Writers Infiltrates PGA Tour Headquarters; Finds No Sign Of Duplicitous Behavior

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Thomas Bonk gained entry into the west wing of PGA Tour headquarters where Tim Finchem and most of the vice presidential army pushes paper crafts arfully worded memos and religiously reads GeoffShackelford.com (#1 in city in Florida, four months running!) PGATOUR.com.

Inside the West Building is where you find Finchem's office, down a carpeted hallway, past a flotilla of dark brown wooden office furniture and rows of metal cabinets. Photographs of smiling players cover the beige walls.

The green-carpeted Executive Suite is the biggest office in the building, as it probably should be. At the end near the window, two sofas and two chairs surround a coffee table. And at the other end of the office, Finchem's horseshoe-shaped wooden desk fronts a phalanx of six chairs that face him.

Is that one chair for every VP making over $1 million?

There are two computers on the credenza. A huge, flat screen television hugs on the wall. An armoire rests against the opposite wall, a striped dress shirt hanging on the outside.

Besides dozens of golf clubs leaning against the wall, other mementos are all around, most prominent among them a couple of dozen photographs of Finchem with presidents and golf's elite. There are also golf bags from four past Presidents Cup events -- a Finchem invention, just like the three-year-old FedEx Cup.

From the looks of things, Finchem runs a buttoned-down ship, at least judging from the buttoned-down dress shirts that are part of the dress code. Ties are required, except this week, because it's tournament time. But even on casual Fridays, golf shirts aren't allowed. Finchem walked in at a brisk pace. He was wearing a red golf shirt (Dress codes aren't for commissioners).

In all seriousness, I finally figured out how to look like an important tour staffer: Carry leather "padfolio" under arm, light blue oxford, dark slacks, designer shades. You can gain entry anywhere on the property with that look. Anywhere!

USGA Rent At Bethpage

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I've searched a few articles on Monday's U.S. Open media day and most focus on the sale of unwanted corporate passes, but a witness said that the state of New York's Dave Catalano David Paterson mentioned that the USGA is paying $5.5 million in rent for the Bethpage week. Has anyone seen his comments mentioned? ASAP only features Mike Davis and Tiger Woods' transcripts. That number sounds ridiculously high.

Q&A With Dan Jenkins, Vol. 2

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Today marks the release of Jenkins At The Majors, a collection of Dan's best write-ups from those four events not called The Players. You may recall that Jenkins answered questions last year upon the release of The Franchise Babe, and he kindly talks to us about his second golf anthology. The book includes an Introduction to the essays and a commentary on golf journalism, along with an Epilogue where Dan lists his "all-time golf team, driver through the putter and the interview room."

GS: So you've got a new book out of your major championship essays. Is this all of them or a selection of favorites as picked out by you or some really bright book editor?

DJ: My original title of the new book was "Deadline at the Majors." I still like this better than "Jenkins at the Majors." Nevertheless...I chose 94 pieces from newspapers and magazines as being representative of the 198 majors I've covered since 1951. From Hogan to Tiger, as it happens, or from the Fort Worth Press to Golf Digest, with the Dallas Times Herald and Sports Illustrated in between.

All of the pieces had to be shortened, of course, and some of them I've tweaked, and there is a bit of fresh material included, but basically it's stuff I wrote on deadline. I hope it presents a pretty good picture of pro golf as it unfolded before my very eyes over nearly 60 years.

GS: Some writers would rather go see a Celine Dion concert than revisit their past rants. How do you handle reading your old stuff?

DJ: I don't enjoy looking back at my old stuff, other than to enjoy the historical value of it. Sometimes I'm amazed at how less than regurgitating it was, and quite often I'm left to wonder who that stranger was that sneaked into my office and wrote that embarrassing tirade.


GS: The Players Championship is this week. You lived down there for a while. Do you miss Ponte Vedra much?

DJ: I enjoyed my time in Ponte Vedra---it got me back on the golf course after all those years in Manhattan when the major sports were smoking, drinking, typing and hanging out. But it was finally time to go home to Texas. You CAN go home again and be happy. I'm living proof. I haven't been back to Ponte Vedra in 10 years. I'm sure it's changed a lot in some respects but stayed the same in others.


GS: The U.S. Open returns to Bethpage and close to another place you used to live. Are you hanging out in the city for old time's sake or staying out on boring old Long Island?

DJ: The Bethpage Open will be my 200th major and I'll be at the press hotel again in a part of Long Island I never knew existed, an hour from the course or anywhere to eat.


GS: Any deep thoughts heading into Bethpage?

DJ: I'm not a big fan of the course. There's no hole you want to take away with you, which is true of most places other than Pine Valley, Cypress Point, or Augusta National. There's a terrible sameness to Bethpage, but it plays tough, and the old-fashioned round greens look like unidentified flying objects have landed there.


GS: Seen any good movies or read any good books lately?

DJ: Good movies are harder and harder to find. But plenty of good books are out there if you like some of my favorite authors---Daniel Silva, Michael Connelly, James W. Hall, Alan Furst, and John Sandford, to name a few.


GS: Interspersed throughout your literature has been the line about "nothing that a good old depression wouldn't fix." Well we could be there. Is it at least righting some of the wrongs?

DJ: Yeah, I used to say a good old Depression could fix a lot of things---meaning greed. But it hasn't fixed the PGA Tour yet. I do love the game, but what has prompted that statement is purely my own frustration with the fact that I can work two years on a book, and some guy I've never heard of, who didn't graduate from college, and never went to class when he was IN college, and doesn't know how to do anything but hit a golf ball, can make more money in one week than my book will by finishing 5th in a regular tournament I don't give a shit about , and it's not even achieving anything. It's not WINNING or even accomplishing anything.

There's something wrong with that picture. It's why in my declining years I have arrived at the point where I don't give a damn about anything but the four majors and the Ryder Cup. They are important. The regular tour sucks.

I should mention that the regular tour didn't used to suck. It used to be quite glamorous, when the LA Open was always first, when the Crosby was the Crosby, when the players wore snappy clothes and movie stars hung around them, when the Florida swing had its own charm, same for Texas, and so on. But mainly when every winner was SOMEBODY.

I live in the past. It was a better world.

A Good Time Had By All LPGAers Who Attended Summit

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So disappointing that with all of these LPGA'ers clogging my Twitter account with messages about how their feet hurt, not one reported anything of substance about last weekend's LPGA summit. Hank Kurz Jr. tries to shed a little more light on the event.

Imagine PGA Tour players doing this:

An example of the community involvement exercises that can only help, vice president of tournament marketing and sales Eric Albrecht said, is the planned building of a Habitat for Humanity home by several players this week in advance of the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill.