What’s the over/under on Johnnie’s 63?
The USGA must have had some sort of media day at Oakmont recently as the golf news and websites are all full of the impending US Open. While no one is forgetting Jack’s tournament at Muirfield Village this week, writers are tripping over themselves to get in a mention about the Open. I randomly skimmed a dozen articles and 9 of the 12 mentioned Johnnie Miller’s famous 63 on that Sunday back in 1973. With the NBC crew doing the US Open telecast in a little over 2 weeks, Dan Hicks, Roger Maltby et al won’t miss an opportunity to suck up to Johnnie by reminding viewers of the feat. Even old squishy face himself will drag his tired old act out one more time.
Miller is the king of self promotion, often in a Jim Brown sort of way. Many old time football fans revere Brown as the greatest running back ever but when he was doing colour commentary on TV after his retirement he had trouble acknowledging that any other player was his equal or, God forbid, better. When his co-anchors would heap praise on another player, Brown would grudgingly give him his due but you could almost hear him say, “but he’s not as good as me.” Miller has the same attitude.
I’m thinking of a little contest to give away some sort of golf prize to a reader picking the correct over/under number on how many times Miller’s 63 will be mentioned during the US Open telecast. I’ll figure out the details over the next two weeks and post them here.
“Huh Rog?”
“Right Johnnie!”
Where’s Joe when we need him?
Most readers will remember Joe from the famous “I Am Canadian” rant a few years back – rampant Canadian nationalism run amok, even if was just a beer ad. Of course if you watch Coach’s Corner on Hockey Night in Canada, you can get the same flavour from Don Cherry on a regular basis. I’ve never been able to determine if the big collar is choking off the blood supply to his brain or what but you won’t find a louder or more persistent homer anywhere.
We need a Don Cherry or a Joe in the Canadian golf industry, particularly for the Canadian Open. Somewhere between the first Open in 1904 and today, someone decided it was more important to have a commercial event using the so-called best players in the world than to have a national championship. No-one could argue that in 2007 the Canadian Open is just another event on the PGA Tour and not even a very important one except here .
Our proximity to the US of A has blinded us to what it means to have a truly national identity. We are not the 51st state. We are not the same as Americans, similar maybe, but not identical. We have our own history, our own traditions and do a lot of things differently - hockey, 3-down football, real beer. We have pickerel, they have walleye. We have Tim Horton’s.
In my blog yesterday I mentioned that I thought the new Executive Director of the RCGA must be Canadian. I’m not sure whether it was the $1.22 a litre I paid for gas (thanks George W) or something I ate but I’m having another Don Cherry moment today.
Earlier, I attended a very nice function at Magna Golf Club in support of Prostate Cancer research, sponsored by Golf Town, TaylorMade and others. PGA Tour players David Toms and Sergio Garcia were the big attractions and it made me wonder if either player would be back for the Canadian Open. “It’s not on my schedule” and “don’t know for sure” were the answers to that question.
We all know that we’ll be lucky to see a handful of the top players at Angus Glen in July. The Canadian Open has lost its identity and any significance as just another PGA Tour stop. It’s time that Canadian golfers reclaimed their National Championship.
We can all see “stars” on TV each week. I think it’s time we saw golfers who care more about the title “Canadian Open Champion” than a cheque or FedEx Cup points.
Odds & Sods
I was attending a meeting on Friday morning with several golf writers at Glen Abbey and part of the agenda included a drop in visit from the PR guys at the RCGA. Anthony Alfred, Dan Pino and Mike Grobe came by for a coffee and to sort out some media issues concerning the upcoming CN Canadian Women’s Open and the Canadian Open. Nothing new or startling to report on that front but the conversation drifted around to what’s happening with regards to hiring a new Executive Director. Anthony indicated that they are down to a short list of candidates and still hoped to have the new boss in place for the Canadian Open at the end of July. He wouldn’t or couldn’t be any more specific than that but it certainly sounded like they hadn’t made a job offer to anyone yet.
When the process started after Stephen Ross’ departure in March, having someone in place by the end of July seemed like a no-brainer – nearly five months to get it done. Now it’s the end of May and may be only down to a short list. If the eventual candidate is currently employed, presumably in a senior position, 60 days from now is a pretty short time frame to make a final selection, iron out a contract and let the new guy (or woman) provide adequate notice to the past employer.
After the RCGA guys departed, the rest of us naturally did some speculation on who it might be and what criteria were key. As usual with golf writers, there was no consensus, just a lot of reasons to disqualify just about everybody.
One interesting thing we did agree on was that the successful candidate had to be Canadian. Too often we look south of the border for leadership or examples of success but can you imagine the Australians, Swedes, South Africans or Spaniards selecting a foreigner to lead their national golf program. Neither can I.
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Royal Ashburn Golf Club celebrated their 45th anniversary today with the unveiling of a new coat of arms, a dry stone cairn to commemorate a visit to the course by Prince Andrew and a new official Paterson family tartan. The ceremony started with the 78th Frasier Higlanders marching down the 18th fairway with pipes and drums to the site of the cairn behind the 14th green. Then there was a 3-musket salute, a short dedication of the cairn, then back up the 18th to the clubhouse for the unveiling of the coat of arms and official flag. The weather was perfect for the event too, with just a wee bit of Scottish mist rising. Congratulations to Wilson and Sandy Paterson and sons Scot and Dave. Royal Ashburn is a terrific public course in north Whitby and Wilson is one of the really good guys in Canadian golf.
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I just had new grips put on my clubs. I should have changed them quite a while ago but laziness, procrastination and general sloth prevented me from doing so. Now they feel like new but play like the ones I’m used to. Why didn’t I do it sooner?
Getting shafted!
There are generally three accepted methods for fixing or improving your golf game: instruction from a pro or certified teacher; better fitness, especially in the areas of strength and flexibility; and better equipment. Golfers are suckers for every pitch that comes along so most opt for better equipment, believing that they can buy a better game in a box. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
One thing about your equipment that will work however is ensuring that your clubs are the right ones for you. Having played for more years than I can remember, I typically know what I like and what “seems” to work for me. I’ve never been much for all the technical hoopla and could care less how many different shaped dimples are on a golf ball or the weight of the shaft in my sand wedge. For me it’s all about look and feel – that is until I had my head whacked by some folks who woke me up to other possibilities.
A while back I had the opportunity along with some other golf writers to visit Nike’s R&D facility in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s called The Oven and is under the direction of Tom Stites, the genius behind Nike Golf’s club designs and specifically the guy who ensures Tiger Woods has the best equipment possible in spite of what the Phat One says. Stites and his crew have all the usual monitoring machines and we all got the chance to have our swings tested under the watchful eye of Rob Burbick, one of their Tour reps – a guy who spends most of his time on the range at PGA Tour events. Rob was good enough not to laugh out loud although he did mention that he had seen better swings at Wal-Mart.
Rob provided me with an identical driver to the one I usually use (10.5 degree loft, stiff shaft) and had me hit a dozen drives. Normally I hit the ball pretty straight with a low trajectory and that’s exactly what happened. At least that’s what the eye can see. What the Nike monitors were able to tell us was that my launch angle was too low and my spin rate too high. Until that point I would have said, so what?
Rob got right to the crux of the problem which is that I don’t carry the ball far enough. (Yeah but I’m in street shoes and not really warmed up yet.) He challenged me to a little contest. “Roll a golf ball along the ground as far as you can.” It went about 40 or 50 yards. Rob then picked up a ball and threw it in the air well past where my ball had stopped.
“You see that’s the difference between what your ball flight is doing and what it could do. A golf ball will always travel farther through the air than on the ground” He then explained the technical aspects of launch angle and spin rate. More importantly he had me try about six different shafts in the same driver head I normally use. When all was said and done, one of the shafts, a ProForce V2 from UST, had raised my launch angle from 9 degrees to 13 and lowered my spin rate from 4500 to about 3200. The result was an extra 10 to 15 yards of carry and maybe 20-25 yards overall.
OK! I’m hooked. I’m now a technical junkie. Give me more! Rob pointed out that equipment can only do so much. To get really long, I’ll have to make a few swing adjustments and get in better shape. That’s where he lost me so I decided to think about what he said over a beer and a plate of hot wings.
Some rules are just too inconvenient
I’m convinced that most golfers are colour blind. White stakes, yellow stakes and red stakes all seem to have the same meaning, which is: take a one stroke penalty, drop another ball close to where the ball lies in the hazard or out of bounds and play on. No such thing anymore as stroke and distance. No question of whether a ball crossed the margin of a hazard way back there or up here – since the ball is in the water up here, just drop it here. Not even a remote thought of walking back around that pond because it has yellow stakes – just take a drop here because the ball is only a foot from this side.
I have to admit one thing though – it sure speeds up play. Courses understand this too. Many of the areas that should be white staked for out of bounds are in fact red staked and played as lateral hazards. Dropping one 200+ yards up the fairway with a one stroke penalty sure beats reloading on the tee and running the risk you might jack another one over the fence.
The really interesting aspect of all of this is that players generally know they’re not adhering to the rules and many will often ask what the correct ruling is. When you explain the rule to them and what their options are, most of the time they look at you like you just arrived from Mars. Then they usually shrug and say, “I’ll just drop one here.”
Whatever!
It’s a slow news day
About the only interesting news item to come across the wire today was the inevitable announcement that Michelle Wie will be teeing it up with the men once again, this time at the John Deere Classic. During the forced hiatus to rehab her injured wrist, the Wie camp announced that Michelle would be concentrating on women’s events with a view to joining the LPGA Tour. I guess someone couldn’t leave well enough alone. Whether there is sponsor pressure to keep her in the spotlight, parental pressure (read father BJ) to push her onto the PGA Tour or self-induced fantasies of beating the men, it’s time someone threw a pail of cold water on all of them. Michelle needs to play on, learn to win on and eventually star on the LPGA Tour. Presumably money isn’t the issue here. Sponsors have set her up for life so there has to be something else driving this idiocy. Right now players on both Tours resent the hell out of her a) because she takes a spot away from a PGA player maybe trying to get his card and b) she gets into certain women’s tournaments because of her celebrity and not her record.
I wrote last year that the media should lay-off Michelle. While she was 16 and 17 she really didn’t have a lot of choice where she competed. Not eligible because of age for the LPGA Tour she accepted invites from lots of places and it was entertaining. The novelty act has worn thin and now that she can apply for status on the LPGA Tour, the decision to play a men’s event just seems like the wrong move at the wrong time.
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Nelford Beats Trevino, Ballesteros Twenty-five or thirty years ago that would have been a great headline. As it was, Jim Nelford did finish ahead of the two Hall of Famers in the recent Champions Tour event. That they were all at the bottom of the pile means something different to each of them. Trevino could care less, went back to his ranch in Texas and probably won’t be heard from for another six months; Ballesteros realized his game wasn’t ready for competition and went home to Spain to change his swing or sulk or both; Nelford is happy to be playing competitive golf again and getting paid for it. Good for him!
The Return of Derek Gillespie
Although he didn’t win in Mexico yesterday, Derek Gillespie of Oshawa led the Iberostar Riviera Maya Open until the back nine on Sunday and still gave eventual winner Spencer Levin a good run down the stretch. Going into the final round with a one shot lead and shooting 67 will usually get the job done. If your opponent shoots 65, it just wasn’t meant to be. For Gillespie, this past weekend was further affirmation that he has climbed back from the abyss.
In 2002 and 2003, Derek was labelled a “can’t miss prospect” winning a couple of times on the Canadian Tour and recording a number of Top 10 finishes. He appeared to have all the tools – the talent to make it to the big time – and was compared favourably to peers like David Hearn and Jon Mills. While Hearn and then Mills went on to experience life on the PGA Tour, Gillespie slipped a notch or three. There were minor injuries, stories of dissent with agents, coaches and his support group. Maybe there was too much pressure to be the “next” Mike Weir or to keep up with his peer group. There were also suggestions that maybe golf wasn’t Derek’s first priority. Whatever the reason, Derek played on and had some Top 10′s in 2005 but was never again mentioned as the flavour of the month – more like, “whatever happended to Derek Gillespie?” His career definitely appeared to be on the wane.
2007 seems to feature a different Derek. He has played some of his best golf in Mexico throughout his career and the southern swing this year didn’t disappoint with finishes of T17, T3, T27 and the close call with victory on Sunday. Reports are that he has dedicated himself once again to a more rigorous fitness regimen and made his golf career the number one priority. The Tour moves back to Canada for its summer swing in two weeks. Gillespie sits fifth on the money list and has his game working well. He’s back in the spotlight. Here’s hoping he can win again and take the next step towards fulfilling all that potential.
The essence of golf
Given that nothing happens on the Friday afternoon of a long weekend I took the opportunity to get out in the country and play an old style golf course. Four of us teed it up at Cedarhurst, a gem of a little course on the east side of Lake Simcoe near Beaverton. (Green fees: $39 Mon-Thu; $46 Fri-Sun)
The club was established in 1922 and the front nine is an original Stanley Thompson design while the back was added much later and designed by Bert Turcotte. Cedarhurst isn’t long at just over 6,100 yards from the tips but it plays longer because the fairways aren’t cut quite as short as modern bent grass courses and you don’t get as much roll. Each fairway is treelined with cedars and pines and if you can’t hit it in the short grass you’ll be constantly chipping out of trouble – definitely not a bomb and gouge type track. The greens at Cedarhurst are smaller than average, have a reaonable amount of slope and today were running a very smooth 8 – 8 1/2 feet.
All in all it reminded me a lot of the courses I used to play as a kid – no cart paths, tees right next to the last green and a really good mix of short and long holes. No fancy clubhouse – just a simple pro shop and snack bar. No 5 sets of tees – just one or two tee decks per hole. No massive white sand bunkering – just simple shallow traps that were really well maintained and quite easy to play from. Cedarhurst is also on pretty flat land which makes it a really easy walk and we played in just under four hours which is perfect.
Four guys golfing their ball on a sunny afternoon – no rush, no fuss, no big deal. They don’t build courses like this anymore but they should.
Cedarhurst Golf Club, Beaverton, Ont http://www.cedarhurstgolf.com
New Owner for Mystic GC
I spoke with Darren Griffiths of PriceWaterhouseCoopers today. PWC is the receiver acting for a secured creditor of Mystic Golf Club which was placed in receivership earlier this year. Darren was able to confirm that PWC received 5 offers as part of the receivership process and has signed back an offer from GolfNorth Properties. He could not disclose the price, nor would he confirm the names of the other bidders. PWC will go to court on May 29th to seek approval of the GolfNorth offer. As part of the process, other creditors will be given an opportunity in court to contest the sale to GolfNorth and there is no assurance at this time that the sale will proceed. Former owner Roland Berger is one of the “other” creditors who will likely contest the sale.
Golf North Properties owns and manages 14 other golf courses, mostly in the Kitchener – Cambridge area. Jim Balsillie, one of the founders of Research in Motion, is the majority owner of Golf North.
Griffiths also confirmed that Mystic golf course opened for play on May 15th. Former superintendent Don McFaul was retained by PWC in March to get the course into shape so it could open and has a maintenance staff of 16 on the job . While not in “pristine” shape, Griffiths did acknowledge that the course is quite playable and coming along well.
I’ll follow up with news of Mystic after the court date on May 29th.
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Word on the street is that Oliver’s Nest Golf Club near Lindsay is about to be put on the market too. Still not sure whether this is a voluntary sale or is being forced by lenders. Apparently the course was underfinanced from the get-go and a number of creditors were offered long term playing privileges in lieu of payment. Now those chickens have come home to roost and are using a large chunk of premium tee times.
A plan to build a couple of hundred homes on the property was expected to be the course’s salvation. The development plan was apparently approved at several levels of local government but got kiboshed by the province’s Environmental guys when it was determined that no water existed to service the new homes.
If Oliver’s Nest does go on the market there should be reasonable interest from the golf community at a distressed price. It’s a Graham Cook design and a fairly decent course for a rural market. The development crowd might not be as keen if they can’t resolve the water issue.
Chatting with Ian Leggatt
Had an great chat with Ian Leggatt this morning at The Club at Bond Head. Ian was in town to participate in the opening of Bond Head’s new Institute and to do a little work with chief instructor Bruce McCarroll.
Our discussion covered a wide range of topics. It’s the first one-on-one interview I’ve done with Ian and he was very frank and open with his answers and surprised me with some pointed opinions about the PGA Tour and the Canadian Open. I’ll be chronicling our conversation in the next issue of Fairways Magazine but here’s a couple of things we talked about.
On the PGA Tour “I don’t like the direction the Tour is taking now. Everything is geared to the Top 50 or 60 players in the world which makes it really difficult for the lower ranked players to get into enough events to have a reasonable shot of getting or keeping their card. Everybody on Tour is grateful to Tiger for raising purses. If he quit tomorrow we’d be back to playing for $2 million purses instead of $6 million but Tim (Finchem) only thinks about the top players, not about the guys ranked below 100.”
On marketing the Canadian Open “There are only two things a Tour player looks at when he makes a decision about an event – size of the purse and the venue. The RCGA made the right decision going to Shaughnessey, then Hamilton. If the players could be assured that they’d play more great courses like that, more of them would come. The other thing they need to do is step up their efforts with the players. (Canadian Open Tournament Director) Bill Paul is a one man show trying to talk to players on the range at events. For the Nelson tournament, the Sales Club of Dallas has dozens of guys in red pants at every event. They know what hotel you stayed in last year, the names of your wife and kids, will you need a suite, do you need a car, is there anything we can arrange for your family when they’re in town? It’s pretty difficult to say no when people go to that effort to have you play in their tournament. The RCGA should be talking to some of the guys who have been around a while to get their input, even to help promote the Open. Guys like Richard Zokol or myself. I’d be glad to help out but they’ve never asked.”
Peter Mumford is the Editor and Publisher of Fairways Magazine in Toronto. Fairways is intended for avid golfers and this blog site is an extension of that same philosophy - we don't dumb it down for the uninformed!