It’s back!
Twenty years later Tatra Press has kindly allowed me to bring back Grounds For Golf now that golf architecture is of more interest to the masses. A new Introduction looks at what’s driven the interest growth and two new chapters I had a blast adding (plus a few edits to keep things up-to-date).
The Amazon purchase page for the book arriving June 15, 2026.
The best thing about the Victorian Government rescuing the Australian Masters is that it's leaving longtime site Huntingdale, and according to word on the street as posted at GCA by Chris Kane, may be heading to Kingston Heath in 2009 and Victoria in 2010. Perfect opportunities for Tiger to go study his favorite type of golf!
Gee, you think she could have gotten bored around the house for a few hours before growing restless about returning. Stephen Wade reports from China.
“If I get the urge to come back, I have a chance,” Sorenstam said. “That’s why I have never said this is the end. But we’ll see.
“There are new challenges ahead,” she added. “Getting married and starting a family. Who knows? I might come out on tour sooner than later. It might be tougher than I think it is.”
At least when you read how much the auto manufacturers pour into NASCAR, though not for much longer as Liz Clarke writes. But in light of $10 million sponsorships for one car, PGA Tour and LPGA Tour deals look pretty good. And of course with golf you get those added value streams, especially that b-to-b interaction for the C-Levels.
Ben Harding reports on the latest complications with a diagnosis on his tumor. No good news.
I passed on all of the "news" about Tiger's caddying gig as part of a Buick campaign. The more interesting news comes in this Michael Buteau piece where Tiger's agent and Buick's advertising man are letting the world know they are considering an extension on his deal, pending a few minor details like, say, the survival of the company!
Meanwhile, something about the body language of contest winner John Abel needs to be captured in a caption (thanks to reader Al for the link)...
JT managed to lure both John Hawkins and Alan Shipnuck to Vegas for game stories in their respective publications, and in the same press center! A Nobel peace prize may be next.
Hawkins notes this about the Las Vegas event:
Still, this was a marked improvement over recent gatherings in Vegas. Timberlake wisely ditched the three-course rotation that made this tournament so needlessly complicated -- it wasn't like the venues were within a 7-iron of each other -- and centralized everything at TPC Summerlin. Formerly a 72-hole pro-am, J.T. removed the chopper factor from the competitive arena, saying, "Phil [Mickelson] isn't going to come up (onstage) and try to do karaoke while I'm doing my show."
Shipnuck focuses on the overall economic state of the tour after praising Timberlake's turnaround of the moribund event. He offers this about the tax implications of an Obama presidency:
Paul Azinger estimated last week that his colleagues are 99% Republican (and that may be a conservative number) primarily because the players vote their pocketbooks. An analysis by the Tax Policy Center, recently cited in Rolling Stone, estimated that for those who make more than $1 million a year — which, including endorsements, is pretty much the entire Tour — the out-of-pocket difference between the tax plans of Barack Obama and John McCain is nearly $270,000. If Obama rides his lead in the polls to victory next month, Tour players will be feeling pain that is more than ideological.
Seems U.S. Amateur champion Danny Lee didn't have the best showing at the Eisenhower Trophy, earning an oer-the-top dressing down from Peter Williams who is never shy about making a fuss, and then made some sort of brilliant comment overheard by airport security. Not his best week.
A few of you complained that I didn't focus on the substance in Tim Finchem's spellbinding SF Chronicle interview. Which of course, is a victory for the Commish. After all, doublespeak is a distraction tool and I fell for it!
Alright, here goes:
Q: The PGA Tour has a reserve of money it can call on in tough times. Would you tap that if you did have a decrease in sponsorships?
A: It's pretty simple. Through team sports and alliances, a big percentage of our revenue is derived from the communications side - broadcasts, etc. When we do our longer-term arrangements with television, and to some extent new media, we project out of that period so that right now we are in a six-year term with our network partners.
Our strategy is to grow our operating reserve during those years so we can withstand some negativity in the next cycle. We've done that for 20 years and it's worked well. We've grown in all those years. The question now is can we grow that reserve a little bit more aggressively to protect against what we were just talking about, namely retrenchment.
Anyone care to guess just how much is in the PGA Tour's rainy-day retrenchment fund?
...so I guess it wasn't just IMG looking for a reaction. Norman Dabell reports.
Norman Dabell reports:
"It's not like I'm going to stop playing completely but I'm definitely going to slow down a lot," Van de Velde told Reuters in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
"My career I can compare to a good bottle of wine. You take a glass and enjoy it; you take a second glass and really enjoy it; a third, then the bottle is getting empty.
"I've been going around the world for so many years and at the end of the day you can only do so much. Next year I will only play the tournaments I really enjoy.
"I don't know exactly how many I will play but the maximum will be a dozen," added the popular Frenchman who was struck down in 2007 by a virus which at one stage looked likely to end his career then.
John Davis does a nice job assessing the state of pro tour events in Arizona in light of the economy, and while the news is pretty good, there is this one comment from Tom Maletis, president of Tournament Golf Foundation, Inc., which owns the Valley's LPGA event about who will take the biggest hit:
Ultimately, he said, charities might receive less financial support throughout golf.
"Tournaments typically tighten their belts anyway so they can give more to charity," Maletis said, "but now we will have to look at things in a different light because there are only so many apples in the box."
When the LPGA inevitably cans Carolyn Bivens, I'd nominate Juli Inkster for the Commish job. Or at least a board seat.
From Doug Ferguson's AP notes column comes this wisdom that might have prevented the learn-English-or-your-outta-here disaster:
“The Asian players ... it’s kind of a respect thing, a pecking order thing,” Inkster said. “They are brought up to really honor their roots and their grandparents, and the people before them, and the higher-ups. So all of a sudden, you put an 18- or 19-year-old girl that’s maybe not really comfortable with her English.
“Playing with four CEOs — men or women — she is not going to feel comfortable going up there and making small talk. That’s not the way they are brought up.”
Brad Klein returns to Erin Hills--the course he originally dubbed "Errant Hills" and a comment that Golf Digest's Ron Whitten countered was payback for a lousy Wintonbury Hills review--and doesn't sound any more enthusiastic about what he sees in the fall reworking that the course hopes will usher in a U.S. Open bid.
And Open there makes complete sense when you can bypass a proven cash cow and weather wonder like Torrey Pines in 2017 and head straight to the middle of no where in Wisconsin! Don't worry scribblers, there's a Marriott just 45 minutes away...more points and you'll love the highway billboards.
Klein writes:
But for a golf course that touts a links sensibility, there’s actually little integration at Erin Hills between approach shots and contours into and around greens. Every recovery shot from around and behind putting surfaces is a lobbed shot, not a bump and run. And there are so many holes where the natural slopes leading into the green deflect the ball away from the putting surface rather than allowing you to feed the ball in. The contours might all be entirely natural, but they defy thoughtful shotmaking and end up requiring an aerial brand of golf in which everything is simply flown to the target. As for the bunkers, there’s nothing natural about any of their shapes; they are scraped out in such contrived, undersized pockets that they make you feel as if you’ve been lowered into jagged tea cups.
The changes certainly will help. A postage-stamp style, domed green on the short par-4 second hole will be expanded by 50 percent. The wild Biarritz green on the long par-5 10th hole will be flattened front and back so that it will be far more pin-able and playable. A ridge in the 15th green also will be modified. Awkward deflection slopes on the first and 17th fairways will be softened, making both far more receptive.
Jaime Diaz does a nice job analyzing Tiger's press conference from last week. He's trying to put Tiger's design career in perspective, and like a lot of us, is not entirely sure what to make of it. Of course, he quotes me about the incredible number of oceanfront holes Tiger managed to grab from the development. But I thought this was a more interesting observation from Diaz because it could very well speak to the quality of designs Woods produces:
Still, even with his injury, his career as an architect holds more unknowns than his return as a golfer. As a player Woods never has appeared particularly passionate about design. His highest praise for courses tended to be sound bites such as "It fits my eye" or "It's all right there in front of you." Those he didn't like were dismissed with the all-purpose, "It is what it is." Where other players such as Ben Crenshaw and Geoff Ogilvy enjoy deconstructing the playing field, Woods has channeled his energy into taking it apart.
Randell Mell reports that Erik Compton's Q-school quest begins today. You can follow his play here.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
