Lows And Highs From College Golf: Grieving Enloe Steps Down, Showcase Returns To Riviera

Jason Enloe stepped down as SMU’s golf coach, still struggling with his wife Katie’s passing from leukemia and a dreadful aftermath that includes a legal entanglement with in-laws.

Ryan Lavner files a GolfChannel.com must read on Enloe’s admirable decision and continued grieving not long after his SMU team made an improbably run at the 2019 NCAA’s.

Normally fun-loving and gregarious, Enloe retreated socially and moped around the house, caring for little else other than his two girls, Emma, 7, and Maddie, 4. He questioned everything – his parenting skills, his coaching ability, his new relationship, his growing rift with his in-laws. He felt lethargic. Stopped taking care of himself. Developed dark thoughts.

“Grief has no rules. It has no stages,” he said. “Psychologists say that there’s this stage and then this stage, but that’s bulls---. You can go to counseling and talk about grief, but it’s not foolproof. Time is the only thing that can minimize how it feels and when it comes and how you deal with it.”

And time, of course, is a precious commodity for a college coach at a major program. He’s the point person who has to travel, recruit, fundraise and, yes, lead a roster of 18- to 22-year-olds who have complex personalities and differing needs.

In happier news, one of the more underrated college golf days of the year returns stronger than ever with the 6th annual Genesis Invitational Collegiate Showcase. The deepest field yet will be playing for a spot in the Genesis Invitational hosted by Tiger Woods later that week at Riviera

Good luck to the collegiate players who have the chance at a life-changing week and tip of the cap to all involved for continuing to build on this fine tradition.

For Immediate Release, with details on Monday’s open-to-the-public day that includes PGA Tour pros playing with the groups:

TOP COLLEGIATE GOLFERS TO COMPETE AT RIVIERA

FOR SPOT IN THE 2020 GENESIS INVITATIONAL

Professional alums join pro-am competitors, with winning team earning a donation to their alma mater’s golf program

LOS ANGELES – The Genesis Invitational kicks off its tournament week at The Riviera Country Club on Monday, February 10 with the Collegiate Showcase, featuring top collegiate players vying for an exemption into the 2020 Genesis Invitational field. The Collegiate Showcase tees off at 8 a.m. The event features an individual stroke-play competition for the collegiate entries, with the low collegiate golfer earning a spot in The Genesis Invitational 2020 field. The expected collegiate athletes competing in the 2020 showcase include:

School  Collegiate Player* 

University of Kentucky Alex Goff 

University of Kentucky Allen Hamilton

University of Nevada, Las Vegas Jack Trent

Odessa College Jose Dibildox 

Pepperdine University Clay Feagler

Pepperdine University Josh McCarthy

University of Southern California Yuxin Lin

San Jose State University  Sean Yu

University of Texas Spencer Soosman

Texas Tech University Kyle Hogan

University of Washington  Jan Schneider 

University of Washington  Noah Woolsey 

University of Wyoming  Kirby Coe-Kirkham 

*Players subject to change

2020 marks the sixth time the tournament has hosted the Collegiate Showcase. Past winners of the event who earned an exemption into the PGA TOUR event at Riviera are Kentucky’s Lukas Euler (2019), Texas’ Scottie Scheffler (2018), Pepperdine’s Sahith Theegala (2017), Illinois’ Charlie Danielson (2016) and Wake Forest’s Will Zalatoris (2015).

The Collegiate Showcase also features a pro-am style event with teams comprised of a PGA TOUR pro and two amateurs representing their alma mater. Professionals expected to tee it up at Riviera on Monday include defending champion J.B. Holmes (Kentucky), Abraham Ancer (Odessa), Ryan Moore (UNLV), CT Pan (Washington), Andrew Putnam (Pepperdine) and Jhonattan Vegas (Texas) among others. The three-man pro-am teams compete against each other in best-ball play, with the lowest scoring team winning a $50,000 donation to the school’s golf program. For the second straight year, the tournament has collaborated with the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) to help educate college golf programs on the unique opportunity available by participating in the event.

Better Late Than Never: Little Known Golf Architect Joseph Bartholomew's New York Times Obituary

Joseph Bartholomew (second from left)

While the The New York Times has always been the paper of record for obituaries since 1851, they too had an unfortunately tendency to ignore important lives based on skin color. As part of their Overlooked project, they’ve posted this wonderful remembrance of we’re adding the stories of remarkable people such as Joseph Bartholomew.

He is believed to have learned from Seth Raynor after coming into the game first as a caddie, and also later as a professional and course designer. He created several important courses in Louisiana and yet, was never permitted to play the courses he designed.

From Roy S. Johnson’s N.Y. Times obituary:

Bartholomew was in his 30s, in the early 1920s, when local golfers, impressed with his interest in the game and his work as a groundskeeper, collaborated to send him to a golf architecture school in New York, where he studied with the golf course architect Seth Raynor.

“Whooo, but I was surprised,” Bartholomew told Fortune magazine in 1949. “They gave me a whole bunch of money and told me to go and find the best course in the world and bring it back.”

He did even better, returning with the design for a course composed of holes modeled on famous ones at courses throughout the United States and Scotland.

The golfers liked it, and hired him to build it. Opening in the ’20s, it was called Metairie Counrty Club, and he was named its first club professional. But while he was permitted to give lessons, he was not allowed to play a round of golf there. Indeed, he was hired to design and build several more golf courses in the area for white golfers but barred from playing them.

Five Families Early Polling: Rollback 3, Distance Sells 2

A case could be made for the LPGA Tour and European Tour bringing golf’s power family total to seven, but let’s be realistic: there are still only five families with a prime seat at the table.

The USGA, R&A, Augusta National, PGA Tour and PGA of America all have the power to sway votes and alter the course of history.

Only one of those aforementioned families carries a vote capable of doubling or tripling in times of regulatory crisis, and that’s Augusta National.

So as we assess reactions to the Distance Insights Study and consider the language suggesting action is needed to end expanding distance cycles, maybe we should start caucusing the families.

The USGA and R&A can safely be registered as votes after statements made in the “Conclusions” document.

The PGA Tour and PGA of America have indicated they are opposed to change in recent years, but at least took a slightly less hostile approach in the report’s wake.

And Augusta National, home of the Masters?

When contacted, the club offered no new statement regarding the Distance Insights Study, but instead pointed to past remarks by Chairman Fred Ridley as indicative of their position.

From the Chairman’s press conference in 2019:

“Although we now have options to increase the length of this hole, we intend to wait to see how distance may be addressed by the governing bodies before we take any action.  In doing so, we fully recognize that the issue of distance presents difficult questions with no easy answers.  But please know this:  The USGA and The R&A do have the best interests of the game at heart.  They recognize the importance of their future actions.  You can be assured that we will continue to advocate for industry‑wide collaboration in support of the governing bodies as they resolve this very important topic.”

A year prior:

“We have been consistent in expressing our confidence in the governing bodies, and we will continue to support their efforts.  Although differing views may well, in fact, exist on the subject among golf's major stakeholders, we hope and strongly encourage all who are a part of our sport to work together in the best interest of the game as this important issue evolves.”

Note the jump from advocating togetherness in 2018 to a full endorsement of the USGA/R&A in 2019.

Therefore, Augusta National would appear to support the notion of breaking “the cycle” of increasingly longer hitting distance and of efforts to restore “a broad and balanced set of playing skills” as the primary determinant of success.

I believe that puts things at 3-2, with those three votes representing the three most prestigious championship titles in golf. And while playing those under a different set of equipment rules would not be ideal, a splintered scenario has happened before and could be the outcome should the Tour’s and PGA of America decide to hold their ground.

Fried Egg Podcast 170: Talking Distance Report From The Architecture Perspective, PGL And More

Andy Johnson flew all the way to LA to taste delicious Bixby Coffee and with a variety of major golf stories related to preferred topics, asked me to sit for a lengthy chat about the USGA/R&A Distance Study, the Premier Golf League, the upcoming Genesis at Riviera and even how to cope with folks who whine about losing distance. In five years. Maybe.

The iTunes link is here and you can find the Fried Egg Golf Podcast wherever fine shows are streamed.

PGA Tour Spokesman: "We feel today's game is more exciting than ever for our fans"

Rex Hoggard of GolfChannel.com examines the likelihood of the PGA Tour not going quietly on the distance issue, even though their initial statement after the Distance Insights Study exuded peace and prosperity! Silly me for thinking Live Under Par culture could be restrained for long.

Hoggard writes:

However, asked specifically if the Tour considers increasing distance gains a “problem,” a spokesman for the circuit offered a slightly less sanitized version: “The PGA Tour will continue to work with the USGA and the R&A in monitoring trends. At this point, we feel today’s game is more exciting than ever for our fans and the integrity of the competitions are intact – we still see a diverse set of winners on the PGA Tour and our examination of the data reveals that the skills involved in winning a PGA Tour event remain largely unchanged. But we are carefully reviewing the findings in the Distance Insights Report and we will collaborate with all of our industry partners, including the USGA and the R&A, on the next steps in the process.”

Down boy, down!

Is this a bad time to note that Sunday’s Golf Channel’s pre-coverage of the 2020 Waste Management Open lost to Hallmark Channel’s Kittlen Bowl VII and CBS’s final round coverage was way down for this more exciting than ever golf?

Hoggard added this commentary:

Clutch putting will always be a central element of the game – along with ball-striking, the short game and course management – but fans don’t tune in to watch players convert 3-footers for par. Fans want to see long drives and birdies and eagles and excitement. Anything that endangers that simple formula is going to be heavily and understandably scrutinized.

An excess of seeing three-footers is a television issue.

And last I looked, the highest rated, best attended golf tournament featuring the toughest ticket in sports, shows us just a few tee shots. The roars all come at the greens.

Guardian: World Cup Eyed As Possible $10 Million Mixed Event

The Guardian’s Ewan Murray says the biennial World Cup may get a purse bump and female professionals joining the event. It’s not clear if they would compete as a mixed partners event, though that seems likely.

Origin Sports Group, where the multimillionaire Sir Keith Mills is a director, has been integral to the World Cup project. Australia hosted it last November but even the event’s place in the golfing calendar may be subject to change, with venues in Europe and the Middle East expressing interest in the World Cup under a fresh guise.

Nothing is expected to be in place by the time the World Cup tees off this year – with Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry to defend the trophy on behalf of Belgium – but alterations for 2022 are entirely plausible.

With this week’s Vic Open and the European Tour’s mixed event hosted by Stenson and Sorenstam, it would seem only a matter of time before a big purse and established name such as the World Cup makes this long overdue move.

2020 Waste Management Ratings Hit Nine-Year Low

Paulsen at SportsMediaWatch.com reports the nine-year-low Waste Management Open ratings despite a solid leaderboard and compelling finish on CBS. Webb Simpson defeated Tony Finau on the first playoff hole for his sixth PGA Tour win.

Sunday’s final round of the PGA Tour Phoenix Open averaged a 1.75 rating and 2.87 million viewers on CBS, marking the tournament’s smallest final round audience since 2011 (2.70M). Webb Simpson’s playoff win, which ended shortly before the Super Bowl began, declined 30% in ratings and viewership from both last year and 2018 (2.5, 4.08M).

Third round action on Saturday averaged a 1.45 and 2.19 million, down 16% in both measures from last year (1.7, 2.60M) and down 30% and 34% respectively from 2018 (2.1, 3.30M).

Last year’s Waste Management featuring Rickie Fowler drew a 2.5/4.075 viewers, a six-year high on NBC due to it being a CBS Super Bowl year, which was the event’s second largest audience ever.

According to ShowBuzzDaily, the early round weekend coverage drew nice-sized audiences as long as you are not an age-discriminating ad executive, where the coveted 18-49’s were in short supply (126k, 132k averages).

Sunday’s .1 placed the early coverage 61st among cable shows, edging out Nickelodeon’s Lego Jurassic World.

Mickelson: "I don't think we've had massive equipment changes."

Phil Mickelson, speaking as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am defending champion and hot off a T3 in Saudi Arabia, touched on a number of topics Wednesday. Besides confirming he will not take a special exemption to the U.S. Open should he not be exempt, Mickelson answered this question about the USGA/R&A Distance Insights Study.

I’m not sure those who pay him lavishly to say that his equipment has helped him gain distance will be thrilled with Phil after this answer:

PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, I don't know. I didn't really read anything tangible from the report. I only saw that they were, they didn't want each generation to continue getting longer and longer. I also don't feel that you should punish the athletes for getting better. I don't think that we have had massive equipment changes. We have just had athletes that have been able to take advantage of the equipment more so than in the past.

So no need to get this year’s driver? Got it. That would also mean if the equipment has peaked in offering a boost, there should be no harm in tweaking rules a tad to help restore some sanity, right? No.

And I hate to see that discourage. You look at what Bryson has done getting in the gym, getting after it, lifting weights, and hitting bombs, and now he's -- now you're talking about trying to roll it back because he's made himself a better athlete. So I don't know if I agree with that.

No one else in the world but PGA Tour pros. At least you recognized that…

But I also don't really understand the whole scope of how it affects the game and how it affects agronomy and golf courses and so forth, so I'm not sure I'm the best one to really comment on it. I just know from the small little bubble of the PGA TOUR, I hit a seeing the athletes be punished or discouraged from continuing to work and get better.

Now last I checked, if there is a rollback, golfers will keep everything they can to gain an advantage, including efforts to gain “speed.”

Players Say The Darndest Things: Reactions To The Prospect Of Rules Bifurcation

Paul Casey: “There’s an argument for this. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. But the golf courses became longer because the golf developers said if we can make the golf courses longer, we can get four more houses on that hole and two more on that hole, etc. That’s more money. And that’s when the manufactures and the players – including the amateurs – rose to the challenge. They had to start hitting the ball longer. I don’t like us players and the manufactures[SP] getting the blame. We’re not the only ones to blame.”

Billy Horschel:

I was presented with a vast research a few years that showed in the 90s courses that started being built were being built dramatically longer that before. Developers wanted championship courses. It was believed to be a championship course you had to have length. Also, developers.

— Billy Horschel (@BillyHo_Golf) February 5, 2020

wanted more room for houses. The course designers who built these courses went along with the developer because they were being paid a nice sum. So courses were being built longer so OEM had to figure a better way to increase distance quickly. Driver improves. ProV1 is produced.

— Billy Horschel (@BillyHo_Golf) February 5, 2020

Brandel Chamblee: “The golf ball can easily be constricted by raising the fairway heights, growing the rough and firming up the greens,” he explained.

Distance Report Closer Look: "The performance of golf balls has changed significantly over the last 25 years, with many of those changes contributing directly to hitting distance increases."

What I have read so far adds up to one impressive piece of documentation and yes, at times, subtle maneuvering. Before finishing the entire Distance Insights Report compiled by some smart and very talented folks at the governing bodies, I can’t help but highlight parts that get at prevailing debates.

The USGA and R&A have come at this issue from many angles, with the early portion of the report laying the groundwork to get at key questions related to primary causes of sudden jumps in distance, the increases at different levels and around page 22, the role of equipment in distance gains.

For those keeping an open mind, the report’s detailing of aerodynamics related to the golf ball and driver heads builds a case before concluding that a disproportionate advantage is enjoyed by elite players as the golf balls have grown, gulp, stiffer.

From page 34 of the report:

The performance of golf balls has changed significantly over the last 25 years, with many of those changes contributing directly to hitting distance increases. The most significant change in golf balls in this period has been the replacement of the wound-core golf balls used since the early 1900s with the multi-layer, solid-core balls that are ubiquitous today. Multi-layer solid construction golf balls is not a new innovation, but many golfers continued to use wound golf balls until as late as the beginning of the 2000s. Typically, multi-layer, solid-core balls spin considerably less than wound-core balls at typical driver impact angles (R20 - Effect of Equipment on Distance - Golf Balls). This is an important factor for driver shot distance because decreases in spin can directly contribute to increases in distance. For example, referring to Figure 27, a decrease of spin of around 250 rpm can lead to an increase in distance of as much as five yards at a swing speed of 120 miles per hour.

A comparison of a popular, older, wound-core golf ball and a popular, modern, solid-core golf ball suggests that the latter has both improved aerodynamics and is optimized for a lower spin rate. It can be seen in Figure 27 that for the impact speed typical of elite male golfers, at a spin rate of 3000 rpm, the aerodynamic improvement of a modern solid-core ball was calculated to be worth approximately ten yards over a traditional wound-core ball.

Couple that with what happens at impact and you have, well elite players getting a bigger boost from recent advances than the rest of us:

The coefficient of restitution of the impact between the club and the ball, previously discussed in Section 3.2.1.1, is also dependent on ball material and construction. As impact speed increases, more energy is lost in the collision between the clubhead and the golf ball resulting in a lower coefficient of restitution. However, the stiffness of a golf ball can significantly reduce this decrease in coefficient of restitution, especially for the impact between the ball and a clubhead having significant spring-like effect. A golf ball with a lower stiffness will have a lower coefficient of restitution reduction at higher clubhead speeds (R19 - Effect of Equipment on Distance - Driver, Figure 28).

It can be seen in Figure 28 that the difference in the coefficient of restitution (and thus the resulting launch speed and distance) between a soft ball and the stiff balls (A-C) is much greater at high impact speeds than at low ones.

While certainly not warm and fuzzy language, this case is an important part of the debate over possibly tightening up certain equipment rules. Many average golfers believe possible elite player equipment rule changes will cause them to lose all of their hard-bought distance gains. The science says otherwise.

Agent On Current PGA Tour Structure: "Tiger Woods can sell a million dollars' worth of tickets...and he has to shoot scores to get paid"

Bob Harig of ESPN.com provides an “everything you need to know about the league trying to challenge the PGA Tour” perspective. Of note, he focuses in on the building sense that top players and their agents see the stars in golf as severely underpaid, something the Premier Golf League appears to have tapped into.

Said an agent who wished not to be identified: "How can an organization negotiate hundreds of millions of dollars of TV contracts and someone like Tiger or Rory goes out and has the same chance of making the same money as some guy who has come off the Korn Ferry Tour? There is no arbitration panel. And no judge would say that is a fair economic model."

Right or wrong, that has always been a successful model of the PGA Tour. Golf fans have enjoyed the democratic nature of the sport, including the occasional unknown taking down a star. In return, the star has benefited from the opportunity to play via endorsement income that the Tour does not see one penny of after giving them a platform.

But in recent years a few things have changed. The schedule is now year-round and the stars are increasingly asked to tee it up more, including “playoffs” after major season when they would like to be recharging their batteries. The top players are called up every year to play a Cup event. In return? A small donation to their pet cause and free merch they’ll never wear again.

With this added “inventory,” the sense of obligation to play has swollen to untenable levels in the eyes of the elite. Which is how we’ve gotten to this messy place where the Premier Golf League can come along and look attractive to top players by countering the current model.

NY Times On Seth Waugh Not Wanting To Give Donald Trump Deutsche Bank Loans

David Enrich files a lengthy New York Times look at President Donald Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank and two of his key efforts at funding golf projects: Turnberry and Doral.

Former CEO and current PGA of America president Seth Waugh comes up as a key player who consistently opposed lending the Trump organization for projects after having been burned during his time at Merrill Lynch.

In 2000, Waugh joined ­Deutsche Bank. Perma-­tanned and with long, floppy hair, Waugh developed a reputation among some ­Deutsche Bank colleagues for being a bit of a lightweight. They derided him for spending more time on the golf course than he did in the office. (Today Waugh is the chief executive of the Professional Golfers’ Association of America.) But he enjoyed the confidence of one of ­Deutsche Bank’s highest-­ranking executives, Josef Ackermann, who helped recruit him from Merrill Lynch. In 2001, Waugh learned that ­Deutsche Bank was planning to lend Trump about $500 million to use as he wished — basically an unrestricted cash infusion to stabilize his flagging finances. Having witnessed up close the carnage that Trump could inflict on imprudent financial institutions, Waugh was in no hurry to repeat the experience.

The bank ultimately provided a loan for Trump’s purchase of Doral at a bargain price, and how Waugh was no longer in charge of the American operation when the future president returned for a 2016 loan request to pay for work at Turnberry.

While the story is a fairly devastating look at the losses left behind by Trump in several instances, the Enrich account of Waugh, the current PGA President, seems tough early on but ultimately paints the picture of a shrewd banker knowing the tendencies of the customer in question.

PGA Tour, PGA of America Sing Fresh Tunes After Distance Report Release

The PGA of America had no comment on the USGA/R&A distance report opening the door to rules bifurcation, while the PGA Tour issued this statement, as reported by ESPN.com’s Bob Harig:

"Since 2003, we have been working closely with the USGA and The R&A to closely monitor distance, and this latest report is an expanded and thorough review of the topic, and others, which are all important to the game," the PGA Tour said in a statement. "The R&A and the USGA are our partners, and the PGA Tour will continue to collaborate with them, along with all of our other industry partners, on the next steps in this process.

"We believe the game is best served when all are working in a unified way, and we intend to continue to approach this issue in that manner. The PGA Tour is committed to ensuring any future solutions identified benefit the game as a whole without negatively impacting the Tour, its players or our fans' enjoyment of our sport."

While hardly endorsements, it’s noteworthy that both organizations have shifted from the recent stances of distance-is-everything, to saying nothing (PGA), or sounding quite respectful of the process ahead of us (PGA Tour).

Ultimately both organizations may revert to recent form and battle the governing bodies. But as has been noted here and elsewhere, their cases that distance helps sell golfers on taking up the game to the benefit of PGA of America teaching pros, or puts people in the seats at PGA Tour events, seems worthy of deeper consideration.

Bill Fields Named 2020 PGA Of America Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Great news from the PGA of America arrived today on recognizing Bill Fields as their latest Lifetime Achievement Award winner in journalism. I am a longtime admirer of his work, and as someone who got to work with Fields at Golf World, I can attest that his passion for the sport is unmatched. He is an equally talented editor whose deft touch and insights always made the work of talented writers that much better.

The full story on Bill’s sensational career can be read here at PGA.com includes this:

Fields, 60, is the 31st recipient of the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, which recognizes members of the media for their steadfast promotion of golf. Fields’ work spans 109 men’s major championships, eight Ryder Cups, more than 60 women’s and PGA Tour Champions majors, and more than 800 Golf World issues.

He will be honored on April 8 at the ISPS HANDA 48th Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA) Awards Dinner.

Links: Distance Insight Report And Other Pertinent Documents

The USGA’s page devoted to all information imaginable on distance, perhaps minus their ideal solution. We have to wait at least a year on that.

Here is a direct link to the full 102-page report.

If you prefer the R&A version, here is their page devoted to the project with various documents to download.

Here is the excellent summary report, also addressed in my blog post.