It's Up To Arnie To Restore Pebble Beach's 14th Green

Jim McCabe tells us how the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach came to be announced and slips in this about the 14th green.

Harper said they will hold tickets at 37,500, the same as 2010, but one thing that won’t be the same come 2019 is Pebble Beach’s diabolical 14th green.

“It will be rebuilt according to USGA specs,” Perocchi said, though he emphasized it’s part of Pebble’s long-range plan to convert all of its greens. The 14th as it currently sits presents an enormous challenge to players, even with wedges in their hands. There’s very little room to land approach shots to an elevated left side, and the right side is very low and hole locations are virtually non-existent.

Perocchi said Arnold Palmer – not only an icon, but part of the group that owns Pebble Beach – will oversee development of a plan for the 14th. Expect an expansion of the upper left side of the green, as well as a softening of the steep slope to the right. No decision has been made as to when the changes will be made, but Perocchi said it probably would be in the next two to four years.

"It's proving even tougher to live up to his own words."

Doug Ferguson makes the case that while Tiger is definitely not living up to his own words as Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of his infamous Ponte Vedra speech, there is some perspective required on the fine and spit saga.

Actually, it does get slightly lower when it comes to expectorations.

Imagine being in the group behind Sergio Garcia when he bent over and dropped a loogie into the cup after missing a short putt on the 13th hole at Doral in 2007.

Video of Woods spitting already was going viral on the internet Monday when the European Tour said he will be fined an undisclosed sum for breaching the tour code of conduct.
This was not his first fine.

This was not the first time he's spit.

"People make the mistake of thinking golf on the PGA Tour is what American golf is."

Australian Golf Digest's Rohan Clarke interviews Mike Clayton and they post a preview online. A couple of highlights:

People make the mistake of thinking golf on the PGA Tour is what American golf is. America is full of incredible golf courses but it's a huge mistake to think tour golf is what American golf is. Tour golf is entertainment golf, that's not American golf. Those courses don't rate in terms of the great American golf courses.

And this on Royal Melbourne:

The middle of the fairway was never the best place to play to the hole from. You always had to go to the edges to get to the best line because the greens were hard and it was windy. I guess you just grow up thinking that's what all golf is like. You watch golf now and it's just hit the fairway, hit it between the lines. Kick field goals between the posts. So my philosophy is shaped initially by Royal Melbourne, which was the best example of what golf was about in Melbourne. I played St Andrews in 1984 and you get totally confused by that place. You see there's no rough, really. Figure it out for yourself where to play. So my philosophy is don't tell anyone where to go. Don't dictate to the player anything. Just give them space and let them figure it out for themselves where best to play it. So if they're strong at one part of the game, they can use that strength somewhere.

"People today understand that being in movie theaters, church or somewhere rings are frowned upon, they get that."

That's the PGA Tour's VP & COO Andy Pazder speaking about the new cell phone policy going forward starting with the Honda Classic.

“We learned that the fans were very conscientious about keeping their phone on silent,” said PGA Tour Exec VP & COO Andy Pazder. “That really was the easiest piece of the puzzle to solve. People today understand that being in movie theaters, church or somewhere rings are frowned upon, they get that. We had a ring or two, but that was very minimal."

A Quick (And Rough) Look at Riviera's 5th

At the end of last year many of you requested more posts on architecture. So I took my iPhone out to Riviera Monday and shot this four minute look at the 434-yard fifth hole, one of my favorites and one of the few that hasn't been tinkered with too much in recent years.

"Forstmann's lawyers said he never would have bet against Woods since IMG represented him and would benefit if Woods won tournaments."

Thanks to Pete Finch for Tweeting William Cohan's in-depth look at the lawsuits filed against IMG owner Ted Forstmann. The story has remained off the radar as a TMZ item. But this gets into details which, while still leaving suit-filer James Agate's credibility in some doubt, leaves little question that Forstmann loves to bet, helped put Agate in debt with the IRS and Forstmann was undoubtedly betting on things he shouldn't have been betting on as the IMG leader. Worst of all, he Forstmann is not denying that he ran his bets through Agate, who worked through bookies in Vegas and Costa Rica.

Legal or not, after Forstmann bought IMG, which represents major sports stars, and then kept placing bets through Agate -- often on IMG's clients -- his gambling fairly reeked of poor judgment. The Tennis Integrity Unit has said such betting violates its rules but that Forstmann's betting occurred before its creation; an NCAA spokesperson says Forstmann is not under its jurisdiction "but that the expectation is that those providing services to the NCAA will not wager on sports." While Agate, by all accounts, including his own, seemed to grow increasingly desperate and unstable, Forstmann has come around to the view that he made a mistake; he has since instituted a ban on college-sports gambling at IMG.

There wasn't one before?

As for the explosive charge of betting against Tiger, it still sounds sketchy. Though not sketchy enough to likely offend Woods or any other client learning that the boss could be rooting against you.

Agate also claims Forstmann bet "several times against" Tiger Woods, also an IMG client, to lose to Vijay Singh, another (now former) IMG client and onetime friend of Forstmann's. Forstmann's lawyers said he never would have bet against Woods since IMG represented him and would benefit if Woods won tournaments. Agate's charge "defies logic and common sense," they wrote. (Of course, by betting for Federer in 2007, Forstmann was necessarily betting against IMG client Nadal.)

But how much does IMG really benefit from Tiger winning tournaments?

On a less important note, there was this:

That's when Agate gave a copy of the proposed suit to gossip website TMZ. Forstmann was served the lawsuit, plus a copy of the still-unfiled complaint with the betting records, two days later on a Saturday in the parking lot of Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, near his home in Southampton, N.Y.

A few weeks later, hearing nothing from Forstmann, Agate filed the amended complaint with the betting information. All hell broke loose.

Compton In At Riviera

We lose Ernie Els to a ""sore neck"" (note the double quotes) and Graeme McDowell ended up not entering after committing to recharge his batteries one more week, but I'm more than happy to see Erik Compton Monday qualify to the Northern Trust Open along with Pepperdine great Jason Gore. Randall Mell reports.

Even better, the qualifiers all go from the putrid Eisenhower Course at Industry Hills to the splendor of Riviera!

The Pit: Pinehurst #9?

It's rare that a course takes a step up in class going to a numerical name, but a case could be made that the Dedman's purchase of The Pit and the potential for it becoming a member of the Pinehurst would be a huge branding upgrade.

Ted M. Natt reports on the sale from Austin Adams to the Dedman family.

"I hope it happened in time, because I don’t have a whole lot of time left."

Sean Martin posts a Q&A with Frank Chirkinian on the CBS producer/director's Hall of Fame induction.

Q: What is your thought on golf on TV today?

A: I’m ambivalent about that. I think that there are too many graphics on the screen today. They miss an awful lot of live golf shots. That was my forte. I showed a lot of golf shots live, and therein lies the difference. My only problem is that it looks like they’re all doing the same thing. They all look alike.