The Pellucid Perspective - May 2014 - (Page 17)

THE LAST WORD It ain't over 'til it's over W ith some reservation, I admit it: I miss Tiger. I must also admit that I did periodically reclaim my status among what the PGA Tour claims (operative word) to be 100 million of my golf fandom peers during The Players Championship, if only to chortle as all but one or two of the best players in the world rinsed golf balls in the watery depths surrounding the 17th hole. While that tee shot would fill a hacker like me with dread, I'm continually amazed that players who insist that their caddie provide them with yardage to the millimeter, and spend an eternity gauging the slightest breath of wind, can still manage to miscalculate or mis-hit so many shots to a piece of stationary land that is, at most, 145 yards or so away, and depending on the tee significantly less. Funny thing is, I didn't see a single one of them rummaging through their bag for an old, slightly scuffed Top-Flite like I would have. Just in case, you know. Martin Kaymer is one of those very good European players who only seem to acquire a personality at the same time they pick up their Ryder Cup player badges, and then turn it back in once the hangover from their most recent victory celebration goes away. Nevertheless, damned if he didn't make it interesting at The Players. Yogi Berra warned us that it ain't over til it's over, and apparently Berra-isms were part of the English curriculum at Kaymer's German academy. After a rain delay when he was on cruise control and headed for a 4-shot victory, Kaymer halted perpetual contender but rare winner Jim Furyk in mid car ignition with a 15th hole double bogey for no apparent reason. After bumbling his way to a disappointing par on the par5 16th, two dreadful (but dry) shots left him with 28 feet of hellish uphill-downhill left to right break for par, which he made, perhaps surpassing Tiger's famous "Better than most" snake on the 17th that's replayed ad infinitum every year. He still managed to make his winning par 4 on 18 suspenseful, rolling in a 3-footer for the win. He almost cracked www.PellucidCorp.com a smile. Predictably, he and his caddie mixed up the fist bump-high five choreography. Good stuff, though. With all that, maybe the thing I enjoyed most about the Players was the first major demonstration of an occasional bit of common sense among golf 's ruling bodies as it relates to the Rules of Golf. When Justin Rose was, after the fact, assessed a 2-stroke penalty because some geek in Europe with the latest in high tech TV made a trans-Atlantic call to inform Tour officials that Rose's ball had moved some microscopic amount after he addressed it, it nevertheless took until the next morning before the poobahs determined that the rule they'd passed fairly recently applied. The rule change in question was, essentially, that if a ball couldn't fairly be determined to have moved prior to contact without sophisticated technological enhancement, the player was not deemed to be at fault, or penalized. While they eventually arrived at the sensible and correct ruling, Rose went to bed that night thinking that he was 5-under and essentially with little chance of winning, when actually he was 7-under and with a sporting chance for victory with a good Sunday round. The ruling also arrived so late that Rose had already teed off with the other players at -5 before he learned that, as one wag said, he'd essentially eagled the putting green. Got to love it when a plan comes together. Keeping pace As I am more frequently asked at the pro shop counter or by the starter, "Are you familiar with our pace of play policy?", I can only conclude that this relatively recent interest in the subject is an offshoot of the USGA's "While We're Young" TV campaign and other industry publications' urgings for faster play. My oft-repeated contention is that while slow play can be irritating, money spent by the USGA in an effort to shave 15 minutes off an 18-hole round of golf is wasted money that could more wisely be spent elsewhere. Not only that, but facilities who over-enforce the policy soon reach the point of diminishing returns, alienating more people than they please. My thought is that the industry has misinterpreted the "time" reason most frequently given for not playing or not playing more often. It's not a question of 4:15 vs. 4:30, it's a question of whether the younger generations feel they have anywhere near 4 hours to dedicate to a round. Since that is a much more complex problem, my guess is that the USGA, if not the industry at large, has just decided to try to bite off the few minutes per round it can chew, and hope that the Gen-X, Gen-Y and Millennial folks don't notice that it's still a 4-plus hour block of time. Speaking of pace, based on a recent look-in at a PGA Junior League match for the story that appears elsewhere in this issue, macho types may want to re-think their grumbles the next time they see a foursome of youngsters in the group ahead of them. As it turned out the day I stopped by, the course had slipped in a foursome of adults between two high school golf team matches and that day's scheduled PGA Junior League matches. (Certainly understandable from the course standpoint, since they were giving away the Junior League tee times). When the first Junior League foursome reached the par-3 second hole, they discovered the four older players spread all over the landscape, including one who had apparently shanked the ball almost parallel to the tee. The kids, some as young as 8, waited for the older crowd on every hole I watched. Granted it was a scramble format, and there was some youthful running to retrieve the ball that wouldn't be used, but essentially the kids kept it moving while still having time to laugh with their pals. If, as hoped, those Junior Leaguers maintain a lifelong interest in the game, I doubt that they'll be the cause of any slow play issues in the future. And maybe they, at least, won't feel that four or five hours is too much time to devote to a recreation they enjoyed so much as a kid. -Jim Dunlap The Pellucid PersPecTive 17 http://www.PellucidcorP.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - May 2014

TOC
Why defectors are the key to stabilizing golf's participation decline
OpenTee opens our golf season
PGA Junior League helping golf catch up
Powering up long-term savings
Tom Abts: It's always fun at the Run
April '14 golf weather impact: Two (in a row) positive months
Dallas, TX: 'Big D' indeed, relatively speaking
ClubCorp acquires TPC properties in Michigan and North Carolina
It ain't over 'til it's over

The Pellucid Perspective - May 2014