In Dismissing Haney Lawsuit, Judge Offers Cringeworthy Golf Analogies

Few things are more demeaning to the “rule of law” than judges who long to be comedians in otherwise serious matters.

While Hank Haney v. the PGA Tour is hardly the most important matter ever sent before a judge, it’s still embarrassing to read Judge Rodolfo Ruiz use his dismissal to audition some Borscht Belty material. And as any golfer will know, the attempted use of golf cliches and lingo better be good or else you look like a stooge.

From Bob Harig’s ESPN story quoting the decision.

"As the Court remarked at the outset of this matter, the allegations teed up in this case -- like a well-hit drive on the golf course -- [have] avoided pleading hazards . . . remained in bounds, and left Plaintiffs with an opportunity to take their next shot," U.S. District Court Judge Rodolfo Ruiz wrote in his ruling. "However, Plaintiffs' next shot has not fared as well as their opening drive. In an effort to reach the green and get this matter to trial, Plaintiffs' approach has found the water. And the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for mulligans. ... Plaintiffs' round has come to an end."

Someone has way too much time on his hands. Or a clerk unable to say, “you know Judge, you kind of sound like a jackass here.”

As Rex Hoggard notes in his GolfChannel.com story, Commissioner Jay Monahan responded aggressively to Haney’s flippant comments about a Korean golfer likely winning the U.S. Women’s Open. In a 2019 email (oh Jay…), he wrote, “This man needs to lose his job. Please let me know what I can do to assist you to ensure this happens.”

When deposed in the Haney case discovery, Monahan and lieutenant Laura Neal displayed a staggering lack of familiarity with anything related to the LPGA Tour.

None of this dissuaded the judge from ruling in Haney’s favor or appearing to take the matter seriously. From Harig’s story:

"Rule 9 of the USGA Rules of Golf states a key principle of the game: 'play the ball as it lies,'" Ruiz wrote in the ruling. "In other words, absent a few exceptions, players cannot improve their position by simply moving the golf ball. Here, under Rule 56, the Court must similarly take the evidence as it lies in the record. And that evidence makes clear that Plaintiffs are unable to establish the necessary elements of their claims."

Oy vey.

On a serious note for fans, SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio was prone to uncomfortable bouts of rear-end smooching, inane conversation and an overall Radio Sawgrass vibe before this. Now…

"Why golf’s toughest job is growing harder"

While the golf industry is enjoying a renaissance, Bradley Klein asks “at what cost to superintendents?”

Besides the strains of the pandemic and other issues with the labor market, he points out several factors of concern for all in maintenance and at golf courses. Including this:

Retention of labor at a golf course has always been an issue. It is perennially difficult to find folks who are willing and able to show up at 5:30 a.m. on weekends. Most crews are now on flexed schedules allowing alternate weekends or weekend days off, for example. But the telltale signs of inexperience are there. I recall, for example, one example of a superintendent who has to scout the greens each morning and repair damaged cups from sloppy cup cutting.

Courses have all had to increase their wage rates to retain labor in the face of stringent challenges from ancillary job sectors like landscape, building construction and home repair. And at the skilled level, the shortage is evident in the difficulty superintendents have had in recruiting qualified technicians and assistants. The ranks of the country’s university level golf agronomy programs are depleted. Golf is a great game but, increasingly, it is not being perceived as a great career.

Quadrilateral: Major(s) News & Notes: August 19th, 2021

Will Carnoustie play tougher this week? I explore that and much more in this week’s Major(s) News & Notes.

Plus, R&A/AIG purse moves, Women's Open TV times (until they change), a U.S. Open ticket scam follow-up, the case for Kisner at Whistling Straits and new Augusta National aerials analyzed!

Jordan On FanDuel Partnership: "It was pretty exciting to look into it."

You don’t normally hear players mentioning how much fun it was to investigate a possible sponsorship. But the hard sell mode only reinforces what seems like inevitable issues at some point with golf and gambling. At least players like Spieth express some trepidation in endorsing a gambling outfit.

From Steve DiMeglio’s Golfweek story:

“In my rookie year, this wouldn’t have been something that would have been on the radar given where sports gaming was back then,” Spieth said in a phone call with Golfweek. “But look at where it has gone the last couple of years. It was pretty exciting to look into it.

“Golf has a unique space to get into (gaming) to help bring more eyeballs into the sport, bring (other) sports fans into being golf fans, and with FanDuel being the biggest and doing the best job at responsible gambling, it made a lot of sense.”

The story also notes how Commissioner Jay Monahan played a role in convincing Spieth to take FanDuel’s money.

Spieth said Monahan convinced him golf could not refuse to welcome gaming considering its steady growth throughout the sports world. Spieth said the Tour’s movement into gaming “gave us the confidence as individual players to want to search out and look for opportunities in this space.”

Great how these independent contractors work with the Tour on a not-very independent basis.

Purse Wars! AIG Women's Open Becomes Richest In Golf

We’ve had the road wars, the rabbit wars, World Wars and now the R&A one-upping the USGA’s record U.S. Women’s Open purse of $5.5 million.

For Immediate Release, and do note how the R&A never mentions the surpassing of the U.S. Women’s Open…

THE 2021 AIG WOMEN’S OPEN SETS A NEW BENCHMARK FOR WOMEN’S GOLF WITH RECORD PRIZE FUND

18 August 2021, Carnoustie, Scotland: The AIG Women’s Open has set a new benchmark for prize money in women’s golf with the announcement that the prize fund for this year’s championship will increase by $1.3 million to $5.8 million with the winner earning $870,000.

With the support of title sponsor AIG, the largest prize fund in women’s major championship golf will increase by a further $1 million to no less than $6.8 million in 2022. This will more than double the prize fund from 2018 before AIG’s partnership with The R&A commenced.

The AIG Women’s Open takes place from 19-22 August at Carnoustie and will be played in 2022 at Muirfield, another of Scotland’s world-renowned links courses.

Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of The R&A, said, “We are absolutely committed to elevating the AIG Women’s Open and enhancing its status as one of golf’s premier championships. With our partners at AIG, we are taking action to make change happen and sending out a strong signal that more needs to be done by everyone involved to grow women’s golf. It needs greater investment and support from golf bodies, sponsors, the media and fans to help us grow the game’s commercial success and generate the income and revenues necessary to make prize fund growth viable and sustainable.

“We have set a new benchmark for prize money in women’s major championship golf this week and, thanks to AIG, will build on it still further next year. We hope this will inspire other events to follow our lead and help us to take a collective leap forward for the women’s game.”

Peter Zaffino, President and Chief Executive Officer of AIG, said, “AIG is proud to be the title sponsor of the AIG Women’s Open, which is one of the most prestigious and celebrated golf championships in the world. We are committed to serving as allies to women in golf, in business and in the communities where we live and work. Striving for pay equity and highlighting the achievements of successful women are critical components to this commitment and part of AIG’s core values. We are very pleased with today’s announcement as it represents an important step forward in raising the profile of women’s golf and the status of the AIG Women’s Open. We thank The R&A for their excellent partnership and I am confident that together we will continue to lead the way in achieving meaningful progress.”

In 2019, in AIG’s first year as title sponsor of the championship the prize fund was increased by $1.25 million to $4.5 million, an increase of almost 40% on the previous year.

Women's Open: Carnoustie Will Be Tougher This Time Around

Matt Cooper previews the AIG Women’s Open and its return to Carnoustie after ten years.

This time around, it seems the players should expect a much tougher test.

Five years before that, Carnoustie made its debut on the Women’s Open rota and once again the tee boxes were in the wrong place. The final hole, as we all know, is a brute, with the Barry Burn threatening both the drive and the approach. Those too fearful of the water risk dragging the ball into rough on the left (or, worse, out of bounds), taking the green out of the equation for the second shot.

It’s unquestionably one of the toughest examinations in world golf and yet the field didn’t face it. The tee was moved up, the drive became straightforward, and the burn was more or less irrelevant for both the first and second bunt.

It was a little like plotting a route for the Tour de France that ignored both the Alps and the Pyrenees, instead just faffing about on the flat.

Lydia Ko already confirmed, reports The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster.

“Seventeen is a beast. Eighteen is also a beast,” declared the two-time major winner, expressing a view, of course, shared by most people, even though Paul Lawrie birdied both of them in the play-off in his 1999 Open win.

Bryson To Winged Foot Kids: Focus On Recovery After Your Speed Training

Winged Foot welcomed back 2020 U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau and he gave a clinic to what could easily be misconstrued as an annual gathering of the Young Spalding Smails Society.

But he brought a sensible message of speed training and recovery talk to the kids, reports Golf.com’s Luke Kerr-Dineen.

“Take two days out of the week, and on those days for an hour swing with as much effort as you can,” DeChambeau said. By simply swinging with maximum effort, DeChambeau says, you’ll be building your golf muscles and breaking the neurological barriers that prevent you from maximizing your potential.

And after that, take your time to relax, he says. Allow your muscles to recover, work on increasing your flexibility and get your body ready for its next session.

“Recovery is key,” DeChambeau says. “Those 48 hours after speed training, are so important. Giving your muscles time to recover, and your nervous system to rest is so important, and not something I thought about when I started [speed training].”

And kids, whatever you do, don’t bet away the trust fund, ok?

“I think the sport and the R&A has made good progress but there is a hell of a lot more to do.”

With the AIG Women’s Open at Carnoustie this week, the Guardian’s Ewan Murray talks to Phil Anderton, the R&A’s person in charge of development looking at spending their dollars to grow interest among women and girls. Anderton says golf has “underperformed” when it comes to women and girls but has theories on how to change that.

“I think golf in general fell previously into the trap of talking to itself,” Anderton says. “Golf talked to golf. If you didn’t play it, you didn’t know anything about it. I think it also fell into the trap of just putting on programmes; come here and learn about golf. If you have a perception barrier and people don’t think it is a sport or a brand for them, you can put on every course and build every structure you want but it will be incredibly difficult. Women and girls have to see this as a sport for them, promoted to them.

“If you had once asked people in the UK for their perceptions of tennis, I think most would have said ‘Wimbledon, whites, strawberries and cream.’”

Don’t forget the Pimms!

Anderton is hoping to see purse equity and other initiatives help the cause. As noted here and elsewhere, do not underestimate the elevation of the women’s majors to iconic, time-tested venues.

Shock: Golf Ends A Bunch Of Events Around The Same Time, Ratings Stink

Even with the suspense of a Comcast Business Solutions No-Show Top Ten and a six-man playoff, the rain-expedited Wyndham ran on tape for CBS. They barely crested the dreaded 1.0 barrier as viewers rested for week’s Playoffs.

Or maybe the U.S. Amateur syphoned viewers as the Champions Tour played out on Golf Channel, with the Korn Ferry Tour regular season finale looming. A lot of good stuff for August but once again, golf jams most into a Sunday when people are trying to enjoy the outdoors. A Saturday or Monday finish apparently is too much to ask for.

Anyway, nice to see Mitch Metcalf and Showbuzzdaily back so we can see Americans would much rather watch Little League World Series regional games than the PGA Tour or U.S. Amateur. Not that it’ll humble the golfers. Ball goes too far.

It should be noted: Metcalf reports no numbers for Sunday’s U.S. Amateur mutiple-channel switch/infomercials-matter-more fiasco, except for Sunday’s Golf Channel window that managed to sneak out a win over Weather Channel’s Weekend Recharge, the 11 a.m. edition. However, the Am was no match for some NBA summer league games, reruns of awful movies, anything on the Hallmark Channel and a repeat of HLN’s Forensic Files II.

More Tickets Should Be Available For Merion 2030: USGA Employee Charged With Ticket Fraud

From the Department of Justice press release:

Acting United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams announced that Robert Fryer, 39, of Perkasie, PA, was charged by Information with one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, four counts of mail fraud, and 10 counts of wire fraud related to a scheme to embezzle and pocket fraudulent proceeds from the unauthorized sale of United States Open Championship (“U.S. Open”) tickets, one of four major championships for golf.

Even prosecutors know The Players is not a major.

On a more serious note, the charges against Fryer come just weeks after his superiors have left USGA jobs and new CEO Mike Whan inherits a major black eye for the organization. But the USGA did get this nice mention from prosecutors:

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael S. Lowe. Investigators appreciate the cooperation of the USGA in connection with this investigation.

According to his Zoominfo page, Fryer has long worked in ticket operations of some kind, including prior to his nine years at the USGA. He has waived his right to be charged by a grand jury, leading to speculation a guilty plea may be in the works. The potential jail time for the theft of over $3 million worth of tickets is 300 years.

Fryer is believed to have netted more than $1 million from the scheme that involved using UPS and working in conjunction with two other Pennyslvania men beginning at Merion’s 2013 U.S. Open.

Brokers acquired thousands of tickets to each year's golf championship by buying tickets from Fryer, sometimes in person and other times through mail, investigators said. The alleged scheme allowed the brokers to circumnavigate the USGA's rule that prevented bulk ticket of more than 20 tickets to any single buyer. 

One of the brokers Fryer worked with regularly emailed the Bucks County man prepaid, UPS shipping labels that Fryer allegedly would use to send the tickets to the broker or directly to customers, federal prosecutors said. 

Around 23,000 tickets were stolen by Fryer over the years.

The USGA issued a statement to Golfweek clarifying Fryer’s employment status—he’s no longer there—and how the scheme was carried out under a “legacy” system which, as of 2020, cannot be repeated.

The USGA implemented a new ticketing platform starting in 2020 and recently engaged an external expert to review our ticketing processes and controls to help prevent this type of activity from occurring and ensure best practices and security protocols are employed for our championship ticketing.

“Walking is now here to stay”

After years of New York Times story on golf’s decline it’s nice to see the enterprise acknowledging its resurgence. The latest is a super Bill Pennington piece filled with great stats about the resurgence of walking during the pandemic and now continuing after golf cart restrictions have been lifted.

“People discovered they liked walking and even when Covid rules were lifted this year and carts came back, people were like, ‘No, we’re going to keep walking,’” said Jerramy Hainline, the senior vice president of GolfNow, an online tee-time service with nearly four million registered golfers that provides technology to more than 9,000 golf courses. “Walking is now here to stay.”

If that remains true, it will bring new light to recent studies that have championed golf’s health benefits. In 2018, a consortium of public health experts, with help from several governing bodies including the World Golf Foundation, researched 342 previously published studies on the sport and linked playing golf with better strength and balance and a lower risk of heart disease. A 2008 Swedish study of 300,000 golfers found the death rate for golfers to be 40 percent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status, which translated to a five-year increase in life expectancy. Golfers with lower handicaps were the healthiest, perhaps because they played more.

And the M’s are playing a huge part in the shift according to Pennington.

A survey of nearly 25,000 golfers released last month by KemperSports, which manages 120 golf facilities nationwide, discovered that players new to the game since last year’s pandemic were almost 33 percent girls or women, which is nearly 10 percent higher than the industry average. More than 26 percent of the new golfers were 18 to 34 years old, roughly four percent above the national average.

“We had been missing the Millennials and Gen Z demographic in golf,” Steven Skinner, the Kemper Sports chief executive officer, said. “But they’re into fitness and more willing to throw a bag on their back and walk. That’s been part of why they’ve really jumped into the game.”

This doesn’t bode well for the Shark Experience that was destined to break the governing body “cast iron” fist.

The Old Course at St Andrews: Old Tom Trails

Cookie Jar wraps up the Old Tom Trails series with a 15 minute extravaganza looking at The Old Course.

Sit back, put off those bills you have to pay, and enjoy a fresh approach to the courses where golf began.

The Quadrilateral: Oakmont Adds Clarity To Distance Debate

Oakmont’s 10th and 11th holes (Google Earth)

It's time to pucker up and praise today's mega-athletes for their superior intelligence. And then make some long overdue equipment rules changes. That’s the case I make after seeing Oakmont played in positively insane ways during last week’s U.S. Amateur.

This one is for The Quad’s fine paying folks but I’ll be back Thursday for all subscribers with notes and a Carnoustie preview.

Russell's Exit Interview: Slow Play, Field Sizes, Sitcoms And Late Evening Golf

The PGA Tour won’t be quite the same without former Mickey’s theme park employee-turned-golf-pro-turned longtime rules official, Mark Russell.

Hopefully he’ll still get called Slugger in an airport (hopefully) and get in plenty of golf as he turns to sitcom writing and more late evening rounds. He also touches on this idea of 156 player fields, slow play and suggests it’s time to trim things down.

From his “exit interview” with Golfweek’s Adam Schupak.

Q: Don’t you want to give out one last slow play penalty (during the final round of the Wyndham Championship) for old time’s sake?

MR: (Chuckles) Not really. Again, we’ve got 156 players, we should never do that in 2021. This Tour should be 120 players maximum. You know, when they came up with (fields of 156), there was no place to play. Now we’ve got the Korn Ferry Tour. We’ve got PGA Tour Champions, tours in Canada and Latin America, too. You know, if you’re good enough, you’re going to be right back here. But I mean, 156 guys, there’s groups waiting 10, 12 minutes at the turn to play. That all goes away if you did that, like at Bay Hill, 120 players and we give them 12-minute intervals and they can’t catch each other. I mean, the slow players have no place to hide.

Most of the slow players play so much better if they go ahead and play. You know, I said, we oughta make them play like that on the range. You can only hit one ball a minute, and then they’d realize. But for the most part, like I say on Thursday and Friday, we breed slow play. There’s no place to go.

While I’ve had my share of spirited chats with Russ about field size (me fighting for a 144-player “Open” field here in LA), he’s right. I concede. It’s looking like the combination of all reachable par-5’s and drivable 4’s, while a huge issue, matters less when fields are getting huge enough to welcome back winners from the late 90s!

"The Garbage Putter" From The Garage That Won A U.S. Amateur

Here’s the putter that James Piot won the #USAmateur with. Nicknamed “The Garbage Putter,” a decade-old putter that originally belonged to his dad. He drew a line on it and even uses a mallet head cover. pic.twitter.com/ZrZ9gLQpxn

— Brentley Romine (@BrentleyGC) August 15, 2021

Blade connoisseurs wondering what that was James Piot used to win the U.S. Amateur will get all of their questions answered in this game story from GolfChannel.com’s Brentley Romine. It’s quite a story!

“I was too cheap to go buy a putter, so I looked in the basement and, Oh, this thing is here, and then I went back to it probably middle of summer,” Piot said. “I putted lights out in the qualifier, so I'm like, This thing is going to stick.”

The 2008-vintage PING putter goes for around $60 on ebay.