"Hard to keep track. Too many Kims and Parks."

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As K.J. Choi moves to the top of the Open Championship leaderboard, I have to post an item I missed while traveling. It's from Doug Ferguson's July 8 notebook that followed the U.S. Women's Open win by Inbee Park.

Se Ri Pak inspired a nation of golfers from South Korea when she won the U.S. Women's Open in 1998, with players such as Inbee Park and Birdie Kim among many who consider her their role model.

But what about the men?

K.J. Choi, whose seven victories make him the most prolific Asian winner on the PGA Tour, was asked if he recalled Pak winning in 1998. Choi said he was living in Seoul and watched Pak's playoff victory on television.

Asked if he paid close attention to the LPGA, however, Choi wore a look of confusion.

"Hard to keep track," he said. "Too many Kims and Parks."

The LPGA has 10 members with the last name Kim, and six with the last name Park. He didn't bother mentioning the six Lees.

"Barely registered"

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Thomas Bonk with Monday's overnights for the AT&T National and the worst titled LPGA event ever:
In a word: bad. The overnight ratings for Sunday's fourth round of the AT&T National on CBS were down 48%, from a 2.9 to a 1.5. The third-round overnight ratings were down 35%, from a 2.0 to a 1.3.

Meanwhile, the overnight ratings on CBS for the weekend's LPGA event, the P&G Beauty Northwest Arkansas Championship, barely registered. Saturday's rating was a 0.7 and Sunday's rating was a 0.6.

"The only thing that could have helped me was to win"

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Doug Ferguson addresses and explains the odd rule that prevented Stacy Lewis' U.S. Open winnings from counting toward  LPGA Tour earnings.
In a policy that no longer makes sense, Lewis will not get credit for her tie for third in the U.S. Women's Open as she tries to earn enough money to get her LPGA Tour card without going to Q-school.

"The only thing that could have helped me was to win," Lewis said at Interlachen, where she had a one-shot lead going into the final round and closed with a 78 to finish five shots behind Inbee Park.

Lewis earned $162,487, which would have been enough to finish the year equal to 80th on the LPGA Tour money list. She is playing in the Northwest Arkansas Championship this week, one of a maximum six events she can play to earn enough money.

She also will play the Jamie Farr Classic next week, and on Tuesday received a sponsor's exemption to the LPGA Kapalua Classic on Maui. Her agent, Jeff Chilcoat of Sterling Sports Management, said he is working on three other tournaments.

"I think it should be revisited," he said of the policy. "And frankly, I'd love to have it revisited retroactively. But I don't anticipate it being changed for her."

Starting in 2003, the LPGA expanded the maximum number of sponsor exemptions for non-members from four to six tournaments, and counted only domestic tournaments with at least 75 players in the field toward the money list. The U.S. Women's Open didn't count, because it is not co-sponsored by the LPGA.
Come on Commish B, you like to change platform-damaging rules. Why not go after this one?

"I should be looking nice for the media.”

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img10879970.jpgCraig Dolch (here) and Steve Elling (here) celebrate new media (that's lower case, as opposed to...) darling Minea Blomqvist who is currently tied for second place in the U.S. Women's Open.

Elling:

 Have you driven a fjord lately? Putted on tundra bentgrass? Blomqvist has. For whatever reason, the Finnish development in the game has lagged behind the other Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden, which has produced two different U.S. Women's Open winners, while another Swede, veteran Helen Alfredsson, is among the leaders this week.

Blomqvist offered a theory on that front.
"I always tell a story about why the Swedes are so good in golf," she said, laughing. "Because in golf, you need an empty mind, and there's nothing going on in their heads, so that's why they play good."
 And...
That Blomqvist is among the leaders comes as a middling surprise, since she has never won an LPGA event and hasn't finished better than third this year. She wasn't expecting such scrutiny, either.
"I'm upset because I didn't put my makeup on today," she cracked as a phalanx of TV cameras zoomed tight. "I didn't think I was going to play that well. I should be looking nice for the media."
Her entire interview can be viewed here.

 

"What she missed while looking at her toes..."

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lpga_a_wie_200.jpgRon Sirak takes an interesting look at Michelle Wie's first round 9 and ESPN.com dresses it up with video.

Wie made a series of mistakes on No. 9, the first being that she elected to hit driver off the elevated tee instead of 3-wood. Wie has struggled with the driver for nearly two years now -- missing shots low and left as well as high and right -- and she blocked this one into the right rough.

She compounded the mistake off the tee by being too aggressive with her second shot, trying to advance it too close to the green instead of opting to pitch out sideways. The second shot ran through the fairway and into the rough at the base of the steep hill leading up to the ninth green.

Playing from the rough, she hit a shot that came out low, skidded across the green and ended up in the rough about two yards over the green. That's not a good place to be. It's virtually impossible to keep the ball on the green from there, without some luck or trickiness.

Trying to barely nudge the ball onto the fringe, Wie moved it only about 30 inches and left it still in the rough right on the edge of the fringe, now laying 4. At this point it was Julieta Granada's turn to play from the rough also behind the green. It was also at this point that Wie's brain shut down and she stared at her feet waiting for her turn to hit again.

What she missed while looking at her toes was that Granada played her shot sideways and it trickled down onto the safe shelf. Wie then took her putter and played her fifth shot straight down the sliding board, across the shelf and off the false front.

Her first chip from below the false front was not hit hard enough and rolled back to her feet. Her second pitch ended five feet from the hole, from where she two-putted for a 9.

"There's so many different strategies."

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I missed Annika's round today in the U.S. Women's Open but caught her post round interview where she explained an apparently not-so-hot decision to use driver on No. 17 despite a tee being moved up. After the round, look what she had to say about the setup of Interlachen:

It's just, it's very, very fair, but you have to hit the ball well and there are a lot of tees out there where it's, there's so many different strategies. I mean, I've hit 4-irons off the tee, I hit 5-irons, I hit 5-woods, 4-wood, driver. I mean that's five different clubs off the tee other than par-3s. I can't think of any other golf course like that. And it's just strategy and it's just there's not a right way to play it, it's just depending how feel and how you want to approach the greens and with which clubs.


 

Brand Lady Strikes Back With Series Of Bruising Rhetorical Questions

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Smarting from that new 3-year contract extension, LPGA Commish Carolyn Bivens announced a de-branding of the LPGA Championship and a likely move to a summer date in the Northeast U.S. Naturally, she was quite humble in announcing the move, as reported by Ron Sirak.

"The LPGA has been surviving for 58 years," Bivens told Golf World. "Now is the time to move into the world of major sports." She said that while the tournament will have no title sponsor (other than the LPGA), it will seek presenting sponsors to help with the cost of running the event -- and hope to be part of a television package that will generate revenue.
And she seems to have really mastered the rhetorical question.
"Could the proceeds from the LPGA Championship be the beginning of a real retirement fund?" Bivens asked rhetorically. "Could it grow into an LPGA version of the Masters? Could it contribute two, three, four, five million dollars a year to the pension fund? The business plan we have for 2010 can take this tour to a new level of financial stability."

 

“There are so many moving parts that it’ll be tough to get done, but the concept is a good one"

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Jon Show reports that the LPGA is pitching a new network TV package of events that might replace the ADT Championship series.

Plans call for a competition series that would exist within the LPGA’s seasonlong calendar of events. The series would consist of eight events, likely including at least one major and one event outside the United States. Players would qualify for a championship event based on their performance in the series.

That championship could be a new tournament scheduled during the first quarter of each year as a lead-in to the LPGA season. Sources said the weekend before the Super Bowl was being considered.

The LPGA-owned ADT Championship could be brought into the fold if the tour decides to scrap the current seasonlong qualifying system that culminates with the season-ending event. ADT’s title sponsorship expires after this year’s event.

NBC and CBS met with the LPGA two weeks ago to discuss the package, which could be split among the two networks. Both already air LPGA events.

Jon Miller, NBC Sports senior vice president of programming, called the package “intriguing.” CBS did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

 

"It's just such a neat little town, and the community's so close"

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Pete Dougherty reports that it's not looking good for the LPGA's Corning Classic, a 30-year staple on the schedule.
The contract for this $1.5 million tour stop expires in 2009, and unofficial word is that an event that embraces the community as much as the community embraces it won't be renewed.

"I've had a feeling this was going to be coming soon," Sherri Turner, the 1988 Corning champion, said Tuesday as she choked back tears. "We all know things don't come easy here. You have to work for it, and I hate knowing that (the end) could happen."
And...
The players who traditionally spend the week leading into Memorial Day at Corning Country Club are older ones who savor what the city did during the LPGA's lean years.

"It's just such a neat little town, and the community's so close," said 1987 winner Cindy Rarick, now 48, who has played here 23 times in her 24 years on tour. "It's just a lot of fun to go around and see things. ... It's kind of a peaceful place. You know the airport's small. There's not a lot of traffic. It's more quiet, a relaxing atmosphere, and it's more fun."

Fun doesn't seem to rank high on golf's list of priorities these days. It's business. Big business. On the men's side, Tiger Woods is a corporation unto himself. The LPGA has no one of that stature, but Ochoa and Sorenstam, who plans to retire at season's end, are marketable.

"The players today are in it for the money for the most part," Turner said. "There's some that are in it for the love of the game, but they're going to go where the money is. I hate seeing that happen because I know why this event is probably not going to continue."

Turner, merely speculating but carrying the wisdom of a 25-year tour veteran, believes the LPGA soon will elevate its minimum purse to $2 million. That's too deep for the pockets of this community, even with the backing of its loyal corporate sponsor, Corning Glass Works.

The LPGA adopted a rule in 2002 -- intended to help smaller tour stops such as Corning and Toledo -- requiring its players to appear in each stop at least once in a four-year period. That led to Sorenstam competing, and winning, in 2004.

"I have told the players we are going to make them play faster."

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John Hopkins reports on the slow play epidemic, and though he says the final pairing at The Players took only 4:15 (according to some readers it was 4:40), he offers this:

The answer lies partly in easing the set-up of some courses but more in harsh penalties for slow players. The LPGA Tour in the US recently introduced a policy of penalizing players who took more than 30 seconds a stroke and, furthermore, penalized Angela Park when she was only one stroke out of the lead. Compare this with the PGA Tour's policies under which a player has not bee fined for 15 years.

Tim Finchem, Commissioner of the PGA Tour in the US, said in an interview with The Times last week: "I have told the players we are going to make them play faster. I think we owe it the sport, to the players who play at this level and to the fans that we are doing everything we can to analyse and take steps on this issue."

Well, it's something. This isn't so hot:

Last Monday the World Golf Foundation, a body incorporating the United States Golf association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, the professional tours from around the world as well as Ladies Professional Golf Association (in the US), met in Jacksonville. I understand that slow play was on the agenda but nothing substantive was discussed even though slow play was an item on the agenda.
Thankfully, there is great news. According to Doug Ferguson, the big execs in golf are working on the real priorities at the expense of their carbon footprints. What for? To grow the game with 72-holes of stroke play once every four years. 
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem headed for London this week, stopping along the way to pick up USGA executive director David Fay and LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens.

They were to join R&A chief executive Peter Dawson and European Tour chief George O’Grady at a meeting with the International Olympic Committee, the first step toward bringing golf back to the Olympics.

It was not a formal meeting, but no less important to show the IOC a unified front in golf’s desire to be part of the games.

“This will be a protracted process,” Fay said. “But this is an important first step.”

Vital. Just vital.

Ryder Cup Drug Testing Possible, No Word Yet On Whether Captain's Will Be Tested Too

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Steve Elling notes the confirmation from George "Big Mouth" O'Grady, not from the PGA of America. 

The Ryder Cup is the PGA of America's other signature event. A total of 24 players, featuring many of the top stars from around the globe, make up the two Ryder Cup teams.

"There's facilities in place for drug testing to take part," O'Grady said. "The PGA of America announced last week that they would be the first major to have drug testing; that they would be welcoming the PGA Tour's system and it will be in place for The Ryder Cup. Whether we choose to use it or not hasn't been decided yet. But the drug testing unit will be on site."

Meanwhile Ron Sirak notes that the LPGA is reportedly going to try again this week after their messy trial run earlier this year.