Zac Blair: "Eat, sleep, golf, repeat"

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I'm catching up on some post-Sony reading and it was nice to see solid features from Sean Martin and Tim Rosaforte on Zac Blair, a real likeable chap who has gotten the golf architecture bug.

From Rosaforte's item, a strong endorsement from legendary looper Andy Martinez:

With no status, Blair played his way on the PGA Tour’s Latinoamérica and Canadian circuits, ultimately needing a second-place finish at the Web.com Tour Championship to lock down a tour card.

“It was a long 15 months, kind of always on the bubble, in that zone where you never know,” Jimmy said. “He just had to keep grinding through it.”

Having Andy Martinez, Miller’s former caddie, on the bag, helped Blair deal with the grind of being in the last group on Sunday with proven-winner Brandt Snedeker and FedEx Cup points leader Kevin Kisner in contention. While coming up a stroke shy of the playoff between winner Fabian Gomez and Brandt Snedeker, Blair’s best career finish on tour brought with it confidence.

“This won’t be the last time he’s in contention,” Martinez said. “I expect to be knocking on the door a lot of times with this guy.”

And from Martin, Blair's interest in golf and architecture:

Then there are the marathon days of golf. Zac is usually the one to call for an E9, or emergency nine, to extend the day's play. He hasn’t slowed much, even though his 34 starts were the second-most in the 2014-15 season. He also squeezed in recreational rounds at Pine Valley, Cypress Point, The Country Club of Brookline and Los Angeles Country Club during tournament weeks in 2015. That's a list that would make even the most privileged player envious.

Like his father, Zac wants to do more than play, though.

He's looking for land in Utah on which to build his dream course, a layout that will draw off the design principles of architecture’s golden age. He wants to build a course that's wide enough for high handicappers while challenging better players to make strategic decisions.

“I think Utah deserves a course that has those principles of the old architects,” Zac said, citing Mackenzie, MacDonald, Seth Raynor and Harry Colt as his inspirations. “You have to think your way around those courses.”

Bryson DeChambeau: "I'm a golfing scientist, so I don’t take it with any emotion."

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Bryson DeChambeau's impressive 64 to open his first European Tour start has the current U.S. Amateur champion atop the HSBC leaderboard.

His accomplishment relegated DeChambeau to footnotes in the Telegraph and Guardian game stories, and DeChambeau came off nicely in his post round comments to Golf Channel.

John Huggan says DeChambeau went a bit far though in post round comments, though it's hard to fault the lad for having some confidence after beating some of the world's best. Oh, and golfing recently with two of the world's biggest celebrities (here and here).

Which is the point where he should have stopped. But DeChambeau did not. Oh no. Before he was done there was a hole to dig -- a big hole, comparing himself to first to a genuine genius, then America’s first president.

“You look at trends in humanity and most like following the norm,” he continued. “But you’ve also got people like Einstein and George Washington; they stood out and capitalized on their differences and showed the world a little different side.”

Round one video highlights here.

Jason Gore Details His Club Switch In Old School Way

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Thanks to reader ST for sending this GolfWRX discussion group link to Jason Gore responding to Greg Moore and the club geekdom on his switch of equipment.

I point it out to (A) show non-Reddit reading millennials what a discussion group is (they're pre-Instagram, Twitter and Facebook), (B) how fun it is to read a modern tour player taking the time to detail his thought process, and (C) to demonstrate the value of a Pepperdine education.

While I don't spend much time focusing on what players are playing, there is a sense they resist detailing their club specs because they either think no one cares, or it makes them look like a golf geek, or most disconcertingly, they somehow think their trade is one requiring secrets.

So it's nice to see Gore answering those interested in such things and I wish more players would do it either at a place like GolfWRX or via their social media accounts.

Langley Gets $3 Million To Be Golf's First "Athlete Trading Stock"

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Here I thought the sign of Wall Street geekdom having too much time and money peaked when they discovered high-frequency trading. Or ruining my favorite baseball team.

But reading from Yahoo's Daniel Roberts about Fantex's athlete trading stocks suggests that there is a stranger and even deeper misunderstanding of sports than I first feared.

PGA Tour player Scott Langley is Fantex's first pro golfer, inked for an upfront fee of $3.06 million, payable if they sell shares in Langley, in exchange for the privilege of 15% of his earnings. Here's how it works, according to Roberts:

The company pays every athlete it signs a one-time, upfront lump sum in return for a percentage of the athlete's future brand income—all future income tied to the athlete's brand, whether it's from the sport or from business outside of it. (That includes, for example, money from endorsement deals, fast-food franchising, speaking engagements, TV appearances and more.) In Langley's case, Fantex is paying Langley $3.06 million in return for 15% of his future brand income. Fantex raises that fee from the IPO process; if it fails to sell enough shares of the athlete in the offering, it can't pay him. It has successly brought all six of its attempted offerings public, but it had to cancel the offering of Arian Foster, who was planned to be its first stock. Foster is a bigger star than any of the athletes Fantex has brought public, but he was sidelined by a back injury shortly after Fantex announced the deal.

Another Young Gun To Watch: Ryan Ruffels Turns Pro

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In the wealth of riches department, golf gets another intriguing young player to keep an eye on, as Golf Australia product (but American citizen too) Ryan Ruffels turns pro.

Mark Hayes with the full story on Ruffels signing with Wasserman and Nike, and planning a hard push for a PGA Tour card. He makes his first two starts at Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach.

Ruffels, for most of the past year ranked in the world’s top 10 amateurs despite completing his Year 12 studies at Melbourne’s Haileybury College, said the decision was made not long after bad weather robbed him of a chance to win the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in October.

While he tied for second in Hong Kong, only a win that would have won him direct entry to The Masters in April would have kept him in amateur ranks.

“It was one of my big goals to play in a major championship as an amateur, but that was really it,” said Ruffels, who dismissed suggestions he was turning pro too early.

“For a while now, as much as I’m 17, I feel like I’ve been playing the amateur and junior stuff for a long time.

“I played my first amateur at 12 and the men’s interstate series not long after that, so as much as people are going to say, `He’s only 17, why is he turning pro?’, I feel like the time is right.

“I’ve done what I needed to do as an amateur.”

Ruffels Tweeted his bag, which includes the Golf Australia logo.


His announcement press conference:

 

Sobel On Billy Hurley And His Dad's Disappearance

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The story was a sad one that ended with Willard Hurley taking his life, but not before the PGA Tour's Billy Hurley issued a plea to help find his dad.

ESPN.com's Jason Sobel deftly handles what happened and the questions Hurley continues to ask after such a heartbreaking ordeal.

He maintains his father had never before left home unannounced. He said he never had any history of mental health issues -- at least, none that any of them knew about.

He said he wonders whether life in the high-stress career of law enforcement played a role in what happened.

"I think now more than ever, we have a better understanding medically of how traumatic events affect your brain," he said. "Sometimes we don't understand the impact that stuff like that has on us."

The family hopes Willard Hurley Jr. is remembered more for his life than his death. "I still think I had the best dad that the world's ever known," Dan said. "My hope is that that's the way he gets remembered, no matter how it ended."

McCord On DeChambeau: "He’s the next game changer."

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We talked Bryson DeChambeau on Morning Drive yesterday, namely to live vicariously through the reigning U.S. Amateur Champion as he hangs out in the desert beneath the Santa Rosas, talking golf with big names (Phil), walking tightropes and getting ready to make trips to Augusta National. Rough life, but he'll work through it.

Tim Rosaforte followed up on his enjoyable all-things-Bryson Golf World report with a Morning Drive reveal that DeChambeau is in Carlsbad this week talking to companies and has accepted invites to all three European Tour desert stops starting this month.

From Rosaforte's report on hanging with Phil and the gang at the recent Straight Down Invitational:

“We were just loving the time spent together, one golf geek to another, talking about fun stuff and trying to figure out a couple things on my end from the wedging aspect,” DeChambeau said of his conversation with Mickelson. “He was talking away, and I was listening. It was a lot of fun.”

At the Straight Down, DeChambeau had a locker-room conversation with Gary McCord about his theories that drew an interested audience, including Brandel Chamblee. Whether he’s quoting Homer Kelly’s Golfing Machine, talking about the artist in Einstein or not fearing failure like other great scientists, DeChambeau and his methods don’t come across as madness. Not with his record as an amateur and his potential as a pro.

“You talk to this kid, he’s brilliant,” McCord told me last week. “I tell guys he’s the next game changer. Not because of what he’s doing, but the fact he figured out a process at 15 years of age. He’s smarter than everybody else.”

Rosaforte's Morning Drive reveal:

Video: DeChambeau's Elevates The Tight Rope Walk

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Current U.S. Amateur champion Bryson DeChambeau continues his run-up to the Masters and the day the eccentric golfer turns pro, signing with The Legacy Agency last week (Ryan Lavner reports.)

In the meantime the former SMU golfer appears to be enjoying desert life, walking a tightrope between palm trees and even having someone fire shots at him:

 

"It’s a good feeling, thinking that you’re going to hole everything you look at. And you don’t think it’s ever going to end."

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James Corrigan talked to former World No. 1 Luke Donald about hitting a low point before rekindling his fire for the game this winter. (Donald kickstarts his year at the Sony Open coming off another year of falling down the rankings.)

The 38-year-old started struggling when revamping his game in an effort to get longer off the tee, but is entirely back under the supervision of his longtime instructor Pat Goss (where have we heard this before?).

Yet it was the masterful Donald short game that suffered most when trying to change his swing, something current short game wizard Jordan Spieth seems to have learned from, choosing to use the gym as his avenue to more distance. (Though he's never specifically mentioned Donald.)

It was not too long ago that Donald was Spieth, bringing his rivals to their knees with that wand he waved on the greens. “Yeah, it’s a good feeling, thinking that you’re going to hole everything you look at. And you don’t think it’s ever going to end,” Donald said. “But for a good year there, as I focused on getting my swing back to what it was before I started working with Chuck Cook, my short game was not very good at all.

“I need to be one of the best in the world with my short game if I’m going to be successful out here with the way I play golf. But it’s improving and coming back. I’ll get there.”

"How Christy O’Connor Jr became Europe's hero at the 1989 Ryder Cup"

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The Guardian's Steve Pye used the unexpected and way-too-early passing of Christy O'Connor Jr to remember his fascinating life in golf through the 1989 Ryder Cup.

O'Connor was a captain's pick of Tony Jacklin after Sandy Lyle withdrew due to a floundering game. A Jose Rivero mention makes it way into the piece, but in the big scheme of things it's a pleasurable way to learn about the sudden passing of a real character and also to learn that wild Ryder Cup dynamics are not solely a product of the 21st century.

A sampler from Pye's piece:

Unfortunately for O’Connor, things were about to turn pear-shaped. A missed cut left him vulnerable to a late attack, and when José María Cañizares sneaked in at the last minute, O’Connor now had to rely on a captain’s pick from Tony Jacklin. Two of Jacklin’s choices were apparently set in stone – Ken Brown and Nick Faldo, despite the latter struggling for form after remodelling his swing – and it was seen as a straight fight between O’Connor, Mark James and Gordon Brand Jr for the final selection.

To the general amazement of everyone, Jacklin chose José Rivero instead. “I am disgusted and totally shattered,” said a furious O’Connor, understandably so after he missed out on his second Ryder Cup by just £115.89. O’Connor’s ire would run and run; according to Jacklin, the only time O’Connor spoke to him in the next four years was to offer his condolences when Jacklin’s wife Vivien passed away.


O’Connor was probably happy to see the back of 1985. At the end of the year his father died after suffering a heart attack, and over the next few seasons O’Connor seemed unable to reproduce the form that had taken him so near to joining Europe’s party. Having hovered around the top 20 during the next three years, few expected his 1989 campaign to be any different. But a fine run of displays saw O’Connor finish fifth at the Volvo Open, fourth at the Volvo PGA, third at the Dunhill British Masters, and seventh at the English Open (played at The Belfry). To top it all, O’Connor won the Jersey Open, his first individual win on the Tour since his Ryder Cup debut.

Parsons To Writer: "Brother, you need to get out more."

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Reading golf.com these days requires a motion sickness pill, what with the auto-play videos and other assorted pop-ups that have the text shifting everytime you try to scroll.

That said, the Josh Sens Q&A with Bob Parsons about his splashy new equipment company is most fun, in a combative, eccentric billionaire sits down with freelance journalist kind of way.


GOLF.com: Great feel. Great look. Longer shots. Isn’t that what every club manufacturer tells us? What's so different about that?

Parsons: What’s different is that our clubs actually do what we say they do. Have you talked to anyone who has hit them?

GOLF.com: Not yet.

Parsons: You haven't? How is that possible? Brother, you need to get out more.

GOLF.com: Well, you've hit them. What are they like?

Parsons: They do everything I just said.

GOLF.com: Give me an example. What sort of shots can you can hit now that you couldn’t hit before?

Parsons: One of the differences with me compared to many guys who have much lower indexes (Parsons plays off a 10) is that they will practice in order to hit a particular shot. I go out to see how a club feels. And the feel of these clubs is unbelievable. But you don’t have to believe me. You could talk to Ryan Moore. We shipped him a set with no expectations. We knew at the time they were pretty good. He called us two days later and he said, 'I just put them in my bag, and they’re not coming out.'


Helps he didn't have to pay retail for them!

Peter Kostis' Next Post-Round Interviews With Zach Johnson And Billy Horschel Should Be Pleasurably Awkward

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Peter Kostis, CBS on-course reporter, sometimes acknowledged member of Team Titleist who says the golf ball should not be blamed for distance increases, and Twitter motto-holder "Be positive, be happy," sounds really annoyed by players jumping ship to Parsons Extreme Golf.

He's even conducting a poll to confirm the sheer awfulness of the free-market at work.


The news broke Monday included these press release quotes from Zach Johnson and Billy Horschel: 

“The decision to put PXG clubs in play was not one I took lightly,” said British Open and Masters champion Zach Johnson. “My entire team, from caddie to coach, was part of the discernment process. We all agree that PXG is undeniably the best equipment to help me achieve my goals on the course.”

“Being part of PXG is like being part of a very special movement in golf,” champion golfer Billy Horschel added. “What the company has accomplished in its first generation of equipment is mind-blowing. I’ve been playing some really incredible golf with PXG clubs and I feel very confident that great things are to come.”

Now, he could be also referring to new Nike man Brooks Koepka, but based on his quotes reported by Rex Hoggard or in this Nike roundup from Kyle Porter, it would appear Kostis is especially upset with Johnson and Horschel. Can't wait for those post-round interviews with two players are generally most forthright in their assessments.