PGA Tour Algorithm Writers Turn Their Attention To Making Fall Finish As Confusing As The FedExCup

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"The Finals Series" is apparently the branding VP's stand-in name until a sponsor can be landed to prop up the Q-School replacing year-end battle between PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour players, reports Dave Shedloski in Golf World Monday.

But because this new fall finish will combine players from both tours, money lists can't be used and instead, algorithms will be in play to determine who gets their card for the following year. And we know how well those calculations have worked for the FedExCup; now they actually get to determine livelihoods!

Steve Sands, don't put your whiteboard away after East Lake!

"Nearly every private club in the Miami Valley has special offers. All it takes is a telephone call to learn what’s available."

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Thanks to reader Larry for Jim Harper's Biscayne Times story on "The Trouble With Golf" that details the woes of south Florida courses. It's a long read but it's worth noting because Harper looks at all sides and talks to people on the ground. Much of the talk about golf in Florida these days stems from the recent bill introduced to convert at least five state parks into Nicklaus-designed courses.
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Future Former-Almost Presidential Candidate Trump Would Not Play Golf If He Ran And Were Elected To The White House

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Tim Rosaforte checks in with The Donald as he ramps up the publicity tour for his Celebrity Apprentice season finale, all the while dangling his White House run that will never happen. And besides getting in a plug for his course in the D.C. area (who knew!) and complimenting Barack Obama's golf swing, he makes clear that if he were president, he would not play golf in a time of war. Which, means he'd never play golf again.
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"Davis capitalized on her golf pedigree as a collegiate standout and seized opportunities that unfolded before her."

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I'd usually rather contemplate my first colonoscopy than read a CEO profile, but Gene Yasuda's look at Nike Golf chief Cindy Davis not only manages to avoid the V, B and P words, but actually gives the sense that Davis is someone the golf business should keep an eye on as one of its more informed voices.
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"Why, one wonders, is there any need to lengthen a course the world's best found more than challenging at a time when the technological issue is apparently done and dusted?"

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John Huggan looks at R&A Secretary Peter Dawson's various contradictory statements and actions on the distance issue in an excellent reminder of where the governing bodies say the game is and where we actually stand. The List also gets a mention!

"Driving distance is not increasing and we take that very much into account in course set-up and course alterations," said Dawson. "We do think we have this issue (distance) surrounded."

At first glance, Dawson is right. A quick look at driving distance statistics shows that, in 2005, the longest driver on America's PGA Tour was Australian Scott Hend with an average knock of 318.9 yards. Last year, Robert Garrigus of the US was longest, on 315.5 yards. Hang on though. A closer inspection of the numbers is less reassuring. If we go back to 2002 (when former Open champion John Daly was the biggest hitter on 306.8 yards) only one player, Daly, averaged over 300 yards from the tee and a mere 18 averaged over 290 yards. Three years later, 26 players were routinely over 300 yards and 86 averaged 290 yards or more. And last year, Garrigus was one of a dozen over 300 yards, with 73 averaging more than 290 (the slight drop can be attributed to course set-up "tricks" such as mowing the fairway grass towards the tee rather than the green).

"We wanted to restore the uncertainty."

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More high profile coverage of Pinehurst #2's revival, this time from John Paul Newport Jeff Neuman in the WSJ. Funny, but with the Players Championship looming I wish we could plug the TPC Sawgrass into the parts discussing the removal of turf in favor of sand, wiregrass and pine needles.

"The reputation of Pinehurst was established in its natural state," said Coore. "Once you got off the fairways, it was wiregrass and hardpack sand. You might roll up against the wiregrass, or you might reach the pine needles, or you might have a clear, firm lie. We wanted to restore the uncertainty."

Coore and Crenshaw studied old photographs and aerials of the course taken in the 1940s. They removed untold acres of Bermuda sod and replaced it with…nothing.

"When you remove the grass, areas expose themselves as sandy wasteland, firmer, and evolution takes over," Crenshaw told me.

Some soft white sand and pine straw were scattered over the waste areas, awaiting the winds that will put them where they will. Eighty thousand wiregrass plants, whose wispy tufts are more an impediment than an obstruction, were planted by hand in a largely random pattern, though concentrated more heavily alongside the landing areas for the professionals' drives.