Golfing News & Blog Articles

Nice work here by Andy Johnson at TheFriedEgg.com to explain the next big step for the National Links Trust’s effort to save some architectural gems.

National Links Trust (NLT), a non-profit headed by Michael McCartin and Will Smith, plans to make a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment in the East Potomac, Rock Creek Park, and Langston golf properties.

As The Fried Egg previously reported, NLT has partnered with management company Troon Golf, developer Mike Keiser, and a trio of leading design firms. Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design hopes to restore Walter Travis’s reversible layout at East Potomac; Hanse Golf Course Design has agreed to improve Rock Creek Park, a William Flynn design; and Beau Welling, a senior design consultant for Tiger Woods’s TGR Design, looks to renovate Langston.

Kudos to all involved fr putting in the time and effort.

A few of Andy’s past contributions to highlighting this cause:

Lee Westwood believes Rory McIlroy has “probably had a rethink” after his declaration last week that European Tour golfers have no right to complain about avoiding America during the COVID-19 outbreak. McIlroy mocked players for not willingly quarantining for 14 days with their families in Florida. (You know, because nothing says fun like Florida in July with 4000 people a day testing positive for a coronavirus, versus, oh, Europe in summer.)

James Corrigan reports for the Telegraph on Westwood—one of the players essentially called out by McIlroy given the choice to stay in England for the PGA Tour’s restart—having had a rethink, which is probably code for a apology text was sent and dutifully accepted.

That’s great news since it seemed like an unusually insensitive stance McIlroy took toward his European Ryder Cup peers.

Golfweek’s Jason Lusk and Adam Schupak report that “most” of Golf Channel’s Orlando-based staff will be laid off in two waves. The news was delivered in a Microsoft Teams call by an unnamed executive and human resources officer.

All employees will be allowed to reapply for their jobs – if they’re still available. Those whose jobs are eliminated in Phase I will find out as early as Tuesday that their current jobs will end August 29. Those in Phase II will be let go sometime between Oct. 31 and Dec. 31.

“As we announced in February, Golf Channel will be moving its media operations primarily to NBC Sports’ headquarters in Stamford, Conn., by year-end, while GOLFNOW and GOLFPASS will continue to operate from Orlando,” a Golf Channel spokesman said in a statement to Golfweek on Monday.

The report says only “a small fraction of existing jobs are expected to be made available for relocation” to Stamford, Connecticut. Initially the move was announced as part of a “geographic consolidation”.

The lost jobs come in all categories, from camera operators to producers to website writers, Golfweek was told by several people familiar with the layoffs, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity since they are not authorized to address the matter publicly.

Golf Channel’s parent company, NBC Sports, recently renewed its PGA Tour television rights deal at a significantly higher price despite sliding ratings and cord-cutting, with the PGA Tour taking on more production, as first reported here.

The Guardian’s Ewan Murray reports that the 2020 Ryder Cup will likely become the 2021 Ryder Cup next week.

Talks between the PGA of America and the European Tour, who preside jointly over the Ryder Cup, and local government officials in Wisconsin are now close to completion despite a public line of “no change” to existing arrangements. Work on the spectator build at Whistling Straits, ordinarily well under way by now, is not believed to have meaningfully started.

In last week’s poll, the majority here voted for the Ryder Cup to be postponed a year.

Minus fans, the PGA of America confirms reports of plans to to move ahead with the PGA Championship in August. Undoubtedly this is a shame on so many levels, particularly with the organization returning to the west coast, on a true public course and where the galleries would have been such a big part of the week.

The details from their press release, including ticket refund information for those who planned on going.

For Immediate Release:

2020 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP TO BE PLAYED AT TPC HARDING PARK WITHOUT SPECTATORS

Brooks Koepka Goes for Rare Three-peat in 

The post West Coast Women’s Amateur appeared first on Northern California Golf Association.

The 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park in San Francisco will take place the first week of August without fans, the PGA of America announced Monday.

June 22, 2019

2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park Will Have No Spectators

The post 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park Will Have No Spectators appeared first on Northern California Golf Association.

Filed under probably not coming to a retail store near you, TaylorMade and Callaway, the market leaders in the driver category both have new models on the USGA’s Conforming Clubs list this week.

As per usual, the USGA doesn’t provide the measure of specificity we’d like, and so while we wait to hear back from both companies, all we can do is speculate.

TaylorMade SIM Tour

Missing among a 3-deep sea of SIMs at retail this season was a SIM Tour. For the past several generations of drivers, TaylorMade has offered an undersized tour head in the 430-440 cc range. With three drivers in the lineup and golfers still clinging to the myth that TaylorMade has too many SKUs or updates its driver lineup every six months (it doesn’t – hasn’t in years), it made sense not to offer a small driver at retail. Given a choice between a wee-headed, low spin, low MOI Tour head and a high MOI draw-biased head, the numbers say SIM MAX D was the smarter choice for the mass market.

As I said, it’s speculative, but given how TaylorMade has used the Tour designation recently, the odds are that this is the sub-460 model missing from January’s launch.

Are you one of the many convinced there are no real frontiers left for golf equipment? Even the hardest-core dreamers believe we’re pretty much maxed-out. With that as a backdrop, the recent announcement by Cobra that it has begun leveraging 3D Metal Jet printing qualifies as a Grade-A big deal. It may very well be the next great revolution in golf equipment manufacturing.

That’s right, manufacturing. 3D printing has been a valuable R&D tool for years, but Cobra is jumping with both feet into golf club manufacturing using HP 3D Metal Jet printers.

And the deeper you dive into the possibilities, the more it becomes clear that this technology has the potential to completely change damn near everything.

Brave New World

“We first started thinking about 3D metal printing maybe eight, ten years ago, thinking it would be 15 to 20 years out,” Mike Yagley, Cobra’s VP of Innovation and AI, tells MyGolfSpy. “Here is it less than a decade later and we’re doing it.”

You’re probably familiar with 3D printing: an actual “printer” connected to a computer that squirts out a three-dimensional object. 3D printing has been used in the golf space for years; first to create plastic mockups and then to create actual prototypes.

Everybody is watching.

That was Commissioner Jay Monahan’s statement at the PGA Tour’s first event back. And through two events—at least to anyone watching at home—the PGA Tour looks like a collection of very fine golfers, caddies, volunteers and officials who see themselves as above taking measures to ensure the safety of themselves or others.

Just consider the other sports on television this weekend while the storm-delayed RBC Heritage played out (ultimately won by Webb Simpson in the stunning Hilton Head twilight).

The Professional Bull Riders and everyone around them wore masks on CBS.

The pit crews and drivers at NASCAR have been showing on Fox broadcasts how seriously they are taking the privilege of competing in a time other sports are stalled (granted, they do have other disgusting and potentially fatal issues to deal with).

Webb Simpson celebrated another victory on Father's Day, this time with a tartan jacket instead of a U.S. Open trophy.

No, he didn't win the RBC Heritage. But he was in the conversation for the first time in 10 months. That's no small thing in a condensed schedule with three majors still looming.

So Yeon Ryu closed with an even-par 72 to win the Korea Women's Open on Sunday. The two-time major champion donated her over $200,000 in prize money to coronavirus relief funds.

A father vowed to play Pebble Beach with his three boys. Two years before he died, he did it.

Come to Hilton Head Island and act like it never happened!

Or something like that, at least if you go by post-round comments at the RBC Heritage where players wondered if Nick Watney was an unlucky victim of a lax distancing and mask scene.

Justin Thomas was probably the most blunt about the scene, as Joel Beall reports for GolfDigest.com.

"Yeah, obviously, I was bummed [about Watney]. I don't want to—it's a shame because ... we have done such a great job these first two weeks,” Thomas said. “I mean, no offense to Hilton Head, but they're seeming to not take it very seriously. It's an absolute zoo around here. There's people everywhere. The beaches are absolutely packed. Every restaurant, from what I've seen when I've been driving by, is absolutely crowded. So I would say it's no coincidence that there's got to be a lot of stuff going on around here.

“Unfortunately, that's not on Nick because I know he's very cautious and has done everything he can, but I would say a lot of people in this area of Hilton Head just aren't.”

On a white board somewhere in Ponte Vedra Beach, there was a list of reasons why PGA Tour needed to be careful in returning before most American sports.

I think we’d all agree that a top 3 lock sounded something like player and caddie safety in a time of pandemic. Next, there was surely something about doing damage to efforts at keeping golf or all other sports viable. Shoot, maybe something about not hurting the image of the game. Well, the PGA Tour.

Anyway, I’m fairly certain another top three reason would have been wishing the virus on a fellow player. Actually, no one in their right mind would think a player might…oh, wait, you said Sergio’s playing this week?

Sigh.

Following a third round 65 that has him two strokes off the RBC Heritage, Sergio Garcia accomplished at least one thing: he got Rory McIlroy out of the lead for the week’s Most Regrettable Comment.

Webb Simpson managed only one birdie on the back nine Saturday at Harbour Town, and that was just enough for him to post a 3-under 68 and join a four-way share of the lead at the RBC Heritage.

Chris Kirk won the Korn Ferry Tour's King & Bear Classic on Saturday at World Golf Village, a year after taking a leave of absence from the PGA Tour for personal reasons.

If it weren't for his fitness tracker showing an elevated respiratory rate on Friday morning, Nick Watney wouldn't have felt the need to request a COVID-19 test that came back positive, Sergio Garcia said on Saturday.