Pro Golfers Giving Back: Symetra Tour Player Turned Nurse, Challenge Tour Golfer Turned Handsanitizer Maker

Two professional golfers who have hung up their golf bags for giving back are profiled and to be applauded.

Beth Ann Nichols has the story of Sarah Hoffman, a Symetra Tour player who recently returned to nursing during the pandemic.

“I just couldn’t keep sitting on the couch and not helping my friends who were on the front lines,” she said.

There’s nothing about the Hoffman file that’s standard. She didn’t grow up playing AJGA events. Didn’t compete in any tournaments outside of country club golf until the summer before college. In fact, Hoffman was set to play basketball in college until she took an abrupt turn to Grand Valley State.

Hoffman was also on The Clubhouse with Shane Bacon and it’s a great listen:

John Huggan tells us about Steve Tiley, a 37-year-old journeyman from England who recently won on the European Challenge Tour for the first time, has gone to work for his father’s business helping produce 5000 bottles of hand sanitizer a day.

“When the COVID-19 pandemic started, my Dad was disgusted with certain companies over-charging for things that were suddenly in demand,” says Steve who competed alongside the likes of PGA Tour players Matt Every, Ryan Moore, Spencer Levin, Webb Simpson and Dustin Johnson during his four years of college golf in Atlanta. “People were having to pay silly amounts for hand sanitizer. So he decided to do something about it. We’ve been selling it on at just about cost-price to the NHS Trust [who ordered about 35,000 bottles], care homes and key workers—anyone who needs it really. What we haven’t done is sell any to anyone who will sell it on for a profit.”

Justin Thomas, Lee Wybranski Team Up For No Kid Hungry

A nice collaboration here between Justin Thomas and artist Lee Wybranski to help raise funds for two Thomas causes: No Kid Hungry & Team Kentucky in their efforts in the battle against COVID-19 and its impact.

Details here on how to purchase the artwork for a great cause. The link also features a video message from Thomas.

What Will Happen To Topgolf After The Pandemic?

Since wisely closing down all of its locations in response to COVID-19, the industry’s one-time darling upstart, Topgolf, has only made news with layoffs and furloughs of facility managers, followed by a big miss in Birmingham where tax incentives were pulled back.

In response to the layoffs, the privately held company expected to someday go the IPO route, issued this statement.

COVID-19 has had a massive impact on our business and has forced us to re-evaluate the way we must operate moving forward. As a result, we unfortunately had to make the difficult decision to eliminate many roles within our organization both at our venues and corporate offices. For a culture such as ours at Topgolf, this has been a time of deep sadness. Looking forward, we have great conviction around emerging with strength and re-opening venues as soon as it is safe to do so.

Adding to their woes, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded some of Topgolf’s ratings. The last line here is not particularly upbeat.

The downgrade of Topgolf’s ratings reflects the impact of the coronavirus outbreak which has disrupted the ability to operate the company’s venues until the spread of the virus subsides. As a result, leverage levels will increase substantially and liquidity will deteriorate for as long as the locations remain closed, according to Moody’s. Even with the re-opening of the venues, operating performance may remain below normal levels due to lower consumer spending arising from weak economic conditions and ongoing social distancing behaviors. Moody’s projects Topgolf will need additional sources of liquidity to avoid a default.

"The industry whiffed during quarantine, but this game is far from over."

With news of the European Tour’s launch of virtual Trackman matches, Adam Schupak of Golfweek (lovingly) takes the golf industry and television business to task for a fairly dreadful response to COVID-19 in a different way: how the sport has handled marketing itself and how its used assets to promote the game.

Granted, it’s asking a lot given the way the coronavirus overtook life and the difficulty of putting out “content” while so much suffering is taking place. On a grander scale, there is also the difficulty of coordinating, meeting and producing, but as he notes, the efforts have been uninspired.

PGA Tour pros from Rory McIlroy to Billy Horschel to Charley Hoffman have promoted Peloton (not even a Tour sponsor!) more than the sport that has brought them fame and fortune. Kudos to NASCAR for pivoting and quickly launching an e-race series so we could see Ian Poulter in his favorite habitat behind the wheel. Why couldn’t the professional golf circuits jump on something similar? Why couldn’t Jordan Spieth just invite a few friends over to the house for a simulator match and ask his wife to film it on his phone? We’d watch.

Finally, the European Tour has hopped on board with the BMW Indoor Invitational, a series of five 18-hole virtual golf tournaments contested using TrackMan. What took so long?

Getting PGA Tour releases?

Seriously, after pointing out that no one needed to see the Big Break XI once, much less again, Schupak points out why it was important for golf to better use the downtime.

This is a time for golf to puff out its chest and remind sports fans why golf is the greatest game of all. Where are the PSA’s promoting the beneficial reasons to play golf?

“We will be launching a campaign in due course with a number of PSAs in a variety of ways to talk about the benefits of golf, and you will begin to see those come out soon,” said Seth Waugh, CEO of the PGA of America.

That’s a start because the golf industry tends to rest on its laurels – being on TV every weekend and having its own channel tends to do that – and doesn’t need to worry about exposure. Now would be a good time for the industry as a whole to actively seek and market to new golfers and support the people in the industry slogging it out and turning on the lights and cutting the grass at 15,000 courses nationwide.

In Lieu Of Crowd Noise, Might Players Let Us In On Their "Sound"?

Bill Shaikin of the LA Times is using baseball’s downtime to consider improvements to the sport and this from Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss seemed tailored for golf, too.

“If there’s no crowd noise, you’ll be able to hear all the trash-talking. You might as well embrace it. Start mic’ing up players, or use directional microphones, so you can hear everything that’s being said. That’s something the audience hasn’t had before. Having been on the field at games, hearing it is really exciting. That’s the thing I think would be the best.

“I would be trying to replace the excitement of the fans screaming and the pulsating cheering with the inside scoop of what it’s really like to be in the game and hear everything that’s being said, and even the stuff on the mound.”

Maybe not everything, at least not in real time. A brief delay would allow producers to select the most compelling dialogue, mute objectionable language, and protect the integrity of the game, particularly

While there are physical complications with attaching mics to players that all golfers can all relate to, increased eavesdropping on player-caddie chats when live golf restarts would be hugely beneficial.

Now, players and caddies just have to be convinced that the state secrets bandied about between them are nothing more than player-caddie conversations.

PGA Tour Restart In Texas Needs Plenty Of COVID-19 Questions Answered

Five weeks from attempting to restart the 2019-20 PGA Tour season in Fort Worth, Texas, the state still requires a 14-day quarantine for travelers from California; Connecticut; New York; New Jersey; Washington; Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan, and Miami, Florida. International travel quarantining is unclear.

Logic would say the PGA Tour needs to have things buttoned up soon given that players coming from so many locations have just three weeks to get tested and then in place in Texas.

Adding to the situation in the Lone Star State, as Governor Greg Abbott reopens his state, he’s been heard on tape this week admitting that it’s “almost ipso facto” that reopening the state for business “will lead to an increase” in COVID-19 spread.

Welcome to the great state of Texas boys!

Until questions are answered by the Tour about how everything will work, they are rolling out a player each week to select, special media.

So this week’s player who answered his phone at just the wrong time was Brendon Todd. He presented his sense of how player testing will work (pre-tournament, start of the week on arrival and once more during the tournament) and that sounds solid, assuming testing is more prevalent by then.

Beyond that, I would have thought things would be more defined for players by now, at least off of his remarks. With three weeks to go until many in the field will need to know the plan on hotels, flights, clubhouse, locker room and other indoor elements (where the virus is more likely to spread). But at least Todd endorsed the idea of changing shoes in the parking lot, one of the stranger elitist peccadilloes facing an imminent and timely demise.

From Bob Harig’s ESPN.com report on the call.

Todd, who said he spoke with Pazder, acknowledged there are risks, such as air travel and hotels, although he was told by tour officials they are working on one to two hotels where all of the tour players, caddies and officials would stay.

It is unclear at this point if clubhouses or locker rooms will be open. Todd said the latter would not be a problem.

"You're talking to a guy who played 20 Monday qualifiers two years ago and probably 10 last year,'' he said. "I'm all too used to changing my shoes in the parking lot. Even when you play the Desert Classic in Palm Springs we have different courses, you're in a parking lot. As funny as that may sound, it's not that big of a deal.''

"We need to continue to remind golfers that they’re playing before the biggest gallery of their lives, as well-publicized screwups could turn the yellow lights back to red."

The National Golf Foundation’s weekly and incredibly powerful interactive report has dropped again with more information for the industry. They’ve stepped up impressively in their efforts to highlight what’s going on in the golf business.

The NGF reports 79% of U.S. golf courses are open in some form with 90% projected by May 17.

The latest COVID-19 report also includes looks at the retail sector, consumer spending and how golfers see their income potentially impacted.

As part of the weekly release, NGF CEO Joe Beditz was upbeat about the findings but issued this excellent warning.

As I’ll continue to say, golf has an opportunity to lead by example, showing it can be played safely and responsibly in the midst of a pandemic. Course owners and operators need to keep following local rules and adjusting to our “new normal.” And we need to continue to remind golfers that they’re playing before the biggest gallery of their lives, as well-publicized screwups could turn the yellow lights back to red.

Golf Fares Well In WaPo Poll On Businesses Americans Are Okay With Re-opening

While a majority still opposed golf courses reopening (59%), the numbers that likely speak to an overall misunderstanding of how the sport works safely or just traditional elitist-sport apathy. But first place is better than most.

Dan Balz and Emily Guskin report the findings for the Washington Post.

Gun stores are next, with 70 percent saying they should not be reopened, followed by barbershops and hair salons (69 percent opposed) and retail shops such as clothing stores (66 percent opposed) and golf courses (59 percent opposed).

Opposition to opening businesses is just about as high in the states that have loosened restrictions so far as states with stricter restrictions. In both sets of states, majorities of residents oppose reopening all eight types of businesses measured in the poll.

"Will the PGA Tour reshape professional golf?"

Signs of European Tour financial worries have surfaced in different places, from a new willingness to consider a fan-free Ryder Cup in 2020, to Telegraph’s James Corrigan discussing on the McKellar podcast.

Global Golf Post’s Ron Green explores what this means and says industry insiders are suggesting a PGA Tour/European Tour partnership.

Multiple leaders within the game believe some form of consolidation between the PGA Tour and the European Tour is coming. The European Tour needs it. The PGA Tour can benefit from it.

It’s important for the PGA Tour, according to multiple sources, that the European Tour emerges intact from its current uncertainty. Different, but still here. At professional golf tours around the world, a forced reimagining is underway.

Of immediate importance to the PGA Tour is getting through what will be at least a three-month suspension of tournament competition. Each week the tour sits idle, it costs the organization millions of dollars.

“If the spend isn’t there from the fans, whether through tickets or television, the pot dries up,” a person familiar with the tour’s operation said.

Green outlines some world tour scenarios in such a collaborative setting that sound very familiar to the Premier Golf League concept. Imagine that!

The Shack Show With Guest Brett Cyrgalis, Author Of Golf's Holy War

I admire Brett Cyrgalis’ ability to play reporter and open-minded man considering the “Battle for the soul of a game in an age of science”. I did not take that path in The Future of Golf sleep fine at night, but Cyrgalis is trying to do for golf what Moneyball did for baseball, only with stronger consideration for the more traditional approach.

Golf’s Holy War (Avid Reader Press, out May 5, 2020) includes chapters on Tiger Woods and Dualism, Technology for Profit, the Art of Architecture, Hogan and Science in Slidell, Louisiana. In between Cyrgalis, a New York Post writer on the Rangers beat, considers the views of a wide golfing swath to let you decide if the sport has sold its soul to technology.

The Hogan chapter has been posted as an excerpt at GolfDigest.com.

You can buy the book at Amazon (link above) or support independent’s at Bookshop.org, where the price is lower and the profits go to support local bookshops.

I tried to get Cyrgalis to admit he’s a technophobic something or other (sorry Wally, second blog reference this week). No luck, but I do hope episode 9 is still a fruitful use of your time listening to the articulate author.

Please subscribe to the Shack Show wherever you get podcasts!

Here is the Apple show page and embed from iHeart:

Bamberger On Rake-Free Bunkers: "More imperfect, less uniform, as the world is imperfect and not uniform."

The Road Hole bunker in more aesthetically-pleasing times.

Michael Bamberger is one of many writers to take to the links and report back on what new safety-first rules are making the sport better.

I loved this on bunkers:

While we’re at it, golf is better without bunker rakes, as we’re playing now. Faster, for one thing. More primitive. More penal, for being someplace you shouldn’t be. More imperfect, less uniform, as the world is imperfect and not uniform. Pine Valley has no rakes. You’ll never hear somebody there yell at a ball in the air, “Get in the bunker!”

Update: Everything's Just Fine At Prestwick

The Alps and clubhouse

Prestwick has seen it all. The first Open, Old Tom, the Parks, going from 12 to 18 holes, world wars, WW II training, and now global pandemics.

While one of the world’s greatest places will be there again in better times, it’s still great to see in this video show by Prestwick’s gracious golf pro David Fleming. A course that good and looking that well kept needs to be played, but for now this will do…

Tonight’s #prestwicksunset #sunset #prestwickgolfclub #alps #saharabunker @prestwickgc @visitscotland @visitayrshire @ayrshiregolfscotland @scotlandhomeofgolf #narrows #theopen #railway #BIRTHPLACEOFTHEOPEN pic.twitter.com/QM50Ti8Ist

— David Fleming (@prestwickgcpro) May 3, 2020

Golf.com Thinks An Old Template Hole Comes From Muirfield...Village

For a while now I’ve been watching as Golf.com rolls out a familiar feeling series on “template holes.”

You know, those famous old golf holes noted for their brilliance and sampled by CB Macdonald when he was trying to import good golf to America.

Desi Isaacson—past Fried Egg intern and no doubt well-intentioned—took things in a new direction at Golf.com by naming the “Narrows” of Muirfield as a template and but someone on the desk posted a photo of the narrow 15th at Muirfield Village.

A bit like thinking Seth McFarland was the real vocalist who made My Way a hit.

Anyway, the desk editors, they’re old enough to rent a car, should have caught the initial mistake in a story where Muirfield Village is never mentioned, added this note:

It’s a funny and slightly lame mistake under most circumstances, particularly during a time of pandemic.

One problem: Golf’s template hole articles are both unoriginal and often dancing up to the line of all-out rip-off of a series by The Fried Egg’s Andy Johnson, even down to the holes mentioned as templates and the actual examples cited.

The Golf Gods strike in mysterious ways.

Hey about the original narrows, a video from the 2013 Open Championship.

Pool Flotation Devices Must Not Be In Golf's Future

Accompanying Joe Becker’s San Jose Mercury News story on the “strange” changes golfers will face upon returning to reopened golf courses, not mentioned is the idea used in photos accompanying the story: circumcised pool flotation devices in the cup.

Now, why these, used at “Newport Beach Golf Course” in Orange County down south was chosen for the story, I’m not sure. But I’m am sure that we can do better than the look above. Granted, it could be the shorts. The guy grinding out the two footer as the other looks on like he’s a retired member of the Stasi. Maybe it’s the color that looks like...oh we won’t go there. Either way, no more pool flotation devices…please!

JT, Rickie Play Some Persimmon And Balata Golf!

Now this is a charity match some of us would pay good money to watch (sorry Wally).

Justin Thomas posted this image and a short report on a Medalist round with the old stuff. That the old sound resonated with a player reared on modern equipment tells you that wood heads could be to millennial golfers what vinyl was to their music!

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Fun game with @rickiefowler today... Persimmons and Tour Balatas (I brought back the tie as well!). The audio on some of the shots today were niiiiiice. Safe to say, I will be asking for rick as a partner next time we do this #hecrushedme #oldschoolgolf

A post shared by Justin Thomas (@justinthomas34) on May 3, 2020 at 11:30am PDT