Second Masters Question: Where Does The Year Go From Here?

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When you have a Masters like 2015’s, the rest of the year is all downhill from here. Right?

After all, how do you top that leaderboard, winner, ratings, viewing experience and such overall positive impression for the professional game?

Here are three reasons I’m not giving up on the rest of the year potentially superseding what we’ve seen to date. The next few months should be fascinating.

—No gray May. With the WGC Match Play’s one-off move to May and sporting a new and improved format, we have a fun two-week run featuring future PGA Championship venue Harding Park and a Players Championship with so many top players either on their game or experiencing a renaissance. And then May gets better. The European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW Championship, always entertains in late May. But this year it’s followed by the Irish Open brought to us by Rory and Dubai Duty Free at…Royal County Down. It’s not often you get a top 10 in the world course seldom seen by most of the planet and the field could even be better than the previous week’s BMW.

—Chambers Bay Could Be Brilliant Or A Fiasco. I can’t recall a venue that so few players know—except Jordan Spieth and caddie Michael Greller—with so many questions about how the place function. Will it be a masterful, daily puzzle of course setup twists, shotmaking and stunning vistas? Or six-hour rounds, cranky players, goofy shots and a fluke winner? Will players skip the Memorial or St. Jude to get in extra practice rounds? Throw in the Fox Sports debut (though potentially not on AT&T U-Verse), and the intrigue level figures to be high on many levels.

—Gullane And The Old Course. July only gets more interesting with the one-two punch of Gullane No. 1.5 and The Old Course hosting The Open Championship. As thrilling as it is to see the game return to the course that started it all—and remain relevant with help from the neighboring courses—the debut of Gullane on the world stage will introduce many to another course instrumental in early Scottish golf. Two weeks of tournaments starting in golf-friendly towns and returning to backdrops of virtual movie sets could manage to top the Masters.

And what do you think?

What month are you most intrigued by?
 
pollcode.com free polls

A-Listers Beware: Fox Showing Weekday Coverage In Prime Time

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Mike Reynolds reports on Fox's ambitious plans for U.S.G.A. event coverage and in particular, the U.S. Open. The news coincided with Fox's launch at the USGA annual meeting at the hotel of the people, the Waldorf Astoria. (Brad Klein with notes on the weekend.)

While the coverage time is up about only three hours for the U.S. Open over NBC/ESPN (who were on seemingly all day) with Fox Sports 1 showing golf from noon to 8 pm ET, the real eye-opener is Fox's plan to air three hours Thursday and Friday in east coast prime time (8 pm to 11 pm). NBC used to come on weekday afternoons to show a few hours of marquee players.

This means a "11.5 of the 22.5 hours scheduled for Fox will air in primetime," according to Reynolds.

Generally, the late wave of play at west coast US Opens has consisted of qualifiers and the trash crews. Galleries are thin and volunteers often outnumber fans. By 8 pm PT the A-listers are off having dinner and most of the media has moved on, while sensible spectators left hours before. And with a 17-mile spectator shuttle ride for all, the masses will be long gone even if Bobby Jones came back from the dead to qualify and is out on the course.

Yet with Fox (the big network) going live from the U.S. Open Thursday/Friday for prime time and the network paying handsomely for the privilege, this would seem to force the USGA to go with elite pairings very late in the day. It's hard to imagine Fox showing qualifiers on the big network on a Thursday night. But stranger things have happened.

The full U.S. Open broadcast schedule:

You Really, Really Want To See Chambers Bay

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I thought the poll question from earlier this week was a loaded one, what with The Old Course hosting The Open this year.

But with 715 votes 47% of you said Chambers Bay was the most anticipated major venue of 2015, followed by St. Andrews at 27%. And the quick return to Whistling Straits has almost none of you excited.

Certainly there is a mysterious quality to Chambers Bay and how the entire thing will work (or not), from the conditioning to the setup to the logistics to the first Fox telecast. As always, thanks for voting.

U.S. Open Train Arrival Option Ruled A No-Go

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Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times reports that yet another element of the experience expected at Chambers Bay for the 2015 U.S. Open (clubhouse, ampitheater, dock) has been ruled out.

This time it was the USGA not feeling secure enough about a planned rail line drop off at the course that was hoped to handle 6,000 spectators a day. Instead, all will make a 17-mile shuttle bus drive.

“We couldn’t ensure a great spectator experience based on the limited amount of people we could get on the trains,’’ said Danny Sink, USGA’s on-site championship director for the tournament, scheduled for June 15-21 at Chambers Bay Golf Course in Pierce County.

Instead, the USGA will continue with its existing plan to have 11,000 parking spaces available at its main locations in Puyallup and Lakewood, Sink said. Golf fans will then be shuttled up to 17 miles by bus to the University Place course.

The inability to get a grasp on costs was a major concern for one of golf’s four major tournaments in the world.

“This is a tournament for profit,’’ Sound Transit board member Pete von Reichbauer said. “It’s not nonprofit. They want more knowns than unknowns.’’

Sink said Sound Transit “bent over backwards for us’’ and did all they could to make the plan work during 16 months of discussions.

Deep Meaning Quiz: 2015 U.S. Open Logo Unveiled

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Todd Miles reports on the unveiling of the 2015 U.S. Open logo for Chambers Bay and I can't say it has me reaching for my wallet hoping to buy some '15 swag.

In this case, the 2015 U.S. Open logo is very similar to the original Chambers Bay emblem, designed by Tacoma freelance graphic artist Scott Bailey in 2005.

The defining image of Bailey’s design is two sails.

“We ended up with the sails because the course is right next to (Puget Sound),” Bailey said. “It seemed like the most obvious symbol that represents the Northwest in feel but that did not identify something specific.”

I'm not sure sails would have been in my top ten things those two lines represented. In fact, I made a list before reading the story and came up with the following:

- It's two bent legs representing the ideal shape necessary to navigate the Chambers Bay "dunes"

- It's a Machu Picchu symbol for "Be Careful, Robert Trent Jones Jr. Wasn't Thinking Of A U.S. Open When He Built This Place"

- Logo finalist for Phillip Morris rebranding with innocuous new corporate name that I can't recall.

- An homage to the memory wellness ad appearing next to the U.S. Open logo story (see image)

Of course, I'd love to know what you see in this logo...