Lorne: "The one and only relevant question: Is anchoring a stroke of golf?"

As the bickering over the anchoring ban turns political, Lorne Rubinstein tries to get us thinking about the heart of the issue: is it a stroke or not?

This seems to me to be an argument about that cloudy and also dreamy subject of “growing the game.” That’s the new buzz phrase in golf. The PGA of America and Golf Canada, to cite two national organizations, are always going on about “growing the game,” and if that means changing the game, or at least one important aspect of it, so be it. They may be interested in growing the game, but maybe they don’t care about considering the central and fundamental question of whether anchoring is a stroke of golf.

This all leads to irrelevancy number two, which is that anchoring has been around for 30 or more years, and it has, in much more limited numbers, and so why ban it now? Phil Mickelson has said he doesn’t think anchoring should be part of the game, but that it’s too late to ban it. Why should that be? If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.

"Elkington splashes onto the Champions Tour with the same gorgeous swing, but as a combination of 1920s barnstorming player and Internet startup CEO."

Brett Avery gets to the bottom of what Steve Elkington is doing with his cultish Secretinthedirt.com web community and his stunning new house on wheels that will be his home-away-from-home as he travels the Champions Tour.

Bob Croslin's photos of Elkington's amazing big rig accompany the story in Golf World and the online edition.

Through organic growth Secret has members from more than 125 countries. Maves equates the 30,000 unique monthly visitors to Twitter, where a core stokes conversations and far more read and retweet. Elkington claims that by dress and swing alone he can pick from a crowd any Dirters, as they call themselves. "We always try to get them to think a little deeper," Elkington says. "Take responsibility for your own game."

Among the converted is Ross Roark, a west Texas horse trainer who met Elkington 15 years ago. Roark discovered Secret as a mid-80s shooter with a looping, knee-dipping swing many instructors might scrap. Roark grooved his action by studying about 300 videos, one reason the new Secret channel on YouTube has logged a million views. "If you want to know anything about golf, about the swing or the way it's supposed to be done, it's right there in The Vault," he says. Last summer Roark, now scratch, shot a 63.

Video: See The Gretzky House Overlooking Sherwood That Lenny Dyksra Trashed

The house has been fixed up since Lenny Dykstra bought it and made a mess of things, but you can see what the views overlooking Sherwood Country Club are like and get a feel for a room with orange walls.

Thanks to reader Tobin for this "house of the week" video.

Furyk: "We have to wait and see what the USGA indeed does"

Ryan Lavner reports from Tucson where he spoke to Policy Board member Jim Furyk about last night's phone call.

Not surprisingly, Furyk was cryptic in his remarks though this made me wonder if the PGA Tour will not be asking for a withdrawal of the proposed ban:

Said Furyk, “We’re not discussing what we’re going to do – if the USGA does this, how are we going to reply; if the USGA does that, and so on. That’s down the road. We have to wait and see what the USGA indeed does do and then we can figure out what our job is at that point. For right now, it was just a real friendly talk getting ideas.”

Ogilvy On R&A Motives For Changing Old Course: Embarrassing, Disgusting, Sneaky

Thanks to Darius Oliver for alerting us to Paul Prendergast's lengthy interview with Geoff Ogilvy touching on a number of hot button issues but I couldn't help but focus on his remarks about the R&A's changes to the Old Course at St. Andrews.

He joins fellow Aussie Peter Thomson in denouncing not only the idea of changing the course to produce higher scores, but also the secretive and deceptive process by which the changes were conceived and executed.

It’s disappointing in that the whole point of it is to make us shoot a slightly higher score every five years [at The Open], and it’s embarrassing – disgusting – that they’re doing it for that reason. I mean .. it’s hard to have the words to describe the arrogance of doing something like that, it’s incredible.

And...

The reason the sport is what it is, is because of St Andrews. It didn’t evolve to the point where it’s at because of people doing what they’re doing right now. It evolved, it didn’t get designed. It came because of nature, all the balls finishing in one place so there were lots of divots and that spot became a bunker. It’s the first place that anyone should ever study when they think about golf course architecture.

This was nice too...there goes Geoff's Royal and Ancient Golf Club membership chances. Join the women of the world.

I think the thing that really affected most people that got emotional about it was the way they went about it. Making a sneaky little announcement the same weekend everyone was talking about the long putter ban. The bulldozers were out the next day. Surely the Old Course deserves a round table of the smartest people in golf with the best intentions and to discuss it for two years before you do anything?

And this is such a key point about the 11th green, and speaks to the absurdity of trying to force uniform green speeds on a course, especially the Old.

They've done plenty of bunker work for maintenance reasons over time but changing contours that have evolved and adding to the 11th green to provide extra pin placements are pretty fundamental changes ...

It’s been fine for 400 years, in the form it’s in it’s been fine for a hundred years. It’s fine!

I mean, if they get crazy wind and you can’t put a pin up the back left on 11 then, oh well. Or, you just have that green running two feet slower than the others. We're the best golfers in the world, surely we can work out that the green is slower. We’re not that precious.