Deutsche Bank Wrap Up

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Paul Kenyon and Kevin McNamara on reaction to the TPC Boston changes and the possibility of more work to come, with this from Deutsche Bank's Seth Waugh:
“Some of the holes, you look at them and half the hole has been changed. That side has, but this side doesn’t have the same look,” Waugh said. “The course plays differently, more strategically because of Gil’s work.”

The fourth hole, which went from a dogleg 435-yarder to a 298-yard par-4, was the hole the players least liked, Waugh reported. The new hole, driveable for virtually all of the players, was much better received.

Among others, Phil Mickelson went 2, 3, 5, 3 on the hole, picking up three strokes on Tiger Woods, who went 6, 2, 4, 4. Because it provides wild swings in scoring, officials are discussing the possibility of setting up new stands behind the green and making it one of the focus holes.

The hope is to continue to modify the course, although now it becomes merely fine-tuning.

“Gil is an artist. Brad is, too. You just let them go paint the picture,” Waugh said.
Jim McCabe has more from a jubiliant Waugh, comments from Waugh that make it quite clear how little schedule tinkering will go on for 2008, and this update on the much talked about fourth hole:
When all was said and done, the much talked-about par-4 fourth - a 298-yarder that had plenty of skeptics - held its own. No doubt, players took aim and plenty drove the green - 134 of them in four days. Five players made eagles as the hole played to a field average of 3.714 to rank 16th. But as a testament to the devilish nature of the hole, of the top eight players on the leaderboard at the start of the day, only Mickelson made birdie in the final round. Crunching some numbers after 374 scores had been recorded over four days:

Woods never did birdie it. He had a three-putt par yesterday, a par in Round 3, an eagle Saturday, and that unforgettable double bogey thanks to three bunker shots Friday.

Tom Pernice was the only player of the 75 who made the cut to play the hole over par. He made the championship's only triple bogey, then followed with three pars.

Mickelson played it in 3 under.

Sergio Garcia had four pars.
Cameron Morfit says the Mickelson issue is simple: he hasn't played well at Cog Hill.

Mickelson's "Intent" Revealed: To Drive Finchem Batty

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Mauricio, this is Mr. Finchem's office calling, we would like to move up that color session scheduled for next week to this week.

Oh, Mr. Daly acting up again?

No.

Mr. Woods?

No.

Mr. Mickelson?

Yes Mauricio, you obviously saw the telecast. So how about Thursday, just be at the airport and the Falcon will take you up to Chicago and back, just like in May when you took care of him.

Oh I remember, the drug testing stress. Well tell Mr. Finchem I'll bring the nice light brown he prefers for the summer months.

I will tell him.

Steve Elling pieces together the details of Phil Mickelson pulling down his pants and turning a positively joyous, downright classic golf tournament into yet more millionaire bickering spilling out on national TV (I knew I should have left for the beach after NBC signed off!).

And you know the way Elling spells it out, as well as Chris Lewis (who transcribes the Jimmy Roberts interview) I think Phil's going to have people feeling sorry for the Commissioner. That's not easy to do!

If you want to read it straight from Mr. Family Man's mouth, here are the key excerpts, with the point misser and rally kill trimmed for your reading sanity. Well, except for that in-house, PGA Tour designed kill...

Q. Based on some comments on TV, is your rival now Tiger or Tim?

PHIL MICKELSON: Oh, no, no. I don't have a problem, it's just that I'm a little conflicted on some things because I'm trying to -- I want to have a balance in my life, and I certainly feel the obligation to play and support the FedExCup and to support the PGA TOUR, support the game of golf.

And I also want to have balance in my family life, and my family has sacrificed a lot this year because it's been a very difficult schedule. It's not the four FedExCup tournaments; it's the PGA, Akron right before that, only four days off after the British Open before we had to travel and playing two weeks before that, so it's been the last three months having no more than two days off at a time and working to do corporate outings in between.
Can we set this to Schubert? Maybe string quartet No. 14 to really capture the totality of this terrible man making you play so much golf for all that money in between your corporate outtings!
So our time together has struggled, and I want to have a balance there. They start school next week, so I have that conflict -- or obligation and desire to be there.
My frustration from this past year came from asking for a couple of things in the FedExCup that weren't done and not really feeling all that bad now if I happen to miss. So I'm not really sure how it's going to play out.

Like I said, he's making you feel for the Commissioner isn't he?

Q. You said a couple discussion points with Tim that you were looking for vis-á-vis the design of the Playoff structure.

PHIL MICKELSON: I don't want to go into it. Just I want to support it and I certainly feel the obligation to, but I also have to have a balance both ways.

Q. Did you talk about it this week?
PHIL MICKELSON: Every time I see him this year I bring it up.

And this would be what? Oh right, that's confidential.

Here's a nice endorsement for the playoffs, again, after a thrilling finish that has done wonders for his season, brought great attention to his sponsors, wonderful vibes for Boston fans and in general, boosted the FedEx Cup's profile....

Q. Were you more excited about the FedExCup or more excited about 2008?

PHIL MICKELSON: I'm excited about the way this week went. I loved this finish, I loved being able to play three rounds with the best player of arguably all time and certainly the best player in the world today, and to be able to come out on top feels great, and that just leads to excitement for the coming here, as well as I guess the finish of the year. But '08 is when our next major is, so that's kind of what I'm looking forward to.

Q. Are you going to play next week?
PHIL MICKELSON: I was just saying, I don't know.

Q. But you'll be in Chicago --
PHIL MICKELSON: I'm not sure. I don't know.

Q. You'll be there tomorrow, though?
PHIL MICKELSON: I'll be there tomorrow. I had already scheduled an outing I was planning on playing, but I'm not sure.

Q. If you were to skip next week, would that mean skipping the last one, too?
PHIL MICKELSON: No, I would end up going to Atlanta.
STEWART MOORE: I believe we've touched on 12 and 18. Can you briefly take us through the rest of your birdies?

Are rally kills by the in-house PGA Tour staff eligible for Rally Killer of the Year? Hmmm...

"I felt comfortable in the standings to take the week off"

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Scott Michaux, writing in the Augusta Chronicle on the lure of college football.

Just how enticing is the lure of college football? Consider that one of the legitimate contenders for the PGA Tour's $10 million playoff all but forfeited his chance to win the grand prize by skipping this week's event in Boston to be in Sanford Stadium on Saturday.

Scott Verplank said he had a harder time convincing his wife to let him come to Athens with fellow OSU luxury box owner Tway than he did to take the week off. Standing 15th in golf's new playoffs points system, he was one of the few considered a viable contender to win the overall FedEx Cup and the richest paycheck in sports history. But the Cowboys were playing the No. 13 Dawgs between the hedges.

"I felt comfortable in the standings to take the week off," Verplank said.

Boy, when the PGA Tour adopted its new schedule to avoid conflicts with football season, here's betting the commissioner didn't have this in mind.

But that says something about the attraction of football on a Saturday. It's irresistible to fans and players alike.

Scott had a slightly different rationale earlier in the week.

"One week into the much belly-ached FedEx Cup "Playoffs," the howls from the golf scribes can be heard from here to Madagascar."

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The Commissioner has mentioned the many positive fan and blog entries commenting on the FedEx Cup, though I don't know if I've found one yet. Here's one he probably won't like because like others, it points out that the season-long points race has made a mess of things. However, FedEx wouldn't have anything to do with it if the "race" was not being mentioned each week.

The Tiger Ratings Effect

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Doug Ferguson details the changes at TPC Boston and also dispels the myth of horses for playoff courses.

Accompanying his piece was an unbylined sidebar not posted on the USA Today's web site noting the 2.1 television rating for the Barclay's. It pointed out that the same week last year featured Tiger winning at Firestone, drawing a 6.6 rating.

"If I don't know it and I'm involved in the game of golf, how is Mr. Joe Public going to know it?"

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JackNicklausDeutscheBank.jpgJack Nicklaus sat down to talk about the President's Cup and as usual, offered his take on several issues along with many more enjoyable anecdotes. The entire session is worth reading, but here are some highlights.

On Rory Sabbatini and Tiger:

Q. You know the background, right?

JACK NICKLAUS: Oh, yeah. How could you miss it (laughter)?
I don't know, a lot of times, too, I'll ask Tiger, and I'm sure that Gary will ask his guys, who would you like to play? In other words, at the matches the last time, I went down and I had -- Phil said, "I'd like to play Cabrera." "Tiger, who would you like to play?" "I don't care, it doesn't make any difference to me." Freddie said, "I'd like to play Vijay." I don't know what Gary's guys did.

Those are the only two that I had a mandate if I could get them. As the selection process goes, I pick a player, Gary matches him, Gary picks a player, I match. So forth and so on, it goes back and forth.
It's like the last two times I captained prior to that, I had -- let's see, I had Tiger in Australia ask me to pick Norman for him. I got him Norman. We were in South Africa, and both Ernie and Tiger would like to play each other, so Gary and I talked and tried to figure out, can we get Tiger and Ernie to play. So that's fine.

So if Gary comes to me and says, Jack, I've got Sabbatini wants to play Tiger and Tiger says he wants to play Sabbatini, then we'll try to make that happen. But if Tiger says I don't care and I've got somebody else -- a lot of guys, they say, I want that guy. I had one guy on the other team I had five of my guys say I'd like to have him. They just want to try to beat him. I'm not going to tell you who that is.

That's sort of the way it works. If it turns out that that's a good match, it's a good match. I think frankly that probably Tiger and Vijay or Tiger and Ernie would be a better TV match, but Sabbatini has had a great year. He's played very, very well. He's had a lot of press.

And on his rivals making comments ala Sabbatini:

Q. How did you handle it? And is this atmosphere a lot different in the sense that everybody seems a little bit more sensitive, so to speak?

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I don't know. We didn't have that much press. The only time -- I had several times, but the one that I remember a lot was -- I was still an amateur, and I was a defending champion. I had won in '59 and '60 going into St. Louis. Phil Rogers in those days, Phil just (motioning talking with hand), and he was holding court at St. Louis about -- he said, "I see in the brackets here if Nicklaus wins his first few matches, he gets to play me." Like he had a bye the first two rounds.

My dad heard it, and my dad said I heard that in conversation, Phil was really running his mouth. I said, I've got to win my first two matches. I won the first two matches, and we went out and played 12 holes and Phil was one under par and the match was over. I beat him 8 & 7.

It turned out Phil turned out to be one of my best friends. I mean, he's a wonderful guy. But in those guys Phil was just all mouth.

And Rory is a little bit going this way a little bit right now. So I think when you get that kind of a thing, a guy says, "I think I want to take care of that situation." And I think Tiger probably said he wanted to take care of that situation.

Now, did I get a little bit of that as I went along? Yeah. But I didn't pay much attention. When I was a 20-year old kid it got my dander up a little bit. I'm sure Tiger is very used to it, I don't think Tiger paid a whole lot of attention to it. He just paid attention, took care of business and went out and played very, very well, as usual.

Q. But it is an slightly extra incentive do you think?

JACK NICKLAUS: A guy doesn't miss it (smiling). You don't miss that comment. It doesn't pass by the way.

And on the FedEx Cup:

Q. We're in week two of a new playoff system. Just curious to get your take on it. Does it interest you at all?

JACK NICKLAUS: I don't understand it to be very honest with you. Tim told me it was supposed to be good for the game of golf so I went along with him (laughter). I think that the whole objective was to get the guys to play, and the first week Tiger skips. So I didn't understand that at all.

I sort of thought that the system was that when you had the Playoffs that everybody started over. But no, the Playoffs carry on.

Now, I can understand that if they didn't carry on and Tiger decided to play the first week and Phil missed the cut, they're gone.

But I would like to find out what does a guy have to do that's 100th on the Money List or 120th to win the FedExCup? What does he have to do?

Here he tried to be more upbeat about it...

Do I like the idea? Yeah, I think it's great to try to get the guys to play at the end of the year, great to have a season-ending playoff. My bet is that it'll get tweaked after this year. Like every event we have ever had the first year we have it, we'll have tweaks in it, and I think the whole objective was to get the guys to play. That was what it was, beyond the PGA Championship, and to be able to have a season-ending thing.
They end it with the TOUR Championship, so it's going to be the TOUR Championship, but it's how you get to the TOUR Championship and create more interest and so on and so forth. I commend them for that. I wish I understood what it was, and I think you guys fall into the same category trying to understand it, too.

If I were Rich Beem trying to figure out the projected 130, 124, when somebody makes birdie, par, bogey, give me a break. How does he win? I just don't know. I just don't know that. And frankly if I don't know it and I'm involved in the game of golf, how is Mr. Joe Public going to know it? That's the problem.

To get the public interested, they've got to understand what's going on. Very simple when you play a football game and you're in the Playoffs, you're a wildcard team and you're playing the division leader, you win, you go on. You lose, you go home. We don't exactly have that here. So I don't really -- I think they'll tweak it someplace.

And my question...

 Q. Can you talk then in general about kind of the interest in short par 4s we're seeing at a lot of tournament venues and if that's maybe impacting your philosophy at all?

JACK NICKLAUS: My favorite holes are short par 4s. I think they're the most fun to design, and I think they're the most fun to play.

I think if you look at Muirfield Village, I think the players love the 14th hole at Muirfield Village, and that's a nasty little hole. It can be a nice hole, too. I mean, it can be a nasty little hole if you play it wrong. And I'm sure there are some other holes throughout the year on the TOUR that you'll find. Royal Montreal has one hole where we'll play the tee up and the tee back. I don't remember what number it is.

I was up there as I said in June, went around the golf course on a rainy day and we went around as fast as we could go because we were freezing to death. It's totally different than when I played there in the '70s, so I don't remember much about the actual holes.

And a really strange question...

Q. I just wonder if you've seen any of Tiger's designs yet, and if you have seen them what your opinion on them might be?

JACK NICKLAUS: I don't think Tiger has any designs yet.

Q. He has the course in Dubai that --

JACK NICKLAUS: He's got a contract. I don't know that he's got a golf course.

Q. He has laid out some of the holes already for it. I don't know if you've seen them at all?

JACK NICKLAUS: No, I'm not going to Dubai to see his golf course (laughter). He'll go through the same process as the rest of it if he is truly interested in design and learn the business.

And my favorite exchanged, started by Doug Ferguson...

Q. What's the last golf course you did for your ego?

JACK NICKLAUS: For my ego? Oh, gosh. I don't really know, but I would say probably -- I mean, I didn't even do the Bear's Club for my ego. I had a membership there that I thought was going to be a fairly elderly membership. I would have done that course a lot more difficult if it was for my ego. I would have made it a lot stronger and a lot different, but I didn't do that. It's still plenty tough enough.

But for my ego, oh, probably back to -- probably Castle Pines maybe, back in that area, early '80s because Jack Vickers really wanted a very difficult golf course. Jack Vickers keeps changing it and making it tougher. Of course you guys aren't going there anymore, but he'll have events there again. I'd say it's been 25 years since I've really done one for my ego. I've been involved with other people's ego, but that's okay.

"It appears Miss South Carolina has found work writing ad copy."

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Grant Boone weighs in on the FedEx Cup and always provides
I have no idea where PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem was when he came up with the idea of these playoffs. And despite spending last week in the crapper of public opinion, the Commish still hasn't apologized for foisting this bogusness on an unsuspecting golf world. On the contrary, the TOUR's PR machine keeps pumping out ads like this full-pager in Tuesday's USA Today:

Every drive. Every wood. Every iron. Every bunker. Every chip. Every putt. Every shot counts.

It appears Miss South Carolina has found work writing ad copy. It's repetitive at best, inaccurate at its worst, and repetitive at best. Every shot counts? What, as opposed to regular TOUR events where players buy mulligans before each round?

"Is there another name we could probably call it? Yes."

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Jim McCabe looks at the suddenly dirty "playoff" word.  

 "It's not really a good term," said Zach Johnson.

"Is there another name we could probably call it? Yes," said Heath Slocum.

All right then, instead of "playoffs," what should we use? Heads are scratched, laughs are heard, then smiles break out.

"I don't know what you call it," said Charles Howell III.

"I don't know. It's a tough one," said Pampling. "It's a word you've got to use, I think. Obviously, it's not a regular playoff, but it's got to be golf's playoffs, maybe."

Johnson, one of the PGA Tour members who gets involved with company policies, recalled that there was much talk about what to call this series of four tournaments.

"There's not really a good term," said the Masters champ. " 'Playoffs' is the best term you can come up. There really isn't another term that would be sufficient. [But] it's just a word."

Marketing Cash Or Deferred Comp

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fedexcuplogo.jpgI had a nice chat with Joe Ogilvie today who takes exception to the criticism of the FedEx Cup's deferred compensation purse structure. I countered that the average fan can follow it more easily with cash on the line, which he understood. But then Joe did some calculating and started dropping figures that sounded something like this from Richard Sandomir's piece in the NY Times while arguing that the deferred compensation will most certainly get the attention of players. From Sandomir's story:

If Woods wins and cashes in at 45, and the $10 million gets an annual return of 8 percent, he would get a $29.4 million parting gift. Mickelson, seven years older, would come away with $18.5 million.
If Vijay Singh, who is No. 6 on the FedEx Cup points list, wins the playoff, then sharply reduces his schedule or retires, he could get his $10 million quickly. He turns 45 in February, one day before Stricker turns 41.

Let’s say a youngster like Hunter Mahan, 25, wins it all. If he collects his deferred prize at 45, and he has received an average return of 8 percent over 20 years, he’ll have $46.6 million in his account. Now let’s let compound interest run wild. If Mahan plays until age 55 and his $10 million earns a smashing 12 percent annual return, he’d have $299.6 million. Such a prospect makes the Champions Tour look like essential estate planning.

So has the Tour made a mistake not better marketing the potential prize take or is simply an impossible concept to market because there are so many variables involved?

While it seems nice that they are "maximizing" the potential take for players due to the wonders of compounding interest, would the FedEx Cup be more fan friendly as a cash bonus pool? And therefore, a more productive exercise for the Tour's sponsors...oh and charity of course.

"I’ve made a pretty good start to this FedEx Cup playoff series, so I really want to push on from here and win one of these things."

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Ernie Els pulled out of the Deutsche Bank and apparently his web handlers were last to know...
So, this week we stay on the east coast of the United States, making the short journey from New York to Boston for the Deutsche Bank Championship which starts on Friday – not the usual Thursday start – at TPC Boston. This is an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course and it has a lovely mature, almost traditional feel about it. I like it. I understand they’ve made a few changes since we were last here and I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback. I’ve made a pretty good start to this FedEx Cup playoff series, so I really want to push on from here and win one of these things.

So, yeah, the confidence is growing. My game feels in good shape. That gives me a lot of reasons to be optimistic about this week’s Deutsche Bank.

I’ll write again next Tuesday and tell you all about it.

"This looks like a dandy version of a 401 (k) plan, assuming the PGA Tour doesn’t go belly up and well-heeled folks don’t start hating golf."

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Richard Sandomir looks at the FedEx Cup annuity concept and says it benefits the players.

This looks like a dandy version of a 401 (k) plan, assuming the PGA Tour doesn’t go belly up and well-heeled folks don’t start hating golf. And it is just the luck of pro golfers that in the privileged sanctum of the PGA Tour, such a retirement plan is possible and a sponsor like FedEx is financing it. The plan was approved last November by the Tour’s policy board, five months after the particulars of the FedEx Cup were announced.

“This was a decision made in the best interest of the vast majority of the players,” said Ty Votaw, an executive vice president of the PGA Tour. “But we recognize that some players would prefer to be paid upfront.”

He added, “Players were encouraged to speak to their accountants.”

 

But are accountants necessarily the best judges of what would add drama and interest to the FedEx Cup?