Golf.com Thinks An Old Template Hole Comes From Muirfield...Village

For a while now I’ve been watching as Golf.com rolls out a familiar feeling series on “template holes.”

You know, those famous old golf holes noted for their brilliance and sampled by CB Macdonald when he was trying to import good golf to America.

Desi Isaacson—past Fried Egg intern and no doubt well-intentioned—took things in a new direction at Golf.com by naming the “Narrows” of Muirfield as a template and but someone on the desk posted a photo of the narrow 15th at Muirfield Village.

A bit like thinking Seth McFarland was the real vocalist who made My Way a hit.

Anyway, the desk editors, they’re old enough to rent a car, should have caught the initial mistake in a story where Muirfield Village is never mentioned, added this note:

It’s a funny and slightly lame mistake under most circumstances, particularly during a time of pandemic.

One problem: Golf’s template hole articles are both unoriginal and often dancing up to the line of all-out rip-off of a series by The Fried Egg’s Andy Johnson, even down to the holes mentioned as templates and the actual examples cited.

The Golf Gods strike in mysterious ways.

Hey about the original narrows, a video from the 2013 Open Championship.

The Shack Show Episode 8 With Guest Rick Reilly

Rick Reilly doesn’t produce a weekly column any longer but his latest guest contribution to the Washington Post reminded me that the greats never lose their ability to read a green. “The first things I’ll do when this is over” produced some comforting laughs during what is an otherwise not the easiest times to crack wise.

So I hope you enjoy this chat with Reilly from his southern California home where he’s doing some reading, some longing to get back out playing, and Tweeting away about Donald Trump. Reilly’s lastest book, Commander in Cheat, is now in paperback and we discuss why he tackled a book about the on-course antics of the 45th president. A dollar of every paperback copy is going to a good cause, discussed in the show.

Though as discussed during the show, the staggering funds raised for Nothing But Nets, all after he decided to turn on a hotel TV and get a column out of it, alone should make Reilly Noble Prize worthy. ($70 million!)

Before recording, I brushed up on some more recent Reilly columns from Tiger Meet My Sister…And Probably Other Things I Shouldn’t Have Said. I found a lot to love.

It’s been a while, but I was always a huge Missing Links fan, and as the podcast discussion revealed, so have been some of the bigger names in Hollywood.

While I embedded Amazon links above, I’m encouraging use of Bookshop.org where all of Rick’s in-print books are available, too. And to the benefit of independent booksellers (now up to $1.1. million raised).

As for other writers mentioned—Murray, Wodehouse, Runyon, Twain, Wilde—I’ll let you find those.

Rick’s favorite pasta-tossed-in-a-cheese-wheel spot in Florence.

All but one food spot in this Instagram post I did is courtesy of his outstanding suggestions.

Here’s the show on iHeart’s page, or the Apple option, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your subscriptions are most appreciated.

Golf Magazine Names True Spec Its Best Fitter, Neglects To Mention Key Fact

…that the operation is owned by…the owner of Golf Magazine.

Now, we always knew there was a good chance that the 8am Golf family of brands would get special coverage from Golf Magazine and Golf.com after the man who owns it all took charge.

So far things have been good, with writers doing their thing and the print product receiving nice reviews. But there have been hiccups with disclosures and questionable choices, like a blatant rip off of Fried Egg’s template hole series, down to using the same holes as examples.

And overall, to Howard Milstein’s credit, there were no signs he gave the Nicklaus Designs firm any favoritism in the latest Golf Magazine Top 100, restoring luster to the most credible of all rankings (there was, however this painful Nicklaus Design puff piece quietly posted in January and a very random best renovation award last year. Nicklaus Designs is another Milstein outpost).

That Valley of the Eagles renovation award at least received a disclosure of the 8am/Golf/Milstein ties.

But True Spec getting the top fitter ranking bequeathed this February? No.

Now, I’ve been to a few True Spec facilities and they are wonderful. For all I know True Spec is worthy under the criteria, but to not disclose the ties is inexcusable and a credibility killer. The news has not gone unnoticed.

https://t.co/HnMCoszfLA pic.twitter.com/79bvyTicus

— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) February 18, 2020

True Spec and Golf dot com are owned by the same company. So one guy's company is awarding his other company a top honor. Super. https://t.co/JymitTEzXf

— Ryan Ballengee (@RyanBallengee) February 18, 2020

And other fitters are not pleased…

Wonder if Golf Mag is going to charge True Spec $3,000 for the "Top Fitter" logo

— Garrett Morrison (@gfordgolf) February 24, 2020

Living Over Par Files: Menery's Comeback Squashed Before He Could Make Golf A Little More Fun (Again)

Social media funnyman and announcer-we-all-wish-we-had Bob Menery vowed to bring his act back to golf after multiple PGA Tour takedown notices. He did so with a fun post of Genesis Invitational highlights and it got taken down again after Menery’s various social accounts were served an unfriendly notice.

In a world where the PGA Tour is eager to add young viewers, the focus on Menery’s efforts is surprising. He has 2.3 million followers, including Justin Thomas, Graeme McDowell, Phil Mickelson, Matthew Wolff, Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Luke Donald, among others. Not to mention some of the biggest names in sports who don’t mind Menery’s roasting of both athletes and announcers.

The post, as of this post, has received nearly 3,000 comments. Good engagement!

Bill Fields Named 2020 PGA Of America Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Great news from the PGA of America arrived today on recognizing Bill Fields as their latest Lifetime Achievement Award winner in journalism. I am a longtime admirer of his work, and as someone who got to work with Fields at Golf World, I can attest that his passion for the sport is unmatched. He is an equally talented editor whose deft touch and insights always made the work of talented writers that much better.

The full story on Bill’s sensational career can be read here at PGA.com includes this:

Fields, 60, is the 31st recipient of the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, which recognizes members of the media for their steadfast promotion of golf. Fields’ work spans 109 men’s major championships, eight Ryder Cups, more than 60 women’s and PGA Tour Champions majors, and more than 800 Golf World issues.

He will be honored on April 8 at the ISPS HANDA 48th Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA) Awards Dinner.

Facebook Watch And PGA Tour Launch Highlights Deal This Week

I’m not sure what this means at this point given Facebook fatigue, inflated Facebook Live numbers leading to advertiser payouts and the platforms’ aging demographic.

But today’s announced PGA Tour-Facebook partnership could mean a few crazy uncles spend a little less time watching propaganda and instead take in the best of Brendon Todd’s third round 65. A very good thing.

Facebook Watch, where the highlights and other elements are set to appear, announced a major deal with ESPN last fall.

For Immediate Release:

Facebook and PGA TOUR announce global content agreement 

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA – The PGA TOUR today announced an expansive agreement with Facebook to distribute daily highlight packages globally on Facebook Watch in 2020 starting at this week’s Farmers Insurance Open. 

The PGA TOUR will publish daily round recaps and player-specific highlights from more than 30 events, including THE PLAYERS Championship and FedExCup Playoffs.

These expanded highlights will feature content from the TOUR’s core telecasts, along with content from PGA TOUR LIVE, the TOUR’s OTT service featuring more than 1,200 hours of exclusive Featured Groups coverage in 2020.

“We’re excited to expand our partnership with Facebook by delivering additional content for our fans,” said Chris Wandell, Vice President Media Business Development at the PGA TOUR. “This is in response to our fans’ appetite for additional coverage packaged in a way that is convenient for them to consume.”

The TOUR will create a robust and timely highlights experience for PGA TOUR fans around the world on Facebook Watch. Fans can stay up to date with the latest highlights by following the PGA TOUR Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/PGATour. Content will be posted daily at the completion of each tournament round. As part of the agreement, the TOUR will also engage fans in its Facebook Group, The Gallery, with interactive elements such as Facebook Lives and Facebook Watch Parties.

“We’re thrilled to add PGA TOUR recaps to our growing portfolio of sports highlights on Facebook Watch,” said Sidhant Rao, Facebook Sports League Partnerships.” Through this content, as well as products such as Facebook Groups and Watch Party, the TOUR will be able to engage its fans in exciting new ways this year.”

In 2018, the PGA TOUR and Facebook teamed up to stream live coverage from THE PLAYERS Championship and several other PGA TOUR events leading into the 2018 FedExCup Playoffs.

"MyGolfSpy...has become like a Consumer Reports for golf equipment."

Here’s a sensational read from ESPN.com’s Tom VanHaaren on the rise and prominence of MyGolfSpy as golf’s most trusted voice for equipment reviews.

As always, please hit the link and enjoy the story in its entirety, but a couple of parts stood out. This on MyGolfSpy’s testing:

Beach and his 12-employee staff have a dedicated test facility in Virginia, where they conduct thousands of hours of tests on balls, clubs, shoes and even golf bags.

The testing is vastly different from what has been done in the past, where a blogger or reviewer testing a new club set to hit the market typically would hit a few shots and review the results for an audience. Beach and his staff, whether they're testing a ball or club, run through 10,000 shots with humans and a robot, a process that can take up to three months.

The story also addresses MyGolfSpy’s look at the Callaway Chrome Soft in 2019 and the resulting change in production after revealing poor, uh, core concentricity.

Callaway happened to be three-and-a-half years into a $50 million golf ball plant renovation that the company believes will ultimately end up with Callaway making the best-performing golf ball in the world. But Toulon admits that because of MyGolfSpy's tests and reviews, Callaway has altered certain aspects of the renovation and even pushed the update along.

Ensuring core concentricity -- that the cores are in the center of the ball -- is one focus. Another is improving the testing and quality-control process.

"We had initially planned on one or two extra X-ray machines, not testing every single golf ball but testing definitely enough that you could come up with a metric that you could look at and judge quality against that," Toulon said. "Now, every single golf ball, I think we'll be at at least five X-ray machines, which will allow us in the United States, coming out of our Chicopee, Oklahoma, plants, which is all of our Chrome Soft business, we will now X-ray every single golf ball. That definitely has, we've been impacted by MyGolfSpy in a really good way and we're thankful for that."

"Can ‘fanboys’ and traditional golf journalists coexist on the golf beat?"

You know the great philosopher Clemenza once said these little wars have to “happen every five years or so -- ten years -- helps to get rid of the bad blood” and just like he said way back when, it’s been “ten years since the last one.”

The Presidents Cup afforded another old v. new media, and rather curiously, I’m now included in the old part as a former new media guy because I write complete sentences (most of the time). If you are not on Twitter—consider yourself blessed—Alan Shipnuck toes the middle line like the artist he is in trying to explain what all has been going down, why the game’s leading governing bodies are favoring the new efforts to cover events and best of all, avoid the bot/groupee onslaught of defensive messages.

He writes:

But the protagonists are fun-loving guys and the nation of Stoolies has a blast tagging along for all the hijinks. Old Man Media tells the reader what happened; hopefully they add broader context like why it happened and what it all means. Barstool tells its viewers and listeners how it felt to be there. They are two entirely different missions, but they should be complementary.

The Barstool audience is too vast to ignore, especially for the USGA and PGA of America, which have only one or two big tournaments a year and lack media operations as advanced as the PGA Tour’s. It’s why they were the first folks to credential Barstool. For years the Tour tried to ignore Barstool, but at this most recent Presidents Cup, the Barstool guys were all over Royal Melbourne. It will be interesting to see how much access they get going forward. If history is a guide, it will be a lot, and Old Man Media will have to endure it.

Wishing Tim Rosaforte Well In Retirement And Admiring What He Did For Players

Tim Rosaforte interviewing Tim Finchem in 2008

Rosie and I didn’t get off to the best of starts. I can’t imagine what it was? Could have been the Yul Brynner blog references. Which, he mentioned a time or two. Or could have been when we had a minor manspat over his references to The Riv, The Foot and The Beach, for which he later signed a hat that I still keep here on the estate.

As I got to work with Tim Rosaforte at Golf World, I became a great admirer of his reporting skills. I’ll never forget sitting next to him at St. Andrews in 2010 as he worked two phones making long distance calls to South Africa. All in an effort to find out any little nugget on Louis Oosthuizen as he closed in on a surprising Open Championship win.

Those little insights would shape the impressions viewers and readers had of players. No one else in golf media was doing what Tim did by introducing us to players thrust into the limelight, or filling out the backstory of those we thought we knew. That kind of reporter is still valued in other sports but may be a dying breed in golf. Whether the world’s finest golfers genuinely appreciated how much Rosie’s reporting rounded out fan perception of them, I don’t know. I suspect most appreciated his efforts judging by how many returned his calls or texts.

In recent years, as players turn to social media to break news, I’ve begun to have my doubts about the appreciation factor for what a reporter like Tim did to make a player relatable, and therefore wealthier. I’s those little insights into a player’s upbringing, his “team”, his workout schedule, or how he likes his coffee, that tend to humanize the player just a bit more. Cranky agents of the golf world, don’t forget that.

There were also those seemingly insignificant stories Tim would share in Golf World, Golf Digest or on Golf Channel that aged in complex and mysterious ways. Say, Greg Norman taking Andy Mill to Augusta National for a birthday golf trip. The level of humanizing with that one was ultimately not Tim’s fault because at the time he just filled out the details and shared what he thought fans would enjoy learning.

Here is the GolfChannel.com item on Tim hanging up his IFB and maybe getting to consolidate his phones into one. A well-deserved retirement is in order after relaying stories about golfers both brilliant and boring, bombastic and banal. Rosie never judged them, just asked the right questions and shared the best details in making our interest in golfers that much more complete. Congratulations on a great run Tim, you deserve plenty of days whapping it around the links and hanging with the grandkids!

Tim and Geoff at the 2008 U.S. Open.

McKellar Issue Three Is Out: A Preview

The third installment of the writing and golf-focused McKellar journal is now available here for purchase.

Tommy Naccarato and I profile Santa Anita Golf Course in Southern California, an almost entirely forgotten architectural gem that was once celebrated as a community asset annually with the Santa Anita Open (won three times by Lloyd Mangrum).

The list and variety of stories is pretty spectacular and I believe well worth the money compared to what’s left of today’s golf magazines.

Congrats to purveyors Lawrence Donegan and Thomas Dunne on another sensational issue.

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McKellar #3 is now available (link in bio). Another issue that can’t be missed, anchored by a set of never-before-seen golf photos by @anseladams! Copies ship from the printer Dec. 30, but we have a whole crop of new t-shirts ready to go for holiday delivery. As usual, keep an eye out for some of our outtakes in the days ahead. #fastplayslowjournalism #mckellargolf #auldalex #golfhistory #golfculture #independentpublishing #anseladams

A post shared by @ mckellarmagazine on Dec 5, 2019 at 12:36pm PST

R.I.P. Terry Galvin, Former Golf World Editor

Longtime readers will know that Golf World took a sizeable leap during the Terry Galvin years from 1989-2000, so it is with sadness that Bill Fields reports on and remembers the life of the longtime journalist.

From his GolfWorld.com story:

He was Golf World’s editor from 1989 until 2000, coming to the sport’s trusted, longtime bible after nearly three decades running sports departments at newspapers around the United States. Galvin left a position as sports editor at the Milwaukee Journal to edit Golf World. Earlier stops had been in San Jose, Akron, Miami and, long ago in his hometown, Oshkosh, Wis., where he attended the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Galvin’s experience, along with a lifelong passion for golf, made him an ideal fit for Golf World, which had been purchased in 1988 by The New York Times Company, then the owner of Golf Digest.

“When Golf Digest bought Golf World, our editorial team was filled with monthly magazine types,” said Jerry Tarde, Golf Digest editor-in-chief. “We needed a fast dose of news editors—writers and a desk staff who could turn around stories overnight. Terry Galvin was the ultimate news editor and sportswriter. He knew golf, knew everybody and hired good people. We’re still benefiting from the talent he attracted.”

The Newhouses Sold A Cézanne For Way More Than Golf Digest

Reeves Wiedeman of New York Magazine chronicles the slow and steady decline of the once cherished Conde Nast family of magazines under CEO Bob Sauerberg and the Newhouse descendants. While the piece is probably only worth your time if you’re in the media industry, this line is pretty incredible related to their sale of Golf Digest:

In 2016, they sold a cable company for more than $10 billion. That made the amount they earned selling Brides, W, and Golf Digest, the last of which went to Discovery for just $35 million — $400 million less than what Condé had paid for it in 2001 and $24 million less than the Newhouses received that week for selling a single Cézanne at Sotheby’s — seem like a rounding error.

Golf Digest was sold by the Newhouse family to Discovery, which is 31% owned by…the Newhouse family.

Hank Haney Is Back, This Time As A Podcaster

At the PGA Tour’s instruction Hank Haney was suspended from SiriusXM’s PGA Tour Network in May for comments deemed insensitive.

As I explain here for Golfweek, Haney is returning as part of iHeartRadio’s move into golf. Haney spoke to me exclusively to update on his new show, the reaction he’s gotten to his comments and what he has in store for his large following of listeners.

The new show debuts September 23rd and is already listed for subscription in some podcast outlets, but not the iTunes store just yet.

Callaway Investing $50 Million Into Its Ball Plant After MyGolfSpy Exposes Issues

First Costco and now Callaway.

It’s a fairly remarkable day when an independent equipment review site can turn a Costco ball into a must have, but even more remarkable to get a pledge from a major golf company to improve their production efforts.

In this unprecedented case, it’s MyGolfSpy having exposed an off-center core in a Callaway Chrome Soft and unleashing a firestorm in the equipment forums. Apparently there was something to it, since Callaway executives Sean Toulon and Alan Hocknell have since visited MyGolfSpy’s testing facility and pledged a $50 million investment to improve quality control in their ballmaking process.

They discuss how it all went down on their podcast and it’s pretty fascinating stuff, though I’m not sure as many golfers as they think were aware of their initial discovery and the outrage expressed by gearheads as they think.

Howard Milstein (Already) Shaking Up Golf Magazine

The New York Post’s Keith Kelley reports on a firing frenzy at Golf Magazine only months after a print and website reboot.

Kelly says five on the editorial side were recently let go, while two sales executives brought in at the start of Milstein’s reign were recently let go (Kelly reports that they were holdovers from Meredith, the magazine’s seller to Millstein, though Cooney joined the operation in March, 2018 while Keating joined in February, 2018, the same month as Milstein took over.)

Milstein has also already forced out the CEO he installed who also brokered the sale, longtime magazine and digital publishing veteran, Tom Beusse.

And after a much ballyhooed rollout of new columnist Paige Spiranac in November, 2018, her column and masthead presence ended in March 2019.

The magazine countered Kelly’s story with this claim:

A spokesman for Golf said he could not comment on personnel matters but said that at the time of the takeover a year and a half ago, the media property was down to only 22 employees and has since grown to 50. He also said ad revenue is up 50% and web traffic has doubled.

In other news, Golf recently announced the hiring of GolfClubAtlas.com founder Ran Morrissett to head it’s course ranking panel. A debut podcast included this social media spelling mishap that has made the rounds (it’s Cypress in case you were wondering):