Golfing News & Blog Articles

Well it’s a start, but the (ongoing) sad state of affairs at America’s top collegiate course and most affordable membership option in the area seem likely to be addressed.

Sadly, at Yale Golf Course during the pandemic—one of the few sad stories of neglect—will take time to fix. In such a short season, even the latest news below does not exactly make me optimistic for C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor’s masterful design. But at least the current Athletic Director seems concerned. This is progress.

Thanks to all who forwarded this.

Now that spectators have been ruled out for The Memorial, the back-to-back weeks at Muirfield Village will be delineated by contrasting course setups (Rex Hoggard reported three weeks ago).

Get ready to hear a lot about Stimpmeter speeds and rough heights. Oh, that’ll lure in the young people.

Also, the field for this week’s Workday Charity Open will consist of 156 compared to 120 for next week’s Memorial. 72-holes of stroke play for both. Scintillating.

The Workday provided an opportunity to inject something fresh onto the schedule while retaining the Memorial’s luster. Remember all the pre-pandemic talk about the need to slip in more variety on the schedule and offer alternatives to 72-holes of stroke play? I know, seems like decades ago.

Here are some options that would undoubtedly have required too many Zoom meetings and players inevitably offering their buzzkilling two cents.

Let’s ignore the fan vote component (Rory inevitably opens as the 3-1 favorite!) and instead enjoy the R&A’s fresh approach to pandemic “content”. The Old Course! A tournament! On national TV! Better than most!

For Immediate Release…

THE R&A TO MARK ‘OPEN WEEK’ WITH CELEBRATORY BROADCAST OF ‘THE OPEN FOR THE AGES’

6 July 2020, St Andrews, Scotland: The R&A is inviting golf fans around the world to take part in a very special celebration of golf’s original championship following the cancellation of The Open this year.

‘The Open for The Ages’ will bring together many of golf’s greatest champions for the first time to compete against each other over the Old Course at St Andrews in a compelling and innovative three-hour broadcast production. 

This exclusive edition of The Open features 50 years of archive footage expertly edited and woven together with modern graphics and new commentary to imagine a Championship contested by the legends of the sport including Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Watson, Sir Nick Faldo and Rory McIlroy.

‘The Open for The Ages’ will culminate in a final round programme that will air on Sunday 19 July when it will be broadcast globally to fans around the world on TV, TheOpen.com and The Open’s social media channels. The broadcast is being supported by HSBC and NTT DATA, both Patrons of The Open.

Anticipation and excitement for the final round programme will build up from Thursday 16 to Saturday 18 July when coverage of the first three rounds of ‘The Open for The Ages’ will be provided by in-play clips, live leaderboards and end of play highlights across The Open’s social media channels.

The winner of ‘The Open for The Ages’ will be determined by a fan vote, which has registered more than 10,000 responses, and a data model developed in partnership with NTT DATA that utilises player career statistics alongside the input by fans to calculate the Champion.

Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of The R&A, said, “Golf is one of the very few sports where this concept can be created and brought to life. The way in which the sport is filmed allows us a truly unique opportunity to reimagine history and bring together the greatest players from many different eras on a scale which has not been done before, either in golf or in other sports.

“We are all keenly feeling the absence of The Open from the global sporting calendar this year and so we hope that this broadcast will generate real interest and enjoyment for the millions of golf and sports fans who closely follow the Championship every year.”

Laurence Norman, VP Sports Technology at NTT DATA UK, said, “Technology is synonymous with modern sport, helping athletes compete at optimum performance levels. What’s even more exciting is the new emphasis on technology being utilised to enhance fan experiences.

“Building stronger fan engagement through technology is the future of sports, and while it will never replace the thrill of live events, The Open for The Ages demonstrates how technology can keep pushing the boundaries of what it is possible in sports broadcasting."

The R&A’s international TV broadcast partners, including Sky Sports in the UK, NBC Sports and NBC Golf Channel in the United States of America, and TV Asahi in Japan, will televise ‘The Open for The Ages’ to fans all around the world.  It will also be made available via TheOpen.com and The Open’s YouTube and Facebook channels.

Commentators, including Ewen Murray, Nick Dougherty, Butch Harmon and Iona Stephen, will bring the Championship to life using a compelling narrative that will provide a fascinating spectacle at the Home of Golf.

‘The Open for the Ages’ will be supported by a digital and social media campaign featuring ‘in-play’ clips, leaderboards and statistics in the lead up to the final round being played when the outright winner is revealed.

The trailer:

From this week’s Golf.com Confidential, caddie and contributor John Wood on Bryson DeChambeau’s game following the Rocket Mortgage Classic win:

John Wood, PGA Tour caddie for Matt Kuchar (@Johnwould): Bryson seems to have broken the code for Bryson. And I think he has transferred what has been done at the long driving competitions for a while now to highly competitive golf. I couldn’t be more impressed. I was watching today and thought how economical this type of game is to practice. You practice drivers, wedges, chips and putting. He won’t often have to hit mid-irons, ever. Maybe a couple a day to par-5s. But for the most part, playing the game like he is playing it, and how courses are allowing him to play it through setup, why would you spend the time on fairway woods and hybrids and long/mid-irons when they will be used so seldom.

Will Gray at GolfChannel.com featured several of DeChambeau’s comments and summed up the whirlwind week at Detroit Golf Club, including this.

To that end, he’s looking to parse every possible advantage in a game where each player starts the week with the same score from the same teeing ground.

“I think the most important thing is that I’ve shown people that there’s another way to do it, and there’s going to be other people trying to come up and do it that way,” DeChambeau said. “For me, I think there are going to be people trying to hit it a little harder, some of them, but at the end of the day, it’s going to take a generation for all this to evolve into something different.”

Fox Sports’ Joe Buck penned an uplifting serenade to five years of Fox handling USGA events and namely, the U.S. Open.

While he has fond memories of everything coming together for both parties at Pebble Beach, including a fitting Tap Room finish, only one thing really bugs the broadcaster. Not getting to call a Tiger win, or at least, contending U.S. Open week.

Regarding Tiger: We never got to see THE MAN do his thing. (MC, DNP, DNP, MC, T21 in our five years.) And that kills me.

Buck also offers this about golf on TV.

But I wouldn’t trade our five-year run for anything, because of the people I worked with (starting with our producer, Mark Loomis), what we experienced together, what we learned. Here are some quick lessons: Let the players and caddies talk. Less is more. From the field is better than from the booth. And the Fox Sports production-side innovations will become a big part of TV coverage elsewhere. Drone shots and more ball-tracers already are.

One of several CBS graphics highlighting DeChambeau’s dominant driving

The numbers are eye-popping and impressive. So is the dedication and precision displayed by Bryson DeChambeau in winning the 2020 Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Not so great: his mood on Saturday and the resulting brand hit in whining about protecting his privacy.

He finishes a four-week run 67 under par and will leave the golf world debating about what we just saw.

A few stats of note:

Bryson running a little hot. Caught up with him on 7 where he took a Sergio slash at the sand after splashing out of a greenside bunker, muttered an expletive after missing the par save and spent 60 seconds in a...testy discussion with a cameraman on his way to 8 tee. pic.twitter.com/ENjQt1U689

Bryson DeChambeau was seen giving a television cameraman covering round three of the Rocket Mortgage Classic some and was asked about his outburst by GolfChannel.com’s Will Gray following a third round 67.

So he gave the cameraman grief for, what, you ask?

Keeping the camera on Bryson…too long.

Yep. His privacy was invaded. His brand tainted.

Fan favorite Hosung Choi has won tournaments, earned sponsor’s invites and even taken his moves to the greens.

But The Fisherman dropped anchor while playing Korea Professional Golf Tour’s Busan Gyeongnam Open according to GolfChannel.com’s Brentley Romine and because his ball had not advanced past tee markers, was able to retee this drop-kick whiff.

Nice mask though.

Hosung noooooooooooooooooo pic.twitter.com/vlND55T7Mt

After a short hiatus, Rod Morri, Mike Clayton and yours truly discussed a nice array of topics with the 2006 U.S. Open Champion.

The should be available wherever you get your podcasts, or you can listen below.

The Apple podcast show link.

With purported campus-wide restrictions on work hours and staff leaving several university courses closed, there certainly are greater problems facing America’s institutions of higher learning. That said, as feared last month when word surfaced that arguably the finest university course in the land was not open and losing key staff members, it seemed Yale’s tortured relationship with his C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor gem would not be helped by the pandemic.

Sure enough, things have deteriorated quickly based on these images posted by Daryl Brereton:

Good bye Yale golf course. @gil_hanse @fried_egg_golf @golfersjournal @golficity @insidetheleatherpodcast @nolayingup @csgalinks #golfheadz #yalegolf #charlesblairmacdonald #sethraynorsociety #sethraynor

The university intends to host students and faculty this fall on campus. The ones who like golf will not have a functioning, maintained course to return to.

Global Golf Post’s Ron Sirak looks at the still-stunning USGA media rights reversion to NBC after Fox decided to eat a sizeable portion of the bloated price they paid in 2013.

He noted this on the timing, suggesting it was strictly a deal between the networks.

The first conversations took place during the spring but gained momentum in the past two weeks.

According to multiple sources, as discussions about NBC taking the 2020 broadcast evolved and NBC Universal showed willingness to assume the deal, Fox Sports executives Eric Shanks and Larry Jones brought the idea of transferring the rights to USGA chief executive officer Mike Davis earlier this month. Davis was apparently unaware of the impending change until the time of that presentation.

Executives within the Fox Sports golf team were not made aware of the potential change until last Thursday. The rest of the crew, including announcers Joe Buck, Curtis Strange, Paul Azinger, Brad Faxon and others, were not informed until Sunday afternoon.

Longtime golf writer Craig Dolch returns in the Palm Beach Post pages to share with anti-mask-wearing world just one more sad and profound consequence of COVID-19’s horrifying spread among Americans: some in group homes no longer can receive visits. Including his son Eric, now 29, who was struck with a bacterial infection at age 14 and requires group home care. In Florida, visitors are prohibited in such facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eric’s situation is no different than thousands of elderly and sick individuals throughout Florida who have been left isolated because of the pandemic. Families have been unable to say goodbye to their parents or grandparents, not to mention how difficult it is for those who have become prisoners in their facilities. More than 1,500 people have died in long-term care facilities in Florida due to COVID-19.

So excuse me when someone says it’s their right not to wear a mask. What about my son’s rights and others who have no control over how the public reacts to the greatest medical crisis of our lifetime?
Without a mask, they are the silent face of this pandemic. They have no say.

For weeks, I was counting down the days to July 1 – the date we expected the governor to allow visitors into these homes again. I stopped doing that two weeks ago when the number of positive tests in Florida started to spike.

Mostly because people won’t wear masks.

Score one for for Wendell Haskins, the PGA of America’s former director of inclusion efforts during CEO Pete Bevacqua’s years, who penned the organization to highlight how little they had done on the inclusion front. One highlight of the letter was his simple sentence noting Horton Smith’s overt racism.

Current CEO Seth Waugh reached out to Haskins and the two apparently had a healthy conversation that has now led to one noticeable change: the elimination of Smith’s name from the award for outstanding contributions to professional education.

For Immediate Release:

PGA of America Board Votes to Rename the Horton Smith Award

PGA of America sheds historic award with racial ties

GolfDigest.com’s John Feinstein follows up with Charlie Rymer about the longtime player and commentator’s COVID-19 battle. He’s back home in Myrtle Beach gradually recuperating. The story includes several noteworthy details beyond Rymer’s Tweets earlier this week, including his hospitalization, wife Carol’s role in his care and the comments from the lunatic he wasn’t expecting.

As always please hit the link, but just one part that stood out:

Country singer Vince Gill, a very good golfer Rymer has played with often, sent a video that was entertaining and funny. Former Acushnet CEO Wally Uihlein sent a text, and so did Pete Bevacqua, the president of the NBC Sports Group. Quite a few players also got in touch, including Harris English, who recently tested positive for COVID-19.

“I still can’t do a whole lot, so it’s been nice to sit here and read some of the notes and then take some time to respond and say thank you,” Rymer said. “I’d never say this is something I’d want to go through or would want to see anyone to go through, but I think in the end it can be a blessing.”

The Courier’s Craig Smith explains plans for expanding the R&A Clubhouse (underground) along with other security updates. The building opened in early 1854 and now must accommodate the club’s inclusion of female members. Of course, none of this is open to the public so I’d understand your lack of interest. But it is golf’s most iconic clubhouse so…

However, the R&A’s new application for listed building consent for the proposed works represents one of the biggest changes in living memory.

It has not yet been revealed how much the redevelopment will cost but it is anticipated to be well into seven figures.

According to the proposals, 450 combined male and female lockers, providing adequate bench and hanging space, will be created along with showers and toilet facilities.

Bag storage areas catering for up to 500 golf bags and trolleys are planned, as are a drying room, a family-friendly meeting area to assist in the promotion of junior golf and a new arrival/drop off layby to improve the road network.

No one knows anything, or so the saying goes. Especially in a time of pandemic where the unknowns and mysteries keep even experts guessing, so you can’t blame the PGA Tour for altering their guidelines almost daily. The latest adjustment comes in the case of Cameron Champ, who arrived last week from Houston, tested positive for COVID-19, withdrew but subsequently tested negative twice.

And now, he gets a rule in his honor.

For Immediate Release.

PGA TOUR Statement – Health & Safety Plan Updates

July 1, 2020

With Titleist asking a few pros to hit shots with a dimple-free demonstration ball—video below—Golf.com’s Jonathan Wall says it reminds us how important those little indentations are to the modern ball.

So the next time you hammer a drive and watch the ball soar downrange, take a minute to tip your cap to the ball designer working diligently on the dimples. Without them, you’d need to be Iron Byron to keep it on the map.

Maybe we take just a few off for the pros-15 or so?-make it spin just a little more and see who really hits on the sweet spot? Or who knows how to use the spin to shape a shot? Think of the tracer fun!

Again, just a thought…

During the “Return to Golf’s” initial three weeks, wannabe J.J. Watt stunt double and elite PGA Tour professional Bryson DeChambeau’s bulk-up, Bomb and Gouge approach has had him in contention.

But his style of play that sees drives air mailing design features raises questions about whether this is what the future of golf should look like. Particularly in making a mockery of courses built long ago and with no chance of imagining the regulatory complacency of the last twenty years to retain some sort of challenge.

DeChambeau is at least apologetic and respectful of a legend like Donald Ross, designer of the latest course to have no chance against modern equipment. After playing the front nine at Detroit Golf Club, home of this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, DeChambeau says he will be taking the fairway bunkers out of play.

From Will Gray at GolfChannel.com:

"I haven't played both sides yet, so seems like it's fairly tight, a lot of rough," DeChambeau said. "I think there's a lot of bunkers that are around like 290 (yards), so hopefully I'll be able to clear those and take those out of play. So, sorry, Mr. Ross, but, you know, it is what it is."

Four more players—one on the PGA Tour and three on the Korn Ferry Tour—tested positive for COVID-19 and have withdrawn from this week’s stops in Michigan and Colorado.

Here is the PGA Tour Communications statement issued:

PGA TOUR, Korn Ferry Tour statement – COVID-19 update – June 30, 2020

As part of the PGA TOUR’s pre-tournament screening process this week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, TOUR player Chad Campbell tested positive for COVID-19 and has been withdrawn from the event (he was the first alternate).

Campbell, who last competed at the Charles Schwab Challenge, will have the PGA TOUR’s full support throughout his self-isolation period under CDC guidelines.

The Scotsman’s Stuart MacDonald explains the Old Course Hotel’s plan unveiling for a “luxury pub” with views over the Road hole.

The key attribute of the proposed terrace bar? Glass frontage.

Presumably glass that can stop an incoming dimpled white pellet stamped with things like Titleist, Taylor Made, Callaway or Bridgestone? Maybe?

Oh no, it’s about preserving the archtiectural integrity of the building once described by Henry Longhurst as looking like a chest with all the drawers pulled out.

“The need for the development is to continue to meet the demands for function space and to provide the highest quality of facilities to guests in a five-star hotel.