CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling takes a critical look at the week in golf.
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Spirit of volunteerism
The message from Ponte Vedra HQ at the beginning of the year was clear: Fellas, with the economy in the tank and sponsors reconsidering their marketing investment in the PGA Tour, it's time to hit the corporate tents and kibbitz as though your livelihood depends on it -- because it does. Did asking for volunteers work? Doesn't matter really, because now it has become the codified law of the land. Players who are not competing in the weekly pro-am will attend social functions with tournament organizers and sponsors as part of a new tour rule that has already drawn criticism. Players need to get over themselves. On the Champions circuit, tour members frequently play in two pro-ams per week to help pay the bills and they survive just fine. Besides, considering how tour guys hate to pay for anything, it amounts to a free dinner.
The mouths of babes
It was one of the most hilarious anecdotes of the year. After Sunday's overdue win on the European Tour, Lee Westwood can finally howl along with the rest of us. Recall that Westwood rather famously three-jacked the 18th hole at the British Open in July to blow a chance at making the playoff, and as he was walking off the green, his son approached him excitedly. "I was pretty deflated afterwards," Westwood said a few days later. "He said, 'Dad, you did really well. You finished third!'" Um, that has been the problem for Westwood of late, including his finish at the U.S. Open in 2008. Westwood hadn't won in two years before breaking through last weekend, losing three times in playoffs and amassing 26 top-10 finishes in that span. But the win in Portugal jumped him to No. 1 on the tour money list, where he's poised to reap millions in the Race to Dubai finale Nov. 19-22. Westwood, still a relative kid himself at age 36, topped the tour in earnings in 2000. Heaven knows English golf can surely use the boost, too.
Streaky Rickie runs the tables
He's no stranger to the PGA Tour and despite his age (20) has already twice played in the U.S. Open. But former college hotshot Rickie Fowler made his pro debut last week on a sponsor exemption in Las Vegas and did exactly what many envisioned -- harvested a slew of birdies and finished an impressive T7, earning an automatic spot in the Frys.com Open this week in Scottsdale, Ariz. Fowler, formerly the top-ranked player in the NCAA, lost in a playoff earlier this year at a Nationwide Tour event and is perfectly suited to the high-flying, low-scoring Fall Series formats. He made $113,700 in his first pay-for-play experience, which gives him a leg up on most of the other underwhelming first-timers on tour this year (see below).
After sobriety sets in
It didn't take long for the hyperventilating to subside. A week after the IOC green-lighted golf as a medal sport in the 2016 Games and the sport's global leaders grinned as though they had received a free federal bailout package, some semblance of perspective has been restored, from a rather unlikely source. Tour communications chief Ty Votaw, who chaired the Olympics pitch in Copenhagen, explained to Scottish scribe John Huggan that he envisions the real impact on the global game taking, well, about 10 times longer than some initially projected. Said Votaw: "This is a very long-term undertaking. Nothing is going to change overnight. We are probably talking about 60 years or so before significant change can be effected in most countries." Said tour commissioner Tim Finchem a week earlier: "I think we are going to see a huge upsurge in golf activity in these next five or six years as people take advantage of golf being in the Olympics from a growth standpoint." Guess these guys just blew their shot at striking gold in synchronized swimming.
Down
Forget golfing gold medals, we need Kevlar
A couple of weeks ago, while watching Saturday Night Live for the first time in eons, a funny skit on the Olympics discussed the perils and pitfalls of going to Rio, which was characterized as the most dangerous city in the world by the comedians, who had been stumping for Chicago. The sketch was amusing, but after last week, the message delivered surely isn't. As part of the long-running drug wars that have made parts of the 2016 Olympics city a free-fire zone, a police helicopter was blown out of the sky and several buses were bombed. The news accounts were particularly unnerving from an Olympics standpoint: "Although violence is mostly contained within its sprawling shantytowns, it sometimes spills into posh beach neighborhoods and periodically shuts down a highway linking the international airport to tourist destinations."
The messenger shoots back
The nasty verbal feud between American Anthony Kim and Aussie Robert Allenby was the type of fare that makes the tour brass blink in machine-gun fashion, so nobody was particularly surprised when the Ponte Vedrans issued a formal statement from the players two days after they first exchanged volleys at the Presidents Cup. In the tour-sanctioned statement, Allenby said his original comments, which included characterizing the occasionally nocturnal Kim as the "current John Daly," were taken out of context, which is both ridiculous and irresponsible on all fronts. His remarks were heard by four reporters, including two native Aussies and one writer who recorded the comments. For the tour to officially suggest that Allenby's statements were misreported or misremembered is dodging accountability. Allenby, as glib as they come, said what he said. As for the tour, a can of air freshener won't make a Port-A-Potty smell like a rosebush. The media's lone role in the affair was to write and report what the two players said. The tour's job is apparently to deflect, diffuse and deny in an attempt to shift the blame and quash the incident. So, who do you readers believe? (Note to tour: If I happen to offend anybody with this column, it's because what I wrote was taken out of context by an editor. Darned media).
Newest fence sitter
Chris Stroud, good luck enjoying your inglorious moment in the sun. The Fall Series is the portion of the season wherein every remaining Sunday impacts far more than just that week's winners and losers, because the residual carryover to next year is even more paramount. The new bubble boy for this week is the unheralded Stroud, who moved up four earnings spots last week into the crucial No. 125 post on the money list. Stroud, in his third year on tour, failed to keep his card in 2007-08 and went back to Q-school both times. But at least he's moving in the right direction. With three tournaments left, several prominent players are outside the top 125 on the money list, including multiple tournament winners Todd Hamilton (129th, down two spots), Stuart Appleby (132, down two), Chris DiMarco (137, no change) and Rocco Mediate (151, down two).
Rooks on the rocks
Scott Piercy was emblematic of the problem. After leading on Sunday in Las Vegas, the rookie made a pair of ghastly double-bogeys coming down the stretch and skidded to T14, keeping alive the season-long drought by first-year players. The last time the PGA Tour didn't have a rookie winner was in 1998 and the current crop of first-year cardholders not only hasn't been blazing trails to the winner's circle, but to the ATM, either. Aussie Marc Leishman, who tops all rookies at No. 44 in earnings thanks mainly to a runner-up finish at the big-money FedEx event in Chicago, is looking like the default Rookie of the Year pick. Who else is there? No other rookie is in the top 70, in fact. It's not going to get any easier on the newbies in the years ahead, probably. With a shrinking schedule and fewer events all but certain, it means established players will fill tournament fields and erode the number of rookie at-bats. It's my theory of the week, anyway.
Sanctity of St. Andrews
We're not going to belabor the issue, since we'll explore it in greater depth later on, but news that the Road Hole at St. Andrews will be lengthened 25 yards in advance of the 2010 British Open has drawn a few harrumphs from traditionalists who claim the centuries-old course is being defiled because of modern equipment. Trumpeted as the "most famous hole in golf," a new tee box is being built in order to add more teeth to the tricky par-4, but let's try to separate sentimentalism from hard reality here. Sure, St. Andrews is 500 years old, but this hole ranks among the quirkiest (the kindest word I can think of) on the planet and has long suffered from modern massaging. Admittedly, we are a little fuzzy on the dates, but I wish traditionalists had screamed louder when the sprawling Old Course Hotel, situated near the tee, was built. Moreover, who put those wooden railway sheds in the line of the tee shot? On a course in which history envelopes golfers like a warm wool jacket, the 17th long ago was disturbed by external, modern intrusions. Will another capitulation to technology make much difference? I understand the anti-technology reaction and in most cases would fully, completely and utter sympathize. I would probably be leading the chorus whining. Just not regarding the 17th.
