"It's a travesty that the LPGA would allow this happen"

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Thanks to reader Jim for this Michael McGarry story where he gets in touch with the former ShopRite Classic folks to see if they'll be getting the band back together now that the Ginn event has folded.

"It's a travesty that the LPGA would allow this happen," former Classic executive director Ruth Harrison said Friday. "We were there for 21 years, and (the LPGA) trashes our event for one with no track record."
At the time the decision was made, Classic officials questioned how long the Ginn Tribute would last.
"I would never wish for the LPGA to be unsuccessful," former Classic director of communications Rodger Gottlieb said Friday. "That wouldn't give us any degree of satisfaction. But this (the demise of the Ginn Tribute) validates a view we've had all along."
Bivens issued a written statement about Ginn on Friday. It did not mention the Classic.


"He drove the ball really long and really straight and he took a long time to do it."

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Whenever they do get on the course, it'll be interesting to see how CBS handles J.B. Holmes' pace of play. From Steve Elling's story today, quoting Chris DiMarco:

He drove the ball great, but he needs to pick the pace up," DiMarco said without prompting afterward. "He's really, really slow.
"He drove the ball really long and really straight and he took a long time to do it."
Holmes has additionally begun having his caddie help line him up over putts, a habit that is all the rage on the LPGA. It doesn't trim any time off his personal shot clock, either.
Earlier this year, Holmes was openly defiant about his glacial pace when in contention, saying that with $1 million on the line, he's not going to rush shots for anybody. Which isn't to suggest he isn't trying to improve, he said. Let's just say that, like one his driver shots, there's much acreage to be covered.
"You get in pressure situations in tournaments like majors and it takes longer," Holmes said. "I don't want to be that slow, but you need to make sure your mind is right."

Saturday PGA Championship Clippings

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Everyone has to play the same course. I heard it a few times on the Golf Channel post game show.

But really, is that a satisfactory explanation of what's going on at Oakland Hills? Sure, the players have to say it because mentally, they have to deal with the course for two more rounds and most people view any kind of course criticism as a cause for celebration.

I don't see some key questions being asked, perhaps because everyone is asking more Ryder Cup questions than anything else. Still, there is some scrutiny of the course setup that has led to some huge scores.

Larry Dorman sets the table:

There was change to the golf course, where the P.G.A. of America took some pity on the beleaguered professionals and shortened the four massive par-three holes by a total of 71 yards off the card, and lopped another 87 yards off the par-four sixth, shortening it to a drivable 300 yards.
There were even some changes in attitude among the golfers, who were beaten to a pulp Thursday by a par-70 golf course that played to an average of 74.85 strokes, second highest of the year in relation to par, behind only Royal Birkdale’s 75.87 in the British Open.
But the more things change, well, you know the rest. Despite the yardage concessions, the field stroke average was exactly the same as the first round, and the 74.85 ranked as the most difficult for any second round this year.
John Huggan in The Guardian:
Robert Allenby has been perhaps most vehement in his condemnation of what many have construed as a dirty-tricks campaign by the tournament organisers. The Australian, a man not noted for his reticence, was scathing in his assessment of the course following his first round of 76.
At the end of the day it's what's fair and what's not fair," said the world's 29th best player. "The set-up here is lousy. It's not enjoyable to play. They have taken an OK golf course and turned it into a lot of crap. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
Many other players have voiced concerns over the direction in which the authorities appear to be taking the game. "It's a strange year when the US Open, traditionally the toughest of the majors, is the most fun of the four," said the former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, neatly summing up the feelings of the majority.
And he offers a beautiful rant from agent Chubby Chandler, capped off by this:
"None of this makes any sense at all. I mean, the PGA of America spend millions of dollars on advertisements, then they go and make the game look ridiculous. The whole thing is nothing but a struggle for all concerned."
John Hopkins blasts the PGA of America over the rough maintenance practices and overall setup.
Why is this necessary? It is not as if a 7,395-yard golf course with a par of 70 and 135 bunkers and slopey greens that run at 12 on a Stimpmeter is not difficult enough already.
What a shame. They have completely taken any imagination out of the equation. A player goes into the rough and thinks: I've got to get out of here, I don't care how." With that he picks out his wedge, takes a backbreaking heave at the ball and hopes it moves 100 yards out on to the fairway.
Alan Bastable talks to Winged Foot super Matt Burrows about the practice of brushing the rough because Steve Cook at Oakland Hills "wasn't available for comment."

Carol Hopkins of The Oakland Press offers this anecdote:
The Davids' friend, Bruce Abbott of Bloomfield Hills, is volunteering as a marshal for the tournament.
"I think the hole I'm at -- 16 -- is the most difficult, it's the course's signature hole."
Abbott recalled watching how precisely officials monitor landscaping.
"This week, the PGA had a guy clipping the last blades of grass near the pond on 16," he said.
The trimming was done, he said, so balls landing on the pond's edge wouldn't be impeded from going into the water.
"They were toughening the course," said Abbott.
Abbott said greenskeepers also take a blower to the rough.
"They fluff it up and comb it away from the hole," he said.
Steve Elling quotes J.D. Holmes, Ian Poulter and the PGA of America's Joe Steranka.
But Holmes bashed away at the podium, too. By day's end, the second-round scoring average of 74.845 was the highest all year on tour relative to par.
"I think there should be some tough holes, but I don't think it should be, 'I hit a perfect shot and made double-bogey,'" said Holmes, a two-time PGA Tour winner.
"You've got long rough on every hole, is the frustrating part. When it's completely unfair on some holes, no, a major shouldn't be like that."
And...
"You are just trying not to bleed to death out there," said Ian Poulter, who finished second at the British Open three weeks ago. "It's like the PGA has sliced your throat on the first tee and you have to try and make it 'round to the 18th without dying.
"It is pretty frustrating when you stand on a par-3 with a 5-iron and are aiming for a bunker because you know that's the only way you can make par. That's pretty sad. I am very disappointed we are having to do that on such a great golf course."
And now for the official response.
"We set it up the same way," Steranka said. "The difference is, Oakland Hills is hard. It's one of the most recent classic courses that's been set up for today's modern player, and not just today's equipment."
This begs one key question: if Southern Hills was so successful with rough at 2 3/4 inches, why not replicate that at Oakland HIlls?

As for round two, Golfweek's all-you-need-to-know 18-point recap starts up with some enjoyable Monty moments following his 84.

Paul Mahoney writes about Monty's press exchange:
"Make that your last laugh, OK?" he snapped at an American reporter before agreeing to sift through the wreckage of his five-hour mauling at the hands of the Monster that is Oakland Hills. Monty, who finished tied for 149th at 20-over-par, said he did not realize the significance of the putt on 18. "I wasn't conscious of that score," he said. "I wasn't conscious of much, to be honest. That was the most difficult day I've had since my poor score at Muirfield in 2002. But today was as severe as any course I have ever played. Nothing like the course we [the European Ryder Cup team] did so well on four years ago."
John Hopkins paints an entirely different picture of Monty's post round appearance. The words courage and dignity are used!

Here's his courageous and dignified press conference transcript.

Steve Elling on leader J.B. Holmes's round:
Holmes averaged a jaw-dropping 337 yards in his measured drives on Friday, and it didn't begin to do the day justice. These are, indeed, his greatest hits:
 No. 2, par 5, 529 yards: Holmes vaporized his tee shot, leaving him an easy wedge to the green. He two-putted from 12 feet for a birdie.
o. 6, par 4, 300 yards: After the PGA moved up the tees to tempt players, Holmes took the bait and drove the green. He two-putted from 30 feet for a birdie.
No. 12, par 5, 593 yards: After crushing his drive, Holmes reached the green in two with, get this, an 8-iron from 217 yards. That's right, 217 yards.
No. 14, par 4, 488 yards: As it turned out, the rest was mere prelude. Holmes swatted his drive 401 yards and had 87 steps remaining. He flipped a wedge onto the green to record his third birdie in a row.
And finally, Paul Mahoney Doug Ferguson on the tees going up at No. 6 Friday:
One of the bogeys belonged to Mark Calcavecchia, who missed his tee shot to the right. That's not what caused the bogey, however.
"I stepped on my (expletive) ball," Calcavecchia said. "That's all you need to know about the sixth hole."

Friday PGA Championship Clippings

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It was tough to watch round one of the PGA because. I was quite emotional. The measly crowds and Tiger-free atmosphere kept reminding me of the 1995 PGA at Riviera. I'm sorry, but these old memories are deeply embedded and it just happens.

Of course, scoring conditions were just a tad different. Doug Ferguson writes that...

The PGA Championship looked a lot like the U.S. Open, with only six players able to break par Thursday among the early starters who got the best of the weather at Oakland Hills.
It sounded like a U.S. Open, too.
For a quick roundup of day 1 highlights, Golfweek's recap is best. It included this gem:
Goydos, who’s sarcastically nicknamed “Sunshine” because of his disposition, is one of the best quotes on Tour. So what did he think of Rees Jones’ redesign of Oakland Hills.
“If you had Rees Jones redo ‘Scrabble,’ he’d leave out the vowels,” Goydos said.
Here's the AP story on Kenny Perry's WD which the above Golfweek recap noted, "remember, his focus this year was never on the majors."

Steve Elling says it's fitting that Jeev Singh should contend and win since it's the year of the injury because Singh is barely getting around thanks to a nasty ankle injury.

Bob Wojnowski on Robert Karlsson's amazing story, not to mention his excellent year in the majors so far. Bob Harig also profiles the first round leader.

Lorne Rubenstein on Phil Mickelson's 70.
Mickelson then digressed into a brief discussion of high pins and low pins. Very few golfers use such terminology. Mickelson said the course surprised him by being much firmer and faster than it was during practice rounds, but that it still offered some birdie chances. He referred to these birdie chances as being on greens where the holes were cut in low spots.

The comment requires some deconstructing, which is part of the fun of trying to understand the way Mickelson sees golf.

His doors of perception are open, wide open. By low pins, Mickelson meant that some holes were cut in catchment areas, so that he could feed a ball in their direction.

Mickelson, a shot maker and a thinker, likes to feed shots. But is he prone to thinking too much?
Bob Verdi on Sean O'Hair, who was in a car accident earlier this year and fired a first round 69:
It's working and so is the rest of O'Hair's body after a car wreck just before the U.S. Open, from which he withdrew before starting. He wound up playing one round of golf in June while tending to sore ribs. Driving on slick roads near his home outside Philadelphia, O'Hair skidded into a power pole, totaling a shiny new Mustang he had owned for all of three days. "I wasn't going that fast," said O'Hair. "The pole just kind of jumped out there in front of me. Plus, it was a stick shift, and I'd never driven one before."
O'Hair sold the vehicle, or what was left of it.
From yesterday, Larry Dorman profiles Adam Scott's rough ride this year that's included odd health issues and a breakup with his longtime girlfriend.

Jeff Neuman writes about the PGA as golf's "littlest major," which it definitely looked like Thursday, if nothing else based on gallery size.

I swore off Ryder Cup stories this week, but James Corrigan's lede on Monty's diminishing chances was too good to pass up:
The perversely-minded among us may one day notice a few similarities between Colin Montgomerie and Jimmy Hoffa. Both carried the odd surplus pound, both had reputation problems and both could call themselves legendary teamsters.
Paul Mahoney also looks at Monty's plight and Sergio's surge.
While short on birdies, the 45-year-old was Monty-like in other ways. He moaned at the marshals on the first tee (his 10th) for waving their the-ball-went-thataway paddles too close to his personal space. "I'll find my own ball, believe me," he snapped at one hapless fellow (who should have responded, "Maybe, but it won't be in the hole any time soon.")
Monty's mood hadn't mellowed by the time he signed his card. He stopped to talk to reporters for exactly 26 seconds. "Too long, too tough," he huffed of Oakland Hills. "You can spray it 20 yards wide and you're okay, but if you spin off by six inches or one foot, you're not. It's a shame."
And finally, Brian Hewitt reports that John Daly has a new instructor: Rick Smith.
Talk about the coaching merry-go-round and six degrees of separation all wrapped into one. Smith is the guy who did a lot of good work with Phil Mickelson before Mickelson left him for Butch Harmon. Harmon is the guy who did a lot of good work with Tiger Woods and dumped Daly earlier this year because of what he perceived to be Long John’s errant off-course behavior. Now Daly and Smith are together and the squared circle is unbroken. Sort of.
Daly said he and Smith worked for seven hours last Sunday at nearby Oakland University. He said his injured ribs are feeling better and Smith has convinced him to use his right side more now.
“It’s all about the right side,” Daly said. “I love the guy. Plus he’s a feel coach and I’m a feel player."
Daly’s score Thursday: 74.

"[The rough] is five inches long. Why brush it back at us?"

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Paul Mahoney reports on Lee Westwood's scathing post round criticism of the Oakland Hills course setup. On site sources say the rough had been trimmed but it also seems the raking we spotted last week was taken to a new extreme. At least according to Westwood.

"The course is 7,500 yards long, the greens are firm, and the pins are tucked away," Westwood said of Oakland Hills (official yardage: 7,395). "They are sucking the fun out of the major championships when you set it up like that. The fairways are narrow, and unfortunately if you miss the semi [rough] by a foot you are worse off than if you miss by 20 yards. I asked my partners [Geoff Ogilvy and Zach Johnson] if I was out of order, and they said 'No, if you are slightly off-line, you are crucified.' It is too thick around the greens as well. It takes the skill away from chipping."
Comparing Thursday's conditions to the practice rounds, Westwood wondered if the PGA had dispatched an army of workers overnight to "brush back" the rough, changing its direction so that the blades point toward the tees, instead of toward the greens.
"I can't think of a reason why they would do it other than to irritate the players," said Westwood, whose round included five bogeys, one double-bogey, and no birdies. "[The rough] is five inches long. Why brush it back at us? It makes no sense. People want to see birdies, and they have not seen me make any. I can't see anything wrong with being 9- or 10-under-par for the week."
Part of me wonders if the setup is really that extreme, or perhaps the players have become so enamored with Mike Davis's layered rough cuts that the old style setup looks that much more ridiculous? Maybe...
Westwood said that the PGA should have followed the USGA's lead at Torrey Pines, which was not the punishing setup often seen in the U.S. Open. "You have to reward the accurate players like they did at the U.S. Open," he said. "[That] was set up perfectly. It rewards accuracy and penalizes you if you are off-line. I didn't see that today."

Sea Island Slowdown

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Thanks to reader Eric for this Tony Adams story on layoffs at Sea Island, as well as the resignation of CEO Bill Jones from the Synovus board.

Columbus-based Synovus declined Tuesday to discuss Sea Island Co. and its decision to lay off between 300 to 400 employees, as well as any impact the upscale hotel and development firm's business might have on the regional bankholding company.
"Basically we're in a position, as we would always be with a customer, and we just cannot provide any additional information on a customer relationship," said Synovus spokeswoman Alison Dowe.
Sea Island Co., which dates to 1928, is headquartered on the Georgia coast near Brunswick. The firm has developed several ritzy resorts in the area, most notably The Cloister on Sea Island and The Lodge on St. Simons Island. A late-July check of the rates at The Cloister showed rooms averaging between $750 and $1,700 per night.
Monday's announcement by Sea Island Co. that it is eliminating jobs follows the July 7 resignation of Bill Jones, Sea Island Co. chairman and chief executive officer, from the Synovus board of directors.
In a recent interview with the Ledger-Enquirer, Richard Anthony, Synovus chairman and CEO, commented on Jones and his resignation from the board.
"Bill, he has been, and continues to be, a very good customer and friend," Anthony said. "He just felt like he needed to spend time on his business, and we can probably serve him better without his being an insider."

Well at least he doesn't want to spend more time with his family.

Meanwhile, this could explain why Tadd Fujikawa picked the Quality Inn over The Lodge or The Cloister.

Thursday PGA Championship Clippings

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If the preview stories are any indication what's in store for this PGA, then we're going to be watching a lot of the Olympics. The scribes seem bored or maybe just distracted by the loud AC's in the Oakland Hills press center. Of course, I also paid no attention to Ryder Cup related stories, which there was no shortage of.

Anyway, there's the usual theme of the golf course and how it's going to be the hardest ever, etc... Bob Harig addresses that tired theme.

We often hear how brutal a golf course is on the eve of a major championship, then see weather conditions change or the expected difficulty turn out not to be as much as first touted. And there has not been a winning score over par at the PGA Championship since 1976, when Dave Stockton won at Congressional Country Club.
But during a stretch in which major championships have been more tough than not -- four majors in the past two years have been won with over-par winning totals -- there have been an array of comments about Oakland Hills, none suggesting this is going to be an easy week.
"I played Augusta this year for the first time and Torrey Pines, and those don't even come close to how hard Oakland Hills will play," said Daniel Chopra, who played Oakland Hills last year in a British Open qualifier.
Randall Mell says the course is the star and offers this from Sergio:
"It's a great golf course, but it's probably the toughest PGA I've ever played," Garcia said.
Doug Ferguson compiles player comments about the difficulty:
Rocco Mediate was playing the 18th early Wednesday — his only nine holes of practice — when one of his tee shots strayed to the right. His caddie went looking for it, and when he finally found it, picked it up and said, “No good over here. Make a note of that.”
Predicting a score is pointless because no one knows how the PGA of America will set it up when scores start counting Thursday. But wherever they put the tees and pins, Oakland Hills has gotten the players’ attention.
John Huggan on the course and the chances of a European winning.
"This course is set up like a US Open of three or four years ago, where missing the fairway by a couple of yards is the same as missing it by 10 yards," asserted Harrington. "So this is a tough and intimidating test, very penal. And if you miss a green in the wrong place it's a struggle to chip it closer than 25 to 30 feet. The constant debate is whether to play aggressively or cautiously."
Rich Lerner delivers "hooks and cuts," including this:
Geoff Ogilvy thinks this may well be the first time that the U.S. Open will have been the easiest of the four majors. “Augusta and Birkdale were impossible,” he said. Oakland Hills won’t be impossible, but it won’t be easy either. “It’s a beast,” said Paul Goydos.
Steve Elling shares this from Paul Azinger:
"Hardest course I've ever seen," he said Wednesday. "The rough has neutralized everybody. There's no shot-making out of that rough. I've never seen greens like this. It's tough."
Azinger faced the scribblers for a Ryder Cup press conference, which yielded this groundbreaking question:
Q. Can anything other than a win be regarded as a success for you?
Brian Hewitt reports exclusively that Kenny Perry scratched his cornea taking out his contacts Wednesday and his play will be impacted by the injury.

In the picks department (I know, too late for your pool...), ESPN.com has some thing called a FOREcaster that lets fantasy geeks hit a bit red button and answer questions. The geeks like Geoff Ogilvy to win.

John Antonini files his pre-PGA report card on the world's top 10

Jason Sobel at ESPN.com ranks his top 25.

Daniel Wexler chimes in with his breakdown of the favorites.

If you want your cornea to feel like Kenny Perry's, just try to read Joe Steranka's longwinded "interview" opening comments today. The scribes managed to get three questions in.

Steve Elling reports that the seemingly comical sight of a cop strangling Jim Weathers with a baton wasn't so funny after all as Weathers faces surgery.

And finally, from the Golfweek blog, I wasn't the only one who took exception to the USGA/R&A announcement coming during PGA week. Jeff Rude writes:
Timing isn't always everything, but I'm thinking the USGA announcement on grooves the week of the PGA Championship isn't all that different from Scott Boras revealing A-Rod's contract intentions the week of the World Series.
I mean, sometimes respect needs to wait a week.

"There is a simple litmus test to determine whether a sport is of Olympic caliber: Does winning a gold medal trump anything else an athlete can do?"

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I feel for Bob Harig tonight, because he's likely to be getting a phone call (go easy on him Ty!) for making the most persuasive case yet against golf in the Olympics...

There is a simple litmus test to determine whether a sport is of Olympic caliber: Does winning a gold medal trump anything else an athlete can do?
In golf, the answer is quite obviously no. You would be hard pressed to get a single player to say he would rather win at the Olympics than capture one of the four major championships. Let's face it; those four tournaments are golf's Olympics. They are for players from all around the world, with numerous countries represented. True, the players do not show up to represent their countries, but these tournaments are the most important events.
There are several logistical hurdles as well. How would you alter the current schedule? If golf were in the Beijing Olympics, would players be expected to head right from the PGA Championship to China? Would they be forced to skip important tournaments on the PGA Tour, including the FedEx Cup playoffs? Would the tour alter its schedule to accommodate?
In the name of growing the game, of course they would!
What about the format? Being discussed is 72 holes of stroke play. If golf is going to be included in the Olympics, at least make the format for the competition one that is not used every week, one that is more fun, perhaps one that is more team oriented. At least in that case, players would be competing for their teams instead of themselves.
Oh yeah, you're definitely getting a phone call. Even if he has to do it from Beijing and through a PGA Tour-logoed smog mask.

Baltusrol Gets 2016 PGA

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Bill Fields reports on the awarding announced by Joe Steranka Wednesday, which is interesting only because the PGA of America is locking up a venue eight (!?) years in advance with the 2014 date still open (somehow I don't think that one's coming back to Riviera!). Perhaps they were locking up the New York area market in case the USGA was thinking about returning there in 2016, even though they are widely believed to be headed back to Oakmont that year.

The Fields post includes lists of all future major venues.

"Wouldn't it be fun if the possibility really existed that Tiger might have hit his approach out of the light rough on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open over the green?"

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I'm still collecting my thoughts on the groove announcement (hey, I've only had a year). But Bug and Gnat over at GolfDigest.com chime in with a couple of questions that have been, uh, bugging me too, though maybe for different reasons. First, Bug (E. Michael Johnson):

How are they going to enforce this rule and what happens if it doesn't have the desired effect of restoring accuracy as an important part of the pro game?
There is a very good chance this will only have a minor impact, which gets us back to the ball study. Which I'm sure is moving right along.

And enforcement wise, I suspect the USGA testing department gurus have developed an easy way to test. I hope.

Then Gnat (Mike Stachura) asks:

Wouldn't it be fun if the possibility really existed that Tiger might have hit his approach out of the light rough on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open over the green?

Actually no, and it was something I contemplated while standing there watching Tiger lined up that now famous birdie putt. I wondered how much his shot spinning back was influenced by grooves and how much was the result of his swing speed and personal Nike ball. I hope for future viewing interest the grooves played no role, because even the governing bodies must know that the backspin he imparted on that ball helped make for one of the great moments in golf history.

Wednesday PGA Championship Clippings

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Jeff Rude fittingly kicks things off with a summary of where the wacky year in golf leaves us on the eve of the PGA and asks:

What will Phil do next to his bag? One can worry himself nauseous trying to guess the configuration. After all, Lefty has played majors with five wedges, two drivers, no driver and a driver that kept going left.
Can a junior set be far off?
On that front, Steve Elling files an interesting piece with insights from other players on Phil's club tinkering, with plenty of assuredness from Dave Pelz about the Team Mickelson thought process.
"He wouldn't be Phil Mickelson if he didn't change clubs and try new theories," said Geoff Ogilvy, a fellow member of the world top 10.
Welcome to golf's version of saying, "That's Manny being Manny."
Bob Harig says Kenny Perry is using criticism of his red-blooded American ways to uh, well, show up at Oakland Hills this week in his final preparations for the Fall Finish. Randall Mell (here) and Craig Dolch (here) also ponder Perry's place in the game.

John Huggan reports that Luke Donald's wrist isn't any better and that he's contemplating surgery.

Titled "Another successful surgery for the Open Doctor" or something silly like that, I feared that Jerry Potter was going to celebrate the Oakland Hills rees-tore before it's even seen one tournament round, but far from it:
Phil Mickelson finished 18th, shooting 6-over-par on a course he had played since he was a junior golfer. During the Bridgestone Invitational last week in Akron, Ohio, Mickelson was asked about Jones' work.
"Not a big fan," he answered.
Asked what he would do if he were Jones, he answered, "I would try to not be so monotonous."
Ohhhh, I think Rees will be hunting a certain Lefty down!

Doug Ferguson offers notes on Tiger telling ESPN radio that he won't be back for at least 5 months (and he's not watching much golf, which makes two of us, only I can get to the bathroom without it being a chore). And Ferguson shares this on the Olympic golf movement, where Phil seems to be reading off a script.
"Having golf an Olympic sport is exponentially more important to the game of golf than the majors," Mickelson said Tuesday from the site of the season's final major, the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills. "The reason for that is it would bring in 168 different countries and their Olympic foundation and all those revenues and that would be going towards the growth of the game."
Hunter Mahan (sadly) apologized for his comments about how players perceive the Ryder Cup (too many cash cow parties for the PGA of America!). Seems he was called into the principal's office.
“They took it personally, and I don’t blame them,” Mahan said after meeting with PGA president Brian Whitcomb and CEO Joe Steranka. “I deserve what I get. I take full responsibility for what I said.”
Alan Shipnuck's always fun Hot List features Oakland Hills, Ben Hogan, and this on the "business model of golf":
Ratings for Firestone and the Women's British were microscopic, and sponsors on every tour are pulling back in these lean economic times. Most ominously, neither Van Sickle nor Shipnuck traveled to the British Open.
Don't worry, 72-holes of stroke play in 2016 at some stalwart like Medinah will change it all, Alan.

Okay, to the important stuff. Your pool picks. Golfweek's staff issues their selections, this time actually more than 24 hours prior to the start of play. Ed Sherman weighs in here.

PGA.com's staff offers sleeper picks while PGATour.com's Fantasy Insider shares his thoughts on who might win. And finally, Tod Leonard chimes in with his likely contenders.

Groove Change Clippings

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Here's the announcement from the USGA if you missed it.

Doug Ferguson noted this in his story:

USGA officials said it was the first rollback in equipment since a brief experiment in the 1930s to reduce the weight of the golf ball. That was deemed ineffective, and the rule was scrapped.
Which looks minor really compared to this.

As for the pros using V-grooves in 2010 but other major amateur golf not having to conform until 2014, Steve Elling writes that "It's mildly akin to the use of aluminum bats in the amateur or college baseball ranks, versus the wooden bats of the pros. It's the same game, sort of, but it sure sounds different.

Or more succinctly defined another way, as Elling offers...
Frank Thomas, a former technical director at the U.S. Golf Association, was nibbling on a snack on Tuesday at the 90th PGA Championship when the change was broached. He wiped the crumbs from his chin and offered one word.
"Bifurcation," he said.
For the uninitiated, that's a red-letter term that means split and separate, and most assuredly not equal.
Not reported anywhere but nailing a vital point about course setup was Trevor Immelman:
I think they need to decide which way they want to go about running the game. I think you've either got to have the courses set up the way they are now, with extremely deep rough and 500 yard par-4s, which is the way they have it, which seems to be working fine. I mean, you know, nobody's blowing away these Major Championships shooting 15-, 20-under. So that seems to be a recipe that has worked over the last few years.
Or, you can change the grooves, but then they're going to have to scale the golf courses back, because you can't give guys no advantage with grooves. Because you got to understand one thing: As soon as we change the grooves, we're probably going to have to alter the ball we use, because if you're not getting as much spin, you're probably going to have to start using a softer golf ball.
In the last few years, we're using harder golf balls because the drivers allow us to launch the ball higher off the tee. So we need less spin, and we have had good grooves on our irons, so we have been able to launch the ball to create enough spin.
So we're going to have to go back and the manufacturers are going to have to go back to the drawing board. And I know Nike has been working on this since the USGA started sending the smoke up that they may be doing this. I had a look at a few prototypes where they have started working on some different groove variations.
And I like I was saying, as we change the grooves, we're going to have to start maybe looking at the way our golf ball is performing. And at that point the R&A and USGA may have to decide how they're going to set the golf courses up. Are we still going to have rough that is this deep (indicating). And like today out there, we have got guys the rough is pretty juicy here but you still got guys with these rakes out there making sure that it stands up this high. It's quite interesting.
But so I think that you're going to have to give and take. So that's where they're going to have to figure out how are they going to give and take. Because they can't just keep taking. Because at that point, you just are going to have players having just a lot of struggles out there with golf courses being too difficult. That's my opinion.
And this from Phil Mickelson was also not picked up in reports, but is nonetheless profound:
And one of the biggest issues I have with course setup is having the same penalty for everybody regardless of skill level, and that leads to the thickness of rough. If you have a ten-inch rough -- and I'm sorry a lot of people say five and a half inches or whatever the length is; everybody wedges out 80 yards into the fairway. It's the same penalty for everybody and so skill level is factored in there.
And I'm hoping that the course setups won't be like that, but they will be like the PGA TOUR has done this year and had a little bit more playable shot-making abilities, recovery shots, more integral part of the game from the rough on mis-hit tee shots.
So I kind of like it. But what's interesting for me is that this exact study was done with triple the data back in 1988, was given to the USGA, and it was disregarded, and now 20 years later, it's considered valid.
Again, I don't care, because I like the new rule change, but it just is funny to me how that -- the way the process worked out.
I assume this from Jim Furyk will be music to the USGA's ears...
I think that I might have a couple wedges in my bag that might be borderline or over the proposed limit, so I would have to pull that back.
And what that will do is it will make guys want to play a softer golf ball, and it probably doesn't go quite as far anymore, because they will want to have more control over that ball around the greens and with their wedges, where they score.
So I think all in all, it's probably going to be positive.