It’s back!
Twenty years later Tatra Press has kindly allowed me to bring back Grounds For Golf now that golf architecture is of more interest to the masses. A new Introduction looks at what’s driven the interest growth and two new chapters I had a blast adding (plus a few edits to keep things up-to-date).
The Amazon purchase page for the book arriving June 15, 2026.
Cork Gaines wins for the best forensic of Tiger's tee shot, noting the angle of splash and how it doesn't match the hard hook angle that would be necessary for the drop spot to have worked.
And there should be some sort of award for use of Photoshop.
And this "angle of view" importance breakdown is also quite impressive:
Thanks to reader John for sending this link to an auction ending soon on a shirt with quite the backstory in the seller's mind.
I'll just copy and paste the opening graphs in case they disappear...
This is a NWOT, never been worn Jack Nicklaus "The Memorial Tournament" commemorative golf shirt which was purchased at the PGA Tour 2011 Memorial Tournament gift shop at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin Ohio as a gift from my significant other who of course is a golfer. Feel free to ask any questions.
I never liked golf - frankly if you need to wear a collared shirt to play it, it is not a sport.
Dare you to tell that to a rugby player!
My SO wanted to introduce me to his "classy" gentleman's game for whatever reasons since I've always found it Freudingly peculiar that grown men want nothing more than to stare down and wrap their hands around a shaft for 5 hours a day in a toxic artificially manmade environment they call "nature".
So, so cynical. Clearly this person hasn't heard of the minimalist movement.
Anyway, the buyer goes on to detail a broken foot and ankle. It's quite the yarn!
Alex Miceli on the World Anti-Doping Agency raising the threshold for a positive marijuana test, reducing positive test results.
Under the Tour’s Anti-Doping Policy, enacted in 2008, cannabinoids – which include marijuana – is considered a recreational drug and not performance-enhancing. The Tour tests for the drug under an unknown threshold and holds players accountable, but a violation is considered as recreational, not performance-enhancing. Thus, any violation would not be publicly disclosed.
Tour spokesman Ty Votaw would not comment on WADA’s move, saying the Tour was made aware of the change Monday.
Maybe one of the players rumored to have been suspended for a positive test will sue the tour in the way Vijay has following WADA softening its stance on deer antler spray? Or maybe not.
I know I said this when Lytham was selected for 2015, but with all the great links that can't host big events any longer, why take the Walker Cup to Open Championship venues?
ROYAL LIVERPOOL TO HOST 2019 WALKER CUP
14 May 2013, St Andrews, Scotland: Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake has been named as the venue for the 2019 Walker Cup match.
The 47th biennial match between the amateurs of Great Britain and Ireland and the USA will be played in September 2019 at Royal Liverpool as the Club celebrates the 150th anniversary of its foundation.
Hoylake was the venue for a match between the USA and Great Britain in 1921 and the following year the first official Walker Cup match was played at the National Golf Links of America in Southampton, New York.
The prestigious team event was held at Hoylake in 1983 when the USA side, led by captain Jay Sigel, overcame Charlie Green’s GB&I team with a 13 ½ - 10 ½ victory.
The Open Championship will return to Hoylake for the 12th time next year. In 2012 the club hosted the Ricoh Women’s British Open and it is no stranger to top class amateur events having hosted The Amateur Championship on 18 occasions and the Curtis Cup in 1992.
Matt Ginella with an update from Mike Keiser on his attempts to acquire a parcel of land in a state parks land swap to build a muni for the town of Bandon.
It doesn't sound great...
“It’s no better than 50/50 that this will happen,” says Mike Keiser, owner of Bandon Dunes, the five-course resort on the Southwest Coast of Oregon.
Keiser’s admittedly frustrated. He has land, money, a vision for a lasting legacy that would continue to positively impact the locals and the local economy, and yet he’s having a hard time giving it away. He has been trying to negotiate a land swap with the Oregon State Parks Department for four years. He’s set to meet again on Wednesday, May 15, where he says he will make his final offer.
Ed Sherman with the details via SBD.
For stakeholders and those with an interest in various golf initiatives, check out Adam Schupak's lively give and take with Golf 20/20 honcho Steve Mona who reports a goal of increasing participation from 25.7 million to 30 million by the end of 2017.
They'll be doing it by backing just five initiatives, all no doubt with some glossy ad campaigns...
Q: One could argue it’s a mistake to only support industry-led initiatives. Aren’t these the same organizations that failed to grow the game since Golf 20/20 was created in 2000?
It doesn’t mean the other initiatives going on aren’t worthy initiatives. I can name a whole bunch, and they still will be supported. You look at a program like The First Tee that went from zero in 1997 to today more than 200 chapters and reached somewhere in the order of 6 million young people. We have a goal to reach an additional 10 million in the next five years. I would say that program has been successful from the standpoint of reaching young people, as an example. Get Golf Ready in 2012 reached 76,000 students, 80 percent of which have stayed in the game, spending incrementally another $1,000 in the game so I wouldn’t say that’s been unsuccessful.
Q: Yet the number of youth golfers (based on NGF data) has declined. The First Tee may have touched a lot of kids, but the NGF numbers don’t match up, do they?
Yes, the youth category has declined, but I think you have to look at broader, more societal issues rather than just say that youth golf is smaller today than it was five years ago it was The First Tee’s fault.
But one of the issues to that point, one of the problems we see with our sport is it doesn’t lend itself to a team sport environment. That’s why we’re getting behind PGA Junior League Golf. It creates that kind of team environment.
Jay Busbee breaks down the latest Tiger Woods ball drop controversy, the third this year (as Bob Harig noted in his story about the situation at 14 tee Sunday at The Players). The Big Lead has about two minutes of the telecast posted.
After watching the recording multiple times, reading the description of the shot and hearing NBC's Mark Rolfing describe it, that at best, playing partner Casey Wittenberg's assertion appears to be a stretch when suggesting where the ball crossed the hazard. As quoted in an unbylined AP notes story:
"He asked me exactly where it crossed," Wittenberg said. "I told him I thought it crossed on the corner of the bunker, right where he took his drop. And it's all good."
I'm guessing Sergio Garcia wouldn't have seen it this way based on the commenters here who could smell trouble right from the get go and also had some wise follow-up observations.
At least based on the blimp shots and the obvious skepticism from Peter Jacobsen and Johnny Miller, the ball would have had to have flown very straight, then hooked hard at the end. It does not take a genius to see by Tiger's reaction and the video, that the hook was immediate, not late as Wittenburg's drop point would require.
As noted in Harig's story, the PGA Tour's position was clear: this was the call of Woods and his playing partner Casey Wittenberg with help from Mark Rolfing of NBC. Since Woods took his eye off the ball by the time it made the purpoted late hook, he could not speak with certainty about where the ball crossed the hazard. The call is Wittenerg's then.
The PGA Tour's Mark Russell, as quoted by Harig:
"They both saw it," Russell said of Woods and Wittenberg. "They're back there with a television commentator [NBC's Mark Rolfing], who basically agreed with them. He said he hit a high hook. The problem is on television, that area looked the same, and they thought he dropped up there where it splashed. He dropped it 60 yards back of that. The players had the view of it."
What caused the doubt for me was this statement by Rolfing speaking of hazard stakes by tees on the fairway side of the lake, no where near where the ball crossed:
"It looked like it was over water at this point, if not before."
"Before" seems to be what the video and screen captures suggest.
Here is the overview photo of the hole as taken from the blimp, which did not appear to move much and had what seems like a very good angle to capture the tee shot's general flight.
Below is the "at this point" Rolfing refers to, which appears to be well right (from the player perspective on the tee) of the entry point detailed in the third photo.
Thanks to all the readers who sent in this YouTube analysis by filmmaker John Ziegler dissecting Tiger's 14th hole tee shot, questionable drop and NBC coverage of the situation. Now, it should be prefaced by saying this video was put together by a filmmaker who is devoted to clearing Joe Paterno's name in the Sandusky affair, not exactly a cause for the ages. Still, Ziegler makes some strong points and calls out Rolfing's shift from his original call to supporting the drop location even as Johnny and Peter Jacobsen are so clearly not buying the assertion.
**Joseph LeClair Tweeted a telling photo showing the ball flight that would be necessary to make the drop work.
Oddly, the editors of this package deprive us of one of Sergio Garcia's balls going into the TPC Sawgrass's 17th hole lake, but nemesis Tiger Woods will no doubt savor seeing Garcia's Players Championship hopes unravel.
From PGA Tour Entertainment.
Sergio-on-17 highlights from the NBC gang:
Johnny Miller, on Sergio Garcia’s first tee shot into the water – “It was almost too much for him. The minute he hit that, he knew it was right.”
Gary Koch, on David Lingmerth’s tee shot on 17 – “That is the first tee shot I have seen end up right of the flag.”
Gary Koch, on Sergio Garcia’s second tee shot on 17 that hit the water – “Absolutely amazing he would come up short.”
Johnny Miller, on Sergio Garcia’s struggles on 17 – “Tough to watch.”
Dan Hicks, on Sergio Garcia’s struggles on 17 – “You just never want to be one of those guys at 17. One of those guys in contention who feels all alone when things just start going the other way.”
And while we're piling on, golf.com's Ryan Reiterman posts a nice compilation of Sergio's greatest meltdowns.
I ran into David Feherty strolling his second home--the DFW airport--and asked him how the Rocco show Monday was and he reported that Mediate was in great spirits. Hardly surprising that those two could yammer up storm about the '08 US Open, Arnold Palmer, the long putter and other stuff, as evidenced by the preview clip.
The show first airs Monday, May 13 at 10 pm ET.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
