"How to solve the problem of the 'ball going to far' is not easy. Liability is not an issue. Doing it correctly is."

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Ran Morrissett talks to former USGA President Grant Spaeth for a GolfClubAtlas.com feature interview. It's all very enjoyable, but as always I can't resist clipping a few highlights:

9.  What are your thoughts on classic golf courses, like Stanford, that are subject to continuous renovations?

Regrettable. We are in the midst of an “updating” which means pushing tees back.  Some modernization is inevitable, given how far we hit the ball. And one is forced to wonder whether there should be two sets of equipment rules, because distance is not a factor for non-tournament players, or older ones. But the foregoing suggestion of two sets of rules is sacrilege in many quarters.

This surprised me as an answer, but speaks to how much the game has changed:

10. The State of California was blessed with numerous outstanding designs during the Golden Age of golf course architecture. Time has not been too kind to many of the courses. Is there one course in particular that you lament, either its passing, or wish its original playing character could be restored?

Cypress Point, clearly. I am told the Stanford Golf Team went down and to capture the way the course originally played, each player had to take his drive and go back 40 yards and play. Awful shame that it is pitch and putt for the good players although the greens still hold up for today’s play.

And...

20. You have mentioned the ball numerous times.  It was an issue when you were President and still and issue today.   Is it inevitable that a tournament ball must be implemented sometime soon?   Is the liability issue to the USGA the reason it has not been implemented?

The process must be thorough and fair.  How to solve the problem of the “ball going to far” is not easy.  Liability is not an issue.  Doing it correctly is.

"Then someone confused equipment advances in golf with juicing as an explanation for soaring drive lengths."

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Troy Phillips in the Star Telegram gives PGA Tour execs a column that'll turn them into bobbleheads this morning, doing a nice job of piecing together how drug testing came about but naively assuming that it's the silliest "witch hunt" ever.
Yes, the dumbest, most unnecessary witch hunt in sports is finally here.

For more than a year, it has been forthcoming. It was inevitable in 2006 when Woods issued a challenge that golf should test to validate its cleanliness in the sports era of steroid/performance-enchancer cheats.

Then and now, golf had no steroid issues. No regular drug issues have surfaced. Aside from John Daly’s massive alcohol consumption and consequential stupefying behavior, even booze seems barely a concern on the Tour, if at all.

So, how did golf get here?

Maybe it started when baseball, cycling and track and field scandals, as well as national drug surveys indicating widespread steroid use among high school athletes, became a high-profile issues in sports.

Then someone confused equipment advances in golf with juicing as an explanation for soaring drive lengths.
Someone? I think that would be the Commissioner, actually.

"Energy costs are going up, and the cost of fertilizer has doubled in the last two years"

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maar01_0807rudy.jpgMatthew Rudy pens a lengthy examination of the state of the golf industry for Golf Digest and Businessweek. I didn't finish it yet, because I can see there's a lot in it worth considering. Starting with this...

This sophisticated research shows that course operators are facing problems more complicated than just a reduced flow of customers. Courses' peak fees have gone up at the same rate as inflation, but off-peak rates -- which account for a majority of the rounds played -- increased 33 percent more than the CPI. In other words, prices have risen even in the face of flat or reduced demand. That doesn't bode well for attracting new and younger golfers in a weak economy. "Energy costs are going up, and the cost of fertilizer has doubled in the last two years," says Longitudes President Sara Killeen. "Course operators had to raise rates or go under -- and the number of daily-fee courses has dropped 2.5 percent in five years. They're feeling it from all sides. The successful ones are working very hard on their business 365 days a year and managing the details very astutely."

 

I'm thinking (hoping?) one of those details might be less fertilizer if indeed it's doubled in cost? Or are we going to go down with the ship making sure that turf is pumped up on stuff?

Congressional and The U.S. Open

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In wrapping up last week's AT&T National, Len Shapiro reminds us (well me and my bad memory) that the event will have to find a new home in 2010 and 2011 to allow Congressional to rebuild its greens and host the U.S. Open.

I know I raised this before, but I still can't fathom how the USGA is allowing them to redo greens so close to the Open. And it's even more bizarre that the club is working around the needs of a 2009 tour stop before ripping them up, when the USGA committed to Congressional long before the AT&T National was even a bad Jack Vickers dream.

Either way you shake it politically, agronomically it means one growing season before the U.S. Open at a site that has always struggled with turf.  Sure seems like they are setting themselves up for a possible disaster...

Finchem Asked To Take Drug Test By Policy Board?

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Rex Hoggard drops this little mini-bombshell on the Golfweek Tour Blog:

According to a member of the Tour’s Policy Board, Finchem was asked to be the first person tested and before an opening ceremony for the AT&T National tournament he obliged.

I don't know about you, but I got the impression from his press conference that this was an executive decision to better understand the process, not something he was asked to do. 

Gee, I wonder who approached the Commish and said, "Uh, Tim, we think you need to be tested too."

Cink? Toms? Faxon? Ogilvie?

"Condé Nast To Close Golf For Women Magazine"

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A shame...

Condé Nast To Close Golf For Women Magazine

Golf For Women magazine will cease publication with its July/August issue, it was announced today by Charles H. Townsend, President & CEO of Condé Nast Publications.

"We came to this decision because we feel the magazine will not support our long term business objectives," Mr. Townsend said. "I would like to thank Susan Reed and Chris McLoughlin and the entire staff for their efforts throughout the years. Golf For Women attracted a loyal readership and we were proud to publish it."

Golf For Women was launched in 1988. Condé Nast purchased the magazine in 2001 from the Meredith Corporation. It publishes six times a year and has a current ratebase of 600,000.

 

"Supporters of the course say the soul of Austin golf is at stake."

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image_7266054.jpgKevin Robbins does an excellent job of detailing the fascinating (and depressing) saga unfolding in Austin where battle lines are being drawn over the fate of Lions Municipal, which sits on University of Texas land and is leased to the city through 2019.
But some supporters of Lions said they fear the lease could be broken. If that happens, the 141-acre course could be little more than gauzy memories and scrapbook pictures by 2019.

Supporters of the course say the soul of Austin golf is at stake.

They wonder where the next Ben Crenshaw or Tom Kite, who played junior golf at Lions, will learn to carve tee shots around a wooded dogleg. They ponder the civic benefit of providing a fair and inviting golf ground to people of all ages, abilities and incomes.

They question where those who play the 67,000 rounds of golf played annually — 3,200 of them by youths 18 and younger, 15,000 by people 62 and older — at Lions will go. They see a relic, worth preserving, that makes Austin Austin.
And...
By early June, when Kemp and the other Save Muny organizers staged their rally, principals with the New York master-planning firm Cooper, Robertson & Partners had spent enough time in Austin to begin to appreciate the sentiment behind the effort to spare Lions.

But they also had a charge from the regents, who agreed to pay the firm up to $5.14 million, to explore a number of possibilities.

Including the golf-course lease, revenue from the 345-acre Brackenridge tract amounts to about $940,00 a year for UT-Austin. The land could be worth far more, a suspicion articulated in 2006 when James Huffines, the chairman of the regents at the time, ordered a 10-member task force to devise a plan "to utilize the asset to the maximum benefit" of UT-Austin.
Oh boy...
The Save Muny movement has expressed no interest in rebirth or rejuvenation. Advocates of Lions prefer to salvage the 6,000-yard course as it looks today, preserving everything from the massive tree in the middle of the No. 2 fairway to the modest green fee that gives access to anyone with a shirt, a ball, a bag of clubs and the desire to play.

"It's owned by one group, it's used by another group and you're not maximizing the value of the property. The University of Texas has basically given golf to the citizens of Austin since Muny has existed," said Kite.
image_7266058.jpgYou go Tom! You need that money!
But Crenshaw, who lives a short stroll from Lions, said: "There's no question the atmosphere would change."

Crenshaw and Kite were rivals in junior golf. They won national championships at Texas before their long and decorated careers on the PGA Tour. They're both enshrined in the World Golf Hall of Fame. They hold very different opinions on the future of Lions.

They tried earlier this year in Hawaii to resolve them. While playing a tournament there. Kite and Crenshaw met over lunch to talk about the new design. By that time, Crenshaw already had announced his position. He wanted to save Lions.

"I'd made up my mind," Crenshaw said.

The debate underscores a broader issue affecting municipal golf in many American cities. Around the time of the Save Muny concert and auction last month at Lions, Golfweek magazine published a report describing a crisis in municipal golf.

The report suggested that many of the trends coloring the Brackenridge tract situation have been responsible for a slow decline in the number of municipal golf courses.

It cited factors such as "strained city budgets" and "increased real estate development pressures."

"You just can't continue to lose these inner-city golf courses," argued Kemp, who rallied supporters at the concert and auction in June.

Kemp, the Austin developer, served more than 30 years as chairman of the city golf advisory board, which helps set policies governing Austin's five municipal courses. Kemp said the goal of Save Muny is to acquire Lions — with the help and authority of the city — once and for all.

"We can pay cash. We could trade land," he speculated. "We don't want to penalize the university. We just want to save the golf course."

Monty Wants To Reach Out To Scottish Youth And Show Them How A Professional Acts

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Douglas Lowe finds Monty in a chatty mood as he ponders out loud why the youth of today--namely young Scottish amateurs Callum Macaulay and John Gallagher--have not come to him for advice.

"They need help," said Scotland's top world-ranked player, who has more than two decades of experience as a tournament professional on which to draw. "There is a big, big difference between what they are doing in amateur golf and the professional game.

"Very few make that transition easily. It is a tough one. If it was easy we would all be doing it," said Montgomerie, who was never a shrinking violet when it came to picking other players' brains.

"I was wise in many ways. I was asking questions of players who were better than me and I am surprised that more people have not asked me about the transition and how it was done, what happened and how you felt.

"There are a lot of golfers who hit the ball better than I do but can't get the ball round the golf course. There is a lot more to it than hitting the golf ball straight a long way and I hope they realise beforehand I am going to be there and can think about the questions they are going to ask me."

About diet, about marriage, washing your own car, about playing in front of large crowds. Just think of what they can learn!

"I have played in the Walker Cup and Eisenhower Trophy so I know how they are. It's the same in your own family; your own kids don't see you as children but they forget I was their age once and I know exactly what they are thinking," he said, adding with a laugh: "I just didn't like rap music."

Your own children don't see you as a child, Monty? They obvious haven't watched you interract with a gallery!

"Barely registered"

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Thomas Bonk with Monday's overnights for the AT&T National and the worst titled LPGA event ever:
In a word: bad. The overnight ratings for Sunday's fourth round of the AT&T National on CBS were down 48%, from a 2.9 to a 1.5. The third-round overnight ratings were down 35%, from a 2.0 to a 1.3.

Meanwhile, the overnight ratings on CBS for the weekend's LPGA event, the P&G Beauty Northwest Arkansas Championship, barely registered. Saturday's rating was a 0.7 and Sunday's rating was a 0.6.

"You're targeting an affluent crowd, a computerized crowd."

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This isn't golf related, but you know how I just love to share MBAspeak at its finest.

From Dylan Hernandez in today's L.A. Times, writing about the Dodgers latest ticket promotion to bump up their attendance numbers:

Steve Shiffman, the Dodgers' vice president of ticket sales, said the method of distributing tickets wouldn't attract the kind of fans who misbehaved and prompted the cancellation of the once-popular promotion that included $2 right-field pavilion seats on Tuesday nights.

Because this promotion is Internet-based, Shiffman said, "You're targeting an affluent crowd, a computerized crowd."

Does that you make you feel good? You're reading this on a computer and therefore you are affluent!

I knew it would brighten your day.

“You know, it’s interesting, nobody has ever told me I don’t know how to buy property before. You’re the first one. I appreciate your advice.”

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06sqft-span-600.jpgFred A. Bernstein in the New York Times looks at The Donald's "Adventures in golf" and shares some fun new anecdotes from the recent hearings in Scotland.

During his two-and-a-half-hour appearance, Mr. Trump praised the site — which is in Balmedie, 13 miles north of Aberdeen — for its natural beauty. But when the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds argued that the landscape should be preserved, according to accounts in the British press, Mr. Trump said that 25,000 birds were being shot each year over his property and that residents were dumping garbage there.

“It’s a total mess,” Mr. Trump was quoted in The Guardian as saying. “When you walk on the site right now it’s sort of disgusting. There are bird carcasses lying all over the place. There are dead animals all over the site that have been shot. There may be some people that are into that. I am not.”

Mr. Trump later added: “It’s a killing field. They’re shooting birds. And all we’re going to do is shoot birdies and eagles.”

According to British press accounts, David Tyldesley, a planner hired by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, asked Mr. Trump about Scottish “rambler laws” that would allow birdwatchers and hikers to walk across the site.

Mr. Trump told the inquiry that golfers “would have a problem with people walking all over the course.” Ramblers, he added, could get hit by a golf ball, or break a leg and sue him. (Back in New York, Mr. Trump said, “We go by the laws of Scotland.”)

He was perhaps most combative when he was asked by Martin Ford, a member of the Aberdeenshire Council and an opponent of the project, how he had managed to buy the land without knowing it had been classified by Scotland as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. “You have little understanding of the property you bought or the environmental status of it,” Mr. Ford told him, according to a report by The Associated Press.

According to the Guardian account, Mr. Trump, who said he did know about the site’s designation, replied: “You know, it’s interesting, nobody has ever told me I don’t know how to buy property before. You’re the first one. I appreciate your advice.”

According to reporters at the hearing, Mr. Trump provoked guffaws when he told the inquiry that his proposed golf resort would “enhance” rather than harm the sand dunes. “I consider myself to be an environmentalist in the true sense of the word,” Mr. Trump said.

"Athletes screening their urine for steroids are more than likely doing so to monitor their use of steroids."

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Thanks to reader Tony for this Andy Martino story from the New York Daily News that takes a much tougher look at the PGA Tour's testing procedure than any I've read.

A couple of highlights, starting with this from the PGA Tour's Ty Votaw.

Asked why golfers would be less prone to temptation than athletes in other sports, Votaw cites etiquette. "We think the culture of our sport is such that if a rule exists it is adhered to," he says. "It is a culture that has served us very well - athletes who call penalties on themselves, etc. Other sports don't have that same sort of cultural value system."
And that's why the product delivers such value. A core values and skill set mention would have been nice Ty.

Okay, here's the part that's going to ruffle some feathers.
While some players are applying for exemptions, one big name seems eager to prove he is clean. Tiger Woods said Monday that he had himself tested twice in the last six months to make sure that his nutritional supplements were free of banned substances. Woods did not say when or in what lab the testing took place. But BALCO founder Victor Conte is skeptical that an athlete would feel concerned enough about his or her nutritional program to conduct a self-test.

Hey, the man does know a thing or two about cheating! Sorry, continue...

"Most nutritional supplements have a two-year expiration date," says Conte, who says he has no knowledge of Woods' nutritional program or his self-tests and is speaking in general terms, "so there are far less contaminated supplements on the market at this time. It seems that it is now more likely that athletes screening their urine samples for steroids ... would be doing so to confirm that the steroids they previously used had cleared their system. Athletes screening their urine for steroids are more than likely doing so to monitor their use of steroids."

And there's this from Dr. Gary Wadler of the WADA:

For example, the drug salbutamol, found in asthma inhalers, is anabolic and can build muscle. Salbutamol is banned in the Olympics, but allowed in golf. Also, though human growth hormone is prohibited, neither tour administers the blood tests that would possibly detect it. All 33 WADA labs worldwide test for HGH, although the efficacy of the tests are in question.

Wadler also takes issue with the language used to describe the testing process. The PGA Tour manual says: "Once notified, you should report to the designated testing area as soon as possible. The collector may allow you to delay reporting ... however, you may be monitored."

"What do you mean, 'should' and 'may?'" asks Wadler. "These things have to be required. What if the player goes to the bathroom after being told to report? That's no good."

The soft language continues in the manual's section on penalties. The PGA Tour policy states: "Sanctions may include disqualification, forfeiture of prize money/points and other awards, ineligibility, and fines. Sanctions for drugs of abuse (marijuana, cocaine, etc.) ... may include rehabilitation or medical treatment."

In other words, the word "may" - rather than the more definitive "will" - opens a window for Finchem to exercise his own judgment about sanctions if a player tests positive. The policy later defines specific penalties for first, second and third violations, though once again under the heading "sanctions on the players may include."

Hey, just looking out for the product!

In terms of public disclosure, the policy states that "the PGA Tour will, at a minimum, publish the name of the player, the anti-doping rule violation, and the sanction imposed" - a statement that is contingent on Finchem having sanctioned a player in the first place. Clearly, if a star player were to test positive for steroids, that player "may" face a punishment and public embarrassment - or he may not. Wadler also points out that amphetamines, commonly used as performance enhancers, are classified under the tour's policy as drugs of abuse, meaning that players, if caught using these PEDs, could be quietly sent to rehab. All of these shortcomings, Wadler says, could be cleared up if both professional golf tours would cede control of their programs to WADA.