It's A Wrap For O'Grady; Pelley Takes Over European Tour

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As Commissioner Elton takes over the European Tour and the press (so far) opts out of tributes to his predecessor George O’Grady, Golfweek's Alistair Tait has some thoughts for new ET lead man Keith Pelley.

Tait wishes he had a webcam to see Pelley run the board's first meeting where rumors say he took them through a singalong of Bennie and the Jets before moving into a solo rendition of Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters for those on conference call from New York, Tait also credits Pelley’s predecessors for holding the entire operation together.

That doesn’t suggest Tait feels status quo should be the order of the day.

Pelley could focus on the immediate threat of a continued talent drain to the PGA Tour. More and more young players – Danny Willett, Andy Sullivan and Tommy Fleetwood, for example – look certain to follow in the footsteps of older peers and eventually base themselves in the U.S.

Despite the $185 million schedule, there are too many long stretches of the Euro Tour calendar with low-purse tournaments. That’s fine for the lower end of the food chain, but the big beasts need stretches of big money events in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe to entice them stay at home for longer periods of time.
Pelley has hopefully taken a look at the accounts, and wondered why the European Tour only makes money in Ryder Cup years and runs a deficit every other year. That’s clearly not good enough.

On the heels of a successful event at Murcar and hosted by Paul Lawrie, Martin Dempster asks the new man to order up more match play.

Video: Rory Trick Shot At Whistling! (And As Close As He'll Get)

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It doesn't sound like Rory McIlroy will defend his PGA Championship title at Whistling Straits, so assuming the world's worst kickabout-erer doesn't make it to the year's final major, we at least have two reminders of his brief time in Wisconsin:

(A) The Omega ad that has inexplicably resurfaced after having been designated for shipping to hostage relief teams across the globe for flushing out barricaded suspects.

(B) His trick shot appearance at PGA Championship media day with the Bryan Brothers. This would be a great chance to merge one negative with one positive and air it as 2015's endlessly played Omega ad, minus that grating song. Wait, sorry, I forgot about the blatant Bose ad to kick things off the trick shot video. Because nothing sums up the joy of media day like giant noise-cancelling headphones!

BTW the trick shots are fun, and so are the drone views of Whistling all set to stock music known simply as What We Think The Millennials Would Download If They Paid For Music, Theme.

Tiger: “Everything is kind of trending in the correct direction”

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More than the numbers, Tiger actually looked like someone who knew where the ball was going and even threw in a recovery shot like the good old days during the Quicken Loans National.

That said, the numbers were telling (in a good way, for a change) and Brian Wacker has a run down of them.

Steve DiMeglio notes Troy Merritt's maiden win and the impressiveness of following up a 61 with 67, but also had this on Tiger's week.

He caught a bad break on the first hole when his approach caromed off the flagstick and wound up 50 feet from the hole.

Instead of a kick-in birdie, he settled for a two-putt par. Undeterred, he started putting up red numbers two holes later. Hitting fairways and greens, Woods made five birdies in an eight-hole stretch to reach 10 under.

Then things started to fall apart. There was a missed 3-footer for par on the 11th, a drive into the hazard on 12, an approach spun off the green on 14. But there were far more ups the last four days than downs.

Ryan Reiterman at GolfChannel.com notes this about the final day:

But perhaps more importantly, Woods said after four rounds at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club he feels like he's turned a corner with his new swing under instructor Chris Como.

"I'm getting some speed back, which is nice," he said. "I'm starting to pump the ball out there again, and I know the lofts on my irons are very weak compared to today's standards. I'm hitting the ball up there with some of the bigger guys again ... I was able to make some putts, and the short game's becoming good again like it used to be."

The recovery shot is a YouTube favorite tonight:



The PGA Tour's highlight reels from the round:

WSJ: "It Only Took 600 Years for Golf to Return to the Masses"

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John Paul Newport used the Open Championship green speed delay to check out the updated British Golf Museum and found a nice tie to today's interest in shorter rounds: "short golf" from 600 years ago.

He writes:

Short golf, which started in the 1400s, was usually played on Sundays and festival days when rural folk converged on the towns. The precise rules are unknown and were probably fluid. Evidence compiled by David Hamilton in “Golf: Scotland’s Game” suggests that participants used only one club, that alcohol and high spirits were often part of the deal and that the game could be dangerous. In 1632, a spectator in Kelso was killed by an errant ball.

Which brought him to Topgolf, naturally...

Topgolf, the chain of driving ranges with concentric-ring targets and automatic electronic scoring, as in bowling alleys, may be the closest modern counterpart to 15th century short golf. It doesn’t require much space, like street and churchyard golf back then, and alcohol is usually part of the deal. I recently spent a very enjoyable two hours at a Topgolf facility near O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. I basically just practiced. The targets used in Topgolf focus one’s attention far better than at normal ranges and the scoring creates a sense of pressure as you try to beat your best score. But as a singleton just practicing, I was in the minority. (I also might have been the only customer over 40.) Topgolf is date-night golf, where “one more round” typically means more drinks, not another batch of balls. When I left there was an hour-long line out the door.