When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Debuting August 19 at 10 pm ET and great to see Alexa Stirling and Bobby Jones prominently featured.
As I noted in this column for Golfweek, the film is most enjoyable as is the story of East Lake…every few years.
According to Sports Business Daily, the 2019 BMW Championship drew a 1.9 Saturday audience and a 2.4 for Sunday’s final round on NBC, well up over non-Tiger-contending Wyndham Championship’s previously played in this schedule spot. The 2018 Wyndham drew a 1.9.
The slide in US Amateur interest and visibility continued with a .4 Saturday and a .3 for Sunday’s finale on Fox going head-to-head with most of the BMW final round. Talk about an event screaming out for a change in its Monday to Sunday format to avoid being an afterthought.
Two notes on the audiences from Tunity regarding the BMW final and first rounds:
The final round of the @BMWchamps on #NBC averaged 557,720 #OOH TV viewers and peaked at 5:22 PM with 872,791 #OOH viewers. ⛳️ #BMWChamps @PGA @PGATOUR @NBCSportsPR
— Tunity Analytics (@TunityAnalytics) August 19, 2019
The first round of the @BMWchamps on @GolfChannel averaged 344,510 #OOH TV viewers and peaked at 5:16 PM with 471,880 #OOH viewers. The audience skewed 51% A25-54. ⛳️ @GolfChannelPR
— Tunity Analytics (@TunityAnalytics) August 16, 2019
You know they’re serious—they’ve developed a four point plan! And put it in writing.
Let’s take a look:
1. Regulation
» When players are out of position and either being monitored or timed, a one-shot penalty will be incurred after two bad times – currently a player would be ‘monitored’ and if he breaches the time allowance (50 seconds for first to play, 40 seconds for second or third to play) he will then be ‘officially timed’ and would then have to breach twice more before being given a one shot penalty. Players will, however, have the option to request one time extension per round, giving an additional 40 seconds to hit a shot on this request.
One “extension” is needed for those random moments when you have to wait on a crowd to move or one fairway over or it’s crunch time. Shoot, I’d start with two extensions just for fun and chip it away later if proven one is enough.
» In Position timing, introduced at the same time as Monitoring, has been strengthened. The time allowed to play a shot when being monitored in position (currently double the out of position times above), will be reduced by 15%, from 100 and 80 seconds down to 85 and 70 seconds respectively for first and second/ third to play. Referees are now mandated to be proactive in targeting known slow players for in position timing.
I’m sure they got a raise for what essentially makes their job much tougher.
» Fines for consistently slow players who are regularly officially timed during the season will increase significantly. For example, a player who is timed 15 times in the 2020 season will have to pay £26,000 in fines as opposed to £9,000 this season.
Ouch.
2. Education
» All new members will be assigned a dedicated referee to help educate them on pace of play at the start of their European Tour career
Ok that’s just treating them like children.
» As part of retaining their membership, every member will be required to pass an interactive online rules test with this being implemented for existing members towards the end of the 2019 season and all new members early in the 2020 season. This will be repeated every three years for existing members.
Interactive…meaning lots of pictures and video!
» Regular educational videos will be produced by the European Tour’s social media team on key rules and pace of play policies and shared with the players throughout the season in an effort to avoid unnecessary rulings and ensure they better understand the Pace of Play policy.
Oh, funny pictures and videos!
3. Innovation
» A trial Pace-of-Play system will be conducted at the BMW PGA Championship from September 19-22, 2019. This will provide referees with the times for every group through every hole to make sure that no gaps are missed.
No crack will go unfilled!
» As part of this system, and in a ground-breaking development, on-tee displays on a minimum of three holes will provide groups with their position in relation to the group in front.
Now we’re talking. Sign shaming.
4. Field sizes
» Field sizes at fully sanctioned events will be reduced from 156 to a minimum of 144 so long as all entered players in Category 18 (the final 111-125 on the previous season’s Race to Dubai) and above make it into the event. This will create space for referees to push groups over the Thursday and Friday rounds.
144 is enough anyway, but good to see playing opportunities being cut as this gets the attention of players over everything.
You want to let distances keep swelling and backing up all the par-5s and drivable 4’s? Fine, 12 fewer of you will get the privilege. Carry on…
» Larger starting intervals will be built into play on Saturday and Sunday to create a better flow between groups.
Yes well that should have happened a long time ago.
Overall, a pretty impressive effort. Will the PGA Tour follow suit?
It’s 7,615 yards and forever known as one of America’s sternest, if severely bland at times, championship courses. No one in their right mind wanted to play Medinah with money on the line.
At least, that was before golfers started traveling with their Peloton’s, harvesting their own pumpkin seeds and getting 8 hours of sleep every night to become the world’s most superior athletes.
Medinah’s successful hosting of the 2019 BMW Championship may go down as the tournament studied to determine if equipment and technology have just chipped away too much at skill. Yes, it’s in immaculate condition, the course took on nearly two inches of rain during the week and the best golfers on the planet descended with their game’s in that August sweet spot where they hit it longer and better than at any point of the year.
Still, consider that just 69 players a day were going around the place and they averaged 69.928, placing Medinah near the bottom of PGA Tour courses in terms of difficulty (see above jpg), ahead of just six courses. (Imagine telling someone in 1990 that PGA West Stadium and Medinah would be among the easiest courses PGA Tour players saw all year.)
Some comparisons, and remember the first two rounds of the 2019 BWM featured half as many players as the 1999 and 2006 PGA Championships at Medinah.
1999 PGA 73.524 scoring average
2006 PGA: 72.635 average
2019 BWM: 69.928 average
In 1999, the par-5 5th played to a 4.766 average, with 2 eagles, 154 birdies.
In 2006, it went down to a 4.567 average, and yielded 12 eagles and 209 birdies.
In 2019 the fifth averaged 4.304, yielded 21 eagles and 155 birdies even with only a 69-player field.
On the back nine, in 1999 the 607-yard 14th averaged 4.926, with 3 eagles, 103 birdies
2006: 4.951 with 3 eagles and 109 birdies
2019: 4.790 4 eagles 80 birdies, again with a greatly reduced field.
The most bizarre BMW stat for a course of Medinah’s once-vaunted difficulty: teh par-3 8th was the sixth most difficult hole, with a 2.986 scoring average.
Yo East Lake, we love you dog and all you do for the game, but as a season-ending venue you’re not dynamic enough. And from a pure business standpoint, you’re in the wrong time zone to make the Tour Championship a grand, Super Bowl-like concluding event.
My column for Golfweek on the need for a rota.
PS- Save the hate mail for mentioning some seaside California courses that would need serious work to handle modern professionals. What course doesn’t if Medinah is giving up 63’s and 61’s? The priority is seaside setting in a time zone that will deliver much bigger audiences.
Nothing says a season long point race like having Justin Thomas and Patrick Cantlay—two very fine players with mixed 2019 results by their lofty standards—opening up atop the chase for a $15 million first prize at the Tour Championship.
Koepka and McIlroy?
Yesterday’s news as they crumble under playoff microscope! Or, just didn’t have a 61 in their system this week.
Anyway, Bill Speros with a chart of players, points, wins, top 10s and their place on the leaderboard headed to East Lake. I’m going to reserve judgement as it all may be very exciting given the Tour’s bullishness on modeling of past TC’s and nothing was worse than the old system. Nothing!
However, I am waiting to hear from just one person who is excited about starting Thursday like this…except maybe Thomas!
Justin Thomas -10
Patrick Cantlay -8
Brooks Koepka -7
Patrick Reed -6
Rory McIlroy -5
Jon Rahm, Matt Kuchar, Xander Schauffele, Webb Simpson, Abraham Ancer -4
Gary Woodland, Tony Finau, Adam Scott, Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama -4
Paul Casey, Justin Rose, Brandt Snedeker, Rickie Fowler, Kevin Kisner -2
Marc Leishman, Tommy Fleetwood, Corey Conners, Sungjae Im, Chez Reavie -1
Bryson DeChambeau, Louis Oosthuizen, Charles Howell III, Lucas Glover, Jason Kokrak E
One of the voices most closely associated with televised golf, Jack Whitaker was a World War II veteran, essayist and voice of genuine authority in sports broadcasting. His career spanned decades in multiple sports, including the first Super Bowl, Wide World of Sports and legions of Triple Crown races.
But his work in golf is how most of us knew him and grew to expect his presence, as no event was complete without a Whitaker essay.
In golf his work started with CBS at the Masters—with a brief Clifford Roberts induced break—and then as a huge part of ABC’s glory years with Jim McKay, Dave Marr, Bob Rosburg, Peter Alliss, Judy Rankin and others, followed by many more years handling Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf’s reboot, he lent a gravitas like few others in all of broadcasting.
A major influence on some of sports’ most authoritative voices, Whitaker’s life is captured in this CBS obituary by Brian Pascus. The story includes this remembrance from his friend, understudy and Sports Broadcasting HOF inductor, Jim Nantz.
“When I first met Jack Whitaker in 1986 at Pebble Beach, I felt like I had just been introduced to Ernest Hemingway," Nantz said. "I grew up watching him deliver contemplative and contextual prose with his famous short essays, bringing class and dignity to his industry. He was enormously proud to have called Super Bowl I for CBS and was the last surviving network commentator from that landmark game. I spoke to him this week after hospice came to his home and his mind was still brilliantly sharp right to the end."
From Rich Lerner:
Jack Whitaker looked like a ‘60s movie star, like William Holden. Dressed impeccably. Voice was so good. Spoken or written, words flowed.
— Rich Lerner (@RichLernerGC) August 18, 2019
His Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame page with Nantz’s induction speech and tribute film narrated by Brent Musburger. A must watch!
He most recently could be heard playing the role of A.W. Tilinghast in this 2019 feature for Golf Channel.
A few things to sample since the YouTube offerings are slim, starting with this interview:
And here’s a little later career work on Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf:
I know these guys are good, they’re armed with silly-great equipment, they’re playing a beautifully-maintained Medinah No. 3 and playing all of the par-5’s there as 5’s.
And scoring should absolutely not be a primary barometer to question the role of technology on skill given how many factors influence red numbers.
Still, in looking at the BMW Championship round one scoring, where only two of the 69 players finished over par and the field averaged 69.275 on the once fearsome layout, play at the 536-yard par-5 fifth almost reached a place I never thought possible: averaging under 4.0 on a par-5.
In round one, the 5th averaged 4.087, with 12 eagles, 39 birdies, 18 pars and no bogeys.
On the day, the field made 16 eagles, 296 birdies, 793 pars and 134 bogeys, with just three double bogeys.
As for comparisons to recent PGA Championships there, I’ve been unsuccessful finding the course stats. The PGA of America has bricked their website from functioning, so all links to past PGA Championship stats at Medinah are showing up in searches but not on their site. However, I did find this in my 2006 PGA wrap up post illustrating how tough Medinah was not that long ago:
Comparing the scoring average at Medinah Country Club 1999 and 2006
Year Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Rd 4 Cumulative 36-hole CUT
1999 73.557 73.336 73.581 73.781 73.524 146 (+2)/74 players
2006 72.723 72.591 72.071 73.186 72.635 144 (E)/71 players
Thanks to reader Glenn for sending Michael Croley’s Bloomberg story suggesting a shift in how people buy golf balls.
Direct-to-consumer models without cumbersome pro-golf contracts is the name of the game, with elements lifted from other sectors that have bypassed retailers and other outdated approaches. Golf Datatech says golf balls account for $420 million of the $5 billion equipment selling industry (anyone else think that sounds low?).
Anyway, the headliner is Snell, at $33 a dozen to Pro V’s going for $52, though Bloomberg’s story also notes several others like Vice Golf and OnCore.
Regarding Vice:
Instead, after seeing the success of Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, and other consumer brands, they set out to give golf-ball marketing a makeover with cheeky commercials you’d expect from Old Spice or Geico.Vice sells a dozen balls for anywhere from $34 down to $11, if you buy in bulk. They come in lime green, neon red, and traditional white, or you can mix and match all three. And you can pair the brand’s logo—which rides the line between edgy and gaudy—with a picture of your own or a rival’s face. The company also sells flat-bill caps, golf bags, and waffle-knit towels and has teamed up with the NBA so basketball fans can tout their favorite team on the fairway.
Another competitor, Buffalo-based OnCore Golf Technology Inc., is taking a more technological approach. Its first ball had a hollow metal core, which helps drives stay straighter, and eventually forced the U.S. Golf Association to rewrite its rulebook. Its Genius ball, making its debut in the second quarter of 2020, will have an internal GPS to measure shot velocity, spin rate, total distance, trajectory, and apex, all while telling you how far you are from the green. Brokerage founder Charles Schwab joined as a shareholder in January, and the brand was renewed in April as the official ball of the New York State Golf Association. Its premium Elixr sells for $35 per dozen, but buying in bulk can drop it to $30.
Presumably the subscription model is next and why not for a product no one needs to buy in person unless they’ve run out mid-round.
Just thinking out loud here, but if these companies are eating into the major brands that would mean they are doing so based on product quality, marketing and value.
Will they grow or succumb and get taken over?
There would seem to be major ramifications should they remain independent and undercut the current model of golf ball sales built on professional golfer endorsements, counts and usage.
Actually, that’s the average of the seven who are ranked. One is unranked.
I offer this not to pick on the lads—average age of 20—who are playing excellent golf at Pinehurst, no doubt. Ron Driscoll’s wrap up and notes at the official site.
Still, as far as U.S. Amateur’s go, with a Walker Cup looming next month, not the best showing for the higher ranked players in the amateur game or much of a momentum builder for interest.
No top ten seeds advanced to the round of eight. Adam Woodward sets up the matchups for Golfweek. The most interesting story left may be that of Austin Squires, the 64th seed who earned his way into match play in a playoff and has knocked off some top players, including the top seed Brandon Wu.
John Augenstein has the best chance to work his way onto the Walker Cup team despite a rough summer. Ryan Lavner with his story and hopes to work his way into consideration.
Hey on that note, just a reminder Fox has coverage on FS1 Friday, with network coverage of the semi’s and final this weekend.
The matchups:
#USAmateur quarterfinal matchups with WAGR ranks:
— Brentley Romine (@BrentleyGC) August 16, 2019
Squires (146) v. Trolio (NR)
Ogletree (120) v. Ralston (45)
Augenstein (38) v. Jackson (555)
Holcomb (328) v. Vilips (79)
And the BMW Championship has a taker!
Michael LoRe of Forbes explains the concept and sale of a $15,000 (and very architecturally sophisticated) mobile home on Medinah’s 14th tee. The “Tiny House” was rented for the week and the “glamping” experience features a surrounding area outside for entertainment.
Organizers of the BMW Championship wheeled in a “Tiny House” hospitality venue located at the 14th hole on Course 3 of Medinah Country Club in Medinah, Illinois. The 320-square-foot abode sleeps up to six people and comes equipped with electricity, running water and air conditioning. Other amenities in this unique offering include a kitchen area, closet organizer and bathroom.
A Medinah Country Club member spent $15,000 to stay in the “Tiny House” from Thursday’s opening round through Sunday’s final round.
“We’re always looking for unique ideas and different types of hospitality options, so we said let’s put one on the golf course and have it as a hospitality venue,” said Vince Pellegrino, senior vice president of tournaments for the Western Golf Association, which plans and manages the BMW Championship. “We put it up and had a member who purchased it for the week. It’s glamping at a golf tournament."
Ok so now we know he’s more of the Fred Couples, laissez faire, positive figurehead Captain than say, the Azinger details guy. But hey, he’s Tiger Woods and the Presidents Cup is not until December.
Mathmatically eliminated from making the 2019 team on points—even with a win this week—Captain Woods talked about trying to play his way on via the BMW Championship.
“I’m trying like hell to make the team on my own. To just be part of the core group of guys. Obviously, I have some work to do. I gotta play well this week to make that happen. But if not, it’s going to come down to the top eight guys, myself and my vice captains for who are the next four slots. Whether that’s me and three other guys, or it’s four other guys, either way, I’m going to Australia, whether I’ll be playing or not.”
He has until October to make the four captain’s picks, which will have to include picking himself if he plans to be the first playing captain since Hale Irwin.
Big news for the second-to-last PGA Tour playoff event according to the Chicago Tribune’s Teddy Greenstein: a change in leadership at BMW appears to have restored the automaker’s desire to sponsor the event, a $15 to 18 million-a-year investment.
Greenstein says it’ll likely be a three-year deal with the prospect of moving around the country more in the coming years, with a fantastic venue in mind and one that is less exciting.
Sources told the Tribune on Tuesday that BMW will renew as the title sponsor of the annual FedEx Cup playoff event, starting with next year’s event at south suburban Olympia Fields. It will be a three-year deal with potential destinations at clubs such as Cherry Hills in Colorado and Caves Valley in Maryland.
All of this came together as WGA officials prepared for their signature event.
Better late than never!
Here’s where I scratch my head: since the old Western Open as we know it is gone and the Chicago district is not guaranteed to host, why not actively pursue west coast venues that put this event in east coast prime time in August, virtually guarantees another 500k-1 million viewers and creates greater interest? Oh, and is played in nice temperatures with no chance of thunderstorms?
People buy Beemers out west, too. Just saying!
From Steve DiMeglio at Golfweek on Tiger arriving in Chicago to play the BMW:
“I feel good,” Woods said as he got out of the courtesy vehicle. “Feel a lot better than I felt last week. Felt good this morning so I thought I’d give it a go.”
Woods needs a solo 11th or better according to the numbers crunchers to move on to East Lake where he is the defending champion.
Here he was arriving at the course Tuesday:
Absolutely zero movement in his hips and moving extremely gingerly. What the heck happened between winning at Augusta and now? Surely not a regress in the surgery? https://t.co/pkpTlymyvN
— Nick Bradley (@THENICKBRADLEY) August 13, 2019
While it’s not my favorite piece of architecture in the greater Chicago—or even in the top 10 courses in that ridiculously golf-rich region—entertaining and bizarre things just seem to happen at Medinah No. 3. (It still pains me thinking of Mike Donald leaving there without a U.S. Open after playing so beautifully.)
That should add up to an entertaining BMW Championship where 69 will be whittled down to 30 for the FedExCup/Tour Championship in Atlanta.
Ben Everill at PGATour.com does a nice job with this recap of past events and club lore, including a pair of legendary pros and that magnificent architectural gem of a clubhouse.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
