"Modern equipment has played a large part in this rush of young blood."

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While Ron Sirak attributes the emergence of teens Rory, Ryo and Danny to Tiger, John Huggan says their success at a young age may be thanks to equipment changes.

Such a phenomenon is relatively new in men's professional golf, certainly in terms of so many new and unshaven faces arriving at once. Where the women's game has long seen wee lassies in their mid-to-late teens capable of contending in the biggest events, it has traditionally taken longer for physically less mature laddies to achieve similar heights.

And...

So it is that, where the separation between good and great used to have much to do with the aesthetically pleasing art form that was shot-making, today the game is more about raw power. Very early – much earlier than before – young players armed with the requisite talent and nerve to survive with the very best begin playing basically the same muscle-bound game favoured by their supposed superiors. Accompanied by squeals of anger and disappointment from purists everywhere, draw, fade and feather have been replaced by crash, bang and wallop.

Which is not to say that there is not a lot of fun to be had from watching this new generation of stars in action. 

True, but will the quality of play ultimately be impacted the way a rush of youth in the NBA has affected play, or is this just a natural progression of the sport?

 

“Evidence is also mounting that the assets of the estate will be only a fraction of the amount needed to satisfy the anticipated claims against the estate"

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Not a huge shock here, but it looks like Stanford Financial has few assets to pay off investors or "Eagles for St. Jude."

Speaking of that program, it appears that primary sponsor Stanford has been erased from the program website already, even though it had been announced at one time. At least, I can't find their logo anywhere. Not counting Vijay's shirt (left).

"Arguments for a 36-hole final dry up pretty quickly -- especially when this option offers the potential of more compelling, star-studded action deeper into the week."

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John Maginnes weighs the pros and cons of the WGC match play's 36-hole final and can't find any good reasons to keep playing two rounds for the finale.

His piece appears on the Mothership's own website, so maybe this idea is gaining momentum? (Or, for conspiracy theorists, the decision has been made and the idea was merely started in Ponte Vedra and NBC...either way, Sunday semi's followed by an 18-hole final match would be a wise switch for everyone involved.)

"So you feel for Jack a little bit because you're not allowed to do it any more."

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I thought Geoff Ogilvy was kind (and insightful) on the subject of what appears to be another Jack Nicklaus design players don't care for. Geoff's typically original analysis:

Q. Tiger earlier in the week said these greens were quite severe. What's the difference between big curvaceous greens like these and big curvy greens like at Augusta National?

GEOFF OGILVY: The greens at Augusta look like they're supposed to -- they look like -- they look right. Most of them are built on the hill that they're on, their natural looking slopes, it doesn't look like people moved too much dirt to make those greens.

These ones look a little contrived. And they're a bit -- Augusta has the bigger sweeping kind of more natural looking hills. These ones have a few little steep things and such.
(Laughter.)

But it's probably almost genius greens. I mean, all the best golf courses in the world have really slopey greens. So you can see what he's trying to do. Greens are getting too flat probably because greens are getting too fast. You couldn't design Augusta right now, every player would walk off if we walked into Augusta the first time we had ever seen it, played a brand new golf course, we would all quit after nine holes. We would all say, "I can't play this, it's ridiculous."

So you feel for Jack a little bit because you're not allowed to do it any more. But they look -- I don't mind big slopes. I just don't -- they just don't look as natural as Oakmont or Saint Andrews or Augusta like the truly natural slopey ones.

So he's really saying that an architect can still pull off big, sloping greens if the contours are built properly.

Now, the three courses cited by Ogilvy all had one thing in common at the time of their creation: they were not constrained by USGA spec greens.  Augusta has since gone to USGA greens and according to the people I trust who played them before and after, have lost a great deal of their character in the way of neat little bumps and rolls.

Not that this is a legitimate defense of poor green design, but it is something to keep in mind as the players pile on The Ritz Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain. (And if they were lukewarm while at the tournament, it only gets worse when they get off property! Playing PGA National this week won't help.)

"In match play Sunday, it's a pairing sheet -- as in singular."

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After reading Steve Elling's lament of the match play format and its impact on attendance, the SI guys suggestion of Sunday morning semi's followed by a Sunday afternoon final really is a great idea.

Last year, Woods played in the Accenture final against fellow Ryder Cupper Stewart Cink and the day drew an announced crowd of 7,500 fans. The tour's turnstile count for Sunday's Casey-Ogilvy tilt was 6,270. Setting aside the meaningless consolation match, for fans, it's essentially an all-or-nothing proposition on Sundays. There are only two players to watch over the course of an entire day, whereas a stroke-play format would have 70 or more guys to eyeball on the weekend.

In match play Sunday, it's a pairing sheet -- as in singular.

The 6,000 are clogged up, all walking on the same hole or two, making sightlines more challenging, too. Match play is a square peg on a round golf hole. That's probably why it's best left for quirky events like the Ryder and Presidents cups. Once a year is plenty.

Ogilvy Over The Final 36

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From Derek Lawrenson's WGC Match Play game story:

But all credit needs to be given to the prodigiously gifted Ogilvy, who had no bogeys and was 12 under for the holes played, a marvellous feat at the end of such a draining tournament.

From Helen Ross at PGATour.com:

Over Ogilvy's last 56 holes, the numbers were even more eye-popping with 22 birdies, two eagles and just one bogey. He mowed down Kevin Sutherland, Shingo Katayama, Camilo Villegas, Rory McIlroy, Stewart Cink and Casey as he ran his record to 17-2.

And PGATour.com breaks all of the numbers down here, including the scorecard.

"Johnny at least could have stuck around Saturday night when the golf ran long and NBC gave way to Golf Channel."

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In the latest edition of the weekly epic known as the SI Golf Plus/golf.com/Golf Magazine/Fortune/Time Inc/AOL "PGA Tour Confidential," the guys and gals kick around poor old Johnny Miller, who apparently had a big dinner date Saturday in Tucson that precluded him from staying on when coverage went to Golf Channel.

It seemed even more bizarre to me that the NBC lead man was trying so hard figure out why Jack Nicklaus scattered bunkers all over the Ritz Carlton GC at Dove Mountain's 4th fairway instead of pinching down the landing area like Johnny on his many wonderful, timeless designs.

After the SI gang seems to decide that the 36-hole final needs to go (I would agree, the morning 18 was the best part and only five spectators saw it), the group debates the merits of Johnny:

David Dusek, deputy editor, Golf.com: Sorry, but I think a big part of the problem was not only 36 holes, but Johnny Miller too. It kills me to listen to him answer his own questions when he is tossing to Maltbie or Koch. He has opinions, and that's refreshing, but it's All Johnny, All The Time, and it gets old fast.

Gorant: Disagree. It's definitely Johnny and the Johnettes, but he still works for me. Koch on the other hand is not my favorite. Hate the "that's a good lesson for you folks at home" tips he's always throwing in. If you see it, describe it. If I can glean something from that, great; if not, OK, but stop talking down to me.

Hack: Johnny at least could have stuck around Saturday night when the golf ran long and NBC gave way to Golf Channel. Johnny was out of that booth at 6:01 p.m. Eastern.

Herre: I'm a Johnny guy. Even after 20 years, he has an unpolished quality that I like. You can tell he's going with the gut. Yes, Koch and Maltbie come off as sycophants, but I don't know if that's Johnny's fault.

For some reason I thought Johnny's lack of genuine passion for golf architecture really shined this week on a new course that needed explaining. One example: The ninth hole appeared to have a really neat bit of strategy where a safe drive left gave the players a blind second shot while a longer, riskier line opened up a view of the green. Nothing original mind you, but great to see Nicklaus at least trying to do something interesting. And Johnny just couldn't get past the blind second shot or the aforementioned swarm of bunkers on the par-4 4th, where Jack actually dared to break up the center line.

I'm not saying the holes worked, but at least there were signs Nicklaus was trying to do something that warranted further explanation beyond the required raves about a new place that players clearly didn't care for.

 

Barkley Censored Twice In The Tiny Portion Of Promo Telling Us The Show Is Uncensored!

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Having now committed The Haney Project with Charles Barkley spot that Golf Channel aired relentelessly over four days of the Accenture Match Play, I chuckled each time they mentioned "uncensored" and then bleeped out whatever obscenity came from Barkley's mouth.

Yet even after airing number 416, I still missed what a reader picked up when Barkley's driver head flies off and he utters the dreaded profanity: Golf Channel blurs out his headcover to protect the innocent maker of some crappily crafted $500 pile of junk!

A double censoring. But the show is uncensored!

And no, that is not a giant fingerprint on my widescreen:

Totally censored! (click to enlarge)

 

Ogilvy Vows To Keep Shaving Until He Loses

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Sporting a clean shaven face to the delight of the PGA Tour Fines and Overall Appearance staff which tired of writing Kapalua-week emails to the Australian, Geoff Ogilvy polished off the impressive but grooming-challenged Rory McIlroy in the morning's fourth round, then knocked off pace-of-play outlier Stewart Cink in the afternoon semi-final to setup a Sunday showdown with Paul Casey.

Doug Ferguson on the rather astounding match play records of both finalists:

A tournament that no longer has Tiger Woods instead has the best two golfers in match play over the last three years.

Ogilvy is 17-2 in match play dating to his 2006 victory at the Accenture Match Play Championship, the final year it was held at La Costa. That includes a singles victory in the Presidents Cup.

Casey is 16-3-1 in match play around the world, including his 2006 victory at the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth, when he never trailed over the final 71 holes of that event. 

 

Nothing That A Depression Won't Fix, Vol. 34

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Bloomberg's Michael Buteau looked at golf fallout from the economic crisis and something tells me that this falls into the "needed to happen" category:

Maintenance crews at Atlanta Athletic, where golfing legend Bobby Jones grew up playing the game, will soon start cutting the fairways in a back-and-forth pattern, instead of the more decorative crisscross. The adjustment will save about 100 gallons of diesel fuel a month, or about $2,300 a year, said Ken Mangum, the grounds superintendent.

“You’re looking at every little thing you can to save a dollar,” Mangum said. Fewer flowers will be planted, something “spoiled” golfers will have to get used to, he said.