Golfing News & Blog Articles

Tiger’s back, again! And I believe we know who was responsible for the 1997 ratings too.

For Immediate Release from Golf Channel:

MOST-WATCHED FIRST ROUND AT THE MEMORIAL SINCE 1997                                                            

DUBLIN, Ohio (July 17, 2020) – GOLF Channel’s first round coverage of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide (2:30-6:30 p.m. ET) saw 1.08 million average viewers, +152% year-over-year. Thursday’s telecast became the most-watched opening round at the Memorial since 1997 (1.18M average viewers, ESPN), and the most-watched weekday PGA TOUR telecast on GOLF Channel since the opening round of the 2018 TOUR Championship (1.25M average viewers).

Additional highlights:

Brian Goff at Forbes touched on something important in trying to explain why the extreme distance pursuit is debated in golf.

The trouble is, that sooner or later, when this becomes common place, what then? When the most challenging courses and tournaments begin to look like a January romp through a Palm Springs desert course and not much more than a putting contest, will that be so attractive? A version of this occurred with the steroid-enhanced explosion of home runs in Major League Baseball in the late 1990s and early 2000s attracted fans. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chasing Roger Maris’ record was exciting. Then, when Barry Bonds blew it away and seemingly half the guys in the league became a threat to hit 50 homers, it began to seem a lot less appealing (at least, to me). In fact, MLB has found itself back in this spot, not because of steroids but because of ball characteristics coupled with swing mechanics.

Everyone wants to see genuine power rewarded and part of the game. But when everyone does it, and the courses can’t put up any kind of defense for most of the field, even a casual fan may detect something off.

Daniel Rapaport at GolfDigest.com explains how Tony Finau and coach Boyd Summerhays decided to borrow from Bryson DeChambeau’s ball speed approach, leading to the 36-hole Memorial lead.

“Kind of in the middle of last week, my coach Boyd Summerhays and I decided to crank some up a little bit after being inspired by Bryson,” he said. “Seeing how straight he was hitting it and how hard, and so I decided to crank it up and work on hitting a really hard fade.

“I’ve let a few go so far this week, and it’s been pretty fun for me to kind of reach back more so than I have in the past.”

The Athletic’s Brendan Quinn also looked at Finau’s decision to unleash more speed and notes this in the numbers (again, through 36 but still):

For the year, Finau ranks 26th on tour in driving distance (305.9) and 40th in strokes gained off the tee (.331). This week, he ranks second in driving distance (321.0) and fifth in strokes gained off the tee (1.360).

“I’ve let a few go so far this week, and it’s been pretty fun for me to kind of reach back more so than I have in the past and kind of open up and hit some,” Finau said.

For Strokes Gained fans, the difference compared to his season rank is already noticeable:

Opening the blustery Memorial with a one-under 71, Tiger Woods appeared sound physically and played a calm, mostly-rust free round alongside Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka. Either he’s swinging at about 80%, as he did in the successful run-up to the 2019 Masters, or maybe his flowing swing of today looks slower thanks to Bryson’s recent slashing.

Either way, the combined sight of such good tempo and seemingly effortless accuracy suggests he’s well positioned for the upcoming majors.

From Steve DiMeglio’s story, noting just how tough the winds were when the all-star threesome teed off, and Woods’ struggle to make putts.

“I was very pleased the way I drove it, my feel for my irons. I just didn’t quite hit the putts hard enough. Most of my putts were dying, didn’t quite have enough oomph to it.”

Tiger Tracker was pleased with the performance too, noting that either poor positioning or a conservative approach led to only one par-5 birdie. Woods hit 8 of 14 fairways and 13 of 18 greens.

While there is no video posted of Jack Nicklaus opining during a lengthy Memorial round one telecast visit, the disdain in his voice was evident.

As Kyle Porter notes for CBSSports.com, the tournament host put the USGA and R&A “on blast” with his latest comments imploring action sooner than later.

"The golf ball is a very simple thing to fix and I've been preaching about it for ... 43 years I first went to the USGA," Nicklaus said in the Golf Channel booth during the first round of the Memorial Tournament on Thursday. "I mean, that's a long time to be studying something. Guys, stop studying it and do something, will you please?"

The man is 80, he should not have to be this exasperated.

The comments stood out because Nicklaus had complimented Bryson DeChambeau for playing stellar golf after his transformation.

ESPN.com’s Stephanie Ball takes a pretty extensive look at the PGA Tour’s successful start and highlights everything that’s gone into the COVID-19 testing protocols.

While there have been hiccups, questions about the legitimacy of the traveling “bubble” and recent signs that transparency is diminishing, the program has been a remarkable success in restarting golf and along with NASCAR, setting a solid example the world of major sports. (No players tested positive this week, a minor miracle given the country around them.)

Especially as other major leagues have restarted in bumpy fashion and now face questions about whether they are gaining unfair lab testing priority. (That issue was solved by the PGA Tour having an on-site, mobile test lab.)

It’s not clear if ESPN.com’s Ball saw some of the elements in person, but the story does indicate a foregone conclusion element to at-home testing before events (we know one player did not partake and traveled a good ways just to test positive and spend 10 days in quarantine).

Anyway, one component of the story still sets off alarm bells given what we know about the virus and people exercising indoors: the Tour’s fitness van. That’s where players are now asked to workout instead of hotel or home gyms, seems like a spreader event waiting to happen.

Liberty National’s 18th hole (left) and desired area for expansion (right), with New York City in the distance (Photo by Geoff Shackelford)

Liberty National owner Paul Fireman, has given up recently rekindled efforts to expand the course into sensitive wetlands just off the current 18th hole, reports NorthJersey.com’s Terence T. McDonald. The plan was

Paul Fireman, the former Reebok executive and owner of Liberty National Golf Course, said in a statement Wednesday morning that he is pulling the plug on the expansion plan so the park’s advocates can address what he called the “social justice problems connected to Liberty State Park.” Fireman allies have alleged recently that the park’s keepers have not done enough to make it accessible to the largely Black neighborhoods that sit just outside of the 1,200-acre urban oasis.

The course recently hosted the 2017 Presidents Cup and 2019 Northern Trust won by Patrick Reed.

As far as trades go, this is huge win for San Francisco, Harding Park and the PGA Tour from what I’m reading in Ron Kroichick’s San Francisco Chronicle story.

In a nutshell: the PGA Tour and City of San Francisco contract called for several events, including the 2026 Presidents Cup (which now moves to 2027, one year closer to Olympic Club hosting the 2028 PGA). Instead, the already-once-failed attempt at a Steph Curry-hosted fall event has been resurrected. Originally slated for Lake Merced the first go-round, Kroichick says next month’s PGA Championship host will end up the regular site instead of the Presidents Cup.

Workday, sponsor of last week’s one-off “Charity Open” at Muirfield Village was the likely sponsor the last time a Curry-hosted event was considered and seems the likely sponsor for the new fall stop.

In his pre-Memorial media session—which came after a virtual luncheon…these strange times—Commissioner Jay Monahan said the likely next event to be played before humans will probably be the U.S. Open at Winged Foot.

JAY MONAHAN: You know, obviously we've canceled -- we're not going to have spectators and we're not going to have pro-ams through the TOUR Championship in Atlanta. Right now you look at the PGA TOUR schedule, the next event up is the U.S. Open, and I know that the USGA continues to work with the state of New York and is making plans to return fans. If I had to guess, that would be the first week that we would do so.

I think to give a little more texture to your question, we're spending a lot of time in each of the subsequent tournaments or each of the tournaments in the fall working on a number of different ways to stage the event, which includes full capacity, partial capacity, and obviously the way that we're operating now, which is no spectators, and that will be largely dependent on what we hear from the communities where we play.

As noted yesterday, New York’s newly imposed quarantine restrictions on visitors from pretty much any place with a population seem like a bigger issue for mid-September’s rescheduled U.S. Open at Winged Foot. That said, even a small crowd would make a huge difference in giving the event a major championship field—if safe to do so. Oh, and help move some 2020 merch.

How refreshing to see Bryson DeChambeau tackle a question about distance, equipment rules changes and Martin Slumbers’ recent remarks with both class and wisdom.

Many players might bristle or give signs of a narcissistic blow. Mercifully, DeChambeau is confident that the recent advantage he’s gained would likely remain if the governing bodies ever did something to lessen the role of technology over skill. He seems fine with any rule change and willing to take responsibility for adjusting to the rules. Many a lesser man would have taken all of this personally.

From today’s pre-Memorial Tournament presser:

Q. I wanted to ask, Slumbers talked about the fact that they're going to have to address what's going on, and you seem to be now the newest poster boy for this. Would you be upset if they rolled things back in regards to equipment because you've shown them that you can hit the ball as far as you can hit it?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Hmm. No, I wouldn't. No matter what rules they give me, I'm going to try and do my best to maximize my athletic ability. They can't take working out away from me. I know that. At least as of right now. Whatever -- look, 1998 the COR test was put in stone where you couldn't have a certain number off the face, and they've used that ever since. It's now a CT test. The ball speeds coming off the face are what they are, and they really haven't changed that much. If anything, the clubs have gotten longer, the shafts have gotten stiffer, and we can swing it faster with more control. Back in the day, the shafts were a little more flexible, and LA Golf Shafts has provided me with a shaft that's super stiff, super stable and allowed me to swing at the speeds while retaining the same control with the face.

Yeah, it's a lot of work on my end, too, to gain strength and to swing it hard, to train. It's a lot of hard work. People don't realize how hard I've worked to get here. It's been working out for at least an hour every single day for the past five, six months, fixing my body when it breaks down. I have to go, okay, I've got to go fix my body and work out and train in the right way to be able to tolerate all these forces going through my body and out of my body.

So in regards to whoever is saying we're going to have to look at equipment, I've got no problem. I'm, again, just going to look at my game and how I can improve it in the best way possible, no matter if they roll the ball back there's still going to be a percentage difference. Even if it gets rolled back there's still going to be a gap. Whether it's closer now, it is what it is. I'm not really worried about it. I'm just going to keep trying to make those athletic gains so that I can be the best golfer that I can possibly be.

Commissioner Jay Monahan, who is on the record as pro-distance, was asked about DeChambeau and distance in his pre-Memorial session with reporters on hand. He mentions how DeChambeau disrupted himself (his bacon and milkshake supplier would concur) and then largely dances around the R&A/USGA position.

Even with the outcome having been determined, the fill-in Workday Charity Open on CBS edged FS1’s prime time NASCAR to rank as last weekend’s top rated sports broadcast, notes Sports Media Watch.

Showbuzzdaily.com has the full listing here.

The Workday final round from Muirfield Village, won in a playoff by Collin Morikawa over Justin Thomas, competed against NBC’s live airing of the American Century Championship.

Compared to the same weekend in 2019, the Workday easily beat the John Deere Classic while the American Century held steady.

Tiger Woods returned to Muirfield Village for a practice round with Justin Thomas and spoke to media soon after. The session didn’t reveal much, though the big buried lede came when discussion last week’s Workday Charity Open at Muirfield Village when Collin Morikawa and Thomas went to a playoff.

Tiger revealed that he was watching on his computer like most after CBS successfully produced excellent live early round coverage for Golf Channel, then sent viewers to its app and website to watch continuing live coverage all so the final round could be shown on tape in its regularly scheduled time slot.

Q. You've been in this situation before, too, but I'm sure you saw on Sunday J.T. holes a 50-footer. If there's a crowd around like Memorial usually gets and they react to it, how much harder is it for Collin to make his putt?

TIGER WOODS: A lot more difficult. I just think that the energy -- even it felt weird as I was watching on my computer at home, like 14, when Collin hit the ball on the green there, and granted, they've never had the tees up there during the Memorial event, but if they were and had that same situation during a Memorial event, to have someone drive the ball on the green that close to the hole, I mean, that whole hillside would have been going nuts.

Now, I’m speculating here, but work with me: Tiger Woods went to Stanford, he has a big yacht, he loves sports, and watches a lot of those sports on TV in the comfort of his home. I’m thinking he has a pretty nice TV setup, maybe even a “guy” who set up a sweet system complete with surround sound, Sonos through the estate and every channel known to man.

ESPN.com’s Bob Harig reports on Jack Nicklaus’ most intriguing pre-Memorial Tournament press conference comment: the 80-year-oldlegend intends to maintain the tradition of greeting the likely winner with a handshake after they’ve completed 72 holes.

"I'm going to shake their hand. I going to walk right out there and shake your hand," Nicklaus said during a virtual news conference at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. "If they don't want to shake my hand, that's fine. I'll give them a fist bump or an elbow bump, but I'm not going to give them COVID-19, so that's -- I wouldn't put anybody in that position. I wouldn't do that, and if I was in any danger of doing that, I wouldn't shake their hands.

"And incidentally, I like shaking their hand, too. I think that's a great tradition, but it was as much fun for me as I hope it is for them."

The PGA Tour has repeatedly asked players, caddies and officials not to shake hands or even fist bump, though Commissioner Jay Monahan and Rory McIlroy couldn’t help themselves at Harbour Town. But the view of Nicklaus stands out because he had recorded a PSA back in March imploring younger generations to protect those of his age group.

"Many of you kids, you're going to a lot of places that may bring that home to a senior citizen. I don't think that's what you want to do," Nicklaus said. "Let's all make sure we wash our hands. Let's make sure we're very smart about where we go, and when we go, let's try to stay away from public places. Let's just be smart. Americans have always been smart, and Americans have always gotten through these things, and we'll get through this one."

The PSA:

There is a key detail missing in Doug Ferguson’s AP report saying the PGA Tour is exploring a move of its fall Asia swing to the west coast of the United States.

Naturally, there will be no creativity shown with field size and format but some fall west coast golf is a nice alternative. Tough conversations will have to take place with sponsors whose primary sponsorship interest lies in bringing top players to their part of the world.

So no, those aren’t the details missing. It’s something else.

Wait, I’ve got it!

The rest of the world, flattening the curve, will want no part of a mostly-American group of golfers, their luggage handlers, and a tour featuring COVID-19 positive-testing-but-not-negative groupings (going off in two twosomes with GMac quietly added to that dubious division).

🚨Stat of the week:

The 2020 @MemorialGolf SoF is set to break many #OWGR era records. As it looks now, this will be:

- strongest regular @PGATOUR event ever
- 1st regular PGA Tour event with SoF > 800
- stronger than any Playoff event ever
- stronger than the last 8 Masters pic.twitter.com/btBDoZrPsX

With the world’s top nine players and Tiger Woods turning up in Dublin, Ohio for the rescheduled Memorial Tournament, the strength of the 133-player field appears set to be historic (see above embed).

That said, as a few pointed out on Twitter today (below), the field features several sponsor invites of former champions from long ago who haven’t shown signs of relevance in a some time. Namely, Carl Pettersson and Vijay Singh.

Singh, 57, has yet to make a cut in 2020 in seven starts, has on top ten the last four years on the PGA Tour, and has made just 12 cuts in 42 starts during that time.

Petterson, 42, has made one PGA Tour start the last two years and since 2016, has made eleven made cuts in 60 starts with three WD’s and one top-25.

Photo by Matthew Harris

One of the world’s greatest golf courses looks improved with a revised 7th. Gorse is gone, contours exposed and a hole that always felt oddly out of place now provides an aesthetic high point.

Golf Architecture’s Richard Humphreys details the work by Mackenzie & Ebert that is still to include new tees for the 8th hole.

The work was first proposed after a course review in 2013 and approved by the club in 2015. “I very nearly did not include this concept because it felt almost inconceivable that the members would agree to alter the hole,” said Tom Mackenzie. “It was resoundingly approved – lesson learnt.”
 
“The view from the seventh tee is one of the most famous in the world of golf. Is there a first-time visitor to Dornoch who has not taken that photo down over the course? It seemed frustrating that once down off the tee, the sea disappeared until the green on the highest part of the course. There was plenty of room to the right, so logically, it made sense to rotate the hole that way so that the entire hole enjoyed the same view with a new sea vista behind the green.

You can see the location of the new hole corridor in this Google Earth screen capture:

With major championships now in site, there are the inevitable complications.

California is hosting the PGA Championship in San Francisco County, on Governor Gavin Newsom’s monitoring list of counties seeing restrictions on essentially any indoor gathering. How this will impact operations at the Harding Park, remains to be seen. CNBC’s Noah Higgins-Dunn reports.

Meanwhile in New York, the Wall Street Journal’s Melanie Grayce West reports on the state installing new safeguards against travelers entering the state with COVID-19. Major forms to be filled out and a summons for non-compliance. There is also the quarantining for visitors from several states.

More than a dozen states, including Texas, California and Arizona, are on the state’s quarantine list. Travelers from those states are required to voluntarily quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in New York. Mr. Cuomo has repeatedly said that the spread of Covid-19 in New York was caused by travelers arriving from Europe at New York’s airports.

Scheduled for September 17th-20th, the U.S. Open in Mamaroneck, New York is to be preceded by the PGA Tour’s 2020-21 season opener in Napa, California.

Before you vote, here is why I’m asking.

R&A Chief Martin Slumbers said in a new interview with the MailOnline that his organization is as focused as ever on implementing some sort of equipment rules changes. However, the current pandemic has caused the governing bodies to be “conscious of the golf industry having the time to recover.” He goes on to say the topic of distance will be back, “because it does need to be discussed.”

While the world does have more important things to focus on, we know now that the pandemic has already accelerated trends and expedited disruptions. If rulemaker minds have been made up, why not act sooner than later, he asks rhetorically?

That’s the point golf architect Tom Doak makes in this Golf Club Atlas thread.

If they wanted to make changes, what better time to make them than when everything is in upheaval?  That's exactly when capitalists pounce on the opportunity to do things they want to do.

But when you DON'T want to make changes, that's when politicians say "it's too soon" to consider new policies and that "we don't want to be reactive," or "people need time to grieve."  So we might as well start grieving, because it sounds like this report is going to limit the options for change.

One other point: the game has seen a surge in popularity and rounds as courses reopened and golfers fled to safe places to exercise. Getting to get back and search (or buy) ten more yards has not fueled this newfound golf popularity, so what better time than now?

SBJ’s John Ourand explains the new partnership between CBS and SRX, a NASCAR disrupter led by hall of famers Tony Stewart and Ray Evenham.

The parallels with the Premier Golf League are hard to ignore, from claims of wanting star drivers and to not threaten NASCAR (right!). There are also short-track races, tighter TV windows

wo of the biggest names in auto racing — NASCAR hall of famers Ray Evernham and Tony Stewart — will launch an auto racing circuit that has the potential to be the biggest disrupter to the auto racing business in decades.
 
With top agent Sandy Montag and former NASCAR COO George Pyne rounding out the four-person board, Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) will feature six short-track races starting next summer.
SRX already has a TV deal in place with CBS, which has committed to carry the Saturday night races in prime time next year. The CBS deal runs for multiple years.
SRX has no outside investors; it is being underwritten by the four board members. Startup costs currently run in the low seven-figure range. Those costs will ramp up next summer when the races start, but SRX expects to have sponsors on board to defray those costs.
During interviews last week, SRX’s board members took pains to say the new group had no plans on competing with NASCAR. But it’s clear that they see openings where they believe NASCAR has fallen short. That includes:
■ A television strategy that will fit races into two-hour prime-time windows, presenting a contrast to NASCAR’s races that can run twice that long.
■ A focus on driver performance, rather than auto technology. Evernham will design the cars so that everyone races with the same equipment.
■ It will include racers and crew chiefs who are well known. Each race will have 12 drivers randomly matched with a crew chief.
■ It will feature racing under the lights at short tracks in the American heartland.
■ It is being positioned as an easier sale for sponsors that want to buy time on TV and at the event. “They make one phone call to be integrated in all aspects of the broadcast and the event,” Pyne said.
When it came to finding a media partner, Montag said his first and only call went to CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus, who was instantly drawn to the project based on the amount of experience each had in racing.
“If you look at all the elements that you want in a new venture in the world of sports television, it’s pretty much got everything you would want,” McManus said. “It’s got a great television schedule, it’s got a great track record of people working on it. It’s got high-profile names, it’s got really attractive live action that is unpredictable, it’s got an opportunity to tell a lot of stories.
“Let’s face it, with prime-time television being what it is, all the networks are looking for new, attractive and hopefully live content,” he said. “I can’t think of anything better than this for six Saturday nights in the summer on CBS.”
McManus has dabbled with startup sports ventures before, having signed a deal with the Alliance of American Football last year. He said this deal is different.
“Since we are partners, I’ve looked really carefully at the financial projections and the estimates for sponsorships and partners,” McManus said. “This works really well from a financial standpoint. I was not that involved at all in the finances for the AAF, and in the end, the finances are what brought that league down.”
Racing
SRX is most excited about the way drivers will compete on those short tracks. Evernham will design, prepare and build traditional stock cars that are capable of running on different surfaces and different types of tracks, such as paved or dirt.

“We want to make that machine be a big part of it, but it’s got to be the driver, crew chief, the human being controlling the machine, not the machine controlling the outcome of the competition,” Evernham said. “That combination of driver, crew chief and machine, no computers telling you what to do, no simulation. It’s really about the competition, how well that driver and crew chief can make that machine go against one another.”

Mailonline’s John Greechan has posted a lengthy set of quotes from R&A Chief Executive Martin Slumbers reviewing the decision to cancel The Open Championship, normally played this week.

But it’s his comments on technology and skill that will get the most attention. While the headline writers love the Bryson DeChambeau remarks, Slumbers makes clear that when times improve the topic of distance will be revisited.

It’s the specifics on how they may act that advance the discussion more. While the specifics should not surprise anyone who reads the R&A and USGA Distance Insights report, the regulatory approach is now pretty clear.

”Once we feel that the industry is stable again, which isn't going to be tomorrow, because we don't know what's going to happen over autumn and winter, we will be coming back to that issue in great seriousness.

”It is too simple just to say change the ball. Way too simple. You can do things with the ball.
'But it's the relationship between ball and club which is most important, to me.

”The fundamental change in the golf ball since 1999-2000, with the introduction of ProV1 technology, is the ball spins less.

”And drivers have been designed so it spins even less, which makes it go further.”

Or, farther. Either way, it’s good to know the intent is to target both ball and clubface.