Video: A Couple Of Walker Cup Mood Setters, Bhatia and Hunter

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The official Walker Cup sites includes a nice meet, greet and persimmon testing (189 carry) with Akshay Bhatia, one of Team USA’s first three automatic selections and rising star.

Check it out here.

And for those who want to see 2019 Walker Cup host Hoylake in the old days, a couple of fun Pathe videos. Starting with Willie Hunter winning the 1921 British Amateur (with a wicked stymie play 40 seconds in). Hunter was eventually the longtime pro at Riviera in Los Angeles.

And what’s a visit to Hoylake without a little flashback to 1930 and Bobby Jones?

New Driver Testing An Upgrade, Except In The Dreaded Transparency Department

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We know the PGA Tour does a lot of things well, transparency when it comes to player violations isn’t one of those. While Commissioner Jay Monahan moved the organization into the 21st century with some improved clarity on who fails drug testing, the public still may be in the dark on a number of fronts about about player fines and suspensions related to things like slow play, club tosses, recreational drug use and courtesy cars abandoned in airport loading zones.

And now drivers failing improved and more regular testing.

Golfweek’s David Dusek rightly praises the tour for upping their game in conjunction with the USGA. And focusing on catching clubs and manufacturers possibly flirting with the rules is absolutely the correct priority. However, that’s where things shift to a protectionist mindset that doesn’t seem to actually discourage cheating.

In a letter sent to players and manufacturers this week that Golfweek obtained, the tour said, “While this testing program will test the clubs in use by players on the PGA TOUR out of necessity, it is important to note that the focus of the program is not on the individual player but rather on ensuring conformity level of each club model and type throughout the season.”

That’s fine for a player’s organization to protect their own, and I’d guess 99.9% of the time players are not aware they have a juiced club because of wear and tear changing the club’s dynamics.

However, without any transparency, what’s the punishment for a clubmaker to obey the rules when all of this is kept behind closed doors free of the public shaming necessary in place of any fine system? Because Dusek writes:

There have been whispers in locker rooms and parking lots that this player’s driver is too hot and this company’s drivers are dangerously close to being non-conforming. Random testing should stop the suspicion and spare players the embarrassment and humiliation that Schauffele must have felt in July.

Random driver testing is easy, quick and long overdue. Golf may be a gentlemen’s game, but even gentlemen want to know that the playing field is level.

That includes the public and other stakeholders, no?

To put it another way: the reaction to 2019’s Xander Schauffele episode seems to be a search for a way to prevent player embarrassment, not from reigning in clubs that cross the line, whether intentional or not. Isn’t the first priority to protect skill and the competition, not egos?

CT Creep Crackdown! PGA Tour Buttons Up Driver Testing Protocols

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Xander Schauffele and friends wanted a lot more testing and less transparency after having his Callaway fail a random R&A driver test.

While all players will not be tested at all majors, the PGA Tour did announce a very detailed and seemingly logical random testing system that should ensure any drivers exhibiting “CT Creep” are found and prosecuted. The USGA’s Equipment Standards Team will do the heavy lifting and players can now expect their gamer and any backups to be randomly tested at some point.

From David Dusek’s Golfweek report quoting the PGA Tour’s notice to players, which danced around the idea of hot drivers (aka cheating) by focusing on the CT creep possibility:

“Recently, we have become aware that drivers in play on the PGA Tour may be exhibiting a trait whereby through normal use, the clubface ‘creeps’ beyond the allowed CT limit under the Rules, despite having conformed to the CT limit when new,” the letter notes. “When such a situation occurs, in accordance with the USGA’s Notice to Manufacturers dated October 11, 2017 the club is deemed to have become damaged into a non-conforming state and may no longer be used in competition.”

The story goes on to explain the process of testing and how names will be drawn. There is also a Golfweek exclusive video featuring the USGA’s John Spitzer showing how their test works.

The Walker Cup Is Back And Where It All Started: Hoylake

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Royal Liverpool to be exact, continuing the R&A’s recent tendency to take an event that could go to more exotic locales to Open venues. (I will not complain in 2023 when the Old Course hosts again, assuming there are amateur golfers in 2023.)

But this is nearly 100 years since the first “unofficial” event that became the Walker Cup was played at Hoylake, so we’ll celebrate that near-anniversary when Chick Evans, Bobby Jones, Francis Ouimet and Captain William Fownes were part of a 10-man team that played against Tommy Armour, Cyril Tolley, Roger Wethered and friends.

Anyway…

Team USA arrives two years after routing Great Britain & Ireland in Los Angeles, with only Stewart Hagestad returning from that squad. And the GB&I squads have won four straight, as Declan McGlinley notes here.

You can meet Team USA here in slightly over-the-top fashion.

The Daily Mail’s Derek Lawrenson profiles USA captain Nathaniel Crosby, a former U.S. Amateur champion taking over for Spider Miller.

Matthew Jordan, a 2017 Walker Cupper and now professional golfer, gives a tour of his home clubhouse and the amazing memorabilia recalling past competitions.

Hoylake, a much-revised H.S. Colt effort, appears to be in fantastic shape…

In an apparent nod to the old British Pathe films, sights and sounds from the practice round (in color, minus the newsreel music:

Television coverage, sadly, is limited. Screen grabs from the official site of Sky and Golf Channel highlights shows:

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Callaway Investing $50 Million Into Its Ball Plant After MyGolfSpy Exposes Issues

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First Costco and now Callaway.

It’s a fairly remarkable day when an independent equipment review site can turn a Costco ball into a must have, but even more remarkable to get a pledge from a major golf company to improve their production efforts.

In this unprecedented case, it’s MyGolfSpy having exposed an off-center core in a Callaway Chrome Soft and unleashing a firestorm in the equipment forums. Apparently there was something to it, since Callaway executives Sean Toulon and Alan Hocknell have since visited MyGolfSpy’s testing facility and pledged a $50 million investment to improve quality control in their ballmaking process.

They discuss how it all went down on their podcast and it’s pretty fascinating stuff, though I’m not sure as many golfers as they think were aware of their initial discovery and the outrage expressed by gearheads as they think.

Stanley Park: Rare MacKenzie Public Course Under Threat Of Redevelopment

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Sad news just up from this week’s Walker Cup after plans were unveiled to redevelop one of the few Alister MacKenzie-designed public courses in the world. Worse, it’s a green space in Blackpool and will leave just nine holes in a world with so few MacKenzie’s available to the public.

Thanks to reader Rob for this BBC story on the plans for Stanley Park.

Plans to build 250 holiday lodges and an adventure zone on a municipal golf course have been unveiled. 

However, the £45m investment would cut Blackpool's Golf Club course, in Stanley Park, to nine holes. 

Holmes Investment Properties (HIP) has been revealed as the preferred developer to build the UK's first Adrenalin World attraction on the site. 

Initial plans have been submitted to Blackpool Council but they have angered the club's members and residents. 

Good! Give ‘em hell. Though sadly, the opposition does not seem aware of the course’s historical significance. He designed the course in 1924 and it opened in 1925, arguably near the height of his career.

"A PGA Tour player's goodbye, and record-breaking round, at his childhood course"

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Sadly we’ve all lost a golf course we once knew or know of a favorite that may put us in the position Jim Herman recently experienced.

It’s a lovely read from another Cincinnati man, Joel Beall at Golf World, who talks to the two-time PGA Tour winner about returning to the muni that meant so much to his game, Shawnee Lookout. The course is closing in September and will be converted to a nature preserve.

Shawnee Lookout, a golf course that resides on the outskirts of Cincinnati. A place that charged $3 to play, that was so out of the way that Herman usually had the property to himself. A course whose fairways were rough, with greens that weren't, built on an incline so severe that it was better suited for skiing.

"It wasn't much," Herman says, "but it was ours."

Herman kept afloat through the memories of his youth that cascaded back that day, until he reached the 10th. That was the hole, Herman says, where golf hooked him. Driver, 3-wood, two-putt for a 4, from just over 300 yards, when he was no older than a fourth-grader.

Patrick Reed Takes Delivery On His Masters Themed Porsche In Time For The Porsche European Open

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The Forecaddie says he wanted this extremely expensive custom Porsche in time to tootle down Magnolia Lane, but alas his Masters-themed car arrived just in time for Patrick Reed to say goodbye as he tees up in this week’s…European Tour Porsche European Open.


That's Embarrassing Files: World Long Driver Prematurely Celebrates, Then Snaps His Driver

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This one has it all for Will Hogue: the premature celebration followed by an effortless club snap after finding out his World Long Drive shot finished off the grid and was unable to put his next in play. The finals are set for Wednesday night on Golf Channel.

Jack: “I Don’t Like The New Major Schedule”

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In early August Jack Nicklaus appeared on BBC’s Radio 5 Live and his criticism of the new condensed major schedule was noted by Golf Monthly.

The comments came after Justin Rose pointed out concerns about the shortened major season and before Rory McIlroy joined the fray last week.

“I don’t like the new Major schedule, from the stand point that if you have an injury, or if you’re struggling with one tournament, all of a sudden the other one follows too closely, to get it back,” 18-time Major winner Jack Nicklaus told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“I’m not sure that that’s really a good thing for the game of golf, to have all your tournaments in about three and a half months. And I don’t think it’s good for the other tournaments on the Tour.

“The guys have got to skip a lot of tournaments – you saw that this year – guys weren’t playing in between Majors. And I think that’s a shame for the Tour.”

As host of the Memorial, Nicklaus is clearly monitoring the impact and not liking what he sees.

“I know that the all-mighty dollar is important, but I don’t think it’s so important that you really lose out on the tradition of the great tournaments that have been played for years and years and years.”

Nicklaus worrying about those surrounding non-majors events is admirable and something that the PGA Tour will have to examine before locking in the schedule long term.

The interview is not available online but a BBC site posting about Nicklaus’s comments focused largely on Tiger Woods. And included this:

"I think it will work against Tiger - unless he's really healthy," Nicklaus said. 

Remind Me Again: Why Did The PGA Tour Give Up On Labor Day?

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Since the new schedule was announced, I’ve long moaned about the lack of a Labor Day Monday finish as a strange abandonment of a solid day for sports watching. Networks generally concede the day to travelers and vacationers trying to get back home, and yet the ratings tell a slightly different story.

Reader KD reminded me of this odd abandonment today, writing:

So let me get this straight the PGA Tour thinks its a better idea to end its Fed Ex Playoffs the week before Labor Day? I am looking at the TV offerings on the east coast this afternoon on the major channels---they include a strong man competition, some non-descript Indy Car race and X Games. Granted the US Open is being shown on ESPN but it is being contested by a couple of lesser known players.

Yep, the offerings are slim and Monday has networks showing their usual weekday shows when in the recent past, the Dell Technologies (formerly the Deutsche Bank Championship) was finishing on Labor Day Monday. The day’s primary competition come from Flushing Meadows and Louisville, where Notre Dame is visiting at 8 pm ET.

The ratings from the last two Dell’s:

2017: 1.8 for Saturday’s third round, 2.2. for Sunday’s final round

2018: 1.8 for Saturday, 2.3 for Sunday

The 2019 Tour Championship played one week ago drew a 2.9 overnight and 1.5 for Saturday’s rain-suspended round. All broadcasts were on NBC.

While the ratings were higher for this year’s tour finale played a week prior to Labor Day, it’s easy to picture this year’s format, stars and promotion drawing a similar rating on Labor Day Monday (and a higher rating if played on the west coast).

Buying an extra week would make players happier after a pretty compacted finish following The Open.

And yes, Labor Day weekend in Atlanta means competing with other things, and the combination of sponsors and proud partners need to be on board (a big if). But reclaiming the last free Monday of summer still seems worth exploring in the next television contract.

I’l leave the last word to reader KD:

Even if they stay in Atlanta how can they not play on the last holiday weekend of the summer when many people will be home tomorrow either sending their kids off to the first day of school or preparing to start the work week. Is Atlanta that small of a sporting city that they cannot handle two major sporting events on the same weekend (happens here all the time here in New York).

They can own the "end of summer" by just pushing things back one week and starting the Fall Season a week later.

Poll Help: You Felt The $15 Million Tour Championship First Prize Was...

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I know Labor Day is supposed to be a day off, but a funny thing has happened since the Tour Championship ended at East Lake: I keep hearing from people how offended they were that the winner received $15 million and that it was such a prevalent part of the broadcast.

Frankly, either I’m numb to the figures or naively thought fans would love see what happened with that kind of money on the line. Because I’ve been stunned not only by the volume of complaints about the portrayal of this year’s increased purse, but from the sources: folks who get all warm and fuzzy inside just thinking of Gordon Gekko utterly “greed is good” and abhor anyone daring to suggest golfers are overpaid.

I’m still collecting my thoughts on what this means for the sport, Tour Championship and parties involved, but would love to put you all to work and tabulate some votes for help crafting this column (and to see if I’m just hearing from an annoyed minority).

You felt the $15 million Tour Championship first prize was...
 
pollcode.com free polls

Who Made The Biggest Leaps With Their Driver In 2019?

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With so much attention given to the driver and it’s place in the game, Golfweek’s David Dusek uses the year-end down time to look at who made the biggest gains in strokes over their PGA Tour peers.

There is a fun interactive chart for mouse users, but this was really a standout stat:

Conversely, Phil Mickelson finished the year ranked T-165 in strokes gained off the tee with an average of -0.307. That means the 49-year-old, five-time major winner’s driving cost him about one-third of a shot against the average player. But over the course of a 72-hole tournament, if everything else were equal, McIlroy would typically beat Mickelson by about six shots because his driving was so much better than Lefty’s.

McIlroy made the sixth best improvement in 2019 strokes gained off the tee. And it’s not like this was a weakness in his game.

Video: Bodenheimer Recalls Arnie's Iconic Sportscenter Promo

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As part of ESPN’s 40th anniversary celebration, former president George Bodenheimer is interviewed about Arnold Palmer’s ESPN visit to shoot the iconic, icea-tea-and-lemonade mixing “This is SportsCenter” commercial also featuring the late Stuart Scott and Scott Van Pelt. Of course Arnold delivered the greatest of all Sportscenter ads, though oddly I found this one flat the first few times. But, like most great masterpieces, it’s the repeat viewings revealing the genius behind them!