When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Mark Soltau reports that Tiger hasn't ruled out an appearance at the Memorial.
And speaking of the fifth of four majors, I didn't even to launch the annual fifth major watch before Dave Shedloski had to go and file the gem of all fifth major stories, with Tiger asking: "Is the fifth major my fifth major?" Hit the link to find out his answer. I know you're anxious to find out.
Reader Chema passed along this computation of Tiger's handicap by the folks at the Golf Association of Philadelphia. Phil Mickelson, who a few years ago caused more than a few media smirks when he explained how the 20 pounds of off-season muscle he had gained remained hidden under a layer of subcutaneous fat, on Wednesday dropped a comparably eyebrow-hiking story.
An even taller tale at that, perhaps?
Mickelson, at age 37, believes he has grown between a half-inch to an inch because of the workouts and stretching regimen he's been undergoing over the past few seasons.
The topic came up Wednesday at the Wachovia Championship when Mickelson said he has switched to a putter that is 1.5 inches longer in an effort to improve his putting woes, which have held him back since his hot start that included a win in Los Angeles and a playoff loss in Phoenix.
"I've known that I've become a half-inch, inch taller for a few years, but I just thought, gosh, I'm not putting well, and now is the time to make an adjustment if I'm going to go to a longer putter," he explained. "It's easier on my back as much as I practice putting.
"So, given that I wasn't putting well, it just was easier to just start with it. So that's what I ended up doing when I came back and started working on it. I just started with a 35-inch putter rather than a 33½."
I'm certainly no exercise physiology expert, but is it possible that an athlete can grow in height, specifically if he has added a good bit of weight over the years? A quick, and highly unscientific Website search generated inconclusive results.
Then again, maybe his newfound height comes from those extra-long spikes Vijay Singh was complaining that Mickelson wore at the Masters a couple of years ago.
“That story is complete BS,” Harmon told Yahoo! Sports. “John Daly called me last Thursday and said, ‘Pro you killed me. I’ve lost all my contracts.’ I said to him, ‘John, I’m sorry you lost your contracts, but I haven’t done anything to you. You did it to yourself, and you continue to do it to yourself.’ He asked if I would go on the record with a retraction, and I said no.”
Harmon had installed certain guidelines for Daly to follow for the two to continue working together. They included the pledge that Daly would curtail his drinking and get himself in better shape. When Daly failed to keep his end of the agreement, Harmon fired him in early March.
“This is just another strange chapter in the John Daly saga,” Harmon said. “He takes no responsibility for anything.”
As for Daly’s recent statements, the only thing Harmon agrees with is that the two will not be working together again in the foreseeable future. “Not going to happen,” Harmon said.
Yesterday we learned that R&A chief spinster Peter Dawson was proud of the organization's revamping of 2009 Open host Turnberry. Tuesday the governing body of golf outside North American proudly announced changes to 16 out of 18 holes at 2008 Open host Royal Birkdale, including a narrowing of many landing areas.
Hey, it never gets windy over there, you can tighten those babies all day long and no one will notice!
Tuesday Dawson sat down for two press conferences to further discuss the changes and other issues in the game. The only thing more astonishing than his answers was the lack of one decent follow up question asking why the R&A is going around to nearly all of its rota courses and making changes! So much for the demanding British press.
Here's Dawson's joint press conference with Michael Brown and David Hill, where you better get a cart because he's going through all 18 changes. Who knew the R&A was in the architecture business?
None of the alterations is apparently more offensive than Birkdale's new 17th green, which sounds like a disaster if even the lowly scribblers in attendance were astounded by its hideous nature.
Now, this green I quite understand has caused a little bit of controversy. Many of you made comments on it yesterday, and we do fully understand those comments. Let me say a few things about it. It is a par-5, so it's not as if we're expecting the green to be hit at with long irons. The type of green it is is a green that the pros are accustomed to on many golf courses they play at. If you look at Augusta a couple weeks ago, there's probably 18 more sporty greens there than this one. But we are aware that it's a green that could get away from us if we're not careful, and we will be using conservative pin positions and taking great care with the green speed. If we weren't aware of that, we could get into trouble, but we are and we won't. We will be monitoring how this green performs during the Championship to see if anything needs to be done to it in the future. So we're aware it's controversial. We'll have to see how it goes.
And we know how well that attitude worked for the USGA.
Clearly Dawson came prepared for the writers to ask how they can justify emasculating courses instead of doing something about equipment advances. And since questioning the disturbing nature of narrowing courses might require thought, Dawson was able to slip this in.
Overall we've increased the length of the golf course by only 155 yards, which is 2 per cent. Instead of hitting it 100 yards you've got to hit it 102, so the length addition is not that significant.
Now, you'd think that just maybe someone would say, hey, isn't narrowing, lengthening and tricking up courses going to make rounds take longer? Some questions almost got there:
Q. We had a situation at The Masters this year where Trevor Immelman and Brandt Snedeker took five hours to play in a two-ball in the final round. I believe that Adam Scott's group on Sunday was three hours for nine holes. Obviously slow play is the cancer on the game. How do we get players to move quicker around the golf course?
PETER DAWSON: I think we will certainly be aiming to do better than five hours and ten minutes. I think in recent times, particularly on the weekend, we've actually done quite well at the Open. Basic play has not really been an issue, and I'm quite confident that we can do an awful lot better than that.
Q. It's not an issue at the Open perhaps but it is an issue generally. It is getting abysmal. I'm wondering with the R & A as a governing body, how do we get them to get a move-on?
PETER DAWSON: We are concerned about this. We did see some very slow play at The Masters. That's not a criticism of the Augusta event, it just happened to happen.
He acts like it's an isolated incident!
I wasn't aware of the Adam Scott group statistic. But we do have a meeting coming up in two or three weeks of the World Golf Foundation, where everyone around the table who runs professional golf will be there, and we have put the subject on the agenda, and we hope we will be able to get some meeting of the minds that it is a problem and start to work towards some improvement.
But as you say, it certainly needs something doing about it, not just for the running of these events but for the effect it has on grass-roots play. We do see people not unnaturally copying the stars, and I think it has had an effect on pace of play generally. We all know, don't we, that pace of play is one of the issues cited for participation, and the time that golf takes is an issue that's been cited for keeping participation levels down. It's clearly an issue right across the game, top to bottom, up and down the game, and I think it behooves all the governing bodies in golf to address it.
Yes, let's narrow, lengthen and toughen courses. That sets a wonderful example and really helps speed things up!
And after a few dull questions...
Q. When you say you're looking for a meeting of minds, what is the R & A's view on what can be done?
PETER DAWSON: I think at a professional level it's like drugs. It's a 52-week-a-year occupation, and I do think that ways need to be found to, one, educate players to encourage them, and as a last resort penalise them if they don't respond. We're not seeing any slow play penalties in the game, and that's the last thing we want to see is players being penalised, but unless there's a realistic threat of it, it's hard to see that this would improve.
Well he's right about that.
Here's the one question related to the remarkable number of changes to a course that most thought was already pretty darn good.
Q. The question I was going to ask, which I am going to ask, have you made as many changes to Open courses, to other Open courses, as you have to this one? You described 16 of the 18, which seems to me to be quite a lot.
PETER DAWSON: Well, it is, of course. Many of the changes, if you do it as a whole count, are quite minor. A number are more significant.
We've been going through a programme at all our Open venues by agreement with the clubs and the hosts of some quite significant changes. You're going to see a good deal at Turnberry next year, and you'll probably see quite a few at Livermore in 2012. Royal St. Georges we have, as well, but this is among the more significant in terms of quantum.
And why are these time test venues in need of so many "significant" changes?
I think I know why I don't get invited to their conference calls anymore.
Speaking of that, the conference call produced the killer quote of the day...
Q. My question has to deal with the course setup for the Open. As you know, there was a bit of consternation at The Masters as to how things played out the last couple years, and these questions always come up at the U.S. Open. I'm just curious your philosophy on how you like the course to play when the tournament begins in July.
PETER DAWSON: Well, the last time the Open Championship was here at Birkdale was ten years ago in 1998, and as we know, the game has moved on somewhat since then, and we have made a considerable number of course alterations here at Birkdale. Only two holes have had nothing done to them. The majority of holes, the alterations have been all about repositioning bunkers and run-off areas around the greens, but five holes have been significantly altered. And overall, the length of the golf course has gone up by 155 yards, which is only 2 percent of an increase. So the player length for this year's Championship will be 7,173 yards, but most of the changes have been designed to be strategic or requiring more accuracy from the players.
The game has moved on somewhat since then. Somewhat.
Bob Baptist in the Columbus Dispatch lets Michael Hurdzan tell the story of Scioto Country Club's renovation where he had a little help from Jack Nicklaus.The eighth hole at Scioto Country Club is the club's "postcard hole," a 500-yard par-5 on which a stream crosses the fairway, feeds into a lake left of the green and then feeds back out through a stone moat encircling the other three sides of the green.
"It's been a picturesque hole for us for many years," course superintendent Mark Yoder said.
Its beauty, though, was not in the eye of the beholder one day last spring as Jack Nicklaus walked toward a members committee on No. 8 and said, "Well, what do you guys think of this green?"
"The members said, 'We love it,' " said Mike Hurdzan, a local golf course architect who also was there that day. "They said, 'This is our favorite green. It doesn't get any better than this. This is our signature hole.'
"And Jack said, 'Well, I think it's just awful,' " Hurdzan said with a smile, "and I'm saying to myself, 'Oh, my God, this is really going to get fun.'
"Jack said, 'What makes you think this is such a good hole?' Now, all of a sudden, he's (challenging) these members to try to explain to Mr. Jack Nicklaus, winner of 18 majors, why this is such a good golf green? And all of a sudden people are looking at it and saying, 'Well, maybe it isn't so good.' "
They lured Boo Weekley into the Wachovia press tent to talk about his test driving a NASCAR, one of the player perks this week.
Q. What did you do this morning?
BOO WEEKLEY: I went and drove them NASCARs, them speed cars over there at the Motor Speedway here in Charlotte. It was awesome. If you ain't ever done it, you need to try.And later on, talking about the cars...
Q. How fast did you get?
BOO WEEKLEY: The first session I went, I went like 138, 134, something like that, and then the second session I think I got it up around close to 150. It is very exciting and very tense. I've got a new perspective of how them guys go about the driving.
Q. Is it just the speed or the bend?
BOO WEEKLEY: It's the whole thing. You get a vehicle that's probably more expensive than what I own at the house, everything (laughter), you know, if you pile that thing up in the wall, you can't just say, hey, I'm sorry (laughter). It was kind of nerve-wracking, you know?
Q. Can what you did this morning in any way help you out on the golf course?
BOO WEEKLEY: I don't think so. I don't know (laughing). It might help -- I think some of the guys need to go out there that are slower players; maybe they'd learn to speed up a little bit (laughter).
It wasn't all comedy and cars...
Q. Did you play with Trevor the first two days at Augusta?
BOO WEEKLEY: I did indeed, sir. I talked to his caddie Neil a while ago, and it was kind of amazing. I saw a little bit of it as we were playing because very rarely -- when you get into a zone or when you get into where you're actually feeling comfortable over what you're doing, but Trevor, the first two days I played with him, he looked so just focused, confident, the whole nine yards, and it's amazing that you very rarely see that as a player. But when you look at it and you see another player doing that, you're like, man, I wish I could get where he's at, in that comfort zone. I think a lot of it had to do with what happened for me the following week at Hilton Head is because I actually was focusing on a lot of the stuff I saw him doing. I kind of tried to get myself in that position, and it was neat.
Thanks to Scott for Dennis Hamill's New York Daily News column on a case of greed from Goldman Sachs-owned American Golf. They are running off a New York charity group with excessive pricing...at a city owned course.
Last year, Houlie organized 600 neighborhood people to board an ocean cruise, kicking in $60 each toward Holy Name and Bishop Ford.And...
"And every year for the past 13 years on the first Thursday of June we've held a golf outing at Dyker in honor of Eddie Farrell, who used to own Farrell's," says Houlie. "The Boy Scouts volunteer to cook and clean up at a barbecue in the schoolyard after the golf outing. The proceeds, around $15,000, go to Holy Name. This year, the Dyker Golf people priced us right off the course. For the first time, we're forced to leave Brooklyn and go to Breezy Point pitch and putt because Dyker got greedy with our little religious charity."
Mike Coyne, a hospital administrator, handled the Holy Name negotiation with Dyker. "Every year, we get about 160 guys who participate," he says. "In 2006, Dyker charged us $57 per golfer. In '07 they charged us $68. This year, they wanted $89. That's a 31% jump over last year."
On weekdays, Dyker Beach Golf Course charges $54.67 for greens fees and a cart for a city resident. "But they wanted to charge us $89 a head," says Coyne. "When we did the cruise, the cruise line gave us a big discount for having a large number of people. In this case, Dyker Beach Golf wants to charge us $89 a head because there are a lot of us. It's crazy."
"This isn't a corporate event," says Coyne. "This is cops, firemen, sanitation workers who want to help keep their neighborhood school open. We can't ask a working guy for $180 for a day of golf. I tried to explain that to the people at Dyker Beach but they didn't want to hear it. I asked them if we could get a better price at Marine Park, which most golfers feel is an inferior course, and they said, 'no.' They run that one, too. You can't negotiate with a monopoly. So we went to Breezy Point to a pitch and putt and we're charging $100 a head."
This didn't sound right. Especially when American Golf boasts on its Web site about, "... our commitment to improve the quality of life for those who live and work in the communities we serve. That's why we support local grass roots charitable efforts. ..."
So I called Jeff DeFranco, manager of Dyker Beach Golf, and asked about all of this. He said, "I don't have a comment about that."
And hung up.
Very nice spot by reader Mark reading an Economist piece on Callaway CEO George Fellows, who apparently endorsed bifurcating the sport to save it.
Another obvious strategy, though a more controversial one, is to make golf more “consumer-friendly”—meaning easier. Golf's rulemakers have tended to focus on maintaining the integrity of the game for the best players, which has made life tough for the rest. Callaway has to conform to a welter of arcane specifications: there are regulations about how far from the centre of the club a ball can be hit and still go straight, for example. These are intended to stop Tiger Woods shooting 30 under par, but also make the game less fun for less gifted players. Golf needs to “bifurcate” into a professional sport and a game for the masses, says Mr Fellows. One opportunity is to think outside the old 18-hole, four-hour box. Callaway has recently invested in TopGolf, a business that turns a driving range into a sort of dart board, where players aim at targets and scores are calculated with the help of radio transmitters in the balls.
It's amazing that it took a major company this long to endorse the concept. But at this point, other than grooves, is there really much that could be done to make equipment so much more user friendly that it would encourage growth?
Perhaps if Mr. Fellows had noted bifurcation could lead to less expensive equipment thanks to less emphasis on spending ridiculous marketing millions to convince people that they can get the same benefits from technology as the PGA Tour's best, then he'd be onto something.
Lots of birdies at this week’s PGA Tour stop – the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte, N.C. – could produce dividends for the title sponsor’s select customers.
Adding a new wrinkle to its sponsorship, Wachovia, the nation’s fourth-largest bank, has debuted its “Save Like A Champion” initiative. It will reward customers enrolled in the bank’s Way2Save savings program with an interest rate in June, July and August equal to the tournament’s winning score in relation to par. In the past five years at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, that number has ranged from 10 to 13 under.
Take a guess which course R&A secretary Peter Dawson is talking about? Only that lowly Turnberry, which hosted all of those exciting Open Championships but has become outdated thanks to all that heavy lifting the boys have been doing.
Mike Aitken reports:
"The Open hasn't been back to Turnberry since 1994 and in that time the links, which is a resort course that caters for visitors, was in need of attention for a major championship," he explained.
"Work needed to be done and we're very pleased that the people at Turnberry were willing to allow us to undertake these improvements. I'm delighted with the way things have worked out and believe we have a good test there. It's narrower, longer and tougher."
Isn't it great, one of the governing bodies touting the narrowing of a course. That's good for the game.
"Perhaps the most noticeable change is at the 16th which is now a dog-leg left-to-right. It's an alteration which (changes the angle] and makes the second shot to the green over the burn much harder. That change has also allowed us to take the tee back on the par-5 17th quite significantly.
And why did you need to do that? Oh right, the working out.
"Another difference is a new tee on the third which is much further back on the top of the hill. There's also a tee which is 20 yards back of the one we used last time on the 18th. Perhaps the most spectacular alteration, though, is the new tee at the tenth where the players are going to have to hit their drives over more of the water. One of the great advantages of having an Amateur before an Open is that you can see if what you've planned works. So, some late tweaks could be possible, but I don't anticipate much changing now.
Who knew the R&A provides architectural services?
Let's see now, making course changes but not addressing changes in equipment. Good thing they know how best to attack the problem.
Lawrence Donegan reports on the latest example of procrastination, joining grooves, the ball, etc. In this instance, they are blaming the Asian and South African Tours. The difference here is that this is something Peter Dawson has been adamant about, which may give us some insight into why they are dragging their feet on issues they aren't so passionate about (grooves, the ball, etc.).
As reader Chuck noted, words fail to describe the video report of John Daly talking about his design work at, well, I don't know even know the name of the course. I was too distracted by the sight of him shirtless and shoeless for a photo op. Which prompted reader Gregory to wonder if John has set the new standard for staged architect photo ops? I think he may be onto something.
A flavor of what the video shows...
From Larry Stewart in today's L.A. Times Morning Briefing:
Fox Sports Radio's Steve Czaban last week asked Woods: "Do you TiVo tournaments you're in, then go back and look at them afterward, maybe take notes, notice something, listen to what the announcers are saying?"
Said Woods: "I usually have my secretary get a copy of the telecasts from the PGA Tour and I'll take a look at it just from the swing standpoint, yeah."
Czaban: "Just the swing, though. You really won't sit down and . . . "
Woods: "Listen to the commentators? No, never."
There should be a rule at the New York Times: don't let anyone besides Larry Dorman write about golf.
Exhibit A? Check out Bill Pennington's links golf lede. It sounds more like it came from a story assignment email:
What is it about links-style courses that has made them so popular with American golfers and golf designers? Is it because they remind us of golf’s Scottish seaside roots? Is it the blind shots? The pot bunkers?
Or do we just like losing golf balls and shooting high scores?
Golfers in the United States are drawn to the many links-style courses that have sprouted nationwide. We pay from $75 to $400 a round for the right to get battered across 18 distinctive holes.
Who would have thought that tall fescue, which you can grow in your backyard without trying, would have such cachet?
Pennington's piece was embellished by the video of him sporting one of Bill Murray's AT&T Pro-Am outfits. It's not Matty G Ambush video bad, but it's close.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
