direction when he agreed to play in those Battle of Bighorn matches back in 1999. His commitment to a one-on-one, 18-hole duel on the last Monday night in August gave him a reason to skip the Skins but still flex his prime-time muscle. David Duval and Sergio Garcia were Tiger's first two foes, but when the format was expanded to four players and the concept failed to produce any final-hole heroics, made-for-TV golf had taken another step backward.

Not said in the piece is event organizer's ability to pick the most drab (but high paying) golf courses possible, and their absolute refusal to increase the purse to dollar figures that would actually mean something in today's game.  

"Bear that in mind the next time a so-called expert pops up to claim that Tiger's Butch Harmon swing, circa 2002, is better than the Hank Haney-produced method that he uses these days."

In his Sunday column, John Huggan points out Tiger's dominance on the European Tour.

As a professional he has played in 77 European Tour events, 32 ending in victory to give him an amazing strike rate of 41.56%. In four of every five appearances he has finished in the top ten, and in six of every ten he has made the top three. Along the way he has won €35,166,588, an average of €456,709 every time that he has teed up - never mind any appearance money that he has trousered courtesy of grateful sponsors.

All of which renders ridiculous the almost compulsory and oh-so predictable pro-Rose drumbeating that has resounded as the England media's darling takes an admittedly significant step towards real stardom. Having won only six events in his nine-year professional career - none on the PGA Tour - and only now made it into the world's top-ten players, Rose is still a million miles from the exalted level that Woods has scaled.

While the former child star did extraordinarily well to record top-12 finishes in each of this year's four major championships, a quick look at more numbers reveals that his four-event aggregate was 16 shots worse than that returned by Woods. In other words, Rose has to find one shot per round if he is to challenge the great man in the events that are the genuine measure of any career.

That's an enormous gap in professional terms.

The further bad news for those deranged individuals still harbouring ambitions to challenge Woods in the near future is that the American continues to improve at the age of 31, even with a driver in his hands - the area of the game in which he is perceived by many ignorant judges to be uncharacteristically weak.

A couple of weeks ago, this column ran figures revealing how almost every top player has grown longer and less accurate off the tee over the past five years. While this is true of Woods, his numbers show that, relative to almost every one of his nearest 'challengers' on the world-ranking list, he is better than he was in 2002. Bear that in mind the next time a so-called expert pops up to claim that Tiger's Butch Harmon swing, circa 2002, is better than the Hank Haney-produced method that he uses these days.

"Nowhere To Hide--For Now"

As always thanks to reader John for passing along John Paul Newport's column weighing in on the CEO's-caught-by-posting-scores issue and notes this near the end of his piece.

And a little bit of help is on the way. After much debate, the USGA's executive committee voted in June to make some changes. Effective next year, the name of the course and the day of the month on which posted rounds were played will not be part of the records available to the general public. Only fellow members of a golfer's club and the competition committee at any venue where a golfer intends to compete will be able to see the complete record.

While that seems like a great solution, isn't the USGA contradicting what its representative said earlier in the article, or will this in fact be the privacy protection that most would hope for?

But the USGA insists that "peer review" is essential to an honest handicapping system that enables golfers of differing skills to compete on an even basis and protects against "sandbaggers" who deliberate inflate their indexes to gain an unfair advantage. "If you want to have a handicap, you give up your privacy regarding your scoring record," says Kevin O'Connor, senior director of the organization's handicap department.

"Predictable Courses That Dull The Drama"

Lorne Rubenstein considers why the PGA Tour plays so many drab courses. He quotes former Tour player and architect John Fought, who gets to the heart of the matter (at least in some cases):

"The golf courses they play on tour aren't as good [as they should be]," former PGA Tour player John Fought, now an architect, said in Toronto the other day. "They don't play wonderful old courses, generally. They play the latest development deal that a guy is trying to sell."

Phil: Golf In The Olympics If It's Amateur Only

Finally someone with some sense on this issue. Isn't it odd that a prominent professional is the one advocating amateurs to represent countries in the Olympics while the governing bodies of amateur golf want to see professionals playing?

Fujikawa Looks To Extend Missed Cuts Streak With Sony Exemption

I know, I know, he warmed our hearts last year. But he was an amateur then. In January he'll return as a pro.

The World Tour...Is Here?

Several interesting stars aligned Thursday to form what seems to be the makings of a "World Tour" in...Europe. Well, and maybe Asia. And Dubai.

Jim Gorant recaps the wacky week in Singapore and how it overshadowed the PGA Tour, while Lawrence Donegan reveals that the good folks in Dubai are ponying up even more money.

Details are to be announced in Dubai later this month but the Guardian has learned that the event, to round off the 2009 season, will have a prize fund of $10m (£4.95m) for the tournament itself with the other half to be divided as "bonus" money among the highest-ranked players at the end of the 2009 season.

Donegan also blogs about the European Tour's efforts to expand and offers this:

Beyond that there is the strong possibility the tour will change its name - a move that meets with the approval of another of the big names in European golf, Guy Kinnings, Montgomerie's manager and head of IMG's European golf division. "The name 'European Tour' has definitely got some value but in the long term it remains to been seen whether it is really necessary to keep it, especially if the tour is travelling more and more around the globe."

I guess the only question I'd ask is, what's taken so long?

"How much is Rory getting paid and how much is he worth?"

I think it's safe to say that Stuart Appleby and Rory Sabbatini will not be talking cars anytime soon after Appleby's backlash over Rory's Australian PGA appearance fee. Yes, that's right, someone paid Rory Sabbatini to be at their golf tournament.

Many of Australia's best golfers are said to be unhappy about the reported $200,000 appearance fee being paid to the cocky South African and Stuart Appleby underlined this fact on Thursday when he questioned Sabbatini's worth.

"To me the question is: How much is Rory getting paid and how much is he worth? "That's what I want to ask the Australian PGA," Appleby, who has slipped back to No 38 in the World this year, told the Telegraph

"If a player is being paid ten times as much as someone with comparable standing, we want to know whether it's a good investment.

"I don't know if $200,000 is the correct figure. That's something I want to find out."

And if that wasn't enough...

"He is maybe not as well known for his golf as he is for his words ever since he said Tiger was vulnerable (in June)," Appleby continued.

"The thing about Rory is that he has not based his career purely on golf equipment. He's a really streaky player and maybe he needs his golf to speak louder than his words.

"I'm not sure that should be the type of player we are looking for. They've had John Daly there before. What do we want: a talented golfer or a loose cannon?"

TPC Las Colinas Update

An unbylined Dallas Morning News story looks at the TPC Las Colinas redo by D.A. Weibring, with plenty of insights into the project. Most interesting of all is this note, which would seem to indicate that the PGA Tour is taking its architecture seriously these days.

 PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem stamped his approval on the project's status last week after touring the facility with Henry Hughes, the Tour's chief of operations. Officials from EDS, Four Seasons and the Salesmanship Club also gave a thumbs-up.

Gulbis Not Ready To Start Dressing Like Juli Inkster Yet

Craig Dolch asked Natalie Gulbis whether the shocking news of her rebranding was really true. Gulbis thankfully assures us that she will continue to show as much as humanly possible without revealing her most private parts and that news of her "rebranding" was premature.

“That’s not true at all,” she said of a story that originally appeared last week in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I haven’t tried to tweak my image at all. I’ve been proud of everything I’ve come up with.”

Gulbis said what happened is a PR person for a Richmond-based branding agency that produces her calendar, Circle C Studios, overstepped her boundaries when she said Gulbis was trying to downplay her sexy image.

And...

“My calendar is a lot of different shots,” she said. “It’s a golf calender (with) no glamour shots. We’re just trying to do something different. You can’t do the same pictures every time.”

Oh I don't know about that. Looking tan in a skimpy bikini?

Update on 2007-11-08 15:16 by Geoff

More good news, Brian Hewitt has official confirmation that the rebranding of Gulbis will not happen yet!

2007 PGA Tour Final Driving Distance Numbers

Typed too soon. Two weeks ago I pointed out that the driving distance average was finally going to top the 290 mark, but as that lovely state is prone to do, Florida messed things up.

The final 2007 PGA Tour driving distance average landed at 289.1, compared to 2006's 289.3.

In 2007, 18 players averaged over 300 yards, while 20 players averaged over 300 in 2006.

This season saw 26 drives over 400 yards and, courtesy of the stat gurus in Ponte Vedra, we know there were 1748 of 350 yards or longer.

In 2006, there were 30 over-400 tee shots and 2,183 drives of 350 or more.

Now before our friends at the USGA start patting themselves on the back, let's remember a few things.

The premise of a U-groove ban says that players will throttle back to hit more fairways because V-grooves won't save them from the rough. But if their driving distance average is flat lining, it's hard to make the case that this is really necessary. But there's still that pesky Statement of Principles authored when the guys were 10 yards shorter on average, though one probley, they also had U-grooves back in 2002. Why weren't guys flogging it back then?

"When completed, it will be one of the finest of its kind anywhere in the world."

Judy DeHaven reports that The Donald is going to build another self-proclaimed masterpiece in New Jersey, but someone needs to tell him to stop using Gary Player's line to describe courses he hates. Thanks to reader Tom for this:

Real estate developer and casino boss Donald Trump said today he has inked a deal to rescue the troubled Encap development project in the Meadowlands.

Trump will now hire a master developer, but he said he already envisions a world-class golf course designed by golf course architect Tom Fazio - akin to the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster - as well as residential housing, open space and perhaps a hotel.

"I look forward to working on the development," Trump said this afternoon, hours after signing the agreement. "When completed, it will be one of the finest of its kind anywhere in the world."

Finest of its kind? The Donald is getting sloppy!