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
Thanks to reader Scott for Tod Leonard's extensive and fascinating look at the demise of The Golf Club of California, which closed its doors November 1.
The moral of this story: don't let home developers design golf courses. Or run them.
On the news that American Express is seeking $3.5 billion in government funds because the company packaged pools of credit card debt and sold them to investors in the securitization market (good one!), I'm just wondering if (A) this means we won't get those incredibly cool little TV's at majors and (B) if this is part of the USGA's education in improved business practices.
After all, in Walter Driver's 2007 President's letter, he wrote that the USGA was "learning from our corporate partner, American Express, how to be more responsive and tailored to our individual Members."
Maybe they're packaging pools of lousy handicaps to investors in the secularization market?
The Perthshire Advertiser's Gordon Bannerman reports on the new design credit for Jack Nicklaus's Gleneagles Centenary Course, home to the 2014 Ryder Cup. You may recall that players were not too fond of David Kidd's redo. Include Jack in that category.
But it has emerged that Nicklaus isn’t impressed with Gleneagles playing around with his original design, which opened on the “finest parcel of land I have ever been given to work with” back in 1993.
The Golden Bear is growling over Gleneagles tampering with the original design without his knowledge or input. It barely rates a mention on his website, which profiles the many Nicklaus Signature courses which have emerged around the globe.
Now, instead of billing it as a course designed by Jack Nicklaus, Gleneagles flag it up as being “created” by the golfing legend.
A spokeswoman for Gleneagles said: “Jack Nicklaus designed the course for us in the early 90s.
“In the last few years and in the build up to being the hosts for the Ryder Cup, we have had another designer tweak a few holes.
“We do say he created the course and we have an ongoing relationship with the Jack Nicklaus organisation.”
Steve Elling reports on Erik Compton starting Q-school second stage Wednesday and notes:
A newlywed with a baby girl due in late February, he told CBSSports.com on Sunday that he pays $600 a month for health insurance through the bridge program called Cobra, designed to fill gaps in coverage when workers are between jobs. He said it expires in six months and after that, he'll be scrambling for answers. His 14-hour heart surgery last May 20 and resulting hospital stay cost $1 million, he estimated. He still takes seven or eight pricy anti-rejection medications every day, he said.
In noting the slight total purse increase for the 2009 PGA Tour schedule, an unbylined ESPN.com story includes this:
"I'm delighted to say that the demise of the PGA Tour has been overstated considerably," commissioner Tim Finchem said Monday night at the World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
Getting cocky are we?
Bob Harig breaks down the schedule changes here.
Richard Perez-Pena reports on a request of 100 volunteers for a buyout at Time Inc. and notes:
Hardest hit in the first round is the group that includes Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated Kids and Golf magazines. In a memorandum to his staff, Terry McDonell, managing editor of Sports Illustrated, asked for 40 people to leave voluntarily, out of an editorial staff at the magazine group of about 250 people.
Garry Smits says the PGA Tour Policy Board never planned on approving or disapproving the FedEx Cup fix Monday, though that doesn't explain why all of the PAC board members yapping to the press were under a different impression.
He also confirms this, which has come up in nearly ever story:
Instead of points re-setting after the regular season, they won’t be re-set until after the third playoff event, the BMW Championship. All 30 players who reach the Tour Championship will have a mathematical chance of winning the FedEx Cup and its $10 million prize.
Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not hearing anything that will prevent a player who had a great year from taking several playoff events off prior to the Tour Championship?
I finally mustered up the strength to read Bill Fields' emotional piece on Davis Love Jr.'s plane crash. For some odd reason Davis III's win Sunday made it a little easier to tackle.
It's tough to read these things when it falls into the lousy-things-happening-to-great-people-file. I still remember chatting with him while watching Davis play at Riviera when he was a rookie and hitting the ball incredible distances with persimmon. What a gentleman.
Golf World's E. Michael Johnson reports a stunner that could have huge implications...or not?
The United States District Court in Wilmington, Del., has granted Callaway's request for a permanent injunction to stop sales of Acushnet's current line of Titleist Pro V1 family of golf balls, effective no later than January 1, 2009.
In its ruling today, the Court also rejected Acushnet's request to overturn the jury's December 2007 verdict which found that Callaway Golf's golf ball patents were valid and infringed by Acushnet's Titleist Pro V1 family of golf balls.
But...
Key to the ruling, however, is the phrase "Acushnet's current line of Titleist Pro V1 family of golf balls." Although the court's ruling would appear to indicate that some inventory of Pro V1s currently on shelves may have to be stopped, the Acushnet Company, parent company of Titleist, said it will file an appeal and that it does not expect the ruling to have a material adverse impact on its results.
Pretty remarkable considering what's going on. Of course, there no Fall Finish dates announced yet. Here's the list and the PGATour.com spin.
Bob Smiley is a television writer moonlighting in the world of golf literature, producing an entertaining new book on his pursuit to watch every hole Tiger Woods played in 2008.
Released today by HarperCollins, Follow The Roar is a fresh and decidedly novel approach to the genre of golf books where an author takes us inside the ropes for a year. Smiley was mostly outside the ropes and media centers (explaining his clear eyes and thin physique), yet he captures so many entertaining moments in Tiger's epic half-season.
The impressively produced book features end sheets with all of Bob's tickets along with a lavish photo insert that includes several indelible images taken by some of the best in the business.
Bob hosts his own blog here, and kindly answered a few questions about the book.
GEOFF: The idea for Follow The Roar really started with an email from an ESPN.com reader?
BOB: It really did. During the 2nd round of last year's Target (now Chevron) World Challenge, I decided to dive into Tiger's mob for the day and write about the experience. I'd seen Tiger play at Riviera a couple times, but never from start to finish. I stuck with him from the second he stepped out of his beige Buick Enclave until he signed his card for a tournament-record 62. The piece triggered a wave of response from golf fans who had braved crowds to see Tiger and loved reliving the experience or those who had never seen him in person and wished they'd been there. Buried in the emails was a woman who asked me whether I would be following Tiger the whole year. It was a ridiculous idea. Until I realized it was a brilliant idea.
GEOFF: And when did the book deal come into play?
BOB: Twenty-four hours before Tiger began his season. I was up early and starting to pack for the trip to the Buick Invitational in January when the news came through that HarperCollins had made an offer on my book proposal to help me do this. I would have gone to San Diego with or without a deal and chronicled the tournament. But the following week Tiger would be in Dubai, and that would have been a little tough without some outside help.
GEOFF: An accountant friend had you not making it past July without going broke. I take it you were the one person grateful for Tiger's knee needing major surgery? Or would you rather have continued on?
BOB: Well my mom thought my airfare budget was way off since, in her mind, Tiger would be letting me travel with him for free on his jet by the end of the year. But no, I would always have loved to have seen more. I'd love to know how Tiger would have navigated the wind and rain during the first two rounds of the British Open. That said, he went out with such a finish at the U.S. Open that it's hard to imagine that even he could top it.
GEOFF: In most instances you were covering him without the aid of a press credential?
BOB: The only press pass I ever received was in Dubai of all places. And only then because I was surfing around the tournament's website, found an online application for a credential and hit send. But I'm not a reporter by anyone's definition. From the beginning, Follow The Roar was always intended to be an everyman's adventure with Tiger and his world. I wanted every reader to start pick up the book and think, "this could be me."
GEOFF: Do you think it made your quest more uniquely informed because you were viewing him outside the ropes and without the pleasure of free food accompanied by depressing lunch room discussions about the demise of newspapers?
BOB: Inside the ropes or out, most reporters aren't walking 18 holes with any one group. It's just not a good use of their time. What that meant for me was there were shots Tiger hit and things he said throughout the season that I know no other writer witnessed or wrote about but I. Being on the outside also meant being free from any journalistic pressure to be impartial and civil. My feelings about Tiger over the course of the year ran the gamut from disdain to adoration and back again.
GEOFF: Was there a favorite character you encountered along the way?
BOB: In Tucson, I had an extra ticket and put it on Craigslist for free, the one rule being that whoever took it had to follow Tiger and Tiger only with me for the day. No complaining, no long beer lines, no bathroom breaks. It ended up going to a tough Tucson taxi driver who gave me a free ride to the tourney and broke the ice by showing me the gun he had hidden away in his glove compartment.
GEOFF: Any brushes with Stevie?
BOB: Nothing a little facial constructive surgery didn't heal.
GEOFF: Have you sent a copy to Tiger?
BOB: The supremely naive part of me would like to believe that Tiger will bounce out of bed one morning this week, drive to the bookstore and buy it. The realistic part of me knows that Tiger Woods is so powerful that he probably saw a finished copy before I did.
GEOFF: Anything you'd like to ask the big guy?
BOB: Plenty. But my guess is that given the opportunity to spend time with the greatest golfer ever, our conversation would quickly devolve into me making swings with an imaginary club and asking him what in the world I'm doing wrong.
Steve Elling blogs that the disastrous FedEx Cup fix expected to be green-lit this week by the PGA Tour Policy Board hit a snag: the PGA Tour Policy Board.
All along, some tour officials and players expressed doubts that the complete framework could be hammered out by Monday, but the tour needs to implement the plan before the start of the 2009 season since the regular-season points awarded for individual tournaments stand to be affected.
“While the proposed framework was favorably received by the Policy Board, no action was taken pending further review and discussion with sponsors, network media partners and players,” tour communications chief Ty Votaw said in a statement Monday night. “The Policy Board will reconvene via teleconference, at which time final approval will be sought. Final action is expected prior to Thanksgiving.”
The board received the idea of reduced fields and a system rigged to protect those big free-market loving stars so favorably, they tabled it for more discussion.
Commissioner Pelosi, errrr...Finchem, makes $5 million a year to not bring these things to the table without the necessary votes. Of course the mavericks who stepped up here are not exactly going out on a limb. Reduced fields upset the rank-and-file and make for lousy television since they produce an unusually high number of runaway winners (tune into a WGC for evidence of that). You'd just like to think the Commissioner would realize that before presenting a plan.
But worse than that blind spot is the decision to ignore momentum building for a bold Tour Championship conclusion. If ever there was a time to take a chance--dismal ratings, nervous sponsors, two straight FedEx flops--isn't this it?
In Jerry Potter's story on Tiger's press conference to launch The Cliffs, he shares this from developer Jim Anthony:
Woods said he was able to walk about three months after surgery, and Anthony said his early visits to the site left him worried. "He has probably put more steps on this ground at this stage of development than any architect we've dealt with," said Anthony, who has courses built by Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Fazio.
That's not really saying much. Those three, walking a site? Without cameras? Right.
Golfweek.com offers a nice overview of today's ceremony, which is telecast at 9 EST on Golf Channel.
Obviously of most interest to this website is Pete Dye's induction, followed closely by Herbert Warren Wind's overdue entry into the HOF.
Michael Hurdan writes about Dye here in a piece for PGATour.com, while Jaime Diaz offers this perspective in the December Golf Digest.
Jerry Tarde calls Wind the American Darwin in this December Golf Digest editor's letter. I just can't believe how clean his office was. (Photo from GolfDigest.com.)
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
