USGA: Chief Commercial Officer Out On Day One Of The Mike Whan Era

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Mike Whan suggested he’ll have a better feel for the USGA after 100 days on the job.

So it’s not saying much for Navin Singh that his time as Chief Commercial Officer ended before the new CEO knew where to find the Coke machine.

Golfweek staff penned the news first:

The USGA also confirmed to Golfweek that Chief Commercial Officer Navin Singh has left the organization to pursue other professional opportunities. Singh was responsible for creating, directing and implementing the USGA’s commercial strategy, which included the broadcast production of USGA championships as well as the organization’s digital media rights portfolio and its digital media products.

Singh joined the USGA in 2016.

Given Singh’s willingness to leverage the USGA’s business with Golfweek Custom Publishing to complain about stories he didn’t like (including some of mine), it was probably wise no one at Golfweek put a name on this story should Singh pop up in another golf job. And given the propensity of golf organizations to go to the been-there-done-that “talent” well, he’ll probably land somewhere. With a raise.

But as I’ve written in recent Quadrilaterals here and here, the U.S. Open’s over-commercialization grew embarrassing in recent years. Under Singh’s watch we got Lexus courtesy cars in play and dreadful digital media products like this year’s U.S. Open apps. And with the move back to NBC and Golf Channel (where Singh worked), the USGA got railroaded into being part of Peacock rollout to the inconvenience of viewers, all while flooding the broadcasts with USGA partner messaging. Other than that…

Quadrilateral: Major(s) News And Notes, July 1, 2021

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I just figure we’ll have all of August and September to dive deep into the Ryder Cup, so if you really want to see if Patrick Reed will make the team on points, Google is your friend this week.

An Open at Sandwich looms and zany things happen there, as The Quadrilateral will be reviewing in coming editions for the great humanitarians who’ve signed up to pay. But the weekly news and notes are for all to enjoy, and for the July 1 edition I praise players for not barking more about the UK government’s mixed signals, John Deere's Open exemption getting restored, tips on traveling to Sandwich by rail, news on 2022 U.S. Open tickets and Oakland Hills wanting back in the major rota, but where?

More on The Quadrilateral here and subscription info here.

Phil Concerned For Detroit Tourism After Press Report On 2007 Wager

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The Detroit News’s Robert Snell reported on a previously undisclosed trial transcript revealing how a Grosse Point Park mob-connected bookie was unable to pay Phil Mickelson and friends their winnings.

The 2007 trial centered around “Dandy” Don DeSeranno and $500k in winnings he could not come up with. Get ready for the Goombah Classic:

According to the trial transcript, DeSeranno was questioned about Mickelson after receiving immunity from federal prosecutors and testified as a government witness in the 2007 racketeering trial of Jack Giacalone, a reputed organized crime leader in Metro Detroit. Giacalone's dad was the late, admitted mob captain Vito "Billy Jack" Giacalone, a suspect in the unsolved disappearance of Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa. And his uncle, the late mob captain Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone, was supposed to meet Hoffa the day the labor leader disappeared in 1975.

Mickelson did not know about DeSeranno’s background while placing sports bets with the bookie, the golfer’s lawyer, Glenn Cohen, told The News on Tuesday.

Mickelson’s attorney spoke at greater length to ESPN.com’s Bob Harig and admitted that his client does not deny the activity which sounds, well, illegal. Cohen was more concerned with the timing of the story:

"He didn't say anything [in the story] that wasn't true; I'm not complaining about that,'' Glenn Cohen, Mickelson's attorney, said in an interview with ESPN. "But why? Why are you going to embarrass Phil Mickelson when he's there to support your tournament and the charities it supports and the [PGA] Tour? Rocket Mortgage is a Detroit-based company. Phil has never played there before.

"I'm disappointed they would curiously pick this week to write an article about a bet that was made over 20 years ago and a jury trial that took place in 2007, where the guy who was convicted is dead and where the only purpose for this article is to embarrass Phil Mickelson.''

Mickelson replied to a frustrated fan on Twitter and is thinking of the greater good, or at least, greater Detroit tourism in light of “Rob” and his report.

It’s not clear how the Free-Press report might prevent people from coming to Detroit and helping any way they can. Unless it’s the news of one less bookmaker available to take half-million dollar wagers?

Quadrilateral: The Drive To Produce Major Content

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With The Open Championship joining the other majors in adding yet more “content” online to draw in new fans, I took the opportunity to look at these efforts as Netflix’s Drive To Survive show boosts F1.

Plus a quick roundup and links to The Open Final Qualifying results.

This one’s for all but if you like what you see, signing up is free.

Here is the R&A’s produced piece on Sam Forgan, who made it through qualifying to reach Royal St George’s.

Olympic Women's Golf Field Set With Few High Profile Defections

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The Kordas will represent Team USA in Tokyo along with Lexi Thompson and Danielle Kang

The Kordas will represent Team USA in Tokyo along with Lexi Thompson and Danielle Kang

Once again the world’s best women are more on board with Olympic golf, though seeing both the U.S. and South Korea getting four players in does make me wonder what might have been if the field was a stroke play/team match play format like the NCAA golf.

The host country will be represented by Nasa Hataoka and Mone Inami.

Beth Ann Nichols with the notes and the photo gallery of the entire field.

England’s Georgia Hall and Charley Hull were the highest profile players to pass. Hull’s explanation on Instagram:

Shadow Creek Primed To Be The First $1000 Green Fee Course

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GolfDigest.com’s Stephen Hennessey with the gory details of Shadow Creek becoming the first $1000 green fee course, though it also requires staying at an MGM property so the price is actually higher.

Good news, it’s only $750 during off-peak months.

Meanwhile Pebble Beach is still below $600, but also requires a Lodge or Spanish Bay stay.

Whan On The Way Out: "We write a check six times a year to be on network TV."

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Al Lunsford of Links chatted with Mike Whan on his way out of the LPGA Commissionership and into the USGA CEO job, where he says his immediate priority is to learn the rules and ask questions.

But his response to a question about the biggest obstacle to LPGA Tour popularity is a good reminder about what his successor faces:

I’ve always struggled with, “You just don’t deliver the viewership of the others.” Well, they’re paid to be on network TV 35 weeks a year; we write a check six times a year to be on network TV. If you asked me to run a 100-yard dash but I have to start 170 yards back, I don’t expect to win many races. We’ve closed the gap—virtually 12 years of viewership increases in the U.S. and around the world—but we’ve still never been given an equal playing field. It’s hard to engage with athletes you don’t see very much.

His comment about the LPGA having to pay to get on networks has been made before, but it’s still fascinating to hear given the recent gender equity talk.

Also noteworthy: Whan essentially says being on the Golf Channel means the tour is not seen very much. Psst…Mike, they host all of your new job’s events. Be nice!

2021 Travelers Ratings Hit 19-Year High, Audience Peaks At 6.6 Million

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Paulsen reports at Sports Media Watch on huge numbers for the Travelers, won by Harris English in a dramatic 8-hole playoff over Kramer Hickok that ran nearly two hours past CBS’s allotted window.

The final round averaged 3.97 million and peaked within 2 million of the recent U.S. Open’s highest audience number.

The telecast, which peaked with 6.66 million viewers from 8 PM ET to the conclusion, delivered the sixth-largest golf audience of the year and the third-largest with majors excluded. Only the final rounds of the Players (4.59M) and at Pebble Beach (4.19M) rank higher outside of the majors.

With the (suspicious) demise of ShowBuzzDaily.com, I don’t have access to the KPMG LPGA Championship final round rating. But Nelly Korda’s first major win ran concurrent to the Travelers in yet another reminder of golf’s scheduling issues.

Old Tom At 200 (And Almost Two Weeks): A Great Read, The Scottish Golf Podcast And Other Coverage

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2021 was supposed to celebrate Old Tom Morris’s 200th birthday and then get followed by an Open in St Andrews. Well, it didn’t work out that way but he did turn 200 and there were some enjoyable efforts to commemorate the great man. Then he had the audacity to be born the week of the U.S. Open!

So belatedly because some of us were distracted by a major, some of the Old Tom coverage that caught my eye.

At TheOpen.com, they posted a wonderful collaboration by author Roger McStravick, the British Golf Museum’s Hannah Fleming, and with bits from The Colossus of Golf by David Malcolm and Peter E. Crabtree, TheOpen.com featured a fantastic long-but-not-excessively so read of Old Tom Morris’ life and legacy. Just a sampling from his role in The Open:

Indeed, Morris and Park helped grow The Open in stature from what was initially a slight inconvenience to some members in 1860, to already by 1867 becoming a fixture in not only the Scottish sporting calendar, but in the English calendar too, where the event was covered heavily in the gambling press.

“There were eight players in The 1st Open,” Roger McStravick said. “They were squeezed in between other members in their meeting, and they were quite annoyed about this band of rabble. These lower than low squeezing in among the gentleman golfers, it was such an inconvenience. The players didn’t take practice swings, they just got onto the first tee and got away, anybody who took a practice swing was just posing. So they just got away with a minimum of fuss.”

Prestwick unveiled a new plaque in his honor:

I spoke to the Scottish Golf Podcast’s Ru Macdonald about the great Prestwick and it’s role in Old Tom’s life and the newfound appreciation for the links.

More Tweets and fun stuff…

PGA Tour Ending COVID-19 On-Site Testing In July, Vaccination Rate Unknown

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GolfDigest.com’s Tod Leonard reports that players have been notified of the full scale COVID-19 testing coming to an end at the 3M Championship this July. No player has been known to test positive since Jon Rahm’s high-profile case at the Memorial, one of around 35 detected or reported after players revealed to have experienced the virus (but not testing positive under the Tour program).

Leonard says there will still be testing available to those who experience symptoms and daily health surveys but could not get a vaccination rate out of the Tour.

I reported earlier this month that the LPGA was at 60% full vaccination of players, caddies and staff as of early this month and no positive cases since March.

According to Leonard, the unvaccinated will have to undergo contact tracing if they test positive.

Though unvaccinated people don’t have to undergo testing, according to the memo, there are distinctions made. Vaccinated individuals will not have to undergo contact tracing should they be around someone who has COVID-19, while those who haven’t been vaccinated must notify the tour and follow contact tracing protocols.

The memo says that those who have been vaccinated “should” upload a copy of their vaccination record to their Healthy Roster account, but the tour will require proof of vaccination should the player be involved in a contact tracing situation, a tour spokesperson said.

The story also notes this:

Since testing began, more than 25 tour players have tested positive for COVID-19, including some of the game’s most high-profile athletes: Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Tony Finau, Adam Scott, Gary Woodland and Padraig Harrington. No PGA Tour player has reported serious illness or hospitalization due to the coronavirus.

It was Golf Digest’s Undercover Caddie that suggested there have been players hit harder than reported:

A few of the guys who did test positive got really sick, more than fans have been led to believe, and that certainly got our attention.

Given that the LPGA Tour has a better track record on positive cases this year despite a more worldly schedule and far less private jet travel, they were able to report vaccination rates without violating anyone’s privacy. In light of that, the Tour’s program seems like it should be able to end on a brighter note of at least some disclosure and assurance that it’s in line with vaccination rates seen in general society.

"Trump may well rue the day he brought the lawsuit."

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James D. Zirin is a former federal prosecutor with a special interest in dissecting Donald Trump’s lawsuits.

Given the news of the Trump Organization suing over the voiding of its Trump Ferry Point contract after the January 6th insurrection, he explains in this Washington Post guest piece how the wide-open discovery process might backfire.

Attorneys for the city undoubtedly will want to probe in discovery the state of Trump’s finances. He is said to be deeply in debt. His precarious financial situation may disqualify him from operating a tournament-worthy golf course. They will also want to go into what Trump meant on Jan. 6 when he perpetuated the “big lie,” asserting that there had been mass election fraud, encouraging an unruly mob of his supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to stop the certification of an election he had “won in a landslide” and to “take back our country.” The city will certainly call witnesses from the PGA and the British Open who would be expected to testify that they canceled plans for tournaments at Trump golf courses because Trump’s name has become mud.

The city lawyers will seek financial documents to show any connection between the Bronx golf course and Trump’s other business interests. They will want to probe the cost and quality of the improvements Trump claims he made, and may even go into the source of the money. If Trump borrowed the money, they will subpoena the banks and probe his banking relationships, including the financial statements he gave the banks to obtain the loans. They could even get into his controversial tax returns. Trump may well rue the day he brought the lawsuit.

Instant Classic: '21 Travelers Decided In An 8-Hole Playoff

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Maybe the craziest part of the Harris English’s 8-hole sudden death playoff win over Kramer Hickok: this Travelers Championship playoff was a thriller without anyone recording a birdie until the winning putt.

It’s one that’ll stick for a long time and the PGA Tour at its best: a fun final round, a few crazy how-did-that-not-go-in moments, beloved sponsor that knows how to put on a tournament, a course that regularly delivers, and the (mostly) welcomed sounds of a boisterous crowd.

The sides embellished this prime cut steak: golden light on a beautiful Connecticut evening, an energized CBS crew, and dramatic drone shots to help make the theater that much grander. It’s no surprise the network stayed two hours past their allotted time instead of handing off to Golf Channel. For that they were rewarded with several clutch saves before English’s winning putt. And yes, there there was appropriate Twitter grumbling about the 18th hole’s overuse. Particularly on a course with one of golf’s most combustible three-hole stretches at 15-17.

From David Dusek’s Golfweek story:

Little did anyone know that the tournament itself would wind up being the amuse-bouche. The main dish was an eight-hole playoff culminating with fans doing the wave around the 18th green and par after agonizing par being made on a course that yielded 263 birdies in the final round.

When it was over, English outlasted Hickok after eight playoff holes to earn his fourth PGA Tour win. This was the first time a PGA Tour playoff went to eight holes since 2012 when John Huh defeated Robert Allenby at the Mayakoba Golf Classic.

“This was awesome. The fans were keeping us in this it, getting the juice from them,” English said. “That’s been really all afternoon. Hats off to Kramer. What a competitor. We were both grinding. That’s what it was all about. We were grinding and trying our hardest.”

English’s second win of 2021 makes him the only player to win more than once. The winning check will also have 10% going to caddie Eric Larson, whose time in prison and new lease-on-life Mark Cannizzaro documented here in the New York Post.

Oddly, the most incredible shot of the playoff was not posted online but you can at least see the fried egg English overcame to keep the playoff going:

The winning putt:

For Hickok’s clutch breakthrough performance, he probably deserved an interview instead of a look at the updated FedExCup standings.

But there was at least this:

The round four highlights from PGA Tour Entertainment:

Nellie Korda Takes Women's PGA, First American World No. 1 Since 2014

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A terrific performance by Nellie Korda to win the KPMG Women’s PGA for reasons other than being just 22:

  • It comes just weeks after a bad missed cut in the U.S. Women’s Open

  • Arguably too fast of a golfer at times, she dueled with Lizette Salas, a wonderful player and amazing story, but a very slow one.

Beth Ann Nichols’ Golfweek story filed from Atlanta Athletic Club included this:

At 22, Nelly came into the KPMG Women’s PGA, her 26th major start, the undisputed best player on the LPGA without a major. By week’s end, kids lined the barricades that led from the 18th green up to the clubhouse shouting her name.

On a sweltering Sunday, Nelly fulfilled the promise she’d shown from a young age, becoming the first American to rise to No. 1 in the world since Stacy Lewis in 2014, ending a drought that stretched 2,678 days. She also became the first American to win an LPGA major since 2018, when Angela Stanford won the Evian Championship.

“I’ve put in a lot of work and to finally get a win,” she later said on the 18th green, “or two wins under my belt, or three wins, sorry.”

Former World No. 1 Shanshan May Be Retiring After The Olympics

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Upon missing the KPMG PGA Championship cut, Shanshan Feng revealed she’s contemplating retirement after representing China in the Olympics. The former World No. 1 and former KPMG PGA winner is a mainstay of major leaderboards and recently contended again at the U.S. Women’s Open.

From Beth Ann Nichols’ story for Golfweek.com:

Feng told instructor Gary Gilchrist from the start that she’d like give it her all for 10 years on the LPGA and then move on. The Olympics changed that timeline, and it was pushed back even further due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Feng took all of 2020 off, returning in March at the ANA Inspiration where she tied for third.

“Her swing is better than ever,” said Gilchrist.

Mercer Leftwich has been on Feng’s bag since 2011 and believes that a lot of Feng’s success comes from her confidence. She’s also not one to overwork.

Leftwich jokes that if Feng leaves the tour for too long, he’d fly over to China and bring her back.

“She started laughing,” said Leftwich on Thursday, “saying ‘No, he will!’ ”

Feng, who confirmed the same to Golf Channel after her second round on Friday, played the first two rounds at Atlanta Athletic Club with Anne van Dam, and said that she was routinely 50 to 60 yards behind her.

Report: Open Championship Contestants Face DQ For Protocol Violations

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The Telegraph’s James Corrigan obtained player requirements for the upcoming Open Championship calling for restrictions on public dining and how many on a “team” can stay together. Most stunning: vaccination appears to mean nothing and this is all juxtaposed against the United Kingdom okaying 32,000 fans a day on site. Most of those fans will be arriving via train.

Pete Cowen, the current guru to Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy, spoke to Corrigan about the issues. raised.

“There are going to be 32,000 fans allowed in every day and they’re saying we can’t stay in anything other than the dedicated hotels — most of which are already sold out — because we’d be mixing with the public,” Cowen said. “And we can’t stay together, like we have on the PGA Tour for the last year. We have all been vaccinated and will have been tested before we are allowed in. This ‘bubble’ we have created between ourselves has produced no problems at all.

“It makes no sense at all when there will be 60,000 at Wembley, 140,000 at Silverstone (race track) and all those at Wimbledon on the weekend before — sitting next to each other. I suppose I should be grateful I am going at all, as initially the wording of the regs made me believe instructors would be banned.”

In a follow up report, Golfweek’s Tim Schmitt and Steve DiMeglio report that unnamed PGA Tour players have considered passing and are miffed at the rules.

“If someone on your plane tests positive on way to the British and is sitting anywhere close to you, you’re out no questions asked, no matter if you’re vaccinated. It’s aggravating that they deem the tournament safe enough for 32,000 fans a day to attend, but won’t let a player’s wife, children travel and watch the tournament, nor will they even let players visit a restaurant without threat of disqualification.”

The player “teams” can stay together in a maximum of four at a private rental. Any violation of the protocols, including a simple visit from someone not in the player’s sphere, faces “withdrawal from the championship.”

“They care more about the revenue of the fans buying beers than they do about the actual people participating in the tournament,” said the player who spoke with Golfweek. “Any fan can go to a grocery store or a restaurant and we can’t. Does that make sense? And I’m vaccinated. How does that make sense?”

For Quadrilateral subscribers, I wrote about the inconsistency of the UK’s plan and apparent blind eye turned toward the many successful championships run to date. And none of those attempted to welcome as many fans back as the UK is, with trains and a Delta variant added to the mix.