Over the Green

Even though it’s not exactly the new year there’s no rule predictions can’t still be made. Therefore when a flash of insight hit while reading Jack Nicklaus’ remarks regarding Tiger Woods’ advance on the Golden Bear’s all time record of 18 major championships it was too good an opportunity to pass.

Nicklaus said 2010 is a big year in Woods’ quest of four more majors to tie him, particularly since three of the four championships are where Woods has had past success. In addition to the perennial site of the Masters, Augusta National Golf Club, the U.S. Open is at Pebble Beach Golf Links and the Open will be played on the Old Course St. Andrews. Clearly this wasn’t a case of the soon to be 70 Nicklaus pontificating, merely pointing out facts

Woods is getting older and though not one of Nicklaus’ points, there is an increasing potential that distractions (no snickering please) may prevent him from maintaining his best-in-the-world level. Besides, one of the so-called young guns might finally step up and find enough game to dominate the Tour, but don’t hold your breath; even the phenomenally talented world number two Phil Mickelson has yet to find a way to supplant Woods.

Subsequently the flash of insight was intensified by Woods’ former swing coach Butch Harmon’s statement Woods will return in March in time to get a couple of events under his competitive belt prior to the Masters. Not that Harmon has any special pipeline to Woods thinking, it just seems to make sense assuming the hiatus eventually will end not if it will end.

This can be viewed as significant in that just a few days ago there was speculation Woods would just say, “To heck with it, I don’t need the money.” In any case don’t expect it hear that out loud. He has not been forthcoming with his public, his employers nor would it appear with his wife.

Therefore the conclusion is Woods will get a walk on this one, in spite the moral outrage and fiscal losses caused by an epic proportioned betrayal of his family not to mention his fans.

Media coverage will continue, much of it speculative if not sensationalized and overboard. Some fans will never forgive him for the demonstration of arrogance and deceit much less the damage to his wife and children. But as with other public figures assigned semi-deification by the crowds, once Woods is back and makes a pro forma demonstration of humility all will promptly forgotten. Well, maybe not forgotten in the sense of no longer in memory but forgotten in the sense, “What difference does it make?”

One can see the beginning of this attitude shift reading the business press discussion about the monetary impact of the Woods fiasco on tournament charities and sponsors with one pundit even saying the companies who fired him aren’t with it, hip or otherwise in the camp of “Boys will be boys.”

Therefore in a year, like a three-putt on the eighteenth last Sunday, this will all be just a memory. Can a full hour of Tiger on Oprah be far behind?

Since SBS International signed up last May to replace Mercedes-Benz as title sponsor of the season opener for the PGA Tour as lot has changed, not the least being the consequences of Tiger Woods scandal on the Tour and golf in general.

But life and the Tour go on and the renamed SBS Championship starts Thursday in Hawaii on the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort, Maui. This being a unique field in that only winners in the 2009 season are eligible but two of the biggest will be no shows.

Of course world’s number one Woods won’t show, not that he usually does so early in the season, but he’s off the Tour for now in self-imposed exile. And “Lefty,” Phil Mickelson makes no pretense of trying to play in the first couple of events, his season begins in Southern Californa.

Though world number 1 and number 2 are absent fans can expect to see lots of good play from the winners of last year’s majors. Stewart Cink, who beat out Tom Watson for the Open title, Y.E. Yang who did the same thing to Woods for the PGA Championship and Angel Cabrera the Masters winner. TV coverage from warm and sunny Hawaii to the cold mainland starts Thursday at 3:30pm on the Golf Channel moving to 6pm the subsequent three days.

Tiger Woods for now is the number one ranked golfer in the world ahead of Phil Mickelson but both of them can’t match what Rory Mcilroy has done. The Northern Ireland native has moved into the ninth spot of the ranking at the tender age of 20. He won’t even be 21 until next May 4.

Woods who has taken an indefinite leave from golf is 6.66 points ahead of second place Mickelson and enjoys a 10.23 point spread on Mcilroy at number 9. His time off for reconstructive surgery on his knee lasted eight months and he still had a lead of 11 points when he returned at World Mactch Play Championships the last week in February.

Handa Cup
Women’s golf – though not the LPGA Tour – is at the Slammer & Squire at World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla. in the form of the Legends Tour season ending event. Wouldn’t it be great of the LPGA could spark some interest with a mixed team event of some of the older stars such as the U.S. Handa Team and current tour members? (see the next item)

The 2009 Handa Cup Dec. 5-6 with tickets at the gate $10 and children under 18 or military personnel are admitted free. U.S. Team: Amy Alcott, Pat Bradley, JoAnne Carner, Elaine Crosby, Beth Daniel, Sandra Haynie, Christa Johnson, Rosie Jones, Cindy Rarick, Nancy Scranton, Patty Sheehan and Sherri Turner. Captain: Kathy Whitworth, Assistant Captain: Lori West. World Team: Dawn Coe-Jones, Alicia Dibos, Gail Graham, Nancy Harvey, Jenny Lidback, Sally Little, Alison Nicholas, Mieko Nomura, Michiko Okada, Anne Marie Palli, Jan Stephenson, Aiko Takasu. Captain, Catherine Panton Lewis.

LPGA
Michael Whan is the new LPGA commissioner and most upon hearing the name say, “Whan? Who?”

OK that may be cheap shot but as commish Whan has a rocky road to travel and it’s a road that will determine whether the Tour survives. Cancelled tournaments, angry sponsors, virtually no TV coverage and disaffected fans are all stacked against Whan.

Several years ago I wrote a column and half jokingly suggested the PGA Tour buy the LPGA Tour thereby separating the female club professionals from the ladies tour just like the men. The PGA Tour’s marketing savvy and deep pockets would solve most if not all the LPGA’s problems. I was roundly booed back then I think because the proposal was a “business solution” to a quasi-feminist organization and some eyes would reverse a hard fought right of passage for female golfers.

Today I look at the business of golf and the availability of sponsor dollars wondering if the marketing of Michelle and Tiger or Left and Paula would drive all professional golf to new levels.

That won’t happen of course so Whan is probably saying his bedtime prayers the same as former commissioner Carolyn Bivens, “Please let Michelle win…a lot, and Paula and Natalie.”

Annika
Just in case you think the former world number one has been dogging it since retiring last year, she’s had a baby, launched a couple of new business ventures and continues to do lots of charity work. The most recent is the ANNIKA Experience at WaterSound Feb. 19-20, 2010 at St. Joe Company’s WaterSound Origins Golf Club, Camp Creek Golf Club and the WaterColor Inn and Resort in the Florida Panhandle.

Proceeds are to benefit local charities, health organizations and the ANNIKA Foundation which teaches children how to live a healthy, active lifestyle through fitness and nutrition and offers aspiring junior golfers opportunities to pursue their dreams. The ANNIKA Experience will include a kids’ fitness clinic, a celebrity golf match, meet Annika luncheon, charity golf tournament, and a food and wine reception.

The announcement of the final vote by the International Olympic Committee allowing golf to join the list of Olympic sports beginning with the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro has been made.

In addition to the stated reasons why golf should be included – exposure of the game around the world and tons of money from governments of countries who need to develop players to compete – there is a long list of unanswered questions. I have be raising them for some time and as yet have not seen a lot of satisfactory answers coming from those pushing for Olympic inclusion.

Not that they have to be concerned what one writer thinks but because these are serious questions concerning the future of competitive golf and golf in general. My concerns where initially covered in a column on June 8, 2008 which is reproduced below.

NEWS FLASH! Canadian George Lyon Wins Olympic Gold Medal in Golf.

I’m sure I’d be very unhappy as a PGA Tour tournament sponsor, finding my event (and millions of dollars) are to be pushed back to a second class status for the sake of ‘international golf.’

Isn’t this like the car makers back in the fifties who liked the idea of tail fins, making them bigger and bigger until the back end of my father’s Buick looked like the flight deck of the USS Enterprise?

And one further bit of numbing news, there are no high quality tournament courses in Brazil much less the Rio de Janeiro area. This is in the face of a slow world economy with courses closing and those remaining open going through more than a little belt tightening. Expect the scramble to find an appropriate venue to be resolved by building a new course for the Olympics, which not to say there will be anyone in Brazil to play it after the Olympics are over.

You knew it had to happen sometime, Tiger Woods going into the earnings stratsphere. Now a article on Forbes.com makes it official. Tiger has passed the billion (yes, that’s a B) in prize money, endorsements and other income. Of course he kind of backed into it with his loss to Phil Mickelson this past Sunday but he still took the $10.5 million from FedEx.

Two observations. First, he is just now entering his prime earning years as a pro…seems like forever but he has only been playing on the PGA Tour since 1996.

Secondly, the only other player who can be mentioned in the same breath from a performance standpoint, Jack Nicklaus, made just under $6 million of prize money in his entire career. This does include endorsement income or appearance fees, etc. but is a great expression of how times have changed.

With the USGA changing the rules for grooves from the current square design to a V-shape which harkens back to those in play a generation ago every golfer should be aware of a few facts.

First, the new grooves are required only on irons with 25 degrees or more of loft, essentially a 5-iron, and the rule was specifically put in place to make it more difficult to control shots to the green from the rough. The USGA’s thinking being pros are hitting the ball too far, we’ve done what we can to rein in driver performance, ball performance and course set up so let’s just make it harder to hit from the rough and stop a shot on the green.

The obvious rejoinder is, so what if touring professionals hit the ball further. If a little of that technology derived distance shows up in my game, so much the better. But that will not be the case since all clubs made after January 2010 must follow the groove rules. It’s probably fair to say Phil, Tiger and rest of the PGA Tour players have more than enough talent to overcome this roll back of technology but very few if any recreational golfers do or conceivable ever will. More…

NBC did it again, spent the first 11 minutes of their coverage by my watch with football scores, touting their programming and talking about the tournament. In other words making the assumption we aren’t interested in seeing actual golf shots.

Also unnoticed by Hicks and Miller evidentally in the focused coverage they provided of Tiger’s flat play today was that Lefty’s 65 was two better than the next low round (Furyk and Z. Johnson) and that the course scoring average was over par.

The Peacock Network seems increasingly to be enamoured by the sound of Johnny Miller’s voice and Dan Hicks rambles. Too bad because their camera work and production values are first rate.

Golf in the Olympics

With the announcement yesterday golf will join the list in 2016 of sports contested in the Olympics (along with rugby sevens) the work of a lot of golf people and organizations has borne fruit. All that remains is for the expected final approval by the International Olympic Committee.

According to Ty Votaw, the spear carrier in the battle to obtain approval and a vice president of the PGA Tour as well as executive director of the International Golf Federation Olympic Committee, “We’re obviously thrilled that the IOC Executive Board has recommended that golf should be added to the 2016 Olympic Program, We believe we have presented a compelling case as to why golf should be added and we look forward to the IOC’s final vote in October.”

The problem is I have yet to see a proposal from the PGA Tour or the USGA as to how another 72-hole tournament will fit into the schedule. If you have read previous columns on this topic you know I’m not real happy nor is everyone in golf with one more high profile “must play” championship especially since tournament sponsors are dropping out left and right from every pro tour.

The people who want Olympic golf say it’s about growing the popularity of the game and as I said in an earlier column, proponents assume “presumably dozens of national governments will start funding golf programs with tax payer money creating millions of new golfers around the world.”

Right.

The presentation to the IOC selection committee was in part predicated on of course Tiger, Lefty, Michelle, Paula and even Natalie competing. Wonderful for those big names and shoo-in members of team USA , but what happened to the idea of amateurs and the Olympics? I guess you can call me old fashioned but after watching the USA basketball team…well, you get my point.

The Olympics is held at the end of July and the beginning of August so the Open Championship, Women’s British Open and the PGA will be effected to say nothing of the other five professional majors (The Masters, men’s and women’s U.S. Opens, The Kraft Nabisco and MacDonald’s Championship). Not that a major can’t be moved but how about the trickle down to regular tour events? (See comments above concerning tournament sponsors.)

Next, do the all those countries supposedly waiting to taxpayer fund new golf programs after the attainment of its exalted Olympic status know the cost of building and maintaining not just one golf course but dozens and maybe hundreds, not to mention the expense of golf equipment for hundreds, thousands or even millions of players? My guess is not.

Finally Olympic engendered grow around the world will be a boon to golf equipment makers and perhaps to tourism though I’m struggling to see plane loads of Albanian hackers flocking to Florida or Arizona for a winter break.

Don’t get me wrong, I would like to see Olympic golf and even Tiger has made positive comments concerning his participation but there are real concerns yet to be addressed. And if they have why have the powers-that-be not been forthcoming with answers?

Cynic that I am, in my experience if it squeaks you pay attention to it, so just call me the squeaky wheel.

Another Major Down the Drain

To place a little perspective on the wailing and gnashing of teeth heard all the way on this side of the Atlantic after today’s Open results, those sounds were coming from the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews plus the networks (BBC over there and ABC here) that paid big bucks for the privilege of charging sponsors even bigger bucks and now he’s gone and done it. Missed the cut.

“He” is Tiger Woods of course and one of a very short list (Lefty is the only other in my book) who genuinely “move the needle.” Just look at the ratings of any event in which Tiger is entered versus any event in which he is not.

Aside from the fact I think his problem is not playing enough (which will be the topic of another column), golf will survive but I wouldn’t bet against my Florida neighbor at the PGA Championship in August. I imagine he’s some mad and feels he has something to prove after being beaten rather handily by Angel Cabrera at the Master’s and Lucas Glover at the U.S. Open.

Forgot his other wins since coming back last spring, just as Jack Nicklaus, Tiger does not measure himself by his performance in regular Tour events but by the majors. Having been in rehab for two of the last four and not winning the other two, missing the cut at the fifth must really rankle him.

Incidentally, not that anyone asked, Woods has missed only five cuts since becoming a professional, the most recent also being in a major, the 2006 U.S. Open.