Tiger's Event Lands Title Sponsor

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Granted, it's a one-year deal, but a bit overdue as the annual World Challenge at Sherwood is a sweet deal for a sponsor: nice ratings, nice field, well-attended, great pro-am and for much less than a regular tour event.

It's also $4 million Tiger won't be spending this year.

For Immediate Release:

NORTHWESTERN MUTUAL ASSUMES ROLE OF TITLE SPONSOR OF THE 15TH ANNUAL WORLD CHALLENGE  DEC. 2-8 AT SHERWOOD COUNTRY CLUB
 
Tickets for the Northwestern Mutual World Challenge are now on sale at www.worldchallengegolf.com
 
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (August 14, 2013) – The Tiger Woods Foundation welcomes Northwestern Mutual, a leading financial security company, as the title sponsor of the 15th annual World Challenge. The Northwestern Mutual World Challenge, held Dec. 2 – 8, 2013 at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif., will again welcome host Tiger Woods along with 17 of the TOUR’s best players to compete for the $1 million top prize. The tournament, co-sponsored by the PGA TOUR, benefits the college-access programs of the Tiger Woods Foundation.
 
“Northwestern Mutual has been an excellent partner over the years, and we are excited they will be the title sponsor of the World Challenge,” Woods said. “I’m really looking forward to competing this year. This event welcomes a fantastic field, and it’s always fun to come home and play in front of the Southern California fans.”

Video: Dufner Waggle Supercut & A Past Story

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Thanks to reader Charlie for nice retro link on PGA Champion Jason Dufner from Jim McCabe.

The story first appeared on Golfweek.com in April, 2012, and documents Dufner's rise from obscurity to burgeoning talent on the PGA Tour following his playoff loss at Atlanta Athletic Club.

How Dufner even got his foot into the PGA Tour door speaks volumes for the man’s commitment to his craft. No hand-outs, no slew of tournament exemptions, just an old-fashioned determination.

Having graduated in the spring of 2000, Dufner played the Golden Bear Tour that summer and fall and was going to do likewise in 2001 when he decided to do a Monday qualifier for a Nationwide Tournament in Hershey, Penn.

He finished T-12, which got him into the next week’s tournament in Wichita and when Dufner edged out David Gossett, Todd Rose, and Jeff Gove for that victory, he was at least in the PGA Tour family. For the rest of ‘01 and all of the next two years, Dufner toiled in the minors, then he had a forgettable 2004 season on the PGA Tour. Back on the Nationwide Tour for two seasons, Dufner continued to improve and when he finished eight on the money list in 2006, he earned a return to the PGA Tour.

He’s never looked back, but mostly because that’s his nature. He prefers to keep the focus on now and how that can take him forward.

Michael David Murphy pieces another super cut together, this time of Dufner's waggles. And while that may seem silly, it's fun to see how he varies them in his routine, each time only pulling the trigger until he's settled in as opposed to having a rigid pre-shot routine.


The video:

Cabot Links Secures Government Financing For Second Course

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Thanks to reader DGS for Erin Pottie's great news of Cape Breton's Cabot Links securing an $8.25-million loan that should kickstart construction of a second Coore-Crenshaw course and inn expansion at the burgeoning resort developed by Ben Cowan-Dewar, Mike Keiser and many others.

The first course, a Rod Whitman design, just cracked Golf Magazine's top 100 in the world list.

"The general feel in the town is that traffic is increased and there's more attention being put on Inverness, and more visitors," said Merv Tingley, owner of the Dancing Goat Café and Bakery, which recently opened in Inverness. "It's definitely very exciting news. The town itself is really going to see a lot of rejuvenation. "

A main reason for the buzz has been the golf club's international recognition.

Finchem Shoots Down Euro Tour Takeover Story

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Doug Ferguson talks to PGA Tour Commish Tim Finchem about two British newspaper reports of a bid to take over the European Tour and the richest redhead in golf says, not true. Well, not entirely.

Finchem said three years ago that men's professional golf might one day have a world tour, though he did not say how that would take shape or when. He says the International Federation of PGA Tours has worked together to create the World Golf Championships and to help get golf back into the Olympics.

He says the tours continue to explore "collaborative efforts."

Van Cynical: Fox Needs The Fresh Approach Of Golf Channel!

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I must say that Gary Van Sickle has filed quite possibly the strangest column of the year, taking the angle that everyone needs to pipe down on this USGA-Fox deal because it's time for a fresh take on televising golf. "We need a whole new approach to attract new viewers, maybe even to keep the old viewers," he writes.  And the people at Fox are just the ones to do it. Especially if they would just watch the Golf Channel.

Yes, he cites all the ways golf broadcasting could be better, noting the many things Golf Channel has done to make major championship coverage better.

Psst...Gary...Golf Channel is part of NBC and they were the ones who lost to Fox! Uh Dwayne, I gotta go, I'm due back on the planet Earth...

Watching players warming up on the range seems mundane and yet at majors, I find myself slightly mesmerized. It puts you, the viewer, on site at the major. I hated it when Golf Channel first started doing this. Now I think it’s smart. Watching Phil Mickelson sign autographs for 20 minutes after a PGA Championship practice round might have been a bit much but still, the scene puts you there.

Televised golf is ripe for change. Any change. Greg Norman is supposedly the big name Fox Sports is trying to land as its analyst. With this much money at stake, Fox needs to make as big a splash as possible. Norman is a big splash, bigger than, say, Paul Azinger, Brandel Chamblee or Colin Montgomerie.

It’s time to quit putting golf viewers to sleep and give us something more. You know what I really like? The nightly wrap-up shows Golf Channel does live on-site from the major championships. You see highlights, clips of interviews, a little reporting and insight from a panel of glib experts like Chamblee, Monty and Frank Nobilo. It’s fast-paced, edited and filled with golf nuggets. I’d almost rather watch the recap show than the live golf. I can get the feel of the whole day in two hours instead of six hours. Perfect.

 Hey, maybe Fox can take that to the bank! Why didn't I think of that?

Meanwhile, John Ourand reports that on the eve of Saturday's Fox Sports 1 launch, three of the four big cable providers have not come to terms with Fox Sports, which promised 90 million homes on launch day.

Rams Hill: "It’s a tale of water and desperate homeowners"

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Thanks to reader Scott for a pair of sad but illuminating stories (here and here) from J. Harry Jones in the Union-Tribune on the $27 million Fazio re-do of Rams Hill that went back when the previous owner sold water rights to the local district.

This has left the Borrego Springs, California property parched and homeowners with a disastrous 70 percent decline in value, not to mention no golf course.

From Jones' follow-up explaining how the water rights deal went bad, and the consequences of not having water.

What has happened to the golf course, just a few years after it was redesigned for a reported $27 million, is not just a story of one more dream dashed by the Great Recession.

It’s a tale of water and desperate homeowners whose properties have devalued in price by as much as 70 percent in the past five years.

Some believe the future of Rams Hill could determine the fate of Borrego Springs, the small desert town in northeast San Diego County completely surrounded by Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

The once-stunning golf course is part of a 3,000-acre master-planned community made up of six small subdivisions, a luxury oasis in a desert hamlet dreaming of becoming a smaller alternative to Palm Springs. About 350 homes have already been built in Rams Hill — ranging from spacious estates to small retirement and vacation homes — with room for hundreds more.

Euro Tour COO: PGA Tour Bidding To Buy Us "Incorrect"

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BBC's Iain Carter quotes European Tour COO Keith Waters responding to newspaper reports that the PGA Tour was launching some sort of bid/hostile takeover of the European Tour.

PGA Prez: Bethpage News Not Leaked By Us

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Because the NCAA's Summer Match Play is going on this week...err the U.S. Amateur, PGA President Ted Bishop was asked by Matt Adams on PGA Tour Radio if this was a PGA of America return punch. Though it's hard to disrupt an event that so few are paying attention to.

On Matt Adams' Fairways of Life Tuesday, PGA of America President Ted Bishop was asked if the finalization of the long-rumored Bethpage PGA/Ryder Cup was meant as a shot back at the USGA. Since the PGA hasn't finalized the deal with no press conference is set, Bishop was fired up.

 “the PGA of America would not make any kind of a major announcement that would upstage any of one of our major championship partners or the PGA Tour, it’s not the right way to do things. ”

He also said...

“I am insulted that anyone would think that.” (on whether they leaked Bethpage info)…

You can listen to the full interview here. Bishop starts at the 38:40 mark.

DVR Alert: Golf Photographers Featured On In Play

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Last week's Golf World had a superb story by Brett Avery (not posted online) about the history of golf photography. The story coincided with the PGA's visit to Rochester, home of Kodak (or what's left of the storied company).

And this week's In Play With Jimmy Roberts features a story on golf photographers that looks like it'll be worth checking out. The preview of the Golf Channel show that airs at 10:30 ET, 7:30 PT:

August 7th, 2013: The Day The USGA's Music Died

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Maybe the planned timing by the United States Golf Association to announce a massive new television deal during the PGA Championship was not as a classless jab at their "partners." But instead, a cynical ploy to mask what this deal really says: the business people have taken over the asylum and declared that the USGA must control the message in order to achieve the ultimate goal: to be loved.

And you know what that means? 

No distance rollback.

No meaningful action on any other issues like slow play, cost or shrinking the footprint of golf.

Instead, as evidenced in the comments by the non-golf people authorized to speak for the USGA in three key stories from Bamberger, Schupak and Sirak--we learn that the real benefit of this deal is money, more feel-good ad campaigns and more control over the broadcast presentation.

With this announcement, hope of genuine reform of the way equipment has changed the game and altered the character of our sport, has been severely diminished.

[If you think this story is not for you, the scroll button is, as always, your friend. But for those who want to better understand why this was the darkest day in USGA history, come with me for a few hundred words as we read between the lines.]

Let's review what we know.

- The USGA is getting $20 million a year more from Fox Sports and yet, in the big three events that are the only ones watched by an audience of any size, Fox's 70 hours of coverage "is half that of what NBC/Golf Channel promised," writes Sirak.

Granted, extra hours by no means equals an improvement in fan experience, but if the USGA is about exposure of its championships, how do you pass up more hours on a proven network? Or, pass up something akin to the current arrangement involving weekday coverage from the almighty ESPN, which, if you saw the letter sent to USGA staff, is second to Fox Sports, which was labeled in Onionesque fashion by Glen Nager and Mike Davis as "the No.1 network for sports television in the country."

-The USGA wanted more control of the "product," earning the chance to have input on announcers and manipulating the broadcast message.  "We also get the opportunity to create some distinctiveness about the role we play in the game through ancillary programming like previews of major events, wrap-ups of lesser events and documentaries that use our archival material," Hirshland told Sirak.

How could anyone other than those in Far Hills only seeing dollar signs and reaping bonuses think that such programming will be seen by more people and more of your core audience on Fox Sports than on NBC/Golf Channel/ESPN platforms? And then, who thinks this Total Information Control approach turns out well? Sports fans hate infomercial qualities to their broadcasts.

- If history is any indication, the extra TV money from Fox will go straight to the USGA coffers, ad men and money-management fees.

Sirak notes what was the initial reaction of many ignoring the USGA's lack of action to date and the newfound obsession with popularity:

The windfall from the FOX deal fattens what some in the USGA privately refer to as the war chest that might be needed if the governing body is sued in disputes over rules, especially equipment regulations.

Sorry, but nothing in this indicates the USGA, as it's constituted now, will put this money to fighting a fight that would make them unpopular. And we know any kind of distance rollback will face a fire storm of median and manufacturer pushback that the USGA would struggle to combat, especially without ESPN and/or Golf Channel as a partner.

And again...

- This is all about love. In the letter to the staff, signed by President Glen Nager and Executive Director Davis, they say Fox Sports will be "Transforming U.S. Open Week into a powerful showcase and entertaining celebration of the game of golf."

Can you say American Idol concert at Chambers Bay? 

There was also this in the staff letter: "Fox Sports will work with the USGA to expand the audiences for the game of golf itself, by making the game compelling, dramatic and fun to as wide an array of current and potential players and fans as possible." This, even though The golf people know there is only so much you can do to appeal to a wider audience, and the people who advertise in golf have shown they are fine with the demographics already attracted to the sport.

- The business people really had no clue about the relationships developed by the golf people and that became obvious when Nager and Davis threw in this shot at NBC/Golf Channel/ESPN. This line will be remembered for the next decade while Fox is covering the USGA: "Rather, our partnership with FOX Sports reflects our strategic vision to deliver for the game in new ways that can only be achieved with a partner that has a fresh perspective on the game of golf."

The message: we want to be the cool guy on campus. With the money to charter a G5.

The cool guy doesn't take ten yards off your drive and 30 yards off Bubba's. He doesn't give out two-shot penalties that might confuse and upset the new fans Fox hopes to attract. And most of all, even with a few more millions in the bank account, this cool guy doesn't tell other people how to do their business.

Goodbye distance rollback, hello ad campaigns that tap the Fox vaults for cutesy movie clips!

The golf people who are at the USGA--and there are many of them--will have a miserable future ahead thanks to the business-side, the television committee and the army of communications consultants who made this move and so horribly timed this announcement. The business side people who, in the 48 hours between seeing an extra $20 million a year and pushing the deal through an Executive Committee vote, put so much of the organization's future at risk and yet won't be around to deal with the problems that come with having taken the money and run. The golf people at the USGA will be saddled with the burden of trying to make the USGA more likeable, skipping from one messaging campaign to the next while the short-sighted folks with dollar signs in their eyes move on to their next abomination.

Meaningful action will not happen.

Frank Hannigan has said it for years: the USGA just wants to be loved. Yet you always felt that during his successor David Fay's tenure there was an affinity for protecting the game that was above all else. Take the Russian Tea Room situation, which involved buying the fabled restaurant and turning it into a museum while set against the backdrop of having closed Golf Journal magazine. Though questionable in execution and association, that move was ultimately designed to showcase what the USGA and golf was all about. It looks like a fantastic idea in light of the current actions.

The USGA's business types, no doubt working with the USGA communications "messaging" and coverage "scrubbing," will counter with the anchoring ban as a sign this group is always looking out for the best interests of skill.  But most believe that anchoring was an R&A initiative first and foremost, with the USGA going along for the ride.

And remember where they launched that successful campaign? From a sound stage at The Golf Channel.

All Set: Bethpage Black For '19 PGA, '24 Ryder Cup

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Golfweek Staff reports that the PGA and State of New York are putting the finishing touches on a package delivering the 2019 PGA to Bethpage and the 2024 Ryder Cup to the Black Course. Golfweek Staff says the announcement is set for August 13th, but my sources say the negotiations are not complete and an announcement is a ways off.

As reported by Sam Weinman two years ago, this process started under PGA CEO Joe Steranka and has been finalized by new CEO Pete Bevacqua, who worked at the USGA during the 2009 U.S. Open there. A native New Yorker, Bevacqua negotiated with then Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on an amicable settlement for U.S. Open ticket refunds after rain inundated the event.

Last week, Bevacqua praised the now-Governor for his help with the PGA at Oak Hill.

Just to echo Ted's thoughts, Rochester is such a golf savvy town and we have received such unbelievable support, it's really been incredible to see these first three days. Also, I think it's absolutely worth noting that the reception we've had from the State of New York and Governor Cuomo's office, almost unprecedented support. I think bringing a major championship into any part of the country is a big endeavor and it's big business for this region, and I want to thank the governor's office in the State of New York.

This does not get a future PGA out to the west coast, something Bevacqua stated last week was a top priority. However, because you all watched the Grey Goose 19th Hole last week where John Feinstein, David Fay and myself discussed this news, the Ryder Cup at The Black will be most electric venue the event has ever seen. And the awkward routing of the Black actually works beautifully in a Ryder Cup format.

I have just two requests for the PGA of America: integrate the event more closely with New York City any way you can. And please, please use the 18th hole on the Red Course for the finishing hole. Please!

Fox Sports 1 Launch: "It is not a hill they have to climb, it's the Grand Canyon."

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Joe Flint in the LA Times files a Calendar section front page feature on this Saturday's launch of Fox Sports 1, the future home to USGA golf starting in 2015. He analyzes "the dominant and growing role sports is playing in the modern television industry" and takes us inside Fox Sports to learn more about what the network has planned to get itself into homes (so far not going so well) and attract viewers.

I can't wait for the afternoon roundtable show when this gang--headed by 18-34 yo favorite Regis Philbin--kicks around possible Walker Cup selections, maybe with Reege wondering if any of them go to Notre Dame.

"It is a bit out of left field, but that's what we do," said Fox Sports Co-President Eric Shanks of the hiring of Philbin to host "Crowd Goes Wild," an afternoon round table that will also feature former Baltimore Raven Trevor Pryce, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay and Katie Nolan, best known for her racy sports-related YouTube videos.

You know when I think left field, I think the USGA!

As for those "racy" videos, think Sarah Silverman…only even less funny, less interesting, less intelligent, but worth bookmarking in your Dry Alternatives To Waterboarding folder.

From the story it sounds like Fox hopes to innovate in the audio department--and we know this new USGA deal is all about the innovation that the USGA didn't get from NBC and ESPN. Though I'm pretty sure that short of mics on players (at USGA events no less!), NBC's award-winning and impressive sound man Larry Cirillo has already been there, done that.

From David Hill of Fox:

Hill, who ran Fox Sports for decades and now oversees among other things "American Idol" and "The X-Factor," is known as an innovative producer. It was Hill who first came up with what now seems like an obvious idea to have the score and time left in a game superimposed on the TV screen. He put microphones inside bases to bring fans closer to the action.

"We spend more time and effort on audio than anyone else," he said proudly. "Close-up audio is far more emotive than close-up video.

And this ought to go over really well when blue blazer types sit down to watch the evening highlights:

Its flagship show "Fox Sports Live" — a nightly three-hour recap of the day's highlights and news — will be anchored by Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole, two unknowns imported from Canada, where they hosted "SportsCentre" for the TSN sports channel there.

The pair are known for their morning zoo style, poking fun at the absurdities of sport with an ironic sensibility inspired by Conan O'Brien and Letterman. While some sportscasters these days are obsessed with statistics and overanalysis, Onrait and O'Toole want to keep it light.

When I think light and ironic sensibilities, I think USGA now and forever.