Dottie Goes To ESPN...

In Ron Sirak's story on Dottie Pepper there was some indication that we might be hearing Pepper announce again soon and it turns out ESPN is her destination. Nice get for their team.

For Immediate Release:

Dottie Pepper Joins ESPN’s Golf Coverage Team
 
Dottie Pepper, a major championship-winning golfer as well as a respected television commentator and author, has joined ESPN’s golf coverage team and will make her on-air debut at next month’s U.S. Open.
 
Pepper, a 17-time winner on the LPGA Tour during her career, will serve multiple roles on ESPN’s multiplatform golf coverage including analyst, on-course reporter and anchor during live play. She also will be an analyst on ESPN’s signature news and information program SportsCenter and will write for ESPN.com.
 
"Joining the ESPN golf team offers me the chance to cover the greatest golf events in the world,” said Pepper. “It's a team of passionate and proven winners, dedicated to making the events they cover the best in the game."
 
Pepper, who retired from the LPGA in 2004, worked for the past eight years as a golf commentator for NBC Sports and The Golf Channel and also was a contributing columnist for Sports Illustrated. She announced at the end of the 2012 season that she would be joining the PGA of America Board of Directors to work on developing junior golf in the United States.
 
ESPN’s championship golf schedule for 2013 includes the Masters, U.S. Open and The Open Championship; the U.S. Women’s Open and Women’s British Open; and the U.S. Senior Open and Senior Open Championship.
 
“ESPN’s golf schedule is perfect for me,” said Pepper. “I love working in television and this schedule allows me to do that but also gives me time to continue my work with the PGA of America and junior golf. It’s an ideal situation.”
 
A three-time NCAA All-American golfer at Furman University, Pepper turned pro in 1987 and her 17 victories on the LPGA Tour included two of women’s golf’s major championships. She was LPGA Player of the Year in 1992, a six-time Solheim Cup team member and won more than $6.8 million during her career.
 
In addition to her work on television, Pepper also is co-author of the Bogey Tees Off and Bogey Ballton’s Night Before Christmas children’s books. 
 
"We're very pleased to have the opportunity for Dottie to join our team,” said Mike McQuade, ESPN vice president, production. “Her knowledge, experience and professionalism will bring another layer of strength to our golf coverage."

Forbes: Finchem Leaps Tall Buildings In Single A Bound!

Monte Burke looks at how Tim Finchem--all by himself!--saved the tour from ruin as the markets crashed and a fire hydrant jumped in front of Tiger's Escalade.

Thanks to all who sent what, despite the focus on Finchem with little mention of some of his hard-working lieutenants, lays out the business model for the PGA Tour in often impre$$ive detail. If the PGA Tour was a Jewish Tea Party group, the IRS would have a field day!

A few noteworthy parts in the interest of being able to hyperlink these in the future (the story is in the May 27 Forbes).

Under Finchem the tour has been able to stockpile investment assets that are now almost precisely $1 billion. *(Some $675 million of that money is in player retirement funds, which the tour lists as both an asset and a liability. Another $73 million is in cash.)

So when the perfect storm appeared, Finchem was negotiating from strength. He was able to assure nervous broadcasters that the game would be a risk-free investment. In a worst-case scenario the tour could use that money to fund its tournaments and keep the game on TV. “Even in the worst of the recession, we never missed a beat financially with the guarantees the tour gave us,” says CBS’s McManus.

The model stuff...

Here’s the model that continues to this day: A corporation–say, AT&T–signs up with the tour as a title sponsor of a tournament, usually paying between $8 million and $13 million for the honor (events that are televised only on the Golf Channel and do not have the final two rounds on either CBS or NBC pay a little less; a handful of sponsors pay more). Nearly half of that money goes directly to the event’s broadcaster, in the form of presold ads. The tour guarantees that between 60% and 65% of the broadcaster’s ads will be accounted for and traditionally delivers up to 85%. The remaining ad time is easy enough to fill: Unlike other sports, many viewers of tour events actually play the game, which gives endemic advertisers–like ball, clothing and club manufacturers–strong incentive to buy spots.

The rest of the title sponsorship money goes to a local tournament organizer, which is a nonprofit entity (the tour itself runs 16 events). These local groups use that money to put on the tournament–mainly with volunteers–and pay a share of the purse (the tour chips in as well). Revenues are generated through ticket sales, hospitality and local advertising. Any leftover money, after expenses, is donated to local charities.

Love this from the Shark...who is also quoted wanting to audit the tour in a sidebar for the story.

In 1999 the tour, along with four of the world’s other large professional golf tours, started what’s known as the World Golf Championships, a series of now four tournaments for only the top players in the world, with purses of close to $9 million. It was basically Norman’s idea. “It still irritates me, big time,” says Norman. “He cast me as a guy who was trying to ruin the game of golf, then he does this.”

And it seems Tim will be taking retirement in 2016...

Finchem expects to retire that year, and the Olympic debut provides him with a closing chapter. “My team here is mature and ready,” he says. His retirement challenge, he says, will be hiking to the summit of the 50-plus 14,000-foot mountains in Colorado. “I’ve done 16 so far,” says a man who knows a thing or two about peaks and valleys.

CSI: Tigerdrop Sawgrass '13 Winners!

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:

Only On ebay Files: The Unworn Memorial Shirt

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!

WADA Softening Stance On Mary Jane

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.

"ROYAL LIVERPOOL TO HOST 2019 WALKER CUP"

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?

For Immediate Release...

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.

Fate Of Keiser's Bandon Muni TBD

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.

'13 Players Final Round Ratings Up 68% On A 5.7

Ed Sherman with the details via SBD.

Golf 20/20 Hopes To Grow Number Of American Golfers To 30 Million

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.