Week In Review, April 23-30: No More Myths

Sunday started with a  must-read John Huggan profile of Geoff Ogilvy on the state of the game, prompting this from reader Matt: Ten years ago you could attend a PGA Tour event, watch a pro hit a drive, and in all honesty say, "I can do that every once in a while." There was a sense of connection between the average golfer and the tour pros. Now, it seems as if the pros are playing on the moon. We just can't relate to the game the pros play at all. The game of golf has gone missing. Can someone safely return it?"

And NRH had this to say about the man who spells his first name so perfectly: "It is very encouraging to see a relativeley young guy 'get-it'...of course he is Australian. Heard an amazing stat a couple of weeks ago that Jonathan Byrd is the only American player under the age of 30 with more than one win on Tour."

Another week meant more classic MBAspeak from Commissioner Finchem, including his assertion that his greatest accomplishment remains wonderful communication between himself and players. That prompted Old School to write: "The Tour has communicated so well with players that Greg Norman is threatening to sue for minutes to meetings and all of the financial records. The communication between those that work for the Tour and the players can't be as huge of an accomplishment for Tim with Norman sounding off. If this is Tim's biggest feat, then he certainly hasn't done anything significant."

Later, Finchem did a Q&A with the New Orleans paper, discussing the Tour's unique ability to reach CEO's and "skew" to their unique demographic. Jonathon Cummings suggested that "Timmy should make it pay-per-view and pipe it directly into the CEO boardrooms!" Meanwhile, reader Scott S pointed out, "I've never seen skew used in a positive light... until now."

We learned new details of the R&A's initial ventures into course design, prompting head man Peter Dawson to say, "Sometimes you can't fully appreciate the impact of an alteration until it's been built and you have another look at them in reality rather than on a drawing." In the same story, Mike Aitken noted that a Turnberry bunker was filled because "the hazard couldn't be seen from the tee."

That prompted reader DK to say, "The R&A is saying this! The R&A! The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews headquartered at The Old Course is having bunkers removed because they can't be seen from the tee. I feel like barracading myself in my house and taking hostages." Amen brother.

We also learned about the real reason behind the 84 Lumber Classic's demise, where the daughter of Joe Hardy "said her company will be spending 'lots of money' to aggressively purchase smaller lumber and framing companies to eliminate competition."

The Big K replied to that: "If sponsoring a PGA Tour event does not make financial sense, why do it? Especially since the PGAT has not proven to be particularly loyal to anyone...Still, it is hard to sympathize with the comment about buying smaller companies to eliminate competition. It wasn't quoted, hopefully it is a little out of context.

And finally, don't miss Brad Klein's story on distance measuring devices, which includes a breakdown of which golf associations are allowing them and which aren't. And in their defense, Smolmania wrote: "There may certainly be no question that idiots will play slowly, and that using range finders will not help them. However, there may also be no question that in the vast majority of cases, a golfer who may simply point a Bushnell at a flag, or the top of a bunker, and get a yardage is capable of playing more quickly. . . a boon to all."